Cheering up with a Baby Quilt

Aren't these the cutest little pandas? The b & w border fabric is minkee - sooo soft!!!

Pattern is Peekaboo Panda by Pastime Pieces (www.pastimepieces.com)

The background was quilted with bamboo. The minkee was used as the backing, as well as the border. Little poofs of it pulled through to the front, so there are lots of tiny black dots which hopefully will disappear after it is laundered.


Busy me!!!  Forty cups of chopped roma tomatoes. From my garden.


New Fruit & Vegetable Strainer Attachment for my Kitchenaid stand mixer. From Amazon.ca. $112.00. It comes with the grinder (which will do meat, too) and the food strainer thingy.


Chopped tomatoes go in the top. Which, being the awesome photographer that I am, I cut off in the picture. Yay me. Anyhow... juice and pulp come out the bottom left and go into the juice jug, and the ick (seeds & skins) come out the right hand side just like little turds, and fall into the bowl for disposal. Hmm.


Cleanup crew.


Seven hours later = 24 cups of seasoned Italian Tomato Sauce.

If you've been following the news lately you know that every person will THROW AWAY approximately 250 pounds of food per year. Lemme tell you - when you spend this much effort and money to make 12 jars of tomato sauce you do not throw it out.

Now, back to the beginning of my post.  Why did I need cheering up? Well, the well has not improved.  Dirty water.  I don't know if it is full of silt, or just the regular hard minerals & iron, but it is DIRTY. We have a cistern on order and hopefully a guy with a digger will come next week to make a very large hole in our front yard. I am thinking that I must have done something to piss off the Universe 'cause it has been ONE OF THOSE YEARS.

• broken arm. Ouch. 
• new pickup truck (can you say $$$$ ?) 
• Mom's broken hip. Not that it hurt me, but I'm the only one who can take her to the hospital appointments. 
• broken air conditioning in my car (more $$$) 
• fried the motor in my quilting machine for the second time in 8 months 
• decided to trade in the quilting machine for the next model up. Now proud owner of Floyd v2.0, a Nolting Pro. Which should not burn out motors. (can you say MORE $$$ ?) 
• now, a muddy well. And lots more $$$$'s. 
• Oh, and don't forget the $$$'s we need so we can attend our niece's wedding in Bali next year. Um, yes, Bali is in Indonesia. On the other side of the world.