QUILTS FOR PULSE

When I first heard that the Orlando Modern Quilt Guild was organizing a quilt block/quilt drive, I knew I wanted to participate! I wasn't sure to what extent. I started making heart quilt blocks in rainbow colors like they requested. I soon had enough for a quilt top. I got it put together and quilted it in straight line quilting done on the diagonal. I've finished it all except for sewing down the binding to the back. I loved working on it. Sending it off to Orlando soon!

Brenda

FROZEN GREEN SMOOTHIE CUBES

This is a recipe I make as a base for my frozen fruit smoothies.

FROZEN GREEN SMOOTHIE CUBES

2 cups coconut water

1/3 cup natural almonds

10 oz. bag of spinach

3-5 stalks of celery

2 oranges, peeled and seeded

4 Tablespoons honey

You will need a heavy duty blender. I use a NINJA, no endorsement, just the one I like. Mine has six blades. 

Place blade in empty large Ninja blender pitcher. Then, put almonds in the pitcher and pulse until they are a fine meal. Next, pour the two cups of coconut water in. Wash and dry spinach, then add to blender. Push down into blender using spatula being careful of the sharp blades. Next, add celery that has been chopped into 1"-2" pieces. Then, add oranges, using all of the orange except the outside peel and seeds. Add honey. Ready to blend.  I pulse about 10 seconds at a time until all ingredients are liquified.

This mixture fills about five ice trays, mine have about 14 cubes each. Pour the mixture into the ice trays and then freeze overnight. If you do not have enough ice trays to freeze all the cubes at one time, you can refrigerate any leftover liquid and freeze that the next day.  When frozen, pop the cubes out of the ice trays and place them in a large zipper plastic bag and store in freezer.

When you are ready to make a smoothie:

First place blade in the large empty Ninja blender pitcher. Using the hash marks on the pitcher to measure your liquid, pour in one to 1-1/4 cup liquid. Suggested liquids, coconut water, tap water, unsweetened coconut milk, unsweetened almond milk. i like to use half/water/half milk. I use frozen fruit so the smoothie will be thick. Some fruits I like are frozen bananas, frozen strawberries, frozen blueberries, frozen or fresh pineapple, chopped apples. I use a total of about 1-1/2 cups of fruit. After adding fruit, add 4 frozen green smoothie cubes and 2 packets of stevia. Blend until smooth.  Pour into large cup and enjoy!

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

In September, 2012, Bonnie Hunter hosted "One Hour of Needle and Thread" to encourage us to get at least one hour of hand work in per day.  During that month I did a POST showing my 2012 Christmas Annual ornaments I was working on for teachers and staff at my grandchildren's schools.  In the post, I just showed the back of the ornaments as I couldn't reveal them until December.  However, I never got around to making that post.  So today, as I was planning my 2013 annual ornament, I thought I would finally post last year's picture!

35 quilted ornaments!

Closeup of one ornament

Now to get started on my 2013 ornaments!!

BBB

 

ONE HOUR OF NEEDLE & THREAD ROUNDUP!

     This is the last report for Bonnie Hunter's September challenge. I'm happy to report that I completed my goal of finishing the hand quilting of my quilt!  I am now working on sewing down the binding. 

     Here are the pictures of my quilt.  (Please disregard the dates on the photos. I had to change my batteries in my camera and forgot to reset the date. I didn't notice it until I finished the photo shoot outside and I just wasn't going to go back outside. So, it is what it is.)

     Week 4,  I finished 7.5 hours of handwork.  I got in 33.2 hours for the entire month.  I'm still working on my annual Christmas ornaments (35).  This week I also got a large quilt top finished.  I'm also finishing up a UFO that will be a quilt top.  It started out as a challenge with a limited amount of fabric and was about 40" by 40".  Now, I'm adding borders and other elements to make it a big quilt. 

     If you didn't see my past blog posts for this challenge, you can find them here:  Week 1, Week 2, Week 3.  Also, go to Bonnie's latest post on the challenge HERE to check everyone else's progress to see how they did. 

BBB
    

FIRST MONDAY OF FALL!

     It is a beautiful fall morning as I sit here with my cup of hot spiced tea writing this post.  This is Week Three of Bonnie's one hour of needle and thread challenge.  Click here to go to Bonnie's blog post to check on the progress of others. 

     We didn't link last Monday because Bonnie was teaching in Indiana.  I got in 10.2 hours two weeks ago. This past week I hand stitched for 7.5 hours. 

     I had been working on my 30's fabric quilt called "Granny's Stars" from Love of Quilting magazine. I wanted to hand quilt my outer border during this challenge. I should be able to finish it today, then I can add my binding!! To see more of that quilt go to my last blog post. 

     This week I've also been working on a couple of other projects. The first one is my October calendar block.  I have one for myself and one for my daughter's calendar. I'm not finished with them yet. I did get the binding stitched down for one. I need to finish the binding on the second one, then I will do a little hand quilting around the pumpkin and will hand embroidery the stems on the pumpkins.

     Before I retired, I used to make an annual Christmas ornament that I gave out to co-workers and other friends. Now, I still make them and give them out at my grandchildren's schools to the school staff, cafeteria workers, art, music, computer and library teachers.  (Their regular teachers get the ornament plus a little something extra.)  I've already started the ornaments for this year. I've got 35 going in various stages.  I finished all the machine work, paper pieced. I did most of the paper piecing during Bonnie's QuiltCam time!  So now, I have lots of handwork to complete them.  I can't show the front of them until I am ready to give them away, so here's a sneak peek at the back of them.  Come back in December for the reveal!

     Thanks for visiting!  What a fun challenge!  One week to go!  One last note, thanks to Bonnie Hunter for cluing us in about the word verification on our comment section.  I didn't even know it was "ON" for my blog, but it is now turned off!!  

BBB

MY FAVORITE PLACE TO QUILT!

Out on my front porch!  The weekend autumnlike temps of 76 to 80 degrees were calling my name to come out. The weather was great!  Luckily I did my dishes and laundry BEFORE I went out or they would probably still be waiting!  I got in two hours Saturday and one hour Sunday.   The weather this week looks good also, so maybe I'll get out on the porch some evening before it gets too dark to see. 

How did you do during the first week of Bonnie Hunter's challenge?  Go to Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville to see how everyone else did this week. Thanks Bonnie for this fun challenge!

I got eight hours of hand quilting completed during week one.   I'm working on the same quilt, pictured above.  Here is the link to my post from last week.  I had only the last border to complete when I started the challenge.  During this week I completed one short side and one-half of a long side. It's kind of hard to show in the picture.  I'll try to make a better pic for next week.  So, I'm happy with my progress.  Moving right along...Got to go quilt!

BBB

ONE HOUR A DAY!!

One of my favorite blogs to follow is Bonnie Hunter's,  Quiltville.   She recently said she is planning to hand quilt for one hour per day when she is home (and not on the road teaching classes).  In honor of September being National Sewing Month she asked who wanted to join her and I committed!  She asked for pictures of what were were planning to quilt, where we would be when we quilted and to do a linky to her website of our pics.  The quilt I want to finish hand quilting is one I started about a year ago.  I finished the center of the quilt pretty quickly, then it got put on the back burner while I finished other projects.  Here is the picture of my quilting area and the quilt I want to finish.  I just have the borders to complete, so this will be the motivation I need.

Today, I am stitching while watching my St. Louis Cardinals vs. NY Mets.  Currently, Cards are winning!  I also like to quilt while watching NASCAR, but that was on last night. So I will cheer on the Cards while I quilt along!

 I have recently quilted on this project a few days at my alternate quilting location, my car!  I arrive at my grandson's school about 30 minutes early to get a good parking space.  So I always bring something to stitch.  Great for finishing bindings, small items, etc.  However, I didn't have anything else, so I grabbed this one day and it has become my car project.  So on those days, I will make another 30 minutes to sit and stitch and my hour will be complete.  It's a little bit of a tight squeeze to quilt in a car, but I lay the bulky part in the passenger side seat.  I wondered why my car kept asking me if I wanted the passenger side airbag off???

I am  really motivated to get this finished.  Bonnie asked us to print out her calendar and write down each day how long we hand stitch and to make a picture of it with our post and to link it to her website. I'll have to show that next week as I'll need to make a trip to the library to print out the calendar. 

BBB