A very productive weekend.

It's been a productive three day weekend for me. I took a mental health day on Friday and spent a lovely day with my friends Pattie, Michele and my wonderful cousin Ashley. We met up at Acorn Quilts for their big sale on Friday morning. We got Ashley some great Deer Valley fabrics to make a wall hanging for her entry way. This will be her first ever quilt! It will be fun to teach her the art that I absolutely love. I'm hoping she'll love it too. She has a baby quilt she wants to make for a friend as well, so maybe we'll do that one first. Speaking of that, Ashley - I found this in my stash. It's purple and green, and the line is called "Pampered Pooch" from Moda. Part of the proceeds from the line go to the ASPCA. Let me know what you think of it for the baby quilt..

After the store, we ate lunch at my absolute favorite restaurant in Rockford, Mary's Market. I tell you, if I were to buy a franchise, it would be this place. I don't think they franchise though, I think it's a family owned thing. Seriously, if you are anywhere near Rockford, IL, go eat at a Mary's Market. You won't regret it!

Then Ashley and I found the strangest looking dog wandering down the street. He had the head of a normal dog, but the body of a Basset Hound/Dachshund mix. Very strange looking, but very sweet. Unfortunately we found his trashy, super drunk owner. The dog didn't look abused or anything, but this guy gave us both the creeps and neither of us wanted to turn the dog back over to him. Yuck, ick and ewwww about sums up this guy.

Then I as I was heading home, a massive storm hit. Luckily I knew where I was, and that the Machine Shed restaurant was one stop light away. It was perfect because they have a large drive through overhang in front of the building and the wind was coming from the direction of the restaurant building, so I was perfectly shielded. It was one wicked storm. I took the back roads home and there were branches down everywhere.

When I got home I was relieved to see that the power was on, so that was a bonus. I got right to sewing. First was a bag comissioned for a little girl's birthday party. They are doing a horse themed party and taking the girls for pony rides. I made her this:

Can you believe that fabric? It's perfect!  I was shocked that I was able to find such fantatic horse fabric that wasn't either western or cartoony. And if you look really closely on the counter of the first photo, you'll see my brand-spanking new EQ7 upgrade!!!! The hubby got it for my birthday. After about 6 emails and 4 reminders, he finally ordered it. (EQ is quilt designing software that's absolutely fabulous for those non-quilter's out there).

I also made many more table runners for Emily's wedding:

I know this one looks just like the one above, but it's the reverse of it, see - the branches are in the middle of the mosaic on this one!

So what is that, 9 more done? Thank goodness the Harry Potter books on tape are long. I'm on the Deathly Hallows now, so I can just listen for hours and hours while sewing.

Speaking of Harry Potter, I just have to share more pictures of the Rose That Lived. It was literally glowing this morning!

And for Father's Day, I made my dad and brother-in-law individual strawberry-rhubarb pies. It's my dad's favorite and they had fresh strawberries and rhubarb at the farmer's market that Karen I went to yesterday morning. Since I did a standard pie for my dad's birthday at the beginning of the month, I thought I'd mix it up a bit. I'm rather pleased with how they came out.

As I was sliding them onto the preheated pan, I dropped 2 of them. Magic happened to be right under the one that dropped directly into one of the dog dishes and had it down his gullet before I could yell "no!" to him. The hubby told him he was a bad dog to not listen when I said 'no', but really, he had swallowed it before I could even yell, so technically, he didn't disobey.

Didn't they turn out pretty?

I packaged them in left over Martha Stewart boxes from Christmas:

We all went to the Kane County Cougars minor league baseball game today. We were really lucky, the weather totally held up. I like the minor league games, they take half the time of the Major league games and are more entertaining. I tried to teach the nephew how to do the YMCA dance, but at 10 months old, he didn't really get the arm movements down. He did dance to the music though.

Well, it's almost 8pm here, and I'm off to watch Masterpiece Mystery on my local PBS station. I hope it's Miss Marple or Pirout tonight!

Three Down, Ten to go!

I mentioned a couple of posts ago about making table runners for my friend Emily's wedding. She wanted to help, so she's been over the last couple of nights helping to design and iron. She doesn't sew, so that part is up to me. She seemed interested in learning the rotary cutter, so she may be upgraded to cutting soon.

Emily chose the turquoise and oranges from the gorgeous Lantern Bloom line that I made my boss's birthday quilt with. I started out making Pleasant Home's Pinwheel Runner, but Emily wanted something that showcased the fabric more, so we went with larger blocks and rectangles and the such. We designed 3 different styles. There will be 8 of style number 1, and 4 each of the other two.

We finished piecing these two last night:

Please forgive the terrible photos, my editing software isn't doing what it should tonight.

And because we need to eat, and both Emily and I love to cook, we made a fabulous pesto (with basil from the garden) pasta with grilled shrimp and a salad with roasted red and yellow peppers, pine nuts and lettuce, also from my garden. Not to be overly humble, but holy cow are we good cooks. It was it gooooodddd! I had some left overs for lunch today and had to use much self retraint to not eat it all and save some for dinner.

The recipe we loosely used was this:

Skewer shrimp, brush w/olive oil, sprinkly w/salt and pepper. Grill until done. About 3-4 mins each side.

Brush peppers w/EVOO,  grill about 6 mins each side. Cut up when cooled, toss w/lettuce & pinenuts.

Make pasta per directions on box.

Pesto:

2 Cups Basil (I used 3 different kinds, Italian, Pesto and Spicy Globe)

7 tbs EVOO (extra virgin olive oil)

3 med garlic cloves, peeled

1/4 cup fresh grated parmesan (we kind of just threw a few hunks into the food processor)

1/4 cup toasted pinenuts

Zest from 1 med lemon

1 tsp salt

Put all ingredients into food processor and blend the beejeezes out of it, until it's all blended and, well, looks like pesto should look.

 Add more EVOO if needed.

Toss pesto into pasta, place shrimp on top and Bon Appetit!

More running

I wish I could say that I am training for a marathon with all of this running, but the reality is that the only time I would feel motivated to run is if I were being chased by a scary guy with a knife!

I've been a table runner making fiend, kind of like DiscoJen. It's funny, we'll both look at a gorgeous piece of fabric and I'll think "how can I use this in a king sized quilt?" and DiscoJen thinks "table runner!" It's kind of a running joke in our little quilting friends circle.

I made all three of these from the Deb Strain 'Sent with Love' line for Moda. The patterns are all in the Anka's Treasures 'On the Run' table runner and centerpiece book. The nice thing is that Heather Mulder Peterson has a really nice tutorial on binding inside corners that really helped out when binding the table square.

I used the candy heart template from the McCall's quilting  magazine last spring and made them out of wool and embroidered the sayings on them instead of the flower pattern shown in the book. It made more sense with the fabric to do hearts instead of flowers.

I fussy cut out the hearts from the panel that comes with the fabric line and machine appliqued them down on the table square then quilted hearts in the pink and white squares.

Look at how fabulous they look on my black island. I especially love how my cake dome with German glass white chocolate covered strawberry and petit fours looks in the middle of the square.
I just love red, pink and white together at this time of the year. I think that it has something to do with how bright and cheery the combo is when the days are so ucky and gray.

Speaking of ucky gray days, we woke up to a beautifully frosted world last week. The weathermen called it 'freezing fog' which I thought they had totally made up. I've never heard that term before. I mean, if fog froze, you couldn't walk through it right? Apparently what it does is crystalize onto things, outlining them in fuzzy white frost. I was smitten.

The berries, pine and chickenwire photos were taken at Karen's house. It was so pretty, I made a trip over there to take pictures. Did you know chickenwire could look so gorgeous?

Running

I was working at Tammy Tadd Designs last weekend when I had a lightbulb creativity moment. We have 'Taddles' that are specific to our store. Taddles are 11" squares of fabric. They are great for all sorts of things when you only need a smidgeon of fabric. They are great for applique parts and backgrounds, you can cut (4) 5" charm squares out of them, you can cut 10" squares out of them for layer cake recipes. We box 13 of them together for a baker's dozen and call them Taddle Boxes.

They put some gorgeous pink, brown and reds together in a Taddle Box and I was smitten! I was talking with a friend/customer a couple of weekends ago about them and I came up with an idea for a table runner using an entire Taddle box. I got to work cutting them up into 52 charm squares, drew them up in PowerPoint, and wha-la! A nice long table runner. I would have used my Electric Quilt software, but the computer that it's installed in blew up and I haven't gotten it fixed yet.

I originlly got the Timeless Treasures Chocolate Covered Strawberries fabric to go with it, but I wasn't sure about the pink with the strawberries, then I happened upon a Kaufman cupcake fabric by Amy Schmiler that was perfect. Add a little of the giant ric rac and bam, GORGEOUS!

Then I wanted to use the strawberry fabric, so I put together all reds, whites and brown taddles. Throw in some white ric rac and a small red with white polka dot inner border and it's ridiculously cute! It's all very "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" isn't it?

Now, just like DiscoJen, I'm on a table runner kick. I have the new Deb Strain 'Sent with Love' line by Moda cut up and ready to go, complete with wool appliqued candy hearts, Andover's 'Garden Fresh' by Gail Kessler, amoung others. I figure I should get these 4 done first, then work on another set.