Carter Quilt

I have a confession to make....my dog is SPOILED!  It didn't start off this way, when we first got him I had all types of ideas of being tough (no dogs on the furniture, no sleeping in our bed), yeah those lasted 2 seconds & this little face melted my heart!

Carter at 9 weeks

More recently, in the past few months he has discovered, he likes to crawl under the blankets with us in bed.  So as any sewing mama would do, I made him his very own quilt!  Now I understand he will still probably want to be under OUR covers, but I already had this cute fabric  :)

I just cut squares of each of the fabrics, some I had more yardage than others, and layed them all out.  The top was the easy part. However, as I mentioned in my My First "Real" Quilt post, I haven't really made "real" quilts before.  I've done plenty of sewing projects and made quite a few rag quilts, but the whole basting/quilting/binding concept I hadn't been brave enough to try.  Even the baby quilt I made, I had someone else quilt & bind it for me.

Since I didn't think Carter would be too picky, I thought I'd give it a shot.  I quilted just simple diagonals, and because I'm lazy I didn't do the opposite way to make Xs.  Is this a problem do you think?   Then to bind, I followed this AWESOME tutorial at Cluck Cluck Sew http://www.cluckclucksew.com/2013/01/machine-binding-tutorial.html

I was going to take some pics of the finished quilt outside, but when I came into the living room Mr C was all curled up.  So I thought I'd check if he liked it.

Yup, looks like he approves!!

Farmers Market Finds

Every Saturday downtown there is a Farmers Market.  We don't go every week, but now that its getting later in the summer & there are so many delicious foods in season now - we stopped over there this week.

Not sure exactly what kind of flowers these were, something with Strawberry in the name. I can totally see where they get that :) 

Has anybody had these before? For only $2 we had to get some!  I think we're going to slice them & put them on the grill brushed with a little olive oil.

Radishes

Onions

And of course, we're in Wisconsin after all - CHEESE CURDS!  They are squeeky fresh!  

We had a great morning at the Farmers Market!  We also picked up a giant green pepper for $1, some fresh blackberries, and my hubby had to get some Baklava!  Is there a local Farmers Market by you? What is your go-to that you have to pick up when you're there?

Happy Monday #18

Happy Monday!
~Melissa

Easy Natural Towel Refresher

This summer I've noticed that our towels have been getting a musty smell.  They seem fine right out of the wash, but as soon as they get wet again -- yuck!  I've especially noticed it on our kitchen towels, I think because they are used more often??  Since I have colored towels I can't run them through the wash with bleach, so I was really excited when I ran across this idea on Pinterest!  I am a big fan of using natural cleaners, I hate using harsh chemicals (as you can also see in this post about how I clean my coffee pot).  So I had to give this a try!

Gather up your towels.

Put them in the washer on the setting with HOT water with 1 cup of white vinegar only (no detergent in this step).  I used the Quick Wash setting because I was a little worried about having my towels be in the wash for 54 minutes with vinegar on them!

When  that cycle is finished, sprinkle the towels with baking soda.  Then run them through another cycle.  Again with HOT water, but this time also use your detergent.

Promptly remove the towels from the washer and transfer to the dryer and dry on the highest setting.  Fresh out of the dryer they smelled great (and no hint of vinegar either).  The true test has been once they got wet, and I have to say I am very impressed.  We have been using our towels all week, and that smell has not come back!  Plus I think the cycle of vinegar and baking soda also helped my washing machine not get that funk smell that so many front-loaders tend to get.

Happy Monday .. a Day Late

Since I'm late this week, I figured a video was in order.
And it doesn't get much better than a baby elephant playing in a swimming pool!  Isn't this the cutest thing ever?  Sure did make me smile :)

http://screen.yahoo.com/cute-baby-elephant-plays-kids-094645718.html