Silly Lois

As I was pulling fabric on Saturday night to start on a new project, I found a nice large pieced of a cream marble fabric that works well with the charm pack I am using.  After I pressed it and laid it out on the sewing table to cut it, I noticed that Lois left me a little note of in just to make sure that I knew what it was! 

It made me chuckle! I did find later that the selvage is labeled, but it is in the same color as the mottle, so you can barely read it. I guess she didn't want to forget what she bought! 

Stash Report - Weeks 18 & 19 2013

After finishing April so strongly, I really started May slowly! I actually had a work meeting last week and I was wiped out by the weekend, then spent my evenings this week mostly upstairs working on cross stitch projects.  I did manage to get downstairs last night, and I really had a hankering to work on something new! I know I have a zillion things in progress, plus four things that I want to get done this month, but the lure of doing something new was just to great last night, so I gave in. 

The project I am working on is a charm pack quilt from Moda Bake Shop, and I am using a Santorini charm pack.  I got everything cut last night and started on part 1. I may go work on it a little more tonight or may just relax in front of the tv again :) 

Fabric added last two weeks: 0 yards
Fabric used last two weeks: 1 3/4 yards

Fabric added year to date: 9 3/4 yards
Fabric used year to date: 27 yards

Net fabric used: 17 1/4 yards

Hope you had a great week with your stash! 

500th Post Winners

Thank you to all 12 of you who commented on my 500th post a few weeks ago! I have been thinking all week that I need to do the drawing for the winners and keep forgetting! I finally remembered this morning, and decided to pick two winners from the list. 

I made a list of the comments in order and then plugged them it to random.org, and the winners are: 

#5 - Beth
#1 - Regina

You both wanted something made by me so I will get working on it to send your way soon! Congrats gals! 

Based on your comments, I will keep posting about just about everything I post about now!  Thanks again to you all and hope you enjoy the next 500! 

April Cookbook Challenge

As April was Jenna's birthday month, I let her pick our cookbook for the month. The first one she chose was Finland, Nature's Bounty, a gift from our Finnish exchange student's family. I decided to take a deep look through the cookbook in March to see what I'd be getting myself into. I found recipes with reindeer, lingonberries, and cheese we don't have in the US, and then talked Jenna out of that cookbook! 


Instead, she chose Something's Cooking, which was a fundraiser cookbook by the UT-Houston Medical School women faculty and faculty wives. My mom gave it to me for Christmas one year (the connection to UT was through our girl scout troop).  The recipes in this book are really nice, but most of them are pretty involved, making things from scratch type recipes. I had hoped to make one a week, but that didn't happen. 




What did happen was an awesome batch of Chicken Chimichangas with Green Onion-Cilantro sauce....  The kids weren't big fans, but Mike, our neighbor Beth and I loved them!  This made a nice meal with plenty for leftovers. What really made it was the sauce, mmmmm! 




About a week later, I make a Lemon Yogurt Cake with the kids. They really enjoyed separating the eggs and zesting the lemon, but I was wiped out by the time we finished it!  It was listed in the cookbook as similar to pound cake but with lemon flavor. I found it to be closer to a coffee cake - it was a little dry for me, but the lemon flavor was really nice. Not sure if I would make this one again given the amount of work to make it. I think I could make just as tasty of a lemon cake with a box mix. 

I almost forgot when drafting this post about our first recipe from the book - Wild Rice Casserole. It was a awesome mix of white and wild rice with soy sauce and pecans that was really savory and a big hit for the whole family. I love it when we find recipes that we all like!


I found a couple more recipes in the book that I would like to make - I just didn't have time/energy during the month of April to get to them. This one, like the three before it, is a keeper. I know I won't use it a lot, but there are some gems in there and I will definitely be making the Chimichangas and sauce again! 

April 2013 Accomplishments

I really feel like I got my groove back in April - it helped that I had signed up to make/finish a couple quilts for co-workers.  I wound up with 15 1/4 hours of sewing time, and several finished projects: 

- Pieced, quilted, and bound comfort quilt #1
- Tiger shark costume & hood
- Quilted and bound Strippy wheelchair quilt
- Quilted mom's table runner
- Pieced, quilted, and bound comfort quilt #2

Although the list isn't long, two of the three were done start to finish within the month, so they felt like a big accomplishment! I have a couple more quilts in the lineup to quilt this month and also want to get started on or get back to a couple other projects. The first few days of the month were toast because I was running a meeting at work and the days were really long. I am hoping to have a little time tomorrow and this week to get things going. 

Four Things - April 2013

As I write this, there is a week and a half left of April and I have already finished my four things for the month - yippee! (I waited to post it until the end of the month)

Here they are: 
1. Finish Richard's tiger shark costume - body finished early April, hood finished on the 20th. He was a big hit in the play too! 
2. Quilt mom's table runner - quilted on the 21st - boy, do I love quilting table runners - they are so fast!  I used Sulky Polylite in the top for this one and bottom line in the bobbin.  These two threads work so well together and I really love the polylite. I know most longarm owners are not fans of Sulky thread, but I have always liked it and last year, when I was at the Cincinnati show, I had a long chat with the lady at the Sulky booth and she recommended that I try the polylite. I bought a couple mini-spools and I am so happy I did. I will look for this thread again the next time I am at a big show with a good Sulky booth. 

3. Quilt the wheelchair quilt - finished on the 10th and bound on the 29th. This one is going to the ALS quilt initiative in honor of my aunt, who is fighting ALS. She is going to Washington, DC later this month to tell her story in hopes of getting more funding for ALS research. You can read her story here. 

4. Make top and quilt comfort quilt - I got this top pieced, quilted, bound, and returned to work to be gifted by tax day.

My start of May is going to be pretty busy, but I still have plans to finish up a few things and keep going on another one or two.  

1. Make a new purse
2. Quilt one of my UFOs - either a mini or a big top
3. Make the giveaway for my 500th post
4. Get back to work on my paper pieced sunrise over the mountain top

Let's hope I can do as well in May as I did in April! 

Stash Report - Week 17 2013

I've really done a good job this month of moving things forward. The latest in the series is another comfort quilt. One of my friends from work has been diagnosed with a second round of breast cancer and is going into her treatments this week. I had some orphan blocks from a quilting friend that we actually thought that we might use on the first comfort quilt, but they didn't fit at all.  Once we learned of the second person who would need some comfort, I decided to make a top out of these too. 




I loaded and quilted it with a great big stipple this week - Superior Brytes on the top and Robison-Anton cotton in the bobbin (they worked great together) - and will get the binding on today so that I can take it in to work on Monday with some fabric pens so that everyone in the department can sign their well wishes to her.  I hope that it can be delivered by the end of the week. 


The borders and backing were added to the quilt this week, so I had some good usage. 


Fabric added this week: 0 yards
Fabric used this week: 3 1/4 yards


Fabric added year to date: 9 3/4 yards
Fabric used year to date: 25 1/4 yards


Net fabric used: 15 1/2 


Slowly but surely using what I have :) Hope you had a great week with your stash!