Happy Birthdays!

April is a very busy month for us.  Adrienne turned 28 on the 23rd; Michael turned 8 on the 28th, Lauren ,23, today and Dylan, 1, today.  Happy Birthdays to all!  One of my very favorite memories involve Michael and Lauren:  When he turned 5, he told Lauren it was much more important than turning 20.  She acquiesced and then on her next birthday, she informed him that  21 was much more important than 6! Each year there is lots of cake, presents, and singing.  The big party is Sunday.  Here are some pictures to hold you over until  then:

          

Testing

I just downloaded Live Writer because it is supposed to have better tools than those provided by Blogger.  So I am trying out some of the options in the program. 

Let’s try inserting a picture:

OK that was easy.

Changing the font is easy. I can even cross out words!

Adrienne just updated her blog.  Here is the link.

It will take a little getting used to. I have to say though adding pictures is a whole lot easier. 

Today I tried making some bias for my quilt.  Let’s just say it did not go well.  Of course I was attempting to follow directions that  I read a couple days ago for continuous bias and I was too lazy to go find the directions.  I will work on it again tomorrow. Until then,  toodles!

A New Project

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to try to make a Chinese Coins quilt. I started doodling and came up with this plan:

OK, I know... But to me it makes perfect sense. I had some Amy Butler (at least that is what my daughter said they are-please let me know if I am mistaken) fat quarters that I had cut just one strip from so I had 12 rectangles that were approximately 17" x 19". I also had some extra pieces that I had saved from the purse I made; these will come into play later.

I cut each of the fabrics into 5 strips measuring 3" x 17" (and one strip at 2 and 1/2" for a scrap binding). That gave me 60 strips for the body of the quilt.


I sewed 10 strips together at random to make 6 rows 17" x 25 1/2".


Here are all my strips at this point:


Carefully (read-this was harder to do than I thought it would be!) Cut each row in half to make 2 strips 8" x 25 1/2".

Then I sewed 3 sets together to make one long strip 8" x 75 1/2". Repeat to make 4 long strips in total.

At this point I had planned to just sew five (5) 8" strips of white fabric alternately between the pieced strips. Well, I did not have enough of any one fabric in my stash to do this. I tried to do it with 2 fabrics, then 1 fabric but making the quilt a different size, yada yada....

But then the quilt kept talking to me. I went shopping Monday and bought a pale pale yellow Kona solid and a bright green fabric that Katie said was perfect. The quilt told me that instead of plain fabric between the pieced fabric, it wants a appliqued VINE with leaves made from my extra pieces. So much for my quickie quilt! I plan to do the applique by machine but it will still take me a little while.

I will keep you up to date on how the quilt is coming along.

Happy Easter!

Preparing for Easter

I didn't get any sewing done today. Katie came over to make a special dessert for tomorrow. She found a recipe for a 14 layer cake and we decided that it would be easier to prepare and make it here since I am doing dinner tomorrow.


We had cakes in various stages of completion all over the kitchen. No professional kitchen shots here!


Here are our helpers Dylan and Buddy:


Each layer got a generous coating of chocolate frosting.


Then, when all the layers were put together, the entire cake was frosted again. And here are Katie and Lauren with the finished cake. Yummy!



Tomorrow (if I remember...) I will take a picture of the cake when sliced so that you can see all the layers. I also did some baking. I made my first Easter bread today. I remember eating my Grandma's bread as a child, although hers had candied fruit which I did not put in. I hope that mine tastes as good as hers!



Lauren would want me to tell you that she made her famous chocolate chip cookies which are a hit with her boyfriend's family. I finally closed the kitchen at about 7:30 tonight.

A blessed and joyful Easter to everyone!

Tweet tweet!

No, I am not on Twitter. Do you really want to hear that I just had a drink of water or that I am sitting in my family room? All this new technology-it really makes my head swim!

Anyway, I gave up buying fabric for Lent and my projects I am working on need some extras (yes, with all the fabric in my stash I STILL don't have what I need!) so I pulled out an old project. About 5 years ago my wonderful husband bought me this Thimbleberries BOM which was kitted with all 12 months. I made 2 blocks and then put it away. So I pulled it out and started it up again.


What I like about all of Lynette Jenson's patterns are her wonderful directions. Every step is well written and are easy to understand.




I still have 2 circles to applique on this block:

Actually this block below was the most difficult to complete so far. No reason why; it just seemed to have more steps and a couple of my points got chopped off. And it took me 2 days to finish!


4 down and 8 to go!

Now that Lent is almost over, I have been making a mental list of all the fabric I want to buy. This past 40 days has been a good experience however. I am going to TRY to buy just what I need to complete my many works in progress... Or maybe only buy after I have completed a project... Or maybe ... Well I'll just see how it goes...