A New Technique

On my activity list for this holiday week was to try a new quilting technique. I came across the fusible collage idea at the Exuberant Color blog. I didn't follow her idea exactly, but used the basic premise. I grabbed a random piece of batting from a previously trimmed quilt (no it is not exactly a straight rectangle - it tapers a bit) and my bag of scraps. Since I did not have fusible batting, I just added Heat and Bond Lite to the batting, laid out the scraps (this took the longest amount of time as I am fussy about color and placement). And then fused it down. After it was fused I got some backing (again from the scrap pile) and then machine quilted it. The quilting also helps hold down some of the loose edges that are not fused down. The whole thing is roughly 8 inches wide by 29 inches long. I found the four black and white squares in the scrap bag and thought they made nice focus points down the center of the piece. I quilted these down using one of the decorative stitches on the sewing machine.  

Also on the list of activities is to try a new recipe. After a huge meal on the 4th, and the subsequent leftovers the thought of eating again delayed this idea. But I have been digging through cookbooks and Pinterest and have a couple Chicken Curry with Coconut milk recipes (1 and 2) that I will merge and give a try. I was deliberately looking for recipes that did not involve having to use the oven - can't imaging using the oven while the air conditioner is running!