Happy Easter

1 Down

Ta da! I finished a quilt! Which was thoroughly inspected by Quality Control, aka Oliver T. Kitten, and, having passed, is in the process of being washed and dried before taking up residence on the living room sofa.

This is my happy quilt. I've wanted to make one ever since Ellen made hers, but I've been busy with other projects, life, etc. I finally started this one in January (or early Feb?) because I was cold and wanted to snuggle on the couch with it. I used the Avalon pattern from Material Obsession and modified it just a tiny bit, using only 9 fat quarters instead of 12. I was wanting a quick, easy lap quilt -- not much easier than sashing whole fat quarters together!

I wanted to use fabric that I had on hand, which I did, except the backing, which is a light gray solid (Kona Ash) and the binding, which I bought at CityCraft (it's a Michael Miller fabric but I forget from which line). The white is the same Kona solid I used in all the Christmas-gift quilts that I will share here eventually (when they are all finished...), and I got the fat quarters as a set last fall at a local quilt store in Missouri. As far as I can tell, the tan hummingbird fabric in the very center is from Moda Arcadia and the rest are a random assortment of leftovers that the people at the shop put together.

I love love love it. Yay for happy quilts!

Beth & Anna?

This isn't quite a Julie & Julia thing (for one thing, I am not promising to make all the recipes in Love Soup by any particular time, and for another, I am promising not to blog about every single one I do make). But I really really love this cookbook. So much that I bought one of Anna Thomas's earlier books, The Vegetarian Epicure. We're not even vegetarian. The food is just that good.

Anyway, this is what I had for lunch today, courtesy of Love Soup:

Leftover green soup with mushrooms (it looks a little brownish in this picture but it's really a dark dark green) and spinach pie. The pie took me 2 hours to make last night, but it is totally worth it. It's a combination of spinach, onions, 3 kinds of cheese and just enough eggs to glue it all together. The green soup is also really good, and it just feels healthy to eat a soup chock full of greens and other veggies.

In other news, I finished quilting 1 of the quilts (the 1 for me, of course!) last night, and I hope to finish up the binding today, so there really should be a picture of that coming up soon!

A Lack of Follow Through

Well, things have a way of not working out like I planned... I was planning to get a lot of sewing done, upload some pictures and write a few blog posts in the week following my last post. Turns out I spent the week knee-deep in home maintenance projects, which was a success on the having-a-functioning-home front but not so great for sewing or posting.

And then we left for India for 2 weeks so no blogging then. Now we're back and I have 2 weeks of laundry and a dirty house to deal with (how does it get dirty when we're not even here?!?).

So... pictures of all previously mentioned things coming soon, plus India pictures. Still have not finished those 2 quilts but have made a fair bit of progress, so those will hopefully be coming soon too.

I did officially pass the OT exam and receive my Texas license, so I'm ready to start working next week (no travel for me for a while!). I am also very, very relieved to have all that behind me. Whew!

Here's a sneak peek of India pictures to come. This is Humayun's tomb in Delhi. He was the grandfather of the shah who built the Taj Mahal, and the tomb (designed by his wife after he died suddenly) was a precursor to the Taj. It's a really beautiful place!

More coming soon (probably)!

Rip Van Winkle

I know I sound like a broken record, but I cannot believe how quickly time flies! Valentine's Day has come and gone, not to mention Christmas and New Year's, and I don't really know where all that time went or what I did with it while it was here.

To make a long story as short as possible, this is what I've been up to:

• In the last few weeks of 2009, I finished my 2nd (and final) internship, graduated with my master's degree in occupational therapy, and celebrated that graduation with family and friends. I sewed like crazy in the few days between graduation and Christmas, finishing my mother-in-law's Christmas present (a throw) in the nick of time. When it became obvious that the quilts for my mom and grandma weren't going to be done in time, I decided to give mom and grandma a quick preview while they were in town for graduation.
• The day after Christmas, my husband and I packed up and headed to Panama for a week of tropical birdwatching. We celebrated New Year's Eve on the rooftop deck of a former radio tower (now a jungle eco-lodge), trying to catch a glimpse of fireworks in the distance. Pictures of the trip to come!
• I finished the quilts for my mom and grandma and shipped them off to Missouri. I started the final Christmas quilt, for my other grandma, and hope to have that done soon. Pictures of all the quilts to come shortly.
• I took the national occupational therapy exam, which I have to pass to be able to practice as an OT. Official exam results due any day now!
• My husband and I took a quick weekend trip to Port Antonio, Jamaica. Pictures of that to come, too. (Don't worry, all this international jet-setting is about to come to a screeching halt when I start my new job next month!)
• Oliver developed an eye infection that required a drop of medicine in his eye 4-6 times a day for a week, which resulted in several unpleasant scratches for me and my dear husband (marriage is a partnership, right, so we split the job: I actually dropped the drops into the eye while my husband held the cat still). Fortunately, Oliver's eye recovered, and our wounds have pretty much healed, too. No pictures of those misadventures forthcoming.
• I bought Anna Thomas's new book, Love Soup, and have been cooking my way through it. So far I have made 3 green soups, a cauliflower bisque, and sopa de ajo (garlic soup). I have also made my own vegetable broth twice, and while it is a bit of work, I really like making my own broth! Yum.
• I decided I didn't have enough to do and I was tired of making quilts for other people, so I started a quilt for myself. It's nearly finished -- I just need to finish quilting it and then bind it up -- so I hope to have pictures of that soon, too.
• I went to the first meeting of the Dallas Modern Quilt Guild with Ellen. It was a lot of fun to meet new folks and see all the different things they've made. I love show and tell!

Well, that's basically all that's been going on around here over the last 7-8 weeks... Hopefully I'll have lots of news to share soon as I get quilts finished and pictures uploaded!

Happy Holidays

Things are still running on fast forward around here, but I just had to share these pictures of Kate and Oliver getting in the Christmas spirit.

First, Kate, a hound who is willing to do just about anything for a piece of Parmesan cheese:

And Oliver, a feisty kitten who paused under the tree for just a minute before resuming his forays up the trunk:

Happy Holidays!

Fast Forward

I can't believe Thanksgiving has already come and gone! I've been busy with my internship, with Oliver the kitten (and his big sister, Kate the hound), with family gatherings -- and with crafting!

My mom picked out a set of fat quarters she liked when I was visiting her in Missouri in late August, and I managed to finish this table runner and send it to her just in time for Thanksgiving:

She requested matching napkins, but I haven't gotten those done just yet. My goal is to send them to her by next Thanksgiving!

I've also finished 1 of my 5 quilts (you know, the ones that were supposed to be done by Christmas...). It was a birthday present for my mother-in-law last month. She loves Christmas decorations, so a Christmas throw seemed like a no-brainer. I really love this quilt -- it was hard for me to give it away! Here's the front:

And the back, a lovely dark green-and-red plaid:

I had some assistance from Oliver with the quilting. He's a good little helper!

I'm hard at work on quilt #2 (of 5! Did I mention there are 5 of them?!?), with more finished projects to come, I hope!