my new obsession . . .

Gracious.  As if I needed a new obsession on top of those I've already got, right? Right.  There's no *help* for me . . . 

Or is there??!!!!

I'm talking about English paper piecing, which I absolutely adore!!

I've finished up my apple core columns and am now ready to stitch those together.  I'm hoping they go together as smoothly as the 9 columns went.  I numbered them (and marked them with an ↑) so I ensure I'd be able to easily figure out which one was first, last, and how they went in-between!

I was having so much fun EPP'ing those, that I decided to take my original design and put it together that way, too.

I've got the center done and have the pieces cut for the balance.  I decided to leave the outside edges of the yellow and orange pieces un-stitched, so that I can trim them to a 1/4" and stitch them to the purple fabric I want to use to set the block on point.  We'll see how that works.  Linking up my EPP projects to the HeLP linky party over at Sarah Did It!

In other news, we had a fabulous guild meeting last night.  Our guest speaker was Shelly Zeggart, of Why Quilts Matter fame.  Her program was wonderful, and we got to watch one of the episodes of the documentary.  If you've not heard of this program, you really need to check out the trailer for it:

My friend Melissa (of I am Beautiful Bee) and I went in together and purchased the DVD set.  I can't wait to watch the whole thing!

Another perk from last night?  My darling friend Jane gifted me with a pattern for a pinwheel wreath.

She'd made one last year and I fell in love with it -- you can see hers HERE;  it's about halfway through the post.  Isn't it DARLING!?  And wasn't that sweet of Jane to remember how much I liked it?  I also came away with a tidy little bundle of fabrics and some romantic stencils.

My cup (aka my fabric bin) overfloweth!  That will put a little spike in my stash reporting (and my fabric obsession) ... but I'll wait until we return from Maryland -- just in case I happen to acquire some fabric while I'm gone.  Who knows, right?!

I found a REALLY CUTE youtube tutorial for making origami dresses.  As soon as I saw the finished product, I thought it would make the *perfect* place card for a little girl's tea party!  So of course, I tried my hand at it, because I also have an obsession for all things tea!

They got better/easier as I got them done.  I made one and figured out where I'd put the name -- then I was able to run the paper through the printer and cut out my squares.  The tutorial can be found HERE.  For these particular dresses, my paper was 4.5" by 3.5".

And let's wrap this post up with an *old* obsession of mine . . . 

CHOCOLATE!  I had just enough ingredients to make a batch of my favorite fudgie One Bowl Brownies and frost them with ganache!  Doesn't get much better than that, does it?

Cheerio!

:)

what's an ig?

An Eskimo's home without a "loo"!  Baa-dum-bump.

June update -- her oxygen levels finally got to where they needed to be by doctor rounds yesterday evening and she'd had two good nursing sessions by then, too.  What she was still having trouble doing was sleeping in the hospital (who doesn't?!), so when the doctor gave them the option to go home, they decided to go ahead and go.  A lot of times with RSV, especially with infants under two months, exhaustion becomes as big a problem as anything.  Kim and James felt that she'd get the sleep she needed in her own home/bed.  She had a good night's sleep last night and so did Kim.   They'll have to keep a close eye on June for the next two weeks or so.  Again, thank you *so* much for your thoughts, prayers and well-wishes!

I wanted to share a couple of wins . . .

Farmhouse Retreat by Renee Nanneman, from Jane's Quilting, and Thimbleberries' Woodland Stars, from Cindy over at Hooked On Quilting!  Both have some really cute things inside them, but this one inside Farmhouse Retreat really caught my eye:

Isn't that darling?!

When Todd and I were out and about the other day, I convinced him--since we were so close and all--to stop by my favorite Fayetteville LQS.  While I was there I picked up one of these . . .

I've held out for so long, but there it was and there I was and next thing I knew, it was mine!  Yes, other *fabric-y* things were mine, too, but I'm saving that!  *wink*

When I mentioned the addition of the Dark Chocolate Raspberry M&M's to the giveaway the other day, one of my friends mentioned that she gets Cordial Cherry M&M's.  WHAT?!?  

Sure enough!  All the cherry cordial goodness without the wet, sticky centers.  LOL!  

Speaking of the giveaway, today is the LAST DAY to sign up!  I'll leave it open until midnight -- and I'll announce a winner tomorrow, sometime.  Haven't signed up yet?  Head over HERE!

In light of yesterday's tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, I was *so* especially grateful to have Ellie and Sawyer around to hug and love on.  Ellie gave me a first hand demonstration of her new phone abilities . . .

Although when I said, "Hello!", she still put the empty hand to her ear!  So precious.

Neesey?  What is that thing?

Are you taking my picture *again*??!

Sawyer's headed out this way to spend some fun time at the camp with us today.  We're going to take the golf cart out and go down and feed the fish at the pond.  Tonight, Todd and I have his Station's Christmas party ... another busy day!

:)

delayed by design . . .

Or something like that.  It's been a crazy day!  Todd and I were out the door early, to get the van I used for my Nashville trip back to the Association.  From there we made all sorts of stops.  One of mine involved (finally) fabric!!

Hobby Lobby had *all* of their Christmas fabric on sale for 50% off.  Nice!  I'll be using a fat quarter of the ornament print (far right) to wrap an ornament for tomorrow night's Stitcher's Christmas party.  Yay!

While I was there, I also picked up some more felt for poinsettias.  

I found sparkly pink *and* sparkly green!

And some buttons for those poinsettias, too.

I've got this fabric back out, too . . . time to get down to the nitty-gritty with my Christmas tree napkins.  I'll use some of the fabric in the first photo and then these two combinations.

You get two napkins per fat quarter, so I've got a goodly number of napkin sets I can make!

And . . . in Sunday's Stash Report/Slow Stitching post I showed a sweet little Christmas tree stitchery I'd downloaded from my most recent Sew Beautiful e-newsletter.  In that same newsletter was this cute little fellow, as well:

I'm happy to forward a copy of the newsletter to anyone who would like the patterns.  Both are totally darling, don't you think?

So that's what's theoretically on my design wall.  There are lots of other productive walls to check out over at Judy Laquidara's Patchwork Times!  

And, in case you've missed all the hubbub, don't miss out on celebrating Quilting Gallery's 5th birthday!!  

You can check out my giveaway post HERE . . . and to *totally* sweeten the deal, I found a package of Dark Chocolate Raspberry M&Ms to add to the prize package!

Mmmmm . . . chocolate!

:)

quilt, by gayle thomas

Our guild had a stitch-in last night and today, and during today's, they held a 2-part workshop on making teddy bears. And I took it! I'll share more about it, with pictures of my first bear in progress, tomorrow.

Today, however, I am sharing with you this awesome short film on quilting. It's on the NFB.ca blog. Very inspired and well-worth the view -- it's full of modern and traditional methods of quilting, kaleidoscoped into beautiful eye-candy. Even if you're not a quilter, it's fascinating to watch, and well set to some toe-tapping tunes!

Oh, and ps: Godiva strawberry truffles? YUM!

:)

what a guy!

I'm just gonna take a few well-deserved moments here and brag on my man. He is the total stuff!

Last night (after receiving flowers at work) I came home to a prepared meal. I was so grateful! And let me tell you, my darling man is a *great* cook! We had a hearty stew that was just wonderful. And he cleaned up after dinner to boot.

Then he showed me a picture of what he thinks our next big purchase for RV living should be:

Is that awesome or what???? It actually is pretty cool. It's portable, fits a full place setting for four, and it will SANITIZE our dishes while it cleans them. With all the sickness the two of us have been enjoying over the last two months, that's pretty important. Even when I rinse the dishes in rinse water with Clorox diluted into it, I don't feel like they're as clean as they need to be!

Cute, non? It looks a little like a microwave! I just wanna pinch its cute little cheeks! Ahem. Anyway . . .

So, as if all that (flowers, dinner, dishwasher) is not enough, this morning Todd, my SUPERman, leaves when I leave for work so he can open and shut the gate for me. He's so sweet! So as he walks to the gate, he opens my car door and slips me a little sugar . . . literally *and* figuratively!

What can it be?? I know one thing . . . it's from one of my favorite stores, Two Friends! (I did lots of Secret Pal shopping there.)

A heart-shaped box of Godiva chocolates! Godiva chocolates are my favorite! They even make flowers smell better. Really, they do! Can you believe this husband of mine? Flowers & dinner yesterday, chocolates today . . . gracious!

Yum, yum, yum. This is true love. I am a spoiled, pampered wife. I know I've got it good! You know what the best part is, though? He's such a godly man; he loves the Lord and serves Him with all his heart.

I am blessed.

:)

Oh. My. Goodness.

And I've not even tasted of it yet! But it sure is beautiful to behold, if I do say so myself. Of course, I didn't come up with the recipe, I just followed it very, very carefully!! The true test comes after dinner tomorrow, when Todd and I slice into it for dessert! Shoot, if it didn't need to refrigerate for at least two hours before serving (and Esther notes that it's better when refrigerated overnight), I'd load it up in the car and take it to Station 6, and we'd get into the darn thing right now! :) Ha! At least that way I wouldn't have to worry about eating more than one piece!!!

I was very impressed with the whipped cream/sour cream frosting. It was superb. Very light, and not overly sweet. It will probably be the perfect compliment to the marmalade and the very dense cake. Man, with five eggs, four egg yolks, a cup of butter, a cup of oil, and a cup of buttermilk -- talk about rich! It needed a light frosting!

There are some things I would do differently next time, if there were to be a next time (which there probably won't be, since I'm not taking the Kitchen Aid mixer on the RV).

For instance, I would definitely only purchase name brands. I didn't purchase name brands for the heavy whipping cream or the marmalade. I don't know that it'll make any difference, but something niggled at the back of my brain that if you want to bake the finest product, use the finest ingredients. File that.

I don't think I did a good enough job tapping the air bubbles out of the cake batter pans, before I put them into the oven. It didn't seem to pose a problem, I just think I could have done better.

I would use a little more marmalade next time. Twelve ounces didn't seem to be quite enough to nicely cover both of the inner layers and to lay a nice showing on the top.

Other than those things, I believe it was GREAT! I can certainly now understand Esther's reluctance to make the darn thing, though. Good gravy, what a time consumer!! I remember in one of the books, Esther (Bollick) fumes that no one eats cake any more, much less bakes them from scratch. I don't wonder why!!!

Still . . . it did look awfully grand and impressive, sitting there on the counter. I will try to remember to take a picture of it before we slice it tomorrow night!

I think I'll try Lew Boyd's chocolate cake next.

Bon nuit!

:)