Fresh Frozen Omelette

Fresh Frozen Omelette

I love to eat veggie omelettes! However, on busy mornings they take a bit too much time to make. Plus, it is tricky keeping all those fresh ingredients on hand with out waste.So, to overcome those hurdles I use the freezer.  I purchase things like green peppers and onions in quantities greater than my current need. Then I freeze them. I find it best to chop them into usable size before freezing. I lay the chopped pieces in a thin layer on a plate and put it in my freezer overnight. Then I put the pieces in a freezer container for use later.

Here are pictures of an omelette being made using frozen veggies.

The frozen veggies are in a pan with some oil. As they thaw, they release moisture.

As they cook the moisture evaporates.

Pretty soon they look just like fresh veggies being cooked. 

Then I crack the eggs into the cooked veggies. 

Stir it all around.

This morning I used slices of string cheese because I was out of grated cheese.

Viola! Veggie Omelette! (Now to pop that whole wheat toast in the toaster...)

Scrap Potholders

scrap pot holders

I have been having fun making these potholders from left over scraps. I keep the little scraps of fabric from my quilts. These are the scraps that are smaller than 2 1/2 inches in at least one dimension. I store them sorted by color.

To piece the pot holders I start in the center of a 8 or 9 inch square of batting. I put one small scrap of fabric right side up in the middle of the batting square.  Then I put another small scrap on top of the first with one edge of each scrap lined up, right sides together.









I sew along the lined up edges of the scraps with a quarter inch seam. Then, I finger press along the seam so right sides are up. The next step is to place another scrap along one of the exposed edges of the scraps on the batting. Keep repeating around and around the exposed edges using larger and longer scraps until the whole square of batting is covered.

The first three pictures in this post were quilted on my long arm machine. I pieced several pot holder tops. Then I put a piece of backing fabric on my long arm machine, placed the pot holder tops on the backing and quilted the bunch of them. 

 An alternative quilting method is shown in the last three pictures. You can quilt them on a domestic machine. After piecing them, put a square of backing fabric on the back of the piecing. Pin them together and stitch them in the ditch.

Then bind them as usual except, leave a 3 inch piece of binding fabric at the end for a hanger. Here is a tutorial for binding a potholder here. Have a lot of fun using up your scraps!

Fresh Frozen Herbs

I like to buy the fresh herbs because I am not so great at growing them (especially in the winter time) and they taste so wonderful. However, there is usually more herb on the plant than I need before the herb plant goes all yucky and buggy or it dies.  So,after use what I need fresh; I cut off the remaining leaves and freeze the rest.

I just put all the little leaves in a little zipper bag. I like to label my bag so I know what I am getting out of the freezer later.  When I put the zipper bag in the freezer, I spread the leaves out so It freezes in small clumps instead of one big clump.








Then next time I need fresh herbs, TA DA I pull my little bag out of the freezer, measure out what I need and viola! I have fresh taste and no waste! I tried this with the jumbo pack of fresh spinach leaves recently and they froze so nicely! So yummy in my morning omelette. I love my freezer!

Sara's Stripe Quilt

Sara brought me this colorful stripy quilt she made for her son. I love the impact and the simplicity!

She requested that I quilt bugs and loops all over which was so fun to quilt! Great choice Sara!

Here is another look at the quilt and the bugs flying all over.

Sara made a bedspread and a pillow sham.  Here is how it looked on the back of the pillow sham.

I used a squiggly line to define the piecing. This is a cheerful and cost effective way to get the effect of stitch in the ditch. Below is another look at the quilt up close. 

The back of the quilt was cuddly minky fabric. Many customers ask me if quilting minky is a problem. I have no trouble with it. I recently did a quilt with a minky back that had no batting inside. This one had batting inside. Both ways work just fine. It is all about warmth. 

 It was so fun to quilt your quilt Sara. Thank you for asking me to do it!

Pink and Brown Heart Quilt

I had the opportunity to quilt this cute quilt for my friend, Gail. She gave it to her granddaughter, lucky granddaughter!

I love the circle motion on this quilt design.  I don't know what pattern she used but you could use this  free pattern to create the quarter circle blocks. Then you would put them together with sashing. The smaller circles in this picture are put together the same way as the larger circles, they are just smaller. This is not a beginner project!!

Here is a close up of some of the quilting. I used a ruler and stitched in the ditch around these blocks.

Here is a close up of the heart meander I used in the borders and some other areas. I love this echoed heart meander! It is fun to do and I am pretty speedy at it.

Some more heart meander......

In this picture you can see that in some of the circles I did a big flower like design using Pam Clarke's techniques. If you want to learn about that type of quilting she calls it Designs with Lines.

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More pictures of the quilting for your viewing pleasure. In this one you can see how the small circles are pieced......

I really enjoyed quilting this quilt! Thank you Gail!

Cute Owl Baby Quilt

Karen made this adorable baby quilt with a charming owl on it. The back ground is strip pieced 9 patch blocks alternating with white blocks. The colors in the 9 patch blocks form a chain.

She got her inspiration here: here. I love the creative quilting on the version on the Quilts of love blog. However, it is quite complicated quilting and Karen is new to machine quilting. So, Karen chose another darling way to quilt it!

Unfortunately, my photo did not turn out. So it is not very easy to see the quilting. The picture is below and you might be able to tell that she did tiny circles in the colored squares. I think she did a loose meander in the white places.

I think Karen's quilting was very effective and her quilt is adorable.

Below is a close up of her cute little owl. She did such a nice job of applique and that little owl has such a fun personality.

Isn't this little owl cute?

  

 Julia loved Karen's quilt so she made her own version. She got her inspiration here.   The Piper's Girl Blog has a colorful version. You can order a pattern from them using the link above. 

Here is a close up of how Julia quilted her quilt. I hope you have fun making your own version of this cute little owl quilt. 

Julia's BOHO Star Quilt

Julia made this colorful modern star quilt. The photo below is how it looks after she quilted it.

I love the cute little circle pattern she quilted.

Julia found the pattern for this star quilt at Moda Bake Shop you can find the pattern here. Her comment after making this quilt was,."You end up cutting the patchwork in half and you don't have clear points and that bothered me until it was all done and then it was fine."

So her comment got me thinking about other ways to make this pattern and the points really would not matter at all. The idea I came up with was to "make" fabric instead of piecing with the charm squares. What I mean is use the color placement from the Moda  pattern but make the squares totally scrappy like this picture below.


 You can find this picture by clicking here.


The other idea I had was to "make" strip fabric instead of the charm square piecing and use the color placement from the Moda pattern. Here is a quilt using strips of fabric just to get my idea across.


Anyway, I am intrigued by these star quilts and I love the colorful quilt Julia made. Maybe, I'll try making all three...Until then, Happy Quilting!!