A Real WHOPPER!

 

Yes, it is HUGE!  The variety of tomato is “beefsteak”.  DH has been babying this for several weeks.  It tried to grow through the wires on the tomato cage so he had to keep rearranging it.  The stats for this tomato:   over 6” across and it weighed 28 ounces!

I have very large hands, and this one filled it up.  DH picked it one day last week while it was still a little green because he was afraid a critter would get it before we could.  It has been sitting in the kitchen window sill with us just watching it get to the perfect state of ripeness… today it did.

This is what we got out of ONE tomato.  That is a regular size (10 inch) dinner plate.  I thought perhaps I would need to slice another small tomato to go with this one for our 3 BLT sandwiches.  I surely didn’t!  Almost half of the tomato was left after 3 of us had sandwiches and then just ate some more tomato off the plate.

Fresh tomatoes… YUMMO!  And there are more where this came from, although they are not quite as large as this one.

KAT

Welcome to the Family, Jonah!!

Meet Jonah.

Meet Chet, Jonah  and Donya.  Welcome to the family, Jonah!  Jonah joined our family a few months ago.  He was a gift of God into the lives of Donya (my niece) and Chet… The story of how he came to join their family is a miracle.  I don’t wish to give out details here, but just know  that we all recognized the Hand of God touching this situation and working things out.

 

We had a party to welcome Jonah into the family.  I made him a quilt.

    

I think he likes it!  It is bright and busy, and it is a “using” quilt.  Kool-Aid stains WON’T show on this one!

It was a “No-Brainer” pattern, simple and quick.  I used a race car fabric for the large blocks and coordinating colors for the rail fence blocks.  Sorry for the dark pictures.  I’m a quilter, not a photographer (obviously).

Welcome, Jonah!  Congrats, Donya and Chet!  Love to all…

Aunt Kat

Eating An Elephant

      Do you remember that little riddle you probably learned as a child?  “How do you eat an elephant? … One bite at a time!”

I feel like I have been eating an elephant.  The quilt I thought would take 3-4 days to quilt (HAHA!  Was I CRAZY?) has been in the machine for 2 WEEKS.  That is partially because I had not planned on doing all the SID (stitch in the ditch) around the edges of each block, but after I got it in the machine I realized it had to have that done to look right.  SID is the absolutely HARDEST and most time consuming thing one can do on a longarm… especially on curved edges, as these are. 

 

One bite (block) at a time I have worked through this.  It seemed to take forever because each block and melon had to be quilted individually.  Align the machine, stitch pattern, tie/bury thread tails, CHOMP!   Move to next one.    Repeat process umpteen million times.  CHOMP!! Actually, it was for 99 blocks and 218 melon shapes.  WHEW!!

The pattern is Glorified 9-Patch, and the quilting design is “Curved Feather” by Christy Dillon of My Creative Stitches.  I had purchased a set of these designs, but nothing fit the melon shape.  I emailed Christy and suggested she design a melon shape for this set.  I knew it would not be done in time for me, but would be helpful to others.  Her response, “Give me an hour!”  She designed the feather spray just as I wanted and emailed it to me.  Now THAT’S customer service! 

TODAY I FINISHED IT!!  I’m doing a happy dance!  I love the way it turned out.  And the back of the quilt is as pretty as the front.  I will really enjoy using this quilt.  It is the first project I have done with the huge collection of 30’s reproduction prints I have amassed over the years.  These fabrics just make me happy looking at them.

The next step is the binding.  I found the perfect fabric at a shop in Alexandria.  This binding will be a bugger  challenge due to the shape of the edges of the quilt.  I’m hoping to get the binding sewn onto the quilt Saturday when our quilt group meets.

Once again, perseverance pays off.  I can mark this UFO off the list.  That feel great!  And now back to customer quilts, where I am doing over-all designs and not tied to the quilting machine, as I have been for the last 2 weeks.  It feels good to be set free!

Have you eaten any elephants lately?  Persevere… one bite at a time.  Have a blessed week!

KAT

You are invited…

You are invited to visit my other blog, Enjoying the Journey.  It was started several years ago, but has been idle for over 2 1/2 years now.  BUT now I am posting there again.

It is a blog about my journey in life.  Currently that means focusing on spiritual growth and healthy lifestyle.

And if you read that post you will understand why my postings here have been few lately.

Now back to quilting on a bugger of a quilt… it’s mine, I am doing custom quilting on it, and it is taking 9 forevers to finish.  But it is turning out nicely.  It also reminds me why I do not do computerized custom quilting for customers… there is a huge time investment in custom quilting.

I’ll post another picture that shows the quilting when I am done, which will probably be tomorrow, but then yesterday I thought I would be finished  “tomorrow” .  AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN!!

KAT