A few finishes...

I haven't been as good sticking to my list of projects this year and I'm not gong to let it bother me!

"Cherry Churndash" - finally cut into some of my Cherrywood fabrics

MS is nicknamed the "snowflake disease" because it has so many symptoms and those symptoms can vary so much from patient to patient...or even during the course of a patient's disease...or how about for one patient in the time from breakfast to lunch.   It sort of reminds me of New England weather...

Last week's snow on our Nandia bushes

So it is difficult picking projects to work on...yesterday my hand was too clumsy to applique so I played with fabric; the day before my arms were too weak to handle the quilt that needed to be quilted so I cut strips from my scrap pile; today my eye is to wonky to handle a rotary cutter or thread a needle but I think I can run some squares through the sewing machine....

Not being able to quilt or sew is dangerous for me...

I go on ebay...(this Egyptian applique was listed as a "vintage Scandinavian textile?"  )

or I bake...these brownies did not last long....

BTW...did anyone else notice they changes the size of the Baker's Chocolate squares!  Now it takes and entire package to make a pan of brownies where it used to take half a package.  The package is the same size only thinner!  They need bigger notices on the box.  I've made these so often I don't even read the recipe...I just tossed half a box into the double boiler with the butter.  Luckily it didn't look right when it was all melted together and I check the box! (ok..not about quilts but I consider anything about chocolate a public service announcement....)

Did any of you work on the waverunner project with Victoria Finley...must have been about 4 years ago!  Anyway, I dug out mine and gave it a good press.  Think I'll machine quilt it later this month!  Already have a plan and for me that is half the battle with machine quilting!

Finally, with the recent cold weather we have had some really interesting birds at the feeders.

I put a suet feeder out when we had the ice storm and was really happy to see the woodpecker that I hear all the time but rarely see, come to the feeder!  I looked him up online to see what kind and borrowed the photo as he is very camera-shy and very fast!  The wings are really beautiful!

Mint Chocolate Chips....

Baking this week got me wondering where folks go now for recipes?

                                       Block for a table runner I am working on but doubt I'll have ready for Christmas!
It used to be they were traded on little cards.  You would get them from friends or relatives.

Who most likely got them from friends, relatives, coworkers, newspapers, magazines or cookbooks.

Now I think most folks go to the internet.  I know I use Land-O'Lakes butter's site often and Pintrest occasionally.  To be honest I still like to use the old recipes best.  Last night I tried two new cupcake recipes, both from the internet, and only liked one.  The banana cupcakes with cream cheese frosting from www.twopeasandtheirpod.com came out really good.  Only down side was lots of extra frosting but that is partly due to my not liking lots of frosting on my cakes.  The second "experiment" was a mini-chocolate chip cupcake from Ghirardelli...don't think I'll make them again.  They weren't so bad I didn't send them into work with my DH but not my best....

So for the rest of the season I will stick with the tried and true....like my Chocolate Mint Snowtops (recipe to follow.)  This recipe is in my family's cookbook that we put together a few years ago.  We attributed it to my cousin Barbara.  When she saw it was she surprised!  "Are they any good?" she asked.  When we told her they were a favorite she said "then of course they are mine!"  In reality she doesn't ever remember making them!  It may be that the Barbara on the recipe card was a friend of on of my sisters...we'll never know!

Chocolate Mint Snowtops 

1-1/2 cups flour
1 10-ounce package mint chocolate chips (I use Hershey's)
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
6 Tablespoons butter
2 eggs
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
confectionery sugar

In a medium bowl combine flour, baking powder and salt then set aside.

Over hot water, melt 1 cup of mint morsels.  Stir until smooth.  In a large blow, beat sugar and butter until creamy.  Add melted mint morsels and vanilla.  Beat in eggs then gradually beat in flour mixture.  Stir in remaining 1/2 cup mint morsels.  Wrap dough in plastic wrap.  Refrigerate until firm.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Shape dough into 1-inch balls.  Roll in confectionery sugar.  Place on un-greased cookie sheet (I use parchment since it make cleaning so much easier!)  Bake 10-12 minutes.  Let stand 5 minutes on cookie sheet.  Cool.  Makes 4-5 dozen

Store in an airtight container.  If the cookies get hard put a piece of bread in the container for a few hours and they will soften up.  (Do not store these cookies with other cookies...the mint flavor will transfer!)

Christmas baking - or Why I Will Fall behind on Quilting this week

Today officially starts my Christmas baking marathon...

My husband's office party is tomorrow so he needs a couple dozen cupcakes and three dozen biscotti...

Thursday is my Quilt Guild party...Ellie's chocolate Cake and a Stollen (we have a couple of members from Germany!)  I haven't made my Aunt Ellie's chocolate cake in years.  A few of you asked for the recipe earlier this week...let me to a trial run since the ink has blurred on the directions.

                          Last year's stollen (photo reminded me I need to find that platter.....)
Friday night a friend is having a large Christmas Party.  Instead of baking I making Spanakopeta, tzadziki, Keftethakia, and Fattouch.  So why is this Irish American making all this Greek food...the recipes come from  my husband's first mother-in-law!    (I do make a great Irish bread but that is for March....)  Also, amazingly enough, we do not have a Greek restaurant within 40 miles so I've had to learn to cook it myself.

                                                   One of last year's cookie trays....
Saturday and Sunday is cookie baking days.  Mint Snow-tops  Molasses  Christmas Biscotti, Coconut Biscotti, Chocolate Chip and a cookie to be named later.  (I like to try a new recipe every year and haven't made the final selection yet!)  These go to neighbors, work, and church.  It will keep me busy!

                                            Coconut biscotti....recipe from Cooking Light

I know this is generally a quilting blog and so far no quilts!  So here is a little quilt I made a few years ago.  It is a reproduction of a doll quilt circa 1880.  15 inches by 15 inches, had pieced and hand quilted. The madder fabrics I used came out in the early 1990's.  I wish I had bought yards of them!

The quilt now hangs in my sewing room.

Its a work day....

Just realized I am very close to 700 posts...need to think of some way to celebrate!  stay tuned.

I took a break from organizing the sewing room to do some sewing.  At least I planned to until the workman showed up to fix the deck and the front door.  Inviting carpenters to work on the house is sort of like going the doctor.  Even if you feel fine (the house is not old and looks ok) they will find something...sooo

Well our deck was not built to code...and had I noticed the problem with our garage door?...the mailbox is leaning...and did I know there was lots of water coming out of the side of the house?  (of course I did...I just assumed it was a water feature and later we would have mud wrestling with the neighbors followed by a nature show as the giant mosquitoes hatch then attack...grrrrrr.)  So now we have plumbers onsite to be followed I'm sure by some electrician (still waiting on the lights in my sewing-room,) a baker and a candlestick maker (just kidding on that last one....)

With all this going on I've had a difficult time concentrating...I did some random piecing (influenced by the recent posts on the antique and vintage quilt face-book page.)

Halfway through I thought this would be a good piece for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative...then of course I forgot what I was doing and made it too big....it is that sort of day folks!

My big accomplishment was to change the quilt on the guest bed to a summer-ish quilt.

Add one more...made chocolate chip cookies...

also ate too many of them but that isn't so much of an accomplishment...but they did help...

back of the closet projects

Spent a lot of time this weekend going through boxes in my sewing closets and just sorting fabrics and old projects. I have finished several "almost done" tablerunners, christmas ornaments, and even a few pillowcases. Today I am going to baste the quilt-top in this photo and get it ready for some simple handquilted baptist fans....This snow wallhanging was started last year using Tonya's letters...I'm going to do a bit of hand-quilting on it this week during out Thanksgiving roadtrip so I may even have it on the wall before the first snowfall.

I am a bit "housebound" - fell headfirst into the refrigerator and even broke the top shelf off sending mustard, spagetti sauce, and lots of other condiments smashing to the kitchen floor (which of course means then we had a condiment covered black-ish scottish terrier and brown-ish cat...any hints on how to get mustard out of a scottie's beard - it is vaguely blond and sort of surfer-dude looking at the moment)

All of this was to make space for my latest baking adventure...artisan bread. When my favorite loaf went over $5 last week I knew I had hit my limit and it was time to take matters (or dough) into my own hands. I had seen this book "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day" on several blogs so thought I would give it a go. It is super easy and even my DH (a bread snob from many years living around the Mediterranean) liked the first loaf! You do need to make space in the refrigerator though...no warning label on that! When I am back on my feet I am going to try a few more of the recipes...