Soup's on!

Three things to be happy about:
(1) fresh fruit
(2) red watering cans
(3) reading food magazines

Home made chicken vegetable soup!

Just the thought probably makes your mouth water, but "home made" and "Linda's home made" are probably far, far apart!

I like the rotisserie chickens you get at Costco - at $4.99 the price is always right!

But after I've eaten a certain amount I'm a bit tired of it.  Some people debone and make chicken salad, but any amount that I made, I would toss some of it out... so I don't bother.

I just toss the carcasses into the freezer til I want them.  Yesterday was a good time to bring out two for chicken soup, frost and all!

Into my crock pot they went, along with 4 cups of chicken broth, on the high setting.

An hour later, I deboned (and de-skinned) them - had a pretty good amount of meat to work with!

Tossed in some Bird's Eye frozen veggies, water and other secret ingredients.

Added a bit too much water though; thicker would have been better!

After slow cooking for a time, it wasn't too too bad!

I give it a "B"

"A" means I'd gladly serve it to company
"B" means it's sorta okay, needs pepping up a bit but I'll eat it!
"C" means I've had better but I'll eat rather than toss it out and waste food!

So - chicken vegetable soup with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich - not a bad lunch!

Have a great day, sew forth and sew on til later!

Progress

Three things to be happy about:
(1) the color red
(2) modern quilts
(3) unsalted mixed nuts

Unsalted mixed nuts!

I get into trouble with Kirkland's unsalted mixed nuts!

This jar used to be full ... nuff said!

I'm still making progress on the Idaho square dance blocks, still liking the pattern!

Am I working on anything else right now?  Nope, just The Dance.

So far I've done 30 - yes, thirty - blocks!

I didn't realize I had done that many til I stopped yesterday and counted them.

You gotta love progress!


*************

The last few days have been getting warmer and warmer (notice I didn't say "hotter" - don't want to call that up right now!)

But lest we forget... this is what we were looking at just two short months ago!

Have a great day - sew forth and sew on til later!

Dancing merrily along

Three things to be happy about:
(1) good health
(2) farm fresh eggs
(3) taking a quilting class

This reminds me - I bought some classes from Quilty that I haven't taken yet, gotta get busy!

Do you use Best Press?

I love it because it puts just the right amount of body to your fabric, not too much stiffness - and it smells good too!

As you can see from the bottle, I was running out, at the point to where it was almost making slurping noises!

It was at night and I didn't want to run out the next day and get more...

... Amazon to the rescue!

I got a gallon refill that, according to their site, was on sale.  I also bought a book that I had been waffling about, and with my Prime membership I got free 2-day delivery.

As an added bonus, a friend told me that you can stretch it with water. (See my scrungy ironing board cover?  Never mind about that!)

I added enough water to almost double the amount I had left in the spray bottle and you know what?  I can't tell the difference!

So now I know...

Meanwhile, I'm still cutting and sewing the Idaho Square Dance blocks; with the precut strips from my 1-1/2" bin it's almost mindless sewing!

Here are parts ready to be assembled into strips...

... and strips waiting to be pressed and assembled into blocks!

I think if I use a sashing strip, I'll probably set them 8 x 9 with two borders.

Or maybe I'll dust off my EQ and play with an alternate block... we'll see!

Have a great day everyone, I'm going to fix an omelet and mixed fruit for breffus.  Sew forth and sew on til later!

Memories, loving the dance

Three things to be happy about:
(1) oatmeal with apples and almonds
(2) the month of May
(3) sweet memories

While digging through my yardage to find less-than-half yard pieces to add even more variety to my 1-1/2" strips bin, I found this piece of Alexander Henry fabric.

Ahhh, sweet memories!  Before I retired I bought this piece from G Street Fabrics, which was just about 4 blocks from my office.

There was a $2.98 sale table, and they had gotten this humongous load of Alexander Henry African fabrics!

That's the good part...

The bad part is, I found out 3 days later, when most of that delicious fabric was gone!

I managed to get two good pieces, this is one of the pieces.  The date on the label says 2002 - I think I bought it somewhere around 2006? 2008?

Anyway, it's been safely tucked away in my stash - time to give it some air!  Part of it will definitely be cut up to find a place in my Idaho S-D blocks.  Speaking of which...

I'm loving these blocks!

I've done about a half dozen by now, I'll be using different colors for the centers; the fabrics will either be solid or a low-scale design.

That's it for now, enjoy your Saturday... sew forth and sew on til later!