Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Quilt-along: Raven Stars - Step 3: HST's

From step #1, take the 168 Purple and White HST cuts, and piece them into 168 Purple/White HST's.


Now, that's not really enough for a complete step, so...

Once the HSTs are pieced, separate them into two groups of 84. Attach a 2.5" white square to each HST as pictured; you'll be making 84 attached to the right side and 84 attached to the left side, making mirror-images of each other. You will be using 168 white squares which will leave 168 squares left yet for the next step.

This is what NOT TO DO. I thought I double-checked the proper placement, and for whatever reason, half-way through my one stack, I stopped to check the placement. **hitting forehead** HOW many years have I been quilting??? Tscha...mistakes happen; don't sweat it! Sadly, I needed to unsew a buku amount of mistakenly sewn units.


Okay, now THAT is enough for a step :0)

Next scheduled posting: 3/2/11 Step 4: Star points.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

one of those days....

To keep this short......

I HATE days like this! I HATE that I am going to have a sleepless night tonight because of something that I feel I handled correctly, but ended up backing down to a misinformed parent. I HATE that I let myself down today by backing down. I HATE that my mind will not allow it to rest; that I'll keep revisiting the day and the "woulda/coulda/shoulda's".

I suppose I can wrap myself in all the Walker garbage; THAT might actually make me feel better right now.

BLAH!

Monday, February 21, 2011

A snow-in quilting day! Rollin' along again!

Well...late, but certainly plentiful! It's been snowing non-stop since it started last night. I tried getting a picture to show how the wind is literally making it look like the snow is coming down completely sideways, but it didn't turn out. This picture is on the "quiet" side of the house; I'm quite certain if I were to head out and check out the driveway, there will be drifts well over 2 feet tall due to the wind.

Brrrrrr! No going outside for me! However, DH headed out this AM to spend the day ice-fishing. Double brrrrr!


While looking over blogs with my coffee in hand this morning, I really didn't have any specific quilting plans for the day; just another "whatever-I-feel-like-working-on" day. But, as I was in the stairwell on my way to my sewing room---it hit me! ROLL ROLL COTTONBOLL will see action today!!!

I left off with 240 HSTs the last time I worked on RRCB (on Feb. 5). So.......zooooooooooooooooooooooom! A couple of hours later, ALL 600 DONE DONE DONE!

And then some more zooooooooooooooooooooooming! The HSTs pieced into the 5er sets!

And then.....ya guessed it....ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOmin some more and step #6 was completely finished!

LOL....okay. So the day hasn't completely zoomed by! I've been at it for 7 hours finishing up step #5 and step #6. I'm startin' in on step #7 but came up to change the load of clothes and check on the girls. They're playing the Wii game and still getting along so far. (They've been at it for only 15 minutes).

I live in Wisconsin; we expect snow through April...

If you follow any blogs of those of us in the Minnesota and Wisconsin areas, you may have already read..."We have snow.....again." After such BEAUTIFUL temperatures last week! Remember my running posts? (Run 1 | Run 2)

The original forecast said we were to get snow Saturday night. As always, the meteorologists were paid to be wrong. {I wasn't complaining!}


Then all day yesterday, I was just a-waitin' for the snow to start. Again.....nothing! Although just 30 minutes south, the snow was falling and falling plentifully.

Then this morning.....yeah; winter-wonderland all over again. I don't think I'm complaining because it IS pretty out there AND I don't need to go anywhere today. As a coworker said on Saturday...."We're gonna get robbed of another snow day." (since we have a Holiday today, there is no school). Watching news this AM, our area has a seasonal average of 55" of snow; we've had 72" already. The record: 76". Think we're gonna make it??? And what's absolutely amazing me: with ALLLLLL of the snow we've had, we haven't had a SINGLE snowday! All of the storms have hit over the weekends.

I AM thinking of the Northeastern states of the nation though. If this is yet another system that makes its way that-away (which I don't think it will; it's traveling northeast from us), the Northeast is already hurting on days allowed off of school :0( I'm thinking of you Nancy!!! Andra also spoke about having had too many snowdays because she needs to work today. However, when I looked at her profile, not remembering where she was at, it listed....New Mexico??? Andra? Am I missing something? ;0)

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Some quilting and cooking going on...

A small hint from DH lead me to making Beer Cheese soup for dinner. I haven't been a Beercheese soup eater for very long. When I was pregnant with Candace I was in the Twin Cities for some math conference or another. When the group went out for lunch, there was a special going on for Wisconsin Beer cheese soup. For whatever reason, it sounded so GOOD! (remember...pregnant...). And sure enough; I was hooked! SOOOoooo creamy and cheesy. YUM! Besides, I found it curious that a cafe in Minnesota was having a special for Wisconsin beer cheese soup :0)
Last year, I was browsing through a cookbook that was put together by an area church and County Fair team of my MIL. And there it was....Beercheese soup!

Beer cheese soup recipe
4 chicken bouillon cubes
3 cups water
1 can beer
1 cup each, diced celery, onion, carrots
2.5 cups cubed potatoes
2 cans cream chicken (or potato) soup
1.5 lb. Velveeta cheese, cut into cubes (original recipe asks for 1 lb)

Directions
Cook: water, beer, bouillon cubes, vegetables until vegetables are tender.
Stir in the cream of chicken soup and Velveeta cubes. Heat until cheese has melted.

I've been playing around a bit with this recipe because the first time I made it exactly as the recipe stated, I didn't care for the proportion of cheese used. :0( The next time I made it, I added more cheese; much more to my taste!

And then I thought....this can work both ways....so...
A small hint from me lead DH to making homemade chicken strips for dinner. He tried out a new recipe from Food Network that had him using a wet batter and then a dry batter. The batter was definitely thicker than normal, but lovely crunchy!




I baked up a batch of Rhubarb Crunch too. (Recipe here)

Now that dinner is over; except dessert--haven't had the Rhubarb yet simply because my tummy is STUFFED. I am definitely not in the mood to tackle anymore quilting.

I didn't quite get to the half-way point in the BRB quilting. I only quilted for another hour once lunch was over and lost interest. I don't think I had the needed energy today to stand for hours with the quilting frame.

I pieced all the blocks for Maltese Star mystery listed in step #6 and began piecing them into rows. I stopped after piecing three rows, no longer interested.....((yikes?? some major quilter's A.D.D. today)....

The startitis quilter in me needed something new. Afterall, that WIP list on my sidebar is simply too small!!! Therefore, I pulled out some pieces left over from some FQs used last year; I hadn't cut them down to strips yet. So, I cut them into 1.5" strips and made 14 mini-nine-patches from each set. Pictured here are 28; I have another 14 almost finished, but that was the point I needed to leave them at so I could start dinner preparations. I have no plans for them yet.

I've done a decent amount of sewing this week, but all of the fabric had already been recorded in my previous Stash Reports. The only "new" fabric was for the mini-nines today, so I'll just wait until next week to make an official Stash Report.

Happy Sunday!

Casserole time-out

Since I'm sitting and waiting for the ground beef to fry up, I figured I'd check in and share a VERY EASY casserole recipe. This is a recipe using ingredients we usually always have on-hand; my family simply calls it Casserole and the girls enjoy it.

Ingredients:
- 1.5 cups uncooked elbow macaroni
- 1 lb. ground beef or other similar meat. We've made this with pork/venison equal parts; we've used straight venison; I even tried ground elk once.
- 2 cans condensed Tomato soup
- 1 can corn. I use corn that we've frozen from our garden; 1-1.5 cups
- 1 can peas (OPTIONAL-OPTIONAL!!!) My mother always put in a can of peas (yuck!) Since I'm not a pea lover, I no longer include this ingredient (my children also concur)

Directions
Preheat oven to 350.
Cook the elbow mac.
Brown the ground beef. Season with salt/pepper and/or other beloved seasonings.
Mix all ingredients together in casserole dish.
Bake in 350 degree oven for 45-60 minutes. I've also been known to up the temp to 375 in order to have casserole ready in 30 minutes.


I started quilting Blue Ridge Beauty just before coming up to prepare lunch. I also pieced together most of step #6 of Maltese Star. Pictures to come later tonight.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Non-quilty Saturday

So....two days ago, the conversation went like this....

Me: Caitlyn, if you want to attend Cadence's Birthday Skating party, your room and loft MUST get clean. Candace, if you want a playdate at Katrina's, your room and loft MUST get clean. Cassie, if you want to have a sleep-over, your room and loft MUST get clean.

Activity throughout the day yesterday was slow at best. By 2:00, I made the statement that all must be done by 5:00, or no one goes anywhere. By 4:00, LOTS still remained, so I started giving the "every 10-minute countdown." Once 4:45 hit, fractic movements were a'happenin' upstairs, and by 5:05 the vacuum was taking its last few swipes.

SO....
at 12:00 today, I dropped Candace off at Katrina's for her playdate.

And you obviously tell that Caitlyn spent the afternoon at Cadence's birthday party. It was kinda a last minute decision for us to join in at the skating rink, but Cassie's plans fell through, so we (I) thought it might be a nice "fix" for her to spend the afternoon skating as well.

Even in falling, Caitlyn and Cadence were inseparable. They giggled the day away! Come to find out, Caitlyn was the only classmate that was invited; all the other girls were cousins and church-going friends. Kinda surprised me, but these two are definitely BFF! ;0)

The quality of the pictures are much to be desired.

The rink is in Rice Lake, a city about 25 miles away and has been under new owners for a bit over a year. They are doing a nice job with the place!

No quilting today, but I hope to get some fabric moving through my hands tomorrow.
I am not setting any goals; whatever inspires me when I'm down there is what I'll work on.
One of my possible projects:
- Red Blossoms; work on borders
- Blue Ridge Beauty quilting on frame
- Raven Stars; work on next step
- RRCB step...ummm....5? whatever step the 600 HSTs is!
- UFO #10 (Scrappy Picnic)
- Midget blocks
- Maltese Star mystery step #6 (just posted yesterday)

Friday, February 18, 2011

Dinner tonight with Chef Candace

Taking instructions by DH, Candace started the first part of dinner tonight by rinsing the fish fillets that Caitlyn and DH caught earlier this week.


And they were delicious!