Spanish Coffee Cake, wrist pin cushion, new embroideries

When I was at quilting on Thursday, 2 friends reminded me of the Spanish Coffee Cake that I haven’t make in FOREVER…so I hopped up Sunday morning (8/30) and got that in the oven while Michael was out walking the dog. 

  

We ate out on the deck and the coffee cake was SCRUMP-TEE_OUS… if I do say so myself (thanks for the recipe BG).  After that, I headed to the studio to load up Ethel’s quilt.  My new wrist magnet pin cushion worked PERFECTLY…

I’m so glad I got it.  I also got a few new embroideries done:  

 

Michael left at 3:30 to try out for plays in Fort Mill and in Rock Hill…I’m really hoping he gets a part in the Fort Mill play.  He got home around 8 PM and we just watched a bit of TV before bed.

canna lily, rows for new Clinton School quilt, dino embroidery, bread, pizza

As Michael left for golf on Saturday morning (8/29), we decided to take another picture of our flowers out front….these red flowers are incredible (actually, when Pat stopped by she told me they were a variety of canna lilies).  We are always snipping off the dead one, and it seems like another, LARGER and taller one appears in its place.   

 After that I headed to the studio to sew all day.  By dinnertime I had all of my blocks sewn into rows for another Clinton quilt (I did these blocks “on point”, but I think the ripple-ing is even worse, so for the dinos I’m going back to a straight on embroidery), 

 finished another dino embroidery, 

made an embroidered card for a friend who is celebrating 5 years cancer free (of course it was in the mail before I took a picture :~(, and made and baked sandwich bread. 

I made one full sandwich loaf for us, then made 3 mini-loaves (they’re so cute!) Pat stopped by to pick up some books to read on vacation, and took home a mini-loaf,  Michael ran a second one over to our neighbors Anne & Bryce, and we snacked on the third :~).  I had pizza dough left over from a couple of days ago…so it was pizza for dinner….yum!

my dough...wish I could learn to toss it :-)

a layer of pesto

a thick layer of our luscious roma tomatoes

red onions for me & spinach for Michael

thick slices of mozzarella

yumm-o!

 
 After that we settled in for TV watching and knitting.

dino embroideries, golf club covers

My honey made me a smurfy egg on cheese toast on Friday morning (8/28) before we left for a routine doctor’s appointment in Charlotte.  We stopped for lunch at MAM RICOTTA’s after the appointment (Michael had ravioli with red sauce while I had spinach carbonara….yum to both!) and so we didn’t get home until 3.  After a bit more paperwork, Michael settled in to watch the ladies golf, while I stitched on a few more embroideries

and kept on sewing blocks together for another quilt.  I’m telling you, my embroidery machine is certainly getting a workout and I am almost out of the bobbin thread I brought to SC when we moved 8-1/2 years ago!  Since I am currently in love with these embroidered quilts…I see a LOT more bobbin thread in my future :~).  And, Pat sent me a picture of the second golf club cover I finished knitting…with her embroidery to tell her which club is which: 

At 7 PM, MIchael and I settled in with bowls of popcorn to watch “2012”, a disaster movie from a few years ago.  It’s a good thing we started the movie as soon as we did, because it took until 10:30 before we were finished watching.  Neither of us remembered much of this movie…it was really great to see it again.

Clinton School quilts - first donation

Michael had another very early golf tee time on Thursday (8/27) and I jumped up and got an embroidery done and the car packed before heading off to quilting.  I wasn’t very productive at quilting, but I did have a great time talking to people :~).  When I came home, I spent a lot of the afternoon pulling together my first donation of quilts for Clinton School.  When I first started talking about it, someone at quilting (that's you Linda!) asked me if I had a goal for the number of quilts I wanted to donate.  Since I was donating 10 to Sterling School for 2015, I thought I would shoot for 10 for Clinton…..well, this first donation blew that out of the water….I pulled together 12 quilts!!!  So…I think I’m going to shoot for a total of 20 for 2015 for Clinton School.  Debbie (the 4th grade teacher) stopped by to pick up the quilts and she was IN AWE!!!  She said she wanted to turn right around and take them to school because the teachers were going to go crazy!!!  Here's the parade:

These were done in 2013...I quilted them on my regular sewing machine...they have polar fleece backs:

These were some of the first quilts completed on Miss Scarlett:

 

remember this one BG?  I did the whole top while visitng you!

 

And of course, these you recently saw, they were made especially with Clinton School in mind..they are backed by polar fleece:

I truly have felt so energized by these Clinton School quilts and I feel like this is part of my purpose in life.  I am excited about the quilts I have planned for the future and happy that I have someplace to donate them where they are surely needed.  

By then it was dinnertime and we had Orange Chicken (from Trader Joe’s), and then I headed back downstairs.  Michael wanted to watch a few of his shows, and I never got any sewing done on Thursday, so I wanted to spend an hour or 2 doing that.  I got another embroidery done and continued sewing together blocks from another quilt, then headed upstairs to watch just a bit of TV before bed.

garden flowers, baby dino embroidery, pizza!

Michael left for golf here at SCCL around 7 AM on Wednesday morning (8/26) and I spent literally hours on paperwork :~(.  First up…my health care premiums are being transferred to be managed by another company.  Of course I received this letter AFTER I had already sent in the first 2 payments to the old company!  PLUS, they think I am a month in arrears.  So, I spent 2 hours going through my bank statements for the previous year…documenting check numbers and dates that they cleared the bank.  I sent that off in an email and waited for a reply.  I also had to update my “recipient” for where the checks should go.  Then I attacked the pile of paper on my desk.  When Michael came home from golf (very disappointed with his performance) I was still working on my desk.  We talked for a bit and he picked a beautiful bouquet of flowers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

before heading upstairs to do his stuff.  I finally got to sew a bit in the afternoon…I started a new set of embroideries (baby dinosaurs)….isn’t this the cutest thing? 

 

 

And I also started sewing together a new Clinton quilt.   After that, I headed upstairs to make dough for dinner.  We still had 2 small pieces of chicken left from dinner on Friday night, so I made a BBQ chicken pizza….it was yummy! 

 

I talked with Janice for an hour in the evening, then watched the finale of MURDER IN THE FIRST with my honey before heading to bed.

new sticky buns, Donna F quilt, embroideries

I hopped up early on Tuesday (8/25) to try out a new sticky bun recipe. 

topping in the pan

biscuit dough rolled out

laved with butter

cinnamon/sugar mix

tada!

 

Instead of a yeast dough, you make a biscuit dough for these….Michael said they were good…but I think I just have to bite the bullet and always do the KILLER PECAN STICKY BUNS.  They are just so much more fabulous than anything else I have tried…..plus, I always easily make a second pan of them to give away...and you know how I like to feed people :~).  Jan picked me up shortly after 9 AM and we headed off on our errands for the day.  We stopped at Joann’s and I got a new quilting book (50% off), then we headed up to Jan’s car dealer for some service work she needed done.  I read the quilting book while I was there, and discovered I needed a special kind of ruler, so we stopped again on our way back down South Blvd and I scored a ruler for 50% off.  Now, the original reason I wanted to go to Joann’s was to get a wrist/pincushion band to use with Miss Scarlett.  They had one, but it cost $10 and fit about 5 pins in it :~(, so I gave up on that idea.  But someone on my long arm facebook page showed a wrist magnet from Harbor Freight.  I was worried that it might be kind of heavy, but since we were going right buy there, we stopped in and SCORE!!!!!  The perfect thing for my pins…only cost $3…and lightweight to boot…I was THRILLED!  We stopped and had Mexican for lunch…yum!  Then Jan dropped me off at Stitch & Chat, and headed on home.  I took my 4 finished Clinton School quilts and I think it is safe to say that everyone loved them…especially the polar fleece on the back.  I was home at 3:30 and Donna came by to pick up her quilt: 

 

 

She seemed quite pleased with it, so I was glad Miss Scarlett came through again.  I worked a bit on more embroidering

 

and cleaning up my sewing room until it was time for Michael to leave for the movies.  I think I was quilted out for a bit, so I spent the evening relaxing and reading…it was great!

martini night at Joyce's

Michael left super early for golf on Monday (8/24) and I got to spend another fun day in the studio.  I spent all day doing more embroideries and cutting rainbow squares to set them off for another Clinton School Quilt.  Michael came home from golf VERY pleased with his driving….but not at all pleased with his putting :~(.  We both read our books for a bit in the late afternoon…then Ralph picked him up to go to a documentary on Marlon Brando, and I got cleaned up and headed out to martini club.  We had a wonderful time, and the food was out of this world!  

Our hostess, who put together a peach themed martini night:

Joyce

 A prosciutto/goat cheese/peach pizza (it was yummy!):

These FABULOUS cookies that she put together to look like miniature, perfect peaches:

She also had peach salsa and chips as well as a chicken satay with a peach compote:

 Our first martini was peach flavored, but the dessert martini was a s'mores flavor:

 I got home around 10, just behind Michael and we read for just a bit before bed.