Napkin Nirvana

I think the napkin saga is finally coming to an end.  

On Saturday I was supposed to meet up with friends, Robin and Judith at Robin's house.  

She has a great screened in living space that we were going to work in.  

We had everything we needed and the day looked promising.  

Here is the venue we were working in.  

They use it as a guest room in the summer time.

Robin is a fabulous cook so she had her famous egg bake ready for us for breakfast when we arrived.  YUM!

We had to get right to work as I only had 2 hours before hubby was whisking me off to a tractor show.

I am in the green, Judith is next to me and Robin is across the table.  

 The task today was to glue the remaining 80 napkins. 

 (She has 20 more but the backing fabric has not arrived yet)

We happily glued for 2 hours.  

Robin has her elderly parents living with her and her mom is an artist.  

She can no longer do her painting and illustrations due to Macular Degeneration.  

She spent the entire day with us keeping us company, adding to our banter and keeping Robin in line, LOL 

(that was the funniest part!)

Then hubby arrived and took me to the tractor/tresher show in Mason.

I found something sewing related there.  

Too bad they were so pricey.  

I would have loved to have had this one!  

They were made to look like a tractor but also a sewing machine.  

Like the two of them had a baby!  

It was just for decoration,  (I asked) but they were super amazing!!!

(also not a sprinkler)

After the show hubby dropped me back off at robin's house and we glued some more!  

She made us a wonderful dinner and we even enjoyed some great wine while finishing up.  

We managed to get all 80 of the napkins glued up.  

Judith and Robin also got 40 of them sewn.  

I got to teach them both the joys of using your walking foot!  

LOL

The pattern is by Ann Marie of GenX Quilters and can be found here.

Don't they make a pretty stack?  

I believe there are 140 all finished!  

Not many more for Judith to make. 

 I did tell her that if she gets stuck I would help her make the last few.

(what was I thinking?)

It was a fun (?) project.  

Actually it was fun sewing with these two ladies in such a beautiful setting.  

We never even turned on the TV or music just listened to the birds and talked, glued and sewed.  PERFECT!  

We used to get together every year to sew a Big Ten quilt and 

I didn't realize until this weekend that I missed this so much. 

 I think we are going to have to try to get together one more Sat before the bad weather makes it impossible (screened in porch) to work and choose another project to work on. 

 We still have 3 Big Ten quilts to make for each of us.  

Hmmmm I see an idea forming!

How was your weekend?

~XOP~

Individual Chicken Pot Pie Recipe

I had several requests for this recipe so here you go!

I got this recipe from my friend Barb, not sure where it originated.

Individual Checken Pot Pies

1 cup diced cooked chicken

(I used one large can of chicken)

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 cup or more frozen veggies

(I used one small bag, not thawed)

1 cup cheese of your choice

I added some garlic salt, to taste.  Minced garlic and or onion would be good too.
Mix all together

Spray muffin pan with Pam 
Take 2 cans pillsbury grand biscuits. Flatten out the biscuit place one in a muffin pan. 

(There will 16)

I pushed mine down a little in the center before baking

Then place in the oven for 4 minutes at 400 degrees

Take out of oven spoon in mixture in each muffin 

Bake 400 for 15 minutes 

Please let me know if you make them and if you liked them too!

~XOP~

Gardening and Stuff

I decided to do some weeding in my woefully neglected garden this past weekend. 

 I was happily weeding along but did not have my gloves on like I usually do.  

We live by a woods and I always worry about Poison Ivy and spiders.  

No Poison Ivy but as I was walking to the next section I happened to look down 

and found this helpful fellow.  

Now I really don't like spiders so this guy creeped me out.  

A Fishing Spider

They are HUGE! 

 Like the size of a silver dollar!!!  

I took it as a sign I should go back inside and sew some more napkins!

First though I snapped a pic of my beautiful Stargazer Lillies!!

I think I forgot to share this sweet little grouping of hexies my friend Windy gave to me at the retreat. 

 I was working on my Christmas Sampler quilt and she thought it would be great for the label.  

Thank you friend!  That made my day.

I have some fabric purchases to share too but need to snap a few pics first. 

 I hope you are having a great week so far.

Oh I almost forgot, someone asked me to talk about how I glue the edges down on the napkins.  

Since the pattern is purchased I can't show with pictures but 

you can use the same technique for your binding. 

The beauty of the glue basting is no pins, perfect positioning of mitered corners and 

everything stays put. 

 You can even reposition if necessary. 

 I use Elmer's Washable School Glue.  

You just put a thin line of glue on your quilt where you want the binding to be, turn the binding and finger press it into the glue then press with your iron.

  The iron sets the glue and your binding will stay in place.  

It will wash out when you wash the quilt! 

 Super easy!  

I watched this video tutorial by Sharon Schamber and decided to give it a try.  

I basically used the same technique with the napkins. 

 I let them dry overnight and sewed them the next day or a few days later.  

I hope that helps.  

If you decide to give it a try let me know how you like it!

Have a wonderful day!

~XOP~

Just When You Thought It Was Safe

I thought with my napkins finished I was done.  

WRONG!  

Hubby wants to go to the tractor show on Saturday.  

 I promised Robin and Judith that I would work on napkins with them.  

So the compromise is that I told Robin I would glue and 

stitch her 50 napkins this week and go for 2 hours in the morning on Saturday to help with Judith's.

I went home with all 50 of Robin's napkins.  Sigh, it was a long night!

The first group were these yellow ones.  

So pretty!

Next in the pile were these bold flowers.  I liked this fabric and the napkins are really pretty!

Autumn was tired with all of the helping she was doing so she took a little rest.

The last set of ten were in the same fabric as the last but a different colorway. 

 I think Autumn did not want these to go!

OK, so I have 3 sets of 10 more glued and ready to stitch.  

I plan on doing the stitching tonight. 

 I should be able to glue up the last 2 sets of 10 tomorrow night at quilting.

I will be pretty happy to see this come to an end.  

The good news is I can glue these in my sleep and am getting much better at the "line" being even all the way around!

Are you sick of seeing napkins yet?

~XOP~

All My Napkins

A saga of napkin making is in progress. 

 I *finally* managed to get all 50 of my napkins finished this weekend.  

They are not perfect, but they are finished!! 

 I have learned a lot of things while making them. 

 Like how to glue the edges so they are a little bit straighter, how to miter the corners a little better and to use my walking foot to topstitch the edges down.  

All in all not too bad.

Now I am going to help Robin with her 50!

In stacks of ten of each color way.

All stacked together

Probably my favorite napkin of the 50

I made these little individual chicken pot pies too and boy were they GOOD! 

 (and super easy)

 Here they are before baking 

and here they are after baking

It was a busy weekend ( which ones aren't lately??)

What did you do over the weekend?

~XOP~

Happy Birthday! (think of the voice of Frosty the snowman here)

So, yeah, that just happened.
 I had another birthday, last Friday!
Woo Hoo!!
After dealing with so much these last few months,
 I was happy to have added another year under my belt.
 My on-line friends and my real life friends have been so great!
When I got to work a co-worker/friend had left these (from her garden) on my desk.
 Aren't they beautiful??

Then my friend, Robin, brought these great HTF Munki Munki prints and gave them to me!

Hubby came to work and took me out for lunch.  Zingerman's YUM!

When I arrived home these beauties were waiting for me from my friend Cori! 

 (Who was NOT supposed to buy me anything). 

 We usually celebrate by going out to dinner as her birthday is in July also.

We ordered Chinese for dinner and hubby bought me my favorite desert, Tiramisu.

My daughter, Shelby, took me out for dinner on Thursday to celebrate. 

 My son had the best line about my birthday too. 

 He asked me how could he compete with 7-11? 

"They celebrate your birthday by giving out free Slurpees to everyone!!!"  

LOL

On Saturday we did some running around and 

one of the places we went was the Calder Dairy farm in Carleton.

Geese on parade!  

They were walking in a straight line all by themselves.

  How odd!

What's a trip to the farm without a photo of the Calder cow?

As you saw from my last post I worked on napkins most of the rest of the weekend. 

 I just want those babies finished and out of my life! 

 I have a new project planned, but more about that once I have my fabric pulled.

Other friends from the internet sent cards, a cake, some fabric and some Best Press too.

 (Thanks, Dianne, Windy and Abby!!)   

No gifts from the family though.  

I guess that means I am free to buy whatever I want right? 

 That's how I am taking that one!  

It was a little disappointing if I am being completely honest but 

I guess it is not as exciting to them to celebrate my aging, LOL.  

How do you celebrate your birthday?

~XOP~

WIP Wednesday

I am linking up to Lee's WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced. 

 It seems like I have been working on Patchwork napkins forever!!  

I now have 50 fronts sewn, pressed and trimmed.  

No thanks to my helper!

Autumn thought this pile of napkins made a great place to nap! 

 GREAT, now I will have to de-fur them too. 

 I hope no one at the wedding reception is allergic to cats!!

I also have 50 backs cut and corners trimmed. 

 All I need to do is put them together and sew the edging. 

 It takes some time to press and sew the edging. 

 I practiced and it goes much easier using Elmer's washable school glue and a hot iron. 

 I need to press and glue all the edges then top stitch them down.  

The gray fabric is from Allissa Haight Carlton's new line of Modern Solids,

 or so my friend Judith tells me, and it was wonderful to work with! 

 You can find it at Marmalade Fabrics and probably other places too.  

The patchwork and backs are all Kaffe Fassett fabrics.

I am hoping to get my 50 (of the total 200) finished this weekend. 

 Hey a person can dream right?

What is your current WIP?

~XOP~

AAMQG Retreat

I am so far behind in my blogging.  

Life has so gotten in the way of this blog.  

Sorry to all of you.  

I have been sewing just no time to talk about it here.  

I seem to be doing a lot of Instagraming. 

 You can find me there at mamaspark59.

The AAMQG had a retreat a few weekends ago that I went to. 

 I left on a Thursday and met up with my friend, Windy, from Grand Rapids.  

It was so great that she got to join our retreat!! 

 We met on Instagram and became friends in real life too.  

I packed WAY more than I thought I would finish, but I was hopeful!  

My daughter's car is still in the shop and she has my car so

 I am religated to driving the Mustang convertible.  

Awe, poor me!  

Except that the top needs to be repaired so I am not allowed to put the top down!  

EVERYONE judges me as I am driving on a beautiful day with the top up and everyone wants to race me leaving stop lights, LOL.

Here is what my trunk looked like.

First up on my long list of projects to finish was my Birdie Stitches quilt top. 

 I had to add the little squares around 3 of the blocks, cut the sashing and the borders.  

Then I got to assemble it. 

 I managed to get this finished on Thursday before I went to bed.  

Now I have to make a back and make some binding and send it to the quilter!

 Next up, on Friday was to sew my Christmas Sampler BOM from the Fat Quarter Shop. 

 I had a LOT of work to do on that top for sure.  

The sashing is pieced and so is the border.  

I worked all day on Friday and all night.  

Not finished but a good way to the goal for sure.  

Saturday I got up and started on it again. 

 This time I was successful in getting the entire top completed!

Now I was on a roll!!  

What to do next?  

As you know I agreed to help my friend make napkins for her daughter's wedding reception, 

so I dug in and started making blocks.

Windy brought some Flatter by Soak and it was fabulous to use for the pressing.  

I got about 35 different blocks done which was a great start to the 50 or so I committed to making.

It was late then so I packed up and went to bed.  

I helped clean up on Sunday and headed home around lunch time. 

 We were leaving on Monday afternoon for North Carolina to watch my daughter defend her thesis, so there was lots to get ready for the road trip!  

I will leave that for another day though.

~XOP~