Homerun Meal

Reading quilting blogs is actually good for something other than quilting! I found an awesome new recipe.

Rachel's Beef Tips and Noodles

Click the link to head over to the recipe at p.s. i quilt. (The photo is from Rachel's blog and reposted with permission.) I followed Rachel's recipe exactly. My family loved it! In addition, we had another kid for dinner the night I made this. The boy was having a sleep over. The friend has more "typical kid tastes" than the boy and he liked it too. The only thing I might do differently next time is add a little chopped onion, but honestly, this was really good as is.

Sue Spargo

Are you familiar with Sue Spargo? I've been an admirer for a while. She does mostly applique but with bright, fun, funky colors using lots of wool and velvet and some cotton too. I don't really like to do applique so you may be surprised that I like Sue's work so much. I don't mind wool applique as much - less prep. work. However, what really attracts me to her work is first the colors and second the hand stitching and embellishments.

Every year she does a limited edition block of the month quilt. She and her staff dye all of the fabrics, threads and embellishments for the kits so it is both a monetary and time investment to do one of her BOMs. This is also why they limit the number of participants. I wanted to do this year's project, but I was too late signing up and there were no more spots left. Next year's project just opened for sign ups. It is a beautiful quilt, but it just doesn't grab me so I've decided not to participate this time. This is the kind of thing I really need to be in LOVE with or I know I won't finish it.

So why I am telling you about Sue Spargo? Well ... she has some ornaments in the December 2011 issue of American Patchwork and Quilting which just came out. Click here to see the kits. I subscribe to Sue's newsletter so I got to see the ornaments about two weeks ago. They were so stinkin' cute I bought the kit immediately.

This isn't a great picture so be sure to hop over to Sue's site to see better photos. I picked up the magazine with the pattern inside earlier in the week. I can't wait to get started on these! And these will not be gifts. They are for me!

Recent Shopping

I've been finishing lots of things lately which means I get to replenish my stash. So I've been shopping! I love to shop in my jammies online. My favorite haunt lately is The Intrepid Thread.

Oh me, oh my! Julie just has the most gorgeous fabric! Last Friday she had a 20% off sale. I absolutely couldn't resist the grays in the new Rendezvous line.

Aren't they fabulous! I just had to have them for my Modern Monday Quilt Along.

The reds just looked so pretty too so I just bought the whole bundle. I have no idea what I'll do with the red ones, but since when does a girl need a plan for every piece of fabric when she buys it?

As long as I was shopping I also got this half yard bundle of Wrenly.

I've got a couple of patterns in mind for this bundle of loveliness but I haven't decided which one I'll do yet.

And check out my new purse.

Well...it's not a purse yet, but it will be. The fabric just arrived on Tuesday afternoon and I had to work all day Wednesday! It will be a purse soon though.

I can really tell that the Earth is tilting into Winter. My pictures look a bit dark. The garage hides the sun for part of the year so that it doesn't shine as brightly into my sewing room window. Guess I need to wait a little longer before taking pictures and/or compensate somehow for the lower light levels until Spring.

Hop over to Susan's at Blackberry Creek Home Arts to see what other Little Green Quilters have busted this week. I don't have bust myself this week but I've only got two more things on my list. If I don't finish another UFO this year I won't mind. I've done all the ones that I really wanted to get done. I am going to try to finish the list though and try to start 2012 with "fresh" UFO's - LOL!

Sudoku Finish

This is the last of my stock pile of tops I had prior to purchasing Hattie. It was pieced by my Mom as a Sudoku quilt. Now it's done!

Click on any image in this post to enlarge it and see more detail. I quilted this one first in the ditch. Then I did an echoed "X" on some of the squares and a "squared swirl" on the rest. For the sashing I did some "s" shapes that kind of look like flames to me.

I was going to bind it in solid black but the black I have is so obviously from a different dye lot that I opted for the orange multi-colored polka dot. *SIGH* I just love polka dots!

For the back I pulled a zig zag flannel from my stash. (Now you know where I got the idea to quilt zig zags on this quilt.)

The zig zag flannel piece wasn't quite large enough so I added some scrap orange/pink/yellow flannel too.

Pillow Finishes

In August I wrote about the pillow covers a friend gave me. If you need a refresher or want to see pictures of the quilting I did on these, go here and here.

I had trouble finding 20" pillow forms locally and didn't feel like making them. So I ordered two from Joann's and finished these up.

The backs are the same.

They aren't something I would have purchased, but turned out nice. The boy loves them and has decided that they should go in the playroom on the new futon we purchased for that room. It has a chocolate colored mattress cover and these do look very nice on it.

Charity Quilt Finish

I'm finishing up things this week. I made three of these charity tops a few months ago. I finished the third one over the weekend.

I found a piece of flannel in my stash that was just the right size for the back.

I quilted this with a large zig zag. I wanted to try something new. It turned out pretty well.

I didn't mark anything. I did one zig zag along each row of the quilt and then one zig zag in between each row.

This is a very simple charity quilt pattern. The squares are 4" (unfinished) and the rectangles are 4" by 6" (unfinished). You need 48 of each. Sew a square to a rectangle then piece these together using the above photos as a guide. This is a great Leader and Ender project.

Modern Monday Quilt Along

Last weeks block was a rail fence block. I cut my gray polka dot strip too narrow by accident then decided not to fix it. So my rail fence block is a bit smaller than the other two.

C'est la vie! I'll make it work. I may even intentionally make a few more smaller ones. This weeks block is the churn dash.

My friend Caroll of the Attic Window Quilt Shop blog is also participating in the quilt along. You can see her first two blocks here.