Catching up

I've been as busy as Santa's elves this time of year! So busy that I forgot to post about the most fabulous pie ever created. I'm in charge of pie making for Thanksgiving, and I typically make pumpkin and apple pies and ice cream to go along with them.  This year things got changed up a bit.

I had been looking for a good caramel apple pie recipe for quite some time, and now I've finally found it! (Que the 'At Last' song in the background) The caramel apple recipe from Williams Sonoma was fantastic. Look at all that oooey, gooey caramel, you could totally eat it with a spoon! And how do I love those WS pie crust cutters? Let me count the ways. I used to use mini cookie cutters for the leaves and pumpkins and a skewer to make the veins and such. Now, you do it all at once! It's pure genius, I tell you.

I always use the Martha Stewart pumpkin pie recipe (with homemade pumpkin puree, naturally) and make an individual one for my Great Aunt Dolores.

My sister requested a pecan pie this year, which I don't usually even consider making, because I'm not a fan, but she begged me to make the Pioneer Woman 'Pie that will make you cry' pecan pie. And let me tell you, when she said that this pie "changed her life for the better", she totally wasn't kidding! It's to die for! The hubby had a piece before breakfast, he claimed that he had been dreaming about this pie. Of course, as the knife was heading toward the pie and I was shrieking that I don't serve pie that's already been cut into, he claimed that Voldemort was making him do it, so I'm not so sure he was telling the whole truth about the pie dream thing. Regardless, this pie was To. Die. For! It was almost a toffee pecan pie. And it tastes fantastic for breakfast!
I didn't make ice cream this year for 2 reasons: 1)time, 2) Julie Ann's frozen custard reopened in Crystal Lake!!! Yeah, I'm beyond happy!!! If you live in the area, please frequent them, so we can have frozen custard for ever and ever!
Well, that's about all for today. I'll have Christmas quilts and gingerbread houses for you all soon!

Retreating

I had my bi-annual girlfriends quilting retreat the first weekend of November up at Evergreen Retreat in Janesville, Wisconsin. We all had such a good time, we probably each gained about 5 lbs in 3 days!  Evergreen is really a fantastic retreat location. It's reasonable priced, not that far from where we live, they provide all the 'stuff' for quilting (irons/big boards, tall cutting tables, rulers, ott lights, design walls, comfy chairs.....) and they have 3 nearby quilt shops to explore! I felt that I got quite a bit done, so that was a bonus.
I made pillowcases out of Riley Blake's "Colorful Christmas" line  for DiscoJen's kids for Christmas.

I finished sewing on the binding on the 'Plaid About You' quilt out of Lakehouse's 'Fun Flowers' black colorway. And since Binding Guru Karen was at the retreat, I even got it hand tacked down in record time. I tell you, the woman is a binding genius!

I used my water-soluble interfacing technique to mark my quilting.

I quilted the big flowers free-hand. Just to be clear, this is a panel. I did not applique these fabulous flowers.

And since this is for a baby, I used bright, lime green minky on the back. This photo doesn't portray the color accurately, it's really a lime green, like the gingham in the flower above. I love how the quilting shows up on minky.

I designed and tried to figure out how to make a commissioned tree skirt from my extremely crudely drawn design. I specifically save this to do at the retreat since I would have others to help me figure out how the heck to put this thing together. My friend Carol is especially helpful with these types of things because she's an engineer.
I started with this pile of batiks and fairy frost:

I made a circle out of the beyond fantastic red diamond Hoffman Batik. I found a ton of tutorials online on how to do this. I then used my beloved 1/4" fusible web tape and ironed under the edge.

Then I pieced together the greens into large strip sets and interspersed some thin. white fairy frost strips here and there and used one of those 9degree rulers to make wedges. I had the idea that if I could get the angles right on a quarter of the circle, then I could just do 4 of those and connect them, but unfortunately it isn't that easy. I had to make some wider angled strips, some smaller wedged strips and so on. I'm not done with it yet, but I have a good start at least. I'm really pleased with how it's turning out too.

And last, but certainly not least, I FINALLY finished the last of my Hydrangea commissioned "You Go Girl" bags!!!! It feels soooooo good to get this thing done. It wouldn't be that bad, but I quilted the crap out of the material. It took me 10-12 hours just to quilt the material, and this is the 3rd bag I've made like this! I'm really over quilting the hydrangea material!



Seriously, what was I thinking when I started to quilt it this way?!?!?!

I have photos of what everyone else made, but I can't locate the SD card with them on it, so that will have to be another post!

Where did October go?

Anyone? I'm not sure where the whole month went to! I've been so crazy busy that I forgot to post anything. Here's a snapshot of what I did in October:








I actually did this mini as a challange swap over the summer. I was given the house w/the number 5 door and fat quarters of the polka dotted fabric, some Rural Jardin (French reproduction fabric) and the numbers and newsprint/dictionary print from the Authentic line by Moda. This is what I came up with. The newsprint is on the back.



I added the Heather Ross gnome and mushrooms first and then it grew from there. Michelle suggested the clothes line, and then I felt the tree needed balance, so I made the tire swing. Then the tree was bare, so it needed a bird...... It's kind of like that book 'If you give a mouse a cookie'.

I named it 'No. 5 Privet Drive' at the time I was thinking that was the address given to Harry Potter, but then I double checked and he lived at #4 Privet Drive, so the gnome lives across the street from Harry.