Another Monday

Where do the weekends go? They go by in such a blur. It was a busy one for me and I managed to get alot accomplished in my quilting. I finally finished the mystery quilt I have been working on for a few weeks and I really like how the solid navy border finished it off. Eventually when I get to the quilting part of it, I will try my hand at free motion quilting. I have done stippling before and love to stipple, but I have only done it on smaller projects. I really want to try my hand at a full size quilt. I think I might meander around the center part of the quilt and try to find a nice border design for the navy border. I have seen those rolls of machine quilting designs for borders and blocks where you just lay the paper border onto your quilt, pin it down and quilt through the paper. I just need to find a nice design to use on it. So here it is!



Tonight I had another class to teach. My students are making a kaledioscope quilt using 4 patch blocks. They are all doing such a great job and they are really having alot of fun making them. Tonight was week #3 of 8. Next week they will start to put the sashing between the blocks to make the rows and the quilt top. They are getting very excited by now. Here are a few photos of them working away on their blocks and a few close ups.








By the way, I did try out that slow cooker chicken recipe yesterday and I was surprised how good it was. When I made it, the smell of cocoa (3 Tbsp of cocoa to be exact) was very strong and I was starting to wonder if it was going to taste okay. I was happy of the results. I will post it soon as I left my recipe book down to my Mother's place as she wanted to try out a recipe from that book herself this week. I will be down her way later this week, and will post it by the weekend should anyone be interested.

Along with my quilting and cooking, my good friend Marsha was very kind and shared some of her beautiful herbs with me. She has such a wonderful garden in her back yard. She has a fabulous herb garden, and full veggie garden and she and her husband have had such great results with their garden. So I decided to try my hand at drying my new herbs. With Marsha's guidance she showed me how to microwave the herbs til they were dry enough to crumble. I was amazed at how much they shrink!!!! Look at the before and after of the parsley!!


Here is my nice fresh oregano before I nuked it!!


Years ago when I lived in Nova Scotia I use to have a flower box and grew many different herbs. Since I moved back here to Newfoundland 8 years ago, I never had a chance until this summer to start growing them again. Unfortunately I started my seeds too late and only my dill gave me enough to fill a container. I will start my seeds much earlier next time. Now that the weather is changing I will have to start my herbs inside. I think I might try it during the fall and see how well they do growing inside. If anyone out there has grown their herbs indoors and have any tips for me, they will be greatly appreciated.

Well I should get going again. It is getting close to 11:30pm and I have another early rise in the morning for my "day" job.

Good Night and Sweet Dreams!

Cheers!
Andrea