The Fun Part Begins

Any quilt I make that is bigger than my sewing table I have to put together on the tile floor in the front hall. I tape down the backing fabric to keep it from shifting before I add the batting and the quilt top and start pinning. It took two hours, as I'm pretty slow with safety pins, and I jabbed myself a bunch of times. Happily I didn't bleed anywhere on the quilt.

I was super happy this time to find I had a large section of batting leftover from another project that fit this quilt with room to spare, so I didn't have to open my very last bag of new batting.

I considered using just a vivid blue cotton thread for the hand quilting, but that will blend in the dark patches and stand out too much with the light patches, so I'm going to use threads that match (or are close to) each color in the patchwork. I don't have any thread in the charcoal or the orange shades, so I'll make a trip to JoAnn tomorrow for that.

This is how using different shades of quilting thread looks.

Comments

Make It Yourself

As we head into December, here are ten ideas for easy handmade gifts: Cookie Exchange: If you live close to your friends invite them over for a cookie exchange. Basically everyone bakes a set amount of their favorite cookies, and these are exchanged at the gathering by lottery, sharing a little from each batch with everyone, or however you want to do it. You can also exchange recipes, too. My neighbor did this once and it was wonderful. Favorite Recipe Cookbook : For my favorite person I found a copy of my favorite cookbook from a vintage bookseller (yes, I am that old) and went through it making notes on all the recipes I used, how I tweaked them, etc. Ornament: There are probably a million free tutorials on how to make your own holiday ornaments, so do some research online. I like to make hanging pomanders , which smell heavenly and are biodegradable after the holidays. Mug Rugs: If you sew, making up a set of mug rugs is simple and easy; I add these every year to my ...

Better than Fried

I cut some chives from the kitchen garden to make garlic-chive baked fries for dinner. This is a great side dish for veggie burgers. Click here for the recipe from Taste of Home.com.

In the Kitchen Garden

Our strawberries are taking over the kitchen garden, but I don't mind. This week I want to make some strawberry banana nice cream (a vegan version of ice cream) and maybe a chocolate cake with berries and cream for the topping. There's thyme in the garden now, too, which I'll dry and jar for cooking along with the chives and the oregano. Next we'll plant cucumbers, as I use a ton of those in our salads and for snacks.

Rayen

Search This Blog