Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Dealing With the "Ps"

Yep.....it has been a week of dealing with the Ps in my life - peaches, pears, peppers and pieces!!!!!!!!!  I have lots of canned peaches and pears as well as peach pie fillings which are now frozen.  Won't a fresh peach pie taste good in January?

We have an abundant supply of colorful peppers in the garden too.  Again, they are late in coming, but they are here.  I slice and then spread them out onto a cookie sheet.  Then I place them in the freezer until they are frozen.  Freezing them that way before bagging them up allows you to take out just the ones you need for cooking.  They, too, are wonderful all winter. 









In between "putting up" I played with pieces.....

Halloween bags for some of the grandchildren.  I have made them for the others already.  One problem that I had with these was my package of rick rack.  I was not pleased with quality assurance when I opened this package and had to patch it to make it work.  I would have taken it back, but the trip to the fabric store has now become a long trek with the closing of our main road for TWO months!!!!





A few more blocks in the batiks that I have been playing with.  The jury is still out on this one, but I will keep trying more to see if I can help it along.  At this point I hate to have it end up a UFO.



I made a couple more take along chalk boards which have been a big hit and



.... a pacifier leash, in PINK of course!!!



Lastly, a couple of weeks ago I won some metallic threads from Tonya.  Although I am not a fan of sewing with the metallics, I have found that putting them in the bobbin can give great and hassle free results.  I have been making some flower pins with them and I really like the results.  They are great for wearing or attaching to bags. 




A question....how come they did not have this cute item when I had children who at home who loved using my sewing scissors????



My last P is a new phone.  Now I need to spend the next ten years learning to use it!!!!!  For years I have just had a flip up thingy and I now have a phone that assures me that I will never get lost!!!!!  Is that REALLY a good thing?  Ahhh....technology.  There is definitely a love/hate relationship here.

Happy fall y'all.

Friday, September 17, 2010

Friday Happenings

Let's give this another try.  Sometimes I cannot believe how stupid I can be.

Life is grand!!!  It has been a busy and fun week with lots going on around here.  It started off with a high school friend and her husband visiting from Oregon.  It was so much fun.  Sandy happens to be an extremely talented fiber artist so it was a thrill to see what she is currently working on.  As well, another high school friend who lives in our general area joined us for a day and brought some of her beautiful hand dyed fabrics.  There is so much inspiration to gain from get togethers like that.  I did not want the time to end.  Did I take any pictures????  Of course not!!!  What was I thinking?

The sewing studio has been beckoning me this week.  Perhaps it was the extra motivation (as if I needed any) of creative friends that got me going.  Wanda always has such wonderful projects in the works.  She uses so many of her fabrics and I always love what she creates.  She is currently working on triangle quilt blocks with a lot of batik fabrics.  I decided to give a few of my batiks a try.  Although I am not sure about this block, I do think that I will make a few more to be sure.  I may have to resort to Wanda's blocks for them even though I know that mine will never be as stunning as hers.  I think I need to shop in her stash.  Somehow I just love scrappy quilts.



I managed to get more blocks finished in a project that has been in the works for awhile now.  Again, it is scrappy, but I am loving the way it is coming out.



My September barn block is done.  This was a great quilt block for the barn and I am looking forward to the final installment next month.  It will be fun to see these all together in a quilt.



I would really like to start a new project that Barb has just finished up.  It is called Orange Slice.  Quilt Taffy had a package of the great orange fabrics for sale a while back, but they were sold out before I could get them.  I have since been saving all of my orange fabrics.  It should go up quickly.

Another project that I am excited to get to is some flowers with some wonderful threads that I won from Tonya a few weeks ago.  I'll share them with you when I get them done.

Also completed was some sewing for my niece's upcoming wedding.  She had requested of me to design jackets for the junior bridesmaids.  The picture is awful because the fabric had a sheen to it.  It was so slinky and there was a ton of hand basting and undersewing.  They need to be professionally pressed, but I am glad to be finished with them. 



Sewing for the wedding reminded me of the bridesmaid "bouquets" that I made for our daughter's wedding three years ago.  I did purses for them to carry.  This shows them done with silk flowers, but for the wedding the florist put in hot pink Gerbera daisies.  They really looked great and gave all of the girls a place to carry their personal items.



This week has also seen several days of canning tomatoes.  They are FINALLY ripe!!!  What a summer it has been.  By the time you spend two full days of peeling, seeding and chopping tomatoes you really don't care if you ever see another tomato.



But....... we have frozen cups of fresh tomatoes that are now vacuum sealed and ready to use in sauces or in our favorite meal - seared ahi with a ponzu sauce.  YUM!



As well we have canned tomatoes and chili sauce.  Why is it that after a full day of preparation you only have nine jars of chili sauce.  The house surely smelled great afterwards.  DH asked me if I was ready for the next batch of ripe ones to be brought inside.  WHAT???



The weekend plans are for a bridal shower and then home to start canning the peaches and pears.  Anyone want to volunteer to help????



Have a great weekend.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Week Recap

This week seems to have flown right past me.  We really did enjoy lots of fun times.  The kids have all returned to school and summer vacation is but a memory.

We were invited by a dear friend to attend the L.A. Philharmonic perform at the Hollywood Bowl.  They served us a delicious dinner in our seats and then we were entertained under the stars to music from Beethoven, Elgar and Wagner.  It was a fabulous evening.




I've spent a good portion of the week in the garden.  The roses have performed so poorly this summer with our weather that I did a good cutback on them and fertilized them in hopes of warmer fall weather.  To explain just how bad the weather has been for them, I was able to find about four roses that were decent for picking to bring in the house and I have over one hundred rose bushes!!!!

We celebrated two birthdays - one for our granddaughter on the 5th and DH's today.  We gathered here for a big family BBQ on Sunday afternoon.  It was a great day.  I just love watching all the kids playing together.  They are all such good friends. 





Of course I managed to get a few bits of sewing in to finish off the week.  One project was to embroider names on aprons for my DIL.  She threw a surprise "make your own pizza" birthday party for our GD.  She had an apron for each girl to wear and take home with them.   I thought was such a fabulous idea.



I finished the quilt top for our newest grandbaby - pink with dolls!!  I know she will love it as she gets older.



The second block in the Raggedly Ann and Andy quilt went up nicely.  I am looking forward to the next block now.



I have also been working on a couple of bridesmaids jackets for our niece's wedding next month.  No pictures of them yet as I am not quite finished.