Vacation project

I'm up in Tobermory for a week with DH and my sewing machine. We left Sadie at home with the house sitters. They might be very bored by next weekend if the Wifi password (that wouldn't work as we were running out the door) is REALLY not working. A week with no connectivity? Horrors.
My project is a Blooming Nine Patch. I have made 2 rounds of 9patch blocks, and ripped out two seams already. Boo on accuracy.

Ocean Waves Quilt with Semi-Custom Quilting

I just LOVE the colours in this quilt. The body of the quilt is very busy, so it was not a great place to spend $$ on custom quilting.  But the outer border was nice and wide, providing a blank palette...

The client chose semi-custom quilting which is priced in between edge-to-edge and full custom.  Every longarm quilter will have their own version of semi-custom, and different quilts will also dictate different versions.  On this quilt it meant s.i.d. and custom quilting only in the borders, with an edge-to-edge pattern in the body of the quilt.

Since custom quilting is quite expensive, try to get a good bang for your buck.

Applique Medallion

I love this quilt - such soft, pretty colours.

A nice bit of applique for the medallion center.

Many, many star blocks.  Those star blocks are simple to quilt - the path is (starting at the bottom of the | ):  |  \  -  /  |  \  -  /

Overall shot of the back.

Borders, including the corner.

BOOK
Here is a very good book I just finished about  teenagers dealing with cancer.  It has a few sad parts in the story but mostly it's just engaging.  Really well written.

GARDEN
I'm picking lettuce, and weeding most days.  Even though the forecast is calling for rain pretty much every day, we never seem to get any.  The garden got a thorough watering on the weekend, so the weeds have gone crazy.  If I had a gun, I'd shoot the friggin' rabbits.  They seem to think my garden is a walk-up salad bar. Those little bastards are eating off my beets, to the point that more than half of them are GONE.  Most of my beans are gone, so I replanted them on the weekend.  I sprinkled cayenne pepper on the beets for the second time last night, trying to save at least a couple for my own supper.  If you have any other suggestions I'd like to hear them.

Fractured Medallion Quilt & Front Yard update

One of the ladies I quilt for likes to scare challenge me.  I am always SO impressed when I get quilts like this.  If I live to be 100, I will never tackle anything so complicated.  It is definitely flattering that she trusts me enough to work on it.

I was grateful that when she brought the quilt to me she came armed with some quilting ideas.  These large corner bands of blue that make up the background have been quilted with a flowing, ferny design.

The outer border has filled swags that are finished with piano keys.

Lots of straight lines and pebbles, with motifs in the solid triangle blocks.

The back.  The batting is Hobbs Wool.  It gives such a lovely poof to the quilting.

If you have been following me for a while, you may remember that last summer we had to dig up the front yard and have the nice concrete people install a cistern for our water.  I've been living with a very unattractive front yard since September.  Here is a link to that day.

This past weekend 'we' finally got motivated.  I was out helping, digging a trench around all the areas that needed sod.  I have a lovely sunburn on my back as evidence.  DH surprised me when he actually agreed to me helping.  Generally, we don't work well together because we are both a little, um, bossy.  As I get older and hopefully wiser, I am trying to shut up and do as I'm asked but honestly?... it's a struggle. Saturday was the rototill-and-add-topsoil day.  About a third of the sod was laid, then we went out for a swanky dinner with friends.

Sunday morning and the work continues.  In the crummy, rainy weather.  I stayed in the house and took a girly bath while the hard labour happened outside.  That might make me a bad wife.  But it is what it is.

Aah, complete.  Well, mostly.  We're about 3 strips of sod short (is that like being one sandwich shy of a picnic? ha ha ha) so there is still a bit of patching to be done.  Honey, I am very grateful!!

When I got through with the girly bath I got busy in the kitchen and spent the whole afternoon in there.  First I made a banana cake, then I made two loaves of Honey-Oat bread, and then I took my first foray into homemade noodles.  Yum - they were delicious. In an interesting twist, I got the Kitchenaid pasta parts from the same gal who gave me the basil.  Funny or spooky?

Here is a little observation on human nature.  We went out for a swanky dinner on Saturday and all four of us got a really GOOD meal.  We loved our food.  Well prepared and a nice presentation.  But when did our eyes light up?  When the waiter brought over the huge glass jar of candy at the end.  At the sight of a zillion jelly beans, jujubes, and wrapped candies, and no mommy hovering to make us stop eating, our eyes lit up like little kids at Christmas.  That goes to show that you don't have to spend a lot of money to make people happy.

Modern Half-Log Cabin & Silly Men

Half-Log Cabin blocks in solids and tone-on-tones.

I love the effect of the clamshell quilting.

Our best man turned 60 and his wife threw a surprise party for him.  He and DH go back a long way, so there are two bottles of booze buried amongst the golf balls.

The whole thing was wrapped in duct tape.  I guess that is a man-thing:  make your friend REALLY WORK to get at his gift.  Hah - nice collection of shoes that need to be put away.

Star Trek

Hah!  I've been surfing the Quiltville FB pics this morning.

Scottie Dog Quilt and Basil

This Scottie Dog quilt was made by the same gal who did the Redwork girls in my last post.

The back is Minkie, which is really, really soft & cuddly.  And a little bit stretchy.  I added a quilted Scottie Dog in one corner.

In an earlier post I was bemoaning the fact that I'd misplaced my basil seeds.  One of my guild members saw that, and sent me a note offering a bunch of seedlings.  Yay!!  These are all planted so I'll be up to my arse in pesto later this summer.  Yum...

Since it was so easy to get basil this way, hopefully someone out there will have a Kitchenaid attachment for sale - I'm looking for the pasta roller.  Must have pasta to go with the pesto, right?

Redwork Bonnet Girls and Roast Beef

I have a real fondness for embroidery, and these bonnet girls are beautifully done.

This was quilted with s.i.d. around the blocks, and along a lot of the embroidery.  This quilt sat here for a while before I could tackle it, because of the cast and the need for me to hang on to a curved edge ruler for the quilting.  Yeah, the blocks are all this cute.

The sashing has a pansy design quilted on it, although you really cannot see that on the front.

Tonight for supper we are having Teriyaki Roast Beef.  It was a compromise - I was feeding DH salmon last night for supper (which is very, very LOW on his list of edible foods) in exchange for the beef tonight (which is very, very low on my list of cholesterol-friendly foods).  In the end, he was whining so much about the salmon that he ate the leftover black bean & corn enchilada for supper instead.  That's ok - more for me!!!

Yesterday I was flipping through recipe books to plan this week's menu, then went downstairs(*) to check on what was available in the freezer.  Options:  chicken or roast beef or bacon.  I am not qualified to plan a meal around bacon, so Roast Beef was the final decision.  This recipe is from a cookbook dated 1977 - probably before you could just go and buy a jar of teriyaki sauce.  I always prefer home made but you could easily use the commercial stuff.
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TERIYAKI ROAST BEEF - about 14 servings

1 c. soy sauce
1/2 c. light cooking oil
1/4 c. light molasses
1 Tbsp. ground ginger
1 Tbsp. dry mustard
8 cloves garlic, minced

1 6 lb. to 7 lb. boneless beef rib roast

• Combine the marinade ingredients in a large ziplock bag.  Add the beef to the bag and marinate overnight in the refrigerator, turning occasionally.
• Remove roast from marinade, reserving marinade.  Place roast, fat side up, on rack in shallow roasting pan.  Roast at 325 to desired doneness (140 for rare - 3 hours, 160 for medium - 4 hours or 170 for well done - 4 3/4 hours)
• While the meat is roasting, baste several times with the reserved marinade.
• Remove roast from oven, cover with foil and let stand about 15 minutes before carving.

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The roast I'm using today is MUCH smaller so I have altered the quantities accordingly.  In the past I have done this in the oven, AND on the bbq.  Today it's in the crockpot with carrots & onions.  I put the marinade in the crock and added about an equal quantity of water, because the soy sauce makes this a bit salty.

(*) downstairs - I swear that one of these days I am moving the freezer up to the kitchen.  You have no idea how many times I go downstairs to get something.  I could put the dining room table downstairs in it's place, considering how often I use that.