Not Much

 Not much going on around here. Eat, sleep, work/school, repeat.

Connor's school picture.

I have joined a quilting challenge. It's called "WIPS be gone"

WIP stands for Work In Progress. I have several.

The goal is to finish as many WIPS as you can by the end of the year.

Pretty much my only goal is to finish my village quilt.

Anything else will be a bonus!

The beautiful sunrise from this morning.

The Lil' Fidget Quilt

 

I made a little fidget quilt.

People make fun of Pinterest. I use it for quilting research. I literally have thousands of pins in my quilting board. It's my go-to library. I had lots of information on fidget quilts saved and was eager to make one. It took a couple of weeks to get this whipped up...that's fast for me since I'm at work 40 hours a week. It was fun making this and as usual I learned a lot.

I love making quilts. It's easy sewing. All straight seams. Any other kind of sewing stresses me out! So for this quilt I had to stretch my sewing comfort zone. I learned to sew a pocket, velcro, and a zipper! Things I would have never tried had it not been for my great desire to quilt. I'm still not going to be a seamstress by any means but at least I can say I've sewn a zipper.

This quilt has 25 squares. I loosely followed a free fidget quilt pattern. It has buttons, ribbons, velcro, pockets, flaps, lace, loops, and a zipper. Most of the things I had on hand and only needed to purchase a few items.

Colorful buttons.

The pattern I used had these triangle flaps.

I decided to sew some buttons under a couple of them.

I love the hearts on this lace. I've had this spool of lace forever. It seems to be a never ending spool!

Velcro!

The pattern I followed had some lanyard for tying the rolled quilt closed. I didn't like that so I bought a buckle which I ended up not liking either! I finally decided on elastic which I already had on hand.

The quilt finished at approximately 21 1/2" x 21 1/2"

To my surprise it's quilt #40!

Blooming

Beautiful blooms

Levitating dog

Sneaky snake

Now Loading

I finished this top a few years ago. It may be my oldest UFO to date. (Quilting lingo: UFO - unfinished object.)  You can read about it here. This is probably one of my favorite quilts. I love royal blue! Unfortunately, I had to put it on the back burner so I could make two graduation quilts in two years. I have one "spare" year before I do two more graduation quilts in two years. With that being said, I am now attempting to load it on the hand quilting frame.

 

I say attempting because I pinned the backing to the wrong rail and had to start all over.

Not fun.

I was frustrated with myself and thought that I'd write down the instructions to prevent this from happening again. Upon getting my quilting notebook I discovered my notes from before. This reaffirmed my thought that I had loaded the backing wrong. At least I know how to do it now!

I made myself laugh...go ahead and laugh with me...or at me, if you like.

Armed with my instructions, I proceeded to load the top on it's rail.

It's not difficult but very tedious.

Pinning the quilt top to the leader fabric is the first step.

Then rolling, smoothing, checking, repeat...SEVERAL times.

Once I got the top loaded I decided to give it a rest for the evening.

I had already done this twice by this point...

The loading process will be repeated two more times.

Once for the backing and then the batting.

I'd like to get it loaded and ready before the end of the week.

We'll see.

Quilt Repair Done!

I have finished the quilt repair!

I'm thrilled to have this done.

It took way longer than anticipated but that's OK, I learned a lot.

Repair patches on the backside.

Pin basting a recycled flannel sheet to the quilt.

Instead of removing the old backing I covered it.

This is how the original quilt was made, by adding new layers.

In some places I think I saw two layers inside.

Which is why it's so heavy!

This is the second quilt I have backed from our old moose flannel sheets.

The material proved challenging to pull a thick needle through.

Pliers to the rescue! (Thanks to a tip I read.)

It took about a week to untie and re-tie.

I did the binding in the same fashion as the original by folding the back over to the front.

It took a little over a week to sew the binding down.

Before (bottom) and after (top).

We asked relatives as to when grandma made this quilt.

The best guess was sometime in the 50's.

This is a HEAVY quilt. We dub it the "lead" quilt because of its weight.

I weighed it before I started because I was going to add to it.

It started out at 9 pounds.

It now weighs a whopping 10.8 pounds!

Repaired size:

66" x 78 1/2"

Photo Fun

These sunrise photos were taken with my phone on my way to work (yes, I stop the car).

One of these days I'll take the good camera.

I love the reflection on the car.

I'm not a selfie fan.

Dwayne had sent me a selfie so I sent him one.

I'm sitting at my desk in the drafting office.

The light hitting this door knob caught my attention. So of course I grabbed my camera.

 

I know this makes me weird. I'm ok with that...but look at the light reflecting in rays.

So cool!

These were edited with Light Room.

Food Fun

 Never in a million years would I have thought that I would like cooking and baking. I love making food for the family. Especially foods that are good tasting and safe for Connor to eat and enjoy. I like to tell people that I learned how to cook twice. The second time was learning to cook with food allergies.

I've come a long way!

A few of the things I have made lately, minus the corn dogs and brownies.

Simmering enchilada sauce.

Homemade chocolate glazed yeast donuts.

Chocolate raspberry ice cream cake.

Mint chocolate chip cookies.

The first angel food cake in the new oven.

A happy yolk!

(I didn't make the egg, that's God's doing, but I had to share its smile.)

Homemade stuffed crust pizza.

Homemade quick cinnamon rolls.

Sweet potato pie!

Not only do I enjoy being in the kitchen but I also LOVE cast iron. Why oh why did I wait so long to try it? This is the latest piece we've acquired. It was in an old building on the farm.

It was lead tested and brought back to life.

All ready to use.