I Hate Doing It!!

I finally admitted to myself that I hate something about quilting - I HATE basting the backing, batting and quilt top together! First, I don't have a big enough table - I am working on my dining room table. Second, I only have two hands. Thank goodness John helped me last night or I would still be trying to pin this together.

I wanted to put together the String Quilt I made as a gift. I got the 108 inch backing from Quilt In A Day and the batting and got the top. I had a multitude of pins. I was ready to go. John and I almost had the whole thing pinned together when John said, "Look Mom, there is a whole bunch of fabric here!". The backing had bunched up and the only way to fix it was to unpin most of the quilt and re-pin. What a pain in the tush!! Finally at 11:30 last night we got it done. Now tonight I need to draw the quilting lines on it and start. I am going to use a CD as template and draw random circles all over the quilt. I want to make sure this gets done by Christmas.

I am also working on another Christmas gift quilt and am waiting for the backing to come. Then I will try to do this all over again!

The school did decide to promote Jim to the 8th grade - although he had a scare - the school sent a letter with information home and the first thing we pulled out was an invitation to the 6th grade orientation! He thought he had been demoted! Robbyn and Jim both have school supplies and are almost ready. I bought Robbyn a new dress because "every girl needs a new school outfit".

The eating frenzy was not very frenzied at all - we had milk at the Dairy Barn, a baked potato at the Potato Booth and then had dinner - Marty, Jim and Robbyn had fish sandwiches, I had fried clams and John had a Buffalo chicken sandwich that made by eyes water from across the table! Oh, and I had a bottle of blueberry wine while watching the parade. No fried dough, no fried oreos, nothing too bad.

We are coming to the Labor Day weekend. We will be BBQing chicken halves on Sunday. We cook 24 halves and freeze most so we can have chicken in the winter! Here is the recipe we use for the sauce. It is called the Cornell Chicken Sauce because a professor at Cornell University invented it.

Cornell Barbeque Chicken:

2 cups vinegar
1 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
3 tablespoons salt
1 tablespoon poultry seasoning
Pepper to taste
6 to 8 Chicken halves

Put all ingredients into a bowl and mix until smooth. Marinade chicken in sauce for at least 1 - 2 hours (we allowed the chicken to marinate overnight). Cook chicken over charcoal grill until done. Baste often while cooking.

Note: I basted the chicken almost continuously during the cooking process. The recipe makes plenty of marinade so be generous with your basting. I would cook the chicken for a few minutes after the last dose of basting, however, since there is raw egg in the marinade.

Hope you all enjoy!