Well, it's been a while since I've posted, but I have a good excuse - really I do. We have been gone. I have quite a bit of family in Nebraska, and one uncle was having an 80th birthday celebration, so since we love he and my aunt dearly, we just had to hop on a plane and go.

I got to see some cousins that I hadn't seen in 40 plus years. What a great time we had! The one picture is of my dear aunt and uncle. The other is me (the tall one) with three of the best girl cousins anyone could ever have. The one on the right without the apron is one that I hadn't seen since 1965.

Another Project Linus project

Yesterday three friends of mine and I got together for a fun day of working on Project Linus quilts. Of course, there was also the requisite talking, laughing and eating. The other three were working on string quilt blocks, but someone had to be the oddball, and that was me. I worked on another nine-patch quilt. The fabric for this one was given to us by the Project Linus coordinator for our area, and I love it. I need to make more nine patch blocks. I have the least of the yellow fabric, but should be able to get at least one more row, and maybe two before I run out. I have certainly been consumed with the nine patch bug, but, if I'm going to be bitten by a bug, that's probably as good as any. :-)

I want to give you the recipe for the Chocolate Zucchini Bread that I took to our quilting day. Don't turn up your nose now; it was devoured, and is so yummy!

Chocolate Zucchini Bread

2 (1 oz) squares of unsweetened chocolate
(or you can do as I did and use 6 Tbsp cocoa and 2 Tbsp vegetable oil in place of the squares of chocolate)
3 eggs
1 to 1-1/4 cup sugar
1 cup vegetable oil (or 1/2 cup oil, and 1/2 cup applesauce - that's what I always do)
2 cups grated zucchini
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking soda
2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
3/4 cup chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees (175 degrees C)
Grease (or spray with PAM) two 9 x 5 loaf pans. If you're using the squares of chocolate, melt them.
In a large bowl, combine eggs, sugar, oil, grated zucchini, vanilla and chocolate; beat well.
Stir in the flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.
Fold in the chocolate chips.
Pour batter into prepared loaf pans.
Bake 40-50 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. (The original directions said 60-70 minutes, but that was much too long for mine.)

Try it; you'll like it!

Project Linus

Well, another quilt for Project Linus and a completed project for July. I have decided I love the black, red and white color combo, so want to do more of that combination. The block is Golden Gate from quilterscache.com. It was a fun one to do. Saturday a few of us "Charity Chicks" are going to get together and work on Project Linus quilts for a few hours. It's always a fun time. I'm thinking maybe I'll work on another string quilt. That was fun. Goodness, I may change my mind a dozen times before then. There's always my nine patch blocks that I could work on. So many choices.










These two lovely ladies are my two DGDs. Believe it or not, they are two years apart in age, and very close to the same size. This was taken at the older one's birthday party at the bowling alley. The birthday girl is in the striped shirt, and she just turned 10.

This was fun!

I can't take credit for the idea for this block, and I wish I could remember whose blog I saw it on, but I can't. At any rate, thank you to the person who had a block like this. It's an awesome idea. I just made some nine patch blocks from scraps, and then cut the blocks in half diagonally, picked out some fabric from my stash to use for the other parts of the pinwheel, and put them together. I really love the way it looks, and I will get back to it later and make a complete quilt of blocks like this. I just can't seem to get enough of scrappy quilts.

Aaah, how cute!

I was browsing through pictures today and came across this one of our two darling grandsons. These cousins love each other so much! Last year during the summer we took them to Seattle. This year, the plan is to take our son and DIL's motorhome, and take them to the coast and camp at one of our very nice state campgrounds. We'll take bikes, and have a great time. This will happen at the end of this month.

After we get back from that fun outing, we'll take the two DGDs on a similar camping trip.

I have worked some the last couple days on my Mariner's Compass. I am going to try a couple different things on the final border, and see which I like best, and then the pictures will come.

3rd of July

I hope everyone has a fun and safe 4th of July. Many thanks to those service men and women who are serving and have served to preserve and protect the USA. One of our sons and his family is gone camping this weekend, and the other family is at home. They always have a big celebration on July 4th, so we will be going over there. I am going to make a couple strawberry desserts to take. First, we will need to go to the Saturday market tomorrow to get some yummy strawberries.

There's not much happening here. We have had a hot spell that's supposed to last through the weekend. It's getting up into the 90s, which is pretty warm for here.

I was going to post a picture of our blueberry bushes, but the light wasn't right, and the picture was poor, so I'll have to try again.

Instead I'll show you pictures of a couple quilts that my grandmother made, and I now have. The first one is obviously Grandmother's Flower Garden. It is so nicely done, and the quilt is in good shape. Unfortunately, I don't know when it was made, but my mom was born in 1926, and my guess is it might have been in the 1930s, but that's just a guess.






This second picture is of a quilt, which I think would have been an earlier quilt. Many of the fabrics are apparently scraps from clothing that was made. Also, it seems to maybe have a blanket in the middle to serve as "batting."