Garden Friends & Other Quilting

I love this quilt! Block 1 is pictured in my post from a couple days ago on applique. I finished block 2 this morning, and will probably have block 3 done this afternoon. I fell in love with this quilt at Fall Quilt Market, and have been waiting since to make it! Best of all, it seems to be going together easier and faster than the Strawberry Faire quilt. There are less embellishments and unconventional technique in Garden Friends, which is probably why it's going so well.
I moved Garden Friends up to my "Current Projects" list (Yeah!), and to be fair, I should remove Gathering Leaves. I passed that one off to a couple other people, my mom is finishing it up right now.
I'm also not doing too bad on quilting lately. I finished 3 this past week, not the 7 I hope for, but still not bad! Maybe there's hope yet. I'd love to get caught up far enough to do some of my own, but it will be another week at least before I feel comfortable doing that. Just when I start to see the light, I usually get hit with a new wave of quilts. I do have to get busy before the quilt show in Moscow this April, if I hope to use any of them in my booth!

I'll leave you with another recipe I tried out Thursday night. Simply Lasagna was easy to make, and it was really good. The only change I would make is to leave the top noodles off, or put more sauce on top of them. They were still crunchy around the edges. Other than that, great dinner, and it made enough for 2 nights! A night off from cooking = more quilting, which is always good!

Lucky Day!

Yesterday I ran to town for a few groceries. We're having dinner with friends tonight, and Monte requested tacoes. Of course, with all the food we DO have, we didn't have anything for tacoes! Since having company over compelled me to spend all of Wednesday afternoon digging a snow tunnel to my front door, having to buy special groceries on top of it put me in a bad mood.
However, my grocery trip meant that I finally foudn time to shop at Hastings for a calendar. I have a Debbie Mumm calendar holder I bought about 7 or 8 years ago, and every year I go through the same thing. The Debbie Mumm calendar that goes with is always about $20, so I usually decide it's not worth it, and I find another one for around $10 instead. This can be challenging, to find the right style of calendar, the right colors, and the right size to fit the holder. Well, it seems yesterday was my lucky day!
I guess when you wait until 1/2 way through February to finally buy a calendar, you should expect to get a deal. What I didn't expect was to find an actual Debbie Mumm calendar! First, I found the outer envelope on the rack, but as soon as I grabbed it I coule feel it was empty. I figured someone had either stolen the calendar or bought it without a cover. How disappointing, to almost find it! However, after some searching and flipping through every calendar shelf, I stumbled upon the unwrapped Debbie Mumm calendar just when I was about to give up. To top things off, it was on clearance for $4!!!
Lucky Day! I don't get so lucky very often. Then again, if finding a calendar on clearance is so exciting, how pathetic am I???

Link to Kraft Foods Magazine

Here is a link where you can sign up for the free magazine. It comes out quarterly.

Kraft Food & Family Magazine

You'll have to register as a Kraft Foods member, which is not a big deal. I don't get any emails from them or junk mail, just the magazine.

Fusible Applique Quick Lesson

As a follow up to my earlier post on applique, here is a quick lesson on how I do fusible applique.

First, trace the pattern onto the paper side of the fusible product. Be sure to check your pattern to see if you should reverse trace. Since the fusible is ironed to the back of the fabric, the pieces will be reversed. Many patterns, but not all, account for this already.

After all pieces are traced, cut them apart about 1/4" outside of the lines. DO NOT cut on the lines yet! Also, if you trace the pieces in sections according to which fabric they go with, it will be easier to cut them out in sections according to fabric as I have done in the photo.

Once you have the pieces cut out, iron them to the WRONG side of the fabric. Use your iron on a medium to high setting, with no steam.

Now, you can cut your pieces out on the lines. The paper should still be on at this point. It is especially helpful to leave the paper on, labeled with the piece number or location, until you iron it to the block. When fusing multiple pieces, it is easy to lose track of where they go if you remove the paper too soon!

Now for the fun part! Remove the paper, place your pieces on the block, and iron them on. Be sure to place them in the right place the first time, because they are not easy to remove, and sometimes ruined if you try! Iron them on by placing the iron, again without steam, directly on top of each piece, NOT sliding. Sliding can catch the piece and move it out of place, often sticking it right to the bottom of your iron! (Don't ask how I know this)

The final step is to applique stitch around each piece. This can be a satin stitch, running stitch, or blanket stitch. It can be done by hand or machine, with embroidery thread or jean stitch thread. Black is often used, but you can also match color to fabric. At this time, also add any details like french knots in the flower centers.

I hope this is helpful for you! Please leave me a comment if you have questions or helpful hints to add.

Another Good Dinner

Last night we had another Kraft Foods recipe, Taco Bake. It was really easy to make, and everyone enjoyed it. I served it with lettuce, tomatoes and olives to put on top, and it was like a taco, minus the food all over the floor from messy kids and broken shells.

I doubled the recipe, and I used ground turkey instead of beef. This is my first experience with ground turkey, which is supposed to be more healthy than beef. However, I'm not convinced yet. I think you can buy xtra lean ground beef and be just as healthy as ground turkey. Still, in this recipe the turkey was good.

One quick note about Kraft Foods recipes. I use them because their easy and good. But let's face it, their magazine's free in an attempt to sell more products. That's why every recipe gives name brands for the ingredients. As a mom on a budget, the cheapest brand usually wins with me, and more often than not it's not the brand listed. This affects the end result in no way, so don't be afraid to substitute!

So Many Quilts, So Little Time

My ultimate goal is to do at least 1 quilt every day. Sometimes I have a good run and I stick to this goal 4 or so days. Sometimes, I find it impossible to meet this goal, like the past week. It took me 4 days last week to finish 1 quilt, and yesterday I missed again, not getting any farther than the first side of 1 border.

I judge my progress by the amount of carpet I can see under my Nolting. This is where I keep all the quilts-to-be-quilted. Lately, if all the carpet in my house wasn't the same, I might have forgotten what color it was under my machine. And don't remind me about the stack of quilts (mine and my mom's) at my Aunt's house, patiently waiting since I kept my machine there when I was homeless, for the day that never comes when I can fit in a quilt of my own.

And then this morning, Bailey said the dreaded words, "Mom, we have early release today."

"What?!" Was my response, fueled by the rising sense of panic as I watched my afternoon of quilting go up in smoke. "Are you sure? REALLY sure?"

"Yep," Bailey said, and she grabbed the school calendar from my desk to prove it.

How does this happen? This is the second time in the past month I've forgotten about an early release day. Once upon a time I was one of those mothers who had the entire school schedule memorized by Sept. 1. Even last year, in the midst of the craziest year of my life as a mother so far, (yes, I know it gets worse, I don't want to hear it right now) I never missed an early release day. Thank goodness someone (Bailey) in our house is responsible these days!

So, I will be futily trying to meet or beat my quilting goal this afternoon. I must get it in gear soon. If I have to leave for vacation with this many quilts undone, not even Jamaica will prevent my mental breakdown.

Quilting Product of the Week: My-T Fine Electric Scissors

This week I have chosen the My-T Fine Electric Scissors as my product of the week. These electric scissors are another Fall Quilt Market find of mine.
The features that make these scissors great include narrow blades, and cordless, rechargable operation. No more tangled cords getting in the way, and no batteries to buy! These scissors recharge on their own base. The narrow blades are great for chenilling, which is what sent me looking for electric scissors in the first place. I wish I'd had these when I made my chenille scarf! The blades fit into channels around 3/8" wide, making the cutting part of chenille projects a breeze.
These scissors would also be great for cutting out patterns for clothing and other projects. I'm no seamstress, but the few items I have made, such as bags and jackets, would have been much easier with these scissors!
Replacement blades for these scissors are available for about $17.99. The scissors themselves retail for $59.95.

Ride 'Em Horsey!

Last night, a complete lack of dishwasher soap, causing a major pile up in my kitchen sink that extended 1 foot past the sink of both sides, sent me to the grocery store. What started out as a quick trip to the store for a "few" things turned into $125 worth of groceries, but that's not the half of it.

The kids and I went to Safeway, since it's on our end of town, they have the iced green tea I love, and they have shopping carts that look like cars, with a cab on the front. This is usually a sure thing for occupying Will and sometimes Kylee while I get my shopping done. They think it's fun, and since the snow's had us house bound they were ready for an outing. I went with good intentions, but you know what they say about the best laid intentions!

I made it through the produce section, and half way down the next isle before they turned on me. First, Kylee decided to get out kidsof the "car" because she was squished. Well of course, Will can't be in it alone, so he decides to get out too. What followed was the two of the running around the cart, trying to use it as a scooter, and climbing on the bottom shelf.

Sometimes there just isn't anything you can do as a parent, short of walking out of the store and taking the kids home. With a basket 1/2 full, and a 30 mile drive home, this just isn't an option for me. So it turned into one of those grit your teeth, speed through the aisles grabbing whatever you need as quickly as possible, and get out quick kind of trips.

At the height of the trip, Will was on the roof of the "car," proclaiming loudly, "Ride 'em horsey!" while Kylee sat in the car saying "Yee hah!" while I had visions of strangling Monte as I yelled, "Don't ever talk me into taking them all by myself again!!!"

The employees are probably still talking about it, telling their coworkers, "You should have seen the kids we had in here last night!"