Irish Chain and Other News

I don’t mean to sound like a broken record, but the heat is horrible. Almost every day is 100 degrees or higher, and we need rain so badly. The ground is dry and as hard as concrete.

 I am praying for rain, but there is none in our 10-day forecast. I have been running the sprinklers every other day on the foundation, so my flower beds look pretty good. My desert rose is blooming again, and has more buds.

As far as my Irish chain quilt, I still need some more pink + jellyroll pairs, but I am continuing to sew them as leaders and enders. Melva posted the Week VI clue a few days ago which is the instructions for assembling the blocks. Unfortunately, I didn’t bother reading the directions until last night and already started doing mine differently. If you know me, this won’t come as any surprise! It’s the same principle, just a little different. I visualized it this way:

A nine patch with the pink four patches comprising one patch, and the white/scrappy squares making another patch, and of course, the pink centers. It is working, but I am not sure the pressing directions are going to work. I think they should…..

I sewed a couple of blocks together to see how it would look.

I like it! I can’t wait to get some more done. I saw another version on Pinterest that had black and white with scraps. No instructions, but it would be easy to figure out from the picture. I am putting it on my “to do” list. 

Speaking of to-do lists, I have been doing some projects for our quilt guild sale and our church craft sale. In other words, I am doing multiples of everything. I will post pictures tomorrow if I can remember to take some.

I finished the second baby afghan,

and started on a third one. I will have to see how I do on time. I can either sew or crochet but cannot do both. I can crochet small things like dishcloths or washcloths when I am waiting in the pickup line at my grandson’s school, but I don’t always remember to take something with me. We went to Dairy Queen after school today for a blizzard. He had a blizzard; I didn’t. There is about 1000 calories in one, so not on my diet. It won’t hurt him. I noticed yesterday when I picked him up from football practice that he was one of the skinniest boys on the field. I wouldn’t mind fattening him up a little. 

Lost and Found

Maybe I should say “Lost and Replaced”. I have a friend who literally finishes every quilt she starts. I start a lot, but don’t always finish. Or more likely, I finish them, but it takes me a few years. My friend reminded me I didn’t finish the quilt I started last year for the church auction. She told me to quit procrastinating and get it done. I dug it out and realized I’ve misplaced four blocks.

Oh my heavens! I looked and looked and can’t find them. I spent about half a day looking, and then realized it would be quicker to remake them. Oh, I didn’t want to. I wasn’t wanting to dig out all the fabric and cut enough pieces to get a good variety. I finally made myself do it Sunday evening.

What a total pain. But now that they are done, I can get all the rows put together and start on the borders. 

Weekend Sewing

Well, that was a fast weekend. Fortunately, I was able to check a few things off my list. I was able to get all my tax paperwork put together and got it delivered to the CPA’s office on Friday morning. That is definitely a load off my mind. My a/c had gone out again on Wednesday evening, and the technician was able to come by on Thursday evening and get it fixed. He has assured me that everything that might fail has been replaced this year. We’ll see. 

As for sewing, I have been working for a few months on making some large nine patches.

I’m using the same centers in all of them and the same background fabric so there is some continuity. 

My goal is to make enough to do another disappearing nine patch. I know, I know, I never thought I would make another one. I made so many back in the day, I got really tired of them. I think I can make a large-size quilt from 36 blocks. I was doing these as leader/enders, which I really prefer a smaller block as a leader/ender so I finally decided to take stock of what I had and get all the blocks made.

Here they are: 36 big nine patches. I still need to cut them up and reassemble them. That will happen soon. I will use the same layout as this one.

If you are a regular reader, you may remember this one was donated to Christ the Victor Lutheran Church for their raffle.

In the meantime, I need a new leader/ender project, and I’m using LaLa’s Irish Chain for that for now. The latest clue is two patches with the jellyroll fabric and the main color.

These are fun, and I’m enjoying them, but if I want to keep up with the clues, I probably can’t keep doing this as a leader/ender. Oh well. Also, I need 288 of these, and I’ve only done about 30. 

I’m also working on the quilt I want to make for my church auction, and it’s been one thing after another. I’ll write more about that later.

School has started, so I’m busy with grandchild pickups. I don’t have to do it everyday—only when mom is working, so it’s not too bad. About three days each week. We had a back to school bash at church yesterday. Blessing of the backpacks during service, and hotdogs and hamburgers after church. I went home and took a nap and ended up sleeping three hours! Needless to say, I was up late last night! 

This and That

I’m going to try and do a quick blog post on some of the things I have been working on. First and foremost, is income tax. I detest doing it and put it off each year as long as I possibly can. I have piles of paper everywhere, but it is finally done. I’ll take everything to the CPA on Friday. 

In between paperwork, I finished putting the binding on Marian’s quilt.

I quilted it with an antler design, but unfortunately, it doesn’t really show up on the busy fabric. The back is a really pretty foliage print with deer on it. 

My latest baby afghan is nearing completion size.

I don’t have a definite size in mind, but I think it needs 6-8 more rows, and then I’ll lay it out and look at it again. You can see the dye lots on the two skeins I’ve used so far don’t quite match. That’s a shame, but I’m not planning to rip it out. 

I took two Lutheran World Relief quilt kits home to work on. They have plenty of people to do ironing and cutting, and even the tacking, but not too many can actually sew, and they were asking for help. I had time last weekend to get one pieced, and I ironed it Monday and returned it Tuesday.

Easy piecing, and it’s 60” x 80”, so big squares. I’ll get the second one done soon.

There have been a lot of tutorials on YouTube about making baskets out of dish drying mats. I have been buying them when I see them on sale but never got around to making anything until this week.

The sizes on the mats aren’t always uniform so the baskets aren’t the same size. They are cute little baskets, I can think of a lot of uses for them, but I probably won’t keep them. I’m trying to come up with donation items right now, and that’s where these will go. I’m not sure what price to put on them. I’ll have to look around and see what they are selling for.

Chickpea Noodle Soup

Edit: I made the soup, and it is so good. I will definitely make it again and again. I ended up using what I had instead of making a trip to the store so mine had a couple of changes. Instead of chickpeas, I used two cans on cannellini beans, drained. I used chicken broth instead of vegetable broth, and I added a bag of fresh spinach I had in the refrigerator. Everything else is the same.

Even though it’s not really “soup weather” yet, I’m happy I tried out the recipe!

This recipe caught my eye.

Actually, the picture caught my eye. It looks so good. It’s “plant-based”, so a vegetarian meal, but I think you could add chopped ham or even sliced link sausage if you wanted to. I think I will make this soup one day this week. I will need to go by the store and get a can of chickpeas (garbanzo beans). I have been eating a little lighter in the evenings because of the heat, and soup with protein, pasta, and veggies would be a good choice. 

Here’s the recipe: https://theplantbasedschool.com/chickpea-noodle-soup/?fbclid=IwY2xjawTkp_ZwZG9mBWV4dG4DYWVtAjEwAGJyaWQRMU9ZZ3N5RE95dzZjTUNIN2FzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeHaMVwGULvkycDzR2yCDvvTwYNjXO8Wp4ivgWMFnRTBsl2wKuiP3cttCxlUg_aem__4U_90KPoPPAFbH4zliXYw

Double Irish Chain

Except for a couple of setbacks, I had a good day yesterday. I got up early and went to exercise class. This is what the sky looked like when I left the house. 

Well, not much came out of it. In the afternoon it sprinkled a little and that was it. The cloudy skies did keep the heat down some, so that’s a welcome relief.

In my spare time, I have been working on LaLa’s Irish Chain. A little at a time, but I’m getting there. I got in a hurry a few nights ago, and made some mistakes. 

I went through the pile and fixed anything that wasn’t sewn correctly. I need 32 of the large squares with the frames around them, and I’ve managed to do 22. 

I’m using white with 1930’s repro prints. I normally use an off white with the 1930’s, but I was trying to not buy anything. 

I was trying to lay them all out, but I had too much interference.

So I have 10 more to do. I have all the big squares cut, but I will need to cut out more of the frame rectangles. Once I get the last 10 squares framed, I can move on to the next clue. Right now, I am only one clue behind which is better than I expected. 

Two Quilts and a Recipe

It’s a little too hot for comfort. I am watering the outside plants every other day, and I’m not sure it’s enough. There are a couple I need to give up on and throw away. According to the weather forecast, next week should be a little better. There are no days above 93 degrees forecasted. In the meantime, we could sure use some rain. My starfish cactus is blooming again, plus has two more buds that haven’t opened. It’s so unusual. 

It’s good weather to stay inside and quilt. I was able to put the binding on one of Marian’s quilts. 

It was one Joycelynn started for her son before she passed away, and Marian finished the top. The back is pieced.

I finished quilting one for Martha. I think it’s one of the prettiest quilts I have quilted.

The backing fabric was the inspiration for the colors in the top.

It’s pretty big—92” x 109”.

I had bought some imitation crab at the grocery store, and I didn’t really like it.

I buy the boiled shrimp a lot and really like it, but the crab not so much. I decided to chop it up and make some crab salad.

I also chopped up some fresh parsley and celery and added it. I can’t really give you an amount, but about a quarter cup of each. I also finely chopped a stalk of green onion. You don’t need much, but it adds a little flavor.

I didn’t use all mayonnaise—I mixed mayo with nonfat Greek yogurt to cut the calories. I added enough to moisten the crab and added a pretty generous amount of Old Bay Seasoning and Morton season salt.  It is so much better than the plain crab legs! So not really a recipe, but an effort to use up something I didn’t think I was going to eat. 

I’m still doing weight watchers and this was pretty low in points. I counted one point for the mayo and three points for the crackers.