It's a start....

After months of procrastination and indecision, I have FINALLY begun my first quilt!!!! I am really excited about it! There is so much inspiration out there for modern quilting and I become obsessed with these fabulous quilts that are being made. I really really want to make some fabulous quilts of my own, but I'm so scared of messing up or not having it turn out perfect, that I've had "stage fright" for a while now. But I came to the conclusion that A quilt (perfect or not) is better than NO quilt! Right?!?! So I've decided to keep this first one very simple. It's going to be a "stacked coin" baby (or lap) quilt and instead of using my best fabric, I'm using fabric from a charm pack I bought a long time ago at a quilting store with my mom. I'm not familiar with the designer, but the fabric is decent enough and is in bright, summery colors. (Califon by Mark Lipinski). My main concern is to not completely destroy it. So far, so good. I've cut the square charms into rectangles and sewed 4 rows of 15 blocks so far. Now all thats left is the (really) hard part of figuring what sashing and borders and (God help me) binding to use, and then sewing all that together. The binding is what scares me the most....I've read books and tutoriasl about it, and had my mom explain it to me over the phone, but when I actually tried to do it on a pillow, it was a disaster and I ended up not using binding at all. So. I'm really just trying to focus on getting through the process of it all and not worrying about how good everything turns out; I just need the learning experience. It is SO HARD for me though! I've never considered myself a perfectionist.........okay well maybe I have. It's just so frustrating when you're learning a craft like this and you KNOW perfection is not expected the first few go 'rounds........ohhhh but I want it so bad!!!! Patience is NOT one of my virtues. :-( But anywho, without further adeu, here is the beginning of my first quilt!!! I plan to call it "summer splash". I think its fitting enough. Any ideas or thoughts about colors for sashing, border, etc are appreciated!!


These are the fabrics I'm using. They were 5'' squares that I just cut in half. I wanted to do a rainbow sort of thing with having all the same coordinating colors grouped together, but the fabric didn't allow for that, so I ended up decided to have one strip be a rainbow progression and the rest of the strips be random, sort of like creating order from chaos.....so philiosphical, I know :-p



Here's my calming, rainbow strip.




And now here's all the stips sewed together. I decided for the sake of randomness and moderness to put the rainbow strip in the middle....but I dont know if it would look better on one of the ends.....still trying to decide. Miss indecsion here. Anyone have an opinion? :-p

Can't wait to see how it turns out!!

What's For Dinner?

A miracle happened in my kitchen yesterday. I followed a recipe I found in a magazine...it wasn't even the magazine's recipe, it was an advertisement for tomato sauce. Well anyways, I decided to make it, even though I was skeptical, because it seemed strange to me. But I thought, "what the hell, I'll give it a try." And I am so glad I did because it was so good, and relatively simple to make. Luis loved it and dubbed it my "best ever". And that's saying something. Now I have a decent thing to make the next time (first time) we invite someone over for dinner!


Chicken Rollatini

3 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves (I used the thinly-sliced breasts)
1 pkg Genoa salami slices
1 pkg provolone cheese slices
18 asparagus spears, trimmed
1 jar tomato sauce (I used Classico Spicy Tomato and Basil)
1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

1. Preheat oven to 350. Halve each chicken breast and pound to 1/4 inch thick. Season with salt and pepper.

2. Place 1 salami slice, 1 cheese slice and 3 asparagus spears in the center of each chicken breast. Roll up and secure with a wooden toothpick.



3. Spread some tomato sauce in a baking dish (11x7 or so). Place chicken rolls in the dish, and cover with the remaining sauce and sprinkle with shredded cheese.





4. Bake, uncovered for 30 to 40 minutes or until cooked through.

5. Enjoy! It looks so pretty when you cut into it! And tastes great!

Tony Romo!

This past Saturday, Luis and I went to the Ginger Man in Dallas to watch The After 5 Band. A buddy from my bowling team is their drummer. They covered some really good classic rock and we had a great time sipping on our Sam Adams and Shiner Bock. My friend, Danielle, from college met us there with some of her friends. A few minutes after she got there, she ran over to me and exclaimed, "Tony Romo is HERE!". As you can imagine, I just about fell off my bar stool. "OMG! REALLY?!?! WHERE?!?!?!?!?!?!" Oh, geez, like 2 whole feet in front of us! He was sitting at a table a few feet away from us with what looked like some friends and, of course, his blonde-haired-barbie-faced gilfriend, who, I must say, was entirely way to overdressed for the Gman. C'mon. At least he was perfect. White tennis shoes, blue jeans, baseball tshirt and ball cap. Mmmmmm. :-) So while the band was really good, the remainder of the evening I spent drooling and trying to take inconspicuous photographs, of which I will post later. For now though, I'll leave you with this picture, which Tony requested; it's of him and the band. The guy in front with the cig and beer is my buddy, Mike. The tall drink of water in the back with the hat on is Tony :-) .....I should have run up there and photo-hijacked that.

Currently...

I just spent 3 hours trying to figure out how to use paint.net to create my blog header.... Is this how our parents felt when we tried to teach them to do "simple" things like using Facebook and sending a text? You'd think using a photo-editing application wouldn't be that hard....I'm scared for myself in 10 years.

As excruciating as it was, I am very pleased with the outcome, and after fiddling with colors, fonts, etc, I can now sit back and enjoy my blog. Except...I haven't updated in a while, and I'm sure people have stopped checking.

SOOOO I have created this new post just so my creative endeavors can be appreciated by others :-p.

No really, I do have something substantial to say:

Currently, I find myself extremely drawn to music. I have always liked music, but literally, in the past 4 days I've downloaded about $50 worth of songs and albums off iTunes. My music is constantly on and I find myself playing the same songs over, and over, and over. Surprisingly, most of the stuff I've been getting is by bands that I've never even heard of. But OMG I am obsessed with all of them now.

Two particularly have a very mellow, "indie" kind of sound, which I really really like. One group is called the XX. They did the awesome instrumental for the Apollo Ohno AT&T commercial during the Olympics. They are from South London and their sound is really unique. I bought their whole album. I especially like "Infinity". For some reason, it reminds me a little of Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game". And I LOVE that song :-p

The other group, Civil Twilight, is from South Africa. They are freaking amazing. I bought their whole album also. They currently have a song on the radio called "Letters From the Sky" which I immediately fell in love with. The rest of their stuff is just as good or better. "Human" and "On the Surface" are my favorites. The thing I like most about this band is that they are very "real". I don't really know how to explain that other than by saying that it "speaks" to me in ways the rest of the crap on the radio doesn't. And Steven McKellar's voice is intriguing.

Other (maybe more known) bands I've been downloading include: Alphanaut, Silversun Pickups, Metric, Phoenix, and LOTS of 30 Seconds to Mars.

Check them out and let me know what you think! What are you listening to these days? Any good suggestions?

Home Sweet Colorado

We just got back from an awesome vacation in Colorado where we skiing at Keystone. Love that place. As I said in a previous post, I have been going there almost every year since I was about 5, so it really is a home-away-from-home for me. I was so happy to get to share that experience with some great friends and see them fall in love with one of the greatest places (and sports)! We stayed in Frisco, CO which is just a short drive from the slopes. The town is so quaint! Full of cute little shops, restaurants, etc. Of course, most of our time was spent on the mountain, and it was marvelous. Can't WAIT to go back!


Me and Lou


Me and Angie on Schoolmarm!


Lou and cousin Darrell


Everyone had a great time!


My ski bunny :-)

Projects!

So now that Valentines Day is over, I can finally post on here and show my special projects I've been working on!

First, me and my mom went to CityCraft where I got this awesome fabric. Hope Valley by Denyse Schmidt and Timber by Jessica Levitt. I freaking LOVE these fabrics!


So I took these fabrics and made this block, which I had posted on my facebook at the beginning of the month. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it, but I ended up turning it into a pillow for myself.




While we were at the fabric store, we saw a pillow they had made with the same fabric. My mom and I both really liked it, and so I decided to make one for my momma for Valentines! This is her pillow. Unfortunately I forgot to take a pic of it all put together, but this is the front, and I did the back in the pink flower patter (the one in the center of the heart).


She loved it! And so do I! I think I will have to make another one for myself! :-)

The next project I undertook was for my friend Angela. She had been feeling down lately and I really wanted to do something special to cheer her up. So I put together a little care package and included this pillow, which I made specially just for her! I hope she loves it!



Angela's pillow!!!


Back of Angela's pillow :-) Love this fabric!

Then the next weekend, my friend Lauren came over and we had a whole afternoon of sewing! We went to CityCraft (again) and we picked out some awesome Michael Miller fabric, which we promptly sewed into an awesome tote bag for her! It was so fun and she did so well!!!

Lauren's Michael Miller fabric. Pretty!





THE pin......long but funny story :-)


Lauren and her new tote bag!

GO RED!

It's here again! The American Heart Association's National Go RED for Women day is Friday, February 5th. Wear RED and show your support for the fight against heart disease, the number one killer of women in the United States. Go HERE to make donations, sign up for the Go RED movement, take the Heart CheckUp, get heart healthy recipies, and much more!