Revamp & Haggis

I'm going to be trying to revamp the ol' blog here. I'd like to focus on more homeschooling stuff mixed in with homesteading, recipes, and writing. Heck, I know there are a ton of blogs out there that cover those things, but it's nice to get my ideas out in the open too. I write a lot at my history blog as well, so things might be sporadic here, but I'm going to try to keep it going!

Right now I'm preparing for a co-op class I'll be teaching - Holidays and Holy Days. Our first lesson is going to be about Robert Burns Night from Scotland. I've made some haggis (it's really good, people!) and shortbread. I was thinking we'd act out a mini Robert Burns Night, and I've got a craft planned for designing your own tartan! I hope it goes well.

I found a recipe for crock pot haggis. It uses ground beef and ground lamb with steel cut oats - pinhead oats as the Scots call it. It was a little fatty, but if you pair it with neeps and tatties (mashed golden turnips and mashed potatoes) it's wonderful! The combination of beef and lamb is good. If you're not used to lamb, it's a different sort of flavor to get used to, but I like it.

Crockpot Haggis

Here is the tartan design I made as an example using strips of cardstock over a sheet of plain cardstock.

I'm a huge fan of cardstock and loathe construction paper. If you want to keep a project, cardstock keeps its color and integrity much better over time than construction paper.

Chicken Harvest

Our roosters getting some fresh air and relaxation before the end...
Farewell, Gussie, Kung Pao, & Hot Wings! We'll miss your lovely crowing!
(though I don't think our neighbor will)

I really never felt this day would come, but it finally did! We had four roosters and only needed one. So, with the help of a lady down the road with a large flock of chickens herself, we killed and processed our extra three roosters.

Wow! What an experience!

I did feel a little trepidation since it was my first time. I thought a lot about what we were about to do and wondered how I would feel. Doing away with them humanely was not as hard as I thought it would be, but I did feel a great feeling of gratitude and some sadness that they were giving their lives to feed our bellies. I also thought that it was the way of life and I felt honored to finally be apart of it in such a personal way. I love knowing where the chickens lived and what they ate - because we fed them ourselves! They were happy roosters too. 

I helped pluck feathers and clean out one of them. It was good learning what it took to get a chicken ready to eat. We even had to chill them in the fridge and wait a few days before we could eat them which I didn't realize. If we decide to get into meat birds, I now know what that would all entail!

It's Been Awhile...

Oh, dear! It's been awhile hasn't it? I've taken a long break from my homesteading blog to nurture my history blog. Lately, though I've been wanting to post things about our homeschooling, gardening, and other such things. So I thought it might be nice to post here again now and then.

Some exciting homesteading updates - we finally got chickens! Out of 12 chicks we ended up with 4 roosters and 8 hens. Right now we're trying to figure out where to send our roosters because our neighbors have late hours and I don't blame them for not wanting an alarm clock at 5:30 am!

I've expanded my garden to 3 raised beds, put in asparagus, some thornless raspberries, and planted a fig tree. It's already got a dozen little figs growing and I'm so excited! The deer have left it alone too, which is a miracle. I even got some rhubarb to grow by accident. I quite gave up on it last year and I thought I planted the dead plant in the fall in my garden, but this spring my husband found a rhubarb plant in the compost and I have NO idea how it got there! Happy day, though! I've had a heck of a time getting rhubarb to grow.

We're also in the midst of some big home improvement projects. As we've stripped away the layers of time, it's been interesting to see the original beams and methods of construction in our 1900s house. It's slow going, but we're excited about getting the house closer to the way we want it.

Also, while we were in northern Montana for vacation I did a little photo shoot of farm equipment. It sounds a bit funny, but I love the look of industrial mixed with other things like nature.

I'm busy planning for our next year of homeschooling and I'm excited! We're studying American history with an emphasis on technology. Some field trip highlights: Robert Fulton's birthplace (invented the first working, practical steam boat) and the Daniel Boone Homestead with a functioning, original saw mill - both in Pennsylvania. We're also studying Physics this year with a fun trip to the Maryland Science Center for their homeschool week. Lots of fun planned for this year!

Well, that's a pretty good update. Happy Summer!

Get Into The Garden

I've had to trick myself into going into the garden. Last year, after moving into our new house in May, we rushed to get the garden plowed up and planted. And then I just let it do its thing. What I discovered, however, is that you can never just sit and let a garden "do its thing". If you do, without even realizing the weeds take over practically overnight, your tomato plants grow exponentially before you have a chance to pinch off any suckers, and your squash plants take over everything until you can't find where your pepper plants were. Let's just say my gardening plan was majorly flawed.

This year we're trying a different tactic. I changed my garden to raised beds using the plot markers, put down newspaper and a bunch of mulch and the biggest key: I told myself I had to spend at least 5 minutes gardening a day - I would not only be taking care of my garden, but I would also receive much needed exercise and therapeutic relaxation at the same time!

The amazing thing about the 5 minute promise to myself is that I rarely only spend 5 minutes. Most days I spend a lot longer digging, weeding, pruning, etc. But if I told myself I had to work at least 15 minutes, I don't know if I would feel as motivated to get out there, especially if the day was hot. 5 minutes though - I can do that!

So far, this method has been working great. Minus days that it's raining, I have been outside gardening way more than I was last year. Some days I get a lot done, other days I don't. But the point is that little by little I'm making progress and keeping tabs on what's going on with our property. One day I just spent hacking at an ugly bush by our front porch. Another day I dug up a miniscule part of our heavy infestation of daffodil bulbs and planted some along the front of our property by the street. (That was way more work!) Sometimes it's hard to grasp that little tiny efforts along the way add up in the end. The nice thing with gardening is that you can actually see the fruits of your labor fairly quickly. If you don't do anything, though, the weeds will let you know - that's for sure!

Raised beds using plot markers.

A massive carpet of daffodils. It's ridiculous.

The cute fuzzy little caterpillars (tent worms) that I suspect are responsible for deflowering our entire pear tree and some of our currant bush. Arrrrh!!! We definitely need chickens!

A pretty iris - this is the only one of this color on our property. 

Spring is Here

Spring arrived on our little homestead a few weeks early! Well, ever since January, the stubborn spring flowers have been coming up. We even had violets spring up in the beginning of February! So, to say our winter has been on the mild side would be an understatement.

Here are some pictures of our early bloomers plus a couple cute birds visiting our bird feeder:

Sweet little guy!

White Crocus
The first flower to appear (not counting the very early violets)
There are some purple ones blooming now!

Another bird visitor

My red currant is showing buds! Yay!

Daffodils growing like crazy in our yard.
Why the previous owner planted them here is beyond me!

A bulb I planted back in October. I can't remember what it is.

Daffodils!
(There are plenty)

Budding Bartlett pear tree

The strawberries are growing too!

We've had two snow storms since they've starting growing and budding, but it doesn't seem to phase them too much. Now I really need to get going on planning our garden and starting some seeds!

Happy Early Spring!

An Owl Visitor

A beautiful barred owl 

Look who came to visit us the other day! There were actually two in the trees, but we didn't see the other one until they both flew away. And then just a few nights ago I was loading my daughter up into our car. It was dark out and I heard 3-4 owls hooting loudly to each other in our trees. We hear them fairly often from a distance, but when they're in our treeline by our yard, they are loud! It was so cool! It was too bad it was so dark, because that would have been neat to see.

Dyeing Mishap

Today I was dyeing my daughter's white comfort blanket a nice shade of blue. I sewed a bunch of her baby burp rags together into a large blanket, and even though she's 3, she still loves snuggling with those burp rags! Well, I didn't want 8+ years of stains showing (I used them for my son as well who is now 6), so dyeing was the obvious solution.

I put on my rubber cleaning gloves and was squishing the fabric in the dyeing water for about 10 minutes before I had to take my gloves off to do something. Little did I know that one of the fingers had a tiny slit in it and...

Yikes!

Of course it had to be my middle finger that was dyed! I don't really want any attention to be drawn to my middle finger, especially because I'm not the sort of person that just flips people off, you know?!

Next time, a thorough inspection of my gloves will be done before I start dyeing.

Sheesh!

From Pallets to Chicken Coop

Our own homegrown eggs are so close!!!

My husband and I are preparing for the project I've been waiting for most of my life: building a chicken coop to house some chickens! We got this great idea from Mother Earth News for building a chicken coop out of wood pallets. You can usually get wood pallets for free and we're lucky in that our neighbor occasionally ends up with pallets in relation to his job and doesn't know what to do with them. Now that he knows we're collecting them, he just brings them on over! Sweet!

Well, we only have 2 pallets so far, so it's going a bit slow. I guess that's okay though. The wood is free! Sometimes "free" takes time. :-)

I am so thrilled to finally be able to seriously think about chickens! It's always been so far in the distance that I haven't even settled on what breeds I want or how many. I'll need to bust out my chicken book and get studying.!

Homemade Brown Sugar

For me, brown sugar is one of those things that I don't really think about until I need it in a recipe. Usually I have some on hand, but the last time I needed it - I was totally out! I had no time to go out to buy some and it was Sunday. We usually don't go shopping on Sunday. So I was stuck! What was I going to do? Thankfully, I remembered that I had stashed away a recipe on making your own brown sugar with two ingredients - sugar and molasses.

I dumped about 2 lbs. of sugar into a bowl, poured on about a half cup of molasses and started stirring. It definitely turned into brown sugar but it smelled very molassesy. It also had little molasses clumps in it. That had me a little concerned. But I didn't have time to worry about it and continued to make the sticky rolls I was in the middle of making. Well, to my surprise the molasses flavor baked out and everything tasted normal! How cool!

So, if you are in a pinch and need brown sugar, be sure to have some white sugar and molasses on hand. You'll be able to save your own bacon without having to go very far! :-)

Colonial Projects

Right now in homeschooling, my son and I are doing a unit on the colonists. So we started reading about the Jamestown settlement and now we're reading about the Mayflower. As a historian, I am very careful about what we read when it comes to history. History is a tricky thing because primary sources are often very biased, and reading secondary sources can be even worse! It is very difficult to find neutral accounts of history, so sometimes it proves to be rather difficult to find just the right books to read. (Don't even get me started on Christopher Columbus!) For now we're using Mayflower 1620: A New Look at a Pilgrim Voyage done by the Plymouth Plantation. We will also be taking a look at 1621: A New Look at Thanksgiving also done by the Plymouth Plantation. Their books look very impressive, with photos of reenactments of the events, and I love that they really seek to bring an equal point of view from the Wampanoag people. 

Anyway, I also found some fun books on Colonial crafts. I was surprised with how many I found! Our first project was knotting a fishing net, because fish was a very important part of their diet. My son is still learning how to tie knots, so I helped him a lot, but it turned out really well, I think!

The cool thing about this project is that it could be applied in so many ways - for the fishing for food aspect, a religious context with Jesus and the apostles who were fishermen, for studying jobs or industries, etc. It was actually pretty simple! We found the project in Projects About Colonial Life by Marian Broida in the Hands-On History series. I think some of the other crafts in there are a little pointless, but I'm picky when it comes to crafts, so that's really just me. Check it out!

Snow Candy

We're into our second day of snow here in Maryland. A lot of it had melted by the end of yesterday; sadly our sledding tracks were mostly grass. But, today's snow storm has more than made up for it and we have plans in the works for an ultimate snow fort for bombarding people with snowballs who are sledding on the hill below. Mwahahahaha!

Our 2 year old daughter has been obsessed with eating snow. Any chance (and any place) she can get it, she will. I had to sit down with her and try to explain which snow not to eat (snow from the car, the house, shoes and the good ol' yellow or brown snow) and the snow that was good to eat. Then we had the idea of collecting some clean snow in a bowl as it fell and putting a bowl out on our porch railing, we soon had some good, clean snow to eat! We got out some spoons and she sat happily eating her bowl of snow. Our 5 year old son suggested we pour maple syrup on it, so we did that and he was happy eating his sherbet-tasting snow.

Then, I remembered as a girl trying to make Snow Candy using maple syrup like in Little House on in the Big Woods, but I was disappointed because it didn't work. The thing that I think was left out in our Snow Candy making was that we didn't boil it. And that's the key to making candy! So, I thought I'd give it a whirl today and it was a great success!

So here's how we made our candy:

I boiled about a 1/2 cup of pure maple syrup in a small pot over medium heat. I didn't really measure time-wise, but I stood there, occasionally stirring with a spoon. The syrup got all frothy and bubbly after awhile, so I added a tiny lump of butter which helped a little. That's optional though. I had a small bowl of cold water that I occasionally dropped a drip of the syrup into to test its hardness. Gradually it went from making soft lumps, to harder lumps, then to being hard and brittle - we had made it to the hard-ball stage! Then I removed it from the heat, got my bowl of snow and poured it out in a steady stream all over the snow. Surprisingly, it didn't melt the snow as much as I thought, but sunk slightly into the soft, white powder. When I removed it, it was a fun, hard spindly shape - delicious for eating!

I think it would be fun to try putting large drops on some parchment paper and letting them harden there. That way we'd have little syrup mounds to suck on. I'm thinking I could make some good throat lozenges this way with honey candy and some essential oils as well! Hmm!

This is the second pouring, so the snow is more melted.
Also, the candy cooked a little longer by that point, so it's darker.

Yummy, golden maple snow candy!

Happy Winter!

Say Goodbye to Wrapping Paper

Merry Christmas! We just got our first snow last night - just in time for a beautiful White Christmas!

We're in the late morning Christmas lull after opening presents. Our daughter is down for her nap and our son is playing happily with a toy. I feel very blessed this Christmas! We tried to keep things simple this year. We only got our kids two good quality toys and one book each. I think it was just the right amount, especially with how young they are. It's so easy to get caught up in the materialistic side of gift giving, but if you make the effort, things can be as simple as you want to make them.

Also, we don't really do Santa, so that, for us, makes it easier and simpler to focus on Christ for the holiday. We used a simple scripture advent calendar which was short and perfect for our young kids.

One of my goals for this year in simplifying was to do away with wrapping paper and to wrap gifts just with fabric bags. They were very simple and fast to make, but I did learn a few things to do and not to do and so thought I'd share. Remember - this is not an exact science! No measuring was done.

1. To start with, over the last few months I slowly collected pieces of the least expensive Christmas cotton fabric at JoAnn's. Searching the remnant bin is key, because you find all sorts of good cotton Christmas remnants of various sizes, and sometimes it's the more expensive fabric for a good bargain. I got various sizes cut: 1/4 yard, 1/2 yard, and 1 yard. It's really whatever sizes you want, but I wouldn't do less than a 1/4 yard because they get harder to sew.

2. When it was time to sew, I just left the fabric folded like it comes off the bolt, cut the widths I wanted or just left the 1/4 yard or 1/2 yard like it was. (For the smaller bags I cut the 1/4 yard in half width-wise and then I just had to add a bottom seam to one of the bags.) Then I flipped the fabric so the right sides were together and sewed up the sides, the salvage edges at the top and left open. Then I folded the salvage edge down about an inch and sewed all the way around to create a channel for the ribbon drawstring to go through. I left a 2" gap near one of the side seams for the ribbon to go into.

3. Then I flipped the bag right side out, threaded a ribbon through using a safety pin pinned into the end to get it through, tied a knot in the ribbon, and then I was done!

4. About the ribbon: I learned the hard way that only two types of ribbon work for this bag - the satin kind and the grosgrain kind. (it's the kind that has a bumpy weave)

Bags

Do not use cording! It doesn't not draw the bag closed very well. And don't use ribbon with any sparkly metalic-looking ribbon. Mine just fell apart! Wired ribbon also probably won't work that well either. These types of ribbon just don't slip smoothly through the channel for drawing the bag closed.

Bad ribbon. Bad! Too much metalic.

Good ribbon! Nice and satiny.
Don't you just love the gingerbread boys? The peppermint candy look so yummy too.

Lots of bags!

5. I also learned that more small and medium sized bags were the way to go. I think we had too many big ones. I did make one large bag made from a whole yard of fabric, but we didn't have any presents that big, so we didn't use it. Most presents tend to be on the smaller side, but it was hard to know that at the time I was making them.

The pros & cons:
The downside to these bags is that there is no hiding what's in there. It's very simple to feel through the fabric unless you disguise the present in something else like a box. Also, the security isn't the greatest. There is no tape keeping curious fingers from slipping the bag open, unless you wrap the ribbon around the top a few times and tuck it in. We put our presents out Christmas morning, so we didn't have that problem.
You also have to store the bags, but they lie flat, so it's not that big a deal.

On the other hand... The great thing is- no clean up! No mounds of crinkly annoying paper to fill up your garbage can or the landfill. You can reuse these year after year and they make adorable bags to give away too. The fabric and ribbon aren't too expensive, especially if you get them on sale or clearance. Also, you can get the cutest fabrics! Just take a look at those adorable snow penguins in the picture above.

Something else we did new this year were homemade gift tags. (You can see them in the first three photos.) There are four of us, so I found four cute Christmas/wintery symbols of the same theme through Microsoft Clip Art and copied and pasted a lot of them into a Word document. (You can search for snowflake, snowman, candy cane, Christmas tree, Christmas ornament, Christmas lights, Christmas mittens, Christmas bell, holly, Christmas candle, Christmas star, Christmas gift, Christmas stocking, and Christmas poinsetta to find ones similar to mine above.) Then I printed them in color onto white card stock, cut them out and punched a hole in each one.

The cool thing, was that the kids didn't know which symbol was theirs. I think this helped with not encouraging the "look at all of my presents" mentality. All we did was put who the present was from on the back of the tag. The kids had lots of fun hunting down their symbol once they knew which one to look for. I just looped the tag through the ribbon using the hole I punched out.

Well, I'm going to go and enjoy my Christmas candy and maybe go out for another round of sledding later. Have a wonderful holiday!

Birds

Whew, it's been awhile! I don't even know if anyone reads this blog anymore... but anyway! I have been busy with homeschooling and taking care of the house, etc.

Right now we're learning about birds in science, and I thought it was the perfect opportunity to read together a childhood favorite book of mine The Trumpet of the Swan. I had forgotten how much information about swans was in there, so it's been the perfect choice! And I also forgot how funny it is. My 5-year-old son has loved it so far. It helps that he's always loved birds and found them fascinating and fun. My kids have owl curtains hanging in their room that I made for them, and every now and then we go over to JoAnns and get a couple little wooden birdhouses for both our kids to paint which sit on their dresser. It's just one of those funny things that has evolved through their growing up.

And it just so happens that we have some woods at the back of our property with a terrific selection of birds that come to visit - and we don't even have a bird feeder!

Vulture - I thought it was so funny to just see him perched in our tree.

 

Blue Jay - Yesterday was the first time I've seen one around

Barred Owl - we hear them hooting pretty often. Really cool!

Quilt

Remember my Autumn quilt?

Well, it's taken a back seat to my other sewing project - some Regency-era historical clothing. But, I did finally get all the layers put together and it is now in the official quilting hoop. I hope to get to it before winter starts, but it's looking doubtful.

Our garden has finally been put to sleep. I've piled leaves on it and hope they will act as multi-purpose mulch/weed suppressor. I've been surprised by how well my compost it going. It is actually looking like rich, black dirt. I know the crickets and worms like it in there.

Strangely, the flower bulbs I planted in September have started to come up and bloom. Our weather has been a bit warmer than usual, but we still have frosty mornings. Maybe it was the 7" of rain from the hurricane that we got. Even the violets were out all over our yard! I hope it doesn't hurt them to be out prematurely.

I haven't started an new canning projects. The only thing I canned this year were the plain and spiced peaches. It was worth the work for those.

Sorry I've been a bit absent lately. I'm homeschooling my son, so not as much time for blogging!

I hope you all have a happy Thanksgiving weekend and Christmas ahead!

Spaghetti Soup

I'm usually not a soup person, but with the cold turn in weather I have been craving something warm and soupy all the time. I'm sure it helps that our house is poorly insulated and is stinkin' cold. My husband's mom makes this spaghetti soup that his family really loves. I thought I'd give it a try with my own twist on it and came up with this:

Spaghetti Soup

1 large (28 oz. approx.) can of crushed tomatoes
1 lb. or less of ground beef or turkey, cooked and drained
2 cups of chicken or beef broth, approx. (depending on how thick or thin you like your soup)
1/2 medium onion, chopped
1 cup sliced mushrooms, optional
3 or 4 stalks of Swiss chard, washed and chopped - stalks and all (Swiss chard is like a happy medium between spinach and kale. I like it because it's tender like spinach - but not as wimpy, and cooks well like kale, but unlike kale, you can eat the stalks. And if you get the rainbow kind, they're really pretty! I love Swiss chard!)
Medium handful of spaghetti noodles, broken in three or four places so the noodles are short (Forgive me, Italians!)
1 tsp. minced garlic
1 Tbsp. Italian seasoning (rosemary, thyme, oregano, basil, etc.)
1 Tbsp. honey, agave, or brown sugar
dash of pepper and salt

1. In a medium pot heat on medium low the crushed tomatoes, cooked ground beef, and broth.

2. In a separate pan, saute the onions, garlic, mushrooms, and Swiss chard until the onions are tender and the Swiss chard is wilted. Add to the tomato sauce pan.

3. Add the broken spaghetti, spices, and sweetener and allow to simmer for about 20-30 minutes.

4. Serve with salad and garlic bread! Yummy!

You can also add whatever chopped up random veggies you have in your fridge like zucchini, cauliflower, carrots, or celery. I wouldn't recommend broccoli though, but I guess you could try it.

Autumny Foods & Halloween

I've been enjoying all the autumn foods! I made some Apple Cider Spiced Donuts and they turned out pretty tasty! I've got pureed pumpkin in the freezer just waiting to be made into a pie. As today is a little laid back (waiting out Hurricane Sandy), I did some online searches for Halloween food and found two I really liked:

Making All-Natural Halloween Popcorn Balls

Creepy (yet healthy!) Halloween Recipes

And as for some creepy Halloween things to watch here are my humble suggestions:

1. Shaun the Sheep - Little Sheep of Horrors

2. Wallace & Gromit - The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

3. Any Alfred Hitchcock

4. 13 Ghosts - the old school version

5. House on the Haunted Hill - old school

6. The Addams Family


Enjoy and have a Happy Halloween!

Hurricane Prep

We're preparing for the possible landfall of Hurricane Sandy. I thought I'd post a small list of things I've learned from past experiences when preparing for an emergency. It's by no means comprehensive, but I'll put some links for other sites that talk about preparing for a hurricane below.

These things apply for a storm that you know is coming and that you have advance warning that you can prepare for.

1. Get caught up on all your chores like washing dishes, laundry, and that toilet or bathtub you've been putting off for a couple weeks! There is nothing so stressful as facing a power outage with a sinkful of dishes. Believe me! I know!

2. Have some cash handy. ATMs aren't solar powered!

3. Have a good supply of paper plates, paper towels, and plastic utensils. Who wants to do a ton of dishes in the face of an emergency? Not me!

4. Have a toilet back-up plan just in case. You never know!

5. Clean up your yard of anything lying around. The last thing you want is the rake flying at your window.

6. If you're able to - have a generator. They go for as little as $650 for a house electricity-wise and the price goes up from there. It's something good to save for! If there is a power outage, it can save the food in your fridge, keep your water running if you're on a well like me, (or keep your sump pump running - an essential in heavy rains!) and keep you warm as we head deeper into autumn.

7. Be prepared with alternative cooking methods. Even having some meals that just need boiled water or are heat and serve can drastically reduce your stress!

Just keep in mind that where you live can drastically change how you need to prepare for a major storm or hurricane. Are you in a flood zone? Which one? (Different numbers mean different levels of risk.) Is evacuation something you could face?  Do you have a lot of trees around? Would they threaten your home if they should fall? (The biggest cause of power outages is fallen trees/tree branches!) The weather guys are saying because a lot of trees haven't lost their leaves, there is a lot more surface area for the wind to blow around and increases the likelihood of downed branches.

How to Survive a Hurricane - scroll through the pictures. The information is to the right of each picture. It's a really great list!

72-Hour Kit ideas - The text is a bit funky, but the information looks helpful.

FEMA has a lot of great info and resources:
FEMA - Hurricanes
FEMA - Heavy Rains
FEMA - Basic Disaster Supplies Kit
FEMA - Blackouts
FEMA - Protecting Your Home from Hurricane and Wind Damage  (downloadable document)

Red Cross Disaster Safety Library

If you're on the east coast - good luck and be prepared early!

Nearly Finished...

The quilt top is nearly finished!

It's a little blurry, but it's the best shot I got from full view. I managed to have the same fabric touching in only 3 places. Not too bad! It was a harder job than I thought - the no touching thing.

I need to sew on two more rows to the side and then it will be just the perfect size for our queen-sized bed!

And the two fabrics I'm adding -
The brown is for the back. Since I'm quilting it in a gold-colored thread I thought it would show up nicely on the brown.
And the gorgeous glowing orange fabric I was planning on using for the border. I also like that they're the the same pattern, just different colors.

I remember someone telling me that when you make a quilt, always make the backing a surprise - something unexpected. My surprise is the brown with the gold stitching showing through. I'll be quilting in the ditch, stair stepping up the blocks, so it will be a zig-zag pattern. I'm excited to see how it will turn out! I originally planned on tying this quilt, but when it comes down to it, I can never bear to go through with it. I just think the ties would be a distraction to the pattern.

Autumn Quilt Progress

I had some last minute fabric additions:

Leaf print, yellow funky geometric design, green leafy, and red with gold leaf print.
Yummy!

I just felt I needed to add another gorgeous red, a yellow I had originally planned on using, but decided against, and now redecided to use, another deep green (I loved the texture!), and I saw that leaf print and fell in love. How could I not include a fabric like that with all the right colors?!

I've got the blocks all sewn end-to-end for each row and ironed. Now I just need to sew each row offset from one another to mimic a brick path. I think this is the perfect beginners quilt - no corners to worry about matching up!

Watermelon Success!!

Yesssss!!!! And, boy, was it delicious!