Sunday, March 29, 2009

Chocolate Honey Almond Tart

Oh, Giada, you are going to get me into trouble! I watched Giada at Home yesterday and had this idea in my head to make a couple of her recipes. This one I had to make last night to enjoy today. If you love chocolate, you'll love this. I had to make some substitutions, though. I searched yesterday for chocolate graham crackers for the crust and couldn't find them at two markets and I wasn't about to drive all over town. I saw Nabisco Chocolate Wafers and just thought 6.00 was too much for a little box of cookies, but the Chocolate Teddy Grahams were on sale at Albertsons, 2 for 6.00. It looked like it had the same type of ingredients as graham crackers, so I bought a box and I'll just whirl them in food processor. Yay!

Anyway, very easy to make and very good! Here's the recipe.

Next post: another recipe and update photo of the quilt I'm currently working on.

Have a great day/evening!
~Billie

Cupcake applique quilt update

still sewing when I get an hour here or there ....

cupcake applique

those little corners are tricky. This is the last of my blocks. So now I'm sewing them together and getting close to having the top done. As soon as the sun comes up I'll take photos.

Have a wonderful day!

~Billie

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Projects in the air

Hello, just want to post a little about what I'm working on and what I plan to work on:

  • first on board is the cupcake quilt that I posted about on Saturday, it'll be a little different. I'm making 4 blocks instead of 3 and I don't think it will be a wallhanging

  • Next is a table runner from Moda Bake Shop with the Bistro Charm Pack

  • a scrap coin quilt, which I haven't even started yet, but I love all the beautiful quilts over here and I want one!

  • and then there's some left over pot holders and hot pads, soon to be out of the way!

Actually, there's plenty of completed blocks that have been burried amongst all my fabrics and what not. I haven't looked at them in years, the colors I don't care for anymore, but I'm sure I'll use them for something.

A little good news, well for me. We might be driving up the coast again, dh might have to go up there on business again. I hope I can tag along like last time, I have to request time off and look for a sub. I'm crossing my fingers.

Pismo Beach

~Billie

Saturday, March 21, 2009

WIP - cupcake applique

Hello again, well if I can post every other day then I'm doing pretty good. Actually, I'm not sewing as much as I would like to be, work just gets in the way. I've been wanting to make a quilt as pictured on the cover of Feb 2009 Quick Quilts, (see the quilt below)


but thought I would practice my applique skills first. It's been a long time, I use to either applique by hand or machine. On machine I would use the satin stitch, because that's what that old machine did and I wasn't too thrilled with the outcome. The by-hand method would never get finished! Now with my new Brother (still consider it new), I have many options. I've always liked the blanket stitch.

cupcake


As you can see, I need a lot more practice. Egads! Oh well, a few more blocks to go.

~Billie

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Finished apron


apron-recycle fabrics, originally uploaded by tweetysnest.

I have a chance to post a little about my apron, which I saw the instructions in the Apronology magazine. I think the "easy as pie" apron by Jen Osborn, http://www.identityseven.com, looks way better than mine, I won't be using decorator samples any time soon! It can be a nuisance, lots of unraveling. I never made anything that I left raw edges, either, but I'll try that again. I added some decorative stitching, fun to experiment. I certainly will make this apron again, it's easy as pie!

As always, thank you for reading!

~Billie

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Monday, March 16, 2009

Finally finished!

my apron, but of course my batteries died and now I'm off and running to work. I'll have a decent pic tomorrow. Grrr!

Have a great day!

~Billie

Saturday, March 14, 2009

My first Award!

Thank you! I was given this award a little over a week ago by Angelique, (and finally passing it on) thank you so much, I feel very honored!

Proximidade is described as follows: 'This blog invests and believes in PROXIMITY - nearness in space, time and relationships. These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes for self-aggrandizement! Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers!' This blog award should be sent to your favorite eight bloggers and they, in turn should forward to eight of their favorites. You should include the text for Proximidade (above) in your announcement blog. And so I award the following eight blog pages for their Proximidade attributes:


Pink Penguin

Attribute

Freda's Hive

Tales From the Fridge

Adventures of a Quilting Diva

Marilyn's Creative Angels

Ooops, there's only 6. I have to admit that my blogging and blog reading (and commenting) has taken a back seat to my day to day life. I hope you understand, I'll add a couple of more faves in the days to come.

Thank you for reading and have a great weekend!

~Billie

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Got yours?


Some of my Girl Scout cookies arrived yesterday! I think I better send some off to work with dh. That's the problem working with children and some happen to be Girl Scouts, it's just hard for me to say "no, thank you". Oh well, I haven't been eating sweets lately, because I knew these would be arriving soon.

Monday, March 09, 2009

Apron inspiration

I bought this magazine a couple of weeks ago and I'm inspired to make aprons!

I have some drapery samples that were donated to our school last year from one of the parents. It was too much for us to store at work, so we were able to take our pick for ourselves. I think I can make good use out of them, but not sure so if they are practical for an apron. Well, this is more like "art" to me. I've been saving my old jeans for something like this, too.

I'm not finished, but hopefully by tonight.


Thanks for stopping by!

Monday, March 02, 2009

March already?

I can't believe we're into March. Just a quick post, I should have something to write about but it's sort of slow but busy around here. If that makes any sense at all. I haven't been much in the mood for writing, but I'm going to try.

My daughter has been home with us for the past couple of days, fun having her around. We went shopping on Saturday. I don't know where Sunday went. On Saturday we stopped in at the store where I bought my sewing machine and looked at sergers, also known as an overlock. We are pretty sure on the one we want, just need to cough up about $600. The machine is an Elna 654.


I really would like to buy this machine, so I'm going to have to do some number crunching and scaling back on unnecessary purchases. Good luck with that!

As for my etsy shop, it's looking pretty pittiful. I don't want to relist my goods that were listed before, therefore I need to get busy making new things. I have projects wanting to be finished and new ones to start .... well, I must get going then.

Thanks for stopping by.

I'm back cross-stitching

  Well, not yet, but real soon because my daughter found a Halloween cross-stitch booklet that I thought I lost forever. So my plans are to ...