Happy Halloween!

Another year of trick or treating has come and gone.  We had about 20 ghosts and goblins tonight.  Less than yesterday.  I have a few leftover caramel apples and some other goodies, but that's not a problem...  lol

Went upstairs and worked on hiding some of the thread tails on that baby blanket.  I haven't even started in earnest to machine quilt it, this was just from the foundation quilting.  ugh.

So many times I have started to complain on this blog about my job.  And an equal number of times I have stopped myself.  I'm going to stop myself again, and I AM extremely thankful that I have a job in today's economy.  My hours were restored, so I'm back to getting a full paycheck starting next month.  It's just a dead end street, where I'm at, and since I have twenty more years to work in my life, I don't want to stay somewhere where I'm stagnant.  So that's about all I'm going to say, even though it is a drop in the bucket compared to what I'm feeling now and have been feeling for a long time.

What I really want is to be able to do something quilty as my paying job.  And someday I may be able to make that dream come true.  In the meantime, I'll continue to smile and go to work every day and thank God for my job.

Halloween Eve

We had some trick or treater's tonight.  I had gotten some caramel apples to hand out.  We had about 35 kids come by.  Maybe tomorrow we will have more.  Last year we hardly had any kids at all.

Ivy was pretty good about the whole thing.  Here's what she did most of the day:

I sewed a little on the baby quilt, but not as much as I would have liked to.

Made a good dinner tonight.  Fried pork chops, mashed potatoes, and a veggie casserole. yum.

Started on the baby quilt

I started on the quilting for the baby quilt for my nephew.  The way this top is constructed I'm going to have a lot of starts and stops, with lots of thread tails to be buried.  That is not one of my favorite things to do, but it will get done.

Made a good dinner tonight.  It was a recipe from the internet that I found.  It was a package of tortellini cooked in chicken broth and water, then add some cream cheese and frozen peas to make a pretty good meal.  Cooked some sausage links, garlic bread, and salad to go with it.

Ah Choo!

My latest little venture was to make these cute little pocket tissue holders.  They were really quick and easy, so I made up a bunch of them with scraps.

I just kind of winged it on the pattern.  I used three pieces of scraps, each 4"x6".  I put two of them right sides together and folded them longways, to crease, then opened them up again.  I sewed an inch and a half in from the edge on each side, then folded each piece back so they were wrong sides together.  This formed the top of the tissue holder with a three inch opening.  Place this on top of the third rectangle, with the right side of the material facing the just formed top piece.  Sew around the edges, with a quarter inch seam.  Trim the corners and turn right side out.  Put a pocket pack of tissues in the holder and you are good to go!

Went to see Puss in Boots tonight with my friend Barb.  It was a cute cartoon and I really enjoyed it.  It was my first movie in 3D, which was really cool.

Morning frenzy

So this morning I get up at my usual time and let the dog out.  Since I'm halfway to the basement when I let her out the back door, I go ahead downstairs and pull the clothes out of the dryer and take another load out of the washer to be dried.  I'm taking my time, throwing a new load in the washer, folding what I just took out, plus some towels that needed to be folded, just kind of doing my thing like I don't have a care in the world.  I take linens upstairs and stop at the sewing machine to shorten three king size pillow cases to standard size.  Now, by this time I have not gotten dressed, combed my hair, or even brushed my teeth and it's 15 minutes before I have to leave for work!  Good thing I take my shower in the evenings, or I would have been stinky all day!  haha.

Basted another quilt

I pin basted the quilt my step mother made for my nephew tonight.  Had to piece the back, just one seam, so not too much work.  Going to machine quilt it on the old Kenmore.

Made a quick little tissue holder for my purse.  It was really easy.  I'll take a pic and put it up soon.

Quiet Tuesday

Haven't done any sewing the past couple of days.  I've been trying to get my Nook set up to get ebooks from the library website.  It's kind of been a bit of an obsession but tonight I finally got it to work.  I want to have a lot of reading material at the ready because Thursday I'm taking Uncle Ray to have carpal tunnel surgery.  It's outpatient, but I still expect to be waiting for a long time.  And that's okay.  Maybe I'll take some yo yo's to work on, too.  Haven't played with them for a while.

Pics

 This is the 36 patch quilt, finished, and on my bed!  Love it, love it, love it!

 Not the best label in the world, but not the worse.  It is supposed to say 10 2011, one forty four, and TK.  I named the quilt one forty four because that is how many different fabrics were used in it!

I love the way it hangs down over the sides of the bed.  Gives it a little extra for when Ev rolls over and tries to pull the covers off of me!  lol

Bound and labeled

The 36 patch quilt is bound and labeled and on my bed!  Haven't gotten a good pic of it, but will in the next day or two.  I like it!

Made Indian Fry Bread for supper tonight.  I haven't made it for years, probably 10.  It was as good as I remembered it.  We have it with taco meat as a meal, then with butter and honey as dessert.

Ta Da!

Here's my homemade Nook cover.  This is just the very first one I've made and there are a LOT of improvements to come.  But I do like it, flaws and all.

And here are 7 of the 8 mini loaves of pumpkin apple raisin bread that I made in pint mason jars this afternoon.  This is really yummy!  I had a little over a cup of pumpkin left over from the batch of pumpkin nut bread I made a few days ago.  I added enough homemade applesauce to make the two cups of required yumminess the recipe calls for, and I decreased the sugar by half a cup because the applesauce was very sweet.  I added raisins instead of nuts.  It is pretty good eats!

I also baked 6 mini loaves of chocolate cake in jars.  It was just a box cake mix, but I did try to jazz it up a bit by dropping a large marshmallow in the middle of a few of the jars to see if it would make a cool gooey center.  FYI, that was a flop...  The marshmallow went to the top and oozed over the rims of the jars.  Oh well, I'm sure the taste won't be adversely affected.  I froze those already, to no pic right now.