Puzzle #56

I finished this one with the close of the Olympics.

We rarely watch network TV. But every two years we watch the Olympics. My favorite is the winter games and I've decided my favorite event is speed skating of any variety, but especially short track. It's got speed, danger, calculation and strategy. (Amy says it's more fun to watch me watching short track that it is to watch short track itself. I have to make myself breathe.) It's amazing to watch the best athletes. There was one girl either from here or Korea, I don't remember, she was back in fourth place, but I could tell she was good. She was just being patient, watching for a spot to open up so she could make a move to pass those in front of her and sure enough she made her move and won. Then there's Apollo Anton Ohno. One of the most incredible to see, he is one of the best in the world. This was his third Olympics, so he may not be back in four years.

I noticed the best athletes were usually relaxed, focused, poised and confident. This was true of Ohno as well as the U.S. four-man bobsled team and others. They knew what they were capable of doing and just went out and gave it their all. And they weren't cocky about it.

On the sad side, besides the death of the luge athlete and the death of Joannie Rochette's mother, was an interview with Julia Mancuso, a skier whose friend (a skier) and just passed away. Her comments were that she realized that she needed to focus on her skiing because skiing is all there is, what life is all about, basically. My question to her would be, "What are you going to do if/when you can no longer ski?" I need to pray she'll find Jesus.

We enjoyed watching and now let the Olympics withdrawal begin. :)

The next quilt

I had a layer cake (Hello Betty) and a pattern so...

I put the binding on the next quilt today. I may start hand sewing it tonight, but I need to see how my finger feels since I did so much yesterday.

This tutorial is calling me. I've got some fabric for a quilt for Amy and I think I'll use this tutorial for it.

The Quilt is finished!

The first step was to trim the back and batting even with the top.






The next step was to sew all the binding strips into one long strip. Then iron it in half lengthwise. Once that was accomplished I started sewing it on to the quilt, right sides together. This is another part of the quilting process I don't care for because the quilt is so heavy by now. It actually went better than I expected it to, thankfully.





I spent the entire evening Thursday turning the binding to the back and hand sewing it down. Good thing I had the Olympics to keep me company. :)

I'm taking a day off to snow blow and visit the massage therapist in that order. I need it after today. Saturday I'd like to get the binding on the Avalon halved. Next week is the binding for the quilt-along.

On the Road to Spring quilt-along week 5

Week five is the quilting process. The directions are to use the stippling method. It's just a random meandering all over the quilt. It's always been very scary for me, but this time it went relatively well. I've got a couple spots that aren't that great, but overall it looks good. After having quilted straight lines on the previous quilt (no pics yet) this went so much faster. "Practice makes perfect" is true.

This first photo shows the back along with the front.

Puzzle #54, 55

This first puzzle was a gift from a friend. It was difficult partly because it's a different brand than I'm used to, but also because of all the similarities of colors in the bushes and trees and the fences and barn. But I love it anyway.



This puzzle took me a long time even with working on it a lot since we've been watching the Olympics every night. It seemed like I had to labor over every piece.

This week's quilting progress

First, I finished this quilt top. It took just about 5 charm packs, plus fabric for two borders. There are four plain cream colored squares near the center that need some embroidery. I need to come up with a design for that.







I got the queen size for my bed back on Friday. Quilting is finished and is gorgeous. She did a great job. Now I need to bind it. I'll at least get it cut out this next week and pieced together.









I also need to quilt two other smaller quilts. They have deadlines for mid-March, so I hope to get those done first before binding the other.

Beef & Cabbage Casserole

I just cut and pasted the original recipe below. My comments are after.
Beef & Cabbage Casserole
Makes 2-3 servings.
Ingredients

* 1 pound ground beef
* 1-2 tablespoons unrefined coconut oil
* 1 medium head of cabbage, chopped into 1-3 inch pieces
* onions, garlic, and fresh herbs of choice, optional
* ocean sea salt & fresh ground pepper, to taste

All spices and dried herbs must be organic or certified organic from the health store because all commercial products
are irradiated (zapped with radiation) which change and damage the body's cells if consumed.
Preparation

1. In large dutch oven pot brown the ground beef in the coconut oil.
2. Add optional ingredients, i.e. crushed and chopped garlic and onions, herbs of choice, and sea salt & pepper, to taste.
3. Add chopped cabbage and cook until the cabbage is well cooked.

This recipe can be doubled and put in the freezer for emergencies.

First of all this recipe feeds way more than 2 or 3! We all thought it was pretty bland. I've already added Emeril's Essence to the leftovers so we'll see how that helps it. For the herbs I just used two tsp of Simply Organic's Vegetable Seasoning. If I make this again I'll try something else. Got any suggestions?