Mission Accomplished

As I told you in my last post, I finished the “Letty’s Bag” for my friend Rob.  Today I met Marilyn and Rob for lunch at our local Pei Wei.  Of course I had the lettuce wraps as usual.  Pei Wei is owned by the same people that own P. F. Chang’s and their lettuce wraps are absolutely just as good and I love them both.  But I digress………

Here Rob is modeling her new bag.  Isn’t she just the cutest thing?  Rob is the youngest member of my friendship group the “Wednesday Wacko’s”.  Unfortunately she’s currently living about 60+ miles away (for her husband’s job) so I don’t get to see her as often as I’d like, but it’s not forever.  Hopefully just a couple of years and then she’ll be back nice and close. 

BTW, Rob crocheted me a hat.  I’ll model it for all of you at a later date.

Enjoy,

“A” is for Amy Butler

Back on October 30th, I Blogged about my friendship group and our Christmas in July, August, September and finally October.  And then on November 2nd I Blogged about my To-Do List.   The idea was to give a gift spelling out Christmas. 

I drew my friend Rob’s name and she is a huge Amy Butler fan.  For the “A” I gave her 4 half yards of Amy Butler fabric and a “Letty’s Bag” pattern.  Rob is a young, active, mother of 2 children under the age of 3 so the chances of her finding time to make the bag within the next 10 – 15 years was slim to none.  I told her if she left the fabric, I’d make the bag for her.  Well it took her all of about 1 second to put the fabric on my mantle so that I would make her bag.

So here’s the end result.

And the inside with all it’s pockets.

I love the light colors on the inside so that you can find things. 

Today I’m “doing” lunch with Rob and Marilyn (two of my favorite peeps).  I’ll get Rob to pose for a picture with her new bag.

Enjoy,

Design Wall Monday – 11/9/09

Over the weekend I worked on a few different things but this is what is on my design wall this morning.

This is the beginning of a new “Magical Slice and Dice” quilt.  When completed it will be a sample and Two Wacky Women will have kits available.  Actually the kits and are patters are available now.  If you’re interested, please contact me. 

Enjoy,

Mennonite Quilt

Close-up of hand quilting.  You should be able to click on it to make it larger.  Read further for the story.

Recently my husband John and I went on vacation.  We went to Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Amish Country and New York City and Brooklyn.  I blogged about our trip everyday on our vacation blog.

Prior to our trip I had hoped to purchase a quilt while we were in the Amish Country.  One day while in Philadelphia we rented a car and drove to Intercourse, PA at the recommendation of my friend Linda.  She recommended that we visit The Old Country Store as well as Zooks. 

Here I am out side right before we went inside. 

They had many, many quilts as well as fabric for sale.  They had everything from traditional Amish quilts to beautiful appliqué quilts. 

My first time through I was overwhelmed and nothing jumped out at me.  After visiting a few other stores we went back and this time I found exactly what I was looking for (although I didn’t start out knowing what I was looking for). 

Finally, peeking out from one of the many quilt racks was this, a beautiful Wedding Ring quilt.  And, needless to say it had my name written all over it. 

One of the things I often say when someone asks if I made something is, “No, but I could have”.  Well I guess I could have made this quilt, but I sure as heck couldn’t have done all the hand quilting on it.  It is just wonderful.  Here’s another close look at the quilting.

My plan was to make pillow shams using the background fabric which is a Moda Marble.  I found the fabric and made the shams.

They look OK, I actually like the way they fit and how they turned out………but when I put them on the bed they just didn’t work at all.  Oh well, I put them on the guest bed behind the shams that belong in that room so they’re kind of hidden. 

Since the Wedding Ring quilt is so large, I’m actually able to put it on the bed the old fashioned way with the pillows tucked under at the top.  I haven’t done that in a very long time but I think in this case it works. 

Here’s one more picture from a different angle.

The quilt is was actually made by a Mennonite women.  I’m sure she made it just for me.  I’m a lucky girl!

Enjoy!

Christmas Devine Nine

We bought a new queen size bed a few years ago and what I didn’t consider at the time was how thick the mattress is.  I normal queen size quilt will cover the top but doesn’t drop far enough down the sides to cover the mattress.

When I finished putting my Christmas quilt together a few months ago, it wasn’t big enough.  I found some additional fabric so I was able to add another border to three sides.  Since I like to have pillow shams, I decided not to add the last border to the top. 

It looks good in the picture but alas it’s not quilted yet.  It’s way to big for me to do on my very old Handiquilter so I’ve asked my friend Sue to quilt it on her new Gammill long arm. 

The front of the shams are completed so I think I’ll send them along with the quilt top so that Sue can quilt them at the same time.  Hopefully she’ll be able to do it before Thanksgiving so that I can finish the shams and sew the binding on. 

Speaking of binding.  Here it is, all ready to go.  This looks like bias binding but it’s not.  The fabric was printed on the diagonal.  I love when they do that.  It makes it way more interesting. 

Now’s it on to the next thing on my To-Do list, wonder what it will be.

Hugs,

Banana Bread

No time for sewing today but I did have time to make banana bread.  I had three bananas sitting there staring at me and looking a little ripe so I decided to get out an old recipe and bake. 

I have been a Weight Watcher forever.  I converted this recipe a long time ago so that I would know exactly how many “points” I was eating.  Don’t let that fool you, it’s still delicious.

Start out by mashing the bananas -

Collect all the ingredients -

All mixed together and poured into a loaf pan -

Out of the oven and cooling -

Yum……a slice all ready for me to test -

 

Here’s the recipe:

Banana Bread – 15 portions – 2 points each

3 – very ripe bananas

1 Tbsp. – fresh lemon juice

1/4 cup – reduced calorie margarine

1/2 cup – sugar

1 – egg

1/2 cup – skim milk

1 3/4 cups – All-purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp. – baking powder

1/2 tsp. - baking soda

1/2 tsp. – table salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Spray loaf pan with non-stick spray (Pam).  In a small bowl mash the bananas to equal 1 cup.  Stir in lemon juice.  In large bowl with electric mixer at medium speed, beat margarine, sugar, egg, skim milk and bananas.  Add flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Mix until blended.  Pour batter into loaf pan and bake 50 to 55 minutes until wooden tooth pick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Enjoy!

Hugs,

To-Do List

I have a lot of things on my To-Do list but here’s four of them that have made it to the top of the list. 

First up is my Christmas bed quilt.  My sister, Melinda, made the blocks for me way back in July.  I put it together and added borders in August.  However when I got home, I discovered it still wasn’t big enough for our deep mattress bed.  A few days ago I was at Jenny’s in Fountain Valley, CA and found some of the coordinating fabric so I bought it.  Now it’s time to add another border so that I can get it quilted and ready for my bed before Christmas.

Next up…….as part of Christmas in July, September and finally October one of my gifts to my friend Rob was 4 half yards of Amy Butler fabric.  I promised if she left the fabric I would make her a “Letty’s Bag”.  Rob is a huge Amy Butler fan.  I think this will make a wonderful bag.

This is fabric that Marilyn and I (Two Wacky Women) ordered a long time ago.  We got three of the fabrics but the main focus fabric didn’t come until recently.  Now it’s time to make the “Magical Slice and Dice” sample.

And, last but not least, a new pattern and sample.  The working title for now is “To Be Named”,  I’m sure Marilyn or I will come up with a better name but for now here is is.  It’s a Mary Lou Weidman fabric.

Look’s like I have a busy next couple of weeks.  I’ll post my progress as I go.

Hugs,