Updates! Updates! Updates!

Here's the current state of Midsummer Night Designs Monkey Sampler:

It was starting to sprinkle when I took this picture so apologies for it being kind of dark. I'm enjoying this sampler a lot. I don't want to put it down. It's my take along project for the car and when I'm stuck waiting because there are areas of big blocks of color but there are also areas where I need to count like the flowers in the border, the border itself, so I'm also working on it around the house too. It seems to be the project screaming the loudest these days. I'd love to have it finished and hanging in my kitchen by the end of the summer. Ok, that was a joke, how about by the end of the year?

What you see below is a picture of my wave blocks surrounding one of the sunbursts in the
Just Beachy quilt. I'm getting close to sewing time. I have to work on my machine, a neighbor gave it to me when she moved but the tension is off. I've been eyeing a Brother machine at the store who shall not be named but I would prefer not to spend money on a sewing machine right now. Keep your fingers crossed I can adjust the tension on the free machine. Worse case scenario I sew the blocks together by hand which is not a bad thing in my humble opinion. I prefer handwork but I need the machine to go around the sunbursts and waves through the Heat and Bond. That would be a pain by hand.




Two Recipes

Since the kids have been out of school meal time is a nightmare. Now I'm stuck coming up with three meals a day as opposed to just dinner. Thanks to Ree I tried this recipe for dinner the other night, it was a hit. Chicken Spaghetti The recipe reminded me of one I made years and years ago from Country Kitchen the show hosted by Florence Henderson on the now defunct Nashville Network. I would have looked up that recipe in my recipe box but the cats knocked the recipe box off the hutch and the dog ate my recipe cards. I am so not making this up. Anyway, Ree's recipe was two thumbs all the way around the table except for the eleven year old who seems to only eat Ragu Chunky Italian Garden Combination spaghetti, chicken nuggets and a pepperoni pizza from Hungry Howies since he doesn't eat anything his opinion really doesn't count these days.

Another great recipe is for cookies. I found this at Farmgirl Fare: Wow. Who Knew? (And Cookies) These cookies are wonderful. They sounded like they might be close to Publix's Calypso Crunch Cookies, not exactly but just as tasty. My family does not appreciate the texture of the old fashioned oats in the cookies so next time I will use quick oats because the oats make the cookies almost health food, right, so I don't want to leave them out altogether. Personally I like the texture. I will also try using semisweet chocolate chips and peanut butter chips or white chocolate. These are very good cookies.

Thanks to everyone for the comments, they are always appreciated. The honkin' big quilter's square rocks! It's right up there with the laptop and iPod on my "greatest inventions ever" list.