Mountain Musings

New Product Giveaway

Want to get a free sample of a new product I'm testing? Click over to Graceful Designs for a giveaway!

~Hannah

A Girl and Her Seeds

Tomato (8 varieties), bell pepper (2 varieties), eggplant, red cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and basil.

~Deb, who says, my favorite season is just ahead!

Worldwide Quilting Day

March is National Quilting Month, and Saturday is Worldwide Quilting Day. What will you do to celebrate?

This week I've:

• worked on a table runner using Red, White, and Free by Sandy Gervais
• visited my local quilt shop for the first time in a year (!) and bought some backing fabric to finish up the runner
• laid out my finished Row-Along top and am deciding how to quilt it or even if I'll do it myself
• sewed together the Snow Time quilt kit I gave Sarah for Christmas, quick and easy!
• opened some packages of quilty goodness I received in the mail
• rejoiced with Sarah this week who won $100 worth of quilting services for one of her quilts
• enjoyed a quilting week leading up to Worldwide Quilting Day!

Here are some photos of my week:

The Red, White and Free charm pack all laid out to test the possibilities: And here are the Disappearing 9-Patch blocks all sewn together first, then cut apart, and then sewn back together again. Quilting is a crazy hobby! It's now awaiting backing, quilting, and binding: Here's the completed Row-Along quilt top which I promised to show you that I worked on with my friend, Chris. Now it needs to be sandwiched and quilted: And here's the Bee label I made for the back: I feel like I can finally check the Row-Along off my list...that was a lot of work! But...no quilt is complete without the quilting. So I'll decide how to go about that next.

Actually, I entered a giveaway over at Ruby Blue Quilting to win $100 worth of quilting services by a long-arm quilter. I so wanted to win, especially to get this Row-Along quilted now that it's finished! But if I couldn't win, then Sarah winning the prize was the next best thing!

Here she is holding up her quilt top that she thinks will be the one she sends in to be quilted. She still needs to add the borders to this, however, before it's ready to mail off: In the meantime, I took a break and started making the Snow Time quilt for Sarah. Here's an almost completed top below; the appliqued snowflakes and cardinals just need to be added.

And I'm waiting for some soft and comfy minkie fabric for the backing to arrive any day. I think Sarah will love it! And in other quilting news, this delightful package of goodies arrived from Cotton Berry Quilts yesterday! It was actually a gift to me from Christa over at Cotton Berry to make things right after a mix-up on her website. What a wonderful gesture, and I will love making the mini Puddle Jumping quilt: Check out Christa's blog to see the beautiful Fig Tree Homestead quilt (love it and want to make one!!) she finished quilting for one of her customers! I've never used Christa's services for any long-arm quilting, but I have first-hand experience that she would treat you right! Thank you, Christa!

Hey, how did this picture get in with all the quilting photos? Well...I guess while I'm playing with my fabrics, Tom's keeping busy playing with his wood! Maybe he's making something for me?

Comment and let me know what you're doing for Worldwide Quilting Day tomorrow? Maybe it doesn't even have a thing to do with quilting! That would be a shame! :) Ha!

~Deb

Happy Pi Day!

Did you know that today is a once in a century event? Every year we can celebrate Pi Day on 3/14, which are the first three digits of pi. But this year it's even better, because twice today the date and time will be the first 10 digits! I didn't get this post up this morning for the first occurrence; but in just about a hour, it will be 3/14/15, 9:26:53. (EDT, that is.)

Anybody eating pie today to celebrate? How about an Oatmeal Cream Pi? ;)

~Sarah

Avocado Mac and Cheese

We had a couple of leftover avocados in the fridge, and Hannah found a yummy sounding recipe to try with them! Avocado Mac and Cheese! I made it for lunch today, and it was pretty good. It matched my sweater. ;) The lime juice in the avocado sauce made it a little tangy, and I think next time I would leave it out. Also, we didn't have any Pepper Jack cheese, so I had to make do with what we had in the fridge - I bet the spicy cheese would have really made it even better!

If you like avocados, you should try it. :)

~Sarah

Our Week Around the Homestead

My blog friend, Brenda, over at Coffee, Tea, Books, and Me, writes a weekly post titled My World This Week, and I always enjoy seeing her photos and reading what's happening over in the Midwest.

So I thought we'd show you what our week was like here in Virginia. Mostly we stayed inside in a warm house since our area received another 6" of snow. Here's our view out the kitchen nook window at the snow-covered deck: Picnic anyone?: The fire sure felt nice and warm; and hats, scarves, and mittens were drying there after the girls shoveled and snow-blowed to get our steep driveway cleared so the guys could make it home after work:I stayed busy sewing on the Row-Along I've been working on recently. Since I'm sewing this project along with my friend, Chris, I'm finding that peer pressure can be a good thing to keep me motivated to finish. Ha!

Here's a picture below of Chris' Row-Along with her borders already finished. I think she'll be okay with me posting it. Aren't the colors all just beautiful? She did a great job!:I'm sewing my borders today and will post a picture soon!

Hannah worked in the kitchen cutting soap this week and then made new soap to fill the empty molds. She's adding some new products for market coming up next month:Today, to finish up the week, the gang drove down to Jonathan's house and worked on electrical stuff all day. Here's a sampling of what was accomplished:

Hannah started by marking centers of each room to determine where the ceiling lights will go, and then she sawed boards and screwed in light fixtures.

Jonathan worked on wiring, and Sarah drilled holes through the studs for the wires in the laundry room. This is the stage where you can work all day and see very little progress!

While the kids were over at the new construction site, Tom was here at home building a prototype of Jonathan's and Bethany's kitchen cabinet doors so they can determine if they like this style/size before he starts on the real thing: And, yes, the clamped cabinet doors are residing in the living room at the moment so the glue will dry better than it would in the cold garage.

Long time readers will remember when there was a bed in my living room, and beehives in my living room, and, yes, a sewing machine was in there, too!

That was our week! And since tomorrow is Sunday, I'll leave you with a scripture:

Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day. —Psalm 119:97

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

~Deb