New Great Grandbaby - Great Grandbaby - Finish for March

My granddaughter had her baby, Cecilia Marie, this past Thurdsday, March 24th, and she was a big baby for a tiny mama.  Little Cecilia arrived weighing 9 pounds 4 ounces.  She's a cutie, I can't wait to see her in person.  

Here's another cutie my first great-granddaughter on the porch enjoying the spring weather.   I have 3 great grandbabys now, including my grandson's girlfriends little boy, who is 18 months old.  Mackenzie is 15 months old. 

Amy's BOM quilt is all done without too many days to spare to keep to my goal of a finish a month.   It's definitely not perfect, but I'm pretty happy with it.  Now to wash it and dry it and make it crinkly, lol.

On to the Basting

The back is ready, on to the sandwiching and basting.  Almost two weeks left to have a finish for March, and I'm committed now, lol.

Fllimsy Amy's BOM 2010

I'm on track to keep up with my goal of at least 1 finish a month.  My version of Amy's BOM 2010 January thru May is now a flimsy.  It should finish up about 58 x 86, so it will be a generous sized lap quilt, no cold toes or ears.

DH and I had gone through my little stash and found a fabric for the border, but I just couldn't get happy about it.  Yesterday we went to our local quilt shop and the cupboards were almost bare, they had taken half the store to a quilt expo show.  However, they did have 1 fabric that had the colors I was looking for and big fish, too.  I wasn't too crazy at first about the big fish, but now they have grown on me.   This quilt doesn't have any destination, but I'm sure that something will come up, or maybe it will be for me.   That's what I think about all my quilts until something or someone comes up.

 

Happy St. Patrick's Day
This is the day of the year when my 1/16th Irish comes to the forefront and likes to brag, lol.
Irish Soda Bread for breakfast. 

Irish Soda Bread

When I was part of the work force we had a lady in our office named Kathy McDonough who loved St Patrick's day.  We had an office that started out probably about 50 people and ended up closer to 100, and each year before St Patrick's day she started baking and freezing Irish Soda Bread.  On St Patrick's Day she would bring in many many loaves, enough for everybody and we would feast on Irish Soda Bread.  She did this for probably at least 10 years maybe more until they closed our office.  Grrr corporate America.  She was kind enough to share the recipe with me after I nagged for a year or two and I'd like to share it with you if there is anyone interested.  It is tried and true and delicious, Happy St Patrick's Day  a little early:

 

                                                   Irish Soda Bread
4 cups flour
1 1/2  tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 or 2 Tbsp. caraway seeds
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup raisins
2 Tbsp. melted butter
2 lightly beaten eggs
1 1/2 sups buttermilk (if no buttermilk, you can make sour milk by adding a couple of Tbsp. of vinegar
          or lemon juice to regular milk)

 Sift flour, soda and salt together and add seeds, sugar and raisins.  Mix butter, eggs and milk and stir into flour mixture.  I then wash my hands spray them with Pam and finish mixing with my hands until will form a soft little bit floppy ball.  I bake mine in 2 greased 6 inch cake pans (the picture above is a double recipe), but you can bake them in 1 greased 8 or 9 inch cake pan.  Cut a cross in the top about 1/2 inch deep, all the way from end to end.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 1 1/4 hours for the large loaf or about 50 minutes for the small loaves.  Cool and wrap in foil.

Enjoy the caraway raisiny goodness.  DH and I love it.

Sewing Buddy? Amy's BOM 2010 and RRCB Progress

On Quiltvillechat they talk about the snails of which I am a snail extraordinaire.  I now have 22 of my 60 string blocks prepared for my RRCB.   The other day a lady DH and I knew from work came over to sew with me.   We had run into her different times over the past few years, we don't live in a really big town.  The last time about 2 weeks ago it came out that she's working on her first quilt, a baby quilt for her new great-grandbaby, and I invited her to come over and sew with me.   We had a nice time, I helped her a little, and got these two blocks made, and we went and had BBQ, one of my favorite parts, lol.   There is a Shop Hop coming up, she's never been and she and DH and I might go together, also I think that we may sew together again.   I haven't had anyone to sew with before, except for making the tote bags with my daughter, so it was nice.  She is new at quilting, but not at sewing.  She amazed me by having made her daughter's wedding dress years ago.

I was going to go for a setting of 4x6 blocks on Amy's 2010 BOM, but when I got to figuring, I decided that that would be a little bigger than I would want.  I figured it again and with a 3x5 setting and borders I should end up with about 58" x 86" which is just about the size I like for adult lap quilts.  I'm trying to use my stash as much as possible and I had this batik with mostly the same colors so I decided to use it for sashing and I have a purple and yellow print to use for a small border and a Kaffe Fassett fabric with blues, yellows, greens  and  pinky lavenders to use for the wide border.   The color combos may be a little strange, but most of mine are, lol.   I still want to do more of Amy's blocks, but I think that I'll switch over to red, white, and blue.   That will be after I finish my paintbox quilts and hopefully Iowa (Carolina) Christmas.   Meanwhile, I have about 2 weeks to finish this one and I'll keep up with my goal for at least one finish a month, Yippee.

Amy's BOM a Lot Late - Giveaway Win

Better late than never.  These are last years May blocks from Amy's BOM.  I am not going to do all the blocks at this time, but I am doing enough to make my version of Linda from Living4Quiltings pretty flimsy.

Block #2 "Follow the Leader"

Block #3 "Ohio Star"

Block #1 "Road to the White House"

My DGS moved into a new apartment, works at Publix, so he needs ironed dress shirts daily and he didn't have an iron.   I gave him mine which was pretty new, but I had never been really pleased with it because it didn't seem to be hot enough even when set to linen.  I got this non steam iron from Vermont Country Store and boy does it get hot.  I had to set it back to cotton.  I've only used it a few times, but I think I'm really going to like it.

And best of all, I won Anita from BedofRosesMQ's giveaway.   Bonnie's book is just as good as I expected with lots of information and gorgeous quilts.  Now I have all three, yea!  Thank you so much Anita for your generous gift.