Monday Meandering 8 - 28 - 2023

The bad news (for me) is I'm starting later tonight than I usually do.  The good news (for readers) is in the next day or two I'll post another Mysteries and Quilt Alongs.  Hopefully it will be done by Wed. 

I'm jumping right in on the goals list. 

✅Work on misc blocks: √FCQ Equilter blocks, √retreat blocks, √red and yellow RSC blocks — More FCQ Equilter blocks and retreat blocks need to be made. Red and yellow Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks are done. Here are pictures of all of them. 

Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks in red and yellow.

October Retreat lotto blocks.

FCQ Equilter blocks due by the end of September.

In case you really like these 9 Patch Shoo Fly blocks you can see how they are made at Missouri Star: https://www.missouriquiltco.com/blogs/missouri-star-quilting-tutorials/nine-patch-shoofly-quilt-tutorial They are made with 2 2.5" strips of a light and a dark.(ie 4 strips)  I don't tend to buy jelly rolls all that much so I have been cutting my own strips from fat quarters or small bits of leftover fabrics. I've got several more cut out except I realized I forgot to cut some of the 2.5" squares. So I'll be showing some more of these in the next week or two. 

✅Take out Tee shirt quilt and plan it out — planned and background fabric purchased.

✅Buy background and finish cutting Malted Mystery — more of the grey fabric is on order but I haven’t begun cutting yet.

Clean up the front of the cutting table — I can see progress but I doubt anyone else can. I’ve been using various dies to cut the fabric hanging around the front of the cutting table.

Here's my list for this week. 

8/28/23

Continue the clean up of the front of the cutting table

Quilt customer quilt

Bind the big pinwheel quilt

Finish the FCQ Equilter blocks and work on more retreat blocks

There's just a little difference between last week's goals and this week's. Hopefully I will continue to make big progress on the cutting table. 

And here's a little problem I had last week. (Or was it the week before?) 

I call it the cake mistake. We like carrot cake so I made one.  The recipe came from my aunt and I've made it many, many times.  Except I noticed I'd put a sticky note on it giving the info that the frosting recipe made too much frosting and gave amounts for a half a recipe.  I followed it but this is all I could cover. SIGH. Eventually I made another half recipe and got it covered.  But for some reason the cream cheese dressing just tasted like regular buttercream frosting. Another sigh. It was too much cake for us so we finally put quite a few pieces in the freezer and will enjoy them later.  

I'm looking forward to this week as a few days will be only in the 70s. Whoop! Whoop! And, we'll have a night or two go down in the 50s! 😃  We tend not to turn the oven on if the temps are in the high 80s and above.  I did turn it on for the cake  but most of the summer we are microwaving, air frying or grilling our evening meal. I'm looking forward to making banana bread and some cookies. Do you bake during the summer? 

That's it for tonight. Please enjoy surfing these web sites to see what is going on across the internet. 

Oh Scrap

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings

Sew and Tell

To Do Tuesday

I'll be back to link up to the other parties. (And, hopefully I'll do that in a timely manner!) 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Row by Rowing

Yes, I'm still hitting quilt shops and picking up their row by row patterns.  I have way too many patterns and kits.  

Dorothy and I went on a road trip yesterday up to Fredericksburg, Va to The Crazy Cousin.  It is such a nice shop and I try to go there when I head north on 95 to visit my kids.  Here's their duck row: 

Too cute. But, will I use it?  Who knows.  It has a lot of competition. 

Then we headed over to Quilt and Sewing Center to grab their pattern. (I also got the kit but not sure if I'll use it or maybe use batiks... or not make it...) Yikes, I just looked at the pattern...hum, I may be skipping this one -- pretty intense...but oh the great results. 

In the studio I am in the process of loading a queen quilt back.  I finished my Trip Around the World earlier this year and I want to get it done so we can put it on our bed.  The blue and yellow quilt currently on the bed just doesn't look as good with the new taupe paint.  I'm almost finished getting the back on. Unfortunately, I let the fabric get really wrinkled after I washed it.  So, as I'm loading it I spray the fabric hanging over the back of the frame with water and voilà when it is dry the wrinkles are gone.  Then I roll more on the take up roller and spray again.  It takes more time but is infinitely better than ironing a huge backing. 

When the girls were here this past weekend we celebrated their birthdays.  It was a lot of fun.  I made animal cupcakes. First the picture I used as inspiration: 

And now what I was able to come up with. (Please note, these were the rejects and they've been sitting around for almost a week.) So, self criticism -- I used smaller cupcakes.  My tins are not the humongous tins you can get now, nor are they the mini ones.  Basically I didn't have as big an area to create my animals. I didn't think to look at JoAnn's for the cute eyeballs.  I suspect they are from Wiltons.  My frosting job wasn't terrible but, here, some of it has come off.  I used Jelly Belly's for all the parts except half a mini marshmallow with 2 seeds for the pig nose. (The other nose was taken off... hum, that one might have been a smarty and someone ate it!) I was surprised the girls ate the licorice eyes.  In fact Natalie seemed to love it. 

It's time to get back to the studio and play.  I need to fluff up a batting so when the backing is totally loaded I can load it and the quilt top.  One issue -- I haven't decided on the quilting design.... Decisions, decisions. 

I'm linking up with Let's Bee Social at Sew Fresh Quilts. 

Happy Quilting All! 

Cooking not Quilting

Today Jen and I are hostessing a bridal shower for Aimee.  I volunteered to do cupcakes for the event.  (Hey, I live next door to a former bakery owner, I'm no dummy!) This morning I went over to Jennie's house for lessons in baking and decorating cupcakes. (yes, it is very confusing having a daughter, Jen or Jenny and a next door neighbor Jennie!)  The chosen flavor is lemon.  Here's what we did. 


 We started with a Duncan Hines lemon cake mix.  Yum! 

Here they are just out of the oven.  


Jennie put in some wonderful lemon filling in them before they were frosted.

Jennie is showing me how to frost them with a bit of panache. 

How many cupcakes? 

Jennie then put a little yelllow dab in the middle.  Very nice looking cupcakes.  (And, almost professional looking!) 

All done and ready to take home. I let Pat sample one last night.  Well, my idea was to split one between us but before I knew what happened the cupcake I gave him was gone.  I got my own cupcake and cut it in half and the second half vanished somewhere near Pat also.  My half was fabulous, if I do say so myself.  


A big thank you to Jennie for teaching me how to frost cupcakes with quite a professional look.  Notice I'm not letting you have a close up view! (honest, I just forgot to take a closeup.  Maybe I'll get one at the shower tomorrow.)


On the quilt front I did get all the hand quilting done on the doll quilt.  Tomorrow I hope to get the binding on and sewn down.  Then I can put it in the mail to Australia on Monday. Then I need to do some serious work on getting a quilt or two done as the month is almost over and I will have to share my fabric ins and outs.  


Happy Quilting All (and baking too!) 

Day Before T Day

Yesterday between 3 and 4 I scraped off whatever snow was left on the driveway.  Unfortunately it is a fairly long driveway and was about 2/3rds covered with snow.  I felt very virtuous for clearing it off.  I was also slipping like crazy at the end of the drive.  

Fast forward 15 hours or so.  I got up to a driveway once again covered in snow!  Probably not even an inch.  We decided it would melt off as the temps were to  be above freezing.  Thank goodness cause there was no way I could scrape it off again!

No sewing for me today.  It was baking day.  I made two pumpkin pies, an apple pie and a batch of cream de menthe brownies. Yum.  I purchased 3 aluminum pie plates -- designed for one use than toss. Yikes.  It created a problem when I poured the pumpkin pie into the pan and then tried to put it on a pan to put in the oven.  Imagine the pie plate bending in half making a perfect little spout for the pie filling to pour out.  Luckily I hadn't started moving over the floor.  Just pie filling on the counter.  Oh fun.  Eventually got it in the oven and cooked.  They smell quite good.  Although I'm not a pumpkin pie fan.  I'll be eating the apple pie myself.

I don't know if we'll get some stitching time tomorrow or not.  But, I will get a bit of knitting time.  I don't buy quilt kits because I enjoy picking my own colors.  However, I did buy a sweater kit some years ago.  So many years ago I'm not sure how long I've owned  the darn thing -- probably more than 10 years.  It was quite a surprise to me though when I ran across it while going through the box of yarn.  Easy decision. I decided to make this sweater.  I may not like it when done though.  I'll have to see.  I started on the back and I've knit about an inch and a half. 

Enjoy your stitching or your celebration.  Happy quilting. Bonnie