Happy Birthday!

 

 

My mom and I share our birthday, and today was very nice!  I turned the big 3-0, and am not daunted by the idea of being three decades old.  I'm one of those oddities that is actually excited to age, to go through life getting the experiences that I can and being able to show at the end that I LIVED!  My mom is very much the same.  Possibly one of the biggest things she has done recently is 3 years ago she donated her kidney to the husband of a gal she went to high school with.  She felt that she was just called to do so, so she did.  He is living a very full life, and they have become fast friends (his name is Carl, my mom is Sheila, and the kidney has been named Carla, LOL, that's my family's sense of humor).

 

 

 

Mom and I did have to work today at her store, but it went by quickly and the ladies I work with are all so great, I got a hug from everyone when I came in.  After work we met up with many of my family members at a local pizza place called Sweet Basil and spent the next hour in pleasant company.  I was pleasantly surprised to receive gifts from everyone, it's been a while since we've had a party so I was just expecting the pleasure of everyone's company.

 

I had to laugh at all the cat-themed cards, what are they saying about me?  And the one from my cousin actually made me teary-eyed, we have grown quite a bit closer since working at the store together for the last couple months.

And I get a kick out of this photo, what a variety of gifts!  The ammunition is from my great-uncle, and as soon as he handed me the box I squealed because it means we get to go target shooting soon, yay!  Chocolate and movie tickets and wonder clips, then tools from John because he knows I need some around the house and we never have any, and then there's this:

 

My present from mom and dad, individually wrapped bills that mom apparently spent all morning wrapping for me!  Look at all the pretty colors!  They said it's for a new laptop, I say let's plant it and see if it grows into a tree...  Oh, I nearly forgot, mom also bought me some daffodil bulbs, and they are so close to ready to bloom I can hardly wait!!  They are my favorite flower.

 

I also got a singing message from my dear friend Lacy-Jean (who is a zookeeper at the San Diego Zoo, awesome!) and I sure hope to talk to her this weekend, and then I received a photo-text from my other best friend (Megan) that made me feel so great.  I love my girls!

This is from almost five years ago now (whoa!) and it's Lacy-Jean, Jennifer (my sister), myself, and Megan.

 

Oh by the way, I'm making progress on my UFOs!  I did actually complete the rose:

I felt like my revolver was fitting for the Guns' N Roses theme.

When I took it to the lady at the fairgrounds where they hosted the banquet she was so excited, and tried to walk away with it for her very own :)  I may need to make up a couple to just have on hand, I saw some great key fabric that I think would also make a good background for the rose.  With the border this finished at ~16.5 inches square.  I'm working on photos of the quilting which I will share later.

 

And I am nearly done with the braided runner, this was just when I started and of COURSE the bobbin ran out, right in the middle of a feather.  It is coming along quite nicely, I just have the outer border to quilt and binding to put on and that will be two things done!

 

No progress has been made in my room though.  Hoping to get something accomplished this weekend, as we have no current engagements.

 

Belle is telling me it's bedtime, so I must follow orders.  Plus I can hear sleeping noises from John in the other room, so it really must be time.  Thank you for visiting!

 

~Brandy

 

 

Thomas: Whoa, wait, I swear she put this down here so I can burrow.

Belle: No, it's meant to be slept on so our fur cannot be extracted from the batting, silly boy.

Quality Time - Apple Pies

It's that time of year again!  Mom and I set aside last Sunday for cutting up some of Bob's apples (he's mom's neighbor) and putting together pies.  In the past we've made it an all day sort of adventure, and that's extremely tiring even with 5 people working on it, so decided that since it was going to be the two of us, we'd aim for 4 hours.  Here's how it went:

 

 

Isn't it amazing how one half of an apple can equal one quarter of another?

I was working on quartering apples while mom peeled and cored.

So I'm 5'8" and my hand width is about six inches, this is a big apple!  And most of them were this size.

Look at how tight the meat is to the seeds!  I always feel like the center is more cavernous than these ones were, very healthy harvest this year.

Here's mom and myself hard at work!  I got dad to step away from football action to take some action shots of us.  I probably should make him something nice to eat soon... :)

Oh yeah, look at that sugar flow!  And mom is more than ready to take on that pie crust.

And a shot from the other side, isn't mom's sugar tin the best?  She's had that tin my whole life and it works so well.

Stages of apple: quartered & peeled, chopped into bite-sized pieces, then sugared & spiced.

This is becoming mom's annual pie picture, I have at least two other years worth of this picture.

Mom decided to make Happleberry pies this year!  We had such a good huckleberry harvest that she put some in all the pies.

And here they are waiting for tops.  I didn't get any pictures of them done, silly me, but we end up sticking them in the freezer for future use.  We made 15 this year I believe, and mom is going to make applesauce with the rest of the apples.

Ah, here's pictures of pies I made a few days later.  Mom ended up cutting some extra apples up for me so I made a pie for John to take to work and some small pies for the ladies I work with.

Top crust on and crimped.  Thank you mom for teaching me a nice crimp!

 

 

And some finish photos.  Mmmmm, it sure did smell good for a while in our house!

 

 

And here's an artistic photo to round out your apple pie experience:

 

I love how the crust is glowing, although it does make me hungry.

 

One thing I thoroughly appreciate is the time I got to spend with my mom, just chatting about nothing and everything, spending quality time together.  I'm reminded all too often how fortunate I am to have the opportunities I do to spend this kind of time with my parents and I try to take advantage of it as much as I can.  No regrets from this child!  By the way, one of mom and my next projects is to make her a new apron, the one she has is quite literally falling apart at the seams.  We should be picking out fabric for it soon from her stash, yay!

 

Thank you for visiting!

 

~Brandy

 

 

Actual progress, amazing what 10 minutes will do!

 

 

So Pat Sloan challenged us to get at least 10 minutes a day of sewing in for the rest of this month, well of course that turned into 60 minutes last night and 15 this morning, but hey!  Progress happens at that point!

This is my mom's car quilt, the one with the jean backing talked about in the previous post.  I tried drawing it out and coloring with the colored pencils but it just wasn't clicking, didn't seem like it would work no matter what I did (limited on my pieces of fabric).  So I finally just grabbed the piles of rectangles and tossed them on the floor and this is what I came up with!

 
 

This is the top piece, I actually have to sew the top and bottom separately from the sides since I decided to have that center twisty piece.  I'll think that one thru a little better next time, borders work way smoother than the way I'm going about things!

 

A close up for a better idea of the true colors.

 

And for once I have an afternoon off, so I am going to try and get this top finished before dinner, being the first day Spring I think it's a fitting accomplishment!

 

UPDATE:

Looking great.  Just have to sew it to the back and batting and tie it together, then on to my FLAG!

 

Thanks for stopping by!

~Brandy

March UFO Progress and Goals

Well first of all, let me share how happy I am that I got myself outside and working in my garden today!  It's in kinda sad shape, but I have hope :)  I am thinking of putting in grape tomatoes, jalepenos, and bell peppers this year, keeping it fairly simple.  I've had good luck with peppers, and the grape tomatoes do well taking care of themselves.  Here's pictures from my previous gardening endeavors:

A pepper, we like to start our seeds inside to give them a head start.

 

John helping me plant.

 

This crop included beans, which was a first for me and very exciting to watch grow!  And now I know not to worry about spacing them out, they need to be next to each other for support!

 

And we had some butternut squash that never did turn yellow/white like it was supposed too... but it was a prolific plant!

 

Our little plot.

 

Bell peppers

 

And a trio of tomatoes.  These pictures are from two years ago, we missed planting anything last year.  But like I said, we'll try and take it slow this time around and see if we can't get ourselves some fresh produce.

 

 

And now!  I have had the opportunity to finish only one project this month, and it was a long overdue one.  When I made my first quilt a year and a half ago I had scraps that I started turning into a pillow case to match the quilt, and I finished it on Saturday the 15th, National Quilting Day!

 

It has an invisible zipper on the bottom, which turned out pretty well I thought.  And you can see the quilting in this picture.

 

Isn't it funny how you puff something up and suddenly it looks rounded?

 

Now I just need to purchase a pillow form that actually fills it haha, it's an 18 inch size, all I had on hand was a 16 inch.

 

As for my piece I plan on completing next or at least moving to the stage of a "top":

 

This is the backing from my mom's car quilt.

 

I did not know the "white" squares were actually striped!

 

And so I'm working on finishing the top, and reassembling it for her.  To be quite honest, I took it from her possession about 8 months ago and got the center of the top done then, then promptly forgot about it until recently when John reminded me.  Yay for my husband!

 

Good luck to you all in your endeavors for the rest of this month, I'm looking forward to some relaxing sewing from here on out!

 

~Brandy