Mini Baltimore

I finished a mini Baltimore album quilt for my Mom.  By way of a bit of background; since we moved away from Colorado I don't get to see my Mom very often.  When I last saw her I was working on the blocks for my queen-sized Baltimore Album Quilt and she couldn't seem to take her eyes off them.  She really made me feel good with all of her kind words about them.  Well they're now made into a quilt and I'll get to take the quilt back to show her when we go later this month.  When I found out she has been diagnosed with cancer, I decided I wanted to make her a comfort quilt and take that with me too.  After pondering what I would make, I decided on this mini Baltimore album quilt.  I call it Heart of Gold Baltimore Album.  It's just 22" x 26" and is made of hand-dyed fabric and marbled fabric.  I used wool batting and really like how the wool makes it look.  I think she'll be pleased to have a Baltimore of her very own to look at and I hope it will make her smile.

I know myself well enough to know that after spending the countless hours it would take to make a Baltimore album quilt I just might have a tough time parting with it - kind of like letting one of my babies go.  Especially after all the time it takes "birthing" a Baltimore.  I thought that it couldn't take much more time to make two of each block as I went along, right?  So I started by making a second block of the few I had already made and then made two of each from then on.  I only wanted one quilt with the hearts of gold in honor of my Mom though, so I put Fleur de Lis in the borders of this second one.  I also put an eagle block in the one I'll keep because it makes me think of my grandson who is currently serving in the army.  I quilted each of them somewhat differently.  My Mom's has more feathers and the border quilting is different also.  Here's the one I'll keep.

Block #5, Civil War Bride Quilt

I enjoyed making this block, especially the vase.  Plus there weren't too many leaves in this block, compared to many of the other blocks, so it went fast too.   This is the 11th block I've made out of 20......finally I'm more than half way there!

Block #1, Vase of Blue Flowers, Civil War Bride Quilt

Over the long weekend I finished a couple of quilt projects. One of them is block #1 from the Civil War Bride Quilt I've been working on.  This is actually the 10th block I've made on this quilt.  That means I'm half way there.

Block #10, Strawberries (Civil War Bride Quilt)

Here is my latest block for the Civil War Bride Quilt.  This is block number 10, the strawberry block.  I decided to embroider the strawberry tops, I got the idea from Janice Vaine's latest book, "The Art of Elegant Hand Embroidery, Embellishment, and Applique", page 62.  There were some strawberries in her book with these cute embroidered tops.  I also decided to make some strawberry flowers.  I searched for a pattern to make three-dimensional flowers and also found them in Janice's book on page 128.  I've finished 9 blocks so far; here's a picture of them all together.

Hand-Quilted Baltimore Album Center

After a lot of hours of deliberation and advice from a number of quilting friends, I finally decided how to quilt the center block on my first Baltimore Album Quilt.  I had previously quilted it in two different ways on my longarm but wasn't happy with either result so tore them both out.  This month I finally decided to try hand-quilting the center with a diagonal single cross-hatch.  I finally feel like the quilt is finished and I can celebrate the huge accomplishement involved in making this special quilt.  Here is a picture of the completed center.

Here is a picture of the quilt hanging on my dining room wall.

Hi - I'm back

I've been away toooooo long.  After we moved into our house in October it seems like it's taken an age for me to get everything settled and to get back into my sewing room.  I'm very slow, aren't I?  I actually got the boxes unpacked and the furniture placed in pretty short order.  Then I collapsed for several months.  I finally got with the program, got quilts and pictures hung on the walls, and got my sewing room organized.  I'm glad I had a deadline of getting the finishing stuff done or there probably still wouldn't be a thing hanging on the walls.  I had my Lunch Bunch group here in March, and then was part of a sewing room tour this month, so I was motivated to get stuff finished for both of them.  Here are a few pictures of some of the quilts on the walls............

 

"Let's Go Traveling" Mystery Quilt

Here are pictures of the beautiful mystery quilts that the gals in our Foothills Quilters guild group made over the summer.  Just a little background - over the summer quite a few of our group leave the heat of the desert to summer in another state.  Our program chair asked me to lead a mystery quilt done in installments over the 4 summer months.  I decided on a pattern for a trip around the world variation and called it "Let's Go Traveling".   About 15 ladies participated, some even did it from out of state.  Here are the pictures of the quilt tops that have been shared so far:

Here's mine.............

Here's Viola's..............

 Here's Patty's...........

 Here's RuthB's..............

 Here's RuthAnn's..................

 Here's Carolyn's.....................

 Here's BobbiC's.................

 Here's BobbiL-D's..............

 Here's JanH's.................

 Here's Louise's................

More pictures of our "new" house

I mentioned that I'd post pictures of the last two areas I needed to settle.  The dining room looks much, much different with all those boxes out of there, doesn't it!  I still need to do the touch-up painting so that I can hang my quilts and pictures.  This room will have my Baltimore Album Quilt on the wall. 

Here's my sewing room.  I unpacked in there on Tuesday and got a lot done.  Not all, but a lot.  I took the pictures in such a way that the remaining boxes don't show too much........it was a trickie picture to take but you can barely see the boxes that are still in there.  The first view is of the end where I have my sewing machine, big board ironong boad, cutting table, and stash.

This second shot is of the other end of the room where my longarm is located.  I still need to do some organizing, but I'm started, and that makes me happy.

Here's a picture of Rick's office/guest room.  I couldn't get a very good shot in there but here's what I could fit into the frame....

We're Moved!

We finally got possession of our "new" house on Thursday, Sept. 30th at around 3pm.  I had time to run in and quickly vacuum some of the the carpet before the movers came to unload.  It was so frustrating that we were not allowed to do all the cleaning in the house before our stuff was brought in.  The seller absolutely refused to let us get in in advance and the house had been vacant for 9 months.  Boy was/is it dusty dirty!   I'm still working at getting it cleaned up since now I'm working around furniture and boxes.

Actually the unpacking is going fairly well.  We were able to sleep in our bed the first night.  Since the movers were here unloading and placing furniture until about 10:30pm, that sure was great because we were pooped.

Friday my wonderful mover, Mark, from Mark's Quality Moving, came back and set-up my longarm first thing in the morning. I was also able to finish settling the family room and master bedroom that day.

Saturday, I started unpacking the kitchen and got snagged into helping Rick with the garage in the morning before it got too hot.  I couldn't believe I actually got persuaded to work on the garage before finishing the kitchen.  I guess it needed to be that way though, because I was having Rick take furnishing we thought were going to fit in this house and didn't and stuffing all that around the boxes sitting in the garage.  He said he couldn't fit one more thing out there until we got stuff onto shelves.  So there you go - it made sense.  At least in the afternoon I was able to get back to unpacking the kitchen and pantry.

Sunday morning I couldn't sleep so started upacking the laundry room and breakfast room at about 3am.  The breakfast room was no easy task because I had all the boxes unloaded into only 4 locations, one was the breakfast room, and it was stacked floor to ceiling with boxes.  You'd never know it now though...............

After finishing that I started placing my good dishes and glasses in the built-in cupboards just before lunch.  Then we had our first visitors to our new home, my granddaughter Lacey who was here from CA for her birthday.  We had lunch here for her and her friend and visited the afternoon away.  Her friend brought his guitar and seranaded us in our new home.  Cool!

Somewhere along the way I got the screen porch organized and also the patio and back yard fountain area.  I'm beginning to loose track of when because I find myself starting something in one area and then jumping over to something else.  Short attention span, I guess, especially with so much that needs to be done and I wish it could all be done at once.

Today I've been working in the dining room, one of the other 4 areas where I had the majority of boxes placed.  I hope to make good progress in there because the handyman comes tomorrow and one of the things on his list is to hang the chandelier. 

After that the last major area of boxes will be my sewing room.

Rick has made his office in the second bedroom/guest room.  It's quite a large room and looks like it's going to work out well with both his office stuff and the king-sized guest bed in there.  He's been teasing that he can work for awhile and then lay down and nap for awhile and no one will even know it - so he seems to like the set-up.  He's been working on settling his office and trying to keep his business going at the same time.  I've not had to do too much in there.  Yeah!

So two out of the four areas where we had boxes placed are unpacked - the garage and the breakfast room.  We still have two more to go - the dining room and sewing room.  But we're getting there and it's starting to feel like home.

DaChintzy Code Mystery Quilt

Now that our guild's mystery quilt project is winding up, I decided to join the mystery quilt they're doing on the About.com quilting forum.  Did I mention I love mystery quilts and have trouble resisting them?  The lady who's leading this one calls it the DaChintzy Cody Mystery - a take-off on the DaVinchy Code movie......clever.  She'll be giving out clues every two weeks and we'll be working on our quilts until January. 

The ladies on the Forum helped me with my fabric selection.  Here are the two sets I was deciding between:

Some of the ladies liked one set and some liked the other.  Several of the ladies who are doing 2 quilts suggested I do both since they think it's not going to take much longer to do 2 than 1 if you're doing them at the same time (Enabler's aren't they?  or maybe it's  Misery Loves Company ???).  I decided that since the clues each time are so easy and we have months to do this, I'd jump in and make both of them.  Using up some of my stash sounded good to me at the time.  Time will tell if that was a wise decision or not.

Now that my fabric is selected and cut.  I hope to get to the first part of the sewing before we move.  I may miss doing a clue or two on time because the clues come out on the 1st & 15th and we move in on September 30th, but they are really easy, so I don't think I'll have any trouble catching up with what I miss due to our move.

If you want to join in or read more about it, here's a link to the About.com quilting forum:  http://forums.about.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?nav=messages&webtag=ab-quilting

Let's Go Traveling Mystery Quilt

Now that the last clue is out, I can post about the mystery quilt we did this summer at our guild chapter.  Over the summer months, many of our ladies go to cooler climates, so our program chair thought it would be fun for those of us toughing out the hot AZ weather to have a project to work on together.  She asked me if I'd lead a mystery quilt.  I think I've done a dozen or so mystery quilts in the past, and really enjoy them, so it seemed like a good fit.  I called this one, "Let's Go Traveling" since it's a variation of a trip around the world setting.  There were about 10 ladies here who joined me in making this quilt plus 5 who are making it from other states.  A clue was given each month and those of us here worked on it at our monthly sewing meeting.  Fabric choices were all really nice yet each different than the other.  I could hardly wait to see the finished tops.  At this month's meeting there were 3 ladies who had finished their tops and brought them for show & tell.  Here are the finished tops so far (Patty's, Ruth's & Viola's)

Aren't they pretty?

Pictures of our houses

Several people have asked if I'd post pictures of the house we're selling and the house we're moving into.  If I'm going to do that, I guess I better before they pull the pictures off Realtor.com (since they're both going under contract). 

Oops - they've been pulled off now.  Sorry.

We've loved our current house but our knees are beginning to rebell at climbing the stairs.  
Here's a quick snap of the view from our balcony at sunset and during the day.  Gonna miss that view!

Appraisal Finished - Inspection Next

Good news!  The house appraised for the contract price.  What a relief!  We did all kinds of touch-up painting, polishing, and just generally spiffing things up.  It looks like all our effort and elbow grease may have helped some.  The appraiser said he was also impressed that we went to a website that listed what paperwork should be ready to give to an appraiser.  We had it all copied and ready for him.  He said that waiting for the homeowner to gather up all that information is what usually takes him the longest on an appraisal.  So now that step is finished and we're on to the next step.

The next step is the inspection and that's scheduled for tomorrow.  Since this is not new construction there are a few things that aren't perfect but as far as we know they are all cosmetic.  We've already corrected all that we could and things are looking pretty good.  Please keep those good thoughts and prayers coming. 

We're in process of moving

I haven't posted to my blog for a few weeks.  I've temorarily been sidetracked.  We've decided to downsize and have been preparing to move. We finished staging the house, felt like we priced it right, and put it on the market. We were kind of amazed when we received an offer on the 3rd day after listing. Next is the appraisal process. We're hoping and praying that the appraisal price will support the contract price. If you're a praying person, please say a few for us. Due to the state of the economy, we're a little bit concerned in this market because our realtor told us that the new regulations now require appraisers to factor in foreclosures, short sales, and bank owned properties when determining the appraisal price. We've found that those are all quite a bit lower than regular sales (and there are so many of them compared to regular sales). There are a few things we'll be working on before the appraiser gets here on Monday and then within a week or so there'll be the inspection. 

We've been shopping for a house in Sun City and think we've found a place that will suit us.  Again, prayers and good thoughts requested that all goes smoothly on the purchasing end.  Rick & I are both pretty tuckered out already.  Can't wait to get settled and back to calm days and stitching.

Block #8, Fruit (Civil War Bride Quilt)

Here is my next block.  I really enjoyed making all the fruit.  It seems like a happy block to me - maybe because of the yellow.

Count down:  8 finished - 12 more to go

Block #4, Grapes (Civil War Bride Quilt)

Here's the next block I've been working on - the block with several bunches of grapes.  I finshed this block last week but discovered my camera was broken.  I was so disappointed, I really liked that camera.  My husband lent me his so I was able to get a picture.

I made extra grapes so I'd have them ready for block #8.  Guess I'll do that one, with all the fruit, next.

Count down:  7 finished - 13 more to go

Block #14, Peahen (Civil War Bride Quilt)

My little peahen is finished and is busy strutting around under the wild rose bush.  I sure am captivated by this charming quilt - can't seem to put it down.   I hope I can keep the enthusiasm going because this is only the 6th block I've made.  There are still 14 blocks to go.  It feels a little daunting when I think of it that way and of all the little pieces that go into each block.   But, one stitch at a time and it will eventually be a quilt.  :-)

Count Down:  6 finished - 14 more to go

Berry Sour Cream Pie Recipe

I tried a new recipe over the weekend for a Berry Sour Cream Pie.  I had planned to take it to a sewing get-together.  I didn't feel well Saturday morning and had to miss the get-together.  So you guessed it, my husband and I have had to eat up the pie all by ourselves.  Pure bliss.  Reminds me of a really delicate cheesecake with berries in the middle.  Yum!  Here's the recipe if you want to try it, I even was able to make a low-fat version and sure couldn't tell it was low anything.

Berry Sour Cream Pie
1 egg, beaten
1 container (16 oz) sour cream (I used lite sour cream)
3 TB flour
1 Keebler Ready Graham Pie Curst (I made a homemade crust using Smart Balance)
1 cup mixed berries (I used frozen mixed berries [strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, & blackberries])
1 recipe of berry sauce (recipe below) 
(Canned blueberry pie filling could be substituted for the mixed berries and berry sauce.  That's usually too sweet for me - I  prefer to make my own sauce so I can control the amount of sugar and salt.)

To make Berry Sauce to mix in with the berries:  2 TB cornstarch, 2/3 cup water, 1/3 cup sugar, pinch of salt - combine sauce ingredients and bring to a boil, stirring until sugar is dissolved and sauce is thickened and glossy.  Let cool slightly before mixing in berries.  Then mix in the berries.

In medium bowl whisk together egg, sour cream, sugar, and flour.  Place crust on a baking sheet.  Spread half of sour cream mixture into the crust.  Top with berry/sauce mixture.  Spread remaining sour cream mixture over filling.  Bake on baking sheet at 375 degrees for 55-60 minutes or until center is almost set and the pie gets golden around the edges.  It will split a little when it's set, just like cheesecake does.  Cool for 1 hour on a rack.  Refrigerate at least 2 hours.  Serve cold.  Store in refrigerator.  Good recipe to make ahead and serve the next day.

Block #7, Peacocks (Civil War Bride Quilt)

I really enjoyed making this block.  I love to look at peacocks.  The ones I made, using civil war fabrics, aren't quite as brightly hued as a real peacock but I'm pleased with how they turned out.  I embroidered the feet as someone on the Civil War Blog suggested and was much happier doing them this way rather than appliqueing them out of fabric.  I'm discovering that the finishing details in a block are what captivate my attention and excite me.  This block was one that got me excited because there were lots of details to play around with............couldn't wait to see what the peacocks would look like when they were finished.   I just love seeing how a block evolves itself (anyway it seems like it takes on a life of it's own and creates itself the way it wants to be sometimes, if you know what I mean. I don't really know how to explain it but I just love that part.)  So here are my peacocks:

Count Down:  5 finished - 15 more to go

Block #6, Red, White, & Blue Flowers (Civil War Bride Quilt)

Another block is finished.  I feel like I'm beginning to make some progress on this quilt - this is the fourth block I've made.  Since there are 20 blocks, it will be quite an investment of time and effort.  I found I enjoyed making this block a lot.  I thought of my grandson, who is in the military, as I was making it what with the red, white, and blue flowers.  If I counted right, there are 46 leaves in this block.  It actually felt like it went faster than the last leafy block I made.........and the last one had a few less leaves.  I think I may be getting into a groove here.  :-)

Count Down:  4 finished - 16 more to go