8/10/15

Quilting Complete!

The quilting is all finished for the To the Rescue quilt. This one went much more quickly than expected. Having the tension on the machine cooperate definitely helped. When I last posted about this, I was in the process of quilting a diagonal grid into the patchwork portions. When that was finished, it was laid out and carefully inspected for any missed sections. Usually those don't show themselves until I send it off to the recipient and then see the quilt in a picture from them. Then I say something like, "Dag Nabbit!", and that's an exact quote.


After that, the outside red border burst into quilted flames, which I neglected to photograph. I'll get them after the binding is sewn on.


Miss Gracie intervened while it was lying on the floor.

"Befur you start thinking you are furnished with this, it must pass the snugglabilty test. Quilts must meet strict purrameters before they can be purnounced snugglable."


"Let me just roll my ample body around on this. Cushy. Comfy. Soft."


"Soft on my facial furs...I give it a 9 out of 10 on the snugglability scale."


What would it take to get a 10 out of 10, Miss Gracie?

"I pursume it is going to some unruly kitten somewhere. No quilt can achieve a purrfect score unless it is made especially fur me. "

Well...there you have it. The supreme snugglability judge has purred and there can be no dissent from her ruling.

Here's how it looks from the back. With that busy print, the quilting is barely visible...which is probably just as well.


Finally, I'm awaiting final approval from my friend Carol on its label. I've pixelated Grayson's full name since I'm not sure it should be posted on the internet.


My one sewing goal for the day is to sew a blue binding on the quilt. I'll need some hand-sewing for tomorrow since I finished the 26th block for the Live, Love, Teach quilt this morning. Here is the original block from George & Robin:


And here is the block rendered into floss:


Just FYI, this is the explanation that Robin sent along when she submitted her block:


While taking breaks from quilting yesterday, I turned the tomatillos into salsa verde.


The recipe came from Marisa McClellan's Food in Jars book (a favorite of mine).


Ordinarily, I wouldn't share a recipe from a book, but someone else kindly posted it online. You can find it right here

I made the recipe as it's written, except that I added a red serrano pepper (seeds and ribs included) from my CSA share to give it a few little flecks of red. Also, I used four jalapeno peppers, including the seeds and ribs from just one of the four. It's fairly spicy, but it won't blow your head off. The only other thing I would say about the recipe is that it needs to be cooked longer. When the salsa sat and cooled for a couple of hours, I noticed the "chunky" part of it settled to the bottom of the jar, and there was an awful lot of liquid at the top. Salsa should be thicker than that, and so I'll cook it down more next time. The flavor was tops, however, and so it's a keeper of a recipe.

And you would not believe how long it has taken me to write this post. I keep getting interrupted and interrupting myself to do other things. If I'm going to get that binding sewn on today, I'd better get my butt a-bobbin' (one of my mother's favorite expressions). 

9 comments:

Vroomans' Quilts said...

Well, if Miss Gracie approves then it has to be a hit. I think it is fabulous and the backing fabric is just as cute as the front.

Alison V. said...

What a sweet quilt for a little boy! :)

Dana Gaffney said...

Have I told you lately how much I adore the beautiful Miss Gracie?

Doreen said...

Nicely done and the backing fabric is so perfect!!!!!! And the stitcheries are so sweet.............

Jackie said...

You did a great job!

Kate said...

Ms. Gracie is such a great cuddle factor judge. Very professional about it too. The quilt looks great!

Brown Family said...

Gracie, you are a very good instectpur!

quiltzyx said...

So glad Gracie gave the quilt her purr of appurval!
That salsa verde looks wonderful. Maybe you could put a label on it: Shake before each use?
Yummmm.

Michele said...

It turned out really adorable and it is a good thing that it passed her highness's test. I wonder what you would have done if it didn't.