Recent Life in upstate New York

 

 

My first quilt is officially finished!  I started it a few months ago, finished everything but the binding on the edge and then finally finished that this past week. 

Dan helped a lot with that because the instructions I was reading made no sense to me. 

 

This was originally going to be a baby quilt for the baby, but it ended up being much larger than I thought it would be.  Also, it's made of cotton materials, and isn't very soft. 

 

 

So that's why I decided to start a baby quilt using these really soft materials given to me by my neighbor.  I was planning to do it all by hand, but Dan convinced me to try using one of the machines which we bought for $10.  First, he had to untangle the thread though...

 

This is unrelated to sewing, but I made coffee cake last week and it was absolutely AMAZING.  It was very sweet, but delicious.  I like to try at least one recipe each week.  Otherwise I get in a rut and make the same four things every week. 

 

This week I made pumpkin bread using a new recipe (because after Thanksgiving I couldn't resist buying up lots of canned pumpkin that was on a massive sale).  The recipe I tried wasn't the best however...Probably mostly because I didn't mix the baking soda with the buttermilk.  I always find that when a recipe calls for both buttermilk and baking soda, when you mix the two together before combining them with the other ingredients, it makes a real difference in the overall outcome. 

 

Anyway, I'm not sure how I got off on that.  But back to my newest hobby. 

I had decided to make two baby blankets, one for a girl, and one for a boy, since we don't know the gender of our baby yet.  I cut out all of the squares and laid them out on the couch to get an idea of the pattern I wanted.  After I cut out the girl blanket in 5 inch squares, I decided that that seemed quite small, so I cut the boy squares out to be 6 inches. 

 

Dan came home from his trip and saw the two un-sewed blankets lying on the couch and said that he wanted to try making the boy quilt.  We had a sort of contest to see who could do a better job. I honestly thought mine looked nicer until he started getting creative and decided he would draw little tractors and trucks and heavy equipment on his and then hand stitch them. 

 

He didn't use any stencils at all...

After that, I knew it really wasn't much of a competition.  What could I draw on my quilt and hand stitch besides stick figures and stars?  (those are the only things I can draw halfway decent)

 

 

I settled on doing a few flowers, after practicing on paper for awhile. 

 

And yes, the center flower is very off-centered...haha

 

 

It was a really fun little project.  And because Dan convinced me to try using the machine, it went so quickly too.  I think they only took two days to make. 

 

 

So whether a boy or girl, our baby will have a nice handmade blanket. 

 

 

And this is unrelated to blankets and quilts, but I really wanted to give out palm branches on Palm Sunday at church, so we found a grocery store that was selling them and got a few.  They were so tall that we ended up splitting them in quarters.  I think everyone enjoyed getting them. 

 

Not everyone is like this, but for me, having something tangible to feel and smell really makes me think more about the subject at hand. 

 

And I know that I talked about new paint in my last post, but here are just a few more pictures from the fourth bedroom upstairs in the house we bought.  Because this was most likely the master bedroom, the paint on the walls actually wasn't awful or anything.  But we decided to go ahead and paint over it with this "oops" paint from Lowes as well.  Dan thinks it looks too dark now.  We may decide to go back to a lighter color.  But I think when the ceiling and all of the trim is repainted a fresh white, the place will look bright enough. 

 

 

 

 

Our next step with the house is the support the weight of the house in the basement.  My next remodel post will explain more fully with pictures.  But right now the center of the house is sagging quite a bit due to lack of proper support beams in the basement. 

 

Hope this post finds all of my readers well and healthy. 

Until next time!