My Medallion in Progress.

{I'm linking up with the lovely Lee at Freshly Pieced for Wip Wednesday.  Did I mention that I got to meet her at Portland Sew Down in February? She is super sweet and fun, I recall we had a very risque conversation around the dinner table as we showed her how silly we Portlanders are!}

It's really exciting to see how my Medallion is taking shape! We're working about a month ahead of the rest of the guild so we have a few examples to present at each month's meeting. I posted a ways back about my Medallion Center, and wanted to show the progression of the quilt.

So, starting with the Center, a couple of my go-to favorite colors, turquoise (mystery fabric) and lime green (Bonnie and Camille) with some Platinum Painter's Canvas from Laura Gunn, which will be one of my neutral backgrounds I return to time and again.

February/Round 1: My chosen center block was a bit small so I added a narrow border in an Orchid Mystery Fabric to frame it out. Our first round was a simple border with cornerstones so that people could catch up if they hadn't made their medallion yet. The orange fabric is V and Co Simply Color and the cornerstones are Fly a Kite from the Noteworthy collection by Sweetwater.

March/Round 2: March was a lot of work, but I'm pleased with how it turned out. There was a more time consuming option of paper piecing the Xs, but I followed my motto of "Ain't Nobody Got Time for That" and used a slash and insert method instead. The aqua is from Kate and Birdie, the pink are Michael Miller ta-dots (one of my all time faves) and the green is more Noteworthy from Sweetwater. And I returned with that Platinum Painter's Canvas by Laura Gunn.

April/Round 3: This was a simpler round to take some of the pressure off the previous round that was more work. Simple strips with a thin strip of focus fabric and reverse appliqued cornerstone circles. Here I used some more V and Co (the gray in the strips), some Sweet as Honey floral print that I love in the circles and the thin strip, and some Carolyn Friedlander's crosshatch for the circle backgrounds.

May/Round 4: This was my month, so after completing round 4 of the guild medallion quilt, I turned to mine! Here I tried to add as many prints as my need for organization would let me. I included lots of fabrics from previous rounds, as well as added in some dice from Violet Craft and some beaded dots from Mo Bedell. I'm happy to stick with my aquas/turquoises, lime greens, purples, oranges, and yellow, always with a healthy dose of gray! I returned to the Platinum Painter's Canvas again this round.

We'll be adding 4 more rounds all together, ending with September's round. It's really fun to see how all of these different medallions are coming together, since everyone used a different medallion, chooses different options each month, and has wildly different color palettes!

Medallions and Metallics

My guild now has upwards of 184 members, and even though I'm really busy running the guild, this year I'm making an effort to do more of my own sewing (helps keep my sanity!). Last year as VP I think I missed doing a lot of the challenges and other sewing projects due to administrative duties. Here's a little bit of what I've been working on.

We're doing a Medallion Along this year instead of a Block of the Month, and each month we officers present a new round. This month was my month to work on it, so I had to sew my own as well as the guild one we are sewing together. This is the guild quilt, made of Botanics fabric by Carolyn Friedlander, donated by Robert Kaufman. This one we will raffle off to our members at the end of the year.

I'm going to post an update about my personal medallion quilt but decided to make it into its own post. It looks like I posted the center medallion awhile back and that is all so far!

Our guild also has a couple of quilt shows coming up for Quilt Knit Stitch! this summer. I used a fun method that is going around, we used it last month for the Faith circle of do.Good stitches. I offset the second row though for visual interest since it's so small. I don't think I have a finished one of my Michael Miller Glitz mini quilt (entitled Metallic Criss Cross) that will be in our PMQG exhibit, but here it is after quilting but before binding.

And the only pic I have of the back when I was hand sewing the binding (95% of my quilts I machine stitch the binding completely, so it was a rare moment!)

There is also a larger exhibit for Pacific Northwest Metallic quilts that lots of Modern Quilt Guilds in the area were invited to show in. I entered my quilt below, Metallic Offset Arrows, for the exhibit but didn't make it in. Robert Kaufman Metallic Linen, Metallic Burlap, and Metallic Tussah. Also some RK Carolyn Friedlander Botanics (the orange) and an RK Kona solid. I used gold metallic thread to hand quilt it, and randomly found some RK backing fabric in my stash that perfectly matched! I used a flange method of binding for that little pop of color around the front edges.

Sorry, this was a late night shot when I found this fabric for the back in my stash at 2 am!

Homemade Bananas and Cream Instant Oatmeal Packets

My brother recently mentioned that his favorite oatmeal, as well as that of my nephews,' is the Bananas and Cream flavor found only in the Fruit and Cream variety boxes of instant oatmeal. There are only 2 packets per box and this flavor isn't sold on its own, so they have to eat their way through a lot of other flavors in each box.  We can't be having that!

I found a recipe online for making your own instant oatmeal packets and ended up with this recipe. I tested it out on my youngest nephew last night when he was ready for his second or third dinner (growth spurt much?) I asked him if he liked it and if it was better than the kind that you could buy, but he was so busy frantically shoveling it into his mouth he could only give me a thumbs up. So I think that's good.

The recipe listed above is for making a big batch of the mix and then dishing it into smaller packets. That's a good idea, but I was experimenting with the ratios of the different ingredients to make it work for my nephew's preferences. Also, I initially bought some banana chips, but then changed my mind and decided that Freeze Dried Bananas (found at Trader Joe's) would probably be better in this due to their texture and lack of sugary/oily coating that banana chips have.

To start with I used my Magic Bullet mini blender to grind up some quick oats, and then I also ground up about 2/3 of the packet of the Freeze Dried Bananas. The rest of the bananas I roughly chopped after checking with kiddo to see if he wanted chunks of banana in his oatmeal.

 Per packet of oats:



1/8 cup quick oats

1/8 cup ground quick oats
1 teaspoon ground freeze dried banana
1 teaspoon vanilla flavored powdered creamer
2 teaspoons of brown sugar
a few pieces of chopped freeze dried banana
dash of salt

I cooked with about 1/2 a cup of milk, adding a bit more when it looked too thick.With the packet of freeze dried bananas I bought and the amounts I used I was able to make 14 servings of oatmeal.

I still have to see what my brother thinks of my new creation, but I'm happy the nephew likes it!

Pinterest Cooking

I'm super busy with guild stuff this year (planning our first guild retreat for this fall!) but I'm still trying to make more of an effort to make some projects and actually join in on our guild challenges. This weekend I tried a few new recipes off of Pinterest when boyfriend and I went to the beach. I always plan out our meals and take food to cook and he's not very picky, so it seemed like a great time to try out something new.

Sweet Potato and White Bean Burgers
(http://www.pinterest.com/pin/236931630370888340/)

I followed the recipe but halved it and used Cajun Seasoning. It was really good but I could have used more seasoning, I went light on it. The burger is pretty sweet overall so you might want to use condiments to balance it out. I used mustard along with tomato and lettuce, but I think onions/pickles would be good to top it off with too. And of course cheese, but cheese is a basically a given for me. These were really easy to patty up but were a bit soft. After coating in panko they were also a bit easier to handle. I made 4 from a half a batch, but I think if I had made 6 and they were thinner they wouldn't have been so soft (more crisp surface ratio to soft center?). They oozed out a bit when we ate them, but good flavor!

Overnight Oats
(http://www.pinterest.com/pin/236931630370787076/)

I did two containers of it, each quadrupled (ie, a cup of oats in each). One had strawberry jam with fresh strawberries and the other had apricot jam with frozen chopped peaches. I topped the strawberry with walnuts when I ate it and the peach with sliced almonds. Both were pretty good, but I like more oats in mine for a chewier texture. The boyfriend really liked it and called it "breakfast pudding." He's a big pudding fan, so that is actually a compliment. He wrote down the recipe so he can make it for himself!