Giveaway Winner!

Oohhhh, I think I must have made this giveaway question too easy. You all guessed the correct answer - the wolf from Little Red Riding Hood! So, I had my random number generator (my daughter) pick a number and then I matched it to its corresponding comment. Merilyn from Quiltminstrel is the winner of my giveaway! As soon as she sends me her mailing address, I'll put the prize into the mail.

Tomorrow, I hope to start making the wolf. I think it will be a challenge and I hope its recognizable so when people see it, they don't say, "What a nice lion!"

Thanks everyone for entering my giveaway!

PS - I picked up my RRCB quilt (AKA Peppermint Hot Fudge Brownie Delight) from the machine quilter and am getting ready to put the binding on. I'm also in the process of making a machine appliqued quilt block for someone (gift). Unfortunately, I can't tell you much about it because its for someone who reads my blog. I decided to do fusible applique and now need to stitch around the edges. Some of the pieces are less than a 1/2" square! Its been a really, really long time since I've done something that small so I sure hope they turn out nice.

Time for a Giveaway!

Here's what you could win -

4 fat quarters of Isabella by Skipping Stones Studio for Clothworks

plus other goodies which will make their way into the package!

A side note - I found out today that its National American Chocolate week. I've never needed a time frame for an excuse to eat chocolate but I guess this makes it more legitimate! What's a giveaway without chocolate?!?

You might win the prize if you can guess what I'm going to do with this (below) and the corresponding fairy tale:

First off, what is it? This is a coyote form used in taxidermy. Before we go any further, I do want you to know that I'm not taking up taxidermy! I borrowed form #4 from a young man at our church who does taxidermy. I do not plan to keep #4! Bear with me now because this could be a long explanation.

For those of you who have read this blog for awhile, you might remember that I helped coordinate "Covered With Love", a doll and crib quilts show, at the Mennonite Heritage & Agricultural Museum last June. We set up scenes with the doll quilts showing how a little girl might have played with her doll. You can see some of these in the pictures at the end of this post.

This year's quilt show theme is "Once Upon a Wall ... " featuring quilted wallhangings displayed in fairy tale settings. For one of the settings, I will need an animal and I'm going to have to make him because I can't think of an inexpensive way to include him otherwise. Basically what I need from the coyote form is the facial structure and I may have to pad that a little. I'm not going to use the body.

OK here it is, to win the giveaway prize tell me what you think the animal might be and which fairy tale he'll represent! I hope this isn't too hard, just use your imagination! Make your comment on this post only and please be sure I can notify you by e-mail. The giveaway contest will be open until 8 pm CST on Sunday, March 20. I'll draw the winner from the correct responses at that point.

Here are some fairy tales to choose from:

Goldilocks & the Three Bears

Rumplestiltskin

Rapunzel

The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe

Little Red Riding Hood

Cinderella

Jack & the Bean Stalk

Chicken Little

Hansel & Gretel

And a clue:

1. The background fabric under the Isabella fat quarters.

Looking forward to your guesses!

Some scenes from the 2010 "Covered With Love" Doll & Crib Quilts Show at the Mennonite Heritage & Agricultural Museum in Goessel, Kansas. Enjoy!

Back to School!


Washing dolly's clothes


This was the final scene, a doll choir singing Handel's

"Hallelujah Chorus".

National Nap Day, Weirdness & Delicious too

Today's National Nap Day! Did you get one?

It was started back in 1999 and happens every first Monday after Daylight Savings Time begins. I'm sorry to say I don't think I'll get one today. I hardly ever nap because having one seems to make it more difficult for me to sleep at night. However, I do regularly fall asleep on the couch in the evenings. We have two couches. If I sit on the full size one, I can stay awake but not long after I sit down on the loveseat, I'm asleep no matter how much I fight it!

There is some weirdness going on here. Maybe winter has finally gotten to me but every now and then I have to do something weird and now's the time!

Anybody know what this is? In the next few days, I'll be back with news about a GIVEAWAY! Hint: it will be quilting related and don't worry, you won't be winning whatever this is! Kind of doubt that the average quilter would have much use for it and I know the person I borrowed it from wants it back!

This recipe, however, isn't weird, its delicious! I made it today for a function my daughter's going to tonight and thought someone out there might like a new recipe. After 31 years of cooking, I'm always on the look out for something new and easy to make, especially something for company or to take as refreshments. Hope you enjoy this as much as we do!

HOT PEPPER PEACH CHEESEBALL

2-8oz. packages cream cheese, softened
1/3 jar of Hot Pepper Peach Preserves
1 heaping tablespoon chopped onions
1 level tablespoon chopped jalapenos
grated Monterey Jack cheese

Cream together well and chill for about one hour. Form into a ball and roll in Monterey Jack cheese. (I usually omit the cheese, just spoon it into a bowl and call it a dip.)

Keep chilled until ready to use. Serve with your favorite cracker. It can be prepared up to 48 hours prior to serving.

Company coming!

Company's coming and someday spring will too!

The entryway is one of my favorite places to hang a quilt in our house. This wool patch quilt is actually the only known "quilt" to have been made in my family. Unfortunately, we don't know who made it or when. It's probably made from men's suit samples which have been put together randomly. I especially like the different colors of feather stitching around each block.

Our son and daughter-in-law from Florida will be here visiting for a few days so I'm taking a short blogging break. See you soon!

Cottage Cheese Containers

My parents were fairly thrifty people probably because they lived through the Great Depression and its aftermath. As with most others who lived during this time, they amassed a large collection of stuff to re-use, just in case. I know because I found their stash of stuff when it came time to sort through the farmhouse. Some of those things were cottage cheese containers, shoe boxes, corks, wrapping paper, spools, etc. They did it for economic reasons because going green hadn't even been thought of yet. As a kid, I thought re-using stuff was embarrassing but guess what?

I'm starting to wonder if I could have a problem with "just in case"! It all began when I read that quilters were re-using clean fruit and salad to-go containers for sorting quilting supplies and blocks. (Our version of cottage cheese containers.) That's about when I started looking at containers a little differently and realized potential quilting containers are everywhere!

One evening my husband and I even debated whether we should use the divided or undivided clear plastic containers for our to-go food from the grocery store salad bar. The dilemma: Quilt blocks cannot lay flat in a divided container so you should choose an undivided container. However if you choose an undivided container, your salad will get all mixed together and certain ingredients will touch each other! Help. Just so you know, we settled on divided containers. I guess food still wins over quilting!

This blogpost is just a little light hearted poke at our own tendency to save stuff. They probably aren't the same things our parents saved but I wonder if my kids will find ceiling high stacks of clear plastic to-go food containers.

I can just hear them say, "What in the world was Mom thinking?!?"

unQuilty Domesticity

Remember this plant?

Its the Angelwing Begonia which outgrew my mother's apartment. She referred to it as, "The Elephant Plant" and with a little imagination you can see why she did. I broke off a few of the longer branches and gave away the plant that grew from them.

It grew even leggier than in the first photo and measured about 44 inches tall. While looking for care instructions for it on the internet, I found out that Angelwing Begonias can grow up to 5 feet tall in ideal conditions! I don't think my house qualifies as ideal conditions but taking no chances, I finally had enough and decided to prune it down and now it looks like this!

To see it is quite a shock and even my husband feels sorry for the plant! I could have cut off all of the stems at 6 inches as the website recommended but lost my nerve. We weren't really sure if it would live or die.

I'm happy to report that there are new little growths appearing from the stems so it may live afterall. I planted all the cuttings and leaves from the original plant and if all of them live (highly doubtful), I will have 15 new plants. Since I don't need or want more than one, I plan to give away a few and donate the rest to the upcoming MCC sale. No promises though because quite a few of the baby plants look rather sad.

So what else have I been doing instead of quilting?

Last week when my husband moved our older mattress set and frame to make way for a new set, I had a bout of spring cleaning. It was just something I could not ignore. I knew it would be dusty under where the mattress had been so I was ready to tackle vacuuming and wiping down woodwork. My next step did me in though. I didn't think the light bulbs were bright enough to let me see if I was really getting things clean or not so I opened the window shade blinds. When I did that, the lace curtains and swag fell off and the blinding sunshine revealed all! Yes, I had quite a dust and cobweb collection going. Instead of an hour clean up, I spent the entire day moving furniture, washing every textile in the room, cleaning windows and mirrors, wiping down all the woodwork, sorting and putting away things and oh yes, vacuuming. I tried to think of it as aerobic exercise!

I was tired at the end of the day but when I got up on Wednesday, I decided to tackle the living room, dining room and kitchen. I have to admit I didn't clean as thoroughly in those rooms as in the bedroom but they got cleaner than normal. I'm not sure what came over me except to blame it on spring cleaning fever! It is nice, though, to walk into our bedroom and find it clean.

Read this on an LQS' sign:
Whenever I get the urge to clean, I lay down till it passes!

Since this is supposed to be a quilting blog, I'll say that when I'm not tormenting plants or ridding my house of dust, I'm working on Bonnie Hunter's Criss Cross Applesauce quilt and thinking about how to fix the Selvage Spiderweb quilt. Looking forward to some quilting time at the end of this week!