Sewing Machine Tune-Up

I got my Juki machine back in 2013 and it's never been serviced! I've felt guilty about that on and off, but it always ran so smoothly, and I kept it mostly clean and oiled, so I figured why bother?

A few weeks ago it started to do this weird thing where the motor would briefly hesitate before starting a new seam and I knew it was time to finally bring it into the shop.

Now a week later, it back working again good as gold, and all shiny and clean. I think I really do need to make this an annual thing. I work my machine hard, and it deserves a vacation now and then!

En Provence Row by Row

OK, the blocks are done, the sashings are done, and now I can finally start sewing the whole business together! I wasn't really sure about all of this, but now that I'm seeing it all laid out with the secondary patterns coming through, I'm liking it more and more. And wow - look at all those pieces!

This project is juuusssst about done. Once I have these rows all sewn together I put a final two borders on it made from all the neutral four-patch blocks I made back in Week 1. Phew!

En Provence Sashing

So, I've finished sewing all the blocks together, and now each block gets bordered with a sashing strip. These aren't just any old strips though - oh no! They're made up of more of the "clues" I sewed previously, and once everything's all together, the sashings make up a very cool secondary pattern.

I've got the strips put together and now am working on sewing them to the blocks. There are lots of bulky seam joins where everything comes together, but I'm ironing it all into submission.

En Provence Blocks

I've been working on putting my En Provence blocks together. These are big - each one is made up of 25 units and measures 15 1/2 inches, so they take a little bit of time to sew together. I have 16 of them to make, and I'm about 1/2 way through.

Recipe Time: Mississippi Pot Roast

I hardly ever go on Pinterest, so I miss a lot of "Internet Sensations", and I guess this recipe was one of them year or two ago. It's easy and it's delecious. I'm not really a pot roast fan, I think because growing up we only had venison roasts of the bone dry tasteless variety. But this stuff falls apart into delecious moist shreds, and is fabulous served over mashed potatoes, over egg noodles, or as a sandwich with some nice melty cheese.

Here's what to do:

• 1 boneless chuck roast, 3-4 pounds
• 1 packet dry Ranch Dip mix
• 1 packet dry Au Jus mix
• 4 T. butter
• 8-12 pepperoncini

Place roast in crock pot, sprinkle with the ranch and au jus mix, throw the butter and pepperoncini's on top. Cook on low 8 hours. Shred and eat.

A few notes:

• Some recipes call for a stick of butter. That seems a little excessive to me, but feel free to add more butter if you want
• When I was ready to shred the meat I thought I'd have to go at it with two forks, but really you just have to poke at it a little and it all falls apart beautifully
• No, you don't need to add any liquid. It creates it's own as it cooks. Magical!
• I used cut up pepperoncini so they distributed themselves all through the roast. And I wouldn't hesitate to throw in a whole jar because I love those things
• If you're not into dry mixes and processed packets of things, the New York Times has a version of this that doesn't call for tacky Ranch Dip mixes. You can find it here: http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1017937-mississippi-roast

2016 in Review

My quilting year wasn't quite as prolific as previous years. I sewed a ton, but just didn't have as many actual finishes. This means that I have two full drawers stuffed with finished quilt tops that need to be quilted, so I think 2017 will be all about Free Motion Quilting, and not so much about piecing...at least, that's the plan.

Here are the quilts I did manage to finish:

I also learned why mini quilts are so fun, and finished a few of those:

In non-quilting sewing accomplishments, I made two lovely travel bags that I'm very proud of:

I guess I didn't do too bad after all!

En Provence Week 4, 5, 6 & 7...The Final Reveal!

All my mystery quilt pieces!

The last few weeks of the En Provence mystery quilt have been pretty easy. Of course, I'm way behind, but it felt good to almost get all caught up over Christmas vacation.

Week 4 was 60 more of the Tri-Recs units, only instead of pink they were dark purple. Then Bonnie gave us an easy Week 5 because it was Christmas, and all we had to do was make 64 Half-Square Triangles, also using dark purple. Easy Peasy!

Week 6 was a little tricky - we switched over to a new unit called Hourglass units. These are 4 triangles all sewn together to make a square, and we had to do 60 of them. That was good practice, because on New Year's Day Bonnie posted the big dramatic reveal to everything!

It's pretty, isn't it? And lots of fun to finally figure out how all the pieces I've been working on will come together. There's still lots to be done - 80 more hourglass units for one thing! But lots of block assembly, etc. This is a big queen-sized bed quilt, so it'll take me a while before I finally have a top that's put together.

Cats are Terrible!

I got back home from celebrating christmas, and discovered that the kitties had their own party...totally destroying my quilting design wall! Apparently picking at batting and foam board is the best christmas fun a cat could hope to have.

Also, scrap bins are very cozy places to nap in, just an FYI.