Quilt, Bag, Meal [+Recipe]

If this post seems random, blame the three cups of coffee I had today. Both my body and brain are twitchy. I never consume caffeine so three cups in one day is nuts.

I finally made a quilt for myself, and actually completed it! I splurged and had it professionally quilted knowing that I would see all the flaws if I quilted it myself. This way, I will never see them. Woot! Super Swoon! I am loving the focal fabric!!

And here it is: Finished and spectacular! Ps, I have already napped under it! Since I live in south Texas and we are having heat indices of 106+, I had to really crank up the a/c for said nap. It is 64" x 64" and I am short enough that it works as a quilt, but if I get too snuggly, my toes stick out the end.

Here is the fabric I used for the back. It is from Connecting Threads.

I also tried a new bag pattern: The One Piece Bag by Fig Tree & Co. It was pretty easy, but mine isn't even close to perfect. It doesn't look too bad, though. :)

This was my first time to successfully install a magnetic closure!! I'm spweeeeing with pride!

I also worked on cleaning out my fridge. You know how that goes: "Hmm, this is about to go bad. What can I make out of it?" I ended up with Brussels sprouts, one potato, an onion, and eggs. Well, I always have eggs since I have chickens, but still. I decided these things could be put to use as a hash.

Side note: I'm on a quest to find a way to prepare Brussels sprouts so that everyone who hates them will like at least one recipe.

While working on the hash, I decided poached eggs would be a wonderful addition to this dinner for breakfast concoction. Then it dawned on me... I don't know how to poach eggs! That could have been problematic. Not to fear! I watched a Martha Steward tutorial and built up the confidence to try.

Sadly the first one came out disastrous. It would soon become dog food. Really though, it wasn't too bad considering it was the first egg I had ever poached.

I decided to give myself one more try before giving up since I have two spoiled dogs and they wouldn't want to share an egg.

If this one failed, I would switch to a different type of egg preparation and have two happy puppies. These are my puppies: Bear & Fritz. Bear is the rat terrier mix and Fritz is the wirehair dachshund terrier mix.

 Miraculously, it turned out okay! Mmm, the yolks from my backyard chickens look so dark orange.

Then it occurred to me that the first egg I used came from Hyacinth. She lays light brown eggs. This is Hyacinth. She is a Barred Plymouth Rock.

The second egg I used (the one that turned out!) was a blue egg. Violet is the little lady who lays the blue eggs. This is Violet, an Ameraucana.

Not wanting to leave anything to chance, I used another Violet egg for the third poached egg attempt. No, I do not usually sort eggs by chicken, but it looked prettier for the picture this way. 

Poor little Rose. She lays the dark brown eggs that were neglected in this endeavor [and almost in this blog post!]. This is Rose, my Rhode Island Red.

Surprisingly, the third try at poaching an egg turned out just as well as the second (my poor dogs were forced to share an egg. The horror!). Also, this is what the hash turned out like. What a delicious breakfast for dinner meal! Mmm.

The hash was super easy. Here is a basic recipe. I made it up as I went, so you should experiment as this is merely a guideline. Add different veggies or spices. Go crazy and have fun with it!

Brussels Sprout Hash Recipe

Ingredients

• one potato, grated
• 7-10ish Brussels sprouts, chopped
• Half an onion, chopped
• A few cloves of garlic (# depends on your love of garlic), minced
• 1 Tbsp. olive oil
• Salt & pepper to taste

Directions

1. Heat olive oil in pan. 
2. Add potatoes, Brussels sprouts, onion, & garlic to pan.
3. Sautee until potatoes are nice and cooked. I think crunchy is the standard for hashes.
4. Salt and pepper to your taste. 
5. Serve and enjoy!

Two Quilts: Done and Done!

Happy Fourth of July! Before I talk about quilts, let me share my holiday plans: My boyfriend and I are celebrating by brewing beer and making cheese. Yess! The feta is already draining, and the brewing will begin as soon as I finish this. [Must hurry!!] Here is the wad of feta draining in cheesecloth.

I finally finished two quilts that had been put on a back burner. They are a baby quilt and big sister quilt for the two kiddos of my friends, Jeff and Sonya. I had both of the tops finished a good while back, but was held up on the quilting because I couldn't find true white batting that I was happy with for the girl quilt. I could have used cream, but there is just so much white and it seemed better this way. I finally found some. Then I ran out of spray basting and no one in town stocked the kind I like. That was a huge ordeal.

But this week I found myself with everything needed to finish the quilts. So I finished them! Let's start with Ray's baby quilt. It is just a whole bunch of HSTs used to make a chevron/leaf sort of pattern. I usually try to make baby quilts bigger than normal baby quilts so they can be used for longer. This one is 49 by 56 inches. I love the way it came out. The picture doesn't show it, but those are not solids. I showed the fabric closer way back in this post.

I normally don't show off the backs of quilts, but I'm proud of these because the fabric for the backs came from my stash! I'm really trying to use up a lot of that. The colors look really off in this picture, because that incredibly dark stripe is actually a chocolatey brown, not black. Feel free to use your imagination.

Next we move on to Reese's (Theresa's) big sister quilt. I decided to make her a big sister quilt since she has been an only child for 5 years until Ray came along, and is doing a wonderful job of adjusting. Plus, I didn't know them when she was born, so she never got a baby quilt. Only my boyfriend and cousin (who introduced me to the happy family years ago) knew about this one! I used the Apple Crate pattern from Moda Bakeshop for this one, but used fewer block to made it smaller. The finished size is 56 by 64 inches.

Here is a photo of the back of her quilt. All of the fabric came out of my stash!

Since her favorite colors are pink and purple, I decided to use purple for the binding. Oh! Oh! The fabric for the binding for both of these quilts also came out of my stash! Woo! Stash busting!

Mmm, the colors in these two quilts really compliment each other. I just love the way they look all folded and stacked together.

I dropped off the quilts this morning. Baby Ray was asleep, but Sonya seems to think he will like it.  Reese loved her quilt and was already using it as a tent.

Am I the only one who makes quilts with the hope that they will be used as tents and blanket forts? I think the biggest compliment on a quilt is when you go to someone's house and the quilt that you gave them is showing signs of wear. I don't make quilts to sit unused and in perfect condition; I make them to get used!

Anyways, it is time for me to stop typing and to start brewing. In case you are wondering, we are making a clone of Jester King's Farmhouse Black Metal Imperial Stout. Here is a picture of the grain that was just added to the water to boil [in technical terms, this is call a mash].

I made the voile bag that the grain is in and it has held up through 3 batches of beer brewing, so far. If you are interested, I wrote about the bag itself over here.

EDIT: Just for funsies, I am going to include a picture of the beer, now that it is brewed and ready to ferment. In about two weeks, it will be ready to drink! Spweee!

XMas in July Part 1 + Misc. Projects

Last Christmas before my boyfriend and I jetted off (sailed off?) on a holiday cruise to avoid holidays, we spent some time at his sister's house. She was setting up her tree. Her living room is huuge and has incredible vaulted ceilings which means the space demands a big tree.

As I was helping her hang ornaments, it dawned on me that she didn't have a tree skirt. Naturally I asked her why this was. Apparently she just couldn't find anything that wasn't disgustingly cheesy and Christmasy. So I decided to make her one.

For her tree skirt, she wanted black, silver, and white. (Yay! Oxford comma!)

I have spent a few months researching patterns and came up with my own. I am using twelve 30ish degree wedges. As far as fabric goes, it isn't all quilting cotton! A lot of it is, but I am also including some fancy schmancy fabrics to add texture.

This first one is a "special occasion" fabric with fancy roses.

The next fancy fabric is a crinkly silver. The texture reminds me of ruminant molars. Whatever this stuff is made of made a hilarious popping noise every single time my sewing machine needle went through it.

The rest of the wedges used quilting cotton. Except for one fabric, all of the quilting cotton wedges have a wonky asterisk pattern that could be bows or snowflakes.

So this is what it looks like with all the wedges assembled and stitched together.

Now I'm stuck because I don't know how to quilt it or even what to back it with. Luckily I have about 5 months to figure it out!

On to other projects!

I made my first Spice Market tote. Well, sort of. It was coming out way too heavy with all the interfacing, so I left the interfacing off the lining. This could possible be because the exterior fabric is Echino linen. Have any of you made one with all quilting weight and experienced something similar? I also left out the pocket and the false bottom because they seemed unnecessary for a grocery tote.

Now here is a close-up of the hipster stag linen I used for the bag! Spweee!

I also tackled a project out of One Yard Wonders: The bed organizer thingamajig! I had purchased the rubber shelf liner at Container Store ages ago, so I was itching to make this. I used two different fabrics for added cute. Here are some photos of it. The lighting is horrible because the pictures were taken at night time.

Fun Stuff

I have been working on some stuff for myself this week. First off is a table runner/bed runner/ awkwardly long and skinny mini-quilt. I based the pattern off of a kit for a teeny tiny mug rug they had at my local quilt store. I used all the same fabrics, but made the blocks bigger and used more of them. I can't believe how well I got the points to match up!

I have no idea how I am going to quilt this, or what I am even going to back it with, so this is the state it is in. This is also the state it will remain in until I figure out where it is going.

I also made myself a pillowcase out of some Les Amis fabric I bought at QuiltCon. I just love this dang fabric!

The pattern I used has a band that looks like a stripe, but it really is a band. Here is a photo showing it flipped up to prove it is a band, not a stripe. Emphasis on the band, not a stripe thing.

I also finished the front of the Science Fair quilt in Honey, Honey. For the background fabric, I used some tone on tone white. There are just so many seams to mess up in this pattern! Somehow the quilt and I both survived!

The Camp Snoopy sample quilt came back from the quilters, and I finished the binding today.

Here is a close-up of the quilting, done by Kenneth Butler.

Two Point Seven Five[ish] Quilts!

Since I have last really blogged (way back in May), I have finished two complete quilts and two fronts. This is technically 3 quilts, but I thought the title was more fun this way. Here goes!

First off we have a sample I made up for The Quilt Cottage. Making samples is rad. They give you all the fabric and tools, you assemble the front, they long-arm quilt it (which I can never afford!), you bind it, it sits in the store for a few months, and then you keep it! Here it is! 

From another angle with the backing showing. Also the pattern is the Big Blocks pattern.

And this final one shows the quilting which was done by Kenneth Butler.

The second quilt is a "Yay! Y'all bought a house!"quilt for my boyfriend's best friend and his wife. It started ages ago with the original intent of being for me. It is a twister quilt, so you start with something like this:

Then cut it up and sew it back together again to make this:

Turns out it was way too big so I trimmed it down when I decided to give it to them. Here is the final one!

Here is the binding and backing combo for the twister quilt.

As for the front I finished, it is a Super Swoon! I am writing a tutorial to make one giant Swoon block that fills a whole quilt. This is the fabric I picked. 

Here they all are together, looking awesome. Cthulhu! Woot!

And here is the overall picture of the front, with my shadow for scale. I am absolutely keeping this one for myself. It is off getting professionally quilted. I like it so much to pay for the quilting. If you know me [and how cheap I am], you know how amazing that is.

I also have some bee blocks to show off. Both of the bees I am in had us using Oh Deer! Here are the two blocks I made. The first is for Color Bee Shocked, the second for Quilting newBEES.

I have lots of samples in my future. Some of them I am excited about, others not so much. But I will find homes for it all, and it is wonderful practice, even if I don't love the fabric! 

Here is one I am super excited about! I picked up all the fabric along with the pattern and tool to make the Science Fair quilt in Honey, Honey! I absolutely love this fabric line! There is also some white on white fabric, but it wouldn't photograph well.

I am also making a whole bunch of sample Snoopy stuff. First there is a pillowcase.

There is also a quasi-coordinating quilt. I apologize for the horrible picture, but it was taken on my bed at night, and the lighting is horrible! You can find the pattern for this over here. This one will be dropped off for quilting tomorrow. 

Now for a bit of Christmas in June. Here is this elongated churn dash block in horribly traditional X-Mas fabric. 

Luckily I am also researching patterns for a much better line of X-Mas fabric, Aspen Frost. I just have to find something the owner of the quilt shop and I agree on. Shouldn't be too difficult! 

Okay, so I have had a lot going on and will continue to stay that way. This is a great feeling because I have been feeling neglectful of my sewing. 

Vive Caribe!

I have been taking an unscheduled hiatus from blogging, and I'm not sure why. Thanks to summer, I am no longer working 50-60 hours a week, so I can't blame work. I have been doing a lot of sewing (I started making samples for a LQS), so that could be it. Unfortunately I have completely forgotten to take pictures of what I have been making. Oh well.

This evening, my boyfriend and I (along with 20ish other people from job number two) are hopping on a plane and heading to Bonaire, in the Dutch Antilles, off the coast of Venezuela. Here is a handy, dandy map for reference:

Bonaire is my favorite place in the world for scuba diving! They have been super proactive with their reef conservation, and it shows. So much coral! So many fish! So much beauty! I have my GoPro packed, so hopefully I will be bringing back some spectacular photos and/or videos for y'all to see. :)

I have to be at the airport in 5 hours and I have no idea what sewing project to take with me! I didn't plan ahead! Ahhhh!!

As a preview, here are a few of my favorite pictures I took in Bonaire last year.

I saw this octopus on my first dive in Bonaire. It was incredible! This is my favorite picture I have EVER taken.

Here is a picture of a parrotfish. I love them because they always look like they are laughing, and I spent the whole week trying to capture a picture of it. This one was taken on the last day of diving, last summer.

Bonaire had a big feral donkey problem, and they are now in the process of rounding up as many as they can and keeping them at the Donkey Sanctuary. This is a little baby that was born at the sanctuary.

Hopefully I will come back with even better pictures this year! For now, I'm off to stare at my suitcase.