Food and Swaps

I am catching up on blog posts, so bear with me. This will be a quick one.

I made this tote for the Sew Sew Modern 6 swap.


This is what I'm tentatively working on for the Mug Rug Revival swap.


This is the Valentine's Day Feast I made for my fiance, mom, and cousin: Crown rack of lamb with roasted veggies.


I also made this from an episode (Frontier Fiesta) of the Pioneer Woman show: Tequila lime chicken, refried black beans, and cheesy rice casserole. We loved the chicken and black beans, but the rice was slightly boring. I would rather just make my great grandma's Mexican rice.

Eyeball Finish!

I am frantically trying to finish writing my new lab manual, so I really haven't had much time for sewing. Luckily I did finish my LYoF goal for the month, the eyeball quilt! Original link-up post is over here.


I have also been knitting some postcards for Postcrossing. I have already sent one to someone in Hong Kong, thanks to Postcrossing. I came up with a basic tutorial if you want to make some yourself.


They DO make it through the mail, though you have to drop it off at the post office and pay a little extra because it can't go through the machines and needs to be sorted by hand ($0.70 for domestic, $1.35 for international). I sent one to my friend and she shared this photo with me after it arrived. Thanks, Toni!

Lazy Summer

...Emphasis on the LAZY.

I really am not getting much sewing done these days, but in my defense, I have still been staying busy. People have been coming in to visit from out of town, I'm going to the gym a lot, then spent half the weekend brewing beer and the other half taking care of a sick dog. Yay!

Then yesterday my boyfriend and I decided to drive the 3ish hours to Austin to hear and meet Patrick Rothfuss, an absolutely amazing fantasy author. If you even remotely enjoy fantasy, check his stuff out! Totally worth cramming in 7 hours of driving into a 11 hour period of time because he was so hilarious and charming. Here he is in all his glory!


Ernest Cline, another great fantasy author (or does he count as sci-fi?), stopped by the reading/signing and parked his DeLorean out front for everyone's enjoyment. Here I am full of enjoyment and coffee in preparation for the 3ish hour drive home.


But if we want to look at actual sewing, here is what I have accomplished. Most importantly, progress was made on my goal for the June edition of LYoF. I quilted the veins in the eyeball quilt and luckily I like the way they came out. I say luckily because I ripped and restitched three times before this point. Ignore the reference markings that will [hopefully] wash out.


I also started using my "Rapid Fire Lemoyne Star" ruler that had been sitting on a shelf since I purchased it on New Years day. It makes 8 point stars ridiculously simple. Don't ask what I'm using these stars for, because I have not a clue.


It is supposed to also make them fast. Once I practice a little more and and use it without stopping to read directions, it feels like it will be tremendously quick! But who cares about that, because look at these seams! Thanks, ruler!


On Sunday I was accidentally elected as Vice President of the local homebrewing club. I guess that means it is time for me to finally start wearing a name tag, huh? But my hesitation is not that I don't want people to know my name but in the hatred of a hypothetical plain white tag crudely bescribbled with "Sabrina". For over two years I have been talking about sewing a cute one, but it had to do with beer and designs like that are apparently rare. Then I found this beer at a Whole Foods in Austin yesterday.

Zomg! Art deco hop?!?! SOLD! Have yet to actually taste it, but it is chilling in the fridge. So I tried to brainstorm how quickly I would want to commit seppuku if I tried to applique all the teeny tiny bits. Maybe embroidery is the answer? I'm going to use the space where the beer name was for my name. I already got started stitching the outline. Mine is not that awesome, but maybe with some color it will be. Side note: I now want an art deco hop tattoo.


Then we have some cooking... Let's start with veggie pasta (no, really, the noodles are made of veggies) with more veggies, tons of garlic, and venison summer sausage.


Followed by a recreation of my favorite dish in Hawaii, green bean and spam stir fry with coconut rice. The recipe needs a little tweaking, so I'm not ready to share yet. Sorry.


Aaaand that's it. What have you been up to?

Quilt, Purse, Chickens

Last week I volunteered to donate a quilt for a silent auction. The proceeds from which will go to San Antonio Girls Inc. and their STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) summer programs for girls, which is something I think is desperately needed. Woot! So I wanted to make something moderately sciencey. The only bad thing is that the quilt needs to be done by April 25th, because that is the only chance I have to drop it off. AHH!

I decided to do a gradient of blues to represent astronomical twilight--the time of day when the sun is far enough below the horizon so that stars are starting to be visible. The blues I decided on (in order) are: Michael Miller Cotton Couture in Royal, Bella Amelie Blue, Bella Bright Sky, Bella Little Boy Blue, and Kona Bahama Blue

I wanted the stars to be different sizes and shapes, so I ordered fabric from Fat Quarter Shop on Monday and had it by Wednesday. Yay for living so close to them! By the time I left town for the weekend on Friday, I had this much done. Pretty impressive considering how much grading I had to do. But then not so impressive when you factor in that I didn't work on anything else and had one night of total insomnia where I just kept sewing all night because I wasn't sleepy.


Yesterday was my odd day when I teach from 9-11:30 then not again until 7pm, so in that big gap of time, I finished up the front. Backing fabric was purchased today, so it will get basted tonight and hopefully quilted Wednesday.


Since I had a big gap of time yesterday after the quilt front was finished, I decided to work on a purse. I am in need of a fancy purse since every other purse I have made is covered with crazy fabric. I combined the shape of this bag with the fabric cones from this bag. I am loving the way it turned out! The grey and green are both linen.


Close-up of the cones. It looks frumpy because I didn't have fusible fleece, so I had to settle for FMQ on some regular batting.


And I couldn't resist throwing in some Star Wars fabric since the colors matched so well. My inner nerd is very happy about this.


And continuing with the bright green, we have the now 10 week old chickens! They are huge! Also, they now live outside in a bright green enclosure.


Eight have already gone to their forever homes, so we are left with seven. Four of these are still needing to be re-homed, which will leave us with the three we want to keep.

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.

Spring Break: Part One

I am so thrilled to have a break from teaching for a week! My car is in the shop, so I am stuck at home and have been working hard to maximize my time, which would explain the project riddled, photo-heavy post. I'm going to try and be brief. It would also explain why I'm done with both of my LYoF goals for the month: My Pantone challenge quilt and my STBS tote bag. Both are in this post.

I finished the front of my Pantone challenge quilt. Here is a close-up fabric shot to see the Radiant Orchid-ness. Mmm, shot cotton.


Here is a shot of the whole front. If I have time to quilt it, great, but at least as a front, it is enterable. The top is 48" by 48". Once it is quilted, I am planning on binding it in that green color between the leaves.


I made my first Spoonflower fabric! Woot! You can find it here. It is a 19" x 24" map of Middle Earth. I have uploaded several different orientations and sizes, if you are interested.


I got the panels made and quilted for this round of Secret Tote Bag Swap.


I even finished the tote bag and made it to the post office to get it in the mail before my car went into the shop.


The boyfriend and I made some blueberry cornmeal pancakes. The cornmeal pancake might have been my favorite pancake ever! Recipe is here, but we didn't coat the blueberries in sugar.


I started on my mug rug for the March Mug Rub Revival Swap. I made up a paper pieced pattern for the block and will hopefully release it soon.


We also made a key lime pie and topped it with tequila lime whipped cream. (Recipes here and here)


We also made some spinach, caramelized onion, & mushroom grilled cheeses. I might whip up a recipe post for these.


Then the chickens were 27 days old and I caught a photo of two of them mid-flight.


We also made some Guinness stew and it was amaaaazing. Recipe here.


Then there were the dulce de leche stuffed cupcakes...


That turned into salted caramel cupcakes! Recipe post for these is in the works.


Then the chicks turned 4 weeks old. Here they are looking huge and waiting patiently while we clean their cage.


And here they are in their new cage with a perch! One little lady is even testing the perch out.


And we grew some broccoli.


Pfffew. I'm exhausted. Have you also been busy? If so, what are you working on?

Plenty to do

This month for LYoF, I am going to divide my attention between two main goals. First off we have my Pantone challenge quilt. This is my fabric haul for it. The two left fabrics are solids and the second from the right is a shot cotton. I have never used shot cotton before and I am loving it! I have a design and everything is cut. Stay tuned for progress!


My other main goal for the month is to finish up my bag for the Secret Tote Bag Swap. (Is it cheating is both of these HAVE to be done this month?) This is the main panel I have come up with. It is now trimmed and on its was towards becoming a bag.


While I was working on the boxed corners for the tote last weekend I broke not one...


But TWO needles! Dang. This second one was even a brand new denim needle! There are just so many layers in this bag. I might have been a tad overzealous in my plan. Oh well. With a third needle I was able to get the corners done!


I also served as a pattern tester for TartanKiwi and came up with this lovely badger (pattern is now available for free over here). I named her Constance after the badger in the Redwall books. She is going to be the focal block in a tote bag for a friend of mine who is ironically named Constance. (She goes by Connie and would kill me if she knew I just called her by her birth name!)


In an exciting twist of fate, I actually won something! Something gorgeous! I won all this fabric from Cuts of Cotton! I have no idea what to do with it.


Then of course we have the chickens. They are thriving. Here they are at 11 days old, learning the joys of napping in laps.


Two weeks old.


 Now 18 days old and huge!