feeding the addiction

Of course I had to buy some fabric while I was in Utah. There are so many cute quilt shops there. I met Amy, Park City Girl at Elaine's Quilt Block where I got some cute stuff for a bag, Alison's bedding and those purple fat quarters just because they were cute. AND $1!

Then yesterday I was reminded of Material Girls, a fairly new shop (to me) that I have heard good things about. Amy had emailed me to ask if I had been there before - my mom and I left within 5 minutes to go check it out, we only had one day left together, and I'm always looking for a good reason to procrastinate! It was good therapy - got my mind off of the packing and the flight. Plus I got those cute blue and green fat quarters for $1 too!

Nadine and her cute shop did not dissappoint! I got to visit with her and she let me take some pictures!

She had so many cute samples up and a great selection of fabrics from Amy Butler, Sandi Henderson, Heather Bailey, etc. She told me that Sandi Henderson was in her shop one day and everyone was going crazy! I'm glad I'm not the only one that feels starstruck by these designers.

Aww, more birdies.

There were so many cool quilts to look at! I love the window pane look of this one on the left. I think that's what I am going to do with my bird blocks. And I just liked this one on the right - Amy Butler Midwest Modern. So pretty. An Amy Butler Quilt is on my list to make this year.

Now back to my normal life. It's been a while. I'm looking forward to my own bed, a routine and some quality time with my sewing machine.

homeward bound

So much to blog about, so little time.

Life has been a whirlwind since Thanksgiving! We've had holidays, birthdays, transcontinental flights, inaugurations, and a quilting bee all in the space of about 8 weeks! I barely got my house put back together from Christmas when I decided to fly across the country with my 2 small kids, BY MYSELF. Slightly crazy if you ask me. I will be glad to get home and back into our normal routine.

I've spent the last two weeks in Utah visiting my family. This is what it looked like from the airplane when we were getting ready to land.

That's right. Cold. Snowy. White. And yet, we haven't had one snowstorm the whole time I've been here. Lame.

We've had a great time visiting and letting my kids spend time with cousins, aunts, uncles, and Grandma Suzie, that we don't get to see very often. Not to mention the dear friends I've been able to catch up with. There's never enough time to see everyone either...

Two very exciting things have been going on in my crafty life. My quilting bee group, A Notion or Two, has left me speechless with the blocks that have been made for me so far. I keep checking back constantly to see if new pictures have been posted. I can't wait to get home and get the mail and then start to put this beauty together!

I also got to have my first bloggy meet-up! With one of the Blogging Amys! Amy from Park City Girl was able to meet me at my favorite local quilt shop to check out the 1$ bargain fat quarters and an excellent selection of other fabrics.

(I'll have to take a picture of the fabric I bought to post later.) We had a great time getting to talk and get to know each other better in person. We had five kids between us so it was definitely an adventure! We laughed about understanding why we shop for fabric online! It's so much easier. I just love how I have made some great friends in the blogging community who have the same interests as me. It makes it fun to share with people who understand! So to meet face to face with a 'virtual' friend was really a treat! Thanks, Amy!

Amy wrote about our meet-up here.

Tomorrow will be spent packing up and getting the last snuggles and hugs in with grandma. Wish us luck on the flight home!

quilting bee-utiful!

oh wow. I had no idea what I was in store for when I decided to join the little quilting bee, A Notion or Two. You have GOT to see what has been created so far. I am speechless. And I keep going back to look at the pictures. They make me SO happy!!

well, here's a little sneak peak. I'm so glad I decided to have them add the little birdies after all!



And do you see that new little button over there? The one that says "Blogging Amys"? No, it's not a new band. But it's a cool name! Amy at Commonplace noticed (like many of us Amys) that there were a lot of blogging Amys. So she compiled a list. And made a button. And now I feel like I'm part of a special club! How funny is that!? Click on it and it will take you to the list. And if you are a blogging Amy, ask her to add you to the list! And if you aren't an Amy, well then, I'm so sorry. Hey, do you think we could get Ms. Butler to join our club?

a quilting bee

I don't think I mentioned that I was asked by Dana (aka: the queen of quilt giveaways) from Old Red Barn Co. to be part of a quilting bee this year! I was excited that she thought I would measure up to the others in our group. There are 12 of us each taking a month this year to be "in charge". When it is our month we send out fabric to the other 11 members with guidelines for the blocks we would like them to make. At the end of the month, they mail them back and you have 11 (+ your own = 12) blocks to make into a quilt. If you are interested you can go to our Flickr group and see who we are and what we're up to. One of our members is a graphic designer and she designed our cute little button over there on my sidebar, A Notion or Two.

I have never done anything like this so I thought it would be a fun adventure. I could sit back the first few months, make blocks for other people, and kind of see how it is done and how I would approach my month.

I was assigned January! Yikes! I actually had most of the fabric I needed for a green and white quilt I had been thinking of doing. So I decided that I would just do that. But the idea I had was kind of abstract and hard to explain so I was mulling and mulling and was inspired by a little birdie quilt that Amber made. I thought that a little bird on each block of green (leaves? or leave-ish designs) would be really cute.

So I just sent out the bundles from these fabrics and am really excited to see what I get back! They are mostly Michael Miller and Amy Butler with a Moda or two thrown in.

I've just been redecorating (or some could argue, decorating for the first time) my living room and this lap quilt will fit right in. I just got a new rug, pillow, and some new flowers and rearranged the furniture and my pictures.... so I can't wait for this quilt to have a new home.

same-ies, by christy and shannon

I'm not really sure how to spell that, thus the hyphen. I made these two bags for two great friends of mine who are also great friends to each other. They ended up picking the same prints in different colorways. So almost twins, definitely same-ies - that's a technical term Christy coined.

Christy was my roommate/travel buddy before I got married and Shannon was her friend (now mine too!) who gave me the best haircuts I've ever had! They blog together at Movie Mavens giving just what the title suggests - movie reviews. We haven't been able to convince Christy to start a personal blog yet, but we still love her. Shannon also blogs here.

Leave it to Shannon to help me think outside the box and pick a third fabric to use for the outside strap. She's so creative that way. In fact you should check out her card-making blog.

I just liked this picture, I didn't get a same-ie shot of Shannon's bag posed like this....(plus I'm partial to anything blue. Light blue especially. With a touch of turquoise.

i'm it!

I've been tagged several times for several different things. Most of the time I think they take more energy than I have at the moment. So I apologize to those of you who tagged me for tags that involved lists. and some thinking! - it's nothing personal if I didn't get to it!

I like these photo tags. Quick and easy. . I was tagged by Amy (there are many blogging Amy's out there I've found - and she lives in Utah, where I will be going tomorrow! And I think we may have a bloggy meet-up! how fun!!) to go to my 4th picture folder and pick out the 4th picture. She posted this in December when things were crazy for me so I didn't know I was tagged until today when I was reading Penny's blog. I think I'm rambling now....

I actually did this one before on my family blog, so I tweaked it a little and found a great picture for today - it's was from the 5th folder, 4th picture.

My sweet cousin (who helped me design and then made my wedding dress) and her new husband's feet. I took this picture because her something borrowed were the shoes. And they were mine!! I still love them. I actually found the shoes and then we designed my dress around them. . . shoes, ahhh, how we all love them, don't we? (btw, these have some really cute ankle straps that you can't see here....the details are important!)

petite gateaux d'amandes

or petite almond cakes. They aren't really french - but I think desserts sound dressed up in French. They are probably more Scandinavian...

I made these yummy little cakes for Christmas eve. They aren't that difficult, but they are unique enough to have that allure of only having them certain times of the year. For some reason I have designated Christmas/New Year's as a time to make them.

It's a very dense almond cake - almost a pound cake. But you cook it in a sheet pan. Can you tell by the spreader how THICK the batter is?

I got the recipe from a good friend and great cook many years ago. You use almond paste (in a can or a tube) and I think it is the secret weapon.

Maybe mine seem suited for this time of year because I use a star cookie cutter to cut them out. But you could use any shape. I think my friend just used a small 1 1/2" circle. The leftover bits are great for trifle or shortcake type dessert too.

I was going to top them with lemon curd (delicious) but I thought I had some and didn't. Boo. So I dusted some with powdered sugar, others dolloped with a bit of strawberry jam (raspberry would be delightful as well). And some I just left au naturel.

Just trust me when I say it hard to eat just one.

Petite Almond Cakes
1 1/4 cups sifted cake flour, or 1 cup plus 2 Tbsp. regular flour
1 8-oz can almond paste (Solo brand, or I used a danish paste that came in a little box with a tube of it inside)
1 1/4 cup sugar
6 eggs
1 1/3 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

Grease and lightly flour 15x10x1 inch baking pan, set aside.
Sift the cake flour, set aside.
Crumble the almond paste into large mixing bowl.
Add sugar and 2 of the eggs. Beat 2 minutes.
Add butter and beat with an electric mixer on low speed for 3 minutes.
Add remaining eggs, one at a time, beating for 1 minute after each addition and scraping sides of bowl frequently.
Fold in flour.

Spread batter in pan. Bake 350 degrees for 25 - 30 minutes or until light brown. Cool. Cover cake with plastic wrap and refrigerate.

Using a 1 1/2 inch round cookie cutter, cut out 54 cake rounds from chilled cake. Decorate as desired.

Decorating ideas:
*Orange buttercream frosting garnished with grated pistachios and mandarin orange segments.
*Chocolate buttercream frosting, garnished with shaved chocolate and chocolate dipped raisin or whole almond.
*White mountain frosting, topped with a sugared pansy.
*Pink mountain frosting, garnished with a pink rosebud.
*Lemon curd
*Fondant with toasted coconut.