And They're Off...

What do you get when you put ten quilters together in a room for a Jelly Roll race?

A fun time and a lot of really cool-looking quilts!

Click on the picture for a larger view.

This past weekend, ten members of the Mountain Laurel Quilt Guild held their own version of the Jelly Roll 1600 Race. Before the start of the race, we sewed our 40 strips together into one long 1600-inch long strip each. Some used pre-made jelly rolls, others cut strips from their stash, and my friend Susan and I cut strips from our collections of vintage sheets. Once the race began (boy, you should have heard those sewing machines!), the winner finished hers in just under an hour. I finished mine in 63 minutes and the longest took just about 70 minutes.

Now I know what it's like to work in a sewing sweatshop... But this one was lots of fun!

A great time was had by all and the quilts look great, don't they?

Feel Good Quilting

This month I have a special reason to encourage everyone to check out AAQI -- they recently awarded a grant for Alzheimer's research to a professor at my son's university (Cornell). You can read all about it here.

In addition to that, AAQI is quite busy raising money this month with a Stanley Cup Quilt-Off as well as selling 1500 donated quilts  in Houston (including a few of mine).

With the announcement about the Cornell grant, I've decided to make an AAQI quilt in the Cornell colors of red and white. Won't you make an AAQI quilt, too? For details on how to do that, read here.

More Quilts Needed

Last week I blogged about a quilt that I sent to Basics. Victoria of Bumble Beans is asking for more help in time for their early December distribution date. She recently won a community service award for all of the work she has put into this project (a very well-deserved award) and blogged about it here. Be sure to read down to the bottom of her post for info on how to donate. As she says, you can find one of your old quilt tops (we all have them, don't we?) and just quickly finish it up. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. Just a completed quilt that will bring a smile to the face of someone in need. And pass the word...

Thank you!

Moosewood Monday

I can't stop making things from the Moosewood Restaurant's recipes. Everything I've made so far has been sooooo good! Just like everything served in the restaurant itself.

This is their Mixed Vegetable Curry (I added chicken to satisfy the caveman carnivore in my house). The spices used to make the curry flavor (not curry powder in a jar) work so incredibly well together. I served it over jasmine rice topped with yogurt, cashews, and golden raisins as suggested in the recipe. (Oh yes, I added a few chickpeas as well, but I picked mine out and gave them to the caveman chickpea-lover.)

Served with a glass of Leidenfrost Vineyards Log Cabin White wine.

The recipe is definitely a keeper!

More Good Stitches

One of my quilts is featured here! While you're there, be sure to congratulate Victoria of Bumble Beans.

Transformation

After I finished the quilt that I blogged about in Wednesday's post, I had some strips of fabric left over when I trimmed the backing after quilting...

So I worked on another project, which started with this....

It's a canvas tote bag that was given to me when I went on a shop hop with friends last spring. It's functional, but not very pretty. So I decided to dress it up.

I sewed all of the leftover strips using the Jelly Roll 1600 Race method (except, of course, it wasn't 1600 inches), and then sewed that fabric on top of the tote bag...

Now it's much prettier to look at...don't you think?

So if you have a bunch of scraps (or even an orphan block or two), you can use them to cover up all of those boring tote bags that you probably have hidden away somewhere.

Modern Block of the Month

This is block #4 of the  Modern Block of the Month Sew-a-Long on the Sew, Mama, Sew blog. I'm making these blocks using leftover fabrics from my son's high school graduation/going-off-to-college quilt. If you're new to my blog, you can see his quilt here.

To see the first three blocks in this series, click on the "SMS BOM" label on my blog sidebar.