Chatbug Karen

I cannot seem to get my fill of learning about longarm quilting. Since mom got the machine, I have been watching YouTube and joined 3 forums! I have learned so much that I have taken to keeping all my new found knowledge in a notebook for future reference. Go me!

Hubby headed to the casino this afternoon and I have the house to myself. I don’t know which project to start on first. Decisions, decisions.

I am making a quilt for my daughter that is called hearts and gizzards. Has anyone heard of this quilt? It is fun but I think it will take me four years to complete. There is no fast way to make this quilt.
Here is a picture of one block.
Here is how the blocks look when put together to make the quilt.

Stacy’s quilt is in blues. 240 hearts to make! I think I have made about 60 hearts.

I finished this quilt and got it back from the lady I hired to do the longarm quilting on it. She did a beautiful job quilting it but now that mom bought a longarm, I can quilt them myself. It is so much fun quilting on that machine! It is always better when you have your own equipment. Whether it be earring display cards, sewing machines or computers, having control over your own work is so much better.

Feel free to skip reading this post because it is a whining one. I have been having headaches. The farmers in our area are harvesting corn and soy beans and that means there is a lot of stuff floating in the air. I get headaches this time of year and I cannot get rid of them!

With headaches comes sleep issues. I took a sleep aid Sunday night and still couldn’t get to sleep and I had the weirdest dream! I dreamt about two elderly women who came to me because they needed medical air evacuation! What?? They had long, gray, stringy hair and they were concerned because it was falling out. I have no idea what brought these thoughts to my dreams.

I have been frustrated while watching television in our lodge room the past year. The picture will decide to roll at a moments notice. It might have been because the tv was over 15 years old! Yes, we had one of those huge projection televisions that took up 5 feet of floor space. Watching that tv didn’t really bother me because it was in the room where I sew. That meant I only occasionally looked at the tv. Once my husband started watching more tv in that room instead of our living room, it was time for a new tv. It helped that he received some birthday money that he was itching to spend.

Off we went to the store to check out televisions. Our kids had schooled us on what to look for in the way of pixels and LED vs LCD. We were armed with information. We passed by the samsung digital cameras and blue ray players and found an endless row of televisions. It was a good thing we knew what we wanted. We narrowed down our choices, determined by size, pixels, LED and price. We are now the owners of a new tv! I feel young again! LOL

Guess what my mom bought!! I am so excited that she bought a longarm quilting machine and frame because I get to use it. I have been studying this video until my eyes have begun to bug out. I am posting it here to make it easy to find. Hopefully, all this will become routine but for now, I have to learn how to, properly, load a quilt.

A friend asked for help making pillow case style dresses to donate to her church group. Her church group will be taking them to Africa! I hope the little girls like these two that I made.

A fellow blogger had a picture of gelato on her blog and it reminded me of the time we went to The Hill in St. Louis and had gelato. It seems that everyone, including a raleigh business lawyer, has had gelato except me!

Gelato is an Italian frozen dessert similar to ice cream. Well, I wasn’t impressed. Nothing can hold a candle to Atz’s Moose Tracks. For those of you who are interested in how gelato is made, I did find the following recipe from Allrecipes.com.

Gelato
Ingredients:
2 cups milk
1 cup heavy cream

4 egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
Directions:
1. In a medium saucepan, mix milk and cream. Warm until foam forms around the edges. Remove from heat.
2. In a large bowl, beat the egg yolks and sugar until frothy. Gradually pour the warm milk into the egg yolks, whisking constantly. Return mixture to saucepan; cook over medium heat, stirring with a wooden spoon until the mixture gels slightly and coats the back of the spoon. If small egg lumps begin to show, remove from heat immediately.
3. Pour the mixture through a sieve or fine strainer into a bowl. Cover, and chill for several hours or overnight.
4. Pour the mixture into an ice cream maker, and freeze according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Transfer to a sealed container, and freeze until firm. If the gelato is too firm, place it in the refrigerator until it reaches the desired consistency.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © 2011 Allrecipes.com

I always smile when I see my blog listed on a post saying I was one of that blog’s top droppers. Check out Entrecard to see what the heck I am talking about. LOL
Here are the top droppers on this blog for the month of September. Thank you top droppers!