Homemade Buns and Belated Quilting

Yesterday I finished half the quilting on my current project, and today I gave in to cravings for homemade buns for our burgers.

I first blogged about these delicious buns on my older blog . This time I used sugar instead of honey - I'm not sure we can tell the difference - and I gave them an egg-white wash and sprinkle of sesame seeds.

This recipe is one of the best for flavor and sturdiness, and they smell so good while they are baking.

This is a quilt that was pieced by my niece's maternal grandmother, and I've "only" had it since 2012, which is when my very patient niece asked me to finish it. (This is a different niece than the one that has cancer.) You can read about it by scrolling down in this post.

I began quilting this week, and I'm doing simple wavy lines. I hope to have it ready to mail to her by next week. It will be a nice surprise for her - she has probably forgotten about it!

Quilty Birthday Cake

My oldest granddaughter Sydney will be 14 on Monday, and I was delighted when her Mom told me she requested my cookies as her birthday treat.

Since she didn't choose a cake, I decided to make her a quilty one. I found this online pattern, which is from Lori Holt's Quilty Fun. Although I don't own the book and the pattern only included cutting instructions, it was easy to figure out how to sew the pieces together.

I made some minor changes to the pattern. The cake consists of two layers and a "filling", but my fabric had a natural "chocolate" filling, so I made a solid piece instead of three.

I added 1/4 inch to the top part of the pattern to fit a "flame" for the candle. After trying embroidery and fabric, I wasn't satisfied with the look of the flame. My husband suggested I use various colors of embroidery threads to make a sparkler effect, and I love the way it turned out. Thanks Honey!

I outline-quilted the cake, stand, and candle and then did an overall wavy line quilting to emulate party streamers.

I blogged about these pumpkin cookies with praline icing on one of my older blogs, and they are still a family favorite. On Monday I'll take Sydney a batch of them on a clear serving plate and set them on top of her quilty cake.

Reverse Rainbow Starburst Complete

Well I’m back. I closed my blog two months ago to deal with an unfortunate and devastating event in our lives and only recently felt a renewed interest in quilting. This Reverse Rainbow Star quilt was waiting for me to sandwich, quilt, and bind it, and I spent a couple days losing myself in the familiar and comforting motions of the quilt process.

Using FlutterKat's tutorial, I started these scrappy 16-patch blocks for the Sweet 16 Quilt-along 2015 on Sarah’s blog. I still haven’t decided where this quilt will go, but for now I’m enjoying the bright colors of so many beloved fabrics. Four months into my moratorium on purchasing fabric, I'm happy to say this quilt was made entirely from my stash.

The back is anchored by a large 16-patch that reflects the arrangement of color blocks on the front. I almost like the back more than the front.

My quilting was a mix of curves, zig-zags, and straight lines.

With all the color going on, white seemed a good choice for the final border and binding.

Thanks to my sweet husband for being my quilt model.

UPDATE 4/21/15: Today I found out my niece has cancer and I've decided to sent this quilt to her. Hopefully it will give her some comfort.