One Week, Three Finishes

My personal and unannounced goal in January is to finish three small quilts from the quilts-to-be-quilted pile. Threads of Hope for Project Quilting was just a fun diversion. As for the quilts-to-be-quilted pile, two are now finished: Going Bananas, and the newest, Lucky Charm. This is my adaptation of a free pattern I found on Canoe Ridge Creations. My version ended up at 22 x 22 inches.

I love table toppers and table runners, and I've been endeavoring to have one of each for every conceivable season and holiday. This is one for St. Patrick's Day. I had some ideas about how to quilt it, but it really all came together as I was going along. I used a white YLI quilting thread on top.

A green variegated thread from Threadart in the bobbin.

And I don't know if you guys care about the thread names and colors, but I post these images for my own reference as much as anything else. Sometimes I look back to see where a thread came from or to get a color number so I can reorder.

So I was settled on quilting the Spiral Clover from Lori Kennedy's blog in the three green clover leaf sections. Although I practiced several times, it was difficult to get the "leaves" spaced correctly and sized equally. The leaf on the left side always wanted to stray too far away from the other two. Nevertheless, I got 'er done. Having the fabric strips helped gauge the positioning of everything.

Here's how it looks from the back.

I really didn't know what to do in the stem section, and so I just winged it with this design. It's uninspired, but it works.

In the borders, I did a motif that was meant to be suggestive of clover leaves. They didn't space out just right so that I could do one in the corner. The corners just got a big loop.

The outer border is done the same way, but I turned it the other direction.

Once I decided on the motifs for each section, it quilted up pretty quickly.

Here's how it looks from the back:

I had a nice bright green quarter yard scrap to use for the binding.

It took about an hour to hand-stitch it, and that puppy was finished.

Here's how it looks from the back.

Also yesterday, I made a good bit of progress on the Let's RV cross stitch piece. I'd missed my stitching time the day before, and so I gave myself extra time to work on it. Now, the whole right side is finished, and that's the last I'll use the red floss. There are a few little mistakes in this. Sometimes I miscount and sometimes I forget to stitch a line somewhere. I'm not accustomed to looking at cross-stitch patterns, and so my mistakes come from misinterpreting things rather than carelessness. So far, nothing has bothered me enough to fix it.

Now I've moved the hoop. There are some words to stitch across the top before I move to the left side. Here's how it looks so far.

For dinner last night, Mike smoked some Cornish game hens in his Traeger smoker/grill. Mike has never taken much interest in cooking, but the Traeger seems to have awakened the caveman in him. He's been spending quite a bit of time looking at smoking recipes, and these Cornish hens were his latest creation. I've asked him to send me the recipe he used so I can add it to my database and share it with you. These were really good. The brine made them so moist and flavorful, and the smoking makes them beautiful.

As a side dish, I roasted some sweet potatoes like baked potatoes. These have a "hot honey browned butter" that goes with them. It's one of my favorite ways to eat sweet potatoes, and it's a good stand-in for traditional baked russet potatoes. You can find the recipe for Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Hot Honey Browned Butter right here. It sure makes my sewing day last longer when he takes over in the kitchen.

It's been cold and windy here, although there has been no rain. I had every intention of getting out for a walk yesterday, but it was so danged cold outside, I couldn't bring myself to leave the house. Sadie knows what to do:

Smitty just hangs out on his kitty pole looking out the window.

Wake me up when it's summer.

Today I really am going to get a walk in, but it might be on the treadmill. There's nothing on the calendar in the way of housekeeping chores, and so it's going to be another NBS day. On today's agenda, I'll be getting after that last row of blocks for the Shop Hop quilt. It'll be good to have that one sewn into a completed flimsy.

What's going on for your Monday?