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Quiltathon August, 2012 Day 1

August 9, 2012 · by

All day I kept thinking I would take a nap and never did so I’m going to stop sewing earlier than I had planned.  Heck, I’d like to sew all night but I just can’t do that.  Speck is sick  . . not doing well, and I’ve been up with him a lot at night the last two nights.  In my advanced years <G>, I need my sleep and getting up several times a night just doesn’t work for me any more.

I did finish the quilting on the Carpenter’s Star that has been on my longarm since June 1.  Bad Judy!  It wasn’t quite half finished and I got the rest of it done this afternoon.  Why hadn’t I already done that?  It isn’t trimmed, obviously, and there are still threads everywhere but it’s off the longarm and a baby quilt can be loaded tomorrow and some amount of quilting done on it.

I got this far on the August Quiltathon quilt.

I may just get half a day of sewing tomorrow but I’ll do what I can.  I feel good about what I got done today.

Did anyone else make some good progress today?

· Filed Under: Quilting · 17 Comments

Solar Oven Cookies

August 9, 2012 · by

It was time for a break from quilting so I decided to make cookies in the solar oven.

It was a perfect sunny afternoon.  Within minutes of opening up the oven, the temp was at 350º, exactly where I needed it to be.  The little Granite Ware cookie sheet fits perfectly and is just the right size for 6 cookies . . 5 for me and 1 for Vince!  :)   Not really . . I only had one cookie.

When I open the door, a lot of the heat escapes and it takes it a few minutes to get back up to 350º so it took them about 15 minutes to cook.

Vince will be so happy to have homemade cookies that he will not even mind that I’m going to spend the evening sewing.

And, what about the rest of the cookie dough?

A cookie sheet was lined with wax paper and spoonfuls of the dough was dropped onto the wax paper.  I stuck it in the freezer for about 20 minutes to flash freeze it.

Then the frozen dough was pulled off the wax paper and dropped into a freezer bag and returned to the freezer.  Next time we want cookies, we can simply take out as many pieces as we need want and bake them, having fresh homemade cookies without any mess to clean up.

· Filed Under: Cooking, Home & Garden · 9 Comments

BlogHer TV – Love the Food Videos

August 9, 2012 · by

Last week after posting the reminder about the BlogHer TV videos, several of you commented about how much you love them.  If you haven’t watched them, you might be surprised at the content.  Some will appeal to you more than others probably but Hilah’s newest one (or newest I’ve seen) about the grilled cheese sandwiches had me out scrounging tomatoes from my almost completely dead plants to make her version of a grilled cheese sandwich.

And, her shrimp tacos . . I resisted because I’m totally devoted to shrimp caught fresh from the Gulf of Mexico and sold by the shrimpers on the streets and here, all I can get is foreign shrimp (foreign to the U. S., not just foreign to the state of Texas!) but last week I needed a super quick dinner for company and I tried Hilah’s shrimp tacos.  I haven’t stopped thinking about them.

The Pep Talk Mom has a new video on pomegranates. So weird . . we have a pomegranate tree but we won’t get any fruit from it this year but a friend has offered to give us “tons” of pomegranate. I’ve never known what to do with them and every day Vince asks me if I’ve looked online to see what to do with them. We don’t have them yet so I figure . . I’ll do it when he arrives home with a box of pomegranates. Well, The Pep Talk Mom has a video on how to peel a pomegranate. It’s like they knew I needed to know that!

Check out those videos often as new content is added and be sure to try Hilah’s shrimp tacos and grilled cheese . . I think I’m going out to dig through those tomato plants to see if I can’t find just one or two more tomatoes and make another one of those sandwiches!

Just scoot your little mouse over to the top of the right sidebar and see what’s there. I have the channel set to “Food” but there are Fashion & Beauty, as well as Humor and Inspiration channels. There’s good info in those little videos.

· Filed Under: Home & Garden · 5 Comments

August Quiltathon Blocks

August 9, 2012 · by

Here are the two blocks that go into the quilt I’m working on for the August Quiltathon:

Not only are these such simple blocks to sew but if they don’t come out totally perfect (I’m sure yours do . . mine don’t always!), square them up and it shouldn’t cause any issues — no points to lose, no intersecting lines that have to match up.

For a more scrappy look, make all the small squares different.

Or, for a little more control, make the corner squares of Block A all the same color for this look:

The blocks will be 9″ finished or 9-1/2″ unfinished.

Block A: 

Each block requires:

  • 1 – 3-1/2″ yellow square
  • 20 – 2″ squares (scrappy)
  • 2 – 2″ x 3-1/2″ black rectangles
  • 2 – 2″ x 6-1/2″ black rectangles

For this block, it’s ok to use the same color in the 2″ squares as the center square because those won’t be meeting up anywhere.

Block B:

Each block requires:

  • 1 – 3-1/2″ yellow square
  • 12 – 2″ squares (scrappy)
  • 2 – 2″ x 6-1/2″ black rectangles
  • 2 – 2″ x 9-1/2″ black rectangles

For this block, avoid using the same color in the smaller squares as will be used in the center square.

Decide how many of each blocks you will need for the size quilt you want to create.  For the quilts I showed in the first Quiltathon post, I used 31 A blocks and 32 B blocks.  For the smaller quilt, 15 of each the A and B blocks are used.

· Filed Under: Quilting · 13 Comments