Lots of WIPs

My IntelliQuilter is supposed to be delivered this week, though I haven't yet received a tracking number and there's not much left of the week, so I've been trying to finish up lots of stuff so that I can devote all my time to quilting once it shows up.

I have both halves of my Water Drop quilt for the QAL finished.  The top half assembly was last Thursday's task and the bottom half will be this Thursday's task.  Shh...don't tell, but I have the whole top completed!


My daughter has been trying to steal a few minutes here and there in between class work.  She has the rows for the top all assembled and partially sewn together.  She has not made any of the bottom half of the quilt yet.

The Morewood Mystery clue for September came out last Thursday.  I had mine sewn and cut before Cheryl did the FB live on Friday, but I did go back and watch it and learned a new trick to use in the future.

I'm making several Quilts for Kids tops to practice with the IQ.  I got one top done and started on the blocks for a second, but I have spent a lot of time helping my kids with school work this week--I have one starting college and one in middle school.  Both are online this semester.  Our experiences have been positive. I've heard that many are struggling with the online format. Around 70% of the students in our district chose to return to in-person schooling on Tuesday despite a local 15% positivity rate, but we are committed to being home and staying safe for the semester.  I am fortunate to have the choice of staying home and also fortunate that we are able to help our kids with their work if necessary.  And maybe the 30% of the kids staying home are freeing up a little more space for distancing in the classrooms for those who can't or won't stay home.  


I had another large batch of tomatoes ripen all at once.  My husband tried making spaghetti sauce from scratch last time we had a large batch.  It was okay, but not like a normal sauce.  I found a recipe that showed the lazy way to cook the tomatoes.  I had mixed success.  Many of my tomatoes didn't really cook down.  Maybe I could have cooked them longer, or maybe whatever variety we are growing wasn't the ideal.  I was left with a mix of mostly intact tomato halves and some that looked like canned tomato sauce--really thin and runny.

I doctored it by pulsing the whole chunks in the food processor, straining what I could to remove as many seeds as possible, and then adding a can of tomato paste to it.  It ended up looking like jarred pasta sauce.  It could have been more seasoned, but it was edible, so....

I also made this cheddar zucchini bread twice.  I don't love zucchini, so we bought some at the grocery store.  I used a box grater to shred the zucchini and the bread came out great!  Oh, we also purchased the chives since ours didn't grow this year.

We have found one monarch chrysalis in our yard.  We have lots of caterpillars now, but the only other chrysalis we found got eaten by a worm.

We also found that we are growing a tomato plant out of our compost bin.  And it has lots of tomatoes growing on it!  We aren't great at composting and we tend to feed a lot of animals in our yard from the bin, but the tomato grew into the enclosed vegetable garden.

I hope you have a great, safe, productive week.

Linking with For the love of geese and My Quilt Infatuation.

4 comments

  1. Anne-Marie, you must be SO excited about your IntelliQuilter! I think it's awesome that your daughter is doing the QAL with you, and working on tops specifically for learning with the new computer robotics system is brilliant. Keep us posted and have a great week!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Congrats on an IQ coming your way! Yay for a chrysalis! Great job on the quilts for kids top!

    ReplyDelete
  3. A very productive time in your household. Enjoy your new toy.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Lots of WIPs for sure! I'm sure you can hardly wait for your new IQ to get them finished. I've done a few the kits for Quilts for Kids. They are easy and fun to make and for a great cause. Can't wait to see your quilted finishes.

    ReplyDelete