A Little Bit at a Time

I did a little work on Running Stitches tonight. As I was buying the fabric for the cornerstones, the lady cutting the fabric kept commenting on how bright it was. I thinking I'm liking bright! I might have made a mistake in my math. I didn't write anything down, but I remember planning on 6 by 5 for 30 blocks needed. As I'm laying it out, that seems to be about the right size. I keep thinking I may have cut 30 each of the dark and the light. Hmmm, Maybe I'll be making twin quilts.
We had Thai Beef Strips for dinner last night. It was one of the meals I made last week at My Delicious Dinners. It was served over rice, which turned out really well, and there was A LOT of it. For some reason I decided that it would taste really good as rice pudding. I found a recipe, online but it called for a ratio of one cup of rice to one cup of sugar -- wow that didn't sound right. So I used one cup of sugar and FOUR cups of rice -- and it turned out really tasty. It reminded me of the comfort foods of childhood. I didn't grow up poor, but we knew about potato soup, bread pudding, hunter stew and goulash in our house. Those were the dishes that got us through to payday. Here's my modified recipe for rice pudding:

OLD FASHIONED RICE PUDDING

4 c. leftover rice
1 c. sugar
2 c. milk
1 tbsp. butter
1/2 tsp. vanilla flavoring
1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Combine rice, sugar, butter, flavoring. Bake in 350 degree oven for 1 hour, stirring after 15 minutes and again when pudding is done. Serve warm or chilled.

This and That

I was blog hopping yesterday and found an idea for fabric grocery bags Quilting in Connecticut. There was even a little pocket on the front to tuck the bag into for storage. I didn't have a pattern, but it said use a plastic grocery bag as a template. So I sat down and came up with a bag from some more of the scary blue and hot pink birds of paradise fabric. It is lined with some leftover orange from the orange and teal pinwheels quilt that is hanging patiently as a flimsy in my closet. I think I have forgotten everything I know about sewing things that are not flat, and had trouble with the whole lining and turning part. Every time I make a sundress for the girls I struggle with the whole turning of the bodice with the straps step. So it's not quite orthodox, but I think I'll find some directions and make a few more.
I did that last night instead of working on Dear Jane, so I pulled out a block that I had kitted long ago (I have April 8 written in the margins of the book) and tried again to do some paper piecing. I keep thinking I'll get good at it if I keep trying, but maybe that's just wishful thinking. I think it's a tad too small, but I can figure that out later. It's called Springbook Park, it is K-8, and it has 24 pieces. The pattern only calls for 23, but one of my white bits was too short and needed some help. Can you see my extra seam?
One of the Girl Scouts from our troop came over to play today and she was wearing the flip flops we made last night at the meeting. It was like little pom poms on her feet. Can't get much cuter than that! I can imagine all 9 of us running around at Camporee with our matching pom pom feet.

Using LOTS of scraps

Tonight was a girl scout meeting. We made flip flops to wear to Camporee. I'm not sure how many yards I used, but it was a lot of ugly! Our theme this year is going to be red white and blue, so I pulled out everything in those colors that I don't love anymore. The scraps I like the least were the ones the girls fought over -- paper glittery snowflakes and blue with hot pink birds of paradise were the big hits of the night -- yikes. Not much time for sewing tonight, but I might pull out some Dear Jane Blocks while the president gives his state of the union

New Quilt in the Works

I was browsing at Quilting Keepsakes and found this really cool running fabric. I can't tell you how long I spent when I was working on my "Road to a Marathon" quilt trying to find running themed fabric. So I had to order a yard of each! I didn't have anything for the cornerstones, but the stripes for the side pieces were already in my stash. I also needed a border fabric for Carolina Crossroads, so off to the fabric store I went. I should have been grading papers last night, but instead I got a whole quilt cut out. I have enough of the theme fabric for a 5 x 6 setting and then I think I'll back it with flannel so it will be snugly. I'm going to call it "Running Stitches".
I just got an e-mail from my mom saying she loved my new blog. My husband thinks I should put more kid pictures in and call it a family blog instead of a quilting blog. Maybe I"ll hybridize.....
Tomorrow is the Florida primary so there is no school for the kids. There are two tax bills on the ballot as well, so I'll have to make sure I get out and vote, even though there are no democratic delegates for Florida.

Progress

I finished two more dear Jane blocks. They are Molly's Muffins (G-13) with 13 pieces and Pie Sale (H-6) with 21 pieces. I really like the way Pie Sale looks, I could imagine a whole quilt out of this one.

I finally finished putting the Carolina crossroads top together, now I just have to decide on borders. My husband says that the top is complicated enough, I should only use plain borders. He says that about all of my quilts.

Our baby doll is on oxygen! I used to laugh when all of our babies would nurse, kids notice everything! They were fascinated at Christmas with their baby cousin and wanted to know why he had tubes in his nose. I wonder what they would do to their babies if we went back to visit now and saw his new feeding tube?

A Little Quilting

My 6 year old had a chess tournament on Saturday (his first one!) and it required a lot of sitting and waiting. I was smart enough this time to bring along some handwork. Fortunately I had a package of prepared Dear Jane blocks ready to go. It took 8 hours to play 5 games of chess and appliqué two blocks (along with a few breaks for pizza and cheezits)! We took home a trophy for 5th place in the K-1 division and a first tournament pin. The first block is J10, it's called Cheiko's Calla Lily and has 21 pieces. The second is C11, it's called Soldiers and Sailors Monuments and has 12 pieces.
Then I decided to practice paper piecing on these little log cabin blocks. I ordered a panel of quilting saying from Keepsake quilting that is made of 3.5 inch blocks. I thought I could alternate them with these little guys and make a little wall hanging. I love the accuracy of these blocks, but I don't enjoy the process as much as regular piecing. Still, I think they are awfully cute:)

Robbed!

This is the spot in our minivan where our radio and XM receiver used to be. Why would someone steal the faceplate to a radio and leave the radio behind? Why does my husband refuse to lock the car at night? Am I going to have to drive from pawn shop to pawn shop to buy back our stolen merchandise AGAIN? At least this time, unlike the last, my dear husband didn't leave my purse unlocked in his car while I was giving birth to our third child. And at least it was just our car that was broken into, and not our home this time. Still, I've cleaned more fingerprint dust than anyone should have to, and spent more time in pawn shops than I would like to. SIGH...
I would have been fine just being robbed, but it was hard to explain to the kids. We simply said that bad men had broken into the car and taken daddies radio. MY little princess with the earnest wisdom of her four-and-a-half years looked at me quite confused, and said, "Mommy, I thought bad guys were imaginary." We spend so much time telling her that all the bad things are make-believe and that she shouldn't be scared, how do I tell her that bad guys are really real even though monsters are still just pretend?

I was up until 1 last night finishing up the blocks for Carolina Crossroads. Now I just have to decide the sashing issue and I can get the top made. I don't have any large yardage for the back, so I was thinking about doing the Bonny Hunter 10 inch square thing. I did find the label last night, so that is ready to go. I just want to add the final piece count after I decide about the borders and such.

To Sash or not to Sash?

I was happy enough with my Carolina Crossroads, I thought it looked quite nice actually. Then I saw all the people who were adding sashing strips to the quilt and changing it from a diagonal to a straight set. Well, I've already made the setting triangles, so there is NO way I'm going to change the setting, but some of the quilts with sashings added are quite nice. And so now I have to decide which I like better. I see the stars without sashing, but my eye seems to find the massive checkerboard first. I like the way the exact blocks used are camouflaged and the eye flows over the quilt in the original design, I think it makes it look more complicated. But each block is highlighted by the sashing strips. And so, now I must decide, to sash or not to sash. I've still got 9 more rail fence blocks to sew together, so I guess I can mull for a few minutes more. If I leave it on the floor of the family room for a couple of days, I can assault people who come to the door and make them vote.

It's begining to look a lot like A QUILT

I got my side triangles finished this afternoon, but haven't had time to do the corners yet. Still, I couldn't resist, putting together my thoughts on the last set of squares and seeing what they would look like together. I think I must be pretty close, there are only so many logical ways for the rest of the squares to fit together. I love the way the two squares play so well together, making a secondary pattern, you almost can't tell where one ends and the other begins. I wish I had a design wall big enough to play, but my husband is quite used to coming home to a quilt in the formal living room. It's even cold enough now that we had to close all the windows, so the blocks won't blow away:)

Diversions

These are two options for sashing the Elm Creek Quilt. The strips are two inches, the purple is a plain sashing square, while the pink uses corner triangles to turn the sashing square into a flying geese star. I like the star effect, but it might be adding too much business to an already complicated quilt?
I am almost done with my next step for the Carolina Crossroads mystery. I planned to get it all finished this weekend. Then my daughter came home from school telling me that one of the girls in her class got checked out early for leader daughter camping. I said, "That's silly, the leader daughter camping trip isn't until next weekend!" Well, I guess I was off by a weekend. We managed to be packed and out the door in 23 minutes flat! We made it halfway across the state and hardly missed a thing. So my sewing plans got a little waylaid along the way. I didn't even have a chance to grab handwork on the way out the door :(
The kids are all off school tomorrow, so Dad is going to stay home with them in the morning. One of the advantages to being a teacher is supposed to be that I have the same days off as my kids, but sometimes our schedules just don't sink up. At least next Monday is a "holiday for all" And thanks to my poor scheduling capabilities, I'll have an unplanned three day weekend at home.