Purple Spin

Quilt of the day is my Purple Spin. It was mostly completed at a quilt retreat I was at this past winter.  I had lots of input regarding the fabrics, and a couple of donations from other quilters.  Added the borders after I got home. There was a quilt shop owner that just happened to stop in at another retreat I was at after I had it totally done. I brought it to the retreat to inspire my quilting buddies to see it finished. The quilt shop owner wanted to take it to her shop for inspiration for her customers.  Stopped by that shop last week to find it prominently displayed behind the main cutting table.

I love the whole process of making a quilt, which means I have many more quilts around than I can display and/or enjoy.  This quilt is about 50" square... if anyone is interested in purchasing this quilt, leave a comment or send me an email.

My turtle is taking a little more shape.  I actually glued Seamus to the background.  Boston was sitting right in the middle of Seamus' shell until I was ready to take the picture... she was done posing just before I snapped it.  A couple more days and Seamus should have a whole new look.


My morning glories are starting to be glorious... although I have been warned, my sister had to pull most of  hers out because they were overtaking her flowerbed.  I planted these on the outside of the fence on the far side of the house where there are no other flowers in the flowerbed to overtake.

One of my little side projects is to make shorts from t-shirts to put in the Operation Christmas Child boxes.  We have made string backpacks and pillowcase dresses for the girls and they all  fold up and fit nicely in these boxes, but never got around to making any shorts for the little boys.

A friend that is in the screen printing business donated some of her extra t-shirts and I found a source online for some drawcord elastic that finishes off these easy to make little shorts.  With the drawcord waist there should be no sagging shorts.

This is what was left of the Key Lime Pie I was inspired to make after watching an episode of The Kitchen on Food Network.  I have made a key lime pie before, but this time I bought a mesh bag of those little key limes and had enough limes to dress it up nice and pretty. Of course there were enough limes in the bag to make two or three of these pies. Forgot to take the picture before it was cut into, but it still looked pretty cool. 

It has been a month since my last post.... where does the time go???  I have quilted a few quilts on the longarm, but my focus has been more on my hand applique project.  I have finished all 12 blocks for my Country Cousins quilt and made the decision to hand quilt these blocks using the "Quilt as you go" method.  Of course I still plan on using hand applique in the borders, but I will continue on to that part of the project once I have all the blocks hand quilted.  I took a picture of the layout I plan to use, but it was with my phone, so I do not have one to post here at this time.

I went to a quilt retreat in North Carolina in early May.  I got to spend almost a whole week with my sister.  We had a great time, it was a beautiful, well equipped quilt house and the weather was perfect.  My friend MaryEllen flew with me, so there were two of us from Texas in the Great Smoky Mountains.  Maggie Valley is pretty nice and the ride we took into Gatlinburg gave us some really awesome views.  MaryEllen and I would like to make the trip to North Carolina again, back to some really great quilt shops and the great house, but next time we are taking a car.  Airlines create too many limitations on what we can take, and how much we can bring back.

I had the ladies here at my house for our Thursday quilting group.  The lady who typically has it at her house was not available, so I am the alternative when we can't have it at her house.  Everyone usually brings their own lunch, but I made a yummy key lime pie to have with coffee. It is super simple... and not officially a "key" lime pie, but it works for me.

(Key) Lime pie
1 can reduced fat sweetened condensed milk
2 large eggs
1/2 cup lime juice  -  about 4 limes should be enough
1 T lime zest              for the juice and the zest
1 graham cracker crust
Preheat oven to 350.  Whip the milk and eggs until smooth.  Add the juice and zest.  Pour into crust.  Bake for 15 minutes.
You can also do this with lemons instead of limes.