OMG...What a day!

Well, we came home from a lovely visit with dad with a car piled to the nines with mom's fabric and crafts and other stuff that dad didn't want to keep kind of exhausted from shoveling mulch for my dad.  We were down watching the superbowl with dad and a few of his friends...it was fun.  New recipes tried and we won $40 from the pool!!!  Anyways, I was especially tired from being hunched over the mulch pile and was starting to empty the car when Ryan came to the door.  A sly smile was on his face as he said, "I think you need to come see this."  I immediately knew what it was, so I slammed the doors of the car and came running to the backyard.  Low and behold, a bluish-green egg was waiting for us to find it inside the coop!  I couldn't believe it!  After 6 months of raising these chicks to grow up and be large chickens...we are finally getting eggs!  We knew right away that Bernice was the culprit....she is an Americauna breed that produces multicolored eggs....everything from blue-green to pink.  These hens are also called "Easter-eggers" because of their pastel colored eggs.  I couldn't be more excited!  Ryan immediately fired up the frying pan and we cooked up this tiny first egg.  It tasted AMAZING!!!!  As a baker, getting fresh eggs every day is so tempting.  The wheels in my head immediately started to turn as I was strategerizing all I would bake with those eggs.  What a red-letter day!

Well, I got a little overwhelmed bringing mom's fabric home today.  I thought I would start sorting it into color piles so that when the new closet is installed tomorrow (woo hoo!!!!) I can put it right away.  I managed to sort one box before I had to quit.  I cannot believe how much fabric she had!  OMG....what am I going to do with all of it?  I still haven't quilted my first quilt and I have this huge daunting pile of fabric in front of me and another box waiting to be sorted.  Oh goodness, how am I going to do all of this?  So after, I managed to collect myself, I pulled out some of those projects I started a few years ago.  I managed to bind a table runner that I made as an experiment.  Its ok.  It was one of the first quilting projects I tried, and if I were to do it over again, I am sure I would've been more careful with fabric selection and used a walking foot to quilt it, but oh well.  I think I will hang it on the wall as a memento.

Then, I poured myself a cocktail and decided to try my hand at free motion quilting.  I had some scraps leftover from the puzzle quilt that were sandwiched so that I decided to try working out a design there first.  It was a long strip of fabric, so I used the entire length to practice.  I managed to figure out a stitch length and tension that worked for me...and I managed to get the speed of the sewing down so that I could control the fabric into a relatively pleasing design.  So, I pulled out a pinwheel sock monkey pattern that I pieced for a pillow and decided that I would experiment on this item.  I sandwiched this with batting and a piece of muslin from mom's stash, and took a big breath and started quilting.  Actually, it came out pretty cute.  I need to practice some more, but it wasn't horrible.  I am pretty excited to finish it up this week.  It will make a perfect gift for my Anthropologist friend, Shamsi....because she loves monkeys.  I owe her a birthday and a Christmas gift, so this will definitely make a good gift for one of those occasions.

Sock Monkey Pillow

Check out my first attempt at Free motion quilting!

Also, I tried my hand at making a drawstring lined bag....a tutorial I found on "In Color Order" with very clear directions.  I had wanted to make my husband something for Valentines Day, and I plan on filling this bag with goodies for him on the heart day.  I know he reads this, so I won't disclose what I will fill up the bag with, but i will reveal after the fourteenth for sure.  I loved making this bag and I plan to make more, as they are easy to put together and they are super cute!

I can think of endless possibilities for these bags and I cannot wait to make more.

Now off to make something with eggs.  Happy Crafting!!!!