strata loaded, Barb M's quilt, a repair

I took a break from customer quilts on Friday morning (6/29) and decided to load up backing for 2 Clinton quilts.  Once that was done, I got the first quilt loaded and basted: 

and kicked off the quilting:  

I don’t even really remember making this quilt top, but I love it as it looks really bright and cheerful to me….what I strive to make all of my kids quilts look like  :~).  Oh, who am I kidding….I love SCREAMING COLORS on all of my quilts….whether I’m giving them away or keeping them :~).  

While that was quilting, I did some repair work.  Do you see anything wrong with this picture?  

You’ve seen it before in the blog…when I first finished this top, and fortunately my eagle-eyed friend Susie saw something wrong (of course she may have had an advantage since she is a quilt judge and more used to looking closely at quilts and quilt tops).  Look again….and I’ll give you a hint in the second picture:  

Yes, in this crazy looking quilt, Susie saw that the block, 2 in from the left on the bottom row was turned incorrectly.  She told me a long time ago, as soon as I posted it…and I was surprised at that time to have several people ask me if I was glad that she pointed it out….OF COURSE I was glad!!!  With my luck I would have seen it AFTER it was quilted and it would have driven me crazy….I would ALWAYS like to know if I have done something wrong that I didn’t notice.  I spent Thursday night ripping the block out, and Friday afternoon sewing it back in correctly so that it can eventually be loaded as the second quilt on Miss Scarlett.  

Barb M came by to pick up her quilt for her granddaughter (it's so big, I'm very glad she's doing the binding on it and not me  :~):  

and after that Michael joined me downstairs to work on his computer.  Cookie came along and at first wasn’t sure if she really wanted to lie down next to Lucy:  

but eventually she relaxed:  

I got a few more of my Hunter’s Star blocks done: 

before heading upstairs to help Michael finish off the Jambalaya….it was excellent…even better tasting than the first day I made it  :~).  

He made popcorn at 7:30 PM and we settled in to watch SPY (a recommendation from Michael’s sister Sue).  It was pretty funny (although the language was awful), and the popcorn was superior  :~).

BTW – the butterflies are FINALLY on their way to the winner!!  I expect a selfie of you holding your winnings!!!!

Show & Tell at Scrap Happy Quilters

My honey’s tee time was a little later on Thursday morning (6/28), so he made me a toast/cheese/spinach/egg for breakfast: 

and packed the car before I left for quilting.  

I finished off the first color for my blocks on my new project at quilting:  

And as always, it was a fun time with great show and tell:

Dolly's beautiful quilt

And another fun quilt (front AND back) from Floy:

June made an extra large, embroidered bath mat for her daughter and son-in-law:

And Jerry showed us her prize winning needlepoint which looked as beautiful on the back as it did on the front:

Susie embroidered a lovely poem about learning to sew from her mother:

And Jeannie got a new embroidery machine and was facinated by the applique embroideries she learned in class:

Mary showed 2 lovely quilts:

And Robin got the borders on a half square triangle top she has been working on:

Jerri did this string pieced quilt out of men's ties (just using the skinny back part):

And Denise finished her 3-D Christmas pillow from our class 2 weeks ago:

As a group, we have finished 2 more Quilts of Valor:

And Jerri finished one on her own that she is donating to our group:

I had a wonderful time at quilting until almost the very end when I discovered that everything I had sewn in the morning for the second color on my blocks would have to be ripped out  :~(.   I’m doing a new pattern for which I don’t have any instructions…..just a picture and I started sewing the second level without totally thinking it out and engaging my brain!!!  

Oh Charlie, where are you when I need additional ripping power  :~)??  

Michael and I spent the rest of the afternoon (we both got home after 2 PM) in the living room, reading our respective books.  It was leftovers for a late dinner, and then TV and ripping for the rest of the evening.

***MMR – Michael’s Movie Reviews***

HOTEL ARTEMIS – Jodi Foster stars as ‘nurse’ in a crime/noir drama set in 2028.  She runs a hospital for criminals in a riot torn city.  A bad bank robbery starts off the story.  While she is trying to treat patients, the city’s top gangster needs treatment and there is an assassin trying to kill him too.  Lots of action and bloodshed ensue.  It’s a strange departure role for Foster, but she handles it well.  Her back story is key to the plot and makes for some great plot twists!  I give it 3 fat quarters out of 5.

brownies with caramels

We stayed up WAY TOO LATE on Tuesday night, so I was moving very slowly Wednesday morning (6/27).  My blog was finally out as Michael left around 9 AM to go to the chiro, the golf store, Lidl and Southern Spirits and while a potential new storm held off, I got more rows done on the current customer quilt.  By the time Michael got home at 1 PM I was just finishing up the last 2 rows….YAY!  I spent a good bit of time weaving in bobbin ends and ripping out the basting before trimming the quilt:  By the time I finished it was close to dinner, so I headed upstairs to try another run at my brownies (https://cafedelites.com/worlds-best-fudgiest-brownies/), with caramels that Anne had brought me a couple of days ago. 

The brownies were again OUTSTANDING….but I didn’t add enough caramels.  Michael and I still thought they were fabulous, and I emailed Anne to come over and get a container full, and she had a small one before she left and SHE thought they were great as well.  I still have caramels left from Anne and I think next time I want to melt them with a little half & half, pour that on top of the batter, and then swirl it all together before baking.  If you like fudgy, dense, dark chocolate brownies (made with only one bowl!!), these are the ones to try  :~).  I spent the rest of the evening watching TV with my honey and ripping out part of my Hunter’s Star pattern….I really thought I was sewing my HST’s together correctly, but no such luck!!!  I’ll have to try again on Thursday when I get home from quilting  :~(.

Cinnamon Star Bread, Michael & Sue & Charlie, AJ

We have had another tragedy in our SCCL neighborhood….after 11 years of living here, and the only tragedy being some melted siding from a grill being too close to a house, several month ago on a windy day, 3 houses were burned to the ground and many houses had damaged siding.  It was such a shock and our SCCL community rallied around the home owners.  Now last night, another house is a total loss due to the explosion of a propane tank.  We don’t have any details yet as to how the tank exploded, and there was no loss of life in any of these fires (thank goodness!), but again…a tremendous loss.  As we left for dinner last night we saw the 3 fire trucks turn into the complex….and by the time we got home we had 2 phone alerts as to what was happening.  It is almost unbelievable.

Tuesday morning (6/26), Sue, Charlie and Michael all took Cookie for a walk.  They walked close to the neighborhood of the latest fire (which was only a few houses away from Jan!!)  I stayed home and put together a Cinnamon Star Bread (https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/cinnamon-star-bread-recipe) :  

Yes...I do gild the lily with a confectioner's sugar glaze

for second breakfast once everyone took a break from things (Charlie and Michael fixing the legs on Miss Scarlett and re-leveling and checking out my new light fixture, and getting it almost all installed) around 11 AM.  We sat and enjoyed the bread, then Michael and I made a huge omelet for Sue and Charlie (with onions/mushrooms/cherry tomatoes/spinach.  Charlie said the more vegetables the better, so I loaded them in!)

to hopefully keep them full until they landed back home in Connecticut!  

I had a lovely talk with Paula in the afternoon and spent a bit more time working on Barb M’s quilt before having Asian leftovers with my honey for dinner.  He left to pick up Larry for the movies (TAG) just after 7 while I was SKYPE-ing with Janice.  We talked until 8:30 and I didn’t want to quilt after that because a severe thunder and lightning storm was still lingering, so I headed upstairs and watched TV until my honey got home after 10 PM.

A dose of cute for today....AJ explores the great outdoors:

Cooking Fingers, Barb M's quilt, Arizona Mary's quilt

Michael left for golf on Monday (6/25), and Sue and I headed up to Cooking Fingers to meet Anne & Jan, while Charlie wanted to stay home to work on our water heater  :~).

Here's Paula giving her welcoming speech:

The demonstrators:

Christine - upstate New York

Gerry - Maryland

Terre - New Jersey

Mary Ann - Wisconsin

took us on a journey....food through the states.  They had lots of interesting facts about their particular states and the popular foods and it was very interesting.

The food was yummy:

Maryland crab soup, Utica greens and Sloppy Joes

a cream cheese/fruit tart that engendered a lot of nostalgia for Sue as she remembered her mom making this, along with the ice box cake we had last night!

Sue also got to sit at the birthday table and came home with a dark chocolate candy bar!

Michael came home around 2 PM with a scorching SEVENTY-FIVE!!!!  And he had 2 birdies!!!  My honey is burning up the course these days :~).  Charlie was deep in the throes of fixing our water heater, after having gone to Rock Hill with Sue to pick up a ‘dip tube’ (whatever that is)!  I was quilting downstairs, having finally gotten the program set up for Barb M’s quilt.  I like the design she picked….I think it gives some interest to the blank blocks: 

without taking too much away from the very detailed pen & ink drawing blocks that her granddaughter did:  

We decided to go out to dinner and headed for MAMA’s, which we found is now closed on Monday’s!!!  So, we ended up at Hickory Tavern and everyone really enjoyed their meals.  Michael and I had burgers, while Charlie had a veggie burger and Sue had the blackened fish.  When we got home we played SCREWED for about an hour, then all sat and watched THE GREAT BRITISH BAKING SHOW while Charlie continued to rip out my old Colorwash border (he is AMAZING!!!!  He can turn his hand to ANYTHING!!!)

Arizona Mary is on the board again with a beautiful quilt:

Best of all it was made totally from her stash fabric!

loading Barb M's quilt, Sue & Charlie arrive, Paula & Doug for dinner

We slept in just a bit on Sunday (6/24) before Michael ran to the grocery store and I continued to get a few things done around the house.  After breakfast he harvested…..food:  

and flowers for the guest bedroom:  

By NOON we were all done with breakfast and chores and I headed to the studio to load up another customer quilt, 

while Michael was on his computer, and Cookie was snoozing:  

We worked downstairs for a bit before Sue & Charlie arrived around 3 PM:  

After that it was talking, talking, talking and getting ready for dinner:  

the cajun triumvirate:onions/peppers/celery

sausage

rice

garden tomatoes

the puff pastry tart

Paula & Doug arrived at 6 PM and she brought along THE MOST GORGEOUS batik jelly rolls that she scored at JOANNs:

We sat in the living room talking for a bit 

and Paula made a new friend:

Eventually we sat down to a modified Jambalaya:

puff pastry caramelized onion, goat cheese and tomato tart, 

and cole slaw.  We played TRIPOLI after that, 

stopping only for ice box cake and to sing Happy Birthday to Sue.  I think it was a wonderful evening and after enjoying the lanair for a bit after Paula & Doug left, and reading for a bit, we all headed to bed.