As some of you know, I have decided to try to improve my health. The first step is to lose some weight and increase my activity level. I am not doing a great job on the increased activity level, but I am making progress on my weight.

I have been roughly following my old weight watchers plan. For the most part I have giving up all soda and switched to mostly water. I have also severely cut way back on all simple carbs. That means very little bread, pasta or rice. As those that know me will attest, that is the hardest part.I have always loved breakfast, but I have found that I am very limited on what I can eat for breakfast that will take me till lunch. For a while it was an omelet every day. The only problem is it takes me about 20 minutes to get one made and cleaned up after. Some mornings I just don’t have that much time. I found a recipe for egg casserole that I have adapted to my tastes and it reheats nicely in the microwave each morning. I make it in the evening and eat it for the week. It works well for me and I can modify the ingredients for variety.

Egg Casserole
6 servings - 4 pts/Serving

3/4 cup Eggs (2 eggs + 3 whites)
1 1/2 cups skim milk
3/4 cup bisquick heart smart baking mix
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 medium onion, chopped
16-20 ounces Spinach or broccoli
3 slices Turkey Bacon (optional)
4 ounces part-skim chedder cheese

1. Thaw, rinse and drain broccoli.
2. Put 1/2 of spinach in 11×7 glass pan sprayed with Pam.
3. Put all of cheese on top of that.
4. Put remaining spinach on top of that.
5. Wisk eggs, milk, bisquick, onion, salt and pepper
6. Pour mixture over spinach in pan.
7. Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes or until lightly browned.
8. Cut into 6 pieces when cool.

My mom had been teasing me that she wanted the polka dot tote that I made last summer, so I gave it to her. I loved the tote. It was a great size, but I wanted one made of my fabrics. I knew as long as I had the other one, I would never get around to making one to replace it.

I was attending the Ricky Tims Seminar and decided that I really needed that tote to carry my materials, snacks, water and an umbrella. So, 2 days before the class I set out to make a new Professional Tote.

I went through my stash of hand dyed fabric to find large enough pieces that would coordinate with each other. I didn’t have anything as big as what the pattern called for so I started breaking up the pattern pieces into smaller groups. I ended up using 4 different fabrics. The most noticeable difference I made was to make all of the outside pockets out of different fabric than the outer fabric. I think it added a lot of interest to the bag.

I also decided that for this one, I wouldn’t include the middle pocket on the inside of the tote. It seemed I always wanted to put something in the bag that was wider than one side of the tote. Of course, for the seminar, we had a lot of paper, having the center pocket would have been very nice…. No problem, I’ll just make another one with a center pocket.

The bag worked great for the seminar. I was very pleased that I stayed up late the night before the seminar to finish it.

My sil needed a lap quilt this year, so it was a good excuse to make another rag edge quilt. I really love to make these. Especially since I purchased the die cut machine to cut and fringe the squares.

One of the best parts about making the rag edge quilts is that I get to dye flannel. I have a really nice, heavy-weight flannel that takes the dye just wonderfully.

This quilt was going to be all pinks and purples. I dyed up a nice assortment and then started playing around with them to see which ones I liked together. This is one of my favorite parts of dyeing fabric.

I am pleased with the assortment I put together.

Last month I picked up the charity quilts that were finished by the members of my Bernina group. One quilt was a group effort, that was just wonderful. Others included class projects or UFO’s. I also got to pick up the flannel quilts that I had made up as kits. I was happy to hear that they went together easily for everyone. No matter the source, all were great.

DH and I volunteered at the Sawdust Shop in December to make wooden toys for homeless children. It was so much fun we asked for the patterns so we could make more at home. Nephew Calvin’s Christmas present will arrive a bit late, but hopefully it’s so much fun he won’t mind the tardiness.Here’s a few pictures of us working in our little “workshop”. The “car carrier” is made out of a single chunk of “2 by 4″. We ended up using absolutely every wood working tool in our new shop! And obviously Julie’s excellent painting skills really moved from this “toy” into “work of art”.

Pretty neat, huh?

In 2004 I appeared on a Carol Duvall Christmas special and presented my package pillows. These are pillows that I created in the shape of packages that I put under my Christmas tree each year. I usually make them out of scraps of fabric that I have lying around. Basic instructions for the pillows can be found on my website. After the show appeared, I had every intension of making pillows for my family, but always seemed to run out of time. Last year, I was able to put together several pillows for my mom and sister, but then ran out of scraps. So, the day after Christmas my dh and I braved the crowds to hit JoAnn’s for their after Christmas fabric sales. We picked out 5 fabrics to use for pillows for his parents and sisters. I spent the next several days cutting and sewing pillows. I even when so far as to stuff a bunch, but unfortunately, that is were the progress ended.

December 2007 rolls around and I say, let me just pull out those pillows and pop them in boxes for gifts this year…. Oops, I forgot, I didn’t actually finish them. Now we are on a mad dash. I know if I don’t get them done this year, they will just get pushed into a corner and not be seen again for another year.

With a little bit of late night sewing and packaging help from dh, all the boxes when out in time for Christmas delivery, or at least close.

A friend a mine in southern California put out a call for quilts. Her house was spared in last months fires, but many of her neighbors homes were not. I took the leftovers from Mom’s quilt and made another lap size quilt. When I was done, I still had 12 blocks left over. I decided to make a baby size quilt with those. I found enough blue fabric lying around, that coordinated with the other fabrics, to make a border. I had two quilt tops in the closet that I had never completed. One was left over from a class and the other was a mystery quilt. I scrounged through the closet for coordinating fabric for these 3 small pieces. I didn’t have enough of any one fabric, but with some simple piecing I was able to make backs for all 3 of the smaller quilts from my stash. I did some simple quilting and was able to get these done in the last week. I still need to quilt the largest one, but I am happy with this weeks progress.

My mom came to visit this week. She is a new quilter. This summer when I visited her, I helped her pick out fabrics for 2 quilts. We picked out a simple pattern  for her to be able to complete them on her own.

She decided that she would rather work on them together. So she filled a suitcase with all the fabric and hopped on a plane.

The pattern called for fat quarters, but the store we were purchasing fabric from for the first quilt didn’t have fat quarters of what she wanted so we calculated yardage. I must have been tired because I calculated five eighths of a yard of each fabric and we really only need three eighths.

That means that we had enough of the block fabrics to make 2 quilts. I am making charity quilts for the fire victims, so she donated the fabric to me to make one for the cause.

We got the first quilt top completed while she was here. The second quilt top just needs to have the squares sewn together and the border put on.

I will have to have her take a couple of pictures of them because we ran out of time and I didn’t get any photos.

Today I completed my first commission. It was for 2 flannel rag edge quilts using my hand-dyed flannel and photos of the cheerleaders. I am very please with how the quilts turned out. I hope the recipients are as happy with them as I am. I pushed to get them done so that dh could hand deliver them. I hated to put them in the hands of UPS.

Last week I had decided to start paring down my class supplies. I haven’t taught classes in a couple of years and I am not using my duplicates. This created some free space to help organize what is left.

Back in March I started a spring cleaning project on the Studio. I am happy to say that for now, it is in acceptable shape. My friend Linda came over today to go shopping in my excess supplies. I am not sure if it was pity or insanity, but she started putting things away. We spent several hours this afternoon working on the wet side of the room and it is looking good. I have a couple of shelves to hang and the closet to pick up. But it is in a usable state.