Headed to the Northland

As soon as we finish the last of the packing we are headed to the "Northland" as Tom calls it. That means Iowa. It will be great seeing family and attending a big family reunion on Saturday. Probably won't have access to a computer during that time, so I'll catch you all next week!

Happy quilting!

This & That

Finally....a finished project!! Yesterday afternoon I decided I needed something quilted to donate to the auction at our family reunion next Saturday in Iowa. This will be the first time in many years that this particular branch of our family has had a reunion. Last I heard over 150 people planned to attend. We are going to have an auction to raise money for future reunion expenses (the reunion itself is being held at the auction house owned by a family member). It should be fun.

This will be my donation, another of my silk flower and tulle wall hangings. These go together so quickly. I need to make up several more examples as I'm going to be teaching a workshop on making these for our guild next January.

I love using metallic thread to highlight, especially in a fall leave project like this one.

And I have a new favorite recipe. My quilting friend, Betty, made these for our guild's potluck dinner last Monday. They are SOOOOOOOOOOO GOOD....and so simple to make! I made two pans to take to church for coffee fellowship yesterday and everyone loved them. I know what I'm taking to the family reunion next Saturday too!

APPLE DUMPLINGS

2 cans crescent rolls
1 apple cut into 16 wedges (2 apples if you like thicker slices but you may have to bake longer)
2 sticks butter
1 1/2 cups sugar (I cut back to 1 cup and it is still plenty sweet)
1 tsp cinnamon ( I use a little more)
8 oz Mountain Dew (do not use 7 up or Sprite)

Wrap one apple wedge in crescent roll. Tuck ends under. Place them in a 9 x 11 baking dish. Melt butter. Remove from heat. Stir in sugar and cinnamon. DO NOT melt sugar. Spoon over crescents covering each as best you can. Pour in Mountain Dew around and between crescents. Bake 30 to 40 minutes until apples are done

Enjoy!!!!

Finally, Tom and I received a couple of siggies Friday from Ans in The Netherlands. It was hard deciding who got which block since they are both so pretty. I took the bird.

I'm still making good progress on the hand quilting on my Dutch Treat. Another 12 blocks or so and I'll have the center half quilted. I also finished piecing all the blocks for the dark version of Remembering Grandma and set them together. My ideas for a border are still percolating, so no picture yet.

I'm off to Ft. Scott this morning to have a "secondary cataract" on my right eye lasered off. It's actually a small capsule that sometimes forms after cataract surgery. A simple procedure and I should be home by mid-afternoon.

Happy quilting!

Checking In & Noodles

Man..I don't know what's happening these days, but time seems to be just flying by...one week after another, and I still haven't finished a quilting project in nearly 2 months now! Something needs to give and I'm not sure what that is!

I've been working on the hand quilting of my Dutch Treat in the evenings and have finished the first section of 5 rows. I added two more and have a start on that. When these 7 rows are done it will be half finished (aside from the borders). My left hand is really acting up, especially the base of my thumb and I hope to get some relief for that when I go for a doctor's visit on Thursday. Time to get my flu shot. Tom got his last week. Hope you all have done the same!

This is another busy week. Monday morning Tom and I went over to lend a hand to the noodle making process at church. Our monthly chicken and noodle dinners begin Wednesday. Doesn't seem like it should be time for them to start, but sure enough it's October!

I couldn't resist snapping some pictures of this amazing process. 19 people were involved this week and 33 dozen eggs were used to produce the noodles.

Three ladies in the kitchen mixing up the balls of dough in the food processor.

The rest of the crew using 4 noodle machines to process the dough and then cut the noodles.
A few more involved with the hanging process. Aren't these clever racks? That's Tom on the right....a hanger in training.

After about 3 hours the racks are filling up. That's our pastor getting involved as well.

Finally Herb went around with a pair of scissors to neatly trim the noodles that were dragging on the table.

Isn't this an interesting view looking through the noodles? I think so anyway!

They hung to dry until today when people went back to back them. This should be enough for this Wednesday's dinner, plus some bags of dry noodles to sell. We also keep some extra bags in the freezer for funeral luncheons. Next month the process will be repeated.

After lunch with the noodle crew, Tom and I came home and spent a couple hours putting together a veggie lasagna for last night's covered dish dinner at quilt guild. It was my last night as program chair and I'm sort of relieved to have that job behind me. This year I'll be project co-chair, which won't involve much work aside from trying to decide what to do next year when I'm project chair.

Today was a trip to a neighboring town with Tom for a doctor's appointment (his). Tomorrow I'll be baking pies in the morning and he'll be helping de-bone chicken for the chicken and noodles. Then we'll both head over about 2:00 to get set up for the dinner.

Thursday I have a doctor's appointment and I'm hoping Friday has absolutely nothing I need to do except look forward to spending the evening with a young quilter who wants to learn to needleturn applique.

Hope you are all getting more quilting done than I am!

Oh..almost forgot....I recieved a very pretty siggie from Riek last week. And she also sent several extra embroidery motifs that I can add to something else. Thank you, Riek!

Another Giveaway

My friend, Geta, is not only one of the most talented quilters I know, she is also one of the most generous. Check out her new monthly giveaway.



I've put a button in my sidebar too.

Dutch Treat Quilting

My friend, Crispy, wanted to see progress pics of the quilting on my Dutch Treat quilt. She's a master hand quilter and even in my best dreams I'll never reach that level, so I hesitate to even share these.

I'm definitely not a hand quilter! And I can't quilt well in a frame, especially something like these little blocks which require lots of frequent, tiny direction changes. I'm quilting small sections (this piece has five horizontal rows) at a time and in my lap. This allows me to continually turn the piece to outline all these tiny shapes.

First I quilted in the ditch around the sashing. Now I'm going around all the shapes, keeping the quilting always in the white fabric. These blocks are 4" finished, so some shapes don't have very much room left for quilting between the shapes. That means I'm often quilting not only through both layers of top fabric (none of the blue is trimmed away so that the shadowing is even) but right through the turn under allowance of the reverse applique. The end result is that I'm most often quilting through five layers total. Hard to keep stitches small and even, especially for a novice hand quilter like me.

But I'm enjoying the process as I work on this in the evening while watching TV. And over all I think I'm going to be happy with it. I'll have a real sense of accomplishment I hope.

While I'm sharing progress pics...here are some blocks I've made over the last month for a darker version of "Remembering Grandma". I'm mostly using Civil War repros.

We've received over 4" of rain in the last day and a half. I hope it's done now. Lots of flooding in the area and our police officer granddaughter has had to deal with accidents and stranded motorists. We pray she and everyone stays safe.

New Siggie

Still not a lot of sewing going on here, except for the hand quilting happening at night as I SLOWLY work on my Dutch Treat quilt. But I did receive a new siggie from Jeannine in Belgium last week. The butterfly would certainly head for these pretty flowers. Thank you, Jeannine.

First Friday Freebie

Kaaren, at The Painted Quilt, is offering to share some fabulous new designs, with a new pattern appearing the first Friday of each month. I've added a button to my sidebar to remind us. You'll enjoy visiting her blog the rest of the month as well!

Purging

That sounds kind of nasty..especially since I've been sick. But the purging going on at our house today is the good kind. It helps that I watched two episodes of "Hoarders" on A&E the last two evenings. That gave me the extra incentive I needed to do some serious cleaning in our garage and back porch. We had a new garage door installed today, so yesterday we started sorting through some totes with the goal of reducing the amount of stored "stuff". If you have a hard time parting with things, you need to watch this show..it will scare you to death!

I'm happy to report we have emptied about 7 or 8 large totes so far, have 5 or 6 that will go to a worthy recipient tomorrow. Whew..........that's a lot of STUFF! Most of it was Christmas decorations (I had at least 8 totes full, even after offering carte blanche to my kids and grandkids a couple years ago), other holiday stuff and crafting supplies. We also took several bags of things to the thrift store. Feels good. The back porch is empty for the first time in years!

In the process I opened the Halloween decorations and Tom thought a few needed to come out for a few weeks. He always loves having Trixie lounging around the living room. She used to go to work with him and even made a trip to Minnesota with me once. She sure gathered a lot of looks riding down the interstate in the passenger seat! I made her sometime in the mid 1990's I suppose.

While I'm digging out picures, here are a few more Halloween crafts I've made over the years.

Trick or Treat Girl

All of the rest of these are original patterns..well not even patterns..I just made them up as I went along.

Skinny Witch

"If The Broom Fits.......Ride It!"

Another Skinny Witch

I've lost track of how many "Boos Brothers" I made and sold..but quite a few! Recyled chenille.

I saw something similar to this in a magazine and came up with a pattern for my own version.

Happy Fall Y'all!

Catching Up

Hard to believe it is Friday already and I haven't posted anything in days.

Last Sunday was our first annual (we hope) church picnic. We had a great turn out, lots of fun and gorgeous weather.

I call this picture "How Many Methodists Does It Take To Turn On The Power?"

Tom had a try at karaoke.

Kids and adults all loved the cake walk.

On Monday Jeff and Deb drove down from Iowa for a quick visit. Tuesday Mark and Stephanie drove over from Missouri. The guys went golfing and later we had a spaghetti supper then played Polish Rummy.

Jeff and Deb celebrated their first anniversary Sunday. I'm so happy they were willing to drive 400 miles each way to spend a day with us. They headed back home Wednesday. We wish them many, many more years of happiness.

Since then I've been nursing a cold or something. Lots of coughing, etc. but no fever so I'm treating it with fluids and rest.

Doing a little hand quilting on the Dutch Treat in short spurts.

My apologies for the less than exciting post..but it's sort of reflective of how I feel. LOL.