Celebrating

There's quite a few things to celebrate this week. Like, this is my 400th post! I didn't get my act together to have a giveaway though. Who cares, I can always celebrate my 461st post. ;)


I just had my 27th birthday. I was looking forward to it because the 12th of November also marked 12 weeks of being pregnant. Alas, the gas and food fickleness hasn't disappeared. I should wait until 13 weeks, when I'm actually out of my first trimester, eh?

I also celebrated my birthday by starting a new quilt. :D


I got lucky enough to snag a spot as one of Ann's mystery testers for the New Year's Eve Mystery. It's a really easy one! There's lots of HSTs, but thankfully it's a pre-sewing clue, not something you need to do on the actual mystery day.

The requirements are a focus fabric and 4 coordinating pieces. Since there's babies abound in my husband's family right now, I figured I better whip up a couple more crib sized quilts. :)


I also received a piece of rush mail from my parents - my birthday card with a generous check included. It's all going towards the midwife!! And then there was this picture of a totaled car enclosed.

I was thinking my dad had taken a picture of some car on his way to a job site or something... but no, it turns out the car was my brother Ben's. You'd think he would learn from his New Year's Day experience... but if you look at the last sentence of that post, I think we're going to have to go with "perhaps not." :P

I don't have the full story, but what I gather, he bought the car less than 24 hours before (I'm gonna guess he sold the Mustang), was going down some hill with a friend and obviously lost control. I wonder how that phone call to my parents went... "Everybody's ok. I kinda scraped up my new car."

I'm not worried - Ben text me on my birthday saying "happy bday!". That he got the right day tells me that he's ok. :) And if he applies himself, he can earn all the money he needs for a new car in a couple of months. And whatever the new car is, it'll be #6 for him. He goes through cars faster than I go through sewing machines! :)

Leah

Baby Update

On Halloween night, my husband's sister Sarah and her husband came over to pick up our old green couch. Which I was so grateful for! I didn't need to help carry the couch down the stairs, nor deal with getting it to Tucson to give to another one of Chris's sisters. (He has three!) Then Sarah and James gave us their news - Sarah's expecting a baby!

(Nope, not her baby, some cousin of her husband's or something.) Sarah is due May 20, 2010 - exactly one week before I am. May's gonna be a busy month! She's planning on finding out the gender of the baby, and lemme tell you, if it's a boy, there's going to be a ton of pressure on me to produce a girl! :)


Actually, I'm feeling more pressure about the cost of having a baby. *gulp!* I went to Amazon.com to see what kind of baby stuff is out there, and it was just so overwhelming. I promptly chickened out and went to Costco.com and found it a lot less cluttered.

They've got this car seat that's good from birth to 65 pounds. $200. And this would also mean having one dedicated car for the baby, instead of using two bases and just snapping in the seat in whichever vehicle we were taking. I can live with that, especially since we wouldn't have to buy 2 or 3 carseats over the child's lifetime.


I'm planning to skip out on a crib completely and go with a portable option. I just need to find out if I can collapse it, as it's 29.3" wide, and our doorway to the bedroom is 27.5". It'd be nice to be able to port it from the bedroom to living room or sewing room as needed.

It's $90 at Costco and apparently Sears and Target carry it too (for $100), so I'll swing by one of those places and figure out if I can collapse it. If not... the hunt begins again.


Lastly... I'd love to do cloth diapers. Tell me I'm insane. I don't have a washer, I do my laundry once a week at my in-law's house. I'm sure my mother-in-law wouldn't mind seeing me twice a week, so long as the baby is in tow. :)

And cloth diapering isn't exactly a cheap start up. The 6-pack All-In-One's from Costco are $90. Or $15 a diaper, which is reasonable for AIOs. I'm not so insane though, I only want medium and large cloth diapers. The first few months will be crazy, and I'm just going to take the pressure off of me and go with disposables until the baby can fit into medium cloth ones. Maybe I can get my sister to make me diapers, as she'll have access to my mom's sewing machine and serger.


I'm not really showing yet. Just getting a thicker waist. I've already had to ditch out a pair of jeans. They made a big gap in the back, but was pinching in the tummy.

I stand at 13 pounds lost and 3 inches gained on my waist. Most of my morning sickness is gone and I'm able to eat breakfast when I wake up.


I can't wait until I'm in the second trimester with more energy! I'm itching to get back to quilting, and it's crossed my mind to fund some of the baby stuff with the sale of quilts. Cuz you know, my luck at winning the lottery is really small... apparently you need to buy tickets? :P

Leah

Didn't win

I have no idea if I was even close or not, but I didn't win the challenge. It's ok though, I had about a dozen ladies congratulating me on the baby. Yes... I tried to sway things in my favor by saying on the description paper that the real challenge for the quilt ended up being able to finish it in time with morning sickness. Then I added my due date. :)

And oh yes! It was a challenge finishing it in time. I was THIS close to being done with the quilting... and I ran out of bobbin thread.

And I already used my "back up" bobbin, so I had to unthread the machine, wind up a bobbin for a mere gap and then finish it. Next was 2 hours of binding. I got it done in time... but not before dinner was made. Bad choice there, I ended up feeling rather light headed towards the end of the meeting. That prompted me to stash some carbs in my purse, in case it happens again.


Here's the quilt hanging with the rest. I think there was a total of 37 or 38 in the final submission.

The placement was pretty random by number, but somehow my quilt ended up next to a gal's quilt that popped even more than mine.


There's a total of 7 bobbins of thread in the quilting alone. The blue and green pebbles took 3 bobbins. I was kinda hoping if the design didn't cut it, all the quilting would. ;)

My original plan was to make water-like ripples in the blue and green sections, but I chickened out after a few inches of stitching. What my brain saw and what my fingers were doing were two completely different things! So I looked at some of my other completed quilts, and ended up getting inspiration from a wall hanging I did two years ago.

I'm planning to have the quilt hanging in the quilt show next February - I promised at least 2 people last February that I'd have something in the show for 2010! But it might be my last challenge or show quilt for a while, I'm expecting my hands to be very full after May. :)

Leah

Can I have a drink?

I need some courage to tackle the quilting part of the challenge quilt. I can only give teasers of what the quilt looks like, because I know at least one quilt guild member reads my blog. :)

I will say it's hand dyed fabrics with black. Never get tired of that combination.


Here's where the real trouble is, plunging in to do the quilting. I even tried warming up on a piece of scrap, but I was nervous after adjusting the tension.

On the last quilt, I got my courage after drinking some hot chocolate laced with some mint alcohol. It was just what I needed to suck up and get over the "ack! What if it goes wrong?!" feeling. Can't do that this time, at 10 weeks pregnant. :P

Oh yeah, it's due Monday! Yikes...

Leah

The Real Reason

The real reason why I've been pretty scarce lately... is because I'm pregnant. :)

I got a positive exactly a month ago. No, the above picture isn't it, I took another one this morning for the blog. ;)

Truthfully, I was just expecting to miscarry again. I've already had two, neither made it to 5 weeks. So when 6 weeks rolled around, I knew I had to tell Chris. I had light spotting, so I was kinda worried to tell him. Looks like it's sticking this time!

Just after 7 weeks, I told my parents. I bought canvas bags from Walmart and used acrylic paint and stencils to decorate it for my parents. My mom said it was her favorite gift for her birthday. :D

It was kinda funny watching her open it. I didn't let her until all my siblings were there, including my grease-covered brother. He was working on a vehicle.

So Mom starts to open it, "grand..." and then it hit her! Then she read the whole thing and Dad was grinning really big. He's been the #1 advocate for procreating, but I kept telling him it was improper for my parents to be grandparents before they're 50! ;) I couldn't have possibly timed that any better.

We also told Chris's parents 4 days later. They got a similar bag... but didn't quite get it. It's because my husband's brother's wife is expecting a baby late February and thought I got it for Kenya's baby. Nope, not quite.

Some nitty gritty details... I'm due May 27th. Actually, I want to say that I'm doomed on May 27th. :P That's graduation day at the high school. Typically Chris is gone all day, maybe I'll see him for a few hours in the afternoon. That day is also the day Chris's baby sister is graduating. I'm sure you can imagine that my in-laws and all the immediate family will be attending. AND it's also gonna be a full moon that night! Doomed, I tell you. :)

I'm 9 weeks today, 31 to go! I've been blessed to get my mom's morning sickness genes and haven't thrown up at all. I'm extra tired and super fickle when it comes to food. I've lost 7 pounds so far, but my waist gained 2 inches. Today was pretty rough for whatever reason, but yesterday I was able to get more food in me than normal. Never know what it's gonna be like.

Chris and I have decided to go with a midwife. The main reason is because we've been watching Kenya get jerked around by this town's medical establishment. I've grown up with good medical care, I have an idea what doctors should be able to provide. All we've seen is Kenya being sent from one place to another with nobody actually dealing with her problems. The doctors kept saying one thing, then "oops! We're wrong, you don't have that." Then they finally gave her a prescription that nobody carries and would have be special ordered. Matt and Kenya gave up and finally opted to just drive 1.5 hours to Tucson.

We've already met the midwife, she's just 3 miles from where we live. I really like her! :) When I walked into her living room, I noticed a tattered quilt on the couch, a sewing machine in a cabinet by the window and a cradle on a stand by a wall. She spent well over an hour talking about herself, how she deals with situations, answering our questions. I left feeling so much better about my choice. I truly do feel like I'll get the proper care I need, and not get jerked around like Kenya did.

And there you have it! The real reason why I haven't been too friendly with my sewing machine, even though I have a major deadline coming up - the challenge quilt! :P I can do it... I can do it... I can do it...

Leah

The weekend

Last Friday we drove to Phoenix, so we could fly to California for my mom's birthday. We decided to take my car, so I prepared it as best as I could. Had an oil change, fluids checked, and my tires checked last Tuesday. I found out that I needed a new battery (mine was the original, 9 years old), and took care of that on Thursday.

I also took my car to the gas station and double checked the tire pressure, because the folks tend to under inflate it. I like to keep it at 4PSI below the max, they put it at 8. Also, for the very first time in 5 years of owning my car, I filled up the spare tire. Good thing too! It was at 15PSI and needed to be at 40PSI. All this attention to the tires, just because my sister said her boyfriend checks his tires monthly AND his spare. I had no idea you're supposed to stay on top of your spare.

About 120 miles from home, we had a blow out. Chris handled it absolutely fantastically. He didn't touch his brakes, he didn't swerve, he safely pulled over and there were no other cars involved, despite going almost 80 miles in the fast lane.

I was more shocked seeing the tire itself than the impact of feeling like we hit something and then started bumping forward. We immediately started to tackle changing it. I was scared I would miss the plane and not be able to see my parents. A highway patrol truck pulled over, and his presence was really encouraging. It took 45 minutes to change the tire, and then we were feeling rushed to cover the 70 miles left, yet dare not speed in case another tire felt like blowing. I pretty much had to hold back tears the entire trip, I just couldn't believe that I actually managed to fill up the spare tire in time. We would have completely missed the plane if we were stuck with a tire at 15PSI.

Thankfully we made it to the airport in time! We parked my car in the terminal and checked in. We'd deal with my car when we got back from our 3 day weekend. The plane was late for once, and we were actually happy about that! :) That gave us time to grab a bite before takeoff.

I had a great weekend with my parents, and my mom really liked her gifts of a personalized cloth bag and 2 yards of brown batik fabric. We did some clothes shopping for my mom, had the birthday dinner with my parents, siblings, and sister's boyfriend (she's pretty serious about him!).

I was able to glean information and ideas from my dad and brother over what to do about my tires. I put on new tires when I bought my car, 30,000 miles ago. They supposedly came with an 80,000 warranty. I felt gypped! Yet it turns out half of the problem may be due to the age of my tires, as they're over 5 years old. Rubber starts to fall apart, especially in the hotter states. After my blow out, I saw at least 3 more cars pulled over to deal with their tires, in an hour's time. It wasn't really hot that day, not even 90 degrees. And I'm pretty sure the tire that blew out was not the one I drove over a nail 2 years ago.

We decided to start from scratch and replace all the tires. I had a 9 year old spare, 1 repaired tire and one blow out. It took $997. Ouch! I truly feel like I managed to magically pull up a thousand dollars out of thin air, as Costco only takes cash or American Express, which I don't have. And you know from my previous post, I cleaned out the surplus to pay off the student loan.

We still need to deal with the rim, as it's damaged; and also have a professional look at my shocks and suspension system. I'm afraid that WILL have to go on the credit card, but hopefully I'll have it paid in full again around Thanksgiving. I don't give a hoot about the cosmetic damage. We'll get an estimate on the repair cost, but it's very far on the back burner to deal with.

In the end... I'm glad it went as well as it did, I've seen so many ugly blow outs traveling throughout Arizona. Rollovers, other cars involved, completely scorched vehicles, and even shutting down the interstate a time or two.

Leah

Rough Week

It's been a bumpy week. Started off with Chris getting the flu - and I'm willing to put money down that it was the swine flu. It matches what I felt in late July, except he didn't get bronchitis. I also picked up a cold this week... we're tons of fun here. ;)

So in the interest of keeping all my fingers intact, I haven't been near the sewing machine or rotary cutter. But I did get some good news: a second student loan paid off.

Just one more to go!! It won't happen until next year at least, unless I manage to catch one of the mystical financial fairy godmothers. Haven't seen any lately. ;)

Leah

Sweet Dreams!

Ahhhh! It's finished!!! I'm so happy. :)

Chris and I are sleeping under it too. We're still learning how to share a blanket after sleeping under our own beddings for so many years. Can you believe this is the first blanket of any sort to fit the entire bed? I need to quilt faster!

Oh yeah, I did turn the quilt "sideways" so we'd have more give and less hogging. ;)

Leah

I'm scared to say it...

...but I think I'm quilting again!

Actually, I finally finished free-motioning the top tonight. About 7 months longer than I had in mind. :P

I was too scared to say anything when I got my machine back on Monday and promptly ran into my old tension issues again! Oh yes, there were tears!!! So I figured I'd make a sample piece and see if I could email a picture to Kelly to determine what I'm doing wrong. Then I realized dark blue thread both in the top and bobbin would be hard to picture... so I switched the top thread out. And the tension was perfect. Huh. Could it be the THREAD? I wound up a spool of blue thread (slightly lighter than what I had been using before) and it's quilted perfectly. And yes, all the thread is the same brand, Connecting Thread's "Essential Threads". That dark blue spool got thrown out! It'd also explain why I didn't have any problems during the first 70% of the quilt, as I had two dark blue spools - bought at different times.

It's not entirely the thread's fault though. Half of my problems may have been due to the previous guy who serviced my machine. Apparently he wasn't keeping so updated in the Bernina world and honing in his sewing machine knowledge. The very first thing Chris said when I got the machine back was how much quieter it is.

I also have 90 days to go back with any problems and have it fixed, free of charge. Today I have 88 days left. ;) I plan to quilt my heart out, I want the problems to show up now! And because I'm totally geeky, I also asked how many hours are on my machine. 71. Zowie... there was 62 in March 2008. That makes my actual needle-moving time is about 6 hours a year. Yet I can tell you I've made at least 10 quilts from start to finish, plus twice as many tops in that time period. I must be a very fast quilter... :P

Off to get the binding on the quilt in the picture!

Leah

Just waiting

My sewing machine ready to travel to Tucson last week. Doesn't everybody buckle in their machines? ;)

First I went to the old Bernina dealership that I had gone to in the past. There was absolutely nothing to indicate there ever was a sewing business. Not even a note in the window. I went next door and asked what happened... apparently the owners retired at the end of May. Oops! My bad. So if anybody is wondering, the Bernina Sewing Center of Tucson on 4500 Speedway is gone. I guess there wasn't anybody to pass the business down to.

Onto the Hancock Fabrics on 22nd. I was a bit early and had to wait outside. Some lady was asking why I was there, and then she pointed out a sign on the window saying there would be a technician at the store on October 23. She didn't think they'd be able to help me before that. Not what I wanted to hear!! :P

Once the store opened, I was able to go straight to the Bernina Center inside. I was lucky to have the undivided attention of Kelly G., who manages that center. She was absolutely WONDERFUL! She explained to me that she doesn't do the cleaning and fixing herself, but that she has a tech that she brings the machines to. No chance of me getting same day service, but it would be 1-2 weeks. Sounds good to me!

When Kelly found out that I'm deaf, she started making sure that she was facing me the entire time so I could read her lips easily. Turns out that she's actively involved with the Tucson's Deaf Community. From what I understand, her son's best friend's parents were deaf and that spurred Kelly to take some sign language classes. She told me that every Wednesday morning, a bunch of deaf people get together to quilt. Wow, that was a new one for me. :) Kelly said if I ever move to Tucson, she'll be more than happy to show me around with the Deaf Community. I'm ready to move! ;)

Currently it's been a bit over a week, and I'm trying not to chop at the bit and patiently wait until next Friday to see what's up. I'm really hopeful that she'll call some time early next week. The service will be $90 (about what I expected) and I bought a new bobbin case. She charged me her "old" price, $75, since she bought the bobbin case before the price increase (new price is $120 for a bobbin case). She also gave me a 25% discount (I think she said there was some coupon for the entire month of September?), which bumped my out of pocket price to $62. See what I mean about her being a wonderful lady? :)

I have no idea what's wrong with my machine, or how fixable it is... but I sure left the store feeling so much better. :)

Jill had the lovely suggestion of alcohol to "fix" my problems. I gotta admit that I was tempted there for a moment! ;)

But Kim spoke up saying that she has the exact sewing machine as I do... and had the exact same problem. All I could think of was "I'm not alone! I'm not insane!!" Kim never did find a solution for her Bernina, and ended up buying a Juki TL98. She says the 150 is a wonderful piecer, and I have to agree; it just gets temperamental when it comes to free-motioning.

I'm strongly considering saving up for a Juki now. I'll wait on the results of my Bernina first, but my idea is to save $100/month until I have about $900 and hunt for a good deal on a Juki TL98. I figured I can limp the free-motioning along for 6-9 months on the Bernina, and then hopefully retire it to a piecing-only machine.

I'm wondering if it might be a more well known issue with Bernina 150s, except perhaps most owners don't try to free-motion themselves. Part of me thinks that a large portion of people that can afford Berninas can also afford to have their quilts professionally done or even own a long arm set up themselves. But every now and then, there's people who bide their time and faithfully seek the auctions on eBay and snag one for the fraction of the original cost. Like me. ;)

Here's to hoping that I'll be quilting next week!

Leah

Defeat, the longer story

The problem is my sewing machines. Yeah... more than one machine. :(

I've mentioned my free-motioning tension issues several times before. January 2008. Cropped up again in March 2008. I took my sewing machine to the shop in March and it seem better... but it came up again in February 2009. I could still piece just fine, so I ignored it because I needed to get ready to move to a new apartment. I guess the car ride was soothing to my machine, and I was able to free-motion, for about 4 bobbins worth in June. Since then, it's been unbelievably off.

I finally give in, admit that I can't fix this problem myself, and have Chris call up the Bernina Dealer that I've gone to twice before. Hoping that I can have same day service so I don't have to be without my machine. He calls... and gets a message that the number is not in service. Huh? Maybe it's a fluke. It was late Saturday morning when he made the call. Weekends aren't the best time. Yeah, right. The only reason a number wouldn't be in service is because they're out of business or they didn't pay their phone bill. But I just tell myself I'll have Chris call during a weekday, just to make sure.

In the meantime I keep trying to make my tension work. I took my sewing machine for a 15 mile car ride. There. I said it. :P I blew a gallon of gas in hopes that the bumps and rumbling would jar it into behaving. It worked when I moved, why not again? After the ride, I tested on my tester quilt sandwich. The tension was behaving, it was beautiful. Ok... let's get back to the Thimbleberries quilt. But first I had to change the thread color... and just several inches later, the tension was whacked. Urg! I can't win. I give up, my machine needs help.

So today I figured I'd try to get my back up machine set up for free-motioning. Today was the quilt guild's garage sale, so I looked around for sewing machines or sewing feet. Nothing. I swung by a place called "Bos Sewing". Open the door, see a bunch of ladies sewing at industrial machines and endless lines of clothes. Oops. That's a sewing repair and alternation place. Last place I could think of in this town was a vac'n'sew shop. Asked if they had any slant shank darning feet...

...sure do! And for $10.75 it was mine. Alright! I can set up the other machine for free-motioning. It's a Singer 301, how can I go wrong? No. Don't answer that. :)

I go home, and I set up the machine. I'm carefully following the manual to make sure I'm doing it right. I get the tester quilt sandwich and get ready to sew. The needle starts going up and down, I'm having some trouble moving the fabric a little... then SNAP. Ugh. Broke the bobbin thread. Several times.

So I hunker down, pull out thread piece after thread piece... and there's one last one that I can't pull. I try to take apart the bobbin area, but it's just not happening. I look in the owner's manual for how to take apart the bobbin area, and they don't say! It's not fair, they give very detailed information how to take apart the top tension and put it back together again. Ok, gonna wing it. So I start to unscrew stuff, but nothing is coming apart.

Forget that, I'll just put it back together and throw the machine in the corner. Then there's this one screw that's recessed in and I'm having the hardest time to get it in it's place without dropping it into the innards. I had the brilliant idea to Elmer's glue the screw to the screwdriver. :) Shucks, it still sounds like a good idea. It was working, but I couldn't get the screw to align with the threads, so I kept unscrewing it to start all over again... and I dropped the screw into the guts of the bobbin area. I shake and shake the machine to dislodge the screw, but nothing comes out. The glue caused the screw to stick. :P

And that's when I admitted defeat.

Some tears later, I figured at least I can unscrew the stitch plate and see if I can tweezer out the missing screw. Ha! The screw was gluing itself to the stitch plate. :) Hastily put the screw back in place (it's crooked, I still can't get the screw threads to align) and crawled into bed. Blanket up to my eyes, tears dripping and soaking the pillow. Just completely at the end of my rope.

Chris comes home, I brawl out my eyes and tell him my sad story and that I'm all done with quilting because hand quilting doesn't hold any appeal to me. Afterwards, he picks up the phone and tries the Bernina shop again. "This number is not in service." Then I think he called 411 for the number, and they said there's no such shop on Speedway. What?! Their website is still up, Google isn't showing any indication that they went out of business. I have no idea what's going on with them. They've been in business for over 30 years! Maybe that's the problem, maybe the owners died?

Chris does some searching of his own and comes up with a Bernina center inside a Hancocks Fabric store. Called them up, but they don't let you set appointments. So I'm gonna go to Tucson tomorrow and drop off my machine for who-knows-how-long. Actually, I'm going to swing by the other Bernina shop to see what's going on with them. Then I'll go to the Hancocks Bernina.

I made up a sampler of my free-motioning issues. It's truly all over the place, and always on the bobbin side.

I've tried making my bobbin thread extremely loose and the top tension as tight as possible... and still get loops. :( No way can I finish quilts like this.

As for the Singer 301, the wheel isn't turning because something in the bobbin area is hitting something in the stitch plate. Yeah, real technical there. :P I'm just so spent in trying to deal with this problem that I don't have the energy to try to fix the 301. Perhaps I'll take it to the Sew'n'Vac place someday, but right now it's just getting pushed back to the closet shelf. As Chris said, "one problem at a time."

The next problem was what was for dinner. He took me out. :D

The current plan is to take my Bernina to Tucson tomorrow and find somebody to fix it. First the dealer that I've been to before, then there's two Hancock Fabrics that say they have Bernina Centers.

If they can't fix my machine, then I'll be shopping for a new one. I'll probably end up either buying another Bernina 150 on eBay (because I have a lot of accessories and parts for that machine already, $500); considering a Juki-T98 (a fellow quilt guild member had one for sale, on a frame for $850 last year, I think... maybe she still has it?) or getting a Janome 6600 (which would mean starting all over in learning a machine, and lots of money...$1500?).

I really don't want to get a new machine. I'm JUST about to pay off another student loan, so I have $1200 waiting to be sent. Chris said that if it does come down to a new machine, he wants to use the loan money. He'd rather have me happily quilting than his loan paid off right now. Isn't he so sweet? :) I'd probably still be crying if he hadn't taken charge and help my emotions come down to a more reasonable level.

That's where things stand. I can't do any sewing right now. I have around 30 quilt tops that need to be finished. I have thread, batting and backing for all those quilts. The cost of sending all those tops to a long armer would be more than what a new machine costs. I LIKE free-motioning. My sewing machine doesn't.

Thank you for all your sympathetic words! And if you have any advice or information, I'll happily listen. I'm game for anything at this point.

Leah

Defeat

I'm ready to quit quilting completely!

Our "new" couch

My parents gave Chris and I an old couch of theirs. It was well loved, especially by my dog Missy, and the rabbit Bambi. Time to get it cleaned!

I bought some Saddle Soap from the hardware store and it worked out great. You can really see the difference between the right cushion and the middle section. Saddle soap is easy on my lungs. I didn't have to take several breaks to get fresh air.


I'm afraid the seat cushions are beyond redemption. The grain leather has started to flake off from 7 years of use. I just hide it with a quilt and all is well. :)

My parents also gave me the stonework coffee table. It's great for stacking my books and drinks as I relax on the couch to read.

I suppose it'll also be good for watching movies too, but I don't think I've turned on the TV once since I got home! :)

Leah

My Kitchen Keeps Me Busy!

When I'm not quilting, burying my nose in a novel or softening my butt at the computer... I'm usually in the kitchen! I figured I would give you a real-life peek at how my kitchen usually looks. Yes, it's a mess because I seem to have something going on all the time. :)

First stop is the pantry. I don't have too much room in here for food, just mostly our cooking dishes. And believe it or not, this is our downsized version, I donated several boxes of kitchen stuff during our move a couple months ago.

We do have a bit of a "redneck" setup in the pantry. The shelves that the toaster sits on is set up by cement blocks, because the only plug socket in the pantry is near the ceiling, where the light is. If I'm organized enough, I can squeeze the trash can in there too, but that day I was making bread and need to access my wheat buckets.


Our kitchen is 8x11, and half of that is eaten up by counter space. There's only one plug socket on the right wall (to my utmost PAIN!) and I had to jerry-rig it a bit so we could hook up the stove, fridge and microwave all at the same time. Haven't blow a fuse, yet! ;) I've been storing the food dehydrator on top of the microwave. Next to that is the custom recipe box that my mother-in-law and her 2 youngest children made for me.

You can see the end of a loaf of bread I made the other week, a pot soaking, fresh picked basil from my garden - for the pizza we had last night, another pot used for the night before's dinner (chicken potato chowder), and on the far right is some chocolate cookies I made on Friday. What you can't see is our magnetic knife rack on the right wall.

After doing some dishes that morning, I started making whole wheat bread. First I had to set up the grinder for the flour, then the Bosch mixer my mom generously gave me for kneading the bread. I used the mixer again later that day to knead the pizza dough. You can see a bit of the bread in it's first rising.

I'm out of room to safely stack more dishes on the drying rack, so I just let them pile up in the sink while the others air dry. I read that it's better for them to air dry instead of towel drying, due to bacteria. Plus, it's my husband's chore to empty the drying rack. :D Oh yeah, the strainer next to the rack is full of just-washed blueberries that I snacked on throughout the day.

You can also see how I've made use of the space above the cabinets. Great spot for cereal, munchies, crackers; and as you can see, honey and oil. Then there's the spice rack (one of my best investments!!!) that holds most of the stuff I need for all my cooking. It's off centered because we wouldn't be able to open the freezer door otherwise.


This was sitting in my living room, simply because I don't have room. Onions get diced up and frozen in the chest freezer. Same for the carrots. They didn't have celery at Costco the last time I was there, but I like to make soup and stew "starters" by freezing pre-sliced carrots, onions and celery in a baggie.

The potatoes will be left out (because I've heard over and over that it's not good for them to be in the fridge) and used over the next few weeks. Soups, diced, cheesy potatoes... there's just so many ways they can be gobbled up.


I've also been venturing into learn how to make my own food items from scratch. I've got chicken broth down pat, next up was making yogurt in the crockpot. It's in the dish on the left. I love knowing that I can have a yogurt without any of the "extras" that tend to get slipped in. I blended some blueberries, yogurt and honey the other day, and ate it with pride. ;)

I also read how you can make your own cream cheese from plain yogurt, so I had to try! That was a success too, and I saved the whey because I can use it for soaking grains like recommended in Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. All this from a half gallon of milk at 77 cents. :)


Since we've gone this far, let's take a peek in my fridge too. Lotsa milk. Toldja it was on sale. ;) I saw goat milk at Costco, and had to try it. Ohhh, it's so creamy. Mmm. There's also some goat cheese in the bottom drawer... I'm really liking that stuff.

A lot of cheese is in there too, because I hadn't taken the time to portion them up and freeze it. I do have a weakness for dairy. :P The red bowl holds my yeast. There's an onion, yellow squash and some mushrooms behind the bell peppers on the water pitcher. And way in the back in some sun tea in a pitcher. My husband really likes that stuff, but it's so hard to find decaffienated green tea. :(

By the way, something that some of you know, but most of you probably don't... my husband's name is Chris. I've always referred him as "my husband" on my blog, but now that he's put his name out on his blog, I'm not worried about privacy anymore. :)

Leah

Ann's Summer 2009 Quilt

The top is all done! And on the mystery day to boot. ;)

My fabric choices don't photograph that well, but looks fantastic in person. It'll make a terrific baby boy blanket at 48x48 inches. No hearts, flowers or girly princesses in this one.

I don't know of any baby boys right now, but my sister-in-law is expecting a baby early 2010. She's the bride at the end of this post.

I better have a make a girl quilt, just in case! :)

Leah