Little Misters

Katie is going to a double baby shower soon.  Two co-workers are due at the same time so there will be a joint shower and the theme is Little Misters.  There will be a clothes line to hang onesies on so I made six onesies.  Three with bow ties and three with neckties.  I made my templates out of card stock.

I had onesies left over from when Stephanie had her boutique, so this project required no out of pocket money for today.  I used my fabric scraps and stayed with blues, grays and greens.

They all turned out really cute and will look so good hanging on that clothes line at the party !!

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Zucchini Fritters With Almond Flour And Coconut Oil

Breakfast this morning was zucchini fritters, avocado and nitrate free bacon.  Staying with my wheat free diet, I made the fritters with almond flour.  I also chose to fry the fritters in coconut oil.  I purchase my almond flour and coconut oil from NUTS.COM.

Here's my recipe:

1.5 cup grated zucchini
1/2 cup chopped green onion
1/4 cup almond flour
1/2 cup grated Italian cheese
      (I used a blend of parmesan, provolone, asiago and romano)
2 eggs
1 t lemon juice
Seasoned black pepper
Coconut oil

Grate the zucchini and chop the green onions, then roll them up in paper towels to remove as much liquid as possible....

 

Put all ingredients in a bowl and blend with a mixer for approximately 30 seconds to get the egg and the almond flour blended well with the other ingredients.....

 

Pre-heat the coconut oil before dropping spoonfuls of the mixture into the skillet.......

Fry for about three minutes on each side and drain on paper towels....

One very good breakfast made to order!  Scroll down to see who I have linked to this week.

Patti's Memory Banner Quilt With Bird Appliques

It's time once again for Amy's Creative Side Quilt Festival.  This entry is for the Spring 2013 festival.  My other entry is under Throw Quilt category. 

I finished Patti's memory quilt today.  Patti is my late mother-in-law's oldest daughter and carries on her name.  I decided she needed something a little more fancy than a quick block quilt.  While surfing the Internet for quilt ideas I found several types of flag banner quilts and decided that would be something I could use my mother-in-law's clothes for to make a nice quilt for Patti.  I also came across a bird quilt on Pinterest and decided to add a bird to each row.

I found some navy blue trim at Hancock's to use for the "clothes line".  I cut each triangle out of an 8 1/2" X 11" piece of paper.  If you like the birds and want to make your own, you can go to my Pinterest (top of the blog) and follow my Quilt Idea board where you will find a link to these cute birds where you can create your pattern.

While garage sale shopping a few weeks ago I got this two yard cut of blue cotton for 50 cents !  The blue represents a beautiful blue clear sky.  I first arranged the trim and triangles on the background fabric to get my spacing then sewed one row on at a  time.

Sewing on the trim for the clothes line using a wide zig zag stitch....

I used a light weight bonding adhesive for each triangle since the clothes were out of so many different fabrics.  I did not want any shifting of fabrics while sewing the triangles in place.

I added the bird to the row after the triangles were sewn on.  I used a zig zag stitch for everything.

The quilt top was not quite wide enough so I used some blue floral fabric that my mother-in-law had in her sewing closet.  I wanted to use as much of her fabric, thread, etc as possible in the memory quilts.  She was a great seamstress and crafter who taught me well !  I made these border strips 4" wide.

I used a quilted mattress pad for the backing.  Since Patti lives in Michigan, this will give her a nice heavy quilt for those long winters!

Lots of safety pins were used to sandwich the two pieces together....

I used a free motion quilting technique to give this quilt lots of "puckerness" goodness...

I used an old pillowcase for the binding.  I cut the pillowcase into 3" strips, folded in half, top stitched to the front and hand stitched to the back.

Today was an overcast day, so it was perfect for taking outdoor pictures in the backyard....

I'm sure Patti will love this quilt as much as I do and it will give her some tender memories of her mama as she looks at these fabrics from her 50th wedding anniversary dress, shirts, jeans, hospital scrubs and pajamas.  The birds were cut out of Pat's pajamas that she wore the last couple of months during her battle with cancer.  Pajamas that Patti gave to her mom.  Patti said she loved wearing them because the style of them made them look more like regular clothes than p.j.'s.  She found them comforting.

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Flea Market Fancy Raw Edge Circle Quilt

Amy's Creative Side has started her Spring 2013 Quilt Festival.  This is my entry for the festival.

This Flea Market Fancy fabric line by Denyse Schmidt has been a favorite of mine ever since it came out.  I had it in my cart on Etsy for months and months waiting for the right project to come my way.  Then one day I got a bridal shower invitation for one of the sweetest girls I know and instantly knew that these fabrics were the ones I wanted to use for her quilt.  I also purchased some Kona solids off Etsy to coordinate with the Flea Market Fancy prints.

My pattern choice was a raw edge circle quilt.  Alison at Cluck Cluck Sew gives a great tutorial for it.  I cut 72 - 8 inch squares and 72 - 6.5 inch circles. 

Each circle was stitched on a square 1/4 inch in to allow for a nice raw edge.

After all the circles were sewn onto the squares, I then cut each block into 4 equal pieces......

 

At this point, I noticed that some of the prints were showing through the "circle" part and decided to snip the fabric from the backs.  See Alison's tutorial for more detail on this step.

The next step took the longest.  I then spread out all the quartered pieces and matched them to make new blocks.  I made sure I created no two blocks that were the same and tried to keep an even balance between prints and solids.

 

After the blocks were sewn I spent a couple of hours in the recliner with my small snipping scissors trimming the extra fabric off the seams so the blocks were not so bulky.

All the blocks were then sewn together and I added a six inch border in the gold/red floral print.

For the backing I chose the grey leaf print.  I purchased five yards, cut it into two (2) 2.5 yard pieces and sewed them together to create one piece of fabric large enough for the backing.  I like to use the carpet in my living room as my work area to get the quilt pinned and ready for free motion quilting.  I lay the backing fabric face down on the carpet and use safety pins to secure it through the carpet and into the carpet pad.  Once the backing fabric is in place, I then spread out the batting (I used Cream Rose from Joann's) and then spread the quilt top next. 

I use many many safety pins.  Probably close to 300.  I've learned over the years that more is better.

I used the free motion quilting technique for this quilt.  I did not quilt inside the circles.  I did not want to cross over the areas of fabric around each circle that I wanted to fray.

 

I made my own binding with the fabric scraps I had left over.  I cut strips at 2.5 inches, sewed them together, folded in half and steamed with the iron.

 

After I got the binding ready, I spread the quilt out on the floor to lay the binding around the edge to make sure I had enough.  Several times during each quilt projects I have to battle with this boy.  He always wants to engage in some playtime when I sit down on the floor.  This is the look he gives me right before he turns wild.

I stitched the quilt binding onto the front and the back.  You can search the Cluck Cluck Sew blog for a tutorial on how to do that too.

 

 

Here it is finished before putting through a wash/dry cycle to fray up the raw edges.

Here's how it looked after one wash/dry cycle.  It did not fray up as much as I wanted it to, so I repeated the process and it did much better.

After the second wash/dry cycle.........

And here's the lucky lady that gets to keep it.  I'll add a better picture when I get one.  This one was taken with a cell phone facing into the sunlight.

I love how it turned out and will probably be making a couple more just like this one!  Scroll down to see who I have linked to this week.