I made hamburger buns!

I am preparing for winter. I have 40#'s of bread flour in the freezer. Also 5 #'s of yeast are there waiting.
I seem to have bread making down pat. I have occasional accidents but mostly I can be sure that the bread will come out.
I am not doing so well with the hamburger buns. But today's effort came out perfect. I used regular flour, not bread flour. I did not use the pricey bun pan that I bought from King Arthur Flour. I did use their bread bucket to measure how much it had risen. Here is the link to the recipe I used:
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/PrintRecipe?RID=31&radio=1

Don't they look marvelous?

I made a 100 or so of the Disappearing 4-patch block.

And I made a 72X84 Scrappy Trip Around the World. Thanks to Bonnie Hunter for this great pattern.

And I cut the leftovers into useable scraps as I went. Great stash!

Lucky says hi.

Also started a Tumalo Trail by Bonnie. All the blocks are made. I need to rip out two as they are upside down.
XOXOXO Subee

One quilt made from too many blocks

I worked and worked and worked on those Idaho Square Dance blocks. And as I worked I had to succumb to occasional bouts of OCD. So when that hit, I made all pink squares, blue squares and green...well you get the idea.
Last night I made this quilt in my dreams.
I dug out some pink reproduction fabrics I had purchased this past Spring at our retreat. I love the carts at Yoders in Shipshewana.  They are flat beds!!! You can pile bolts on them. I cannot resist buying more than I can afford to make the drive and trip worthwhile in my quilty mind.
Anyway, I knew I had made some pink blocks...but to find them took quite a bit of time.
And now that I see that one really dark block it bothers the #$%% out of me.

I had to find them because I had put all my precious little squares away before I used them all up.
They are no longer in the big container. They are is the same size container as the neutral squares are. So sad...so sad...selection is minimal.
And I had moved all completed blocks made for the last two months far away and buried deep because I did not want to be tempted to make more! There were more blocks than the Idaho Square Dance blocks in that container. And I was not sure which container I had secreted them in!

And as I worked on those ISD blocks I pulled out more pink squares and saved them. I am so glad I did.  Because even though I made 218 blocks I still needed to make 11 more pink blocks to finish this quilt.

I love pink.
And I love this Accuquilt Studio 2!

Lots of 1 1/2" neutral strips that I then cut into a bagillion squares by laying the cut strips sideways on the die!!

And here is the token photo of my sweet Lucky. She poses.

XOXOXOXO Subee

Cutting fabric for the upcoming retreat.

I still cannot decide what to sew on for the upcoming retreat in Shipshewanna Indiana. The last time I was there, so was Bonnie Hunter and Mickey DePre.
Sigh...yes I am name dropping. HA!

Anyway, I love pressing fabric. I really do. I love the smell and feel of fabric when it is pressed. I have gone through three collections of Civil War Reproduction fabric. They are not becoming quilts sitting in the containers. And leaving them all folded makes the pressing harder.

So even though I love pressing I cannot waste my time doing it all over again. So I have developed a system of making rolls of the fat quarters and tie them with the straightening strings. When I want to cut again I simply unroll the log. They may need just a tiny bit of pressing to calm the curves but the fabric stays great.

And of course the ever present quilt police kitty Lucky Lucy. She seems to have stopped growing. She will be a petite 7 #'s and is full grown. She sure is not as smart as of beloved Macy but she has moments of brilliance. Sometimes she fetches. And almost all the time she sings her part with James when he plays a Mellencamp tune. She meows on the breaks. Too funny.

I also went through my CW fabrics and cut 1 1/2" squares. Love these little things!!!!!
XOXOXO Subee

October sewing...looks like I am really back now!

I have been at the sewing machine for three days in a row. Well actually one day was just cleaning the machine and changing the needle.
I started slow. I was not sure how I would feel. I have been denying myself the sewing because I was in mourning for my cat Macy's death. A death that I made the final decision on. A death that I had to carry out. A death that seems to have broken me a bit. But a death that could not be avoided. A death that was a mercy for her. A death that I had to assume the broken heart for myself to help her.
Enough...I am better. I am.

I got my little Leader & Ender container out and sewed all the 3 1/2" BowTie blocks together. This was all I had prepped. I have more cheddar 2" squares cut but no more calicos cut. I am guessing that this will be all it will be and will get it sewn together tomorrow. Then I look at the two extra blocks on point over there and my head is designing. Hummmm...maybe I will wait and look at them for awhile.

And before I sewed I moved all the furniture out, used my new Shark Rotator vacumm, washed the windows and the curtains and then put all the sewing furniture back but in Winter mode. I am facing the picture window again. I cannot do this during the Summer as the sun is way too strong and I have this issue with bright light in my eyes.

I won a gift basket through FaceBook. I had to go get a prize form notarized and was thinking maybe I had won a longarm machine. But no, a few days later a box arrived that was full of goodies! One of the goodies was a white box that had 6 spools of SO Fine threads. How did they know that is my favorite bobbin thread??? I even have the color charts and have the numbers checked off that I have purchased. A couple of the colors were ones that I have but hey!!! A gal can never have too much thread. Thanks so much APQS!!!!

And I also sewed on this monster of a green quilt. I used the free Sister's Choice from Bonnie Hunter's website. (www.quiltville.com)
There are no repeats of greens in all the blocks. I need to get the backing made and then off to the quilter lady with this one.

And there is Maggie Mae helping me. She LOVES those measuring tapes. I have to keep them in the drawer. She loves to bite them. She is scheduled for her Lion cut on Wednesday.

And here is the Lucky kitty helping me. The trick is to lay on anything Subee seems to be picking up. Could be the book. Could be the tray could be the blocks she is hiding.
XOXOXO Subee

Crochet Stitch-cation afghan completed.

All done. This is destined to belong to GD AnnaMarie.

http://thecrochetcrowd.com/stitch-cation/

The link below will take you to this Awesome site with FREE designs and tutorials. The above afghan is called Stitch-cation. It is a challenge to make two blocks each of ten (10) different stitches using at least eight (8) different colors. I have been crocheting for 55+ years and some of these stitches were new to me. The end result is wonderful if I do say so myself.
I can say that each square was a simply "okay" in my book. But after they were all joined the magic happened. Even my jaded hubby thought this project was unique and cool!

The magic happens this way in making small quilt blocks. The end result always is better than each little unit by itself.

And another challenge was getting the blocks to all be the same size. Different colors, even in the same line of yarn, (Red Heart) behave differently. Some I had to make smaller using a smaller hook. And when that did not work I had to reduce the # of stitches per row. I have only two (2) blocks that were not up to my standards. And they were the first two blocks I made. Practice...they may end up being a pillow.

http://thecrochetcrowd.com/

And here is my precious Lucky Lucy. She wanted to know what I was doing outside with that afghan. Well...even more what I was doing outside. I am an inside girl.
XOXOXOXO Subee

Egg Carton quilt progress

Although Bonnie Hunter was my first quilt designer crush I have another crush on Edyta Sitar of Laundry Basket Quilts.
The pattern called Egg Carton quilt is in her book titled Scrappy Firework Quilts.

I love 1 1/2" strips, squares and small units of course. And after lots of seams you end up with a much larger unit. And Edyta uses batiks and cottons in my personal color pallet. Yummy!!

This is just half of the blocks I made. I have enough for two smaller quilts.

When I am not sewing I am crocheting. And here is Lucky claiming my place in the recliner last night. Sleeping upright until I snapped the photo.

We are surviving minus 15 temps with minus 45 wind chills. I have filled the bird/squirrel feeder with generous amounts of high calorie food. House is snug with rugs at the doors blocking any cold air seeping in. We have lots of quilts and lots of food. Parts of our small town lost power last night. Our power has been flickering but has remained on. The snow heavy tree branches and high winds are not powerline friendly!

XOXOXO Subee

Progress on Celtic Soltice

I have been a veteran of all of Bonnie Hunter's mysteries. She has never failed to keep my interest, surprise me with the layout and LOVE her color sense.

I had a few extra batik units from the Eye Fooler quilt I made last year. And since I am a waste not want not quilter, I am going to begin with these units.

I took apart 30 (thirty) shirts for the sleeve swap on Yahoo last month. So I had 30 collars. I could not bear to throw them away. So I was able to harvest a whole bag of strings from the collars. And what better way to use them up but to make some piano key units. They will end up being a border somewhere. I make lots of units and never know what I will do with them. But I do use them up. And while I was searching for fabric for this current mystery, I found a whole large plastic container of finished string blocks. All shapes and sizes. WHOHOOO!!!!

This is the backside of a quilt I found hanging in the closet waiting for quilting. It was my first and only attempt at trapunto. Three layers of batting and a flannel back make for some tough hand quilting. I did use dissolving thread for the initial sewing before assembly. Then all I have to do is quilt around the feathers. PAIN IN THE PATOOTIE by machine. I gave up. And am now doing the final quilting by hand. It is not too hard. It is quite warm to be under while quilting and Lucky has found a new past time. Chewing on my left hand under the quilt. I love her so much!!!

Here is the front of one of the twelve blocks....

 Green lavender and white...

And when I am too tired to sew I crochet. This was a free pattern. Well the technique only called diagonal crocheting. Love it. When you get to the middle you start decreasing and the rows get shorter and shorter!!!!

Blue yellow and white.... 

And here is Lucky in another of her favorite places to play. There is no chance of her suffocating as there are several large holes in this bag. I swear she thinks she is invisible when she is inside the bag. She sure livens up this old house!!!!

XOXOOXOXO Subee

A cat's tail that refuses to allow me to sew.

This is what I have to deal with when I wish to sew and Lucky Lucy wants to help.

She does it from the side...

She does it from the back.
She plays "chicken" with the needle and her tail. honest....I have to barricade the sewing area at times. She gets lots of attention from us. She does not need to do this to me! She swipes it back and forth with real force. She is not doing it by accident. There is real intent to interfere with my sewing.

And when she is not trying to hurt herself with the sewing machine she tries to suffocate herself in a plastic bag.

Look at that face...defying death!!

Love her little pink toes...

And this quilt is all done. It is called Road Trip. But my mediums were too dark so I stopped at 12 blocks and will make more.

 Easy block to make.
XOXOXO Subee

Each one teach one!

A friend who had been missing from my life for 30+ years returned to Indiana last year after her husband died.
She has always been a seamstress. Has worked in very high end fashion stores doing alterations. She showed some interest last year in quilting. Then the "bug" bit her bad a few months ago. I started gifting her all my little triangles and leftover blocks. She has been on a roll making quilts from these fabrics.

A totally wonderful quilt made from black and white fabrics. See the staircase on the lower right side? My hubby really likes this one.

Not only is she piecing blocks but she is also doing paper piecing with the little leftovers. This little bit is just the start of a quilt for one of her doll collections. The block is 4" small!!!!

Lucky Lucy keeps making friends with all the big kitties. Here she is sharing my sewing chair with the alpha cat Macy. I cannot believe it. Macy is so contrary. She wants to be the only cat in the house. But Lucky has won her over too. Look out Macy. Lucky wants the #1 spot!

I did the last swap in the quilting room. I was not sure how Lucky would be with the baskets. She is quite a rambunctious kitten. I did not want her to tip over the baskets and have me pulling my hair out.

Maggie Mae sucking heat from a lamp over the ironing board.

XOOXOXXO Subee

My Janome 6600P has died.

I was innocently sewing along and my Janome 6600P started squeaking (high pitched) and then the warning sign came on and she froze up.
I opened her up and could not see what was wrong. The handwheel could barely move. I clean the bobbin area every two bobbins. I am OCD that way.
The quilt I was working on needed to be done ASAP.
So I got my Singer XL1000 embroidery machine out and finished the quilt.
Not fun as the features I love on the Janome do not exist on the Singer.

Today I took her to the dealer for an exam and hopefully a repair that will not cost an arm and a leg. It will be 10 days before I hear from them. Bummer. And I was bowled over with sticker shock on the new Janome 8900.

So...I set up my 1932 Featherweight (her name is Sissy). She fits in the cabinet almost perfectly. And I can maintain a good 1/4" seam width with her.
I oiled and greased her and she is purring away.

Lucky "helping" me quilt on the Singer XL1000.

We are all in love with those thread doilies. I whipped up one for me in less than an hour. Easy peasy. My first love has always been crochet.

Unfortunately Lucky Lucy has found the design wall. Not good...not good!
These leftover "wrong" blocks from my Dancing 9-patch fit this panel perfectly. So I have a bonus quilt that will go to GGS's brother in October.

Hubby likes this design. I am not sure. I want it to be much bigger as I have made 82 blocks and this is only 36 of them.

I like the Straight Furrows set. Much easier to make bigger...

Evidence that the older kitties are accepting Lucky Lucy. This is Bess. I do not know who was there first. I guess it does not matter.
XOXOXOXO Subee