The Barn Show

Another cool image for you:

I found it here along with another pic of the Old Glory Quilt…

Just thought it was cool & you’d enjoy.

Old Glory Quilt

This is the quilt I'd like to replicate for this years 'sisters quilt'. It seems to be the year for really cool old reproduction prints, quite a few civil war lines are out, as well as our favorite French General lines! What do all you ladies think?

Oh a Thrifting we will go…

I grabbed Lauralee and went consignment store shopping today… what a fun outing! I totally recommend it if you have any consignment shops by you… not as shabby as the D.I. or Salvation Army (although we hit one of those also..), but the prices still remain low! How cool is that!

So I found:

Three AWESOME vintage pillowcases! Shannon has offered, to make us both a quilt top from them if I keep finding them for her! How cool would that be? (Oh yeah, $3 each)

I also found:

This really odd scarf sized thing, but it’s made out of light cotton. And states, “Warriors in Pink, powered by Ford” on the bottom corner.. Odd.. probably a breast cancer thing, but it has a cool pattern on it, and for $1 I figured I could come up with some use for it!

Next we have:

Cool striped hankies, 4 for $3.. another score for the vintage quilt! And check out the tin bread pan! Isn’t that the coolest? I’m thinking it’s going to be used to store fat quarters in. It has the ‘folded’ tin ends.. like an envelope, shoulda taken a pic of that sorry.. scored this baby for $4.25!

The Jelly roll is the one I ordered from Pine Needles A MONTH AGO… it’s intended for a postage stamp quilt (I WAS going to quilt along with P.S. I Quilt’s quilt along, but didn’t get this jelly roll in time), along with my Max and Whiskers jelly roll.. will get to that soon hopefully!

And the candy, the white one is just a variety of fruit flavors, the Violet one is just weird. The first taste is good, but after a bit it tastes like your sucking on your grandma's purse. Dudley said it tastes like detergent. Cool looking, but not the best candy out there...

And last but not least:

On the left we have 1 of the 2 Woolrich 100% white cotton curtains I found, again $3 each. Total score! I’m going to hang them in my sewing room.. don’t know yet if I’ll dye them or not…

And on the right, 3 awesome pairs of earrings Lauralee made me! check out the ones in the center...yes, those are quilt blocks at the bottom! Darling right! I LOVE them all!

So today was rather eventful, hope yours was great fun too!

Happy Happy Happy….

I’m having a Shannon moment… but instead of loving FedEx, I’m loving the mailman.

Lookee what he brought me today:!

I now have enough to make my Abbey Lane Across the Universe pattern! (The one that awesome Shellie gave me for Christmas!)

I also have a charm pack. I’m thinking Stacie can still make me a purse too! He he he, ha ha ha…

Now if I can just get time to sit down and focus! To be continued…

Cheesy Smoked Sausage and Potato Casserole

I was looking for something “new” for dinner tonight, found a smoked sausage in the freezer and looked online for ideas. I found this recipe from Hillshire Farms and modified it a bit with what I had on hand. It turned out really good!

Here’s what I did:

1 smoked sausage cut into chunks

1 20oz. bag hash browns (enough to fill a casserole dish)

1 ½ C shredded cheddar

1 C shredded mozzarella

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 onion chopped

¼ C butter melted

¼ tsp. pepper

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 350*

Heat 4-5 Tbs. oil in skillet, and cook onion until clear over med-high heat. Add sausage and cook until browned. Remove from heat and set aside. In large bowl combine cheeses, mushroom soup, melted butter and pepper. Add sausage and onions and stir. Add frozen hash browns and mix thoroughly.

Pour the mixture into glass casserole or cake pan. Bake for 40-45 min. Enjoy!

I served it with green peas to get an additional veggie and some color in there… was very nummy! This one is a keeper!

Union Jack Pillow!

Remember this?

It’s now this:

I used fabric paint and freezer paper (of course!) to paint the flag on raw linen I got for $2/yd. at Joann’s awhile ago. I left the edges raw and just sewed around the flag. How’s that for easy?

I was inspired by these pillows:

From this Etsy shop, From this Amazon shop.

And this awesome ragged edge version!

Kinda cute eh?

LL's Table Runner

I finished a table runner for Lauralee today...cute eh?

Eye Candy

Found a new blog (yes another blog.. I know…) to look at for inspiration! Take a gander.. lot’s o’ eye candy!

http://www.hollymathisinteriors.com/

APOTHECARY CABINET!

Lookeee what I got today!

Isn’t it the cutest little thing? I found it on KSL 14min. after it had been posted! I had it back home within an hour of it posting! He he he….

I figured having Baxter in the shot will help you see the actual size of the cabinet…

Isn’t it CUTE?

Now gotta figure out what color to refinish it with… It’s going to hold sewing supplies in my sewing room.. when I get my room back!

Soon my friends.. very soon…

Consignment store finds…

I found a consignment store not too far from me & decided to go take a look-see this morning… I can totally see getting addicted to places like this. Anywho I found a bulb planter for $2, and a way cool yellow vase for $6. Not too shabby!

I can see this vase now, sitting on my newly refinished shabby green hutch in my darling new sewing room…can you tell what I’ve been dreaming about lately?

I just need to find something cool and useful to put in it! Like knitting needles or something….hmmm

And of course I planted all my bulbs last fall, but I didn’t have a nifty bulb planter to help me! This baby will get some good use this year!

Peek-a-Drew!

Drew and Douglas got Heart balloons for Valentines yesterday, Drew was playing Peek-a-boo with his this morning…cutie pie!

And yes, he is sporting a fat lip…don’t ask me how, all I know is that the kitchen counter and a lot of screaming was involved.

Pink Penguin goes to Toyko Quilt Festival

Hey all fellow quilt/fabric lovers!

Go check out this post at blog 'Pink Penguin'

The author Ayumi made a recent trip to the Toyko Quilt Festival, she’s posted some amazing photos! Such as this:

and this:

and this!

Go check out the rest! They’re awesome!

http://ayumills.blogspot.com/2011/02/tokyo-quilt-festival.html

Robot Lobster Quilt!

So this one has only taken 2 years to finish... I'm getting good at finishing UFO's lately, because I can't concentrate on anything new with Drew in the full on TERRIBLE TWO's stage. Douglas requested a "Robot Lobster" quilt right after Drew was born, I found the main fabric on clearance up at the Ogden quilt store by Stacie.

Kinda Robot Lobstery….

The backing came from Connecting Threads, the stripes is from their ‘Cheep Talk’ line, on clearance for $3.00/yd. and the leaf print is from their ‘fabric seconds’ area, supposedly the leaves start to slant downward toward the right edge of the fabric, rather than run straight across… I couldn't see that, can you? Anyway, it is on special ‘seconds’ price of $2.28/yd. If you need any backing fabric, this may be a great option for you! They have other colors of leaves, and plaids…

Anyway, Douglas is happy tonight!

Oh mah goodness! Valentine yumminess!

Check these out:

I found a Bobby Flay recipe for chocolate frosting…oh my… you need to try….

Creamy Chocolate Frosting:

• 2 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup confectioners' sugar
• 3/4 cup Dutch-processed cocoa
• Pinch of fine sea salt
• 3/4 cup light corn syrup
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 8 ounces semisweet chocolate, melted and cooled slightly
• 1 teaspoon espresso powder

In a food processor, process the butter, sugar, cocoa, and salt until smooth, about 30 seconds, scraping the sides of the bowl as needed. Add the corn syrup and vanilla and process until just combined, 5 to 10 seconds. Scrape the sides of the bowl, and then add the melted chocolate and espresso and pulse until smooth and creamy, 10 to 15 seconds.

I used dark corn syrup (what I had in the house), and believe it or not I had Hershey’s Dutch cocoa powder. I did skip the espresso powder, but my my my…. this frosting is TO DIE FOR!

I used a plain old yellow cake mix for the cupcakes, and Drew insisted on strawberries at the store today, thought they'd add a bit of flavor and color and valentininess to them! Here’s to losing weight! ha ha ha….

Valentine Boxes!

Douglas needed to make a valentines box to take to school Monday, so we had fun making them for both he and Drew today. Douglas of course chose to make valentine spiders, while Drew was happy with cars!