Finally, a 2015 finish! Yay me!! I was so dreading getting this quilt washed after the last two quilts with red fabrics had bleeding issues. Well, needless to say it hindered me a bit from wanting to get the binding taken care of in a timely fashi…
A 2015 Finish!
Working on Some Freehand Applique Letters
I’ve been steadily plugging along on my Fire quilt. The more I do, the less it feels like I’m fighting it. Does that make sense? Steady progress seems to free me up {emotionally} to work on other applique without feeling like I’m completely ditching th…
Smalls Sal — Feburary 2015
The Smalls Sal is hosted by Heather at Stitching Lotus. I am so happy with my results this month. My project truly is a ‘Small’ at only 1 1/2 in x 3 in, but it turned out so cute and not only did I get the stitching done, but I finished it into an Orni…
Diamonds and A Girl’s Best Friend
Oh, happy day! I have another ‘Finish’ to show you today. It’s a real jewel and a long time coming! The pattern was a free one by Tula Pink and, although I can’t seem to find it available anymore, it looks an awful lot like this one on Craft…
Chili and Maple Glazed Pork Tenderloin
We had this for dinner last night. It was really moist and yummy. It had a little bit of heat to it. For those families with young children, you might want to half the sambal oelek. The flavor was really good, and we all really liked it.Chili and M…
This Quilt Top Finish Feels Like a Good One
Lots of traveling the last couple days for the District girls basketball games. We won District champs! Yay! So on to Regionals for the next round. My niece is on the varsity team and my youngest daughter is swing, mostly sitting the bench for varsity….
IHSW — February 2015
IHSW is hosted by Joysze over at Random Ramblings. For this SAL you make every excuse to stay at home and stitch all weekend on the third weekend of the month. OR you just do as much stitching and staying in as is possible with your schedule:) I …
A Spicing We Go
Thursday night as we were finishing dinner our friend Bill came to cut my counter for me. It only took about 10 minutes and it was done. After dinner I ran to Lowes and picked up a quart of white semi gloss to use. I put on the first coat. It dr…
Sunday Morning
Friday Night Sew In — February 2015
Friday Night Sew-In is hosted by Wendy of Sugar Lane Quilts. For me this sew-along means a push to get the sewing machine out and actually sew something, since I would normally rather just stitch or be playing with yarn. But when al…
Randomness
The Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild had a 5 year birthday celebration last week. Shea’s sewing machine cookies were a huge hit. Some people couldn’t bear to eat theirs because they were so cute. But I did! And on the subject of baking…The gals in…
Raspberry Chipotle Chicken
We had this for dinner tonight. We really liked it. My husband thought it was a bit on the sweet side, but the rest of us were fine. The chipotle pepper and adobo gave it a wonderful smoky flavor without adding a lot of heat. My mouth had a nice warmth, but was by no means hot. If you are a little wary, use half a chili to try it out.
Raspberry Chipotle BBQ Chicken
Http://wwww.budget bytes.com
15 mins
1 hour 30 mins
1 hour 45 mins
Cost Per Serving: $1.24
Serves: 4-8
- 1 Tbsp vegetable oil
- ½ med yellow onion
- 2 cloves garlic
- 8 oz. tomato sauce
- 1 cup raspberry jam
- ¼ cup cider vinegar
- 1 pepper + sauce chipotle peppers in adobo
- 4 lbs (8 pcs) chicken thighs
- Finely dice the onion and garlic. Cook both in a sauce pan with vegetable oil over medium heat until softened (3-5 minutes). Meanwhile, roughly chop one chipotle pepper and reserve 1 Tbsp of adobo sauce from the can.
- Add the tomato sauce, raspberry jam, cider vinegar, chopped chipotle pepper and adobo sauce to the cooked onions and garlic. Stir everything well and bring up to a simmer. Continue to simmer for about 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Allow the sauce to cool after simmering (it will thicken upon cooling).
- Remove the skin from the chicken and trim any excess fat. The skin should pull away from the meat easily although you may need a small sharp knife to separate it in some places. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
- Prepare a baking sheet with aluminum foil and non-stick spray. Place the chicken thighs on the tray and slather with BBQ sauce (pour a small amount of sauce into a bowl before brushing onto chicken so that the whole batch will not get contaminated with raw chicken).
- Place the BBQ chicken in the oven and bake for 45 minutes. Fifteen and thirty minutes into the cooking time, take the chicken out and slather with more sauce.
Note: Chipotle peppers in adobo sauce can be found in with the Mexican food in your grocery store. Chipotle peppers in adobo sauce usually come in super small cans (4-5 oz) but even still, I usually only use one pepper at a time and have almost a whole can left over. I *always* freeze the rest. Divide the peppers and adobe sauce up into small portions and pop them in the freezer.
Lots of Little Baskets and Some Crumb Block Play
The fire quilt has been something I’ve decided to push to the front of the line as far as applique priority, but it will not be the only thing I’m working on. Who can possibly do all applique, all of the time? Okay, definitely not me, but I d…
Irish Skillet Dinner
Had this for dinner last night. My husband didn’t like it, even though he ate it. The boys, the girlfriend and I really liked it. It had great flavor. My husband and I both have Irish on our lines. Little bit of homage to it.
Irish Skillet Dinner
By Taracooks
Description: Beef and bacon meet potatoesand cabbage in an Irish Skillet Dinner for St. Patrick’s Day
Prep: 15 min
Cook: 20 min
Serves: 4
Ingredients
· 1 cup Beef Broth
· ¼ cups Apple Juice
· 2 Tablespoons White Vinegar
· 2 Tablespoons Yellow Mustard
· 1 Tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce
· 1 teaspoon Salt
· 1 teaspoon Coarse Ground Black Pepper
· 1 pound Lean Ground Beef
· ½ cups Fresh Diced Onion
· 2 Tablespoons Vegetable Oil
· 1 pound Ore Ida Hash Brown Potatoes O’Brian
· 4 cups Shredded Green Cabbage
· 4 slices Cooked, Crumbled Bacon
Preparation
In a small mixing bowl, combine the beef broth, apple juice, white vinegar, yellow mustard, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and pepper. Whisk to blend and set aside.
In a large iron skillet, brown the ground beef with the fresh diced onion. Drain any excess grease. Add the vegetable oil and hash browns to the beef and onions. Cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes or until hash browns are lightly browned, stirring frequently to prevent sticking. Add the liquid mixture and the shredded cabbage and bacon and cook another 5–10 minutes over medium heat until most of the liquid is absorbed. Serve immediately while hot with some Irish soda bread.
WIP Wednesday — Lots of Yarn!!
I’m going to join in a time or two each month with Lee at Freshly Pieced WIP Wednesdays. Most of the bloggers post their quilt WIPs, and I will too if I ever get that bug again, but for now I’m thinking mine will mostly be yarn related:) I st…
Wedding Gift
I have a wedding one the 27th of this month. It is for two friends at work that are getting married. They both have had establised households. The don’t need the typical newlywed stuff. As I set pondering what to get them yesterday I thought about som…
Cream Cheese Chicken Taqitos
Had these for dinner last night. They were sooo good. I didn’t even dip them in anything. That says a lot. The recipe says that it makes 12, but I got 20. I might not have been quite so generous on the filling, but I wanted to be able to roll them. I thought they had plenty of filling. I used a generous, but not heaping serving size tablespoon. Next time I think I will double this so that I can put some of them in the freezer.
Cream Cheese Chicken Taquitos
Ingredients
- 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
- 1 teaspoon chili powder
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- salt + pepper
- 8 ounces cream cheese
- ⅓ cup water
- ½ cup shredded colby or Mexican blend cheese
- 12 6 inch corn or flour tortillas
- optional: cilantro, salsa, sour cream, or other toppings as desired
Instructions
- Mix chili powder, garlic powder, cumin, salt and pepper to taste, cream cheese, and water in a medium mixing bowl. (I put this in the microwave for 1 minute to make it easier to mix) Pour half of the mixture into your crockpot, place chicken in crockpot and pour remaining mixture over the chicken.
- Cover and cook on low 8 hours or high for 4 hours.
- Minutes before serving, remove chicken from crock pot, shred with two forks, and return to slow cooker. Give it a stir. Cook about 15 minutes longer.
- Preheat oven to 400. Here is a great trick to keep your corn tortilla from falling apart. Place 1 corn tortilla on a skillet, put about ⅛ cup cheese on the corn tortilla. Warm the tortilla until the cheese melts, remove tortilla from pan. Melting the cheese on the corn tortilla will keep it from falling apart in the next step.
- Place about ¼ cup of the chicken mixture onto the middle of each corn tortilla that has the melted cheese on it or a flour tortilla.
- Top with 1-2 tablespoons shredded cheese. Roll tightly and place in a single layer on a greased baking sheet. If using corn tortilla brushing some olive oil over them will help with browning and crisping.
- Bake 10 minutes, until tortillas are slightly browned and shredded cheese is melted. Serve with desired toppings and sauces.
Recipe from http://lecremedelacrumb.com
Oh My, This Tree of Life of Mine
I’ve been working on setting my Tree of Life blocks together. I knew exactly which fabrics were needed for the setting triangles, but the problem was, there wasn’t any large pieces except for in one particular fabric. And it was a woven. Uh oh, you kno…
GYB Give-Away Update!!!
I want to thank Vicki of 2 Bags Full once more for hosting the Grow Your Blog Hop each year!! It is a lot of fun to meet new bloggers from all over:) Vicki will keep the Grow Your Blog post up all year, so it’s not too late to visit a whole lot of new …
Some Slow Stitching on a Nice Winters Day
Getting a little bit of hand quilting done on the Vertical Baskets quilt. Not a lot, but just enough to start seeing a good pattern emerge. The way I’m stitching directly next to the cable motif in the brown fabric should highlight that fabric especial…
Sunday Morning
Knitting Needle Organizer
Today, although Valentines, is my normal shopping day. Told DH there was no way I was going to the grocery store. It is also Presidents Day Weekend and the beginning of Parade of homes. We did do a few small errands together and then he left me to my o…
Pantry Organizer
Five years ago when I started on this craft room I wanted a gift wrapping station for birthday and shower gifts. I had intended to use part of my pegboard for it, but it didn’t work out like I wanted. Last week when I was looking for other things I hap…
Slow-Cooker Chinese Pork with Garlic Noodles
- 1 Spray 5-quart slow cooker with cooking spray. Place pork in slow cooker. In small bowl, stir together 1 tablespoon of the soy sauce, the hoisin sauce, tomato sauce, sugar, gingerroot and garlic. Pour over pork.
- 2 Cover; cook on Low heat setting 3 hours 30 minutes. Remove pork from slow cooker to large bowl; let stand 10 minutes. Pour cooking liquid through strainer into separate bowl; cover to keep warm. Shred pork, using 2 forks; cover to keep warm.
- 3 Return cooking liquid to slow cooker; stir in remaining 3 tablespoons soy sauce, the vinegar and sesame oil. Increase heat setting to High. Cover; cook 10 minutes.
- 4 Meanwhile, cook noodles as directed on package. Turn slow cooker off. Add carrots, onions, cilantro leaves, shredded pork and cooked noodles; toss to coat. Sprinkle individual servings with peanuts and chopped cilantro. Serve with lime wedges.
On the Fence
Two years after it began, Juicy Fruit is finished. And she’s a cheery darling! With excellent help from members of the Mid-Century Modern Bee, Juicy Fruit is made of 200 six-inch churn dash blocks, 5 twelve-inch blocks and one large 18-inch …
My Current Applique Round Up
I am on complete and total applique overload lately. It’s not terribly unusual around here, but once it hits, then it’s almost deadly, at least to my motivation. First of all, there is my Sunburst quilt. I’ve firmly deemed it a ‘forever’ project by now…
Button Jars
I posted a request for baby food jars last night on FB. Got a reply from a friend this morning saying she had some. She has been saving them even though her husband couldn’t understand why she was. She said she knew one day someone would want them or s…
Turtle Trot — Feb 2015
It is a dark and cloudy day today. I think that after some nice spring-like weather we are getting back to winter again. I knew the warm weather wouldn’t last, but it was nice while we had it:) I’m really excited about my progress for Turtle Trot …
Trying to Get Creative With the Scrap Bin
Right back to the scrappy! I have to laugh because there has been almost zero progress on this particular border. I have been blaming it on the fact that we have had company every single weekend now for a month {lots of family coming into town to help …
Counter and Pegboard Baskets
I had asked one of the guys at church Sunday what the best tool to cut my kitchen counter with for my spice rack. He is a general contractor, so he would know. He said he would come over tonight and look at it. I thought I could do it with a jigsaw, or…
Taco Spaghetti
Organizing Craft Room
I have a new friend Bonniejean, who is into crafts like I am. She showed me her craft area and it was ultra organized. Mine has been really bad for the last 6 months. Not putting things away, etc. I finally decided after church today I was going to ge…
YOTA Challenge — Feb 2015
The YOTA Challenge is a fun SAL so that we can show off our stitching progress once a month. It is hosted by Pull the Other Thread. I’ve chosen to focus on ‘Birds of a Feather Mystery’ from With Thy Needle and Thread. Here is where I was before… …
Sunday Morning
Spice Rack
I have hated my spice cupboard for several years. It is just too small. I just don’t have anywhere else to put them though. They are on the three shelves to the right of my stove. It is getting to the point I have to half empty it to find what I want…
Quilt AsYou Go
When I called my friend Kathy last night to give her the info on the the long arm she invited me over to see her latest quilt. She is much faster at making quilts than I am. I was telling her my delima about a quilt for DS1. she said I should do a qui…
Букет с сиренью.
Чтобы было понятнее буду показывать и Лорнин вариант. Это то, что нам показали на МК.
Фотографировала на телефон. Для пионов выбраны другие ленты, именно лентЫ. У меня пионы сливались воедино, т.к. для них была предложена лента одного цвета. На картинке вы видите попытку разделить их — вставила между ними бутон гвоздики.
Потом… для петуний тоже была предложена одна ленточка желто-розовая. Я сделала цветы в двух вариантах — желто-розовые и розово-желтые. Но цвет, сам цвет этих цветов … ну не для этого букета! И не помню я таких петуний, но в принципе может быть это какие-то другие цветы…
Когда в пакетике с лентой для гвоздики я обнаружила два цвета ленты, уже даже и не расстроилась ))). Сначала не понравился белый цвет — он такой грязноватый, но гвоздики получились довольно симпатичными, да и розовый цвет на моем букете уже зашкаливал.
Теперь о зелени. Понятно, что у каждого цветка должна быть своя зелень. У меня была зелень для сирени, для банта и один цвет для всего остального. На фото все хорошо видно.
В таком виде, как бы законченном, Букет простоял на моем столе месяца три. Не могла я с ним смириться и отнести в багетную мастерскую. Хотела заменить зелень для гвоздик, убрать эти желто-розовые цветы да и с пионами надо было что-нибудь придумать.
Тем временем Лорна закончила свой Букет и разместила фото на ФБ.
Почувствуйте разницу что называется!!!)))
Итак были куплены ленты для пионов и для петуний, причем в нескольких вариантах, но подошел мне тот же цвет ленты, что у Лорны, из желто-розовых цветов оставила только те, что с желтым краем. Получила уже окончательный вариант Букета.
Еще старалась максимально открыть сирень. Зелень не нашла нужного цвета и решила оставить как есть. Окончательно с этой работой меня помирила моя новая знакомая, замечательная вышивальщица лентами — Маргарита. На мои сомнения что, что-то какой-то он весь не настоящий, она сказала — просто это декоративный букет. Все просто!!!))))
Сделала вывод, что вышивка лентами не для меня. Если цветы крупнее 10-ти рублевой монеты, они начинают меня напрягать. Те наборы, что начаты, конечно надо закончить. А так вышивать только мелочь на квилтиках или сумочках. Все эти крупные букеты и композиции не мое.
Как только помирилась с Букетом отнесла его в багетную мастерскую. Виделось мне оформление в круглое паспарту, но девочки -профессионалы предложили прямоугольник, согласилась с ними и осталась очень довольна. Единственное — тесновато ему в раме. Надо было надшить основу (или опять же для такой большой работы основа должна была бы быть побольше изначально…эх…)
Вот и все приключения ))). Работа закончена. выводы сделаны )))!
Хотела подарить ее кому-нибудь, но принесла домой и повесила — пусть висит как напоминание о моих выводах )))!!!
А нет-нет да и хочется настоящую-то сирень вышить…
Обнимаю и желаю исполнения мечт!!!)))))
Thinking About the Importance of Quilty Blogging and Some Eagle Quilt Progress
Do you ever wonder why it is that you still bother to blog? It takes up time that could well be spent quilting. Maybe. But would you or I really ‘quilt’ with that time? Especially if there wasn’t the motivation to post progress? I share a lot with you …
DS1 Quilt Request
DS1 and his girlfriend were here at the house tonight. I was good timing because I needed her moms contact information. She has a long arm in her home, and quilts for people. A friend of mine had asked for the information. As I was getting the info fro…
Give Away Project: Done!!
A few weeks ago I posted my the Grow Your Blog Hop post and mentioned a give away at the end of it, but I didn’t have the give away projects done yet!! 🙁 Now they are all done and are ready to be sent out to the lucky winner!! 🙂 This o…