Ramblings From Randi, The Wild Rose Quilter
My adventures in quilting and other tidbits of my life at Casa de Ortega.
It’s only Wednesday, and for some reason, I woke up more tired than when I went to bed. I feel absolutely exhausted this morning. I just want to crawl back in bed, but I have to go to work. It’s only 14 degrees outside, too. Good day to stay in bed, all warm & snuggly.
I finished Joanna’s quilt, and it is in the mail on it’s way back to her. Thought I’d share a couple of pics right quick.
Finally, I’m to the part of Joanna’s quilt that I have been looking forward to quilting the most! The looonnnggg feathered strips. Oh yes!
I think our quilting plan has come together nicely.
Making some quilting progress!
Wow, January is just busy, busy so far. This week I had quilt guild Tuesday night. I’ve also been working on end of year tax stuff. Fun, fun, fun. I typed all our W-2’s, only to discover I was checking a box I didn’t need to check, and now I am about to go retype them. I need to balance the company check book, and do the sales tax filing for December. Of course, we have to get everything together for our accountant.
My son has not had anymore hives breakout since Sunday. Yay! But now, I swear, I am coming down with something again. Sheesh, how many times can I catch this crap in a three month span. But the nasal stuffiness and scratchy throat feeling is back. I’m crossing my fingers it’s the crazy weather, and I’m not really getting sick again. Yesterday we were in the 50’s, today at 1:00 we had only reached 20. It’s FREEZING cold out. But, I think it’s supposed to be a short cold blast, and back to 50’s.
I finished the quilting on this one. Not the greatest pics. I couldn’t get really good light today.
It’s a cute, fun quilt, and I thought it needed fun, cute quilting. I sure hope you like it, Betty! 🙂 Thanks for letting me quilt for you!
Now, I’m off to redo W-2’s. 😦
My stash report is very boring this week. Nothing new in, nothing new out. As I stated in my previous post, it was a stressful week last week, between my son having hives, and getting caught up in some stupid drama at work. And tomorrow starts a new work week. I hope it’s a better one. I’m usually pretty good at keeping up walls, but occasionally let those down a bit. The events of last week have me feeling it’s time to reinforce walls again. I’m feeling in “retreat & retract mode”.
In the meantime, I’ll give you a sneak peek of how I spent 5.5 hours of my Saturday. This cutie also belongs to my friend Betty, the owner of the previously posted Pumpkin table runner.
I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. We had a very nice, laid back day around here. It was just my husband, son and me. Then yesterday, we went to Pampa to spend the day after Christmas with my parents. We had a wonderful day with them. We waited til the day after because the fabric store there is having a going out of business sale, and it was open on Friday. I am sad it is closing. Mom & I really enjoyed our little outings there together. So of course, we had to have one last hoorah there 🙂 There will be more about that in my Sunday stash report…hehehehe.
Today was a great day, as well. I finished up the quilting on my customer quilt, and I am pleased with it. I hope she will be. I sure had fun working on it.
After I finished this, I felt like just doing some piecing. Piecing for the sheer fun of watching the pretty blocks come together. Remember these fabrics I purchased earlier this year?
I couldn’t stand just looking at it any longer. I had to start cutting it up and sewing it back together.
These blocks are FUN to sew together. I also washed some white fabric and some 30’s repros that I want to use in another quilt. And I’ve done some sewing on the leaders/enders scrap quilt I’m making for my Mom. I’ll put pics of that in tomorrow’s post.
I am truly grateful for days like this. They are like a little gift. I hope you are enjoying your weekend and doing something you love!
It’s 5:30 and I’ve already got a loaf of cranberry nut bread in the oven. Did I mean to be up this early? No way! 3:30 this morning and I was wide awake. At 4:45 I finally just gave in and got up. I’m sure it will catch up with me later today.
The Red Velvet Whoopie Pies were a hit. Mine aren’t near as pretty as the ones in the magazine, but they taste good. I didn’t follow the recipe for the filling, though. The recipe calls for a filling made from cream cheese, marshmallow creme and butter. I was getting ready to make it and my son stopped me and requested that I use my butter cream frosting. Since I’ve never had them before, I can’t say which way is better, but my butter cream frosting sure is yummy in there.
They look pretty sitting on the counter next to my new mixer, as they are almost the same color red. I chose the cinnamon color mixer, which is a deeper color than the bright red. The recipe for the whoopie pies can be found in the December Better Homes & Gardens issue, or the BHG recipe site, by doing a search for Red Velvet Whoopie Pies. You will have to register at the site to view the recipes, but it’s free.
I also made a batch of beef jerky yesterday. It’s my second try in my new dehydrator. I tried once using the oven, and I ruined all my jerky meat. This batch came out really good, so I think I’m finally getting the hang of it. We like it hot. Can you see those red pepper flakes?
Since it is Wednesday, I will throw in some more pics of the WIP that is on the machine, and a pic of the memorial t-shirt quilt I have started.
Oh yum! The cranberry nut bread just got done…can you smell it? 🙂 My house never smells like this at this time of day…lol. This will throw my little family for a loop! Me…cooking before coffee…how in the world did that happen?
They really won’t care, though, since it doesn’t involve bacon, eggs, toast or pancakes. Those items are a supper dish around here. I tell them if they want them for breakfast, there’s a perfectly good restaurant in town that serves them in the morning.
Merry Christmas Eve! I hope Santa is good to you!
I used 6.5 yards over the last two or three weeks. I can’t remember when I last posted a stash report. I used 6 doing some tweaking with my machine, and I needed some fabric to play around on, and 1/2 yard was pulled to take to my guild party. I have not brought any new stash in, except for the four Christmas fat quarters I had to buy to take to the guild party. I’m not counting those. 🙂
I’m still not feeling 100% up to par. I get tired really easy, and I have had lots of sinus headaches. I did get our tree up and decorated yesterday, as well as set out a few other decorations. I also finally got back to quilting on Anita’s quilt. I worked on it a bit yesterday and today. I finished up all the bugs, and quilted a loopy design with hearts and butterflies in the rest of the blue space.
I used the ladybugs in Michelle Wyman’s Lotsa Lady Bugs pantograph pattern as the inspiration for this little bug.
I am now working on the stars. I have one done.
I used my Circle Lord crosshatch template for the first time, and I do like the results, but I’m not sure exactly how, when using it from the back of the machine, you are supposed to be able to tell where to stop stitching, as the hopping foot is in the way. So, I stitched from the front, and for every line, bent down under the machine to move the stylus to the next row. There’s got to be a better way…..????
I am also using my swag templates from Tracey Browning for the first time. (Anita, you didn’t know you were going to be such a guinea pig, did you?) I like them, too, however these did not fill the border as much as I had hoped, so I will go back and add some quilting on the outer edge to fill it in some more.
I really wasn’t in the mood for Christmas yet, this year. And I was being grouchy about putting up the tree, as I am just feeling a bit behind in my quilting, my housework, everything. Then, I checked in on a blog I’ve been following, ever since I read about it on Judy L’s blog awhile back. This young 32 yr. old mother, Shawndra Turner, has been battling colorectal cancer, and seems to have really taken a turn f0r the worse. I was so sad reading it yesterday. I have really been touched by her writings. As I put up the tree and fluffed the branches, which I really don’t enjoy, I had a whole different attitude. I fluffed those branches and felt grateful for every blessed minute of it. I listened to the Sirius holiday station, and am grateful to be celebrating the season. I pray for this little family.
I want to thank everyone that sent me get well wishes! I haven’t been good at keeping up with my replies this week, but I appreciated each and every one. I am still doing my replies by email, for the most part. Most of the comments I received when I asked, prefer them that way. Also, when I think about it, I don’t always go back to blogs to see if a blogger has posted a reply to my comment on their comment page.
This is the only new progress on my mystery quilt. We will get more instructions in January.
It seems like there was something else I was going to write about, but it escapes me just now. Have a wonderful week, y’all!
(I’m noticing that since the new changes at WordPress, that some of the pics are not clickable anymore. What’s up with that?) I wrote WordPress Support to inquire about the photos. I got this answer and thought I’d pass it along. I tried it out on the first photo in this post, and it worked.
“Make sure to click the File URL or Post URL button before you click the Insert into Post button. Once you’ve done this, your choice will be remembered for next time.”
Ramblings From Randi, The Wild Rose Quilter 