Monday, June 14, 2010

Today I've spent some time working on the quilting for my friendship star quilt. I pieced this quilt several years ago and have had it in my UFO pile to get quilted. I wanted to work on some of my UFO tops after I went to the MQS classes. I sure feel more comfortable with my machine now after taking the classes. And you know what.....I learned that even those exceptional people who make those beautiful quilts have tension problems at times also. I just learned their tricks for fixing them.





I'm doing a freehand pattern and so far I think it is looking good. This is a close up of the quilting I'm doing. I'm outlining the stars and then doing the free hand whirly things in the white areas. I plan to use blue thread in the stars to quilt something.....haven't decided yet what I'm putting there.
But I do want to add some texture to the stars. This is one of my practice pieces for the techniques I learned while in Kansas.




I've also been working on our budget for the upcoming months today. I'm always trying to find more ways to cut costs for us. Today I have again been concentrating on our food/grocery budget.
I put eating out and grocery buying in the same chunk of money. I have been slowly cutting back on this budget this year and we have cut from $800/month down to $300/month. We were eating out a lot more and boy does that add up in your monthly budget. We didn't realize how much we were spending eating out and buying groceries. In July I plan on cutting that down even further. It is amazing how much you can save when you shop smarter, use coupons for things you would buy and don't eat out very much. Since I truly enjoy cooking this makes it even easier to save.
The meal planner site truly helps if you don't have time to plan a menu and a shopping list. This site gives you a meal plan and the shopping list for the major stores, walmart, publix, etc. You can do meals for 2 or family meals. They even have specialty plans for weight watchers points system with the point values given in the meal plan.
Here is the link if you would like to check out the site. It costs only $5.oo per month and you get new meal plans/shopping lists every week. Kind of a no brainer for me. http://e-mealz.com/amember/go.php?r=122426&i=l0
Let me know what you think.
I caught whiskers drinking out of the bird bath. It was 92 degrees here today and very humid. He usually doesn't like being outside when it is this hot, especially with that black fur.Here's a close up in case you couldn't see him.
Keep cool and Happy Quilting,
Shelia

2 comments:

julieQ said...

Such a pretty quilt on your machine, and your quilting is really lovely. I know what you mean about the eating out thing, I spend so much less when I am on weight watchers...because we don't eat out!

Shelia said...

Thanks Julie, I love to sit and play with the machine, sometimes you can come up with some really cute patterns. I agree it is so much easier to stick to any plan when you don't eat out.
Shelia