Two Quilts

Power sewing is what this should be called. My DIL is a Pre-K teacher (I think she's nuts!) and has two classes with 20 students per class. Their school has a major fundraiser and the teachers are required to come up with something for the auction. This year she decided to make quilts--but since there are two classes, there has to be TWO quilts.

These two quilts are the handprints from the students in each class. She had the students write their own name under their handprint. She's going to go back and write their whole name somewhere on the block, her name, and the name of the school somewhere on the quilt.

I then took the blocks and sashed them with two different fabrics to make sure they were different.


She tied them with red thread. I think they turned out really cute.


The backings were even done different from each other. AND..these were done in a day and a half! Definitely a lot of sewing done in a short amount of time.
Sure hope DIL's principal appreciates these! They will be on display at her school for about two weeks before they're auctioned off. Wouldn't YOU buy a quilt if your child's handprint was on it?!
And, if that wasn't enough sewing...we made another baby quilt for a gift she needed. I didn't get a picture of it, but after binding three quilts in an afternoon...I think I've got the technique down pretty good.

Crossroads nearly finished

I've been asked by several if I've finished my Carolina Crossroads...no, I haven't but here's where it stands(lays). It only needs borders. (It's laying on top of a small pink quilt, so don't think there's a crooked pink border on the end!) I'd like to make it larger and haven't figured out a way to do that just yet.

The red sashing is a blender fabric and isn't the stark red it seems in the pictures. It's bright for sure, but I like what the sashing did for it--toned down the busy-ness of it. Judy has claimed that lime green is the new neutral, but red is the neutral at my house.


I have the rail fence blocks that I replaced with solid blocks and I'm thinking they will make part of the border too. One of these days I'll get to stay home and work on it.

(No, I haven't started the Orange Crush project either. Must finish some things first!)

One ugly finish.

DH's cousin recently has her first child (a leap year baby) and asked for a camo quilt. Okay...I'm a little slow, but a camo baby quilt? This is what I came up with. Glad it's going out of state (without a label) and she tells nobody who made it.

The camo squares are 8", so that gives you an idea about how big it is. It's all flannel--no batting and camo flannel on the back-- so it'll make a nice snuggly-ugly quilt.

Controlled Burn

Springtime always brings smoke to the skies. In our area we burn the dead grass off so the cattle can start grazing the green grass faster. We also had an abundance of grass last year and couldn't graze it off as fast as it would grow. If we don't burn the excess off, then there's the chance it could get burnt for us (lightening or a stray cigarette). We don't want more than the grass burnt...like the trees and barn...so we do a controlled burn. The ground is worked around the edge with a disk on the tractor and then the field is set to fire.

We burnt about 120 acres this year--not a big job, but a necessary one. Yep....real good on a person with a head-cold too.

Then we came home to this....storms and rain and more rain.

Just a picture of the girls eating hay. Wish somebody would bring me supper sometime.

That time of year

• Horribly sick
• Jury Duty!
• Deadlines at work
• Internet service not working at home because of storms

Life is just crazy right now. Will return shortly.

March goes out like a Lion

We were pelted with little frozen stones from the sky last night. .....actually twice. The ground has little dents where the hail hit the earth. These came down about 6:30pm and the second round came about 11pm. Two inches of rain and this hail doesn't compare to all of the damage sustained in OKCity...but we still didn't like it!




There's a chance of more storms tonight. It's gonna be a long Spring.

Not a lot of sewing going on right now. When it's almost 80 degrees, I'm going to be outside after work as the days are getting longer.
The garden has been plowed, and we should get potatoes in the ground in the next few days.

I did get the binding put on the bargello but that's about as much bonding as the Bernina and I have done. When there's been more progress, I shall return!

Gettin' closer to Spring Break

What do you do when you find a BIG piece of that fake yucky fur that for some unknown reason I had stashed in my sewing room?

If you leave it on the floor, Rusty finds it and drags it over to where the rug is suppose to be.

This was taken BEFORE he found the skunk.

The bargello made it back from the quilter and I'm happy with it...it's not finished, but it's quilted. She did an all over paisley...swirley...something design on it. Don't know what it's called, but it satisfied me and it'll satisfy the recipient..who is going to get it for that masculine holiday in June.

Didn't realize till I already had this uploaded that there's a string in the middle. Okay..it needs binding and needs some strings trimmed. I still love the plaids and paisleys! Found some blue plaid for the binding. Still think those plaids multiply in my sewing room by themselves!

~~Strings~~

This was an on-going project for our local guild. The members made the string blocks and I 'volunteered' to put them together. I learned there are several different ways to bind a quilt during this project! I had a gal who longarm quilted four of them and then the rest were either tied or Bernina-quilted by me and my DIL. She was a big help in getting them done. Thanks Janice!

As we were taking them down from the clothsline, I snapped this picture to show the second row.

Seventeen string-blocks will be donated to the local youth-shelter in our county. I hope this was inspiration for the members to keep doing it....but sure hope they get somebody else to 'volunteer' to put them together!

We had a wedding, built a house, numerous stock shows and two major holidays during this project.

Outside....

It was actually warm enough to be outside this afternoon. We're hoping for 80's this weekend.

We have some old girls in the cow-lot by the house. It's fun to go out and get up-close and talk to them.

She's as wide as she is long--yes, she should have a calf any day. Here's a young girl who will have a calf in about a year.

Old gray cat peeking out of the barn.

DH's prized red angus heifer...he has about 20 of these.

This is one of the old Mama's in the lot. Tame, gentle, half-blind, very productive old cow. They do NOT like the cats close-by and about two seconds after I snapped this picture, that cat was half-way back to the barn!

This cow's name is Bug-eyes. When she was a calf, it was realy cold and the bottom half of her ears froze off. This is about as close as I get to her. She'll eat you in a heartbeat!

Old mama and calf. She did not like me this close to her baby.

We have a barn full of cats. Most are real friendly and have to show off when we're outside.


We're all getting a bad case of cabin fever, so when it's warm we'll be outside.

(I left these pictures big, so they may be a little large if you click on them!)

Spring has to be close....

Flying north and making a lot of noise. If you click on the picture, you can see the geese even better.

Cinnamon Roll Recipe

I've used many different recipes over the years for cinnamon rolls. This one works for me.
I use my Kitchenaide mixer for this; starting with a regular paddle and then go to the dough hook.


Mix together:
3 Tbls. yeast
1 Tbsp. sugar
1 c. warm evaporated milk
1 c. very warm water
Let this mixture set for about 5 minutes.

Stir in:
3 cups flour
6 Tbsp. butter
3/4 c. sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp. salt


Add 3 3/4 cups of flour and mix until dough pulls away from sides of bowl. Before I add this last batch of flour, my dough hook is put on. It's hard to do, but turn it on and walk away from it. The mixer will do the work without you standing there watching it--about five minutes of mixing on low with the dough hook.

Let dough rise till double in size:
I usually warm my oven up to 200 degrees, turn it off and let the dough rise in there for about 45 minutes. I use the mixing bowl --sprayed with Pam--to let the dough rise in. (Cover dough so it doesn't dry out--I use Press'nSeal)

Punch down dough(let rest for a couple of minutes) and turn onto counter. Roll dough out into a large rectangle until it's about 20" x 24". This is a matter of personal preference...do you like thick cinnamon rolls or small ones? I roll the dough out into a big rectangle and will roll from both sides to middle to make smaller ones for my muffin tins.

Center sweetness: I use brown sugar, cinnamon, and granulated sugar. We're not counting calories here, we're making fatening cinnamon rolls. I don't measure any of these three ingredients. Probably a couple handfulls of brown sugar, several Tablespoons of cinnamon and then a light sprinkle of white sugar on top. Back to personal preference, my family doesn't like a heavy cinnamon taste, but I want them to taste.

Roll dough up from the long edge towards the center and pinch edge to seal. Cut into desired thickness--mine are about 1 1/2" wide. Put cut circles of dough into greased (butter/Pam/shortening) pans, put back into warm oven and let rise till double in size again--about 25 minutes.

Bake 350(muffin tins--325) for 25 minutes. Please, please..do not overbake these...they'll be dryer than dry.

Frosting: I've made several different ones over the years, but the fastest is powdered sugar, milk and a half-cap of Mexican Vanilla. If you look at my pictures in the previous post, the frosting looks like strings--use your wire-wisk to frost them and drizzle it over the tops. I have a brown-sugar frosting recipe that I can dig out if anybody is interested in it--it's cooked first...and oh so good.

We eat with our eyes first, and as MamaSpark says..."These look seriously YUMMY!! "

It's not rocket-science to make these. Just remember: not too hot of liquids, don't mix your salt with your yeast, don't overmix or overbake. Simple!

Homemade Sweetness

Sticky goodness. Isn't it amazing as to what your kids volunteer Mom for. Betcha there'll be a few missing before they head out the door tomorrow.

ps--I learned while I was in the business to bake them in muffin tins. They serve easier and I think look prettier. We eat with our eyes and nose before it even hits the mouth!