Country Pleasures Apron Swap

I was in Sue's Country Pleasures Fall Apron Swap, and my partner was Sue, herself! Here's what she sent me. First, a picture of all the loot! How exciting to get such a wonderful swap package!

I've never received a "clothespin apron" so I was excited that Sue chose that particular style to make for me. Makes me wanna put up a clothesline :-)

I think maybe my favorite item she sent is this package of pumpkin-shaped doilies - I've never seen doilies like these! How cute are they! I have a recipe for some yummy pumpkin cookies that would look perfect on these!

But I don't know...I really, really love this clipboard, too! Maybe they are BOTH my favorites :-)

Oh wait! I love love love this package of embroidery transfers! I could SO use a couple of these in the quilt I'm making for Ben and Autumn, since they are all coffee motifs! Yup, THIS is my favorite item. Ah, heck...EVERYthing is my favorite, I guess ;-)

And look at the pretty card she sent with the swap - how adorable! She also included a little framed fall saying, a potholder and dishtowel, and some packets of delicious tea. Thank you soooo much, Sue - for having the swap AND for being  my wonderful partner!

WIP Wednesday

Working on a quilt I'm going to name "Coffee Dreams" for Ben and Autumn.  Now, I'll drink brewed dirty socks, but Ben and Autumn TRULY LOVE good coffee! I think they would bathe in it if it weren't so expensive. They have practically developed a personal relationship with Batdorf & Bronson Coffee Roasters, and Ben has even taken their coffee course as part of his new job working for a food service company, ARAMARK, at The Evergreen State College. So it was fate that we discovered some great coffee-themed fabrics for this quilt! I have to admit they picked out some of the fabrics at least a year ago, but I'm just now getting going on it. In my defense, I have been able to find some more terrific fabrics for it in that time. Yeah. That's my excuse for procrastinating. More fabric. Uh huh. You understand, don't you? :-) Yes, I thought so!

I am using primarly the coffee motif fabrics I was able to find, but a few blocks will just be various coffee prints. I really don't have a plan, other than I'm thinking I'll need 30 blocks. I cut a bunch of different width strips and just jumped in. Here are a few of the blocks I've completed. So grabba cuppa and see what I've done :-)

Recently, I asked everyone to start working on their Christmas lists...all Ben seems to want is an espresso machine. Boy, am I sorry I asked! Those suckers are expensive! I'm thinking just getting the quilt done in time for Christmas *should* be enough ;-)  

"Apple Dodge"

When you reside in the Big City, you have your theater events, art gallery openings, celebrity cocktail parties, etc. When ya live in the country, ya gotta make your own fun. Every year, we eagerly look forward to a few weeks of what we call "Apple Dodge" on Apple Valley Road.

There's an apple tree that hangs over the road. Most of the apples had fallen off by the time I remembered to bring the camera, but you get the idea.





So...here's how the game is played: The apples fall off the tree and some fall onto the road.

Car comes up or down the road. Car tries to squash the apple. The "dodge" part of the game is where the apple is supposed to dodge the car. Ok, maybe it's not exactly sporting, but a lot of the apples DO wind up in the ditch, unsquashed, so at least they have a fighting chance :-)



Success! Adam's GF, Katie, scored a point - her third this week, I think!



I'm quite sure some of these older "hits" are mine :-)



Here are the clever little apples who managed to dodge the cars - unharmed in the ditch!

So there you have it - New York City's got nothin' on us! Sadly, "Apple Dodge" is almost over for this year. The next exciting activity is "Leaf Scatter," followed by "Can We Make It Up the Last Part of the Long, Steep Hill?" during snow season - extra points for drive-by laughing at the cars who didn't.

Disclaimer: Apples WERE harmed in the making of this blog post however, these apples are sour and wormy and only the crows eat them, so it's not like actual food was wasted.

"Concentration" Game

I've been wanting to make a set of these for awhile. My DIL's dad has been hospitalized, and her niece and nephews are often at the hospital with their parents for long stretches at a time. I noticed they were playing Dominoes the other day, and thought maybe they'd like some variety while "camping out" in the waiting room. These are based on that old TV game show "Concentration." I remember watching this show, hosted by Hugh Downs, when I was young.

I cut 3 1/2" squares using my rotary cutter/ruler/mat, although I did make a clear plastic template to fussy-cut some of the squares to get the best look. I cut 20 squares of one fabric for the backs, and 10 pair of different fabrics for the fronts. I used a layer of Warm & Natural inside. I used quarter-inch seams and after turning, I topstiched all around.

I needed to make these quickly so my son could take them to the hospital on Sunday and so I had to choose the fabrics from the stacks I had readily accessible. You could vary both the size and number of blocks based on the age of the child and situation where they would be used. I chose to make small-ish blocks so they would fit on the small tables in the hospital waiting room, but larger blocks might be fun for little kids. Sixteen would have probably been enough, with a 4x4 configuration, but I kept finding more fun fabric, so I finally decided they needed 20, with a 4x5 configuration. Here's a picture with the blocks facing down to start the game.

The first move is to turn over any two blocks.

If they don't match, the blocks get turned back and the players try to remember what they were and where. The next move is to turn over two more blocks, and if one of them matches one of the first two, then they can try to remember where that first one was to make a match.

If they get a match, the player removes those two blocks and makes a pile of their matches.

Anytime a player makes a match, they get an additional turn; if they don't make a match, then the next player gets a turn. The game continues until all the blocks are matched and the one with the most matches wins. Here's a pic of all the blocks facing up.

My favorites are the pickles and the popcorn - no, I'm not pregnant, haha. I also used crabs, apples, pirates, skeletons, spiderwebs, hearts,  sundaes, and the white rabbit.

Of course, I needed a bag to put them in. Fortunately, I had this one laying around. I think my DIL's niece, Nessa, will like the bag as much or more than the game, LOL! I've made a TON of these bags over the years - they are fun and practical for all kinds of uses - I use one for makeup and another for my camera and gear. They have two zip pockets, and an interesting way the zips are applied to form the pockets. And of course, I can make more bias tape, which I adore! Anyways, I hope the kids enjoy the game, and that DIL's dad gets better real soon.





Walker Bag for a Friend

I made this awhile ago, but just didn't seem to get it posted. I was asked to make a "walker bag" for Aunt Pitty Pat's Aunt in California. Since I had several patterns for walker bags already, I said I could make one. Well, the pattern we settled on called for pre-quilted fabric and I didn't have anything suitable, so I had to do the quilting myself, and that added considerably to the time it took to complete this project. At least you can get whatever look/combination you want that way. The pattern is Simplicity 2300. I didn't think very much of the instructions - I've been sewing since I was 5, and usually give a cursory glance, if any, to pattern instructions unless I run into trouble. I had to reread parts of these instructions over and over. I just think they could have been WAY more clear. But it all came together in the end, thank goodness! This is a wrap-around style, with tabs and Velcro. Here's a picture of the "inside" or back side, showing the tabs that wrap over the handles.

This is the "outside" or front. The pockets are gusseted, which provides a lot of room for all the stuff her Aunt needs to pack around :-)  I used an assortment of Lakeside coordinates for the bag.

Here it is, kinda wadded/folded up.

APP requested a special holder for Auntie's water glass, so I fashioned one and put a removable, Duck Tape-covered inset of foam core board to give it stability. When I took this pic, I tried to "faux wrap" it around whatever was handy, to make it look like it would if it were on a walker - if you look closely, you'll see that I used my large storage container that I keep all my selvages in...am I the only one who folds each selvage up neatly?

There are pockets all the way around, although I'm wondering if the largest, front pocket would have been more functional if it had been divided. I got to makes LOTS of bias tape, which is always fun - love making my own :-)

I also included a second bag that I'd made years ago for someone but then decided it was not sturdy enough for their purposes. But APP said to send it along, since her Aunt has 2 different styles of walkers (for inside and outside) and the smaller one would be great for her outside walker where she doesn't need to haul around as much stuff. I love the pink elephant fabric!



 APP said her Aunt LOVED her new bags and got straight to work, filling them up with her necessities! 

Pickles? Pickles? Warning: Not for the Faint-at-Heart!

Yesterday, we (Ben, Autumn, and myself) made pickles - dill and refrigerator. It was Autumn's idea since she's never canned anything. I had previously helped her make freezer jam, but I haven't canned anything in more than 13 years and it took me awhile to round up the canner and the rest of the apparatus, but I found everything but the canning funnel - it's on my grocery list now. We did 7 quarts of dills and we are soooo proud of ourselves! Autumn did a great job of packing those cukes into the jars.

 

Ben wanted to make some Refrigerator Pickle Medley. He'd made these when he and Adam were in 4-H and although we couldn't locate his recipe card for these, we were able to find them quickly on the Internet - don't we love the Internet!!! You chill the veggies for 3 hours on ice before packing them in a container and adding brine. 

 

The cukes for these pickles needed to be slicely thinly. I got out the Zyliss Mandoline, installed the 1.5mm blade and started slicing, but using the tube that guards important digits from the very sharp blade wasn't working very well, so I just slid the cukes across the blade with my fingers, knowing how sharp it was and how low I could go. Ben said he wanted to slice. He was going way too fast and I said "This is the kind of thing a mother just doesn't want to watch..." and didn't even get the words out of my mouth when he sliced a big chunk right out of his thumb! The chunk was clinging to the underside of the slicer! I didn't think to take a picture of it, and yes, we washed the slicer:-)

 

Then Autumn said "I'm really good at cutting myself" and took his place. One cuke, and HER fingertip was clinging to the bottom of the slicer! Even bigger chunk than Ben's! This time, I DID take a pic - and aren't you glad I did? YES THAT WHITE OVAL IS A RATHER LARGE CHUNK OF AUTUMN'S INDEX FINGER!!! Ugh.

 

Bandaids were procured. Ben wanted a SpongeBob Squarepants.



 

But those finger cuts (machete whacks?) tend to bleed a LOT, and Autumn's just woudn't quit.

 

After about a half hour, Ben said "Where's the Super Glue?" Autumn said "Does it burn? You first!" But finally after 2.5 hours of Autumn's finger bleeding, Ben made her use the Super Glue and it worked.

 

Needless to say, mom finished the slicing, and my fingers are fine, thank you very much. We also discussed whether to compost the fingertips. Or perhaps, feed them to the dogs. We finally decided to just put them down the garbage disposal ;-) It's just never dull at our house...

Birthday Cake for Me

Adam and his girlfriend, Katie, came down the other night with a birthday cake for me. Oh, it was 10 days AFTER my birthday, but I am the QUEEN of Late Gifts myself, LOL! It took me by surprise to the point that I "puddled up" a bit...aren't I the one who's supposed to be doing stuff like that for others? What's with this "somebody doing stuff for ME" thing?

Umm, here's the cake. Umm...ok, so it's a HALF a cake. No, Katie didn't just bring me a half a cake...some peeps have been munching on the cake (who would that be?). But when they brought it down, I was so stunned, I didn't think to take a picture right away.



SO out-of-the-blue it was...it rocked me to my core! It also made me think that the old saw "It's better to give than to receive" goes both ways - sometimes you've just got to receive so that someone ELSE can give ;-) But, having said that...I immediately pondered how I could get back at Katie, LOL! I decided she needed some reusable grocery bags. Her favorite color is green, and I'd recently tried Keyka Lou's Grocery Bag pattern, so decided to make her a couple of those. I love this pattern, and the only change I made was to add a hanging loop in the middle of one side at the top. This was Ben's idea so that it would fit over that little pokey-outey peg on the grocery store bag holder thingie at the checkstands (technical terms, I'm sure).

Of course I didn't have anything suitable in my stash (IS MY NOSE POKING RIGHT OUT OF THE COMPUTER SCREEN INTO YOUR EYE?), so I zipped off to one of my LQSs, Bayside Quilting, and got these lovely green batiks and a green dot. Since they are lined, these bags take a LOT of fabric, so they are definitely in the GIFT category, rather than the money-making category (unless you have some fabric that was on sale to the point it was almost free). About $15-$17 apiece if using LQS cotton quilting fabrics since it takes 1 1/2 yards per bag at the going rate of $9.49 to $11.49-ish per yard (of course it would be less using JoAnn's or similar fabric). But since I don't sell my stuff, that's ok with me. Also, the fact that the pattern is an instant download pdf is a real bonus - no waiting for the mail!

The colors aren't quite so garrish in person - believe me!

A couple people have commented that the fabric below looks like The Matrix movie!

Thank you Katie for the wonderful cake! You are such a sweetie :-) And I hope you enjoy your bags :-)