The Sewing Mom

This post brought to you by Whitney Farms. All opinions are 100% mine.

I can assure you that Spring has arrived in North Texas and that the heat of summer is not far behind.  I have all ready spent one full weekend in the backyard trimming hedges & bushes, and yesterday, my husband and I spent the better half of the day trimming to very tall evergreens outside our front door.  These things must have been at least 13 feet tall and it took both of us to get them cut back and down to a more reasonable size.  I think we did a great job, they look good and our front walk looks spruced up!

Something else I've been itching to do is have my own garden.  I don't want anything large, and our soil here is so bad it's difficult to make grass grow, let alone flowers & vegetables, but I am considering a kit from one of the home improvement stores that snaps together to create a raised garden.  Once I put the kit together I would fill it with organic soil and then simply plant whatever veggies I desire.

I've recently learned about  Whitney Farms®, a company that makes all natural and organic products for the garden.  They are currently offering a $3 coupon (click the link to get one for yourself!), and I can use it on my purchase of organic plant food which will complete my shopping list for my new garden.  This plant food is easy to apply and does not have the manure odor that comes with more conventional plant foods. It's organic and provides plants with everything they need to grow into healthy, mature plants.

I'm actually looking forward to this little project, and just as soon as I figure out the best way to keep the abundance of rabbits that we have around here out of my little garden, I will be taking on this project!

So tell me, do you have a garden?  What do you think about my raised garden idea?

I finished piecing the top of my latest project, a wall hanging. I purchased the kit from a vendor at the Cincinnati Quilt Festival and was very excited to put this one together. I think it was my favorite thing that I purchased at the festival, next to my new sewing machine! Oh, and I did stitch this on my new machine which I thought did a wonderful job!

The next step is completing the applique that will be in the blocks in between the “spools”. It’s very simple raw edge applique, and just as soon as I get it cut out, I will start stitching it in place. The thing that is new to me is that the applique pieces are out of wool which seemed to be a huge trend this year. I’m still deciding if I’m going to stitch by hand (which I despise) or on the machine. Both of my machines do a very nice blanket stitch, so…

This post brought to you by Chili’s Grill & Bar. All opinions are 100% mine.

Living in Texas, Cinco De Mayo is just about as close to a National holiday as we can get without it actually being one!  Here in the U.S., it is celebrated as a way to recognize Mexican heritage and proud, but in Puebla, Mexico, it is actually a celebration of the day the Mexican army defeated the French army in the Battle of Puebla way back on May 5, 1862.

Honestly, whatever the reason, I think Cinco de Mayo is a great reason for my husband and I do go out, enjoy a meal together and a nice cool drink.  Seems to me it's a great way to kick off the summer season!  Right now, I can't think of a better way to celebrate than having a tasty CoronaRita at Chili's to go right along with one of my favorite burgers from their menu.

Now I have to be honest, I have several favorite burgers on the Chili's menu, so it depends on how I feel at the moment I'm ordering, but my old standby is the "Oldtimer".  I love this burger because of its simplicity!  If I'm feeling more saucy, I go with one of their new creations, the SHINER BOCK® bbq burger which comes with cheddar cheese, crispy onions and bbq sauce made with SHINER BOCK®.  If I want something a bit different, but still sticking with the burger theme, I go with the BIG MOUTH® BITES, a plate of 4 mini burgers.  This is also a good plate to share with my husband if we decide we want to save room for dessert!

To celebrate Cinco de Mayo, everyone should try a  CoronaRita at Chili's, made with Jose Cuervo Especial Tequila and Coronita.  It goes without saying, you must be 21 years or older to drink alcoholic beverages and as always, please remember to drink responsibly.  Take a look at this picture and tell me that this doesn't look refreshing!

Since Cinco de Mayo is on a Saturday this year, we have no excuse to not go out a celebrate! So tell me, what's your favorite menu choice from Chili's? 

As you know, I spent weekend before last at the Quilt Festival in Cincinnati. If you’ve ever been to a Quilt show, you know there are probably more vendors than quilts, and Cincinnati was certainly no exception. I was pretty good sticking with my budget. I purchased a couple of small kits and just a little bit of pre-cut fabric. Of course, knowing that whatever I bought had to fit in my suitcase helped too!

However, on the very last day of the festival, in fact, in the very final hour before it closed, I bought myself a new toy. Now, keep in mind, I’d been shopping for this particular toy for almost 2 years, and wanting it for even longer. I all ready have a similar toy, bigger though and heavier, but my current model didn’t have a couple of features that this one did. And, when they quoted me the price with the “show special”, it was about 1/3 of what the model I had been looking at would cost me, so, a HUGE savings!

This particular model of Janome has 2 features that impressed me a lot and that my other machine does not have. The first is the automatic scissor cutter. This means, when I get to a stopping point, I can simply push the button and the machine snips the threads for me. When I’m ready to start again, it just moves right on along. This is a huge time saver when piecing quilts. The 2nd feature, something I’d never seen before, was a pressure foot adjustment. This means that I can actually change the way the presser foot is holding down the fabric as it is moving under the needle. This can be a big help when working with multiple layers of fabrics or even different types of fabrics.

The rest of the features are all pretty similar to my other machine, a Viking, although my older machine is also an embroidery machine. This new one sews so smooth and is so much quieter when it’s running. It’s also light weight so will be much easier to take to classes or to travel with.

I’ve all ready started a project, a kit I purchased at the festival in Cincinnati. This contains the smallest pieces I’ve ever worked with, some of the strips are only 1 inch wide, less now that I’ve sewn them together. This photo is of the first completed block, it’s a bit wonky, but I’m hoping it will all look right when I get done!

What a great day for the Chicago White Sox and their starting pitcher, Philip Humber! Humber went 9 innings today, throwing fewer than 100 pitches, to pitch only the 21st perfect game in Major League Baseball history! That’s incredible! By the way, 3 of those 21 perfect games have been by White Sox pitchers! Way to go Sox!!