I Like Thursday #42

Hello! Hello! It's time for the gang to share their "likes" of the week. It's a good way to recognize and then appreciate the good things in life.

Tuesday evening I went to guild meeting IN PERSON for the first time since February 2020. I'm grateful for Zoom meetings but it's just not the same as snickering in the back with friends during the business part of the meeting. Haha! The reason I went is because we were having a wonderful guest: Susan Marth from Suzn Quilts was bringing us a trunk show. You may have seen some of her patterns at your local quilt stores. She's "famous" for her small dresden plate templates and oodles of patterns using them. Before she became "famous" for those, she was known for some quilt-as-you-go patterns. You can visit her website HERE and see all the goods. 

My BOO quilt: my favorite pattern by Suzn Quilts
Two small dresdens and a B

Speaking of dresden plates, look at this bounty!

That's a lot of dresden plate blades! I'm making a quilt with a group of women making the same quilt, different fabrics. I got a bit scared of the center and was afraid I'd never jump off & start this project. In the meantime I found a pattern with dresden plates that I shrank down to size and it will be my center. It takes 80 blades. I'm comfortable doing this because I like making dresden plates and I really like all the tips I've learned along the way while sewing with Susan Marth. I might add that all her patterns are written with explicit details for success.

Check out what those blades are in. I really like this little bowl that my brother-in-law made for me. I've been thinking about him a lot lately because he recently came down with shingles. Awful!

I've been enjoying a book by David Baldacci. It's called "A Minute to Midnight" and I'm down to the last 40 or so pages. Truth be told, I'd rather be reading it than writing this post because it's moving right along to the finale. It'll be done some time today for sure! Wonder what I'll pick up next!

I really like Capital City Mambo Sauce. It's sweet and spicy all in one delicious bite. My daughter introduced me to it and I really like it on a grilled cheese sandwich -- especially when I use my son's smoked cheese. This sandwich is made with smoked gouda and a little mozzarella for cheese pull!

While at the commissary yesterday, I saw that they had two kinds of Mambo Sauce: The normal Sweet Hot and then a Mild version for those that can't take the heat, I guess. Wow! Who knew!!??!! Spicy for me, thank you.

You may have spied the Eckert's basket behind my grilled cheese sandwich. It had peaches in it and we are now enjoying peach pie and peach turnovers. The recipe I used for the turnovers was called Spiced Peach Turnovers and they are delicious! Sadly we only have three left.

I hope you've had a good week. Remember, you can hop on over to LeeAnna's blog and read loads more I Like Thursday posts. Catch you next week for the next round!

I Like Thursday #24

Thursday is such a great day. It's almost the weekend and it is overflowing with likeable things. Discover what I mean on LeeAnna's blog Not Afraid of Color where others share their LIKES!

I'm still liking to watch the birds at my bird feeders. We've had such cold weather lately. Some days we don't even break 20 degrees! As for snow, we've had maybe 3" total in the last couple of days. The weather predictors say we're going to be in this for a while longer. The birds (and squirrels) have really appreciated the full feeders and suet cakes. This fellow visits daily either on the suet or the peanuts further out in the yard.

I'll be running a few errands today. It's good to keep my driveway-kept vehicle driven every few days with this cold weather. I'll be getting my hair trimmed (I like that), getting more bird seed, and dropping in on my mother. Her Internet is out and I believe I can fix that with a quick modem reset. I'll drop off some of our dinner from last night with her while I'm there -- Corned beef with boiled carrots & potatoes. She's got a lot of Irish in her so she really appreciates a dinner like that!

Speaking of cold, not everyone  dislikes the cold.

This girl LOVES it! She runs all over with that tail just a-wagging! She just returned from the spa and posed for this picture before shutting her eyes for a nap. Isn't that bandana the sweetest with the hearts and roses?

Something I learned to like this week: stitching embroidery designs through Press N Seal! One can't use a light box with wool (too thick) but one sometimes needs to mark a design, say of antlers on 8 reindeer.

Markings on Press N Seal. It stays in place on the wool beautifully!

After stitching, you trim with scissors close to the stitching, followed by pulling the Press N Seal sideways out from under the stitching. I found it worked best by trimming VERY close to the inside curves and pulling off on the outside curves. This technique is shared by Lisa Bonjean of Primitive Gatherings. She's a brilliant designer and shop owner. Anyway, I'm all done with the antlers and am debating on the French knot eyes or not. Then I'll be on to the backing! I actually like finishing projects. Who knew?!?! Haha!

Speaking of finishing, I shared my Tiny Tuesday quilt with my UFO Challenge Club at my local quilt shop.

Cindy, our fearless leader, picked from the hat our next project number -- #4. Yay! That would be my Shark Bite quilt. This was such a fun Leader & Ender quilt and I just fell in love with that turquoise fabric that makes up the shark teeth. The fabric was a Jinny Beyer piece from her Safari line. It actually has giraffes printed on it!

I'm very excited to finish that one up. Now if only we could warm up a bit so I could get it basted and ready to go. I do that job in the basement and it is very cold down there -- 55 degrees by my thermometer. Definitely will have to set up a space heater. I like those too!

I have been enjoying the Australian Open Tennis which started this week. While watching the other day I chuckled as I was rooting on Stephano Tsitsipas, a Greek tennis player. He's very good and he obviously follows the Rainbow Scrap Challenge as February's color of the month is yellow!

I also like a kitty curled up between my feet. So warm!

Yesterday I baked cookies. I've got a 2-day sewing retreat coming up Friday & Saturday so I'll be bringing some of these there to share.

Peanut Butter Blossoms are one of my husband's favorite cookies. Early Valentines for him! And since Valentine's Day is right around the corner, I've been lighting this up in our front window.

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone! And don't forget to visit the other bloggers sharing their LIKES this week!

I Like Thursday #5

 Such a fun post to write. Even more fun to read the posts of others. See what I mean HERE.

I spied butternut squash growing in a garden on a walk with Gracie, of course.

Autumn is approaching and that makes me happy. I love Fall! The crisp air, the bluer-than-blue skies, the smell of the Earth getting ready for Winter. Two weeks ago, this tree looked like this.

This past week it looked like this. I've even noticed one of my neighbor's trees has started dropping leaves.

Nothing like a little Fall baking either. I figured we were a little zuked out around here so I pulled out some of the blueberries that I'd frozen while they were at their peak and  made a Lemon-Blueberry Coffee Cake. This recipe is from Our Best Bites which I got from Sherri Fall at A Quilting Life.

It looks loaded with blueberries. Let's cut a piece and see. Of course, it tastes even better with a cup of hot coffee!

There are blueberries in every bite! And that streusel topping is so cinnamony and yummy!

My neighbor loves flowers and the more colorful the better. She talked about her Datura plants and how she wanted me to see them. I was familiar with the plant through my sister who had a beautiful white one in her backyard in Denver but I didn't know they came in other colors. Here is my neighbor's purple datura with a double-ruffle. Very pretty!

This was our sunset last night. Beautiful colors and of course the sky was even more magnificent in person.

I hope you can look around and appreciate all the little things that make up your world. There's peace and happiness if you look for it.

Linking up and sharing positive thoughts with LeeAnna at Not Afraid of Color.

I Like Thursdays #4 (One Day Late)

I guess it has finally caught up with me. I worked so hard on Oh My Stars! so much and so long. Then yesterday I ran to my LQS to get their latest info and pictures so I could work on the shop's newsletter and also to eat lunch with friends Millie and Karen. I just totally lost track that yesterday was Thursday! I would say that lunch with friends probably tops my list for My Likes this week! There are plenty of others sharing what they like on Leeanna's  blog Not Afraid of Color HERE! Check out the posts and I'm sure you'll find yourself smiling!

Do you see this bowl of beautifully rising, yeasty pizza dough? It makes not only me happy but my mother as well. We Love Pizza!

DH doesn't like too many toppings and is perfectly happy with a beef pizza.

Mother & I on the other hand like all kinds of stuff on ours. Saturday night we had sausage, pepperoni green peppers, and onions. Yummmmmm! Such good leftovers too!

I'm starting to suffer zucchini overload! Lol! I made 2 loaves of zucchini bread using a tried-and-true recipe from a Pillsbury paperback cookbook called Harvest Time Cook Book. It sold for $1.98 with a copyright of 1980. Then I made 2 more loaves using Katie Lee's Grandmother's recipe. You can find the details for her Zucchini-Pineapple Bread HERE.

I also made Zucchini Fritters. They're loaded with fresh herbs that I also cut from my herb garden. You can see the parsley, dill, and basil in the zuchhini picture. It's a good recipe with fresh flavor. I got out my recipe for Zucchini Chili by Rachael Ray to make this weekend. I'll freeze up a bunch for this winter. It's super delicious too! Anybody got a really good zucchini recipe for something else? I'd love to hear it because I don't think my zuke season has ended yet! *wink*

Over the past couple of weeks or so I've been enjoying reading "Don't Turn Around". I can't remember where I heard of it. I thought it was a Reese Witherspoon Book Club book but I just checked and it isn't. Oh well, it's a thriller and I'm almost done reading it and am wondering how it's going to end. I look forward to sneaking off to bed early to turn a few more pages.

I'll try to be a bit more timely next time. Have a great week!

FNSI and RSC

My goodness, I sound like some sort of governmental agency or something. FNSI. RSC. Oh brother! Follow along and I'll explain if you don't already know.

FNSI (Friday Night Sew-In) is hosted by Wendy at her Sugarlane Designs blog on the third Friday of each month. Quilters all around the world have the opportunity to join in the linky party, take the opportunity to enjoy stitching, and then sharing what you worked on and check in on what the others have done with their evening. This month you can see the activity of all RIGHT HERE!

So what did I work on? I got some fabrics coordinated for the next block of Afternoon Delight and put some stitches in it. I managed to get the outside of this circle appliqued down and the start of a few of the points. Check the bottom left corner ....

I really should have prepped the circle that goes into the middle of the previous block so I could put it away.

I apologize for not pressing it before taking its picture!

Earlier this week I sewed together Tigger for the Winnie the Pooh sew-a-long. I think he looks magnificient!

Of course, in between I sewed Awesome Land blocks as leaders & enders. That's one of my RSC (Rainbow Scrap Challenge) projects. This month's color is pink. I'm linking up with Angela's RSC Linky Party HERE! So much pink to look at!

Bottom row, middle block is the last of the dark green blocks finally sewn up from last month! I'm getting quite a pile of blocks for this project which isn't too surprising. After all, we started this in January and here it is June already!

The reason there are three sets turned out is because I counted what I had this morning. Oops! There's only eight pinks done and each color needed nine. Then I discovered there are also only eight aqua/turquoise blocks and, oh my gosh, only seven light blue ones! I'll be playing catch up with those colors this week for sure!

I finally got this young lady's picture. Activity started out a little slow at the hummingbird feeders this year but it has been picking up lately. I think maybe the tardiness might have been caused by our unusually wet & cold spring maybe?

On Thursday my mother turned 87. I made birthday scones for her and dropped them off at several friends' and family's homes on my way to her house. Everyone loved them and Mom's neighbor actually called me to say they were the best scones she's EVER had!

The tidbits in them were cinnamon morsels made by Nestle. I had a hard time finding them for a different recipe but, when I found them, I bought several bags. Mom & I saw the scone recipe on the back of the bag and we agreed that we should try these one day since they sounded so tasty. Oh my! They're even better than we imagined. I think it's probably because it called for roasted (not toasted) walnuts. I had to actually cook them in the oven and wow! Soooooo good! I might double up the nuts next time I make these .... and I'm not even a nut lover!

Have you ever seen black hollyhocks? I hadn't but I spied these in someone's back yard while walking Gracie this week.

There were also pink ones. I loved the double pinks in the back. They look like carnations.

Here's a picture of my favorite hosta. I love that the stems aren't super tall and the stems are loaded with flowers. The leaves are really textured too.

In other news, my husband's surgery has been set up for noon on Tuesday, July 7. The kidney will be officially outta here!

Have a great weekend! I'm ready to get Gracie out on the trail this morning followed by (hopefully) finishing up the quilting on Kyoto today .... right after I make some potato salad for dinner tonight!

Over the Blues and On to the Dark Greens PLUS a Finish and a Start!

Angela at Super Scrappy has picked DARK GREEN as the color for May. The Rainbow Scrap Challenge provides so much inspiration to dig into that stash and see what you can come up with. I'm sure I have plenty of dark greens to keep me busy this month!

As for last month's blocks, I finished Heartfire blocks in light, bright blues. Here are the last two. I didn't get a picture of all seven but they are done.

If you recall from last post, I had an Awesome Land block under my needle. Finished it and now have another under the needle.

I still have two more "kits" cut out and they with the one on the sewing machine will make seven of the nine blocks for this month. This picture includes the parts available of the block in progress plus the two kits ready to go.

I may just call it quits on the light, bright blues and move on to the dark greens this month. Whichever way I decide to go, I'll be using the scrappy Awesome Land blocks as leaders & enders for my next project which I'm very excited about ...

The other day my sister told me that Gudrun Erla from GEDesigns was having a 2nd Quarantine Quilt-a-Long. The pattern we will be using is called Hope and will be held as an all-day sew-day on May 3rd. Linda wanted to know if I'd be interested and she, who lives in Texas, and I, who live in Illinois, would sew-a-long with Gudrun, who lives in Minnesota. Of course I said YES!!!

There are so many fun things about this sew-a-long, besides sewing with my sister obviously.

• Gudrun will have a Hope Playlist ready to go at 9am CDT, available on Spotify.
• Gudrun will give tips for quilt construction every two hours live on Facebook & YouTube. They will be at 9am, 11am, 1pm, 3pm, and finally 5pm -- the Ta!Da! moment!
• Gudrun will be having four guests also sewing the Hope pattern and sharing their thoughts and upcoming ideas and whatever. The guest list includes Pat Sloan, Nancy Jewell, Doug Leko, AND LISSA ALEXANDER!! Lissa is the author of the book "Oh Scrap" that I got the Awesome Land blocks from!!!! Super exciting for me!!!

The pattern is available for a small donation of $2, $5, or $10. All proceeds are being divided among three of Gudrun's local charities. She's about to hit $30,000 raised! She truly is a superstar!!!

If you'd like to join in, just go HERE to download the pattern. Hope only requires 10" squares and 2-1/2" strips. If you have a layer cake just laying around, that would be a fabulous start. You can use yardage too, of course. Dig into that scrap bin and join us on Sunday, May 3rd!

In other news, I have a finish to share. It has been added to my PHD spreadsheet and it also satisfied the April UFO Challenge project at my Local Quilt Shop. We will be working on #3 for the next couple of months. That's to finish up Kyoto .... finally! The LQS did our show 'n' share on Zoom this past week. I must say I almost failed because, in my haste and misunderstanding as an old lady, I turned off the video because I thought it meant Zoom would video the session and I told Zoom to "not ask me again". Well, turns out you have to have the video turned on to be seen! Who knew??!!?? So I missed about the first 20 minutes of the meeting trying to figure out how to actually turn that video back on. On my! What a dope!

Anyway, this is called Hospital Sketches and Barbara Brackman offered it last year on her blog called Civil War Quilts and you can still find the block patterns there.

If you went to the block posts, you will see that this is my own rendition. I knew I could not keep up with the very intricate larger blocks but, since I'd already completed the first one, I wasn't going to toss it out! I moved on from there and made the smaller versions that she called Sprouts. The border was inspired by Irene Blanck. She frequently uses an entwining design which I love.

We've had a lot of rain this past week. Overnight we got 1-1/2" as seen on my awesome rain gauge. This was a Christmas present from my awesome daughter!

 A cold and rainy day inspired me to turn some leftover chicken & gravy into a home-made pot pie. I used puff pastry and it was delicious! DH loved it and ate a very good portion.

April showers brought May flowers! This clematis is a very early-bloomer and I just LOVE the color!

For those of you wondering about my hubby's health, he still has all three tubes in place. We empty the two drain bags 3-4 times a day, measure the output, and he records the numbers for the doctor. I flush his kidney drain twice daily. It's quite the process and we've got it down pretty good. We've only had a couple of mishaps and but there was obviously a learning curve. I'm fixing him three meals a day which he eats pretty good. Slowly he's gaining some strength back but it is definitely still a work in progress. Maybe I should add him to my UFO list! Ha! Thank you from both of us for all your thoughts & prayers!!!

Have a great weekend! Now go wash your hands!

RSC & PHD

Check out that title. It sounds like someone doesn't know her alphabet. I better not sing that to my sweet Brody! Lol!

Look who has teeth!

RSC  March color is teal, just like Brody's shirt! I managed one pretty Awesome Land block. There's another one under my needle but it's not out & pressed yet.

Last night I managed to sew three Heartfire blocks. I don't think they look too bad!

I'm trying to vary the lights, mediums, & darks so the rings aren't always in the same order. I'll need to work on that for the next grouping. You can see that I have plenty of strips left to play with in the upper right-hand corner.

I'll be linking up with Angela at So Scrappy. There's a lot of Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilters willing to share what they're working on in teal this month. Go check it out!

As for my PHD, I have a finish to report. Yay! First of the year! Just in time for Easter which will be here in a short while. Quilted, bound, and labeled!

Already hanging

A close-up

Complete with label!

One Project Half Done has made it to the finish line. (Patting myself on the back!) I'll be linking up tomorrow with Quilting Gail to report my PHD progress. What do I hope to accomplish by the end of the month?

• 6 more Heartfire blocks
• Complete three Afternoon Delight applique blocks
• Piece five more  Awesome Land blocks
• Get at least two, hopefully four, applique borders for Hospital Sketches.

I think that will be enough. I may have bit off more than I could chew last report. Here's how that went:

My To Do List for mid-March PHD Report:

1. Pin-baste A Very Merry Christmas SAL - Didn't happen
2. Quilt & bind the Little Easter Wallhanging - Yay! 100% finished!!
3. Applique two Afternoon Delight blocks, finish the first four pieced Modified Shoo-fly blocks - One Afternoon Delight block appliqued. Finished the 4 Shoo-Fly blocks
4. Piece together Hospital Sketches completed blocks and design/prep applique borders - Blocks are pieced together with sashing and a whole lot of bias stems were prepped
5. Work on RSC teal blocks plus see about catching up Awesome Land blocks - 2 Teal Awesome Land blocks pieced and 3 Heartfire blocks pieced

Not bad progress but could use a little improvement! Lol!

On other fronts around my world, this was sunrise off my deck yesterday morning. So pretty!

Later that morning, by about a half hour, Gracie & I enjoyed this scenery. I repeat - So pretty!

And, if you made it this far, you won't be surprised to learn that besides still trying to keep up with Afternoon Delight on The Quilt Show ...

I jumped on board with Fat Quarter Shop's Sew-a-Long called Bloomtopia.

Twice a month they release the next bit to cross stitch. These are February's releases. I only need to complete March 1 release because tomorrow comes the March 15 release. This wraps up in July and is FREE. However, Kimberly at FQS requests a donation to her charity of choice for this year which happens to be Make A Wish. She matches whatever her crafters donate. If you don't like cross-stitch, you can jump on board her quilt project of the same name.

Today we'll be eating Corned Beef & Cabbage with potatoes and carrots in celebration of St. Patrick's Day. I plan on making Irish Soda Bread too! And, because today is 3/14, I hope to make a Strawberry Pie. Happy Pi Day!

Have a great week!