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.

oh christmas bags, oh christmas bags

how lovely is your fabric.

Oh Christmas bags, oh Christmas bags
I can't seem to part with you.

You used some of favorite stash
I made you in a hurried dash,

But look at you,
my favorite bags,

I hope you'll miss me too.

I finished these 2 bags up on Christmas eve for my sister-in-law (brown/pink) and my mother-in-law. I really didn't want to part with either of these. They are my favorites! Really! I told my husband that and he just replied, "You say that about every bag you make." True. I guess that's why this is so much fun. I really did enjoy making these, partly because of who they were for and partly because I loved working with these prints. I kept coming up with more ideas for them while I was smoothing them out with the iron and admiring them. Wait until you see the bedding I have planned for my daughter!

My brother-in-law called me a few weeks ago and wanted to order a bag for his wife. I had picked out those Michael Miller prints for her over a year ago. It's Dandy Damask on the outside, Dumb dots for the lining, and the Eiffel Tower toile for the pockets. That Eiffel Tower print KILLS me - I love it so much. I really think I am going to frame some of it. I have a thing for the Eiffel Tower.

The other one is made from Amy Butler's Belle Acanthus. I've longed for this fabric for a long time and finally found it in stock. It's a good thing I bought a lot, because once I finished this bag, I knew I was going to have to make myself one too. I'm in love. I told my mother-in-law that if she didn't like it we could pick out something new for her and I would keep it. She loves it. How could she not? I actually made a cutting mistake on her's and the bag ended up a little smaller - and it's really very cute. I've been toying with the idea of developing a new pattern - a smaller version of the big bag. I definitely want to try it now.

Hope everyone is enjoying the holidays!!

a christmas lullabye

The King's Singers Christmas album is one of my favorites. I used to own it on a CASSETTE (do you remember those?) - then I upgraded to a CD. Now I can embed one of my favorites here to share with you! My daughter loves this song, and fell asleep in the car the other day during the 3rd time through. Our choir sang it at church last week - I love the melody, the harmony is fun to sing and these guys do a great job.

Merry Christmas!

Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming, (here sung in the traditional German)

looking for a last-minute neighbor gift?

When I was living with my parents after college my mom and I used to bake up a storm at Christmas. We'd make 5 or so different kinds of cookies and treats and deliver them to the neighbors. It was always so much fun! I loved my mom's kitchenaid and her big kitchen with counter space galore for the whole process.

Fast forward 5 *cough cough* or so years later and I don't have the space, time, or the energy. But I still wanted to do something edible (read: non-cluttery) and tasty. So I had a brainstorm of an idea! And without patting myself TOO hard on the back, I must say - I think it's a pretty good one. So good that I wanted to share.

a little backstory:
We love having a nice hot breakfast on the weekends when we have the luxury of a lazy morning. And we've been scarfing down some delicious whole wheat pancakes from a recipe my sister-in-law Christine gave me. To give the recipe credit, it started out as an imitation of some IHOP pancakes, but I think it's been varied enough to have become it's own entity.

I don't normally like pancakes, especially those of the gummy, dense, blah variety. But these are nutty and fluffy and soak up copious amounts of syrup (I'm a convert to the real stuff with nary a drop of high fructose corn syrup in sight). I think the secret is the Cream of Wheat. If I'd thought ahead I would have taken some pictures. . .but they disappeared to quickly.

Anyway, I thought this time of year with its slow mornings and family togetherness would provide ample opportunity and necessity for multiple breakfast options. So I made up my own pancake mixes and boxed them up with the recipe! All the recipients have to do is add the liquid ingredients and toppings of their choice!

The hardest part was growing and harvesting the wheat. Then I just called the little red hen to see if he would help me . . . okay I'm kidding. I did grind my own wheat, but it literally took minutes to

fill each bag,

print up the recipe:

Whole Wheat Country Griddle Cakes
1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
1/3 cup Instant Cream of Wheat
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups buttermilk (or regular milk with 1 added tbsp of vinager or lemon juice for each cup milk)
1 egg
1/4 cup oil (or applesauce or a mixture of both)

Preheat a skillet over medium heat, spray with non-stick spray.
Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and stir until all ingredients are wet.
Pour the batter by 1/3 cup portions onto the hot pan and cook.

Makes 8-10 large pancakes. Delicious ones.


and put it all in a cute box (dollar-bins at Target!).

It's fast for the giver. And convenient for the recipient. It's a win-win.

And in case I don't make it to your house - consider this my gift to you. Bon Appetit!