Potato Chip Update

You may remember I taught a class in October at quilt guild which culminated with everyone making potato chip quilt tops. 

I’m not sure if I ever showed mine or not. Here’s the blue and green one with the light neutral:

And multi colored with black neutrals:

I love both of them! I have two more I am working on, but they are not as far along yet.

We had show and tell at our November meeting and some of our members had completed their tops. 

Donna had one pieced 

 and another pieced and quilted. 

I think they’re all great, and these quilts are so much fun!

Binding Day

I usually work on binding on Saturdays, but I did the shop hop instead. It was worth it, but I’m now behind on everything. Yesterday I got one quilt and one table runner bound. 

I have two more to do today, and the binding is made and ready to go.

I wanted to go to the local quilt shops and look for some backing fabric yesterday, but it turns out they both closed all week for Thanksgiving. Okay. So much for that idea. I’m going to try to wait until next week instead of ordering online. 

When I got home from my failed quilt shop run, I started working on my Thanksgiving cooking. I cut up the onions and celery and chunked up some leftover bread. I also crushed a couple of sleeves of crackers. I tried to buy giblets when I went to the grocery store, but all I could get was chicken livers. I cooked some of the livers with some chicken backs I bought. 

Look at this beautiful broth! I have three large bowls of it. I will take the meat off the backs this evening and chop up a few of the livers for the dressing. The dogs will get the rest. I think they know…..

They have been on high alert since I started cooking the chicken. I will make cornbread tonight, and then put it all together tomorrow. I also need to boil a dozen eggs tonight for deviled eggs. I’ll make the sweet potatoes on Thursday. It doesn’t take very long.

Shop Hop

Hello friends and Happy Sunday! I had quilt guild Thursday and we had a sew day to make quilts for charity. Cassie finished hers on Thursday,

but everyone else was still plodding along. We decided to go back on Friday and sew some more. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures. I will get a picture of mine today once I finish unloading everything from the car. We meet at Christ the Victor Lutheran church, and we are actually paying for Thursday and Friday, so no problem with using both days. I talked to their church council about lowering our rent next year, and they agreed if we will make them a raffle quilt. Well, no problem with that!  Donna has already donated the top, and I will quilt and bind it. I can’t wait to post pictures here—it’s going to be so pretty! 

I left around 1:30 on Friday, because I knew there was a shop hop going on, and I was having some serious FOMO. I had been telling myself all week I didn’t want to go, but I really did want to. I hit the two Victoria shops on Friday afternoon, and then drove to Ganado (about a 40 mile drive). The shop hop was the Rudy’s Run they do every year. 

Each shop had a free goodie bag with parts and pieces for a table runner. 

Some shops had the strips, one had the border, Two Chicks had the pattern.

I didn’t realize the background wasn’t included in the goodie bags, but no problem, I have light backgrounds I can use. I hope to work on it today. I went to Yorktown and Shiner on Saturday so I was able to get all my stamps and turn in my completed passport. All the shops were selling their Christmas fabric for 25% off. I bought a few, although I’m not sure what I will use it for. Maybe table runners or placemats.

Each shop also had potholder kits made up. I didn’t like the ones at the Victoria shops, but the other three were cute. 

I want to try and get these made today too. We’ll see how much time I have. I want to go to the grocery store this morning before church and get my ingredients for thanksgiving. It turns out I am making dressing for three people (besides my family). My neighbor asked me to make her a pan, and two of my friends also asked. I already have to make dressing for my family, and it’s not any trouble to just make more. I just need to make sure I have plenty of cornbread and chicken broth on hand. 

Midweek Mash-Up

Happy Wednesday! First of all, my mom is doing well. Thanks for the prayers and good wishes, it is definitely appreciated. When she sees the doctor for a follow-up, we’ll find out if/when the blood thinners can be discontinued.

The dogs are going to the groomer this morning. It’s not easy to get harnesses on all three of them and get them in the car, but I would rather get them all done at once. I texted Melanie last night and told her my dogs stink. She will bathe them this morning, and hopefully trim their claws. My dog groomer is also my stepdaughter so I get good service! 

I have been working on customer quilts this week and making pretty good progress. I got two Jacob’s Ladders done for Janice.

The second one has an orange back.

So pretty.

Also, this small one for Penny. 

I am working on some more, but I will need to bind them and that takes a little longer. I have also been working on getting some three yard quilt kits put together for our guild workshop tomorrow. Betty came over yesterday and helped me get everything together. I hope to have pictures soon. 

Another Weekend Already

I can’t believe it’s already the weekend! The week kind of zoomed by leaving me in the dust. Of course, driving back and forth to Sugarland two days left me a little off my routine. My mom is back at home and doing well, so that’s a relief. She had an LAAO procedure which means they implanted a device to seal off the left atrial

appendage which is where blood clots are formed. I hope this will be the last of the heart surgeries. 

I managed to get four customer quilts done in between trips to Sugarland, but I just realized I didn’t take any pictures! LOL! All the time spent waiting at the hospital was an opportunity to surf through all the social media, and I saved some pictures of things I would like to make……..someday.

This is a vintage quilt. 

I don’t know who to give credit to for the photo. Isn’t it pretty? It wouldn’t be hard to duplicate.

Here’s another one. 

I think this picture came from Pinterest. It would also be easy to make with a solid and some 1930’s reproductions.

I want to make this one,

and I have already drafted it out on paper. I think it is the goose tracks pattern. Anyway, I can always entertain myself by looking at quilt patterns and drawing them out on paper. I had taken some yarn and a crochet hook with me, but I’m still not sure my right hand is ready for that much repetitive motion. I am going to try and rest it a little longer. 

A Busy Weekend

Happy Monday friends! 

The weekend was good. I went to Yorktown Friday to pick up my online order. I had bought six one-yard cuts (the ones on the left)

and they were $6.00, so I ended up getting six more. I can always use neutrals, but I prefer to see them in person before I buy them. She also had some of last year’s Christmas fabrics on clearance. I limited myself to three two-yard cuts. The gray one will be a border on a panel I have had for a few years. I like the panels, but I am often stuck on what to do with them. 

This one is a border print.

My plan is to use it for a table runner, but I don’t know for sure. Anyway, quite a bit of fabric for a little over $100, so it was worth the trip. 

My church women’s group had a retreat on Saturday. It was very nice. We had some guest speakers and some good fellowship. One of the ladies did a sound bath. 

It was my first time to experience that. It is actually for stress relief. It’s very calming; almost hypnotic. We also had a workshop on faith journaling. It was led by Melanie, our church secretary. It was like junk journaling with a biblical basis. A couple of the ladies shared their faith journals so we could get ideas. I didn’t take pictures of them, but they are something like this. 

Melanie gave us a package of goodies to get us started. 

I’m really not sure where to start, but I saved my church bulletin from this week and from last week, so I can cut out the Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene Creed. I think a profession of faith would be a good starting place. 

We had a soup and sandwiches lunch. Becky made a hearty pasta fagioli soup.

Becky, Gloria, and I went to the Our Lady of Lourdes fall festival after church on Sunday and ate turkey and dressing. They also had Vietnamese food available, and I bought a plate of that to bring home. I’ll eat it tonight. 

Tomorrow I will take my mom to Sugarland for her heart procedure. They are implanting a “watchman” device in her left atrial aorta. That is where the blood clots typically form, and she should be able to stop taking blood thinners once it is done. It’s amazing what they can do now; of course, they won’t do it in Victoria, so we have to travel. 

Scraps and More Scraps

I was home early yesterday. I had left the shop to run some errands, and they didn’t take as long as I thought they would. Someone had given me a shoebox full of scraps, and it was a good opportunity to get home and get them cut up.

My goal was to add to my potato chip boxes. I did pretty well, but there’s still more to be done. 

I also cut up some black and neutral fat quarters and added those to my other box. 

All the sewing I’ve done lately was depleting my supply, and I like to have a good variety so there aren’t too many duplicates. All the chips I cut are 2-1/2” x 4-1/2”. Some people do other sizes, but I like this size because I can cut them from leftover charm squares if I get too many of those. 

I am thinking of a new project I want to make, but I need to find some spare time to work on it. The last class I went to, I was wishing I had a flat type of bag for my cutting mat and rulers. I could also add the little wool mat in the pictures above. It’s 12” x 15”, so smaller than the cutting mat. My idea is to make something lined with Bosal or soft and stable so my rulers don’t get cracked. I already have a case for the mini iron so I don’t need that. And of course, I have a case (or two or three) for my sewing machine. 

Oh, the house smelled so good when I got home from running errands. I had bought a roast when I went grocery shopping, and I browned it on the stove and then put it in the crockpot with potatoes, carrots, onions, and celery. I cooked it in beef broth and V8. 

I know it looks like a lot of liquid, but I took out 1-2 cups to make gravy. I like to mash up some potatoes and carrots and put the gravy over them. I have enough to eat for a few days and will most likely have to freeze some. It can be thawed out later and used for vegetable beef soup. 

As for today, I am taking a little trip to Yorktown. 

The other day when I was eating lunch, I opened the laptop and started watching Sarah’s “twelve at twelve” on Facebook. She had some sale fabric, and I bought six yards. 😬 I don’t need it, but I can’t resist a good fabric sale. Now I need to go and pick it up. I texted Betty, and she wants to go, so maybe we can get lunch and make a day of it! Tomorrow I have a ladies retreat which is for my church WELCA group. I think it will be fun, and of course there will be food involved!