Cookie little girl?

So far this week,there has been not a stitch sewn around here.  Instead my free time has been spent in the kitchen.  Baking Cookies....

Monday after work and dinner it was Lemon Crinkles This was my first time making this cookie recipe,I was intrigued by the ingredients,not to mention that lemon is a favorite of mine.  Although my cookies do not look as pretty as the ones in the link above,they are still pretty tasty :)

Tuesday evening I made Pumpkin Snickerdoodles This is the second time making these little gems,and they are just as good as the first time!  This recipe is a keeper for sure :)  The pumpkin is not at all over powering,but rather subtle.  This recipe makes around 4 dozen give or take a few,depending on how big you make them.

Tonight I made these Cran~Pistachio Cookies Again mine did not turn out pretty and plump like the ones pictured in the link above :(  I think that it has something to do with the altitude,or the amount of butter used.  Next time I am going to try using a half a stick less of butter and see if my cookies do not turn out so flat.  This recipe also yielded about 4 dozen.

They taste like Pistachio pudding to me,which is fine since I like it,and it is one of Mr. P's favorites!  Have you guessed that I have a bake sale coming up this weekend?  I am keeping one dozen from each batch and taking the rest to the sale.

A little sewing

This weekend has flown by in double time!  It was a fall clean-up weekend,so not much sewing was accomplished.  What I did get sewn...

A new cell phone case for the Mr.

The back side has a loop,so that it can slide onto a belt.  I was just winging it,so am waiting to get feed back by the end of the week,on any necessary changes.

A few more granny squares.

The blues for this batch.

These are the last two for the weekend,which brings my total up to 16 :)

Hope you all had a great weekend,with time for at least a little sewing!

Mongolian Beef over Forbidden Rice with a side of Caramelized onions and Mushrooms with Kale

Recently Mr. P received a call from the Dr. about blood work results.  It turns out that he is borderline anemic.  Which means that he needs to eat more red meat,in order to try and correct the problem.  With that in mind,I went looking around for a new recipe to try out.  This is what I came up with....

Mongolian Beef over Forbidden Rice

Ingredients needed:
   2 ~ tsp oil (I used coconut,but vegetable is fine)
1/2 ~ tsp fresh ginger,minced
   1 ~ Tbl garlic,chopped
    2 ~ green onions sliced in 11/2 inch pieces
1/2 ~ C soy sauce
1/2 ~ C water
34 ~ C dark brown sugar ( I used light because it is what we had on hand,it turned out great)
   1 ~ C (approximately) oil of your choosing
   1 ~ lb flank steak
1/4 ~ C cornstarch
    1 ~ C black rice (forbidden rice)

Cooking directions:

Cook rice according to directions on package.

• to make the sauce,heat 2 tsp of oil in a medium saucepan over med~low heat (not to hot)
• add the ginger and garlic,and saute for one to two minutes.  Add the soy sauce and water.
• stir in the brown sugar until it dissolves,then turn the heat up to medium and boil the sauce for about 3 minutes,or until it thickens up a bit
• remove from heat and set aside
• slice your flank steak against the grain into 1/4 ~ 1/2 inch thick strips,then bite size pieces
• place cornstarch in a gallon size baggie,then add beef,shake well to coat all pieces (you can just place cornstarch in a shallow bowl and dip pieces to coat) I am a lazy,so used the baggie instead
• let set for a few minutes
• heat the 1 cup oil in a deep skillet or wok
• add beef and saute for 3 minutes,or until the edges of the beef start to darken
• stir to cook evenly
• using a large slotted spoon,remove the beef pieces to a paper towel lined plate,pour all the excess oil out of your skillet or wok,be careful not to burn yourself
• return the skillet/wok to the heat,also return the beef to the skillet/wok saute for 1~2 minutes
• add the sauce you set aside,cook for several minutes more,while stirring,add green onions,heat through
• remove to a serving plate with your slotted spoon
• discard excess sauce

• Caramelized onions with Mushrooms and Kale:

1 medium Walla Walla onion,sliced
1 sm. package button mushrooms,or about 8 mushrooms
6 large Kale leaves chopped into bite sized pieces
2 Tbl oil

Cooking directions:

• add oil to large skillet over medium heat
• add onion saute for 15 minutes
• add mushrooms,turning heat to med low,saute for another 10 minutes
• add chopped kale,continue cooking for 5 minutes,turn off heat and serve

                                        Place desired amount of Forbidden Rice on plate,top with Mongolian Beef,add Caramelized Onions,Mushrooms,and Kale.     Enjoy!

Granny squares up date & a request for Help!

After raking leaves for about an hour after work,then making dinner,I was able to head to the sewing room :)

First up the Blues,as you can see I did not just do this batch by picking the squares as they came.

The Reds,I am thinking maybe the center on the left block should have been white....

My favorite,the Greens,with some blue too!

The last one I had time for this evening,which brings my block total to 10 :)  You may have noticed that I have not added any sashing yet.  About that....  Since I purchased a jelly roll there were only four total strips of solids!  Two blue,one each red and green :(

My question to you my peeps is this....Do you have any idea,or know where I might purchase some of each of the solids (blue,red,green)?????  I have searched the Internet,to the best of my ability,to no avail !  Any help would be Greatly appreciated!!! :0)

Pretty little apples

It has taken me from last weekend to get up to speed on the row along,but caught up I am!

The two yellow apples are a little hard to see because they are both a very pale shade of yellow.  I finished this just in time Friday evening to snap off couple of quick photos before it was to dark.

A close up so you can see one of the yellow apples,and also one of the apple cores.  This photo was taken with the row around the  my big Spirea bush.  The colors are really pretty right now :)

Thought you might like to see the whole bush.  It does a great job of hiding the ugly tongue of the trailer!

In other sewing news....

A little late,but here is the progress on my fall rock garden flag.  It needs the border added and also the backing.  I am thinking of geese for the border and a solid or pieced back,haven't decided on the back yet.  This one is going to be laminated before it gets finished up and hung outside.  Hopefully that will keep it from fading so much from the rain and sun.

Can you believe another weekend has flown by again?  Me neither,and yet it has!  Hope you had time for some sewing or crafting this weekend :)

Time for Granny....Squares that is

When all of the Granny Squares blocks and quilts started popping up all over blog land I added them to my "List".  Then in August while on vacation,and hanging out with Melissa from SewBitterSweet Designs we went to two of her favorite places,AKA,the local quilt shops :)

Where I picked up this sweet lil jelly roll of Flurry!  Which I had been wanting for quite some time,and it fit the bill perfectly,since I had Very Limited space in my luggage for extras.  I had already agreed to no checked bags with Mr. P.  Believe me,there was not enough room in my carry on for a flea on the way back home ;)

Last evening I was looking for some solid white so that I could start my Christmas Granny Squares Quilt.  Would you believe that I could only scrounge up enough for three blocks?  All from my scrap bin no less,guess I need to get some more soon!

My first little Granny! The thing that has drawn me to this line from the first is all of the green.  Since it is my favorite color :)

The second block,the center block looks like I fussy cut it,but that is not the case at all.  I just opened up the jelly roll and started cutting squares :)

I am pretty much just laying out the squares as they come,only changing them around so the exact same print is not next to each other.  My design board is working out so good,I might have to make another one or two!

Row,Row,...your Quilt

A little while back during the Dots on Dots Blog Hop one of the peeps to leave a comment on my post was none other than Lori Holt!  After following the link back to her blog,I discovered that she was having a Row ~ Along  It looked so interesting that I immediately signed up to receive her posts by email :)  Since then I have been on the fence about weather or not to jump in and start paddling ;)

The other day it occurred to me that even though I did not have all the colors/shades of fabric needed(the main reason for not jumping right in) it might be found in the comforter bag of fabric that I had Raided from mom's stash that mom had let me take from her own stash in April while visiting :)

This weekend I have been rowing like crazy (feels like it anyway).  This is the first row,lots of tiny little squares.

A little closer look :)  This was fun to make,although it took me quite a bit longer than I expected!  Most of the fabric is from mom's stash,with a few of my own thrown in to complete the amount needed.  Since most of moms fabric is from at least the nineties,I decided to use muslin as the background fabric.  It is what I have enough of,and looks good too.

Rows one and two together!  The second row is little butterflies!  Are they not just too stinkin cute? :)

A closer look.  When looking at the photos for this post I realized that there are a couple of butterflies that are not turned the right direction,oops!  They were supposed to alternate one sideways,one up and so on.  Oh well,I still think that they are cute :)  Unless you are also rowing along you would never have known that they are not supposed to be like that.

While looking around Lori's blog I found a Tutorial for how to make a mini design board :)  This is the back of the one I made today :)  I bought a smaller one than she cuts down to make mini's,it was a tri-fold board.  So to fix the places where it folds,I hot glued in the creases and pressed them together.  Then followed her directions to make the design board :) You should make one or more for yourself,they are pretty Sweet!

Row three is all cut out and ready for me to start piecing and sewing it together this next week :)
I was going to talk about a few other things too,but it is already time to go to bed!  Time sure does fly when you are having fun :(  Oh well another day.

Blue Jean Pocket Pot Holders Tutorial

Today was almost like a micro ~ vacation :)  We had Inventory at work,since I changed positions back in July,as soon as the inventory crew was done with my area,I got to come home for the rest of the day!  So at 7:46 am I was clocking out and heading for the door,just under the two hour mark!  (to bad that couldn't happen more often,not the inventory part tho)

When I arrived home it was straight to the sewing room for me :+)  For a Sewing Day!  First on the list were some new pot holders,the old ones were 7 years old!

Supply's Needed for Two sets of Pot Holders:

• two old pairs of blue (or any other color) jeans,or just the back pockets 
• Insul-Bright
• Fabric for backing
• scraps for hang tabs

• sewing basics ~ scissors,rotary cutter,thread,sewing machine,cutting mat

The first thing we need to do is decide what size to make the pot holders,this will somewhat depend on the size of your pockets.  I am making two different sizes,the dark set is from a pair of my jeans,the lighter set is from a pair of Mr. P's jeans.  Why?  My hands are on the small side,while Mr. P's are a lot bigger.  So  If I only used mine,his hands would not fit in the pocket.

My pocket squares are 7 1/2 & 8 1/2 inches.  So my squares of backing fabric and Insul Bright will need to be the same size,or just a bit larger,if you are using a large scrap pieces.

Since all I have are scraps of Insul Bright,I am using a zig zag stitch to join the pieces together.  If you have scraps you can do this too,or just cut your squares the size you need.

Here is one of my squares of Insul Bright all sewn together.

Take your tab scraps,mine are 3 x 4 inches

Fold them in half lengthwise,press.

Fold each half into the crease.

Now fold that in half again.

Now,edge stitch the open side,or both sides if you like.  Repeat the above steps for the rest of your hang tabs.  Set them aside for now.

Take your square of Insul Bright and place it shiny side up on your work surface.

Next,take your backing fabric and center it on top of the Insul Bright,right side up.

Place one of your jean pockets right side down on top of the backing fabric,the wrong side should be facing up.

Take to your sewing machine (you can pin if you like,before sewing) and sew around three sides.  Starting on the right side at the top and sewing all the way around to the left side top.

You can just see my stitching in the photo above.  See how I cut a bit too close at the top on the right side?  Make sure that you leave yourself enough room to keep the outside edge of the pressor foot up against the seam of the pocket.  Other wise it is difficult to sew!

If you used a large scrap for the backing and have excess fabric,trim it off at a 1/4 inch,clipping the corners,but not too close!

Turn right side out,so that they look like this.  Be sure to push out the bottom corners.

Now tuck in your open end at least a 1/4 inch.

At the center insert one of your tabs raw edges in,folded edge out.  I lined mine up with the center point  at the bottom of the pocket.  My tab is right behind the third pin in,from either side.

Now take to your machine and carefully edge stitch the opening closed.  Repeat with the rest of your pockets.

Now, go to the kitchen and replace those old pot holders with some new/up-cycled pot holders :)
Not only did you re-cycle something,you also did some scrap busting too !