Sorting Quilting Books And More

 Hello Quilty Friends!  Over the last few days the stitching has come to a screeching halt as I mull over the ideas for my current project.  This seemed like a good time to go through the quilting books and maybe get an idea or two.

It's not a huge stash of books but it's not small either.  Why do I keep collecting books when I rarely make a quilt from them?  Well, they are fun to look through and you never know when I might decide to actually make one of the quilts.

An entire day was spent looking through each and every book and magazine.   Even this one, my very first quilting book given to me by my mother in law in 1995.  Up to this point I had never seen a quilting book.  All my quilts were designed by me from looking at pictures in magazines like Better Homes and Gardens as I sat in a waiting room waiting to be called for an appointment.

It was pretty common during this time for quilting books to have templates as shown below.  So I didn't use the patterns in this book either.  The rotary cutter was still pretty new to the quilting world but I had seen them on quilting shows on PBS or the Home and Garden channel.  After telling my mom about this amazing new tool, mom and dad gave me my very first rotary cutter, mat and ruler for Christmas.

A few years later(2005) I bought my first real quilting book.  With 101 quilt patterns there would be no need to ever buy another book...HAHA!  Silly me! I made one quilt in this book and went right back to the way I has learned to make quilts, drafting them myself.

In the early days of quilt drafting I would trash my "pattern" after the quilt was finished.  Since 2010 this stack of binders, folders and pads of paper is full of my designs.  Most I've made but there's a few in there that I still need to find time to make.  Not to mention the hundreds, possibly thousands in the EQ program on my computer.

After going through every book and magazine I found a few quilt patterns that caught my eye.  They were laid aside from the rest of the books to be stored in my cutting table.

You all know me and how much I love the color red.  This one looks fairly simple and would work nicely for the summer holidays as well as Christmas.

If the quilt was bed sized it made it to the top of the list.  Smaller throw quilts are great for a quicky but being able to use them on a bed is how I'm leaning most of the time these days.  This quilt was designed using Urban Chiks fabrics.  They are still designing new lines of Christmas fabric every year.  This year their new line is called Kitty Christmas and it's adorable.  The grandkids would love it too.

This one caught my eye because of the gazillion half square triangles of which I have plenty.  About 3 or 4,000.  I've lost count.  Since they are already made, it would make for a fairly quick quilt.  If you missed my post on the leftover HST's, here's a link to the last post about them.

The next one is patriotic and you know how I love a good red, white and blue.  Imagine this in my bright red, white and blues. 

And this one would put a dent in those scrap bins. 

I bought this magazine years ago just for this pattern.  It's easy on the eye but bold at the same time.  Does that make sense? 

And I bought this issue for this pattern designed by Erin Russek from One Piece At a Time blog.  Love, love, love Erin's work.  When and if I make this, I'll enlarge it to queen sized.

Another cutie for the grandkids room.  I'm pretty sure I already have enough HST's to make the border.

Stars, stars and more stars in red!  Again, I saw this pattern and had to have it.  Making it larger enough for a queen sized bed is easy, just add a border or two.  And wouldn't you know it, I have enough fabric on hand to make it right now!  Oh this is how UFO's are made!  Stay on course Lea Anne!  No new projects, just ideas.

Fly Into Spring is an Eleanor Burns pattern.  Who doesn't love Eleanor?  She's one of the reasons why I'm here today.  By here I mean totally obsessed with quilting.  She's also the reason there's always scraps on the studio floor.  Not tossing my scraps over my shoulder is a hard habit to break.  Tell  me I'm not the only one who does this from time to time....PLEASE!

In 30+ year of quilting I've never made a log cabin quilt.  I've made a few blocks for a border, but never an entire quilt.  It has some HST's and applique to give it a little WOW.  I think it would be super cute in my happy bright fabrics, don't you?

Well looky here, another star.  Now to find the right fabrics.  I think I'm going to try to make it exactly like this one.  Normally I don't care for the color purple but it makes this quilt shine.  

This is a bucket list quilt.  If I started making the applique today maybe I'd have all of them made in a few years....HAHA!  A gorgeous simple design with a lot of pieces.  This is another I would try to make exactly as shown.

It's fun to dream about the quilts that may someday be but for now they are are just a dream and stored away in a basket under my cutting table.  It's easy access for when and if I take a notion to start something new.

Right now there's weeds to be pulled and more veggies to harvest.  This week I made some dill relish.

And  some cucumber bread which taste pretty much like zucchini bread.  Cucumbers have a little more flavor than zucchini and that flavor shines through just a bit if you omit the cloves in this recipe like I did because I thought it would be too much.  Next time I put them in to see if it hides the cucumber taste.  Mr. Podunk said it was good with the hint of cucumber.

Yesterday I harvested tomatoes and made salsa.  Before stepping foot in the Studio today there's zucchini's to process.  I can't decided if I should make zucchini bread to freeze or cut up the zucchini and freeze them to be used in stir fry.  Of course the quilting side of me says cut them, freeze them and quilt!  Hmmm......

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A Small Peek Inside My Quilt Designing

Hi Quilty Friends!  The good news is all the quilt block applique has been stitched in place on all the blocks. YAH!   

The not so good news for me is it took forever because I kept playing around with sashing and border ideas.  Fabric was pulled from the scrap bins, auditioned and rejected many times.  Sometimes I didn't even bother to take down the previous fabric as shown by the green arrow below.  So many photos were taken of the ideas.  Way too many to share.  You're getting just a few highlights of my crazy brain.  Getting to deep in this crazy mind of mine is overwhelming and might crash my blog.

What if this and what if that has been the theme over the last few weeks.  Have you noticed in these pictures that the applique isn't on the blocks?  Yes, the craziness started almost as soon as the UFO came out of storage and on the wall.

The original plan for the quilt border is on the left.  I've made a smaller version of this quilt way back in 2014 or 15.  Well, I made a quilt top.  I thought it had been quilted it and given to my daughter.  After digging through my blog and not finding a finished quilt, I dug through my UFO quilt tops and found it hiding there.  More on that quilt at a later date.

For now the what if game continues for border ideas along with many Google and Pinterest searches looking for ideas.  This is my process, always has been.  Not only do I do this here on the design wall but it also spills over to the EQ program.  33 different quilt designs for this quilt!  Some have only slight changes but they are all different in some way.  And none of them suit my fancy.  Below is after a shopping trip last week.  I found a great deal on some slightly different gingham.  Only two of the ginghams are shown here.  I bought four.  Two full bolts and two "give me what's left on the bolt".  Got to love Joann's sales.  $2 a yard!!

Anyway back the quilt and my crazy process.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining.  Just sharing what goes on behind the scenes and in my quilt designing.  Last night I decided to clear off most of the mess on the design wall, sleep on it and start fresh today.

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Working Through The Uh-Oh's

Hi quilty friends!  The applique is ready to go!  Whoohoo!  I love the look of applique on a quilt but the process of making it is tedious.  One of these days I'm going to do a timed test to see if raw edge is really quicker than turned edge.

Uh-oh...When I designed this quilt block I didn't add the flower and star to the applique template sheet.  No worries, I'll use the one finished block as my template.

The finished block was taped to the light box and then this happened.  Uh-oh...The original block applique is a different size.  All of my pretty freshly cut posy applique are too small.

Uh-oh...All the shiny little stars are too big.  How did this happen?  Who knows.   There's only one thing I can do about this situation.

Use them anyway.  The block on the left is the original block, the one on the right is the one with the wrong sized pieces.  Sure, it's noticeable, but would you have noticed if I hadn't told you.  Especially if it were in the finished quilt.  I guess we'll find out when the quilt is finished and I share it with someone who doesn't know about the issue.  That's right I'm pressing forward with the quilt.  It's just a quilt and no quilt is perfect.  I've yet to find one, even at quilt shows.  I can find a flaw in every prize winning quilt.

The basket handles were turned edge applique and were stitched in place with Mono-Poly invisible thread.  This raw edge applique will be stitched with the same thread.  The auto threader on my sewing machine does not like this thread so I have to manually thread the needle. Uh-Oh...Even when wearing my glasses it's hard to do. I can barely see the thread or the needle hole.  Somedays are worse the others. I could see the thread and needle hole just fine the other day but now I can't.

 

Thankfully my brain isn't as bad as my eyes and I remembered someone sharing this tip years ago.  They said to lay the tip of the thread on a piece of paper.  Trust me it's there, I can feel it but I can't see it.  Can you?

Next, use a black marker to paint the tip of the thread.  As you can see it took a bit of scribbling before I could see the thread.

Magic!   I can now see it well enough to thread my sewing machine needle.

Well, there's one more trick to share.  See the white behind the needle?  That is white electrical tape taped to the foot.  White behind the needle makes the eye easier to see.  That's another tip I heard somewhere.  My machine used to have white on this area but over time it has discolored and worn off.  Painting it white would have worked but the tape was a quick fix.  Someday I'll repaint it...when I run out of white electrical tape, HAHA!

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No Sew Day

 Hi Friends!  Yesterday was a full day of kitchen work.  First on the list of things to do was to add more cucumbers to the refrigerator bread and butter pickle jar.  Mr. Podunk loves pickles, so every year as soon as our cucumbers ripen a new batch of these pickles are made.  As he eats them I just keep adding cukes and onions to the brine.  If you like bread and butte pickles but don't like to home can them, this is the recipe for you.  Click here to go to the video recipe,

After making the beds, eating some breakfast and a few other odd house chores it was time to pick wild blackberries.  Mr. Podunk picked half of these two days ago.  We get about half of that  bucket every other day.  

Of course with the first picking I always make a cobbler.  So half of the berries were made into a cobbler.  As it cooked in the oven it was time to freeze the rest of them on cookie sheets.  

It was early enough in the day that they would be frozen and ready to package up before bedtime.  While I waited for the cobbler to finish cooking I whipped a two small meatloaf for dad and Mr. Podunk.  They will go in the oven when the cobbler is done.

As cobbler is cooling on the stove and the meatloaf is in the oven  I emptied the dehydrator and reloaded it with more sliced hot dogs.  Yes I'm dehydrating hot dogs.  These are for the our German Shepherd, Khaleesi.  It's cheaper and healthier than store bought dog treats. 

A three pound package of these hot dogs costs $4.58.  I buy 4 of these at a time.  They will last four to six weeks.  Sometimes longer.  The total process to dehydrate 12 pounds of hot dogs takes three days.

It takes about 24 hours for them to dehydrate at 145 degrees.  And let me tell you, the entire house smells like hot dogs.  

Here's the first batch.  I'll need another jar on the third day/third batch.

They are nice and crunchy and safe for humans if you like dried out meat. I do not!   I've never like any type of dried meat.

The meatloaf came out of the oven and was cooling when I noticed my Instant Pot was getting close to the 24 hour mark.  Inside is homemade yogurt.  Mr. Podunk has had yogurt almost everyday for the last 6 or 7 years.  Why?  Gut health.  He had a bad gut infection a few years ago.  The doctor told him the best way to keep it from coming back was to eat yogurt everyday.  Since 2020 and inflation I've been making my own yogurt in the Instant Pot every two weeks.  The cost is the price of a gallon of milk.  If I were to buy the yogurt it would cost $18.

After folding laundry, playing with the dog and eating a quick supper it was time to strain the yogurt.  This too takes a little time.  I'll let them set on the counter for a bit then will go into the fridge overnight.

Next was to check on the veggie garden.

Not much to pick.  Just a few jalapenos, one small squash and a few tomatoes.

We have a bunch tortilla chips and yellow tomatoes leftover from the 4th of July gathering so I decided to make a fresh batch Salsa with my leftovers and fresh pickin's.

How do you like my fancy recycled jar?  Yep, I'm just as cheap in the kitchen as I am in the sewing room.  I save all store bought jars for home canning emergency water.  As long as the lid has a rubber ring and a button on top, they can be reused.  Yes, I know our government says you can't reuse this type of  jar but it's not the first thing they've lied about.  I've been doing it all my life because I learned it from my mom and granny.  These jars will reseal every time.  The lids are better than the Ball lids for canning jars.  I've even used them for pressure canning without issue.  "They" say these jars are not thick enough and will explode or crack.  The only jar I've ever had break in my canner is a Ball jar.  And it was brand new, first time use.  I'm not saying you should start canning in these jars.  I'm just telling you I'm a rebel and like to take chances.

By this time it's was getting late, about 8:30pm.  I checked the berries and they are ready to vacuum seal and store in the freezer.

The last thing to do before calling it a day is freeze some pumpkin for the Khaleesi.  Pumpkin is good for dog tummy troubles.  If you see your dog eating grass it means they have tummy trouble.  She does this occasionally.  I think it's because she eats animal poo from time to time.  I know, gross.   But a dogs gonna do what dogs do.  Just one little frozen scoop of frozen pumpkin settles her stomach.  This one can of pumpkin will last about six months to a year.  We give them to her even when doesn't feel bad. She love them.  By now you might have figured out we don't buy dog food.  I make all of her food.  She eats a raw dog food diet.  It's cheaper and healthier than the so called better dog kibble.  I make a months worth at a time and store it in the freezer.

I just made a batch last week.   This is one frozen dog meal.  It's thawed when she eats.  We love our girl and want her to live her best life.  She was not so loved before.  Mr. Podunk was against feeding her a raw diet until I showed him the math.  It's $10 cheaper a month.  Not much of a price difference but the health benefits are amazing.  

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