Burger Tour Stop #1: Frisco Freeze

 

 Frisco Freeze the first stop on our burger tour of the 2012 summer! A Tacoma classic on Union Avenue located across the street from Mary Bridge Children's hospital. Frisco Freeze has been in business for over 65 years serving up these American classics to the people of the south sound.

First thing about Frisco that you need to know is there is no indoor seating so pick a sunny day to take your lunch to a park or plan on eating in your car. After-all this is a classic American drive in. No public restrooms but they do take debt though so that is a HUGE plus! However at 2.40 for a cheese burger you can probably pay with cash.

Ok Now on to the food. 

Burgers are ranked on appearance - does it look appetizing and fresh, the bun, quality, taste & type, the patty flavor and juiciness, the beef to bun ratio, and the yummy factor. The sixth rating is for whatever side item is ordered.  All items are ranked on a scale of 1 - 5 with 30 being the highest score a place can get.

What was ordered:
Erin: cheeseburger, onion rings and a small chocolate shake $8.25
Tyler: Double cheeseburger and fries $6.40
Guest Judge Leiani -  Burger, fries, Chocolate Malt   $8.59


Appearance:
Erin -  4 
Tyler -  4
Guest Judge Leiani - 4

Bun
Erin - 3  "Average, plain bun"
Tyler - 3
Guest Judge Leiani - 2 " better if toasted, got a little mushy by the end"

Patty Flavor and Juiciness
Erin -4    "thin but not overcooked, still flavorful"
Tyler - 3   "overcooked but still juicy"
Guest Judge Leiani - 3   "lost the flavor in the mayo and onion"

Beef to Bun Ratio
Erin -5  "Thin bun, this burger patty, great proportions"
Tyler - 4 "Thin meat, thin buns"
Guest Judge Leiani - 3  "I'd like more meat in my buns"

The Yummy Factor
Erin -4  "good topping mixture"

Tyler - 3 "little heavy on the mayo and lettuce, good relish"
Guest Judge Leiani - 4 

Side Item

Erin - onion rings - 3 "little dry, possibly frozen type and not fresh. No fry sauce available."

Tyler - fries - 3  "nothing special"
Guest Judge Leiani -classic malt -  4  "thick and tasty"


Overall
Erin - 23
Tyler - 20
Guest Judge Leiani - 20

E-T grading score is a 21.5  
(we are hard graders I think. It really was good and I would go back!)

Wedding Quilt for Breanna

 Breannas wedding was now 2 weeks ago!!! Times flys during a rainy June I guess.  Her colors for the special day were purple and gray. From the second she decided on this I began finding and hunting down purple fabrics to make her this quilt I had dreamed up in my head. I was excited to work with purple so excited in fact that I ended up with 10 different purples!

 There are 360 squares on the front made up of 10 different purple fabrics, solid gray and a lacey sparkle fabric. After cutting all the squares I paried each purple with a gray or a lace gray and than randomly pulled the pairings out of a brown paper bag to make the rows. I wanted the design to be as random as possble to get a scrappy effect.

I think the plan worked out well. The colors mixed throughout the pattern and the lace sparkle mixed in randomly added some interest to the non purple spaces.

 After much debate I decided to do a simple quilting design with diagnal crossing lines. I love the affect it gave the quilt almost as if dimond shapes were individual quilt blocks.

 This quilt is huge. We had to take fence pictures because it was way to big to hold up. So sorry no moutain in the background pics. :(

 I put the tag on the frong this go around.
 Think it worked nicely with this design.

For the back I did large stripes with one gray stripe down the middle with M+B=Heart on the side.

I applicaed the letters on. Which came out very nice with this light purple metalic fabric.

 Here is a look at the stripes. I really like the mix. made it a little  more fun than just one back fabric. I choose my two favorates. Bought them out of the lighter one. Had to keep some for my stash.

 And in the end 360 squares lived happily ever after!

The Local Burger Tour

There was a time when burgers were really my thing. But I have to admit the love for burgers has evolved recently thanks to five guys and it sparked an idea. This summer my co worker Tyler and I will be embarking on a 7 stop tour of locally owned Burger joints on our lunch breaks throughout the summer. Old drive-ins mostly all known for there greasy goodness.

Now my vegan friends out there are probably cringing, but to all my non vegan friends who enjoy classic American food, I will be posting our reviews of the local places, what we have, and how it tastes. Maybe even some photos of these local places. I plan on ordering a single cheeseburger, with ketchup and grilled onions (if available) at every location.& Tyler will also be ordering a similar meal at every location.

Tour Stops Include: 

Out & About  - Located in a trailer on Puyallup's South Hill

Don's Drive In - Located across from the fair grounds in Puyallup

Dairy Freeze - Located in downtown Sumner.

Pick-Quick - Located in Fife

Wally's White River Drive In - Located on hwy 410 in Buckley

Frisko Freeze - Located on Division Ave in Tacoma.

Goffy Goose - Located on 6th Ave in Tacoma.

Other locations we are considering however they are a little more of a chain so we cut them out are,  frugals, five guys and fatburger....first we need to make it through these 7 stops!

Tour kicks off next Tuesday! Stay tuned for how our first visit goes!

MY favorite quilt

This is MY quilt that I selfishly made for myself.

I adore it to pieces and stole it from the guest bed in my sewing room and have been sleeping with it. After I made it I never took the time to get some pictures of the finished product. So this morning after waking up with it I decided to finally get around to it.

I designed the pattern after I bought a stack of fabric at the closing of a great fabric store. I used the yardage and also a white jelly roll. Funny thing about this quilt is I started the concept and cutting in February 2011 and finished it in February 2012. My skills grew so much in that time period through all the other quilts and sewing projects I finished that the ending product in 2012 was much better than I envisioned in 2011.

See these stacks? This is how the quilt sat for about a year...sad but true



 Than I finally took the time to make it into my favorite quilt....

 The backing fabric of this quilt is on of the main reasons I love it. Big vintage flowery design but in more modern colors. The entire quilt is very springy and reminds of a sunny day with a sudden rain shower like we are so accustom too this time of year.

What I am most proud about with this quilt is the actual quilting I did. I did a zig-zag design through the entire quilt which you can kinda see in these pictures.

 To bind this quilt I used the simple fold over technique. I wanted something very thin so that I didn't loose much of the design.

I went slow and steady and ended up with a very nice machine finish on it. Someday I may take the time to learn to hand bind but when I get to this point in the quilt I get so excited I just want it done!

As is with any sort of new quilt or fabric I buy the poodles love it. This photo was taken just minutes after the final touches were done. I was vacuuming up the threads on the floor and lewie claimed it.



Here Lew is posing with the poodle tag....He really does think this one is his I don't have the heart to tell him its really mine.

Wine Welcome

My front door was white. As white as the trim on my blue house. Nothing special, just a factory white door. In fact, my whole porch area was really boring. Really this porch area had been driving me crazy since we moved in because the original plan was to have a red door (and that didn't happen) and a little different porch entry situation (which also didn't happen thanks to the city's weird rules) Anyway, with the sun shining one morning this spring I decided it was time for a change. With some pinot noir colored paint and some vintage windows I gave it a little pick-me-up which I think has made a ton of difference. Here are the before and after pics!

              BEFORE Pinot Noir                                  AFTER Pinot Noir

BEFORE

AFTER

And now for the vintage windows. I bought these at a little store in Sumner and painted a quick coat of white to make them look a little fresher and Jason screwed them in to hang them up. I decided on windows without old glass panels partly due to our wind and because they were a heck of a lot cheaper!

 All done! (I love before and afters they make me feel like I did so much!)

BEFORE Pinot Noir & vintage windows

AFTER!!!!

Now I just need to find the perfect bench/chairs/swing/something so I can sip iced tea on the front porch with Jason and the poodles!

Bible Covers

Whoa! I have been a long time! Been busy with grad school and lots of projects though. Been sewing a lot, updating the house, celebrating new marriages and of course doing a lot of grad school work. Less about the grad school though and more about the projects. I started off this year by working a personalized Bible covers for each kid in my Sunday school class.

 This project took an unexpected turn when just as I was finishing my last few we found out that the Bibles we had been planning on ordering were no longer available. The problem with this was a size change in the covers with the new ordered ones making it so I had to go back through and adjust each cover individually. In the end I all got done and the best part is the covers are adorable and on the Bibles of all the kids in class!

This is the inside of the cross cover. Put some different fabrics on the inside to personalize them all for the kids.

 

 

Inside flaps hold the book in place. I love that cross fabric!

This one was for the class cougar fan.

All unique and fun. I am very happy with how this project came out and even more excited that the kids actually have been using them! I created the pattern using a few examples I saw online. The softcover of the Bibles was a bit of a challenge but lining the covers with batting seemed to be enough with strong seems.

Anyway, trying to catch up on my project posting. More to come tomorrow!