Sadie’s Choice or #16 & #16a

I just finished up my ATWQB block for Summer Sadie. Actually there are two of them. I am sure that is unfair somehow, but I couldn’t decide, so she will have to.

This the first block. I had been picking up bits of fabric that I thought would go with her quilt and her personality. Then I actually got her quilt in my hands and decided that it might be a bit out of place. It makes a big difference to see the quilt in person, as sometimes the camera just doesn’t get the colors right.

So, I went in search of some more vintage feel fabrics with the big cabbage roses on it. Apparently they are not as popular as I thought they were. I could only find them in this blue fabric, unless I wanted to sew it up in drapery fabric. So, I went with it, and found some complementary fabrics that created this.

I only had to tear out a few seams because I sewed things in backwards. I think I have a system for the more complicated blocks now.We’ll see if that helps in the future construction. It is less important if things don’t need to be oriented in a certain way, but I tend to want my roses growing up, and things like that. I know, I am odd that way.

In any case, this is what her quilt looks like now, and it will leave for its next stop in tomorrow’s mail. Wheeee! I am on to Kendall’s quilt block next. I hope to have some news on the others soon. After Kendall’s block, I will have made 12 of the 24 blocks. Apparently there are about 8 or 9 coming down the pike all at once. Yikes! I do have some plans for a couple of them, so that will help speed things along!

Trick or Treat Farm Style

We live in the tullie berries and we like it that way. It does present some interesting social situations though. As kids, my husband and I both had great neighborhoods to go candy hustling in on Halloween. It doesn’t work that way out here. You can’t really see most of your neighbors’ homes and we are OK with that. Not that we are unfriendly, that is certainly NOT the case. But an outing to trick or treat would involve the car, barn boots, a really good map, and even then we might get met by some big dogs or a dude with a shotgun.

So, this year since the little miss decided that she did not want to wear the pretty princess dress, we did this.

I don’t think the goats actually said “trick or treat”, but each one of them got a tasty carrot including the yummy green tops. I am sure there are doctors and dentists out there just thrilled to see fresh, home grown carrots being handed out for Halloween goodies. I doubt it will become a national trend, since it was the goats that were eating them, and not the child.

She had fun in any case. So, sorry to the grandparents wanting a cute & precious Halloween photo. Your grand kid dressed up as a farmer, played in the sand pile, and fed carrots to the livestock for Halloween. I must be a rotten parent.

Oh, Cherry Limeade, how I love thee!

For those of you who live in the southern part of the U.S. this won’t mean much to you. Well, unless you think about going without one for years at a time.

The Sonic Drive-ins have been around in the Oklahoma & Texas areas for as long as I can remember.  My aunt Shelly turned me on to Cherry Limeades many years ago. Since my dad’s side of the family lives in OK and I live in WA, that meant I could only get these little sips of heaven when I visited them.

Contained inside this unassuming styrofoam cup is one of the most delightful and refreshing beverages known to man. The Cherry Limeade. I think it is a combination of freshly squeezed limes, lemon-lime soda, and maraschino cherry syrup served over that funny pelleted ice, and garnished with some of the squeezed limes and a cherry. I don’t know the exact formula, and don’t really care.

All I know is that Sonic has finally opened up a couple of franchises here in Washington State. The first one had horrendous lines of people waiting to get in. Seriously, people waited for hours to get in and tied up traffic for miles.  I was NOT one of those crazy people.

The latest one to open up is on my way to our monthly WASART board meeting. Whoo Hoo! It only took me about 10 minutes to get through the drive through line, and probably less if I had pulled into a stall. I will be leaving a bit early for the meetings now, just so I can pick up one of these little gems on my way!

According to the guy at the window, I was not the only one who has been jonesing for one of these babies. To my family in OK, don’t worry, I will still come and visit, but now my first stop will be your place instead of the first Sonic I can find!

P.S. I didn’t drink both of them, I brought the other one home for my sweet hubby who watched the little princess while I was at my meeting. FYI don’t let the pre-schooler have some before you want her to go to bed. Bad idea Mom, bad idea. Someday I will learn.

The rest of the Quilts for Kids tops

I finally finished up the tops for the Missouri Start Quilt Company’s Quilts for Kids drive. We had been feeling a bit under the weather around here and I didn’t get them off in the mail as soon as I would have liked, but they are now on their way.

This is the top I made from the extra set of disappearing 9-patch blocks that I got back from Aunt PittyPat’s swap. It is very red, and I am sure some cowboy or cowgirl will love it!

I had this Churn Dash top designed before I made the two smaller tops from the earlier post. It was only supposed to be 9 blocks, but I found afterward that I had actually cut 12 center blocks of bug fabric. Then I discovered that I had enough orange fabric for the block with the exception one corner triangle. Great! I was finally able to find another fat quarter of it, so I could finish the block.

This top is made with big blocks of novelty train fabric and the beige is actually polished cotton from the early 90’s! Who knew that once you washed the hideously shiny stuff that it actually looks halfway decent. There is a low luster, but none of the shine. Thank goodness, cause I have more to use up!

I was able to find decent backings for all of the quilts. The train top will be backed with a denim blue flannel or “outing” as Grandma calls it.

For those of you who have never tried this, it makes a perfect batting too. It is a great weight with the flannel sandwiched between the top and bottom layer of cotton. It doesn’t shift or bunch up after many washings either. Another handy tip from the sewers in my family! Thanks Gram!

Now on to the other things on my “To Do” list! I have two more blocks to work on for the ATWQB too. Yipee!

A new ATWQB block!

I am finally starting to see some more blocks from the Around the World Quilting Bee. Yipee! If you have read some of my other posts you know I am not a math wizard, but I can count. According to my “Loop Order” list, this should be block #12, even though it is the 8th block I have received. How do I number them now? I am leaning towards keeping them numbered in the proper loop order for my own records, since that is how they will be recorded in the individual quilts. So, without further ado, here it is…

Block #12! 

This block is called Sweet Sixteen. I went with it because most of her blocks that weren’t log cabin variations, are stars.

I was also deficient in the red gingham fabric division, so I used the red and off-white fabrics to mimic the gingham pattern idea. This floral I have had since the late 1980’s. I have used two different white on off-white fabrics for this block. The inner triangles are slightly darker, (more of a “natural” on the thread color chart) than the outer off-white. The light didn’t help that show up in the photo though. The red is a multi-tonal, cranberry red with small swirls in gold ink. I have only been able to find it as fat quarters, or I would have made a quilt with it. I love how rich it looks.

I like this pattern so much that I think I will use it to make a table runner for Christmas. (Maybe not this Christmas though!)

I have two more ATWQB quilts in the sewing room to work on in the next few weeks. I wanted to get at least one out and on it’s way towards the other ladies who are waiting as impatiently as I was!

Sometimes I do dumb things

OK. This probably won’t qualify me for the Darwin Awards, but it was a dumb thing in any case, because I knew better.

My mother will have my hide for this. When I was learning to sew she taught me to be a neat seamstress. Always trim your threads, clip your curves, press the creases, baste, blah, blah, blah. I know I should do all of these things, and, depending on the project, I do the items that actually have an effect on the finished product. I am most religious about the trimming of the lead and tail threads. I hate to have those show up  later. Well, apparently I missed a set.

Not a pretty sight!

So, when I was picking the loose threads from the front of the quilt, I grabbed on to these and tugged. Most often it is just a loose piece from the frayed edge that has worked its way to the front and a quick tug pops it loose. Nope. This was a seam thread, and in the middle of a block no less. What to do…. I flipped it over and ran another seam right along the top of the one I pulled out. I did catch a little bit of a pucker at the corner that had to be teased back out, but all in all, much better than having a hole in my quilt!

I am double checking my threads before I just pull at them anymore. Yes Mom. Lesson learned. I’ll stop sewing like your sister. (I love you Auntie, but she is right on the thread clipping thing.)

A Little Bit of Quilting

I have been making good use of my quilting time while waiting for more of the Around the World Quilting Bee blocks to arrive.

Missouri Star Quilting Company is doing a big thing at the end of the month for Quilts for Kids. Since my daughter spent some time in the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) and the ICN (Intermediate Care Nursery) I thought that it sounded like a good place to donate some little quilt tops. They will take sizes from 25″ x25″ on up to about a twin size I think. The great part is that if you send in your quilt tops with the backing & binding, they will quilt them up for you for $10 per quilt. I like that idea, since I am not that good at that part yet. For those of us living too far away to pop in and drop them off and then come back to finish the binding, they even agreed to put the binding on. The quilts from this event will go to the Kansas City Childrens’ Hospital to comfort kids in need.

These two are the ones I had done today. I have a few more in the works, and I’ll share them when they are finished.

Sign of the times to come

Look what we had done.

My sweet husband found a booth at the State Fair that made custom aluminum & vinyl signs. He decided that we needed one to christen the new barn once it is completed. This is the design we settled on. We were going to have the “Established” date put on it, but couldn’t decide if it would be the year that I first owned goats, or the year we moved onto the farm here in Lakebay. In the end it didn’t really matter since we ran out of room on the sign.

I would have like to have a more stylish goat on the sign, but of all of the artwork they had, this was the most accurate to the breeds we raise, and actually looked like a dairy goat. They had such bad goat clip-art that one of the poor things even had three teats. (Super disqualification!) Anyhow, we were very pleased with how it turned out. It will proudly grace the door to the milk room once it is finished.

Lila Tueller fabric giveaway

I don’t have any photos for this one, but if you head on over to Lila Tueller’s blog, you can find her newest line of fabrics called Eden. This is what the fuss is all about. She is GIVING some away! Who can say no to free fabric? Not me! She has a Jelly Roll, a Layer Cake, and perhaps some new patterns that she is offering to give to a lucky person.

I generally don’t like the big floral graphic fabrics, but this line is done in soft colors and I think it would make a splendid quilt for the rocking chair. It is very girly and the boys will probably leave it alone. Probably. I know I have about as good of a chance of winning it as I do of winning the lottery, but at least I entered this drawing! If I don’t win, I will probably at least track down a charm pack of this when it is finally released in the spring. Then I can make that quilt, but with a lot more neutral fabrics to show off the little charm squares!

All Farm-Raised Here!

If you are a Vegan, or are morally opposed to meat.  Please pass up this post.

These items were all raised right here on our farm. This is the first time we have actually butchered and eaten our own goats. (No, these are not any of the ladies in the header photo. We don’t eat the milkers, although several of them have been threated with this fate over their lifetimes.) This was a particularly unpleasant buckling that liked to bash stuff.  We have holes in the roofing & one wall missing in the buck shed, and a broken 6″ fence post due to his love for smashing his head into things. I am much happier that he now resides in the freezer.

Having never cooked goat meat before, we decided to try one of the less choice cuts for our first attempt. This is a lower leg roast.  My wonderful husband decided on the marinade, and we went out to the garden and harvested all of the fresh herbs we needed to make it. How rewarding is that?

After a few minutes of chopping and mixing this is what it looked like all dressed for an hour or so marinate in the fridge before being put on the grill for a slow roast.

I would love to show you what it looked like when we were done, but we ate it. It was good!  I didn’t realize that he had taken photos of the process, or I would have taken a lovely shot of the the plate with the salad with the lettuce and tomatoes from our front porch boxes. Let’s just say that it was darned good and we will be experimenting with the more choice cuts soon. I can’t wait to try the ribs in the smoker … yummm.

So I guess this is also a heads-up for all of the farm animals. You had better play nice, or you will be invited for dinner.