Sewing & Baking

Well, no time like the present to start the holiday baking, I say, and thanks to all your nice comments, and interest in my cookies, I'm going to devote at least one or two posts to just those starting next week.  First, though, I want to show you the last two mug rugs I made......(and if I have time, I still have ideas for about 3 more, but who knows if the swap will be over by the time I have time to get out the machine again???  It's only been two days, and I already miss sewing.)

First, let me introduce, "Rudy":

"Rudy" ended up at 6 x 9 inches and was super simple to make.  I have come to realize that the simple mug rugs are the most admired, probably because they're the easiest to copy.  lol  (Which, incidentally,  doesn't bother me a bit, I might add!!)  I'm here for inspiration.....

Then, since I hadn't done a crayon method quilt in awhile, I thought that might be fun for one.  Who knows what will happen after it gets laundered though.

I called that one, "Let's Decorate".  It's 8 1/2 by 6 1/2" and was done with my usual crayon method which I've described many times.  Personally, I'm not crazy about that one......probably because I like brighter colors for Christmas.

THEN..............ta-da..............I made 1 of three pies I will be bringing to my sister's for Thanksgiving.  I love making this one since it can be made ahead of time and frozen.  (Just call me, Mrs. Smith!)  And tell me, who doesn't just love a good pecan pie?

There are a million recipes for pecan pie on the web, and I think mine is either from there or a combination of a few different ones, but the thing that I LOVE is my pie crust recipe.  It's super simple and has never failed me:

NO FUSS HOMEMADE PASTRY

Mix 1/2 cup shortening
1 1/4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt with a pastry cutter until blended

Slowly pour in 3-4 Tablespoons ice cold water, stirring until mixture comes together.

Shape dough into a ball, press into a disk shape, wrap in plastic and refrigerate 30 minutes.

On floured surface, roll chilled dough into circle to fit your pie plate.  Flute edges.

For pies needing prepared crust, bake 450 degrees 10-12 minutes.  For all other, bake as recipe suggests.

Happy baking!  And I'll be back next week with a bunch of cookie pictures and recipes (since I'm not sewing..........phooey!)

It's not as bad as I thought! Thank heaven!

If you read my posting the last time, you must have heard the panic in my words thinking that I deleted all of the comments ever made on my blog with only one small click.  NOT SO!  Apparently, I only deleted the most current 50.  So, even though I will miss them, it's not as bad as losing 5,000+ comments, wouldn't you say?  Yup, I thought so too!  Therefore, I'm not fretting about it anymore and will use it as a lesson to be more careful in the future and try to be less in a hurry when in the inner workings!  I promise!  Thank you all for your marvelous suggestions though.....I passed on all your wisdom to my computer genius friend who is just a bit more genius now because of them!

Since I'm smiling again, I thought it appropriate to make some mug rugs for the swap.  As most of you know, it's my 2nd favorite swap of all since I LOVE to make mug rugs.  Actually, I call them that, but to me, they are little mini quilts since mostly I create them with buttons or some kind of embellishment and sadly coffee cups might tip right over because buttons don't make things too stable on a table.   lol  Believe it or not, I even add little O rings on each "mug rug quiltie" now, hoping that the recipient will hang it instead.

I started off with this one that I call, "MeRry ChRistmas".  It's 6 1/2" by 7 1/2" and I got the idea from a card that I designed and sent some years ago to all our friends for the holidays.



Since that was so fun, I made this one next.  I called it (brilliantly, I might add), "Holiday 2012 Mug Rug #2".  lol  It's 6" x 8 1/2".  Super simple and really fast........(see all the buttons???)



Being that I was on a roll, until today, that is.........(cleaning house instead....ugh..), I decided to make this one yesterday that I named, "A Penguin Holiday".  (Half the fun in quilting is naming stuff, dontcha know, since I'm done having kids and who knows about more dogs??) It ended up at 6 1/2 by 8 1/2 inches.  (Did you note that they've been getting bigger as I go along?)



I do have a few more ideas, but it's getting close to Thanksgiving and I have some baking to do, so who knows how many more I'll get done.  I'm overdue to start my annual cookie baking marathon too.  I make them and then freeze them all so I need to start early.  This is a plateful of most of the varieties from 2009.



Mostly all the varieties I have made for years and some recipes even date back to my grandmother's time.  I was thinking of perhaps doing a recipe with pictures each day when I get in the swing, if you would be interested. While I don't claim to have a baking blog, I thought it might be a fun change for a week or so.   Let me know what you think........okay???  Until then............take care be well!  And again, thanks for all your help last time!!!!!!!

I think I'm going to be ill!

You're not going to believe what I did!  As most of you know, I don't claim to be a computer genius.......in fact, sometimes it's a wonder I can handle a blog at all.  AND...once you hear this, you'll really believe it!

Recently, I've been plagued more and more with an overwhelming amount of anonymous spam.  While I know that there probably is a market somewhere for "ambien" and female love on the open market, I personally could give a rip!  I mentioned this to a friend, wondering if she had the same problem and complained that just yesterday I had to delete 539 spam messages one by one and it was driving me nuts and that was only an accumulation from 4 days.  She wrote back almost immediately and asked why I didn't just use the box to the left and delete the whole mess at once.

WHAT?  There's ONE box I could click and delete them all at once?  How brilliant!!!  How come I never knew that????  Well, I couldn't wait to try it!  I rushed into the "Design" portion of my blog, went to the "comment" section and sure enough, there it was........a cute little box to the left.  I clicked and pushed delete and WHAMOO.........done!

ONLY ONE THING...........I wasn't in the spam comment section.  YES......I deleted 5,239 comments on ALL my posts from the very beginning of my blogging career!  Go check!  I thought I was going to throw up!  OMG....what did I do?  All your precious comments on my stuff and suggestions, and enlightenments........GONE!  Except, there is one bright light.  They are still in my DESIGN section..........so now, how do I reinstate them where they belong?  Anyone know?  HELP!!!!  PLEASE????  (I promise I'll never do it again, really!!!!)

In the meantime, I only have two little things to show you.  Dummy me, (as I shall now be known) was so enjoying making little mice, that I made some more.  Now I think I have enough at 20 total.  lol  I did make some Winter bitty blocks though:



And I did get an awesome FLiPS package from my partner, Cindy (yayaquilter).  In fact, the pincushion she made was my favorite in the whole swap and it landed at my doorstep this week.  Yahoo!



So, that's my "not so good" news.  If any of you have any suggestions on how to fix my problem, PLEASE let me know!  I will be eternally grateful!  In fact, I'll even send you a mouse!  How's that?

They're multiplying!

Before I tell you what's multiplying, I want to introduce you to "Lady #26.......only I can't tell you her name, or anything about her because she is a Christmas gift and the giver bets that the recipient won't recognize herself anyway.  Let's hope!  So, for now, she'll only be known as "Pretty lady #26".







If I remember, I'll post her real picture after the holidays.

Now to show you what's multiplying.  Remember the picture of the Christmas mice in my last post?  Well, I REALLY couldn't stop making them because I made some more:



I think I have enough now..........I hope!  I really loved making them though and since many of you asked about the pattern, I contacted the shop where I bought it and they gave me a direct link just for you if you want to purchase one.

http://material-matters.com/three-blind-mice-figtree.aspx

I hope you have as much fun making yours.  I think they'll be great little hostess gifts for the holidays!

Happy (late) Halloween from To"BEE"

I just couldn't help that title today after this:

Isn't he just the cutest dog ever????  OMG.....the look he gave me after I was done putting it on him was like, "Mom, you've got to be kidding?  You expect me to wear this?"  Poor little guy wouldn't move!  Once I took off the headpiece though, he was much better......

We had company on Halloween.  Toby's little 3 month old friend, Harvey, came for a play date with his mom, Wendy.  Poor Toby doesn't have many friends his size so this was quite a treat.  Except Harvey wanted to hump him all the time, which didn't sit too well!  Once I took down the baby gates, and let them run the house, things were much better!  In fact, if you want to watch a U Tube video, click on Toby in his costume and scroll down to the link.  It's only 41 seconds long.  Wendy took the video.

We're guessing that Harvey will grow up to be a bit bigger than Toby considering he's not that far away from his size now and he's got a whole lot of growing yet to do.

On the sewing front, I have been a bit lazy.  Usually during the pincushion swap, I make tons of cushions of one sort or another, but this time, I seem satisfied with only two kinds (although I did go a bit nuts on one.)  Here is the first one I made:

a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/35289170@N06/8122708413/" title="Checkered Pincushion by mamacjt, on Flickr">

Don't look at the "unmatched" piecing.  I really thought it was working and after I was done, I hated to take it all apart since it was only a pincushion and I knew that my partner would not be getting that one anyway since I bought a pattern awhile ago that I was itching to make:



Isn't she so much cuter?  I think so and besides, she is perfect for my special swap partner!  That little mousey plus some goodies, will be the perfect package.  I had a bit of a problem making just one, I must admit, so I thought making a bunch of them for early Christmas "in the mood" gifts would be fun to give my family members on Thanksgiving.



Other than that, I haven't sewn a stitch.  With my company, and a few appointments, and lunch dates this week, I have kept my house pretty thread free for a change.  Maybe today I can change that!  More ladies next time.......I hope!  Until then, have a great weekend!