quilting

Latest Quilt Projects


While I was MIA from Blogland, I did finish Caleb’s quilt and it looks so good on his big boy bed, in his new bedroom. My son and daughter-in-law bought a new house in my neighborhood this summer. I’m loving having them even closer! It’s literally less than a five  minute walk from my door to theirs.

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This weekend, I finished the top to baby Chase’s quilt. I absolutely love the 10 minute block pattern. So much fun to whip out the blocks. Almost instant gratification! Even though the pattern designer has the how-to video posted on You Tube for free, I love this so much that I ordered the pattern book to support her efforts.  Now, I only wish I could remember where I put it! I swear, sometimes I feel like I spend at least half my life looking for misplaced or “placed in a safe spot” items. 😡

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I’m really looking forward to getting it loaded on the longarm and getting to do some quilting again! Sure have been missing spending some quality time with my beloved A-1, Corky.

That pretty much catches you up on any quilty happenings around here since the last pre-wedding post. And, that’s a wrap for this evening. See you soon!

quilting

Mrs. ORTEGA is back!


Soooo, I haven’t blogged for a minute. And…. this happened while I was away! I’ve been a little busy getting settled into this new life. 🙂

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My late husband’s granddaughter (mine by love) was my maid of honor. And, my 4 year old grandson walked his Mammy down the aisle to the Goo Goo Dolls “Come To Me”.

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This photo above is one of my favorites. As well as this photo below, with both of our sons

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We had so much fun taking pics with the Harley!

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Our first dance to Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud”.

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We had a little rustic, a little Mexican, and a little Harley going on. Efren’s son dubbed it a Red Nexican weddin’! 😂 He and I crafted this “cake” from the Mexican treat mazipans. We were pretty proud of ourselves for this one, hehe.

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We had to have some Mexican wedding cookies

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My friend Tammy made the cake and it was spectacular!

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The papel picado decorations I ordered from a little family business in California that I found online turned out to be  one of my favorite things!

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It was such a beautiful, magical day for us.  We couldn’t have asked for a more perfect wedding.  There were times I wondered if it was a bit silly of us to be going through the whole big wedding thing at our ages and stages in life, but in the end, we were soooo glad we did it the way we did.  Celebrating  exchanging our vows in church, in front of beloved family and friends,  truly made it feel like a brand new start for both of us. I wouldn’t trade that day for anything.

So much more has gone on since that day, including a small bit of piecing and quilting. But for now, I’ll save the rest for future posts.  I hope you enjoyed the wedding report! Thanks for stopping by!

daily life · quilt top · quilting

Crazy Week


This past few days have been hectic around here, ups and downs. The downs were related to my parents and my father’s progressing Alzheimer’s. They are an hour away from me and that is too far under the circumstances. Moving day to get them up here will be here soon. My little mom is so ready So are the rest of us. As soon as their new house is ready, the moving will begin! Lots of progress is being made.

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My guest room is filling up with stuff for the wedding. Hobby lobby had wedding stuff 1/2 price. Yay! Lots of bows to be fluffed and pressed. Guest book, invitations, and various other items.

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Little tea light candle holders were 1/2 price, as well. I got 100 of them!

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I have no idea what I’m doing when it comes to wedding planning, and honestly, ours is going to be a bit hodge-podgy, lol. The caterer has been hired, the photographer booked. Invitations arrived and will start mailing those this weekend. I ordered some Mexican papel picado banners and little flags for the reception, to bring in more of Efren’s culture. I hope they turn out right and get here on time. They look so cute on the website.

In between all this and my day job, too, I did make a couple more blocks for baby Chase’s quilt. I will stitch down the edges of the center “windows” after all the blocks are made. I think I will top stitch them by machine in matching thread rather than hand stitch.

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I was going to make at least a couple more this evening, but my son just texted that Chase’s big brother, Caleb, wants to come over to Mammy’s house. Thus, I best get off here and get ready to play with a precious four year old boy! Later!

fabric · quilting · quilts · sewing · stash busting

Fun Sewing!


In between work, and stitching the binding on Caleb’s quilt, and hectic wedding planning, I simply had to take a few minutes last night to try out a pattern I’ve seen floating around for a little while. The 10 Minute Block by Suzanne McNeill. I have a new four month old baby grandson and I thought a sweet little baby quilt would be the perfect project to try it out with. I only had a few minutes to spare and I have to say, I love this block! So much fun to put together and you can use it so may ways. Cutesy fun projects or change fabrics for a very elegant looking quilt. Fun fun fun! This may be my new stash busting “go to” pattern! A great one to use for gift quilts, charity, etc. It goes together so quickly and easily that it’s almost instant gratification! So, if you’re a busy quilter who has trouble finding time to squeeze some sewing time in between all life’s other activities, this is a good one to try!

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Wedding plans are progressing, and I’m really starting to have fun with the process and am getting so excited! I have 57 days to get the rest of it together. I’ve been faithfully working out again and trying to bust the extra stash I have put back on this body over the last few months. I’m starting to see some results from that hard work, as well. I just keep chanting “wedding dress wedding dress wedding dress” in my head when I feel like slacking. 😄

Today, I hope to make a final decision on the caterer and make some progress on the reception decorations. Have a fantastic Friday, y’all!

quilting

Weekend Winding Down


And, so am I. I was really wanting to try out a little sewing project I saw on another quilty blog, but I just ran out of weekend. I have made progress on the binding stitching of my grandson’s quilt, but a good bit of my weekend was eaten up by wedding planning. 62 days til “the big day”. Sometimes, it feels so surreal to me that I am getting married again. I’m looking forward to embarking on this new path, with Efren. A new and exciting chapter in the story of my life. The cake has been planned and ordered. It’s being made by a dear friend and I know it’s going to be yummy!! I’m so looking forward to having my cake and eating it, too! I’m really watching my sweets til the wedding, so that cake is sounding really good, haha! I’ve ordered outfits for my grandson and my step-granddaughter from my marriage to Greg. Another dear friend came yesterday to help me plan out decorations, etc. She is making mailing labels for the invitations. I don’t know what I would do without her! We finalized the time of the wedding with the pastor this morning. Still a lot to do, but closer than I was on Friday. I have to pick out my shoes, a photographer, have my dress fitting, pick the caterer. Wish me luck getting it all pulled together in time! My poor sewing machine is going to have to wait a bit longer.

Oh…Miss Bella says hi. 🙂

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And, I say goodnight! Have a great Monday tomorrow, y’all!

quilting

A Quilty Post!!


Yay! Quilting news to blog. I finished the quilting on Caleb’s quilt last week. Today, I made the binding and sewed it to the front of the quilt using my longarm. Got it off the machine and all trimmed and ready for the hand stitching of the binding. I’ve been so anxious to see it off the machine. I did not use a pattern. I just decided what size I wanted the rows and pieces to be and started cutting fabric and sewing. I have to say…I love it!!

Picture overload…it’s huge, so the best I could do tonight was throw it over the sofa. Please ignore the batting fuzz and strings all over it. 😀

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quilting

2015 Off to a Blazing Start


Literally. As in my son sent me a photo of his face yesterday with the text “this hurts”.

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He had first degree burns on his face after an incident at work (oilfield), in which his head was engulfed in a blast of fire from a pipe. Even after taking the usual precautions, the thing you take precautions against still sometimes happens. Lost a portion of eyebrows, eyelashes and had to shave his beard and mustache, as they were badly singed. At first, he thought he was blinded, as his lashes literally stuck his eyelids together. Poor guy. But, lucky in that this could have been soooo much worse. His wife and I are both into the essential oils, and we decided lavender would be good to try as we’ve had luck with it on sunburns and a cooking burn on my hand. It stopped the burning pain immediately. Today, he sent me a new pic, said it feels really dry and tight, and a little sore. You can really see where his stocking cap sat. It protected his hair.

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Even though we knew he was alright by the time I even found out about it, the mommy in me still had to cry a little. While breathing a sigh of relief that it wasn’t worse. His eyes are perfectly fine, just a little more naked than before. He had long, beautiful lashes. I believe they will grow back as they were.

Today, I’m sitting in the airport waiting, with Efren and Christian, for Christian’s return flight home to depart. We were to bring him tomorrow evening, but ice and snow is on the way, and not only will flights probably be canceled tomorrow, but we have a two hour drive to get to the airport and then back home. We did not want to chance it, and as much as we hated to send him home a day early, I was thankful there was a flight available today. We should make it back home before the weather gets too bad this evening. I do not like traveling in ice and snow.

One good thing about the weather is that it’s great for staying home and working on something quilty! Maybe I will get to do just that tomorrow!

I want to thank you for all the sweet comments on my recent posts. So good to hear from some of my old blogging buddies again. I try to reply or at least hit the like button, but I don’t know if it notifies the poster of the reply?? It doesn’t seem that user friendly when I’m posting from my phone, and yesterday I was even posting replies to the wrong commenters’ comments. Ugh. Oh well. Please know that I do read and appreciate all of your comments! Wishing you all a happy and blessed 2015!

quilting

One step closer….


To getting it together for the wedding. Suits, shirts and ties have been chosen and purchased for my handsome groom and his best man.

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Haven’t decided for sure if we want to go with this pocket square for Efren or a solid ivory one. We bought both. This one actually looks like a closer match to the shirt in person than it looks in the photo. The ivory one is a perfect match, but so plain. I like the character the stripes give. Just a little more fun. I think.

food · quilting

Do you like it hot?


We love our salsa hot! It is freezing, literally freezing, outside. Last time I checked it was 7 degrees outside with a windchill of -13. Brrrrr. We had snow flurries on and off all day. A perfect day to cook up some homemade salsa, rice and a big pot of albondigas (meatball soup).

I boiled the jalapeños and tomatoes, and I had a handful of tomatillos leftover from a previous batch, so I went ahead and roasted them and threw them in the blender, as well. Added some garlic, cilantro and salt.

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I leave the pepper seeds in for extra heat. A bowl of albondigas….

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with a generous spoonful of rice stirred in….

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along with a spoonful or two of the salsa and a squeeze of lime, eaten with warm corn tortillas….is good stuff! Just right for a day like this. Actually, there aren’t many days I wouldn’t eat this. It’s becoming a favorite of mine. I also had cooked a pot of pinto beans in the slow cooker overnight and I made a pan of frijoles refritos to have on the side. Mmmmm! I’m ready for leftovers!

I spent most of the day in the kitchen, but at the end of the day I managed to squeeze in a bit of quilting. I cut the binding strips for Caleb’s quilt. It’s going to look awesome in this navy and white striped fabric, but cutting it made me a little dizzy!

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Then I did some hand stitching on the binding of another quilt. Now, I think I’ll lay me down to sleep. Goodnight!

daily life · dogs · food

Mmmmm…Pumpkin Empanadas


So, I’m taking some vacation time til after the first. Efren, aka “mi Papi”😊, is also taking a few days off , and we are enjoying a week long visit with his 15 yr old son, Christian. He lives roughly ten hours away with his mom, so visits are precious time. I caught an upper respiratory thing from Efren had last week and have felt pretty blah the last two days.

I played it up for all it was worth, though (JK😂) and let this crew do all the cooking last night.
My son Derek, Efren and Christian. Derek’s family was still at his inlaws, so it was just me and the boys.

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Once I started feeling better this afternoon, I decided to try out a pumpkin empanada recipe I found on the web. I love a good pumpkin empanada. I love pumpkins, in general. One of my favorite things for some reason. They are just so darn cute. Anyway, this recipe was easy and I’m quite pleased with how they turned out. I expected more difficulty, because ya know….that whole dough making part. These were truly a piece of cake to put together.

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I can’t make a thing without making a huge mess along with, it seems.

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You make these cute little dough balls and roll them out. Then you put this yummy, as in so good I wanted to get a big spoon and sit down and eat it right out of the bowl just like it was kind of yummy, filling in the center of your flattened dough ball.

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Then moisten the edge, seal them up, and bake!

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Pretty dang good!

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You can find the recipe here.

I guess that was just too much success for one day, because immediately after that I broke the only really nice crystal vase I owned. Oopsie.

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But, that’s a small loss in the grand scheme. Totally inconsequential, actually. Replaceable. My biggest concern was keeping Miss Bella out of it with her big paws and nosy nose while I was cleaning it up.

I missed Christmas blogging, so tonight I will leave you with a cute pic of her under the tree before the holiday season is long gone and the decorations packed away for another year. Would have been nice if she hadn’t rearranged the tree skirt before striking an accidental pose that I couldn’t resist snapping a pic of right fast. Oh well! Just adds to the charm, right?! 😄

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