5/7/14

This and That

My feet hit the ground at 5:00 a.m. this morning. There is lots to do today, and so I'm getting an early start on my blog post. It's a little of everything today, so try to stay organized.

Yesterday morning I took this picture to show you that I'd turned all four corners on the Intel Underneath quilt.

Then, I had such a short distance to go that I finished it up after dinner last night.


I traveled 384 inches to finish this one. It turned out great, and I'm excited to take a good picture of it so I can show you. It'll be about ten days for that. It's too large for just one person to hold up. When Mike and I try to take a picture of a large quilt, we have to stand on chairs, and we have to set up the camera on a tripod and use the remote shutter release, and it turns into quite a production. I think waiting ten days for the family to show up is a better way to go. Don't chew off your fingernails while you wait, okay?

Then yesterday afternoon, I quilted the green block on the "We are the World" quilt. You can see the quilting a little better this time around.


It didn't take quite as long to pull the paper off this time. I did it a little more systematically, and maybe I'm just getting better at it. In any case, it's going to take a while to do this whole quilt, mainly because it takes so darned long to remove the paper from the quilted block. That's okay though...lots of time left in the month. 

Let's see...oh yes. My thanks go to Katy at Lethargic Lass for sharing a tutorial with me. Remember when I showed you the vintage hankies for my little Mom Cats quilt? One of the hankies I showed you was this one:


and I wondered about how those little holes are made. Quite a few of you offered up information about this technique called "hemstitching", but I thought this tutorial that Katy shared was especially informative. Take a peek. Maybe you'd like to give it a try. Thanks, Katy!

And let's see...what else? Well. I'm a day late in linking up to: 

Val's Quilting Studio

If you visited Val's blog yesterday, then you know that this week's categories are Cats and Charity quilts. And Val very sweetly featured the Love Me, Love My Cat redwork quilt I finished last year.


I can take credit for making the quilt, but I can't take credit for the blog post Val featured. Smitty and Gracie wrote it. You can read it right here

But I didn't want to let the linky party go by without telling you about the quilt I wanted to share under the "Charity Quilts" category. I've done several quilts for the Downy Quilts for Kids program, but my favorite charity quilt has to be this one:


It's not a very good picture of it...so sorry...it was one of my earliest quilts, and I hadn't yet learned how to take a good picture of a quilt. In a nutshell, I started this quilt as a challenge for a guild I was attending at one time. The goal was to choose a children's book and make a quilt representing the book in some way. I was making this mystery quilt at the time. It was published in three parts in American Quilter magazine. With its floral fabrics, I chose The Secret Garden as my book title. The goal was to donate both the quilt and the book to a charity to benefit children. I left the guild, and none of that happened, but I donated the quilt anyway. 

This quilt was finished at the time tornadoes devastated the city of Joplin, Missouri, and Judy Laquidara put out a call for quilts to benefit those who had lost everything. She promised the quilt and the book would go to a teen or pre-teen girl. I have no knowledge of who ended up with the quilt, but it always gives me a warm feeling imaging some young girl left homeless by the tornado, living in a shelter, wrapped in her quilt, and reading her book. You can read my blog post about it right here.

So today a pest exterminator is coming. With the warm weather last week, we were alarmed at the number of carpenter ants and termites we saw. It happens every year at the first sign of warm weather, but there was an especially large number of creepy crawling pests running around last week. Time to call in the big guns. That happens early this morning.

Today is Mike's birthday, and so I'm making him his favorite prime rib dinner, garlic mashed potatoes, and roasted asparagus. The asparagus I picked up at the grocery store yesterday was especially nice. He also requested one of our favorite desserts, these little Apricot Cherry Upside-down Mini Cakes:


I make these little cakes every year while apricots and cherries are in season at the same time. The cherries I got yesterday were the first of the season, and quite expensive, and so we'll have to enjoy these to the max. They are so pretty and yummy and easy to make. You can find the link to the recipe right here.

And I think that about covers it. Despite the pest guy coming and all the cooking I'm doing today, I'm still going to try to get to my Zumba class this afternoon, and I'm also hoping to get another quilt block quilted. Have a wonderful Wednesday!

13 comments:

WoolenSails said...

I love that quilting and you inspire me to get going on all my projects. Happy Birthday to Mike! That looks like a delicious dinner and desert.

Debbie

Diane Wild said...

Busy day, that's for sure. The quilts are beautiful. Happy Birthday to Mike, also. Treat him well.

Carol Swift said...

You are one busy lady with some really beautiful projects! The birthday menu sounds delicious...Happy Birthday to Mike!

Val's Quilting Studio said...

Hey I leave the linky open for three days...so you were good. Besides...you were our highlighted quilter this week...it comes with a ticket to be late!! LOL!! I'm so loving your doll quilt....thanks for sharing the process. I need to purchase that quilting pattern!!

Junebug613 said...

Congrats on the finish! You can see the quilting very well on the green. It's cute! Happy Birthday to Mike!

Marei said...

Sounds like you've got quite the busy day. Please tell Mike I said, "Happy Birthday with many more to come" and that I hope he enjoys his FAB dinner. Yum!

Janarama said...

I'm loving the way you're quilting your doll quilt. Tell Mike Happy Birthday!

Brown Family said...

It feels so good to donate a quilt to someone that has lost every thing.

quiltzyx said...

The paper doll quilting looks just right on We Are the World!

I really like the picture of Intel Underneath with the 4 corners - makes me smile. Congrats on the finish too.

Happy Birthday to Mike!

I actually did some quilty work today - got the top done, sandwiched & pinned, ready to quilt for our guild challenge this month "Movie Title". I'll be finishing it up tomorrow - guild is tomorrow night of course......

Mary said...

I spent the WHOLE day quilting today. It's been a while since I did that. Congrats on the FINISH! We'll be back for the big REVEAL, however long it takes. I have a bar outside to attach my quilts to for picture taking straight on. Happy Birthday apricot upside-down cakes look yummy!

Dana Gaffney said...

Happy Birthday Mike, I hope you both have a great time, I know the food will be delicious.
We've had a ton of creepy crawlies this year too, usually there's just one featured but this year they've all shown up.

Anonymous said...

Happy Birthday to Mike (a day late). Hope he enjoyed that delicious sounding dinner menu.

Congratulations on getting the quilt bound and finished.

Kate said...

Hope Mike had a happy birthday. That's a lot of celebrating for May.

Intel Underneath looks great. Can't wait to see the finished quilt.