Donkeys Done!

This was made by a customer of mine.  Her mother had made several for other members of the family.  She came across the pattern recently and decided to make one for herself. She originally wanted it completely stitch-in-the ditch... since that is not my best or favorite I convinced her to let me free-motion the background and only SID the donkeys.  15 hours later I got it done!

Overwhelmed!

Over the last 10 days we have been picking and enjoying strawberries from the garden.

I have made 8 jars of preserves.

I have made 4 pies.

And we have eaten many fresh strawberries with cereal, ice cream, or just by themselves.

But last night, I was officially overwhelmed!

I wish they had a much longer shelf life!

Strawberry Pie

Strawberry Pie

9in Baked pie shell

5 C strawberries quarterd and hulled

¼ C cornstarch

2/3 C sugar

1/8 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla extract

¼ tsp almond extract

1 tbs lemon juice

Place 2 c of strawberries in small saucepan.

Mash until strawberries are chunky.

Add: sugar, cornstarch, vanilla extract, almond extract, lemon juice and salt

Bring to a simmer over med heat stirring until sugar dissolves and glaze thickens

Cool

Add remaining 3C strawberries and mix until well coated.

Spoon into prepared pie crust.

Refrigerate 2 hours before cutting to allow filling to set.

Top with optional whipped cream

A Quilter is Born

My handyman always brings his wife along as a helper. Bob and Peggy are a great team. Peggy was very intrigued by my quilter and and I showed her some of the quilts I had made, including the Big Brother quilt I had made for my eldest grandson from his old receiving blankets.  

Now I really had her interest.  We talked about her granddaughter and she decided she wanted to make one for her.  She had her daughter-in-law send her a bunch of her granddaughter's outgrown clothes and a new quilter is born! 

We have spent many happy hours working together.
I helped her sort through everything and showed her how to debone. 
When she had everything deboned, I showed her how to fuse stabilizer on the back of the knits and we ran everything through my Studio Cutter to make 5" squares.  

To encourage her, I pulled out some pink scraps from my stash and cut up a bunch of squares to start a new baby quilt to have on hand.

Wednesday we spent several hours together sewing the squares into rows.  

We'll be getting together again soon to assemble the rows and then go shopping for an inner border and final outer border.

Strawberry Time

Do you remember all those overgrown rows of strawberries that I posted a picture of last week.  Well, with the warm sunny weather this week they are pumping out berries like crazy :)

We have been enjoying strawberry shortcake or strawberries and ice cream or strawberry shakes!.... and I still had way more in the frig! LOL

Yesterday I decided to make some sugar free preserves.  I was surprised at how quick and easy it was to do.  Two cups of crushed berries and some pectin... cooked, jarred, processed and in about an hour I had 3 jars made.  I made a second batch last night.

And I still have more quarts of strawberries in the frig and still more to be picked!   I'm thinking that maybe I'll do up a couple of quart sized jars and when I want a strawberry pie all I have to do is make the crust, fill and bake!
YUM!

Garden update

After much digging and cutting out some HUGE tree roots the Easter azaleas are finally planted.

The garden is mostly weeded at this point.  Hubby will get the tiller going this weekend and we will be ready to plant the tomatoes, squash and beans in-between all the berries.   

The strawberry plants were in rows last year... you can hardly tell to look at them now.  We dug up some plants for my daughter to plant in her garden.
The raspberries (red and black) and the Blackberries are coming back strong too.

The snow peas I planted with the grandson are about a foot high now.  I'm not sure if they will produce anything to harvest now that the warmer weather is here.  I will have to try planting again in August or September and hope to get a crop in the cooler weather before the frost.

It's hard to believe we started with just 4 Black Eyed Susan plants 2 or 3 years ago.  Now we are over run with them!  They have taken over the backyard garden and have overfilled the front walk garden.  I have resorted to selling some on LSN this year to try and thin them out.

The iris are coming up strong and blooming nicely now too.

Birthday boy

Last week my grandson turned 5!  His aunt made him a  very special birthday cake.  Unfortunately, riding over in the hot car (she has no airconditioning) the frosting melted and shifted.

No matter!  

He loved it anyway!

2014 Totals - March and April

I began a Dancing 9's quilt in mid-march and am making some progress. I had cut strips from one sleeve of each shirt and have enough 9patches for 2.5 rows of blocks and the border strips.  I cut the rest of the sleeves and shirt fronts into strips and have more 9patches made and ready to assemble into blocks.  I'll have some free sewing time then end of May and hopefully will get this done.

I've loaded the first of 3 large custom quilts on my quilter to work on. The first is donkeys, then comes birdhouses and lastly is a starburst.  Custom work always takes me longer so this month I will not finish as many quilts as normal.

WORK COMPLETED IN Mar-April 2014
 ....06.....customer tops quilted (YTD  22)
.....03.....customer quilts bound (YTD  5)
.....00.....flimsy completed waiting for quilting (YTD )
......01.......quilted flimsy (YTD 2... OB, Owls)
.....10.....hand-work hours (60TD )

Bonnie Projects in Progress

....done..Orca Bay
............... Celtic Solstice Step 1 blue triangles cut( 350 of 380 pairs)
............... Celtic Solstice Step 1 white and orange star points cut (380 of 380)
..............  Celtic Solstice Step 1 orange star point units sewed (50 of 140)
............... Celtic Solstice Step 1 white star point units sewed (100 of 240)
......24..... Dancing 9s  9patches made (YTD 48 of 64)

.....00.....cheddar bowties blocks hand-pieced (YTD  6  of  81in 2013)   ...  (81 of 162 in 2012)
.....00.....cheddar bowtie rows stitched (YTD  0 .... 9 of 18 in 2012)
.............. Talkin Turkey..... 2 blocks complete plus parts
.............. Midnight Flight....1 block complete plus parts
.............. Winston Ways... 2 blocks complete plus parts

UFOs – WIPs

2006 Barn Blocks
2009 1950s Santa

2009 Sunbonnet sue …prairie point borders

2010 Swartz Creek Quilt
2010 Vicksburg BOM 

2011 Cheddar Bowties 
2011 Happiness Key

2011 Novelty Quilt (pat sloan)

2011 Dear Jane/Hot Momma Rose

2012 Basic Class Wall Hanging…. Borders, quilting

2012 Winston Ways

2012 Turkey Tracks

2012 Midnight Flight 
2012 Pillow Cover …assembly

2012 Red/White D4P…assembly

2013 Daisy placemats/runner (sept)…. needs binding

2013 Red blue floral placemats (sept)…. Needs binding
2013 Florals & 9Patch (aug)

2013 Maddie Bea Sweet & Sassy (becky’s barn)

2013 Spring Wall Hanging (WSS project)

2013 Becky’s Barn Basket wall hanging… borders, quilting

2013 Celtic Solstice (nov)

2014 Cracker Barrel - Blue/White strip quilt (jan)… L/E for CS

Waiting to be Quilted

Rosewood Cottage (since 2006) quilting by hand

Monkey Wrench BOM (since 2007) for sale

2 blue placemats (R taylor)