Playing with Solids - #mfaQAL

 Hello and happy new year! I am optimistic for the coming year, as I have a new grandbaby on the way (in August), plus some new and exciting things for me personally in the wings.  More on that later.

I am starting with the Museum of Fine Arts Boston Quilt along! #mfaQAL.  Check out the many Insta posts and also their website!  https://www.broadclothstudio.com/mfa-qal  Their website has this fantastic Digital Coloring Page where you get to try LOTS of different colors and combinations for the quilt! 

The quilt is fairly simple, just 9 blocks, each designed by a different designer, and all with a modern edge. I have always loved quilts made with solids, but haven't sewn with them for years!

My fabrics - all Kona solids.

First block - Water Lily

Web page showing full quilt with 9 blocks.

Family time is the best!

We just took a great trip to the east coast to visit my brothers and their families.

We hadn't seen any of them since well before Covid, so this was a joyous reunion! 

We stayed with my brother, Chuck, and SIL Jean.  Jean fills their house with lots and lots of fanciful, arty touches everywhere!

Cute napkins, and we enjoyed several lovely beverages in those fun swirl glasses!  

It was so fun to reconnect with our great nephew, Huddie (short for Hudson).  He is so sweet and in motion constantly!

Doesn't everyone have a bottle opener in a pink flamingo's butt? 

Brother John and SIL Helen.  They hosted us for a fun evening of dinner and cards around the dining room table.

My other great nephew, Rhys!  His exuberance and joy really shows in this photo.

Dinner out on the last night of our visit, love this bunch!

 

Summer Days

I'm loving our flower pots this year! The hot pinks and lime greens look great together, and those tall red grasses with the soft plumes are so pretty blowing in the breeze.  We love to sit on our porch to have a glass of wine, or even to have dinner.  It's fun to visit with our neighbors as they walk by, too.
Scott made the patriotic barn quilt a couple of years ago.

This Peach Pecan Crisp was over-the-top good!  Our neighbors down the street have a peach tree, and they gifted us a nice big bag of fresh, sweet peaches, which we didn't know would grow so well in our climate!  We both thought great peaches were grown in Georgia, or also in nearby Michigan, which has a nice, temperate climate for fruit, because of Lake Michigan.  
This Peach Pecan Crisp (find the recipe here ) has a really crunchy, sweet topping that complements the tart-sweet peaches.  We topped our servings with vanilla ice cream.  Yum!

Quilt top finished, Hannah's birthday

Quilt top finished!  Simple design, 6" squares, in a streak of lightning setting.  All those Kaffe fabrics in the quilt are so gorgeous.

I got inspired when it came time to make Hannah's birthday cake this year!  I had seen Molly Yeh on Girl Meets Farm make a Barbie cake, and this is my version.  The cake and frosting were both delicious - lots of butter and cream cheese, what's not to like?  But it was difficult to frost the cut edges of the cake.  Oh well, the sprinkles helped, and Hannah loved it!

Happy birthday, Hannah!

Hannah and her little man, Henry, so handsome!

 

Work in Progress

Do your quilt projects end up the way you planned them? Mine seldom do!  I enjoy the design process about as much as any other part of quilt-making.  

I started my latest quilt project with a pack of a bunch of Kaffe Fassett 6" in squares, all colors and patterns.  Yummy, gorgeous fabrics!  I planned to use them in a quick throw-size quilt to comfort a friend who has suffered the loss of her husband.

As much as I love these fabrics, I couldn't figure out what to do with them.  So - off to one of my favorite local quilt shops (The Quilt Merchant in Winfield). 

I was trying to create some kind of color scheme out of these varied fabric squares.  I bought a bunch of the glorious Kaffe print, and several other fabrics to add in for...I didn't know yet.  Would I make star blocks?  Square in a square?  Hard to say.

But when I got the fabrics home, and started throwing the fabrics on the wall, the fabrics told me to tone it down.  Too much color variety for a calming, comforting quilt.  So - I pulled out only the blue and purple print squares, and went to my stash to find more.  Plus, I added in the three newly-purchased fabrics on the right side above, and the Kaffe print, too.  I cut them all into more 6" squares, and settled on a streak of lightning set.  Sometimes simple is best.

I'm sewing the squares together into a web, adding one vertical row at a time.  First, I designed the quilt on the design wall (forgot to take a photo), and then took down all the rows, carefully labelling each row.  It's risky to leave a whole wall full of squares on the design wall - sometimes you come back the next day and half of them are on the floor!

I got half of the squares sewn together in one direction.  I will add the other half of the squares tomorrow, then press, and sew the crosswise seams.

 

Puzzle Fun

During this past year of hunkering down at home, lots of folks did lots of jigsaw puzzles, and we found this fun one!  Then, we decided to try making several of the cocktails featured on the puzzle as a little research project!

Mai Tai Cocktail - we rated it 4 out of 5.

The classic - Tequila Sunrise.  I remember this as being very special as a twenty-something!  We rated it 4.5 out of 5.  

Bootleg Cocktail.  This was described on the puzzle as one of the signature cocktails of Minnesota, although we are both from Minnesota and had never heard of it.  Refreshing and tasty, we rated it 4 out of 5. 

 

A new start? Birthdays and the best chicken!

I tend towards perfectionism, or nothing - and blogging is no exception.  I put it off until I think of the perfect subject, or the best photos, you get the idea.  

So - I am going to try for more frequent posts, and less obsessing! Here goes!

Dear granddaughter, Ella, turned 3 back in February!  She helped baking the cake with her Mama, and had fun adding the sprinkles! 

My DL husband, Scott, never seems to age.  He, also, had a birthday back in February.  I baked his favorite:  spice cake with penuche frosting, and shopped pecans on top.  By the way, does he look 71 to you?  :)

I follow "The Kitchen" on Instagram and recently found THE BEST way to grill chicken!  My experience up to that point had been - either you grill breasts and they are dry, or you grill dark meat pieces and they don't get done in the middle.  Well, this recipe was EASY and SO GOOD!  We loved it the first day, and it was also delicious the next day.  Enjoy!