Woohoo......we have giveaway winners! And a recipe!

Hubby drew the names from the jar (so scientific, right!?!), and the winners of my giveaway are Sue and Doniene!  Congratulations, both of you!  Sue was picked first, so she is getting the choice of which book she would like!  Emails have been sent to both of you, so I just need your addresses!

Thanks to everyone who entered my giveaway and helped me celebrate my 100th post and 100 followers milestone!  That was fun!  :o)

And I have a recipe to share that is totally awesome!  And very timely with what's in the market right now!  I don't have a picture of mine to share, because we inhaled it!  lol  SO GOOD!

I've made a few slight changes to the recipe I found on someone's blog (I'm so sorry, but I somehow didn't mark it with your name), but they said they found it at Joy the Baker's website.  And I just went there, and couldn't find this crisp recipe, but OMG.....she's got a gazillion AMAZING recipes.  Go there and check it out!  Just scroll through the first few......you'll be drooling!

Apple Crisp 

Recipe found at Joy the Baker.com

Filling:

5-6 medium size apples, peeled, cored, and cut into 1/4 inch slices (I used Cortlands, but use your favorite)

1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen cranberries (this is my addition, and it's awesome!)

3 Tbsp granulated sugar

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Topping: 

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/3 cups lightly packed brown sugar

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, well-softened

2/3 cup finely chopped pecans (optional - I didn't add to mine)

1/3 cup quick oats (I used 1/2 cup)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Generously grease an 8x8 baking pan with butter (I used a bit of the stick that will be put in the topping......so it's just 1 stick for the whole recipe)

2. Place a 1/4 of the sliced apples and cranberries in a large bowl and dust with sugar/cinnamon mixture. Continue layering apples/cranberries and sugar/cinnamon mixture until done. Toss the mixture until apples/cranberries are evenly coated in cinnamon sugar.  Place in baking pan, they should be just about to the top.

3. For the topping, place the flour, brown sugar, nuts (if using), cinnamon, and oats in a large bowl and stir well with a wooden spoon. Work the butter into the mixture with your fingertips (I used a fork!) until evenly distributed. Take one full handful of the topping and toss it into the sugared apple mixture, moving the apples around slightly to get the topping beneath. Spread the rest of the topping evenly over the apples.  (I had to pat/push the topping down to keep it in the pan.  I used an 8" Pyrex that has 3" sides, and it was right to the top edge!)

4. Bake the crisp in the baking pan on a cookie sheet on the center oven rack until the topping is crunchy and the apples are bubbling, 55-60 minutes. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream or homemade whipped cream!

The topping on this crisp recipe creates almost a thick, but crumbly crust.  Break it up a bit before scooping out servings to bowls.  The big chunks of crust, with the sweet/tart apples and cranberries is so amazing it doesn't even need the ice cream.  BUT......it's totally rocks WITH ice cream!  YUM!

***************

This crisp is so so good......I am planning on making it about every 3 days, so we don't have to go without it!  lol  So much for my diet, right!?!  :o)

Tomorrow my friend Pat and I will be heading out to the Cocheco Quilters Guild Show in New Hampshire.  We are so excited about it!  Last year's show was so wonderful.  Their guild is amazing, and the show proves it.  And this year, our favorite quilt shop is a vendor, so we have been really looking forward to seeing Cyndi from the Busy Thimble shop!  Yay!  Can't wait!  And I'm sure I'll be posting a ton of pics when we return.  Check back here on Sunday!

Have a great weekend!  Make that apple crisp.....you won't be sorry!

regan

A Giveaway.....Woohoo!

I'm so excited!  This is my 100th post and I have 100 followers!  So, of course, I need to have a giveaway!  Yay!

And......since I hit both of the 100 milestones at the same time......let's have 2 giveaways!  Yippee!

Giveaway #1 includes this book.......

 and this stack of 8" squares cut from my plaid shirts collection!  20 plaids and all different!

Giveaway #2 is with this fun book.......

and another pack of the 8" plaid shirt squares......20 and all different (again!).

And I'm throwing into each of the giveaways, the best darn seam ripper I've used in the last 20 years!   Seriously!  And it's a pack of two!  Woohoo!

Ok......so I know they look like the eyebrow razors you get in the personal care section of the drug store......and.......yeah, they are!  But the razor is wire wrapped, so it doesn't cut fabric or you, just the thread.  You have to put a little tension on the two pieces of fabric you're 'unsewing', but when you do......this little tool will slide right down the seam, and pop pop pop pop pop......all those stitches have been sliced right through.  Easy as pie!  Or piece of cake.....whichever you prefer!  :o)

If you read my last post, and you thought about all the seams I had to rip out.....well, this little tool saved me about 20 hours of picking!  I couldn't not have done all that ripping without it!  And it stays very sharp through a LOT of slicing.

I've previously purchased a single, longer bladed similar razor at some quilt shows, and thought they were great.  But they did not last near as long as these do.......and these are available at the Dollar Tree store!  Yay!  Ok.....that's the end of the plug for the silly little tool!  lol


Ok!  So, here's what you need to do to win either of these giveaways........

Be a follower, and leave me a comment!  That's it!  This is open to anyone, anywhere!  And when I draw the names of the winners on Friday the 12th, I'll give the option of which book the 1st winner would like.

Thanks for being followers of my blog, and for all those great comments you've all left.  Quilting really brings folks together......and I love being a part of this great quilty community!  :o)

Big hugs!

regan

It's been CRAZY! Really!

It's been nearly a month since I last posted......I just can't believe it!  But it's been totally crazy around here......this is what's been happening.......

Silly me invited a couple and their daughter for dinner on Saturday, Sept. 15.  So, of course, I spent the entire previous week cleaning this crazy mess of a house up.  It was wasn't dirty......just had stuff everywhere!  So I wasn't able to blog that entire week!  But dinner went great.....we laughed so hard my cheeks hurt!  I haven't laughed that hard in a long time!  FUN!  (Thanks Racine, Tim and Julie!)

So......they leave at around 10 p.m., and at 1 a.m. we get a phone call.  My hubby is on the volunteer fire department, and it's a call-out.  The text reads Sweden Road........CRAP!.......WE live on Sweden Road!  Hubby looks out the window, down the hill, and the sky is completely RED with flames!  It's the house across the street from Racine's!  So hubby races out......and I sat on our porch for a few minutes trying to decide if I should go down there, cuz I didn't want to be in the way......then thought I might be able to help......so I went.  Racine, Tim and Julie were in their dooryard totally freaked out!  I don't blame them a bit!  I was freaked out, too!  The house across the street was totally engulfed in flames.  I'd never seen flames rise that high, right in front of me!  Unfortunately, there was no hope for the house, but the next door neighbors house was totally saved, with only the vinyl siding melted a bit.

The AMAZING AND GOOD news was that the family living in the house got everyone out.....and they were totally safe!  Thank God!  The couple has 3 children, one is a baby, and the man's sister was visiting, too.  They were all safe!

So, after seeing such a thing happen just 4 houses away is pretty unnerving.  And all I could think about was "That poor family has just lost everything!"   So I figured they needed some quilts!  So I got busy!  Really busy!  In a couple of days, I had the girl's quilt done, and sent it over to Pat's so she could hand stitch down the binding.  The next day or two, I had the boy's quilt done, and Suzanne did the binding on that one!  Suzanne also said we should make pillow cases for them!  GENIUS!  Thank you, Suzanne!  So, she got to work on a girl's pillowcase in pinks, and I had plenty of fabric from the boy's quilt, and Suzanne put that case together, as well!  Yippee!  She also was brilliant and bought 4 new pillows!  So glad she was 'thinking'!  I had no brain left!  Seriously.....it's been eat, sleep, quilt!  My brain was mush!

 The girl's quilt......she's 6.

 Quilting is all over swirls, and the backing is a solid pink.

 The boy's quilt......he's 4.

Quilting was in swirls, again.......and the backing is the tiny stars print from the border and binding.


Now, I still had several baby quilts from when I had a website to sell them, and I've been giving them out as needed.  So I simply had to put a label on one of them, and the baby's quilt was done!  Easy peasy!  I picked the one best suited for a boy.......it's done in the 30's prints, a 16-patch of 1" squares, in alternate  blocks with quarter square blocks.

All over meander quilting, with stippling in the whites sections.  The backing is white.


I figured I would use the grey stripey quilt top I had just finished for the couple.  But it needed to be a queen, and I had originally fitted it to our bed, so it would be too short for a standard queen.  Of course, I didn't have any more of that exact grey to be able to slap on a top and bottom border!  Heck NO!  So I made a trip out, bought more grey (not the same grey), took off the grey stripes, put on the NEW grey stripes and top and bottom borders, and started quilting it.

Now here's the rub!  For the girl and boy quilts, I used a brand new basting method that I had seen on a video.  It worked out great!  They went together easily and with no issue while quilting.  Not so much for the queen quilt!

Evidently, I had left some wiggle room on the backing, not as taught as I usually have it, and I ended up quilting several 1/4 inch pleats on the back!  Of course, I didn't discover this until I was HALF WAY DONE with the quilting.  What's a girl to do.......but take out all the quilting, re-baste (the old, tried and true method), and quilt it all over again!  Sheesh!

This officially became the quilt from hell!  And that made me crazy and sad, cuz I just loved this quilt!  I didn't want it to be a negative, but it was really hard not think of it that way!  PLUS.......I'm trying really hard to get it done so we can give them over to the family who NEEDS THEM!  Sheesh!  The whole time I'm quilting, and having issues, and cursing myself, and starting to spiral into a depression......I had to keep telling myself......"They've just lost everything!  Quit your griping, ya dope, and get busy!"

Reality check.......it's a good thing!  :o)

 Straight line quilting at mixed intervals.  Pieced back.

So.......Suzanne and I just delivered the quilts and pillows to the family.  She seemed truly grateful for them, and her little girl seemed quite pleased with her pink quilt!  The boy was not around at the time, but the baby is as cute as a button.  And Suzanne wrapped the baby quilt around his shoulders in his mother's arms......it was so sweet!  The mom said how the whole community has really come out for them with donations and things.  I'm so glad we could be a part of that!

And I'm so glad I remembered to take pics this morning before Suzanne came over.  I usually forget, unless I've taken some in the making process.  There was just no time for that on this project!

So.......I am back to normal now.  The craziness is over!  Whew!

Hope you are having a great week!  We are thoroughly enjoying the fall colors here.  I'll hopefully have some pics in the next few days.  Suzanne and I are doing a shop hop, and will be heading a bit north on Thursday. Should be great for picture taking, too!  Sweet!

regan

A chill in the air!

On my morning walk today, there was a real chill in the air!  Fall in here, and I'm loving it!  Warm days, cool evenings......quilts on the beds......yep......my favorite time of year!  I hope to have lots of pics once the leaves start turning......I don't think I posted any last year!  What was I thinking!?!  :o)

So it's been a while since I last posted......And I've been busy busy busy!  Mostly with canning!  But I have worked on quilts, too!  I was on Tim Latimer's blog last week, and he was showing a whole slew of quilt tops that he has ready for quilting.  (He has purchased quilt tops from ebay, and he hand quilts them into beauties!)  His 'next' quilt to be quilted was a stunner!  I just loved everything about it!  So, of course, I had to make one!  lol  When I got the blocks all done and lined up......I auditioned several backgrounds; a red (like Tim's quilt), a grey, and a black.  And hubby insisted that I go with the grey.  I love that he made me do it.....cuz it is cozy and pretty and soft looking and gentle and ......well, you get the idea!

I'm really in love with it!  I used nothing but cut up thrift store shirts for the blocks......in shades of grey, black, cream, pink, with little red bits here and there.  It will fit my queen sized bed.  I'll be machine quilting it, but I'm not sure what design to do in those big solid stripes.....so I'll have to think on it!

This was originally going to be my leader/ender project, cuz I was desperate for one, and this looked easy enough to do it that way.  But then I started sewing them up, and realized I would have to be WAY more organized to have them not get mixed up while waiting for the next piece to add......so I scrubbed that idea, and just started sewing them up!  Which means that I still need a leader/ender project!  Sheesh!  So took the scraps from the 1.5" strips I used for these blocks, and now I've cut them into squares, and will use a bazillion of those until I get enough for a coordinating wall hanging!  That works for me!

I've realized I can't even sew a simple seam if I don't have a leader/ender for it.  I just can't function properly now if I think I'm going to have a thread tail!  Eee gads!  :o)

Our power was out for about an hour today, so instead of machine sewing, I got busy on the hand piecing of my 8 pointed stars.  I now have 168 of them completed!  Woohoo!  I'm nearly half way there!  :o)  My goal is to try and do 20 a week......and so far, I've managed to do more than that!  Today alone I did 12!  Woot!

No pics of them, but I do have a pic of the best darn little light I recently purchased.  I've been using it every night to do my stars with, and it worked out very nicely while the power was out today!  :o)

(Picture courtesy of Beam & Read.com)

I ordered this Beam & Read light from Amazon.....and I love it!  It shines a very good light on your handwork as you sew, and it's very lightweight around your neck.  It also adjusts for length (the cord is elastic as well), and you can use 3 or 6 of the LED lights.  It's awesome.....if you've been thinking about one, get it!  (And no, I have no affiliation with this light or company......I just loved it.....and know you would, too!)

It was a little pricey at $30, but Amazon was offering a $30 gift card if you signed up for their credit card, so I did, and the light was free!  Woohoo!  Which, of course, meant that I ordered a couple of quilt books, cuz it's just not right to get something for free, and not buy something, too!  Right!?!  lol

Well, I guess that's all the news I have for this moment!  I feel like I have tons to say, but nothing of real importance......so I should just be quiet for now!  :o)

Have a great week!

regan

Manchester NH Show - Part 3.....the Finale!

Here are the last of the pics from the show last weekend.  If you have a chance to go where it travels, you definitely won't be disappointed.  It is listed under different names, but will be in Oaks, PA in Sept, in Santa Clara, CA in Oct, and in West Palm Beach, FL in Nov.  Hope you can catch it!

Ok.......here are the pics......enjoy!

 "I've Come Full Circle" by Jenny Williamson, South Africa.  All hand pieced, appliqued, and quilted.  Lovely!

 "Rainbow Resonance" by Elmine van der Walt, South Africa.

 "Quarter:  Contour Quilted Quadrants of Quirky Colour Quarters" by Angie Franke, Monique Day-Wilde, Shan Fox & Lynne Kay, South Africa.  Sounds like a fun group project, huh?

 "Marakesj" by Suzette Ehlers, South Africa.  This quilt took 'Best of Country' for South Africa in the show!

 "Line Study #1" by Trienie Krugel, South Africa.

 This quilt was gorgeous, but somehow I missed getting the info card on it.  Ugh!  But their work was lovely.

 "Medallion Quilt with Radiating Borders" by Nick Martin & Jim Price, United States.  This was my favorite quilt in the show.....it's so gorgeous with all those repro fabrics.  LOVE IT!  I'm seriously thinking I need to make one!  So many fun little hst's!  :o)

 "Glorius Autumn" by Frieda Oxenham, United Kingdom.  Lovely use of the darker batiks, and nice beading, too.

 "Sweet Spring" by Frieda Oxenham, United Kingdom.  The same quilt, but using the lighter batiks.  Nice!

 "Cathedral Town, Harvest Time" by Alicia Merrett, United Kingdom.  It's an aerial view of the town.  Fun!

 "Colours on the Run" by Caroline Wilkinson, United Kingdom.

 "New Beginnings" by Kathryn Tennyson, United States.  Wonderful detail and intricate applique work.  And I love the 3rd pic of it showing the toile piece framed by an applique border.  Great idea to showcase some beautiful toile scenes.

 "In Dulci Jubilo" by Jacquie Harvey, United Kingdom.  This quilt took 'Best Hand Workmanship" in the show.  It's about 40 inches square.   It was truly lovely work, but the creases and folds from shipping it really took away from the beauty.  A perfect example of why quilts should be rolled!

 "It Started With a Delft Blue Tile" by Rosalind Pollack, United Kingdom.

 "Fathers and Daughters" by JoAnn Major, United States.  This has great use of those fun Australain prints I recently purchased.  Done with folding fabric technique so some of the pieces lift up.  I like the pop of lime and orange with the prints, too!  Yummy!

 "Steampunk Sublime 2" by Robbi Joy Eklow, United States.

 "Peacock Rapsody" by Charmaine Erickson, United States.

 "Opium Dream" by Sandy Curan, United States.  This took a 3rd place ribbon.  Wonderful machine quilting to create amazing texture.

 "Believe" by Reiko Nobata, Japan.  This quilt took 'Best of Country' for Japan.

Well......that's the show!  Hope you enjoyed it!  Again, if you can get to any of the other cities it is traveling to, try and see it.  It was really great......and of course, a huge amount of vendors!  Fun!

Have a great weekend!

regan

Manchester NH Show - Part 2!

Enjoy!

 "Albert Picks Roses for Victoria" by Jeanie O'Sullivan, New Zealand.  I just loved the use of the black&white striped edging she used on nearly everything!  Fantastic!

 "Millefiori" by Chris Kenna, New Zealand.  This quilt just dazzled us!  Millefiori means 'a thousand flowers' in Italian......this quilt was inspired by those Venetian glass paperweights with the little flowers in them.  Awesome!  I've seen this pattern in the blogs a few months back.....loved it then, too!

 "Indian Rapsody" by Hazal Foot.  She matched quilting thread color to the pieces on the front, so the back was just as beautiful with lovely thread work design.  And when they hung the quilt, it was open to the back, so you could see the whole thing.  Didn't photo well, though.

 "Solstice" by Barbara Barber, England.  Barbara was a featured quilter in this show, and had many quilts there.  This one knocked me out!  I love everything about it.....especially the color!  :o)

There was a special exhibit of reproduction quilts.  It's the Great Lakes Seaway Trail, War of 1812 Bicentennial Quilts Traveling Exhibit.  They were all long, and very narrow quilts, as though made for soldier's cots.  Each one had a special significance to the maker, most having a connection to someone lost in a war.  The repro fabrics were wonderful!  And I'm really liking the size for wall hangings!

 These were about 1" quarter square triangles!  Yikes!

 "Longfellow's Wayside Inn and Grist Mill" by Cheryl Pratt, Lafayette, CO.

 "Last Christmas" by Grit Weigmann, Germany.

The following are close ups of the gorgeous hand quilting on this quilt.  But the photo of the whole quilt is just a big orange square!  So I didn't include the whole pic.

 "Citrin" by Andrea Stracke, Germany.  I just can't say enough of how beautiful her quilting was!  Gorgeous!

 "A Stitch in Time - Oh No!" by Lita Star.

 These next three quilts were part of the Barbara Barber exhibit.  All gorgeous in every way!

 Tiny tiny micro stippling for the entire background of quilting......so amazing!

 "The Springing Point" by Christel Pietschmann, Germany.

 "Amongst the Eucalypts" by Denise Griffiths, Australia.  The dots and stripes had so much zing!

 "Four Voice Choir with Soloists" by Annette Bamberger, Germany.

I'll have more pics in a few days!  It was such a good show!

Have a great day!

regan