My 18th Quilt: Chocolate Covered Cherries

The "Chocolate Covered Cherries" disappearing nine patch on point quilt: 

It's bound, washed, and ready to go. Where? I don't know yet. I guess to the next baby shower I'm invited to.

I've said before that I feel I struggle to make backs, but I have to admit, this one looks pretty good to me.

It's neither too matchy nor too at odds with the front. I think using some fabrics from the front on the back (the three squares, as well as all the brown) as well as a fairly similar fabric theme/color scheme (pinks, cherries, cupcakes) helped keep it all feeling coordinated. And I'm fairly happy with the layout and construction too. Turns out starting a Pinterest Board for things that could be quilt backs has been helpful already!

There's not a huge difference between the pre-wash and post-wash on this one, probably because the quilting is so close together, but I do think it looks a bit softer. It certainly feels a bit more ready to snuggle with too.

Detail of quilting, post-wash

While my goal with this one was to use up some of the pinks and reds in my stash, my favorite parts are the brown border and the brown binding fabrics. They tied in well with the browns in the Cherry On Top charm pack, as well as the few pieces of textured fabric I used, and really just feels like the perfect finish to such a bright center.

Yes, I think all that chocolate was the perfect finish. Seriously though, people, I need invited to a baby shower or two. This quilt wants to be used.

Frosting? Sprinkles? Final Touch!

Chocolate Covered Cherries Quilt just got the final touch - a delicious binding! And yes, the final touches actually came from my stash. Which is unusual - but certainly a goal!

Two fabrics left over from my very beginning of buying fabrics added up to be just enough.

This plaid style print was the initial pick. I just love how the blue stripes really help the blue sprinkles and blue fabrics pop just a bit more. With so much pink and red, it's great to see some of the other colors stepping up just a bit.

The secondary choice of this floral and owl print works surprisingly well also - the floral print seems to work well with some of the fabrics in the top, and it doesn't hurt to have just a little more red and aqua/blue going on to top the piece off.

This gives you an idea how it's finished off - but I'll do my best to get some better angles once it's out of the dry cycle!

Books Mini

Alright, in my process of grudgingly releasing 'summer' into 'autumn' I am very slowly moving from summery items around the house to ones that are slightly more autumnal - though anything to do with harvest or leaves is going to have to wait a bit longer. This week, I'm embracing sort of a 'back to school' feel (though school is not currently a part of life around here) by inviting some more books into the house -- and as I went to display them, I realized I don't think I ever shared them here!

I'm sure if you've spent any time on Pinterest, or looking at very many sewing or quilting blogs, that you've seen some of the cool bookshelf looking quilts that so many people have been making. Well, in early 2013, I wanted to try my hand at making something similar. Since then, I've lost the link I followed as a tutorial, and I'll admit (but not show you) that the first attempt didn't work at all (they were more like magazines than books, and rather wonky in a stretched fabric kind of way). Although I'm still not sure what I did wrong, I did try again and that time I wound up with something I'm willing to share!

I took a few rectangular scraps from my stash, and a few interesting pieces of selvage I had laying around, and wound up with an adorable bookshelf's worth of quilted books!

My binding job is a little awkward. I really should have removed it after the first issue and re-bound, but instead I ran around and stitched the binding down three or four times until I was fairly determined it wasn't going anywhere.

I absolutely adore these books. I've been very careful all spring and summer to keep any interesting selvage print, and to guard my larger rectangle scraps so that sometime in the future I can do a larger version on this idea.

Chocolate Covered Cherries - Quilted

At last!

It's as difficult to see as ever, but I have finally finished the quilting. And since it was too dark to take photos by that point, I even took the time to trim the quilt (and square it up a little bit).

The quilting really disappears against the busy prints of the back - which is exactly what I was hoping for.

The bright red cherry print was added after the quilt was basted - when I realized the back was a few inches too small (whoops) instead of a few inches too big. It didn't quite turn out how I'd hoped - I really ought to have flipped the quilt over during quilting and been very intentional about putting at least part of a squiggly line down the seam - but I think if I didn't point it out as an unplanned addition, no one else would really know.

So, now I'm down to binding. It ought to go quickly if I can find fabric that works for that final finishing touch. I'm going to search through the stash once more to see if I have anything that could possibly work, but I'm not holding my breath.

Feedback (Flexible Menu Planning)

Whoops! I thought I posted this a couple weeks ago! So, this is kind of old news, but since I don't really have anything else ready to share tonight and I'm about to crawl into bed, here you are anyway! 

It's week two  FIVE! of using the flexible menu plan boxes and I'm back with a report.

The short: This is a win. It's easier. It's faster. And yes, it's fun. Really.

Picking a box to work out of was much faster and easier than looking at the entire fridge, entire freezer, and entire pantry. Even without explicit instructions being written on the boxes, it was easy enough to know what each box needed - possibly because we went with familiar meals for the first shot. It also helped to know that instead of trying to look at ingredients and make something out of them, all we had to do was pick a box that already had a plan.

So what about the fun part?

I was actually excited about 'refilling' the boxes. So, not only was I planning menus - I was actually excited to go grocery shopping.

So we're starting out week two  five of the box plan - and we're even more ready to go than last week: chicken stirfry, Mediterranean hummus dip, soup, pasta, roast beef crescent rolls with sweet potato puffs, egg salad, sandwiches with potato salad, chicken Caesar wraps with broccoli, buffalo chicken pizza with broccoli, and at least one more that's slipping my mind at the moment! This week we're looking at pasta with rosemary asiago and broccoli, hummus dip, soup, buffalo quesodillas, roasted corn Caesar salad, stirfry with pot stickers, meat loaf, hard boiled eggs or egg salad, and English muffin pizzas.

Going into month two of this and it's working well. We're also using it as an excuse not to go shopping specifically for our Saturday movie night dinners. Instead of putting in extra cost, we're just going with whatever box we have ready - assuming it feeds the right number of people! So, yes, I basically love this. And that's saying something.

September Goals

September Goals

Read 5+ books
Read 1+ non-fiction book
Attend High School Reunion
Finish Chocolate Covered Cherries Quilt
Decorate for autumn
Try one new recipe
Practice piano or clarinet twice a week


In the 48 hours since I wrote this list, about six things have already gone back and forth as to whether they have to be goals (with serious deadlines) or whether they won't happen at all - and all out of my control. The control freak part of me is struggling with this much, repeated, major upset to the month's plans.

And, like I said, work is still looking like it's going to take up most of September. At this point, my next chance at having two days off in a week (much less in a row) will be sometime in October! So, I may be a little quieter around here this month, at least until I get a few things worked out for work and that possible photo shoot... I have a few things queued from progress I made in August -- and one that's been waiting for a 'post' since July!! -- so it won't be completely quiet around here, but my hour a day of blogging/pinterest/tumblr/facebook/feedly is probably going to be cut to 15 minutes over breakfast and 5 minutes while brushing my teeth at night.

Oh, I had my first pumpkin flavored something of the season, so now that I'm done trying to force August to be summer (it sure is summer in my book, I don't know why everyone insists on making half of it autumn) I'm ready to embrace autumn - and hope for slightly cooler weather!

August Wrap Up

August Goals:

Read 5+ Books 

• "Kill Me Softly" Sarah Cross
• "Wolf-Speaker" Tamora Pierce
• "Grave Mercy" Robin LaFevers
• "Dark Triumph" Robin LaFevers
• "Firebrand" Gillian Philip
• "Where the Heart Leads" Stephanie Laurens

(Including 1+ nonfiction) - Nope. I tried to read a cat psychology kind of book and didn't make it through the introductory chapter. I need 'how to live with a cat for dummies' apparently... 
Go on a bike ride
Practice piano and clarinet twice a week - Not even close. 
Try a new recipe  Key Lime cupcake things 
Attend the quilt expo
Social outing with friend/s
Plan trip to visit the C family - planned yes, I think. Accomplished, not yet. 
Start planning for Christmas shopping - This is another still in progress, but I've started the process. 
Start working on the quilts that accompany all that math  - I haven't had a chance to talk about this yet, but I have started. Kind of. More on this soon - though not too soon... I'll explain later. 
Set up meetings with permit/building depts. - Well, this plan fell through. So it's looking like it'll be winter before we make any progress on this front. 
Sell the old car
Make time for doing fun stuff - Ha. This was not a good month for putting this on the do to list. This month I actually turned in payable hours at about full time all month. But for every day of payable work, I was also putting in 4+ hours of additional work (networking, marketing, drive time, etc.). I was lucky to make time to do laundry and cook - things like practicing my instruments or spending time on fun things was not happening. And in all honesty, September is already looking like it could be equally busy. 
Plan at least one week of menus and groceries - Huzzah! I took a jump with meal boxes and they have worked wonders around here. I seriously look forward to coming up with new ideas for the boxes - which means I'm looking forward to meal planning and grocery shopping. Two things I never thought I'd like! 


So, ultimately, August was really a month of putting in lots of long, hard days at work and not much else. We did set aside a little time for a few fun things - like a visit to my favorite 'local' quilting shop when the quilt expo proved not to be to my liking this year and some sneaky shopping for later in the year. It's a little difficult to complain - because we are working hard to grow the family business and being this busy feels like steps toward success in that regard - but at the same time, it's hard to be putting in so many hours for work and doing so little for ourselves. I'm hopeful we'll be able to work on finding a balance soon, but right now it feels like we'll be running ragged for the next little bit in fear that oncoming winter will see our usual slow down. Again, I'm hopeful we won't have so much slow in the winter as we have in the past, and that we can work toward finding a balance of work hours per day vs. other hours per day. Guess the only way to know what the future holds is to live through it!