Crazy Quilt Pillow

My last Christmas gift is finished!! I made this for my daughter-in-law to be. I used upholstery samples, beads and buttons from my stash. The only thing I bought was some of the silk ribbon for the flower embroidery.

Engagement

Jared asked Katy to marry him on Thanksgiving day in front of both families, I really thought he may pass out before he finished all he had planned to say. She said yes and we are all excited about the upcoming wedding!!



Merry Christmas everyone!! Next year I plan to keep my blog updated with all the family events and all my new sewing ideas!!

Whats going on in my garden

Fall weather is in the air and my vegetable garden is winding down for the year. I picked the last of the butternut squash and red peppers this week. I still have a few small cantaloupe that may ripen if the weather warms up for a few days and there are a lot of green tomatoes that should be ripe by the end of next week.

However my flower gardens are far from dead, I was out mowing the lawn and had to stop and take a few pictures. I was about out of gas so it was time to take a break so on the way to the garage for the gas can I passed the gazebo and saw this little fellow. I had to get my camera and take his picture!






While I had the camera out I took some pictures of my roses, which I planted this spring so I'm very happy with how they did this year.



I planted some mums about three weeks ago and they are doing well also, sometimes they can be a little fussy to get started, but these are doing very good so far!

Crazy Quilt Pillow

I recently joined a crazy quilt group and found another type of quilting that pairs my enjoyment of quilting and embroidery together. Before you can participate in the groups round robin quilting, which is embellishing one quilt block for each member of the group, you must let them see something you have done to show you are skilled at embroidery and beading. I heard the horror story about why they do this and totally agree its a great idea as you don't want to spend time making a quilt block for your quilt and have someone do the embellishment on it with puffy paint and safety pins, which is NOT exactly the Victorian look you're going for! So here is the pillow I did for my first project. The wording and the cross I did on my embroidery machine and the rest of the stitches and beading I did by hand. Crazy quilting is a project you can bag up and take with you to do when you travel or wait in a doctors office.

The pillow is also an up cycled project which I made from upholstery samples and the lace, embroidery thread and beads are from my stash of sewing notions I have gotten from auctions, garage sales, and the good will.

Spiced Butternut Squash Muffins

My garden produced an abundance of butternut squash so I have been trying some new recipes to use all the delicious squash. These muffins were a big hit with the whole family, they are easy, delicious and very moist. They definitely did not last long. I found the recipe at allrecipes.com, this is a great site with some awesome recipes.



Ingredients
1/2 pound peeled, seeded and cubed butternut squash
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup white sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
3/4 cup milk
1 egg, beaten
1 tablespoon butter, melted

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Lightly grease a 12 cup muffin pan.
2. In a medium saucepan with enough water to cover, boil squash 20 minutes, or until tender. Remove from heat, drain, and puree in a food processor.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, white sugar, salt and pumpkin pie spice.
4. In a medium bowl, thoroughly mix together milk, egg and butter. Stir in squash. Fold the squash mixture into the flour mixture just until moistened.
5. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin pan, filling cups about 1/2 full. Bake 20 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Remove from muffin pan and cool on a wire rack.

I did one thing a little different from the recipe, I cut the squash in half and baked it for 1 hour at 400. Then scooped the squash out, this is much easier then trying to cut it up into chunks to boil.

New Sink & Faucet!!!!!!

I finally have the new sink and faucet installed!! Ed was such a sweetheart and got it all done for me last night just in time for me to host my quilting mini group tomorrow. This has been about a month long ordeal with us having to use a broken faucet.

The last time I was in Springfield I found the faucet I wanted at very good price at the Habitat Resale Store. About a week later our old kitchen faucet broke, so Ed attempted to replace it, but the new faucet was missing a couple small parts and he couldn't get the old faucet off the old sink as it was a rusted mess. So... I called Moen and ordered the two parts for the new faucet then went to Lowes and bought a new stainless steal sink. They didn't have what I really wanted so I settled for something that would work. When we took it out of the box the sink was bent and it sounded like a tin can when you touched it. So, back to Lowes I we went and returned the the sink.

Ed talked to a friend of his who is a contractor so we looked up the sink I wanted and ordered it over the Internet, which we got considerably cheaper then buying it from Lowes or direct from Kohler. I also ordered two soap dispensers to match the faucet, one for dish soap and one for hand soap!! Awesome.

In the meantime the parts for the faucet arrived, but they were the wrong parts!! So I looked up the part numbers from the Moen web site and ordered them again. Yesterday everything arrived, my new sink and the correct parts. WooHoo!!! I love it. Of course now Katy can't accidentally shoot water at Jared and the stove since we're not using the broken hose from the old faucet anymore, but we had our memorable laugh over that one already.

Now I have a beautiful sink and faucet. I didn't care for the redneck broken faucet look, which I might add was better than washing the dishes in the bathtub!!

Wedding Quilt

A few months ago my friend Ken and his wife Karen asked me to design a wall hanging for their nieces wedding. Karen wanted their engagement picture in a large heart with pictures of each of them as a child below. She also wanted the quilt to have the teal color from the wedding, to incorporate some camo and nature for the groom and have have the wedding date on the quilt. So I went to work designing the quilt and let my imagination got to work. I like to try new ideas and really don't let anything stop me, the original quilters of long ago made beautiful quilts from basically nothing but scraps so with everything available to me now I can do about anything.

I found the quote "When two heart unite the road is short and the burden light" and knew I had to embroidery it in the quilt too because what could be a better quote for a wedding. Finding the perfect fabric was so much fun, I mean what better excuse to go to all my favorite shops looking for fabric! The flowers I think I changed a dozen times before I was happy with the arrangements and then quilted around the flowers with metallic thread. Probably the most difficult part was making sure the embroidered words were all centered which involved a lot of re-hooping and measuring and piecing, but I love the way it turned out. I wanted to make sure the quilting motifs fit the quilt so it is quilted with leaves, flowers, doves and of course hearts.

Ken and Karen loved the quilt and gave it to the happy couple before their wedding. Here is what Ken said about it.

"Kathy, Here are some photos of Ashley and Nathan with their quilt. We decided to give it to them the night before the wedding and it was hung up at the reception. It was quite the talk of the evening both nights and the bride and groom loved it. We received a lot of positive comments about the quality of work and the uniqueness of the project, everyone loved it.............Thanks for all the work and obvious love you put into the project..........."

I love giving somthing that makes people happy just as much as I love quilting and creating!

Visit to Springfield, MO

I was in Springfield a couple weeks ago visiting one of my very best friends Kathy (Yes, we Kathy's stick together) We have both lost weight and are becoming very fashionable now in our mature age. Here we are sporting our new skorts and ready for a day of shopping at our favorite thrift stores. I am amazed at what I can find at the thrift shops and I love every minute of searching through all the stuff they have. I buy most of my clothes from the thrift shops now and I love it because I can have so many fun clothes and spend very little. I find all sorts of things to use as garden art and great books for my niece and nephew.

I am now starting on the fourth month of my weight maintenance and "WOOHOO" I have maintained my weight and not gained any of the 70 lbs back!!!! This is a mile stone for me because any other diet I've been on the weight has come right back on once I stopped the diet.

Cucumber Tomato Salad

Cucumber Tomato Salad

Here is a great salad for all of you that have an abundance of tomatoes and cucumbers this year. Did you also know that cucumbers add vitamin C and minerals, and feta cheese adds protein and calcium.

2 cucumbers, peeled and thinly sliced
1/2 cup red onion thinly sliced
2 large tomatoes, cut into small wedges
1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese
1/2 tsp minced garlic
1/3 cup red wine vinegar or raspberry vinaigrette
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp chopped fresh oregano
salt and pepper to taste

In a large bowl combine the cucumber, onion, tomato, and feta cheese. In a small bowl whisk together the garlic, vinegar, oil, oregano, salt, and pepper. Add this to the cucumbers and tomatoes and toss. Cover and refrigerate until you're ready to serve.

This is about 4 servings and each serving is 126 calories. It is 2g of fiber and 3g of protein.

Lab Jacket

Here is my latest embroidery project and learning experience. I did this lab jacket for a friend of mine and with this project I learned to line up the embroidery when the design involves multiple re-hooping. It turned out quite good and I think she is going to like it. It will be obvious which lab jacket is hers and maybe now her husband (bless his heart) will quit grabbing the wrong jacket!

My weight loss

I am very happy to say that I have now kept my weight off for three months!! I still keep a food log and weigh everything I eat, but it is so worth it and I feel wonderful. Of course being retired may have a lot to do with my mental health since I have been able to have a garden this year and sew to my hearts content.

I went to Denver a few weeks ago and it was wonderful to be able to go up into the mountains and be able to hike without the breathing problems! I definitely do not have the hip and knee pain I used to get after walking even short distances let alone walking up hill. I probably do need to start a walking routine daily, but I just haven't gotten in the habit of it yet. However, that is definitely on my to do list.

The view up in the mountains was beautiful, but the day we went was rather cool!! Here is a picture of me trying to look like I wasn't freezing.



And here is one of me looking like I'm freezing, which I definitely was!!



I love this picture, here are the three of us on our trip to the moutains. We definitely had an enjoyable mini vacation and it is now only about 70 days until we go on our yearly girls vacation. This year our destination is Anna Maria Island in Florida!

See my garden grow!!

What a beautiful morning, I just couldn't resist taking some pictures around my gardens. This picture is the trellis my husband built for me. I had trumpet vines and honeysuckle growing up a small dead tree so they ended up in a tangled heap when the tree went down. I love the new trellis much better than the old tree.




One of my little clumps of "hens & chickens" started forming a flower tower and it gets bigger by the day. I've never seen one do this before, so I guess I have it in just the right spot.




I bought this wild flower plant at the Farmer's Market last year. It only had one bloom last year, but this year "WOW" it's really taken off and has several blooms. I'm thinking its called Prairie Fire of something like that. Whatever it is I really like it.




I have one word for my vegetable garden "CUCUMBERS"!!!! I'm getting a ton of cucumbers, I think they're growing over night. I keep watching my cantaloupe and waiting for them to ripen, I love cantaloupe!! I have a few peppers, but they haven't turned red yet and I like the red ones better than the green peppers. I've gotten enough cherry tomatoes daily for a salad and I have lots of green tomatoes getting ready to ripen. For my first veggie garden in several years I quite happy with it, but next year it is definitely going to have to be bigger.

Baby quilt

I was asked to make a baby quilt for a little boys first birthday. His brother has a baby quilt with his name on it, but little Gus doesn't have one. His mother picked out the fabric and I came up with the little animals and made a farm theme quilt. These designs were a learning experience because I finally discovered how to digitize pictures to make my own designs!!





I had some fun finding pictures of the farm animals and digitizing them to make the embroidery pictures. Actually I've become addicted to it and have so many new ideas now that I don't know where to start first!!

Aprons

I finished this apron a few minutes ago, it was a custom order. Since I didn't have a pattern for a man's apron I used my husbands grilling apron as a pattern.





This apron I made for a quilt retreat challenge, we were give the funky flowered fabric and then had to make something with it. I used the front of a pair of jeans as the apron and a part of one of the legs for the apron bib. The butterflies and flower were appliqued onto the jeans. I still have the back of the jeans to do something with so they will probably be an apron real soon also.