August...Glad It's Almost Over

August was a horrific month for a few reasons.. It was awful. I haven't posted since July.

At the end of July, a very good friend's daughter got sick. Pneumonia. Not Covid.

Immediately she was admitted to ICU.

First came the ventilator. Then came ECMO (like a heart/lung machine). 

She was only 32.

This went on all month. 

She passed away on August 23. 

My friends and I are still reeling with grief and sadness. 

Now we will help our friend with her grief, hold her hand, do what we can.

I did pull my birds out again. 

I have a new goal to finish one per week. 

I finished the 3 projects using the blue/cream fat quarter pack. 2 quilts and one long table runner.

I quilted them all with my embroidery module on my Bernina.

Here's a closeup of the backside of one of them.

I've made progress on my Courthouse Steps quilt. I finished one 4x4 block unit - 16 blocks. I plan to make 3 more of these for my quilt.

My one-block-per-day Glitter project. Making progress. I think it will be done soon.

So that was August. So glad September is almost here. We will focus on one day at a time. Keep quilting. Keep going. 

On a lighter note, yesterday I did something I hadn't done in years. I sat in carpool line! I picked up Sadie from her very first day of Preschool. What fun! She makes me smile. She'll be here all day today - it's pouring rain (outskirts of Ida) so we will be confined inside. She's rather be outside, but we will find fun things to do. 

Here's to September! Here's to football season!

Continue to stay safe!

 

Sewing, Organizing, and Freezer Meals

I've made four of the Courtyard Steps blocks. They get a bit easier, but I still have to think a LOT to make sure I have the right fabrics in the right places - you see each block must match up the the ones around it.

My Manx Log Cabin quilt - it was planned to be much bigger. But I decided it was big enough. I used various pinks to bind it. I had fun making this one. It will hang in Sadie's room at our house. The room has a vaulted ceiling and I think it will brighten up a very tall wall.

Now onto organizing!

Over the summer, I've had the urge to organize. We've been in the house for a bit over a year. When we unpacked, it was a matter of getting everything put away quickly.  But now I want to put it all away in an organized fashion.  Above you will see the 'after' of my shoes. I got the boxes on Amazon. They each have a door on the front to access the shoes. You can stack them up as desired. What a difference from having my shoes piled on these shelves.

On to the pantry!

We have a double wide pantry will pull out shelves - I love it. But it was time for some planning and sorting. I found clear plastic bins at TJ Maxx and bought tons of them. 

Divide and conquer! Now everything is sorted into the bins. We can find exactly what we need.

I won't bore you with a picture of every single shelf, but you get the idea. Next on my list is the refrigerator. I have leftover bins to use here, too.

I happened across the freezer meal site - thefamilyfreezer.com. It may change my life - I'll keep you posted on that. The site has tons of freezer meal recipes. Everything goes into a freezer bag raw, so prep is not too bad. The site prints your grocery list, labels for your freezer bags, and nutrition info for those of us who count calories.  I have found the majority of recipes to be very healthy and include lots of fresh vegetables.

I get no royalty, fees, or kickback if you sign up. You can give it a look and decide. 

Tuesday I shopped for ingredients at Sam's Club. I spent around $160.

Thursday morning I chopped and filled my bags. I made four recipes, 3 meals each. Each meal will feed 6. That calculates to 12 freezer bags with a total of 72 servings. That works out to be about $2.25 per serving. 

My morning's work included chopping 12 peppers, cutting corn off 8 cobs, and chopping 3 onions. I watched TV while I chopped. 

The meals can be cooked in a Crock Pot or an Instant Pot. Easy peasy. 

We're eating our first of these meals tonight. I'll keep you posted on how we like the recipes, though they sound yummy.

Suni Lee won gold!!! Yay! 

I have a free day to sew! Yay!

Though the heat and humidity are almost unbearable, I'll be inside a nice, cool house!

Continue to stay safe!

 

Moving Right Along

 

Now that I have finished the two blue/cream quilt tops (one is quilted and ready for binding) and the top for a table runner made from those same fabrics (BIG WHEW!)....I'm moving on. Summer is almost over and Sadie will be with us every day very soon, so I'm spending a couple of weeks cutting more bow tie blocks for my cheddar bow tie quilt. I hope to get back to work on this over the Fall season. I think I'm almost halfway done with this quilt top.

I started a new quilt. This is the Courthouse Steps quilt I mentioned a few posts ago. I hope to make a few of these blocks in the next week or so. I really love the fabric and colors and plan to hang this quilt behind our bed. Eventually....

Last week I had a wonderful lunch with some of my high school girlfriends. We met in Birmingham so I wouldn't have to drive all the way to north Alabama. Wasn't that nice of them? I have not seem some of them in decades and we had fun catching up.

I also made another day trip to Wetumpka with some of my Auburn friends. We had a lovely time, though it was sweltering hot. We walked around town, shopped, and had a nice lunch at Coach's Corner. I came home with three new dresses and two tops. Yay me! Yes, I bought a few things at Tapp 18!

And that's the update from here! Are you watching the Olympics? We are watching a good bit. We'll be rooting for Suni Lee, one of the female gymnasts who will be a freshman here at Auburn this Fall. Go Suni!

Continue to stay safe!

Quilting with my Embroidery Module

 

This was my third time attempting machine quilting with my embroidery module. This time went very well. I have my Weightless Quilter frame set up, supporting the weight of the quilt to prevent drag. I'm using a magnetic hoop, making re-hooping fast. But the best tip I can share, if you're interested in this, is the batting. 

I tried out Birdie Bird batting. This is a game changer! The batting is advertised as needing no pins or basting spray to baste the layers together. The batting is supposed to simply cling to the quilt top and backing. I was skeptical. But it worked beautifully! I was amazed at how well it worked. I will admit that I did put a few safety pins around the outside edges...because of my skepticism. But I really didn't have to. The quilt has NO puckers or tucks on the backside. I LOVE THIS BATTING!

I'll show the final results soon.

I finished the other quilt top I made with the remaining fabric from the bundle. I plan to prepare it for quilting in the next couple of days.

I celebrated a birthday with family. Here's my yummy cake.

I'm still walking every morning before it gets hot.  I spotted this fairy tale worthy snail on one of my recent walks. I've never seen a snail quite like this in person! 

That's the update from here. Continue to stay safe!

Progress

I was only planning to cut this quilt out this summer, ready for Fall sewing. Well, I got carried away. Top is complete. It's will be a lap size quilt.

And then I finished the strippy thing I was making into a table runner for our 9 foot dining table - the runner is 100" long - will be perfect once I quilt it. It was cloudy today - sorry for the dark photo.

 For some reason, I want to use up the rest of the fabric and get it out! I bought it as a large fat quarter pack, so I hate to put the scraps back in my stash separated by color. So  I cut the remaining fabric into little rectangles.

And I started making this quilt. It will be another lap quilt. 

The pattern is in this book; in fact, it's the cover quilt. I like this book - every quilt is made from rectangles, but are so different and pretty. This quilt is going quickly! I expect to be done with the top in a week or so.

Hubby and I recently took a day trip to Wetumka, AL, where HGTV's Hometown Takeover took place recently. We loved it! We had the best time walking around town and appreciating all the beautiful changes. Wetumka is only an hour from here - lucky us! We'll definitely go back again soon.

Continue to stay safe!

Summer Sewing

 

 

Here's what's going on around here.

On the left is Glitter, one block per day. They're adding up, aren't they?

In the middle is an old UFO. I'm determined to get getting some older projects completed! When I pulled this out of the archives I had three block units made. Each block unit has one large plus sign and two small ones. Making progress!

On the right: 

While making the plus sign quilt, I'm ending up with lots of strips of fabric. I started sewing the strips together, cutting them into different widths, and sewing them back together. Just playing. And somehow I have started another quilt. Wait a minute! I'm trying to finish up old projects, not start new ones! How does this happen??? But I like it so I'll keep going - maybe a leader/ender project?

If you're interested...the strips are 1.5 inches wide. Some are cut to 2.5", some are 3.5", and some are 4.5".

I'm in one of those moods this week where I'm sick of cooking. What's for dinner? I don't know! We'll figure it out! Are you sick of cooking? Easy, healthy dinner ideas are welcome! Please! 

Continue to stay safe!

An Update

I've been away from the blog for a bit.  So here's a quick update on life around here.

I rode on a Harley! First time on a motorcycle - I was given a ride by our friend, Sam.  

We had a goat on our boat - that's me holding Sadie as a goat leaped on our boat from Goat Island. He was looking for a handout. And we gave him one once he got off the boat.

We've been going to the lake about once per week to ride the boat and the Seadoos - we don't stay overnight because the house is still in a state of demolition due to our water leak.

I started a new hand pieced quilt - Jen Kingwell's Glitter. I've been stitching on block every day. Every Sunday I cut out block kits for the upcoming week. It's amazing how the blocks pile up only doing one per day. 

I'm using colors from my sewing closet wallpaper.

Dark photo - but I have a new addition to my sewing machine family. Meet my Bernina 480. She makes a nice companion to my much larger Bernina 750 QE.  The 480 will go on retreats with me, go around town when sewing with friends, and be my backup machine when the 750 is in embroidery mode. I love her already!

I had a little scare when I found a lump under my arm. A week of worry. We went to UAB and after imaging and meeting with a few folks, all is well. It was just a cyst. Whew!

I'm still walking every single day. I have to do it either first thing in the morning or just before the sun sets. The summer heat and humidity have set in, for sure.

Continue to stay safe!