Saturday, April 30, 2011

Mini Leaves DONE!

Tonight I sewed on the binding to my mini leaves quilt, the companion piece to this big one. Here are the two of them together. You can easily see the size difference...

And the mini one alone...

It has now been added to my wall of quilts...

Believe it or not, I might possibly be getting a little bored with my wall of quilts. I'm wondering if I should take them down and move them to another location or keep adding to it. Decisions, decisions! Stay tuned :)

Friday, April 29, 2011

One Hour Friday

Wow what a busy day I've had, but I couldn't forget about my One Hour Friday project and post!

I decided to just reach my hand into my scrap bucket and sew together whatever I pulled out. For some reason I had triangles in my mind, so I cut the first piece (the pink one in the middle) into a triangle, and just kept adding more and more until I had a big triangle. Then I had no idea what to do with it, so when in doubt, make a pincushion! Hey I only had one hour, my options were limited!

I filled it half with poly pellets and half with stuffing. The result is a very LARGE pincushion that can also double as a pattern-holder-downer!






Or a head cushion for a tired girl who dutifully got up at 5.30am today to watch the Royal Wedding with me!


Yes the pincushion is the biggest one I've ever seen. Big enough to really use as a pillow!

Now, the reason for our tiredness? We spent the day at a water park!

Fancy a bucket of water dumped on your head? Or rather, your entire body?





No? Then how about a ride down a lazy river...



It was SO much fun, and I even went down one of the big water slides. I figured it's been about 25 years since I've been on one, so it was well overdue! The slides are at the top of these stairs...


It was a LONG way down and terrifying and thrilling all at the same time!

I have 3 very tired children asleep as I type, and I am rather weary myself so until tomorrow, thanks for reading:)

My little girl blogged about our day at the water park here if you'd like to read a ten year old's version!

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Pink and Blue


Breaking news! My girl, Sofia has started her own blog! It is called "My Pink and Blue Life", named for her two favorite colors. She loves watching me do my blog and I thought it would be a great (and sneaky!) way for her to practice some extra writing skills.

She has done a post about a surprise box that showed up two days ago - her Grandma made her a beautiful quilt for her birthday. Sofia's birthday was in November but Grandma is half blind so it takes a little longer than it used to! We don't mind though - the anticipation is half the fun, right?!

So if you have a spare minute pop on over and leave a comment - I am making sure she responds to them. Once again, writing skills!

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Tasty Tuesday - Granola

My very favorite breakfast cereal is granola, (or muesli as I called it before I moved to the US) and this homemade stuff is SO amazing that you won't just eat it in a bowl of milk for breakfast - you'll snack on it all day long. It is impossible to walk by it and not grab a handful to nibble on. If I pack it away in a container it will last us a couple of weeks, but if I leave it on the table the whole lot is gone in two days flat!

It is also incredibly easy to make - easier than you may think, so if you've never made it thinking it would be too hard, give it a go - you WILL be surprised!

So here we go...

Preheat oven to 325 F

Into a large bowl put the following:

6 Cups whole rolled oats
2 Cups chopped nuts (walnuts, pecans, almonds, whatever you like)
2 Cups coconut
1/2 Cup brown sugar
(You can add other things here if you like, such as flax seed, bran etc. You could also take out the nuts and/or coconut if you don't like them, but really??? Leave them in if you can!)


Stir it up well and then in a separate bowl mix together:

1 C maple syrup
1/2 C vegetable oil
2 tsp Vanilla
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp cinnamon



Stir wet ingredients well and then just pour over the oat mixture. That's right, you don't even need to precook the wet ingredients. How easy is that?!




Stir very well until the oat mixture is thoroughly covered.



Pour onto two large oven trays and evenly distribute.




Bake in oven for approximately one hour, stirring every 15 minutes so that it gets evenly cooked.



When it is cooked it will be golden in color, but will still feel soft. Don't worry, this is completely normal and it will harden up as it cools.


After you take it from the oven, pour it into a large bowl and this is when you can add any extras you like such as raisins, cranberries, dried apricots, chocolate chips etc. However it is delicious all by itself. You really can't go wrong!


Enjoy and try to make it last longer than two days!

Monday, April 25, 2011

The Letter S

Today I finally finished the applique on my Spring Flowers quilt.


The most fun part was the letter S I put on the vase. When you applique, you usually applique the pieces from the back to the front. It just works out best that way! But this circle and letter S were done the opposite - front to back. I appliqued the S to the circle, and then the circle to the vase. Normally I would applique the circle to the vase first, but doing it this way helped to have the letter S centered much better.




It worked out beautifully doing it that way, and doing it opposite to how I usually would, made it interesting and fun!

Now I get to quilt it and finish it all up. And what do you think the letter S stands for? Spring of course!

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Happy Easter!

I hope you have all had a wonderful Easter and been able to reflect if only for a moment on the reason for the day :)

We spent our usual 3 hours at church and Sofia decided to go with the Bolero jacket after all...


Then it was home for the Easter egg hunt but because it was cold and raining outside, the Easter Bunny had hidden the eggs inside. Can you believe some of the crazy places that Easter Bunny hid eggs?....




That was one clever bunny!

Back to our regularly scheduled sewing tomorrow :)

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Easter Dress

My girl Sofia and I spend the entire afternoon making her a new Easter Dress. She chose the pattern and fabrics, and helped me cut out the pattern. I sewed most of it, but she did the longer straighter parts as you can see here...


Finally it was done! We even made a little matching bolero jacket to wear over it, which didn't last long - she much prefers it without. Are all 10 year olds this fussy?!!



I had some straight trim which I ruffled up and added to the front. 4 rows later and it looks rather cute!


I somehow convinced her to go outside in the drizzling rain for some photos. Nothing beats natural light, even in the rain!






I'll have to take photos tomorrow before church when she has her hair done pretty and the look is pulled together more. Here's hoping it's a nice day!