Photo Finish{es}

Done! Done! Done! I love it when I can say that...

Baby Dane received his quilt this past Saturday. We had a graduation celebration for my cousin, Austin, and my hunch was right...Baby D made his grand appearance and was just as sweet as could be. The quilt turned out to be less "rugby-ish" than I had planned, but still cute.

I originally sewed a barbershop pole binding on, but for some crazy reason when I was attaching it I only used an 1/8th inch seam! It looked silly...and I kicked myself for a week then set the whole project aside while I decided what to do with it. *grin* I ended up cutting off the binding (in lieu of seam-ripping a million stitches), squaring up the quilt, and attaching a brand new non-diagonal binding. I like the effect. I admit to machine binding it on, too. It was midnight on Friday when I finally got around to tackling this one.

And, since I was starting over on the binding, I decided to also add more quilting. The straight lines in navy blue sort of got lost! I added wavy red lines, and there went the rugby. I'm not sure what the new look says -- I was thinking something like "Oh, the places you'll go!" or "Road Trip."

Moving right along... Last night, after seeing it at my local quilt shop and memorizing how many charm squares were on each side, I made up my own "pattern" for a bag. With little help in getting from Point A to Point B beyond my memory, I set out to conquer! I picked up a charm park of Arcadia from Moda + some additional yardage (3/4) that I planned to use as a lining. Coupled with thread and some fusible fleece (and, it would seem as with all my projects, a bit of blood, sweat, and tears) I came up with this:

I am especially proud of the handles -- I made 'em up. *grin* The charm pack only had 36 squares in it and the bag ended up using 32. No way was I going to get decent-length handles out of 4 measely charm squares. Hehehe... I ended up stealing some sashing from my Crazy Eights quilt, cutting a 5"x42" strip, cutting that down to 5"x21" for two handles, and cutting those in half so I could piece in two of the leftover charms. I'm happy with how they turned out --- I cheated and didn't add fusible anything so they're slightly flimsy. Also, the bag bottom sags. My fusible fleece wasn't as heavy-duty as it was for my last bag. That one stands up on its own; this one is going to need some help. The Velcro tabs give it a bit of shape; I figure I'll add a thin piece of veneer cut to size to toughen up the bottom. All in all, I like it. Much. Upon much!

On other fronts: I made Dan chocolate-cake-in-a-mug.

The recipe came by email from a co-worker and I told her I'd try it and report. The cake itself was simple to make; you "bake" it in the microwave in a large coffee mug. It was pretty funny watching it rise up and out of the mug during its 3 minute cook time. I ran for my camera to document the process, but by the time I'd retrieved it, the cake top had climbed up and out of the cup and fallen onto the turntable. It reminded me of those crazy growing snake fireworks my brother used to set off for the 4th. You'd light the paper and this snake would, well, "ooze" out of its container. Yup, gross. And that's what the cake looked like, too, as it became more than just batter. I think I might need a larger "large" coffee mug...but it was all I had. I added toffee bits and chocolate chunks to the batter --- I'm glad I did as I think it would've been a bit bland without. The texture of the cake is odd. Not light and airy like an oven-baked cake; more dense and spongy. I admit it looks a bit unappetizing, but for microwave cake it tastes pretty good. "It's not so bad. Once you muscle your way past the gag reflex, all kinds of possibilities open up." Hehehe...name that movie!

Oh! I almost forgot... Last week for some reason I did this:

I like it. *grin* I've always wanted one of those "established" signs, but never quite found something that suited my sense (cough, cough) of style. I was wandering around Meijer looking for something other than this and found these raised foam letters in with the scrapbooking supplies.


I really can't tell you why I bought them, but buy them I did --- and ended up sticking them on our lampshade. It's neat...and, well, odd. And I dig being odd. Did I mention cheap? Yes, cheap, too. Gotta love that!

Definitely a photo finish. And definitely finished with photos, at least for now. Tonight is an evening with 007 at the GR Symphony -- I'm geeked... *grin*