Thursday, July 29, 2010

I Love Dolly Donations...Again

I haven't been working on my dollies as much as I had hoped this summer. But, I plan to send at least 15 before the next deadline. I am so inspired by the work I see on the Dolly Donations blog. Scrolling through the blog today I was surprised, and pleased, to see two very familiar little dollies. Thank you for posting my dollies Sarah! Okay, I have the inspiration and motivation to make more dollies.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Do I have a problem?

This has been a great summer. We've been getting the house in order and I've been sewing a lot. My fabric stash was dwindling and I thought I needed to restock. This is what I've bought this month. Yikes!!!


Andre loves to help me sew. Well, maybe he just loves fabric. He helped me unpack my fabric.com order today.

Monday, July 26, 2010

Cookies! Cookies! Everywere cookies!

My friend's daughter is getting married this weekend and I am making the wedding favors. 180 guests=360 cookies+ extra to leave room for mistakes (I've already dropped 5). So...380 cookies later I'm thinking I am in WAY over my head. I worked on the white cookies with polka dots today. Tomorrow I'm going to tackle the green cookies with white designs. Wish me luck! I am ready for a glass of wine.


Finally...

Sunday, July 18, 2010

National Ice Cream Day

I was at the gym this morning running and watching True Blood on my iPod. I glanced at the gym TVs just in time to see a report on National Ice Cream Day! Well, if that's not an excuse to eat ice cream I don't know what is!

I actually have ice cream whenever the fancy strikes. I've been watching what I eat, so I actually do measure my ice cream-all 102 g of it. I have been buying Haagen Daaz Five-Vanilla Bean. I love the fact that there are five ingredients in the ice cream. And, non of them are high fructose corn syrup.

The ice cream on it's own should be enough. But, I love toppings. I usually get the Sunspire Milk Chocolate Sundrops, but today I hadthe dark chocolate chips. Still yummy!

I hope you celebrated. It's not too late to scoop up a bowl of your favorite ice cold treat.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Ratatouille

I made dinner tonight. And, it wasn't the same old black beans and rice! I tried a new recipe. Well, most of them are new to me. I have four shelves full of cook books, but I only bake on a regular basis.

Mark told me he loves stews and biscuits. I narrowed the recipes down and decided to try Ratatouille from The New Moosewood Cookbook and Buttermilk biscuits from Cook's Illustrated Baking.

I'm glad to say that dinner was a success! It took just over an hour to chop and make everything and it was perfect. Yeah. Except for Mark eating to many biscuits we had no mishaps. I may actually do more of the cooking thing!

Friday, July 16, 2010

Spoonflower I SPY Swap

I came across the Crafterhours blog somehow...I can never remember the links I follow! The first post I read highlighted the I SPY Spoonflower Swap. I've seen a few I SPY quilts online and thought it woudl be fun to make one. But, gathering the fabric would take a while. Through the I SPY/Spoonflower Swap I'll have all my fabrics sent to me in a neat little package with very little work on this end.

I immediately joined in. Yikes...and yeah! I got to make my first Spoonflower purchase and I even designed a fabric! Well, Mark actually designed it-but he only demands a bookmark for use of his design. So, I've got some yardage coming. I'm a wee bit excited. It's like a quilting bee around the globe.

The two fabrics I picked:

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Friday, July 9, 2010

In the Meantime...

I have started hand stitching my quilt. I love the irregularity of the stitches. I'm sure the pros do a much better job, but there is something to be said about imperfections.

So that my machine didn't feel neglected, I decided to start on another project. I am a Pisces and cannot resist a beach theme. Not everyone does "beach" right, though. I saw this collection in Joann's and had to have them. I'm thinking of making something with a zig zag pattern. We'll see...

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Pinning, and pinning, and pinning...

I attended a quilt class this morning. This was a "free for all" type of day over at Sue's Bay Area Sewing. Kathy taught me how to lay out and pin my quilt together. It actually took me the whole three hours to pin the quilt! The ladies in the class were so kind and I wish I had the time to go more often.



I've decided to hand quilt this bad boy. So, my next job is to grid out the picture and start marking. I don't think I'm going to ask Andre to help me with this.

Monday, July 5, 2010

Andre helps with my border

I finally found a fabric that worked for the quilt border! It was more difficult than I though it would be to find a fabric (not already in the quilt) to match. Andre loves when I lay the quilt top out in the living room. He helped me measure and pin the border this morning. Thank you, Andre. You are such a good kitty!