Tutorial on embroidering on cards, MESIG Show & Tell, In the kitchen with Michael & Deb, rye bread!!, Fiber Nutz

Billionaire Elon Musk on Thursday used a chainsaw as a prop to tout his efforts to shrink the federal workforce in the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Musk waved it in the air at a conservative event, describing it as a "chainsaw for bureaucracy." He was asked repeatedly about his efforts to find waste and fraud in the federal budget, which he likened to throwing darts in a room full of targets. The Trump administration and Musk have insisted that they are carefully purging the federal workforce by firing only low-performing employees serving in non-critical roles, or recent hires on probationary status. However, CNN has found that the exact opposite is happening — recently promoted employees or people who have received strong performance reviews are among those who have been terminated.

*************************************************

WOW - you really all came through for me with comments and emails and texts and I surely did appreciate all of them! Of course I don't expect comments from everyone everyday, but if you could think about ''talking'' to me once in awhile as you read the blogs....I would be very happy indeed!

************************************

We headed to STAPLES on Monday morning (2/17) to check out getting TSA pre-check for our trip later this year…unfortunately, the employee who does it called in sick :~(.  So, it was back home again (after a stop at AMELIE’s French Bakery for an éclair and a pecan tart) to embroider a card for AJ’s birthday:

which I could conveniently take to Machine Embroidery for our February challenge :~). 

I promised a friend a tutorial on the card making, so here it is:

-I hoop tear away stabelizer in my 5'' by 7'' hoop

-you definitely want to buy cardstock....something heavier than regular paper. Many, many years ago I bought about 8 packs of these at Joann's as they were 80% off and I have used them over and over! Michael draws on them and I embroider on them!

-I marked the center of the card with a teeny, tiny pencil dot and then taped it as straight as I could to the stabelizer with painter's tape.

-please note the teeny, tiny corner of the painter's tape I have on the card because even painter's tape can rip a layer off of the card if you are not careful, and so I want as little of it as possible holding the card

-I center my design, and start embroidering. I will say for this particular design, the pencil dot (and center of design) ended up being covered by the embroidery. For some of the letters, that is not the case, the center ends up in a white/un-embroidered space on the card. When that happens, I don't want a hole where the embroidery starts (because my machine always takes a stitch in the center before it moves to where it is really starting), so I advance my embroidery design to stitch number 4 or 5 so that the hole is in an embroidered part...and then erase the pencil dot once everything is done.

-after stitching I carefully peel off the tape

-then I flip the card over and start to tear away the stabelizer. I keep my fingers along the edge of the design so that I don't rip into it or distort the stitches as I am ripping off the stabelizer

Some people buy scrapbook paper and glue it to the inside of the card to hide the bobbin thread.

I left around 12:30 to pick up Pat (6 weeks out from knee replacement and still a superstar!!!) and head to our meeting at the Lake House.  There were lots of wonderful cards:

-isn't this stunning? She embroidered it and then colored it with watercolor pencils

and other terrific show and tell:

-tons and tons of scrunchies that are donated to hospital candy striper type people and go like hotcakes to the kids...

I thought this was one of the most ADORABLE things I've even seen!!! What a very cute Easter centerpiece it would make

-Joyce has a plain, I think white, table runner, then she makes these for each holiday and scatters them across the runner....brilliant!!

When I got home, it was another edition of MICHAEL & DEB IN THE KITCHEN.  I made up a big bowl of filling:

while Michael was cooking the manicotti shells, then those got stuffed and into a casserole for our dinner tonight. 

Meanwhile Michael was mixing up dough for Artisan Rye bread…we’re hoping to bake off at least 1 loaf this week:

  He started cooking lasagna noodles as we still had a bunch of filling left…..and I made up one casserole of lasagna rolls ups, while he made up the second and popped everything into the freezer:

so that I could hit the studio and do some quilting.  Thanks to my honey, I was finished quilting by dinnertime:

********************************************

I was in the studio Tuesday morning (2/18) to get the mermaid quilt all cleaned up and off of the frame.  I used 2 fabrics from stash on the back and wish I had reversed them.  I wished I had more of the greenish left…than the bluish….to maybe do a pillow for the living room, but oh well. 

I picked up Kathy on my way to Pam’s house for our monthly Fiber Nutz meeting:

-our hostess with the mostest!

Pam’s father’s birthday was February 14th, so in his memory she always hosts, and puts out a big spread: 

She also finished off a banoffee pie for us all to have a piece before we left at 5 PM!!!   The time just flew….I never imagined it was that late. 

Anyway, I just had about 20 minutes to talk to my honey before he left for the movies and I had a little dinner, and then a nice long chat with Mary Jo.

`-the caption for this picture should read ''waiting for mom to turn on the electric blanket''!

*****************************************

I SKYPE’d Wednesday morning (2/19) with Janice, then headed upstairs to get a smurfy breakfast from my honey:

-we were out of bread!

and bake off a loaf of the rye bread: 

Michael went out on just a few errands and it was done baking by the time he got home…and he pronounced it PHENOMENAL!!!!!! 

I read my book for a long time…and didn’t make it to the studio until almost 5 PM.  I continued to pin on the back for Sandy’s next quilt and finally around 7 PM I headed upstairs to eat the giant salad my honey made for us for dinner!

And 10 years ago...

-https://foodandfiberfloozie.blogspot.com/2015/02/ice-coated-street-michaels-clean-table.html

-https://foodandfiberfloozie.blogspot.com/2015/02/pecan-pancakes-pats-quilt.html

-https://foodandfiberfloozie.blogspot.com/2015/02/illusions-blocks.html

*** I saw this on a t-shirt and I think it's me....''BAKING - it's how I hug!'' ***

*** I didn't mean to gain weight...it happened by snack-cident! ***