2012 August 02 — Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara

Table Buying Marathon

August 2, 2012 · by JudyL

I do believe my husband has started a table collection. Remember that he bought this table either last week or the week before.

We really did need some patio furniture so he bought this one as part of a set. This was last weekend.

He decided, correctly, that I needed a table for the solar oven so this week he bought this table. Notice the brown, dead grass!

Then he wasn’t quite sure that table was tall enough so he bought this table. It’s too tall but he decided it would be nice to have next to the BBQ grill.

Then he decided he liked it so much that he would get another one. For what? Beats me but he bought it today . . still in the back of the pickup.

And then he decided that since he liked the glider so much, he’d buy matching chairs.

If I have figured correctly, in about 5 days, we’ve gone from zero patio tables to 4 (plus the big wooden table) and from zero lawn chairs to 8 chairs plus a glider.

Thank goodness for that big front porch! And, I hope all this lawn furniture that’s on sale gets sold (to someone else) very soon. That husband of mine cannot pass up a sale . . even if we don’t need the stuff.

· Filed Under: Home & Garden · 11 Comments

August Quiltathon

August 2, 2012 · by JudyL

Several years ago, I was hosting Quiltathons monthly. What’s a Quiltathon? It’s a weekend or weekday when we plan to get as much sewing done as possible. We cook meals ahead of time, we do extra cleaning, we make a surprise desert we can pull out of the fridge and our family thinks we’ve slaved in the kitchen for hours and we’ve been sewing! Let’s do the Quiltathons again!

Previously, we did one on a weekend and the next month, we’d schedule it on weekdays, to accommodate those who preferred weekends vs. week days and vice versa. How about we schedule them Thursday through Sunday? That will work for those who want week days and those who want weekends and you can do whatever days you wish. Think of it as almost like a retreat at home.

In the days leading up to the Quiltathon, I’ll share some tips I use for getting meals on the table quickly and with as little as possible mess (remember .. I have no dishwasher!)

Not everyone is going to be able to do every Quiltathon and even if I’m doing it alone, it really motivated me to get a lot accomplished.

You are welcome to work on any project you’d like. There will be link boxes to share your progress. There may be prizes . . some days . . nothing is written in stone.

Most months I will try to share easy patterns with you but don’t feel like you have to do them. Getting UFOs or other projects completed is what really matters.

There will be a Quiltathon on August 9, 10, 11 and 12.

That’s next week! There will be a free pattern . . an easy pattern. It’s rectangles and squares and because of the two blocks, except for where the block corners meet, there’s no real matching up that has to be done. And, except for the outer border fabric, you should be able to use stash fabrics and make it scrappy. Want to do this with me?

This one finishes at 76″ x 94″. Want a smaller one? Make fewer blocks!

This one finishes at 58″ x 67″.

Of course, you don’t have to use the same colors I used but for the quilts as shown, here’s the yardage. These amounts do not include the binding.

Large:
Black – 4-1/4 yards
Yellow – 1-3/8 yards
Orange – 1 yard

Small:
Black – 2-3/4 yards
Yellow – 7/8 yards
Orange – 3/4 yards

Don’t want to use black? Here’s one done in blue:

If you want to participate, choose the fabric you want to use for your outer border and the “frames” in the blocks. Then choose the fabrics for the other two borders. Whatever color you choose for the first (inner) border, you will want to avoid having any squares in your perimeter blocks that use that fabric (or anything terribly close) because they will blend in with that border.

Anyone want to do this with me?

· Filed Under: Quilting · 48 Comments

August Already Winner

August 2, 2012 · by JudyL

The random number generator has spoken:

And the winner is:

Crystal, congratulations and I’ve sent you an email.

· Filed Under: Quilting · 3 Comments

Solar Oven Cake

August 2, 2012 · by JudyL

Now the solar oven is definitely worth having. It baked the cake perfectly!

I could have gotten a picture before a big chunk was consumed by my dear husband. A good blogger would never post a picture of a cake with a chunk missing, would she? Vince bought a patio table to put the oven on so I wasn’t having to do everything on the ground but it’s a bit too tall and it’s hard for me to reach over the solar reflector panels to get the food down into the oven. Vince is going to cut down the legs on the table to make it a little shorter. But, I had a hard time getting the cake in oven and getting the oven adjusted because my arms were just too short and it spilled a little bit on one side. That was my fault and not the oven’s fault though.

So far, I can’t tell you how happy I am with this little oven.

The cake was baked for our dessert for lunch yesterday. When I took it out of the oven, I said to Vince . . I guess I can leave it set up since I’m fixing dinner in there too. I almost felt like I was wasting electricity or propane by leaving the oven on all day . . when nothing was in it but I kept telling myself . . you’re not using any electricity or propane. It feels so good to be cooking by simply harnessing the sun’s rays. I so wish solar panels for home energy use worked a little better.

I’m getting a lot better, after just three days, of knowing which way to turn the oven and the height adjustments to keep the temperature constant. The only thing I can’t control are the clouds.

Now that I’ve used the solar oven for a few days, and I’m certainly no expert, but here are some tips for anyone considering it.

It’s quite portable. I’m pretty weak and I have no trouble carrying it back and forth from the porch to the front yard. I think when I go to Louisiana, I’ll stuck it in the car and take it with me so mom and dad can play with it . . if they haven’t bought one by then.
It cools down very quickly so if you’re wanting to take it somewhere . . it’s not like a BBQ pit. As soon as I’m done cooking with it, I wouldn’t hesitate to close it up and stick it in the back seat of the car.
Nothing on the outside gets hot, other than a few metal pieces that are hot from the sun. The cooking area is like a rubber tub so it’s very easy to wipe down and clean.
The instructions say that if you can’t be there to “babysit” it (not exactly their words!), turn it where it gets the most sun between 10 and 2 and leave it. Otherwise, turn it every 30 minutes (I’m doing good to remember to turn it every hour) to maximize the sun’s rays hitting the reflectors.
If you live where there’s not a lot of sun, it’s not going to work so well. The one day I had a few passing clouds interfered with the cooking.
If you get it, be sure you have some very good sunglasses. I ordered some welding goggles because the light coming off those reflectors is terribly bright. You can’t avoid that light hitting your eyes when you’re adding or removing food or checking on the temp.

I never dreamed I would love using this little oven so much.