New Adventure

 I got a call from a friend, and she has decided to sell her Nolting Long Arm quilting machine. The next question was I interested in buying it. Well, I first had to talk to Fred. Then after we discussed it and I found out what she was asking for it. We decided that it was a go. So about two weeks ago I purchased the longarm and moved it into my upstairs sewing space. 

It was quite the challenge making it fit as the table is one of the longest ones at 14 feet, after some planning and we updated the room with a new floor it was put in place.  So today I put a quilt in the frame and will be starting my first attempt of quilting a whole quilt. I have done several table runners but now it is on to a much bigger challenge. 

Wild Rice and Craisin Bread

 Well, my experiment worked

So here is the recipe for the bread sort of  I just kind of add things together starting with a recipe and then going from there. 

2 loaves

2 cups of warm water

2 Tablespoon of honey

1 Tablespoon of yeast

mix in a mixing bowl

Add 2 teaspoon of salt

4 Tab of butter

1/3 cup of wild rice that was left cooked in about 2 cup of water until the rice is soft about 45 min. 

along with about 2 cups of left-over wild rice and white rice mix.  You don't need to do the white rice but it was a mix we had the leftover of, so I just added it in. 

I would guess about 1/2 to 2/3 of wild rice cooked until done would be best for the recipe. 

Now for Craisin after cooking the rice I added about two handfuls of craisin into the hot water of the rice and let it set to cool.  I added it to the water, honey and yeast in a mixing bowl. make sure that the rice water is not too hot.  I think there was about a cup of water in the cooked rice after that I added the salt and butter and blended in the bread flour slowly 

I put in about 6 cups of flour 2 cup of wheat, and the rest is white bread flour or until it made a dough that pulled away from the side of the mixing bowl as you mixed it. 

This was set aside to raise once it doubles in size, I dived the dough in half and added to the bread pans and let it raise on the countertop until it filled the bread pans. 

Little Dutchess

 Well, I have had a hard time dealing with letting go of the little girl as I sometimes called her she did take a lot of our time going for walks three times a day. It was good to get out and now I don't think I have been out of the house since Christmas. hard to believe 

Here are a bunch of photos to overload the page of a little dog that was dearly loved by all her people. 

Now once the world has unfrozen, she will be buried with her previous owner as she was just on loan to us for the last two years.  They have been waiting for her and so then as time goes on, I hope to add a new little doggy to the family as I miss having her around and another will not replace her but will add some extra in the house. 

Moving forward on City Square

 I started this quilt in July and it is now the end of December and I am on the 2nd to last border. only have some flying geese blocks to go and maybe an additional fabric border that is to be decided maybe it will be a solid black border and that will get a fun quilting design in it. The pictures below show it at its point now of progress.  I had an interruption in November we lost our little Yorky Dutchess she was rehomed to us after her previous Mama passed away. That made the middle of November a hard month. to finish off.   So not much progress happened on this quilt for a while. Plus there were a few Christmas projects that got in the way of this quilt top too. 

Saturday Fun

 Today was a fun day, sewing with friends. As part of NorthEast Iowa Quilt Guild It was raffle quilt, sewing  day. The quilt is in its final leg all that’s left is the outside border. 

The pattern is a Scott Flanagan done in blues. If all goes well, it should only take one more sewing day to finish. The pattern was the summer free pattern sone in 2024 and we received permission from the designer to make the quilt and use it for our raffle quilt for the show in 2026. 

New things

Gee it has been a while. I have retired it wasn’t totally my plan but I was only thinking about working one more year and so I decided it was a sign that it was time. 

This happened in June and I was rather heart sick over it but then I decided to let it go. Probably the best decision I’ve made. So I been floating around to different things worked in my quilts started a new project working on a Scot Flanagan summer quilt and am about 3/4 of the way done on that it is being stitched with black and white and a few grays. I am trying to take most of the fabric from the stash. So far that has been working I did end up getting a couple yards but the rest is coming from the stash and I think I have the background from the stash too. 

Asked about doing some teaching at the local library but that just didn’t seem to be a need, that they had so I moved on from that. Then I got a phone call from a friend and she want to sell her longer was I interested. 

So that is the newest adventure I am going to owen a Nolting Pro 24 quilting machine. I went to a classes put on by Nolting and had a wonderful time meet some new people joined Tik Tok.  So now I need to keep working on the emptying of the space

Now I am rearranging the house spreading my sewing space out to two different rooms one for quilting and one for piecing. In that whole process I want to replace the floor in my current sewing room as it needs a full upgrade. So that means emptying it down to the walls. I really should consider purging some things too. That is going to be the hardest part. 

March 24, 2023

 Well today was my last day of radiation happy to no be driving back and forth to LaCrosse everyday. It seem like forever then it was like oh last week last day. 

So now I have figure out the work thing and get that rolling again so ready to not be dealing with health issues for a while. 

Not sure this adventure ever totally goes away as much as you hope for cure it isn’t a for sure thing. Then what in life is a for sure thing.