A rescued quilt top...

 About an hour away from here, during the warm months of the year is a huge flea market.  They are open on Wednesdays and there is always TONS of fresh produce for sale.  Two of our daughters and two granddaughters and I went there a couple of weeks ago.  I spied a little threadbare quilt top and I asked the seller how much she wanted for it.  I think she said $2.  So, I got it.  It was obviously lovingly made, all by hand,  by a person who did not have any extra money, out of odds and ends of fabrics. It deserved to be honored and rescued.  Tonight I backed it with some heavyweight unbleached muslin and repaired it with my sewing machine.  I think it's sweet.  It will make a very nice decorating item, or even a tablecloth. I hope the person who made it would be pleased.

EPP pin cushion...

So, I took that English Paper Piecing patch and

made myself a pin cushion!  I kind of had

to hold my mouth just right to figure out how

to put it together, but it finally worked. 

I stuffed it with wool fleece. 

My first attempt at English Paper Piecing.

This was really fun.  I might get addicted.

I made a memorial quilt....

A dear young friend lost her one month old baby boy to Sudden Unexplained Death several months ago.  My sweet sister-in-law cut out 5 inch squares of various cute prints from her fabric stash for me and told me how to make this quilt. I tied it with pearl cotton.  I am giving this to my friend.  It was a labor of love.

Frying Chicken for two and what is going on here today...

My daughter bought me one of these nice little 2-quart Lodge Logic cast iron Dutch Ovens.  I also have a very large Lodge deep skillet that I use for frying chicken. Today though, just for the two of us, I wanted to fry just two chicken drumsticks.  If I use a regular skillet, then lard will get all over the stove because a regular skillet is too shallow.  But it occurred to me to use the 2-quart Dutch Oven, and that worked very well!  I always use kettle-rendered lard to fry our chicken.

About 3 years ago, I started a simple quilt and then life intervened and I didn't get to finish it.  Finally, I've been working on it again.  I am doing hand quilting, sitting here at our kitchen island.  Hopefully, I will complete it before too long.

We had a break in the weather and I actually found a few oyster mushrooms outside today!

A scrappy quilt for my grandson's bed...

My 12-year-old grandson has a queen-size bed.  He didn't have a blanket big enough for the whole thing, so I told him I'd make one for him. I found THIS nice video on YouTube and so I followed her instructions for making the quilt top from strips of scraps. 

I made my strips a little wider than she suggested - 3 1/2 inches, so with 1/4 inch seams, I ended up with 3 inch wide strips in the quilt.  I just randomly stacked the strips for sewing together.  I started out with 66 yards of sewn-together strips, and after finishing, the quilt is 90 inches x 100 inches, which is a nice size for his bed.  I put a layer of batting between the top and the backing, which I made out of bright orange fleece fabric... his favorite color.  After it was all together, I pinned it with safety pins and then took it to the sewing machine and "stitched in the ditch" between each 3rd strip.  That's all there was to it!  Of course it took some time, but it was very simple and relatively quick to make.

He loves it.  He says he sleeps better now with it on his bed.  :)

FYI - I laid it out on the gym floor at our Church.  I don't have enough floor space here, without all sorts of gymnastic moves on my part.

Maybe I am a Quilter after all...

Three years ago I wrote THIS post, saying that I am not a Quilter....  I've changed my mind.  I think I might be, after all.  A few months ago, I bought this quilt pattern.  I was looking for a Dresden plate pattern because I had purchased a template for making Dresden plate blocks here after watching THIS YouTube video.  She made it look so easy and fun, I had to try it! I didn't want to make a full-sized quilt, really, and so found the one for the baby quilt and then was thinking... who could I make this for?  It just so happens that a young friend is expecting a baby girl at the end of November.  Perfect!  A quilt victim!

Here are some pictures of the little quilt.  It is far from perfect, but I like it anyway.  I hope you, my Gentle Readers, do too.