Small Quilted Thingamajig Catch-Up Post

I made this for a mini-swap. Not too shabby for my first DWR!


I even liked the way the back turned out.


This was what I made for the spring pillow swap.


I had been desperately wanting to do some low volume EPP... The result made me not so happy. But meh. Luckily it is a potholder so it will be covered with sauce anyways.


Here is the back with the quilting. I also forgot to change the bobbin thread. Meh, all around on this poor potholder.


This was what I came up with for the fall pillow swap...


Back zipper/envelope closure.


Fabric close-up


Then I made a postcard for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Wooo.


This was what I came up with for the Teal Mini Swap for Ovarian Cancer on Facebook. It is a Lone Starburst.


I got a little crazy with my new walking foot. Oooops!


And this is what I'm working on for the winter pillow swap. To be continued...

Begrudgingly Back to Blogging after Bonaire

My sewing machine was in the shop for weeks. I was out of the country and underwater for a over a week. Boyfriend is working 16 hour shifts. With 3 days notice, I took over teaching summer classes, mid-semester.

...These are all moderately legitimate excuses for my lack of blogging enthusiasm. But the truth is: I should be blogging because the only thing actually in my brain is "It's summer and I don't wanna!" Here we go.

Since my sewing machine really was in the shop for weeks, we begin with hand sewing. This is for Mug Rug Revival.




Then I really was out of town and underwater for over a week. Before we left, one of our three hens laid an egg!


Oh gosh, I love Bonaire! This is the view from the dock. Do you see where the water gets darker just past the boats? That's the coral reef! It goes down to about 150'!!!


Oh, and there are wild iguanas everywhere.


If you want to see underwater footage, here is a video Eliott (one of my friends/dive buddies/roomies in Bonaire) compiled with the best of his GoPro footage from the week. The boyfriend and I were the lighting technicians for the octopus footage! This video also has footage of my favorite fish ever, the honeycomb cowfish. It changes color!


If you don't want to watch all of that, and/or want to see more octopus footage and also a slipper lobster (that I spotted!) that didn't make it into that first video, check this one out.


The chickens seemed pretty happy that we were back stateside.


So much so that they even helped me with some hand sewing.


Especially Eglentine. She was all about it and hopped up in my lap in an attempt to help tackle dog-ears.


Then they just wanted to sneak inside and/or wander away.


Oh! Our tomato plants are kicking ass! Clockwise from top left, Red Phoenix, Juliet, Sweet 100, Black Cherry.


Then I made some taco salads to deal with the random leftovers that I found in the fridge upon arrival. All of the tomatoes went into this.


Now that the boyfriend is working 16 hour days, I'm trying to keep him eating well. Dang engineers. Left to his own devices he would live on ramen and cheese. Luckily the pork tenderloin, Greek potatoes, and roasted veggies convinced him to eat real food.

Dresser Runner Finish and More

I finished my Lovely Year of Finishes goal for April: My EPP table dresser runner! I love it! I ended up doing FMQ inside the stars and added 1/4" echo quilting around the stars, by hand.


I love the way it turned out! In case you are interested, the dresser is called Hemnes from Ikea (their solid wood line).


Now that my Hemnes is protected from scratches, I can start covering it with rocks to avoid any accumulation of clothes on top of my dresser. This is my favorite hunk of fluorite!

In case you want to see the progression of this project, here are all the links.
EPP blocks being assembled
Front complete (LYoF goal link-up post)
Basting done
FMQ done
Hand quilting done

I also made progress on the 241 tote I'm making for my secret partner in Super Swaps.


And lastly I am going to leave you with my new plants from the San Antonio Cactus/Succulent show this past weekend. The two on the outside are both Haworthia limifolia var variegata, and the one in the middle is a Haworthia truncata. I had never seen the varigated limifolias before and I was torn between the two but settled on the left one. My boyfriend's mom could tell I was agonizing over making this decision and then second guessing myself once I had made it, so she bought me the one on the right as an early birthday present! Thanks, April!

Cheating on My Sewing Machine

I have been going behind my sewing machine's back and doing other stuff. I did get some sewing done, and some prep for sewing, but you will see where my time has been allocated this past week. Let's start with actual sewing though, shall we?

First off we have some progress on my goal for April LYoF, the completely EPP table dresser runner. I stitched in the ditch to hold everything in place because I still didn't know if I wanted to machine or hand quilt it. Isn't the mark of good stitch-in-the-ditch stitching that you can't see it? If so, I win!


Then I decided to start with a little FMQ inside the stars. Now that I see how this looks, I am definitely going to add some hand quilting as well. Though where? Hmm...


I also solved a huge problem that has been plaguing me for over a decade and a half: COLLARS! I love witty t-shirts but hate collars. They are too tight and chokey, they do not accommodate necklaces, and they just aren't flattering. Over the years I have started purging some of my favorite shirts all because of the collars. That will never happen again! I found this outstanding tutorial and managed to make a fully functional, scoop-neck collar for a shirt I love but was going to get rid of. Yes! I even machine washed and dried it to make sure it held up... And it did! Double YES! Now I get to save all my shirts!


Speaking of things that were machine washed and dried, here's some pre-washed fabric. I never pre-wash fabric, but I'm making a set of fancy schmancy napkins for the house and don't want any warping after the fact so I figured pre-washing might eliminate any uneven shrinking. After my lunchbox napkins had uneven shrinking between the front and back fabrics, I knew something had to be done. Fingers crossed!


Now we get into the major cheating on my sewing machine. I made a necklace! Over the weekend, my boyfriend's parents came into town to see the chickens (and us, I suppose?), and we are all rock-hounds so we went rock shop-hopping. I didn't find any rocks I couldn't live without, but I did find these fresh-water pearls that I loved. Then at the second store, I found the awesome leaf toggle, and a plan was born! I have never made a necklace before, so hopefully it holds up.


It is choker length. Two pictures of me in one blog post; Wowww!


Then we have a shot of the now 8-week old chickies. Seven of them are going to their forever homes this week. That will leave eight: three for us, five to be sold.


Mmm, then we have the cooking. This was balsamic flank steak (recipe here), roasted veggies (combined my recipe with this one) with bleu cheese biscuits (no recipe link because they were boring and awful).


Then some orange beef (recipe here) with my favorite ever coconut rice (recipe here). We made some changes to the orange beef: No jalapeno, no deep frying, used sesame oil for pan frying, used half the corn starch to toss the beef in, then used some later to thicken sauce, after beef was seared we put carrots cooked for a bit, then broccoli, then garlic/ginger/orange/green onion THEN we added sauce  and put the beef back in.


Lastly here is my go-to quiche recipe, caramelized garlic, but this time made with a spaghetti squash crust to make it a tad bit healthier. To make this, I roasted a spaghetti squash as I normally would (Martha Stewart can explain that part better), then mixed the stringy goodness with one egg. I pressed that into a pie pan and baked at 375 for about 15 minutes or until it didn't look so moist. Then I just used it like a regular quiche crust! Taaaadaaaa!

April Fools?

Warning: This post has nothing to do with April Fools Day, other than the date it was written on.

Sometimes I just really need to sew but no one is getting married or having kids, so there is no reason to start a whole quilt (especially since there are 5 quilt fronts hanging out in a drawer with no purpose or home). To satisfy my stitch-craving, I practiced my FMQ for a few hours. Be kind, I'm only used to doing stipple.


Progress has been made on April's LYoF goal (and it is only April first!) and all the paper pieces ripped out of my EPP dresser table runner thingamajig and it is now basted. But now I'm stuck because I don't know if it should be machine or hand quilted. What would you do?


Here's another grocery tote that got whipped up. This one is the designated meat tote, so that never again will a package of bacon touch my yogurt and give me the heebeejeebees. This way it will be tremendously easy to wash it after every trip.


It would appear that black/red was the color combo of the weekend. Here's a teeny tiny wide mouth pouch for holding little things in my purse.


And lastly here's a potholder for the boyfriend's mom.

Nearly Wordless

I decided on my April goal for Lovely Year of Finishes: My EPP table runner for my dresser. It needs the papers ripped out, basting, quilting, and binding.


I EPPed everything on it, just for funsies.


I made some bleu cheese meatballs with Brussels sprouts and couscous.


Finalized my fabric pull for an upcoming project.


And realized that I need to go in a different direction, so this giant pattern is going in the recycling bin and I'm drafting another.


Then we have the chicks at 40 days old eating a banana.


Then 41 days old helping us brew beer. Of course by helping us brew I mean eating the spent grain that was leftover from brewing a Bock this weekend.