T-shirt quilt and a new pan

Vacation has been good. I managed to get the t-shirt quilt top sewn together! It ended up 92" x 104". I ended up adding another row which used up the t-shirts I still hadn't been able to work into the top.

I then cut up the Harley t-shirts and interfaced them. I will add these to the box of leftover shirts I have saved over the last three years that were leftover.

I made two pumpkin pies and a pecan pie for Christmas eve at my son's. I also used my new pan to make meatballs to go with the ravioli. The pan is 12" across so there is a lot of cooking surface.

T-shirt quilt progress and ravioli

Yesterday I was so busy I never had time to post. It seemed like is spent the whole day in the car - mostly for work - Barberton, to Sharon Center, back to Barberton, two places in Akron and two stops in Cuyahoga Falls - around 72 miles altogether. I did get a few errands run because I ended up on the east side of town where the Italian grocery store is located, the huge Giant Eagle where I found more peach Mike's, and I stopped at the other grocery store where I do the majority of my shopping. I needed eggs! I was exhausted when I got home.

But on Tuesday I did make progress on the t-shirt quilt. I got a few more sewn together.

I also made 5 dozen meat and cheese ravioli. I ran out of dough so I will make another batch of dough to use up the filling. For these I used my mold instead of free forming them. I got better at it with each dozen I made.

I received another fabulous postcard from Vicki of Colorways by Vicki Welsh.

It now hangs on my design wall with the other handmake postcards that I have received from her. I have my own forest going on! I love looking at them when I am in the studio working.
Thank you Vicki!

I am on vacation starting tomorrow for 12 days! I will try to post when I can. In the meantime, I wish you all a Merry Christmas and safe holiday season!

Progress on the t-shirt quilt and candy

I am having fun sewing this quilt together. Here is my progress so far:
Row 1 - nothing changed
Row 2 - I cut all the pieces the same width - 7" - but none are sewn together
Row 3 - the blue and black shirt pieces are sewn together and the tan and orange are sewn to each other
Row 4 - the teal and purple shirts are sewn, and the gray and orange shirts are trimmed

The reason why I am jumping around is because I need to get somethings sewn together so I can figure out how to work in the shirts I still have in a pile. With sewing small groups of shirts together it gives me the flexibility to adjust as I go. I am not one to measure things out and draft it out on paper. I like to fly by the seat of my pants, I like to throw it on the wall and see what happens, I like to wing it - ok, ok, you get the idea. LOL!!! The way things are going so far, I think I can add one more shirt to each row. Right now I have left some extra fabric that can be cut off at the top and bottom for adjusting the length of the rows. I can trim that off to get another shirt added.

Yesterday at work I got a box. What was in that box was a four pound box of candy, candy that evokes memories of childhood. Included was box of candy cigarettes! I can't believe they still make those! It was fun to look thru the box.

Sewing and cooking

I only managed to get a small amount of sewing done this weekend, but I got some things accomplished. I have the row on the left mostly sewn together and the next row I have trimmed a couple of shirts after I figured out the width I wanted them to be. Now that I have gotten started, this should go quick.

After I got the kitchen cleaned up on Saturday morning, I started cooking. I am making homemade ravioli for Christmas to take to my son's house. I haven't made pasta in quite awhile, but it went fairly smooth!

I ended up with 32 cheese and 17 butternut squash raviolis. The ricotta cheese I bought at that Italian store a week ago tasted so much better than the stuff I bought at the grocery store. The ravioli is now frozen and ready to go.

I roasted a big pan vegetables in a little olive oil for meals - zucchini, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, and yellow squash.

Next I wanted to make sauce. I have some ground chuck for meatballs so I needed sauce. So off I went to find Glenda's recipe. Well, that led me down a path that I hadn't planned on. I figured while I was looking for the recipe, I would clean up and downsize my recipe hoard. I have figured out I am a recipe hoarder. After hours of sorting and organizing, I ended up with almost everything in these folders and a bag of recycling.

I decided to take it one step further. I found a three ring binder and some index dividers. I punched holes and got mostly everything put in the binder. Now I can find my cookies recipes for baking this upcoming weekend and I found the sauce recipe! I bet I spent at least 6 hours over two days getting this almost done. Yes, I say almost because I ran out of steam and didn't want to deal with the few odds and ends.

So here is the sauce which I made in the crockpot

I made a pot of butternut squash soup using the squash I had cooked last week in the crockpot. I had the soup for breakfast this morning and it was tasty!

The last thing I did was to make the filling for the beef and cheese ravioli. I will make them either tonight or tomorrow.

I spent a couple hours on Sunday loading up the car with file boxes of stuff I needed to take to my new office. I had 8 boxes with two of them being office supplies that were left over the school project I was on. I am trying to get all the work stuff out of my garage although I had to bring my four drawer file cabinet, small fridge, and microwave to store. Here is a picture of my work space right now. I will probably be moving again into a cubical once the intern leaves. This is a small conference room.

I hadn't posted a picture of the MRI room lately. Here they have started putting on the last layer which is drywall. For all the plumbing, heating, and electrical, everything had to be attached to the framing as no one was allowed to pierce the copper. They had special clips that attached the wood framing to the copper. Since this picture was taken the floor was installed and well as the cabinets. The magnet is being delivered today; darn I will miss seeing that.

Yeah it is Friday!

I am still not ready to post a picture of the secret project. Right now I am having conversations with the owner of the quilt as to whether she want to have me machine quilt it or have it hand quilted which would be how it would have been finished by her Grandmother. With the work I did on it, the top is now flat enough for hand quilting.

I dug up one of my Lenten roses for another fellow at work. It was 45 degrees yesterday and so it was easy digging.

I am moving off the job site and have to set up at the home office now. The guys did not make room for me in the shaft closet area and there is no place else for me to go in the hospital. We are going to be turning over the space we are in by January and the next space we are remodeling will have to be demolished. I hate being at the home office. So I will be spending my day moving my table, the compact fridge, microwave, heater, and odds and ends to my house then run my monitor and paperwork to the home office.

Have a great weekend and by Monday I should have an decision about the quilt top. If you email me I will share the quilt top picture.

Another project

Yesterday I received a box of Harley t-shirts for the next quilt for the 2019 poker run. I had sent the woman a Christmas card and told her I would be happy to make another quilt for her. She is so sweet and is so gracious when I hand over the quilt. She has a poker run every summer in honor of her daughter that was killed in a car accident. The money goes to charity in her daughter's name. There are usually lots of goodies you can drop a ticket in a bag in front of the item to try to win, lots of good food, and for the last few years a raffle for the Harley quilt. I think I will be spending some of my time off during the holidays getting started on it. I have some shirts left from last year so I will use those along with the box of shirts she sent me

A lady at work gifted me a Christmas present yesterday: hat, gloves, scarf, a tin of cookies, and a candle and a stand for the candle.

Binding ready and tree is down

While I waited for the tree guys to show up yesterday, I got the binding sewn together and pressed for the quilt I can't show you. I am glad to have this ready.

It took the guys an hour and a half to take down the pine tree and then another 45 minutes to clean up. I took the tree down because the racoons were using it as a pathway to get on the roof. I had the side next to the house trimmed in years past, but paying three to four hundred every couple of years to trim it doesn't make sense. Besides that, the pine was blocking my neighbor's beautiful magnolia tree. Here are two views of the pine.

And here is the empty space.

The tree was outside my bedroom window and it was strange not to see it there. I wonder if the owls will be confused when they come and look for this tree and it is gone.

Here are a few pictures of the process of taking down the tree. The tree had to have been at least fifty feet tall.

One busy three days!!

I took a half day's vacation on Friday to get some errands done and just to get out of this place. 130 miles later I had gone to the bulk food store in Sugarcreek, the courthouse in New Philadelphia, Miller's Creamery in Dover, and Marc's in North Canton. The caramel corn that they make at Miller's is so good and was for a Christmas present for a lady at work.

Saturday I got to Earth Fare at a little before 7 a.m. for their grand reopening and scored a five dollar gift card. I could not believe how many people were there at 7 in the morning! Next I went to breakfast with an x-cousin. Here is the French toast bananas foster that the ladies beside us had (the tables were very close together so you were very friendly with them),

my x-cousin got this quiche that had cranberries and walnuts

I had bacon and cage free eggs with the biggest croissant I have ever seen! The croissant was heavenly! I took the croissant home and put it on my palm so you could get an idea of how big it was.

Next stop was an Italian grocery store that I had never been in. I needed a wavy pastry wheel so I can cut apart my ravioli that I am making for Christmas. The smell in the store was incredible! They had a frozen section of all kinds of things, the most heavenly smelling hot out of the oven bread, and loads of different brands of pasta. Of course they had all kinds of cheeses, a huge deli counter, and homemade deserts individually package to grab for lunch. I will be shopping there in the future!

I got home just in time to head out again to help my nephew hang some wallpaper in a recording studio he is building for a fellow. Michael wanted to break up the walls between the sconces so we added the wallpaper panels and then after the walls are painted, my brother and Michael will frame the wallpaper panels with wood. I didn't get home until 7 p.m. and I was tired.

Michael gave me this lovely box of flavored green teas for helping him out. He is such a thoughtful guy!

Sunday included four loads of laundry, wrapping one more Christmas package (yes I thought I was done too! LOL!!) and addressing Christmas cards.

I also managed to finally get the secret project pin basted!!!!! I can finally start to get it quilted! Here is the back.

Before I left the house this morning I was thinking if there was a way to cook butternut squash in a crock pot. I googled Crock pot butternut squash and found direction on how to cook a butternut squash in a crock pot. You put the whole squash in the crock pot and turn it on. Mindblowing!! LOL!!! Low will take 6 to 8 hours, high about 4 hours. I put mine on low. I can't wait to see how this works.

This morning I had to move my desk again for the flooring guy. I went from here

to a restroom that the fixtures have not been installed yet.

My fridge and microwave are sitting in the corridor just outside the room because there is not enough room in this restroom for them. Thursday I will haul my file cabinet home and the Friday I have to move out to the home office. I will have to store the table, fridge and microwave in my garage too.

I have to take tomorrow off because the tree guys are coming to cut down a huge pine tree that the raccoons use to get on the roof. I will be glad to get that done. Have a great day!