Banana Bread

Last night I was in the mood for some fresh, hot banana bread. Most people call it "banana nut bread" but at our house it's just "banana bread"....why? Because my husband is allergic to walnuts so I have to leave them out and I don't like pecans in it so I just end up making plain old banana bread. Anyway, after dinner I decided a loaf of the stuff was in order and whipped one up. While it was cooking, I settled down in front of the idiot box with my latest handquilting project.

I usually watch "Biggest Loser" but hadn't decided if I was going to be a faithful follower this season. Nothing else was on so I ended up watching it after all. I'm working on a quilt I call "Stepping Stones" and I'm absolutely sick to death of looking at it!

I think when you machine quilt a project it gets done pretty quickly and you can sit back and admire the quilt and the colors, ooh and ahh over the fabrics and such, but when you spend days and hours hand quilting you kinda get tired of looking at those fabrics - at least I do. I think that's why all the furniture in my house is brown or some neutral color - although brown IS my favorite color, I think I would tire of anything else. I'm the kind of person that has to re-arrange at least one room every 3 months or so, just to get some variety in my surroundings.

So, needless to say, I'm sick of looking at this quilt, but I am almost done and will soon be putting the binding on and listing it in my Etsy shop - it's already on my website as a "pre-sell".

I needed something special for these large spaces of open fabric and came up with an octagonal design but somehow needed to get that design onto the quilt. My husband is such a talented problem-solver and has created for me a wonderful template to quilt this particular quilt.

I simply place the template over the block and trace in the slots with my disappearing ink pen

and VOILA! An easy to quilt design results!

I love the way it looks when the quilting is done.

...just like a stepping stone!

My hand quilted quilts are usually somewhat puffy because I use a high loft polyester batting. I think it's much easier to quilt through and I like the lofty look it gives.

So, at 9:00 PM and halfway thru Biggest Loser, I was wondering if my banana bread was done because it sure was smelling delicious throughout the house!

DING!

Hey - that's time oven timer.....nope, not done yet....another 15 minutes maybe (I hate how banana bread does that - it seems to take longer than the recipe calls for and I don't want to overbrown it - just a nice toasty brown on the outside and cooked thru)

...more quilting...more fat people barfing on treadmills....

DING!

hmmm....maybe it's done now - it's getting late and I sure am hungry....nope, still not done....let's try 10 more minutes

....quilting....barfing....crying.....

DING!

Ahhhh....happiness in a loaf pan! YUM!

>^..^<~

Jenn