Nutribullet Blasts!

In my epic quest for healthy living and marathon training, I requested a NutriBullet 900 for Christmas. I hadn't even tried green smoothies yet, but had watched the Documentary Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead, and was convinced I needed more greens. Obviously, I'm not fat, sick, or nearly dead. In fact, I'm quite healthy, but you can always be more healthy, especially when you've aged beyond the proverbial 'hill'.
My nephew, Jacob, was visiting over New Years, so he introduced me to the produce section at the local grocery store. What interesting things lurk there! Collard greens, kale, brussels sprouts. The next morning, I threw more roughage into the blender than anyone had ever seen. The blending is actually called 'an extraction', which is both beneficial and frightening. You could put tree limbs in this machine and 45 seconds later, drink them.

 If you add protein powder and what they dub 'super foods' (almonds, chia seeds), it's called a Nutri-blast. I treated the whole family to this first Blast and Laina promptly got sick. She blames the Blast, but it was just bad timing, I believe.
After a few weeks of blasting, I realized the missing element is a cup cover. The purpose being to make it easier to carry the cup to work and also to cover the color of said Blast. FYI, if you add blueberries to greens, be assured your Blast will be as brown as poo.
 

Fabric by Jeni Baker, Color Me Retro. That's Sew Now!
Original Design. FYI, that orange cord is from a shopping
bag, validating my compulsion to recycle every bit of useful
material (especially cords in fantastic colors like orange.
Thanks, Eddie Bauer)

Other goofy things from that weekend: Made up game using iPhones. Take a picture of a funny face, your partner gets to view it for 5 seconds, and gets 30 seconds to imitate the original face. Then use PicStitch to view side by side. Hilarious!

My Little Protégé



This past Christmas, a very special girl was gifted with a sewing machine by her parents. Her parents knew that she loved to sew because she likes to hang out with the ladies of Sewn Together. Now imitation is the greatest form of flattery so when I heard they purchased the very machine I have, I wanted to help her 'get going'. She's a quick learn, often times watching tutes on YouTube. Kids these days! So we've been spending some Sunday's together and she decided to make a double zippered pouch.

 

Supplies from Edie's stash. She's into pink!



Her first zipper! Slow and steady, in it goes.

And here's a happy kiddo on the trip home with her finished project! I hope her family is very proud of her. Not many girls her age can do this!

Those bunnies are standing upright on the other side too!
When you open it up there's one zippered mesh pocket and
one zippered plastic pocket.

Quilting Inspiration

I recently took a trip to Denver for work and play. Winters in Minnesota are perfect in my mind, but everyone needs a break from the routine. While away from my quilting haven my mind kept wondering back to the design board. Everywhere I looked there were quilts waiting to be designed. I've been known to photograph floors, wallpaper, and even dishes; but out in Colorado I found new options.

Waiting in line at the chair lift:

OMGosh! Can you see the southwestern quilt in her jacket?

And just to make you a little jealous - here's the view from our hot tub:

 

But do you see what's in the hot tub? This would make a funky border!

There were many other offerings, but I refrained from taking too many...
I'll just leave you with this last bit of wallpaper from the hotel workout room:

I'd call it Squatting Hexies, in honor of the gym, of course!

Many thanks to my friend Sarah for agreeing to take these photos when I didn't have my phone available! She was quite a good sport to put up with me.

Sewn Together - January

The attendance at this months club reached a new high with 10 ladies attending! Each table had two machines and the room was filled to the brim with fabric. I worked on Every Which Way which was covered in previous posts.

Here's the room.

Here's the fabric!    Actually this is Tori's stash, but her
fabrics are too colorful and fun not to show.

Tori was using up her stash making these cute little strip blocks and by days end she had enough to visualize the layout.

Tori!

This makes a very fun spring quilt!

I realized that day we even though we've always been well fed, I hadn't properly documented it. But rest assured we don't go wanting. Ever. Usually Sarah will make something delish in her crock pot, like chili, soup, or pulled pork. One night, Sarah brought her crock pot into the kitchen and set it on the counter to open the fridge door and it tipped off the counter and crashed to the floor! That night she had made an amazing corn chowder and it was quite a devastation having to mop that into the trash! We were also sad about her lovely expensive crock, but she quickly repurchased the same one and we were back in business. Without further ado, here's a typical spread.

Enough said.

After a loooonnnnnggggg absence, Heidi was back. The sewing lessons had to start from scratch again and she almost spent more time reading her manual than sewing.

Sarah had her sewing random 9-patch blocks, but she needed a little help keeping it TRULY random. That's when this bag was deployed.

"Don't look, Heidi! Just pull."

Here's a lovely picture of Heidi taken by Marcia.

 

Another old friend that reappeared is Julie! She's been marching her way up the Post Office ladder and finally qualified for a high up position with better hours. Welcome back, Julie!

Julie has several BOMs to finish up.

Photo by Sarah. Quilt by Julie. Stunning!

Jane joined in the fun as well. I mentioned her strip quilts for her children last blog. The project continues.

The strips are quite long before she cuts them into blocks.



Jane made this quilt with fabric that her daughter, Erin, brought
home from ____ (El Salvodor?) Will verify. The pattern is
called ________ (Twenty ?) Oh dear, I'm not remembering well!

Pam came later from work, but had a cold and wasn't up to much. She did show off this cute mini-quilt and worked on binding it. Those tiny HST in bright civil war prints are calling me!

Sue was back as well. She's been on vacation and very busy. She started in on her flannel project that I believe is for her son. We'll see if I'm right on that...

Marcia ducked out early on Friday and I found out later she was sneaking off to her other quilt club. Traitor! But then the roads were bad so she ended up going straight home. She returned on Saturday and worked on these blocks. Although, I'm afraid my project was a bit of a distraction for her. Help me, Marcia, help me!

Look how organized her piles are!

Last this time, but never least - Sarah started her daunting paper-pieced project. Here she is enjoying how fun that first section of the first block was to make!


And here's what the whole pattern is. Arcadia Avenue aka Absolute Insanity.

Can you spot Sarah's section in this pattern? It's like
finding Waldo.