more sewing

Generally, on Mt Washington Quilting Bees' meeting days, one of the members will hold a short class to teach others a pattern or sewing or quilting technique.

I like to get in on these classes, it's fun...and even if it's something I already know how to do, I am still likely to learn something...either from the teacher or some of the other quilters.

My friend, Carol (who is also our new president), was teaching this class called Crazy Kaleidoscope.

You take nine squares of different fabrics and stack them up, Then you make a cut through the whole stack, shuffle the sections, and sew them to a different fabric. Repeat a few times until all the blocks are totally mixed.

You can stack up another nine squares and do it all over if you want to make a larger quilt.  I just stopped with nine...and put them together with sashing and borders to make this table topper sized quilt.
 It's roughly 30 "square.

This is just a top so far...I still need to quilt it.   I used some Christmas fabrics so I will have a colorful little table topper to add to my decorations this year.

This technique is pretty much the same as the pattern I used when I made this quilt in the picture below, for my older son back in 2013.

That quilt pattern had a specific shape to follow when cutting through  the squares, whereas the one from the class was just "cut where you wish".  Quick and fun...it would be a good way to make a fast baby quilt, too.

weekend stuff

Saturday, I noticed a flurry of activity outside. The birds and squirrels all scattered and ran for cover.
Then, these two big old Black Vultures landed in the yard!

Directly, one of them waddled over to the bird bath and hopped up and got a drink.

Not exactly the pretty little song birds I was trying to attract with the birdbath!   The second vulture came over to the bath but didn't seem to understand how to hop up there.  He pecked around on the bottom of it and on the ground around it.  I figured it was a mother and child duo.

Notice below, some birds came back to the feeder. The vultures are not a threat to them but I guess it's the smaller bird's instinct to head for cover when a large bird comes swooping down out of  the sky.

Turkey Vultures are the ones with a red face and head. These Black Vultures have gray skin on their face and head.

And you know what?  

They taste just like chicken!

Whoa!  Just kidding of course!  I had to change the subject to Sunday dinner some way.

I never fry chicken anymore, myself.  I picked up some at W-mart.  I thought that's where the fried chicken I ate last week at the extension office was from...and it was so good.  But now I don't think so. This is drier with a hard crunchy crust.  Or did they just overcook it this time?  But it sure beats the greasy mess that frying chicken at home creates.

I did make the side dishes: mashed skin-on red potatoes, white gravy, biscuits, cole slaw, scalloped tomatoes, and green beans cooked with onions and ham.

I tried a new cheesecake recipe for dessert. It's called "Perfect Cheesecake Everytime".  It did come out good...I would make it again.  Forgot to get a photo, though.

I made a caramel sauce to drizzle over it too...but I goofed up and burned it a little...so I just picked up a bottle of caramel ice cream topping when I went to pick up the chicken.  It did the trick!

Napa cabbage salad

Usually Napa cabbage is priced pretty high compared to other cabbage and leafy green vegetables.
It must be in season right now,  it was considerably cheaper on a recent grocery run.

So I bought a head to make this...

Napa Cabbage Salad
1/4 cup butter
3 oz. ramen noodles (chicken)
1/2 cup sesame seeds
1/2 cup slivered almonds
1/4 cup olive oil
2 Tbsp. sesame oil
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
1 Tbsp. soy sauce
2 Tbsp. sugar
1 large head Napa cabbage, shredded
1/2 onion, diced fine

This is the reason for making this salad...you start by melting butter!

Melt butter in a skillet. Add broken ramen noodles, sesame seeds and slivered almonds. Stir over medium heat until mixture is golden brown.  Remove from heat and set aside to cool.

Whisk together olive oil, sesame oil, rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, sugar and ramen noodle flavor packet mix.

Stir until sugar is dissolved.

This salad can get soggy fairly quickly so assemble it right before serving.

Toss together Napa cabbage, diced onions and buttery ramen mixture. Pour the dressing over and toss to coat.

I'm not sure what others do, but I cut a lot of the spine out of the Napa cabbage leaves...especially the outer ones. The inner ones are more tender.

around the yard

One morning I saw this small hawk land on the back porch.  I snapped a couple of photos through the door glass

It looks like he is inspecting that bag of mulch. Some little critter must be hiding underneath. 

Now he sees me moving my camera inside.  That's why they say, "eyes like a hawk"!

Those flowers you see right off the porch are St. Johns Wort.  I planted those last year and I like them. They have yellow flowers that last a long time then gradually turn darker and berry-like.

I think I should have pinched the stems back in the spring, so they would develop more stalks and not look so leggy. Hopefully, I will remember to do this next spring!  

This is the flower bed I overhauled this year. It still has some bare spots.  Some little sharp toothed bunny ate my newly purchased Clethra to the ground.  I'll have to find something to replace it next year.

This Joe Pye Weed was also new this year. I guess bunnies don't like the taste of them!  Butterflies are attracted, though.

And, a pretty morning sky!   Red sky at morning, sailors take warning!

Summer is slipping away from us...I am noticing how much later the sun comes up.

I heard this recently...the number of foggy mornings in August will be the number of snows we have in the coming winter.  There have been four so far.

what I am sewing

I have finally gotten started on a quilt that I bought fabric for back in May 2013.

I've been putting it off...mostly because of the instructions.  The first step tells you to cut all your fabric pieces for  the whole quilt.   This seemed like a scary idea to me.  This fabric was a little more expensive than I usually buy and I didn't want to get goofed up and waste it by making bad cuts.

So I had to figure out the cuts I needed to make one block for a test.  Everything came out fine after some squinting and forehead wrinkling.
It's a BIG block, almost 22"square!

Can you see how it's designed to look three dimensional?  It's more evident from a distance. Can you see it in the photo below?

The name of the pattern is Labyrinth Walk.  One of my quilt group friends had made this pattern and brought it for show and tell. I liked it because it is a masculine looking quilt, and modern looking. 

 My friend told me what magazine the pattern came from and offered to lend me hers, but I went ahead and ordered a back issue for myself.  It's a good thing I did...since I've taken so long to get started on it.

Here is a page to show the finished quilt. Mine will be rectangular instead of square - I am adding an extra row for more length.

I've blurred out some measurements on the page (copyrighted) , but you can see it is complicated...at least this first block was for me. Challenging!

There are two different blocks that make up the pattern, so now I need to figure out what to cut to make a test block for the other one.

more birthdays

We actually helped celebrate more birthdays this past  weekend.  Three of Lonnie's great grandchildren have August birthdays, as well as a grandson and another grandson's wife. Whew!

They had a cookout to celebrate all  the birthdays at once. Here is the kids table...

Oops, one was missing! The two on the left are both having birthdays. All of these kids are Lonnie's great grandchildren. The third birthday boy didn't get in the photo...he was too busy to eat!

The kids spent the day jumping on a trampoline they had there, running up and down a dirt mound that covers a storm cellar, and racing in and out of the house.

Presents were opened and no one had a meltdown because they weren't the one receiving gifts! Good kids!

Here is Lonnie with his oldest great grandson, who is nearly as tall as Great Grandpa!

I got a little surprise of an early birthday gift, too!  These hand woven pot holders that the girls made.

Now isn't that sweet!

Yellow is my favorite color.  They are too pretty to use as potholders, I might use them as coasters instead.

birthday boy

We celebrated my older son's birthday this weekend.

Here he is, just opening a card from Lonnie, who always writes a lot of good and funny things in cards.
Plus there was some cash in there! Always a welcome gift.
We also gave Chopper a book and an electronic thingy that has to do with recording music (he plays a bass).

I always ask the birthday person to pick out what they want for their birthday meal.  Some years he asks for cheese subs (I think just to annoy his brother, who doesn't really like them - it's sort of a joke now).

This year he asked for beef Fajitas with all the fixings.  I hadn't made them for a long time but they came out pretty good.  

For the birthday cake he asked for chocolate cake with white icing.

I've only ever made a few cakes from scratch, but since cake mixes seem to be getting smaller and of lower quality, I decided to make a chocolate cake recipe from allrecipes.com.  Click HERE  to see the recipe if you are interested.

It made a huge cake. The instructions were, to bake in three round cake pans, but I baked it in two 9"square pans instead.   There was a layer of cream cheese frosting in the middle and sweetened whipped cream on the outside.

It was a good cake recipe. Chocolatey and not overly sweet. We had a tub of Turkey Hill gelato to go with it.

Happy Birthday, Chopper!!