Summer Fair

I have realized two things lately. First that San Augustine doesn't have a county fair. I am on the hunt to find out why and to see what i can do to fix this problem. I really want to go to a county fair! Secondly, I am a member of Generation X. I guess i never really thought about it, but i am in the "older" range of the group. Not sure i really identify with Xers in most areas, but... i have looked around the Gen X quilters site and i DO identify with them. I feel like a kid around most quilters so i am very glad someone else posted in the Gen X Summer Fair Quilt Show. I have found some folks in the quilting world i can identify with!

Anyways here is my post. The quilt i just recently finished is a baby quilt for the latest grandchild born Tristin Eduardo Gauge Hampton. (through my boyfriend i have 10 grandchildren, soon to be 11!) Some of the fabrics are 1930's repros, which i love, the plaids are from Ralph's old shirts. I called the quilt "Paw Paw's Lil Cowboy" because the fabrics are all fabrics you would find in cowboy shirts and we definitely plan on turning the little fella into paw paws little cowboy.

I machine quilted it, the first one that i did that wasn't straight lines across the quilt and I'm happy with how it turned out. I gave it to his momma before he was born, its now in his nursery.

Here is the little fella with his Paw Paw

and yes, his paw paw still has plenty of plaid quilts for future quilts! lol.


Recipe:

A recipe is harder. We own a restaurant and it seems i never get to cook anymore because i am cooking ALL day long. One of the dishes we make here at the store, and that the family loved before when we did cook is King Ranch Chicken, I discovered this wonderful dish when i moved to Texas... I liked this recipe because i could use fresh chicken breasts or left over chicken from the night before. The tortilla chips, its a good way to get rid of the stale ones!

 King Ranch Chicken.

1 poblano pepper chopped

1 onion chopped

1 red pepper chopped

1 jalapeno chopped

1 lb of boneless skinless chicken breasts

1 can of cream of chicken soup

1 can of cream of celery soup

1 can of rotel tomatos (rotel is the brand, it is diced tomatoes and jalapeno chili's canned together)

1/2 bag of tortilla chips

2 cups cheddar cheese

in a skillet and 2 tbsp of olive oil saute the chicken. I usually add a sprinkle of cumin and chili powder as well as salt and pepper while I'm sauteing the chicken. Remove chicken when cooked through. saute the peppers and onions in the same pan, add oil as needed.

put the chicken back in the pan, add the soups and can of rotel, mix it all together to make a goop. in a 9X13 greased pan, put some goop in, crush a layer of tortilla chips, a layer of cheese. Repeat to make 3 layers ending in the cheese. Cover with foil and cook at 350 for 30 min or until bubbling. Take the foil off the last 10 min and brown the cheese. toss a handful of chopped cilantro on top if your in the mood to make it pretty!

we serve this with steamed tortillas and Mexican rice.

lol the only picture i have is one of the 40 lb pans that we made for the local cowboy church!!

more progress

its amazing, Ralph and i decide to work 12 hour days 6 days a week for the rest of the summer and bam... I'm getting more quilting done than i had in the past 3 months where we were only working 30 or so hours a week!

I have been spending time in the morning in my sewing room. I have an island that I've turned into an ironing board with all of my works in progress laid out on it and each morning i pick something and start sewing. The last couple mornings its been this:

A few more rows and a border and i will have another flimsy! This is the twin size for Wesley. I finished a baby one for his brother Waylon a few weeks ago.

The plan is Sam's club tomorrow for some stuff for the store, i will be able to get batting there for at least one of them... that's a maybe though, usually when we go to Sam's i end up blowing my personal money on "oh one more thing for the store so i can prolong the next trip to Sam's one more week" type thing. Sam's is a 45 min drive from here... the only exciting thing is we get to go to my favorite Mexican food place for breakfast... mmmmm.... the breakfast choices here stink and the Mexican choice is really not that good, although that is what we eat most mornings. so tomorrow i will get a GOOD breakfast burrito!

Went to a yard sale today.. the only one in town. She wanted 2 dollars for her shirts... nope way too much even though i really loved a few of them. I did end up getting an orange plaid for 50 cents because it had a stain on it and i talked her down. i can cut around the stain. I have a few orange and yellow shirts... I'm thinking i need an orange quilt soon... I'm going to find a few more before i decide what I'm doing with it. I have a daughter and a daughter in law that i haven't actually started quilts for... it would be for one of them.

flimsys everywhere

I finished the shabby striped top... i just need to buy the batting, i had enough for the backing or the batting but not both the last trip i made to town... so i bought the backing fabric, its a blue and brown floral and i bought matching binding, im really not sure if i like it for this quilt,  but because i dont have alot of quilt cash right now i may just go ahead with it... hopefully this weekend we will get to town again and i can get the batting.

i really really do love this quilt and it is going to be hard to give it away. Ralph isn't too fond of it, so he will be glad, he says its boring... but its so pastel and so scrappy and so... shabby... i love it.

OH OH OH (imagine me doing my best horseshack imitation... yes im dating myself) I have another dump find!!! We dont have garbage service where we live, so we take it to the dump in town, the dump guys are cool (they call it a "transfer station" because the garbage is trucked off somewhere and im sure they prefer to say they work at the transfer station than say i work at the dump or at least thats what they say when they call and order a pizza to be delivered) anyways.. im getting off the subject. When they get stuff in, if its in pretty good shape, they will pull it out and someone like me will wander up and ask to take it, lydia and i have rescued numerous plant stands, bookshelves and little wheeled carts from the dump in the past... they are little treasures that we get for FREE! Well i had to deliver a pizza to eddie the other day and in the recycled can pile there was this wire basket!!! i was almost too excited to ask if i could have it!!! but eddie said yes of course!!! but isn't this a cool basket???

its a locker basket, i remember putting my stuff in them at the public pool when i was a kid!!! this is number 306 from somewhere.... a few years ago i saw some at an antique store and i wanted them so bad... the store wanted 20.00 each for them. But isn't this a GREAT basket????  for free!!! weeee!!!!

more shirts

I have figured out that the prep table at zippys is the perfect height for rotary cutting! We have to come to town early some days, so i have been bringing shirts with me and cutting them into pieces for something to do. I think the answer to the pile of shirt problem is that if I'm going to cut into one, I'm going to just cut the whole thing up into various sizes. Cutting on the cooking surfaces at zippys, i really don't think it violates any health codes... i did bleach the table afterwards...  and i do have to make sure i don't have strings on me when its time to work! no one wants strings in their pizza!

this is one shirt, some 6" squares for 3 different quilts i want to make. 3 1/2" squares for another one i am working on, I always need 2 1/2" squares and I don't think i will ever have enough 1 1/2" squares for the 9 patch and hand piecing one i am working on. The pile on the far right... those are strings, there are two that i want to make with them, and i don't have nearly enough strings yet to start. The wad  of scraps at the bottom, that is what I'm putting in the compost pile... i am not saving anything smaller than 1 1/2" square!!

I actually had sewing time this morning. The pastel stripe quilt for Sharon I broke down into 9 - 5X5 sections. I have finished 7 of the sections now... tomorrow morning i should be able to finish the flimsy. I don't think I'm going to put a border on it, if i do it will be very simple, maybe a white or pink border. My goal by the end of the weekend is to finish the borders on Bridgette's postage stamp and piece together the blocks of Wesley's (the match to the latest baby quilt i finished)... then I'm not sure where I'm going from here... i am in pretty good shape to get all 23 finished by Christmas. I have finished 5, just one more step on 2, almost finished the tops of 3, and have over half of the remaining cut out ready to piece!

some WIP's

We decided to close the restaurant on Sundays. That gives me a guaranteed day off where i don't have to think about pizza. I'm loving it... yesterday i spent the entire day in my quilting room!

I finished quilting a baby blanket for Waylon (grand baby #9). I haven't decided on what to bind it with... so that's not done yet. It is made from recycled plaid shirts with a few bits of stash mixed in, and a recycled white sheet. The green is the ugliest fabric i have in my stash but it looks great on a baby blanket, especially for a little boy! I am making a twin as well that matches for his older brother Wesley. I really like how it turned out and Ive got all the blocks made for the twin, i just have to piece them together.

I have been buying alot of shirts at garage sales lately. They are inexpensive and with all the little boy quilts the plaid shirts (like the ones Ralph their paw paw wears) are perfect. This weekend I hit a sale with alot of striped shirts, both men and women's, mostly pastel or light colors. I loved them together so i cut them all down and cut as many 6" squares as possible. It took 11 shirts to make enough squares for a queen. Ive started sewing it together and I love love love LOVE it. I'm going to end up giving it to Sharon, a daughter in law... but i LOVE it. This one may be REALLY hard to give away. It looks so good on my bed!!

I am enjoying the recycled shirt thing. Lately I've been cleaning up at yard sales buying them for a quarter each!! I get alot of fabric from each shirt for .25 each! The striped quilt... the fabric was $2.75 for the top of that quilt!! I think i paid a quarter for the white sheet that i used on Waylon's quilt... and i have enough to do Wesley's too!

The problem with recycled shirts, its really hard to keep the sewing room organized! I have stacks of shirts that i need to cut the seams out of, stacks that i have cut the seems out of, stacks that i have used some of the shirt, but there is alot of material left for future quilts and then... there are tons of bits and strings left over when i use all of one. So piles have taken over! I am trying to cut as much of each shirt as possible. Right now with the red and blue plaid i have 4 different quilts planned so i cut as many 6" squares as i can, then as many 3 1/2 inch squares, then 2 1/2 squares, then i stash all the strings and cut the bits left over into 1 1/2 squares. Still... there are way too many piles and I'm going to have to figure out an organizational system.

But... it feels good to post progress pictures again! Life is settling down some.

a little this and that... and a finish

Its been a few weeks. Life has been SO hectic here, It seems like every time i sit down to blog i get interrupted and never get to post. So here is a quick overview....

 i helped throw a baby shower for Caty:

A baby has been born. Introducing Grand baby Number 10, Tristin Eduardo Gauge Hampton: (no it is not the baby that i threw the shower for... we have 6 more weeks before we see her!)

Ralph's Daughter #1 has come to visit with grand baby #1 and #6 and #7 and will be here till august. Her husband is in the military and they are in the process of moving from Albuquerque NM, to Mobile AL. We have seen alot of them which is nice!

(Trini and Desi... #6 and #7)

We have been slinging ALOT of pizza. The guys on the gas rigs in the area are eating it up and getting an order for 10 at a time is no big deal lately.

At home... we have several new babies added to the ranch. 4 so far, from the looks of it we will end up with 7!!! ugh, we need more horses like we need a hole in our head. We really hadn't planned on them, but Cutter the stud got out and obviously had ALOT of fun.....

And finally a finish. I didn't finish it in time for her shower, but i did get it done before the baby was born!!! It is the same pattern as my last finish.

I think I'm going to join in on a quilt along. The kaleidoscope one... i will post a button as soon as i can.