Tuesday Tutorial -- Walking Foot Chevrons

Happy Tuesday!  This week's Tuesday Tutorial is about quilting chevrons using your walking foot on your home sewing machine.



Wasn't that Cuddle thread gorgeous?  Do you have a roll of 1/4" Quilters Tape at home?  Here's where to find the Laser Marker.

I have so many ideas to quilt on Crate Quilts.  What shall I film next?

Pantry Cleaning plus recipes

I'm still making progress on cooking through my pantry and freezer.

I have been vegan (no animal products at all) and vegetarian (no meat) and am now an omnivore.  While I do eat meat, I still love some of my vegan and vegetarian recipes.  I keep a case of tofu in my pantry so one night we ate Curried Tofu over (leftover) rice with broccoli, because we finally made ourselves go to the green grocer after church on Sunday. 

I omitted the fresh cilantro in the tofu because ewwwww, cilantro!

I was feeling snack-ish so I grabbed a can of chickpeas from the pantry and made some chocolate chip cookie dough dip.  It is seriously awesome with Gala apple slices as a snack.  Seriously!

I found some cooked chicken in the freezer and made our family favorite chicken and rice soup based on this recipe.  And then we celebrated because I used up the rest of the rice in the refrigerator!  We also celebrated because I made fresh bread from my Artisan Bread cookbook.

I used more of the bread dough to make a fresh pizza with mozzarella from the freezer.  Tuesday is a great pizza day for us because it's something I can tolerate on my nauseous-from-medication day of the week.

Believe it or not, there was a not-dead avocado in my refrigerator.  I've never before had an avocado outlive my expectations!  I love to make vegan black bean enchiladas with avocado cream from Oh She Glows.   When recipes claim "So good you won't miss the cheese!" I always wonder "When is the last time you ate cheese?" because cheese is the reason I'm not a full-time vegan.  I can honestly tell you that I don't miss the cheese in these enchiladas.  Words I thought I would never say!  I didn't have any tortillas, so I used this recipe to make my own.

Mexican is my least favorite cuisine and I cut the spice in half.  This was still as spicy as I can possibly handle.  And the tortillas in here were FABULOUS!

Whenever boneless chicken thighs are on sale, I make this next dish and freeze a bunch.

Recipe:  Wrap a slice of raw bacon around a raw chicken thigh; secure with a toothpick.  Sprinkle with brown sugar and bake.  --  You are welcome.

What to do when the potatoes are getting old:

Potatoes and Carrots in Coconut Curry from The Gourmet Vegetarian Slow Cooker.

My final meal of the week was Eggplant casserole. 

Here's the recipe:
Slice, bread, and bake eggplant slices.  Layer in casserole with tomato sauce, Parmesan cheese, and mozzarella cheese.  Bake.  Easy Peasy.

To convince you that I'm completely crazy, check out this Vegan Chocolate Mousse recipe ' that I made for dessert.  I'vee adapted it a bit from the original recipe, and it's totally delicious!

Postcard Love

Debbie Grifka launched a fun 100 day applique postcard project.  Why didn't I know about this before???

Definitely check out her work and follow her on Instagram for daily photos.  Her postcards are ah-ma-zing!

MAIL CALL!

I dove into my bin of 1 1/2" scrap squares recently:

I saw some serious postcard potential in there.  Potential like In the Pinks

A sweet Ocean Breeze

Then I mellowed out with Mellow Yellows

How much fun is this?

Call me crazy, but little makes me happier than having a stack of postcards just waiting to be sent on their way to deliver a little love through the mail!

Sadly, I'm not at the bottom of my 1 1/2" scrap square bin.  Stay tuned for more postcards!

Tuesday Tutorial -- Starburst free-motion quilting pattern

My local weather has me seeing STARS!  We had a snowstorm on Sunday, it will be over 70*F tomorrow, and right back into the 20*Fs by Thursday night.  I think that Phil* is playing Bop-a-Mole!

This week's Tuesday tutorial is how to quilt starbursts on a crate quilt.


Products in video:
FabuLux Royal Robes thread
DecoBob thread
Steady Betty Bands

Watch all of the weekly tutorials HERE.

Have you made a crate quilt yet?  Which machine quilting pattern did you use?


_____
*Punxatawney Phil is the groundhog who predicts 6 more weeks of winter or not.

An Epic Love Story

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.... I married my childhood sweetheart.  I wanted to give him something special for Valentine's Day and I joined our geeky passions (Star Wars + Quilting) yet again for the gift.

Since we spent Valentine's Day together on an airplane:

and since I didn't start sewing until we got home from our trip, his gift was a bit late.

I hit my favorite design source, Google Images, and printed out an alphabet:

Then I traced the letters on Heat 'n Bond and appliqued them to fabric:

I only had one pillow form, so these were two sides of the same pillow:

This pillow goes well with his Christmas gift:

If you are not a Star Wars fan and are totally confused, watch this:

and then watch every Star Wars movie.  And pretend that Jar Jar never happened.  We do.

Pantry Cleaning plus recipes

Once every year or two, I like to cook through all of the food stored in my house so that I know how old everything in the pantry and freezer are.  It also gives me a chance to give my pantry and refrigerator a good cleaning.

So... here's what I've been cooking:

My first day home from vacation, we decided to eat but we didn't want to go grocery shopping.  Fortunately I have a reasonably well-stocked pantry and was able to pull dinner together completely without facing the lines at the market:

Do you use a rice cooker?  I've had this one for nearly 20 years (and it shows)!  I'm toying with upgrading to an Instant Pot and am looking for yes/no testimonials.

So, what was for dinner?  Vegan Kung Pao Chick Peas, rice, and sesame garlic green beans.

The next night, I pulled some shrimp from the freezer and some 'not dead yet' mushrooms from the fridge and pulled together a quick dinner of Shrimp Gruyere from a 30 year old Weight Watchers cookbook that I don't even own anymore and Crock Pot Mushroom Risotto adapted from a recipe in The Gourmet Slow Cooker.

Don't judge me for the peas and carrots from the freezer; we still haven't been to the market for fresh produce.

Next meal from the freezer was Country Ribs, buttered noodles, and corn.  All of my food was the same color, but I still haven't visited the market.

I've been popping popcorn from the pantry for snacks and experimented with a mug cake last night.  Mug cake isn't cake with a "C" and this one didn't have any leavening agent in it, but I might try to tweak it at some point to make it more "C"ake-like.

I've made no progress on depleting my fabric collection, but we've definitely eaten from the food stash.  Hopefully I can make progress on both collections next week!

Tuesday Tutorial -- Hearts and Vines

This week's machine quilting pattern is timely -- hearts and vines for Valentine's Day!  See how I stitched it on a crate quilt:


Materials used in the video:

Steady Betty Bands

FabuLux In The Pinks thread

DecoBob thread in the bobbin

Quilter's Dream Green batting

Happy Valentine's Day!  I hope you enjoy a sweet day with your sewing machine!

Tuesday Tutorial -- Pumpkin Seed Quilting with a Ruler

I'm so excited about this week's tutorial.  I love to stitch pumpkin seeds in all sizes in blocks, backgrounds, borders, or all over a quilt!



Supplies Used:

Quilter's Dream Green batting

HQ Multi Clamshell ruler

Handi Grip

Quilter's 1/4- tape

Steady Betty Bands

FabuLux Majestic Sunrise thread


Check out my other machine quilting tutorials HERE.

The Force is Strong in this Marriage

My husband and I freely admit our freaky-geeky ways.  We are absolutely passionate about diverse subjects that might seem weird to others.

Me:  Quilting
Him:  Video gaming
Me:  Hello Kitty
Him:  Star Wars
Me:  Chocolate cake
Him:  Heavy Metal music

I decided to combine two of our passions and have been gifting him with Star Wars quilted items.  I finally finished his Christmas present:

"I can't see anything in this helmet!"

It's the mask from a Storm Trooper.  None of this furniture lives where it is shown in this photo and the pillow will really live on the sofa:

I like having a "glamour shot" of my projects, but now you know the behind-the-scenes truth.

Making the pillow was terribly simple.  I sketched out the face, fused it to white fabric, and appliqued it down:

"Aren't you a little short for a Storm Trooper?"

I added batting so the flange would stand up, but there is no quilting in this pillow.  So quick and easy!

This isn't the first Star Wars quilted item in Super Hubby's collection; I sent him a Death Star postcard when I was out of town earlier this month:

"That's not a moon; it's a space station!"

Apparently, this lives above his desk at work.

I have plans for more geeky quilting.  Some of it is Star Wars, some from other geeky obsessions, and some are just family inside jokes!

Do you have fun with your quilting?  What geeky interests have you merged with quilting?

February's Bullet Journal

My eyeglasses.  My hearing aids.  My cell phone.  My Bullet Journal.  These are all things I couldn't possibly leave at home when I leave the house.

I set up my Miquelrius notebook for the month of February.  Want to see what I did?

I'm playing a little bit with fancier writing.  I'm really, Really, REALLY bad at it, so I am doing only the simplest of lettering.  Every so often, I search online for new styles of writing that don't look too scary for me to try.

I'm using Sharpie Pens currently and am very happy with them, but I'm always on the lookout for an additional fun pen.

I'm keeping track of books read and movies watched.

Do you track any other things?  Do you keep track of finished quilts or anything else?