sewing pillow cases

I recently visited a different Homemaker group meeting at the extension office. This group meets monthly and they do different types of crafts.
Two of their members had passed away in the past year and they felt that their group was getting very small, so invited us members of Crazy Quilters to come visit and join if we wish to.

On this day they were sewing pillow cases to be donated to Norton Childrens Hospital.  All the fabrics were Halloween themed to bring a bit of cheer to the kids who are hospitalized at Halloween and missing out on trick-or-treating or parties.

Here are Joan and the two Lindas from my regular quilt group.

A few finished pillow cases. One fabric for the body with a coordinating fabric at the side.

The fabric was already cut and mostly pinned and ready to sew.

The cases are pinned and sewn in such a way that when you turn them from inside out, you have only one raw edge to deal with.

Linda brought her serger to finish those raw edges and we zig zagged some of them too.

Fun fabrics!

There are sure to be a few sewing boo-boos, so someone gets stuck with seam ripper duty.

We finished up a big pile that day.

Linda took these home to wash with a required non-allergenic laundry soap. Then she will bring them back for ironing and packing individually in zip lock bags.

This group has a potluck lunch at every meeting...temptingly dangerous to one's weight goals.

I slipped away this time because I had to make a run to the post office. Next time???

A very nice group of ladies though, friendly and welcoming.

catching up

It's been the usual day to day stuff around here so not much to blog about.

I did get a new mobile phone with a different service. The Sasquatch has one he really likes so when my old one went haywire and somehow kept using all my prepaid data, he urged me to get one like his.

The service is a bit more expensive, but hopefully more reliable.

Think I need to let go of some of these old ones?   That's my new one on the top right.

In the sewing department...I have some finished things from earlier this year that I haven't shown here.  I hate to take them outside to drape them around for photos.  Because we have had so little rain, everything seems to be covered with a blackish residue...polution? dirt?

But I have been working on more quilts.   I have paused work on the big "Y" quilt - that's how I think of the three dimensional quilt I am sewing.

I've switched off to this patriotic quilt that will go to a coworker of my son's.  I will tell more about him when I show photos when the quilt is finished.

I saw the design on pinterest.  Not sewn together here...just the layout.

Just so you know, my carpet isn't filthy - that's a smudge on my camera lens!

I thought about this layout but think the original is more striking.

 I used several different shades of red, most with a star theme. Used only one blue and one gold.

The Pinterest design had the stars in white but I thought the gold would add warmth.

The stars are fused on then zigzagged around the raw edges (maybe should have used a tighter zig zag stitch).  The fusible web causes some stiffness but hopefully will soften up after handling and quilting.

 Of course Puss must help in the sewing room.

I appreciate your loyalty, girl, but that's really not a good place to lay...right in my chair wheels!

 Maybe flip over at least.  Nope, the tail is on that side.

She decided if she couldn't lay there she would just bunch up the quilt top and lay on it.

Okay, but you'd better not shed even one hair on it!

I also finished some crochet baby blankets then started another crochet project...

This yarn was a give-away by one of the ladies in my quilt group.  When she brought it in, I used self control and didn't take any of it.  But she left it there that evening and one of the other ladies ended up carrying around in her car for weeks after she gathered it up just to leave the meeting room tidy.

I felt sorry for her and took it off her hands (ha ha). 

It's cotton yarn, which I had never used. I found a pattern online for a tote bag, made in panels.  It's an easy thing to crochet while sitting on the back porch in the evenings. 

And here is a couple of random things....

A tiny frog on the back door glass one morning after we had some rain.  (excuse my worn nail polish, I wanted to show how small he was)

And these vultures...I had dumped out some leftover homemade beef stew in the yard that had been in the fridge a bit too long.  I was expecting the crows to come for it but instead, it was vultures.  

They liked it and thought it was worth threatening each other over.

I was surprised that they would eat beef stew, but I guess if there are no dead rotting animals available they will settle for second best...my beef stew!

a few blooms

These photos are from about a week ago.  The Rudbeckia are blooming and in spite of all the complaining I did about them earlier, they are now on my favorite flowers list.

They bloom no matter what the weather...heat, drout, neglect...they bloom.

The Butterfly Bush at the back of the trellis is slow to get going this year. We had had more butterflies this year than I have ever seen here.  Is this just a good year for them?

Also, on the left of the trellis is a Clematis.  I always thought is was too dry when it turned brown like that but I recently read it's from a fungal infection.  About the only way to stop it is to relocate it, so I will do that late  this fall.

From the side...

That's Joe Pye Weed...also one of my favorites...tall enough to show up in the back.

I didn't sow any Zinnia seeds this year. They all came up from seeds that last year's plants dropped

I just let them grow wherever they sprouted.    The butterlies love them.

Puss had fresh water in her dish but she prefers drinking birdie flavored water.

This is the view looking left just outside the back door.

A lot of sedum, creeping thyme, purple heart vine and artemesia...and zinnias

This week everything isn't looking so good. I have been trying to water all plants in reach of the hose - and I have been putting my new watering can to good use, carrying water to some of the younger or not so hearty plants and shrubs.

The grass, I ignore and it is becoming parched and brown.

Someone needs to do a rain-dance!

One day when it was really hot, my husband was going to the screen porch to get a drink from the fridge out there.

He walked out of the air conditioned house with a glass of ice in his hand. 

He took a couple of steps, then "POP".....it was so hot that it cracked the cold glass!

That was a surprise.  It seems like he would have done some kind of a rain dance right then.

some organizing accomplished

When the temperature is hovering around 90 degrees or more, I just can't take the heat.
Maybe a little yard work in the morning and again in evening when the shadows come over the flower beds. 

So, I am trying to make good use of my time hiding inside with the air conditioning.

I have gotten my sewing room tidy and organized...

No piles of fabric and books taking up all the room on the cutting table!

I even hung those decorative plates that have been stashed away behind the dresser for years - waiting for me to decide to hang them up.  Hmmm...would they look better lined up closer to the window and higher?  I think so.

Projects organized and everything dusted and vacuumed!

Let's see how long it stays this way.

And I have been working on the "Y" quilt.  These are not all sewn together, just laid out to be sure I have enough.

I still need to make the filler sections for the edges.

I hope the mischevious Puss will leave this alone until I can get it sewn together!

saving a no-bake cookie fail

I've been trying to cut my cookie recipes down to smaller batches. With some of the recipes, I have had good luck with baking a few cookies then freezing most of the dough...portioned out in baggies to bake about 8 cookies at a time.

But the No-Bake Cookies posed a bit of a problem.  I have successfully made a half recipe before, but that's still too many cookies.
So...I tried making a one-fourth recipe.  Maybe I miscalculated, but for what ever reason the cookies did not "set".
I knew they weren't going to when I saw how shiny they were.

So, in an effort to find some idea of how I could salvage the ingredients, I turned to the trusty internet because I know it's a fairly common problem - these cookies not setting up.

There were several suggestions, like just eating them with a spoon or incorporating the mixture into a batch of cookie dough before baking. 

The best idea I found was this...Mix a new same size amount of the butter, sugar, cocoa and milk mixture. Boil as usual, but do not add the peanut butter, vanilla or oatmeal. 

Instead, scoop up your runny cookies and drop them into this new mixture after removing from heat.

Spread on waxed paper...

 ...and cut into bars while warm.

They turned out extremely sweet but at least edible.

In the future, I'll just make the half recipe and freeze the extras.  

The problem with that is...it's all too easy to sneak a cookie out of the freezer when I'm thinking of something sweet and chocolatey! 

Gladiolus, also Puss the cat

This spring I remembered to add some wire supports around the Gladiolus before they started blooming.
When I forget to do this (usually), the stalks get weighed down by the blooms and end up growing horizontally.

These pretty bright pink ones managed to keel over anyway and were laying on the ground so I cut them to bring inside.

A couple of days later, I found some clearance ones at Walmart...75% off.  That was 75 cents per bag!  The bulbs looked good too - not soft or rotten.

Really, they are meant to be planted in the spring but I went ahead and put them in a flower pot. 

I'll move them to the flower bed this fall if they come up.

My funny cat, Puss.  Now she thinks that I should open the window for her every time I am sitting at my desk.  It's okay if the weather is mild like on this day.

It doesn't look very comfortable though!

And she can't sit up there if it's too hot or too cold...there isn't enough room with the window closed.

I bought a special cat perch that attaches to the window sill.  It was junky looking so I returned it.

I might try one that works with suction cups next. She isn't a heavy cat so that might work for her.

She likes to go for a walk in the woods with me sometimes in the evening.

She gives me an irritated look if I make too much noise while she is in hunting mode!

trees - always trees

This time it's not falling trees...well it is...but it's because the Sasquatch cut one down.  It was an old diseased Sassafras.

What ever type of disease or fungus it was suffering with, caused some weird but interesting cankers in the bark.

It crossed my mind to have him cut these sections out and I would use them to plant someting in...hens & chicks, sedum, moss roses.

But, if they're full of dirt and flowers one couldn't see the formations.

But what about this hollow section? What a perfect planter!

Or this long piece below ? A good place to transplant some of my Hens & Chicks sprouts.

But it's pretty big...where could I put it?  I'll show photos if I figure out what I want to do.

Meanwhile, I bought these 6 new trees.  They are Green Giant Thujas.  

I'm glad I got them when I did because they were sold out (Lowes) when I went back to get a few more.  

I'd like to get them planted so that I don't risk letting them get dried out, but I doubt that I could even penetrate the dry, hard clay dirt with a shovel to dig holes for them.

And, once they are planted I'll have to carry water to them for a while...they will be far from the hose!