Friday Night Sew In-October

I am finally getting a chance to post what I made for Friday Night Sew In. 

I got the idea for this adorable Jack pillow from the October 2011 issue of Create & Decorate magazine.  It was fun to make.  I enjoyed the fact that both sewing and painting were involved in this project.  As usual, I tweaked the instructions a bit.  I used freezer paper and made stencils for the parts of Jack.  I free hand painted some of him too.  I loved the effect of the primitive hand stitching all around him.  He is a perfect addition to my Halloween decorations. 

I have to straighten my craft room.  I keep purchasing new sewing books and I am running out of room.  Between that and my cookbooks, I could open a library!  I hope everyone has a great week and I am keeping in my thoughts everyone in the path of the perfect storm that will be hitting the East coast.  I am far enough inland so we are mostly expecting wind and rain-not that I don't worry about massive power outages!  Take care.   Nancy 

Pumpkins and Prunes-Oh My!

Hi and happy Sunday.  I get so many wonderful ideas from all of you creative bloggers out there.  Recently I came across a blog with the most adorable pumpkin table runner.  I emailed her and asked where I could purchase the pattern and she told me she had gotten it a while ago and told me where it had come from.  I didn't have any luck locating any pattern like it now.  So, I winged it!  I know my stems are longer than the runner I had admired but I really like mine.  Sometimes I rely too much on having a pattern.  I usually go off on my own after starting a project anyway so this time, I came up with the whole thing myself!  I had fun picking out fat quarters in various orange prints.  It was a fun experience and I love that this runner isn't Halloween or Thanksgiving specific, it can be displayed all throughout the Fall.  What do you think?

I also wanted to share the latest Pioneer Woman recipe I have tried.  It is Iny's Prune Cake.   I watch her show on Food Network and, even though I am not a fan of prunes, she made it look amazing. 

 It was good.  It tasted similar to Hermit cookies.  It is a very moist cake with lots of spice.  My favorite part was the homemade caramel icing.  I could have easily licked the pan after I iced the cake! (but I didn't) The cake was a pretty big hit with the family and I was even honest about the ingredients.  Nobody even blinked-what a surprise! Aren't those plates cute?

I got those on clearance at Cracker Barrel last year after Halloween.  They were dirt cheap and I was excited to realize that they fit in a wrought iron holder I have for square dessert plates that go with my everyday stoneware dishes.  Score!  I finally got my Halloween decorations all up and I love the spooky atmosphere as well as the Halloween lights everywhere. 

I hope everyone has a great week and I am looking forward to the Friday Night Sew In next week end.  Take care.                       Nancy

Halloween Baking without the Calories

Hi and happy Sunday.  I am a little under the weather this evening.  I think the little ones I am around every day have finally infected me with my first sinus infection of the season.  I took it easy today but I was anxious to make the felt stuffed softie "cookies" you see in the picture above.  They were fun and easy.  I found them here:

I love the BHG holiday publications and look forward to getting my hands on them every year.  The Halloween cookies were in there and I thought they were cute.  I would definitely change a few things if I made them again.  The tan felt cookie wasn't big enough to be a border around the "frosting" layer.  I would make the tan pattern substantially bigger next time.  Also, I didn't top stitch because there wasn't enough tan showing.  I also thought the spider web was too plain and I glued a felt spider on there with French knot eyes.  They were fun and I think little kids would love them in their play kitchens as well as I enjoy them as cute holiday decor.  If I were feeling better, I might make some for my class at school. 

 

I also wanted to share an amazing grilled sandwich I made recently. 

 

Trust me, this picture doesn't do it justice.  This is a gouda portabello grilled sandwich and it is very tasty.  I don't know if you know this about me, but I eat many of my meals pretty much meatless.  I occasionally eat some meat but I am very picky about it.  So, the mushrooms in this sandwich are right up my alley!  Portabellos are so beefy tasting, even my husband didn't miss the meat(just so long as I served meat the next night!).  I used the George Forman grill to press the sandwiches and they were delish.  I also made a killer cream of broccoli soup that night but that will have to wait until another time.  

 

I hope you all have a great week.  I think I see a doctor visit in my future this week.  Take care.  Nancy 

 

A Fun Day of Sewing and Birthday Gifts to Show Off

Happy Sunday night everyone.  Why am I so chipper on a Sunday night you ask?  I am off tomorrow for Columbus Day.(Yahoo!)  I had a fun day today closed in my craft room sewing the day away.  I decided to make this loyalty card wallet from a tutorial on A Spoonful of Sugar.  It was super easy and it is so practical.  How many times have you been to a store or restaurant that you have a discount card for and you can't find your card quickly among all your credit cards and appointment cards that are in your wallet?  This is small and fits nicely in my purse and I will always know where to find my Michael's card now! I love small projects that I can pour over my fabric stash to put scraps together to make.  These would make great stocking stuffer gifts.  I just may have to whip a few more up. 

  I wanted to share some birthday gifts I received.  My two sons got me the Babycakes pancake maker.  I am a big fan of Babycakes small appliances.  This one is particularly cool.  Whenever we have pancakes, everyone else is eating while I stand at the stove flipping pancakes.  This contraption makes four at a time and they are decent sized pancakes. I used a pouch of pancake mix and we had pancakes lickety split!   Actually, because it said it also makes omelets, we had to try that out too.

These eggs were a little crispy on the outside.  Perhaps we cooked them too long.  It is probably a trial and error thing.  But they were good and wow, were they easy.   Needless to say, me being the gadget queen, I loved this gift.  Thanks boys! 

Hubs really brought the wow factor with his gift to me.  I have wanted a cutting table for quite some time.  He got me this one at our local JoAnn Fabric.  The picture above only has one of the leaves up.  It can be even bigger than that picture shows!  It was awesome today to cut big pieces of fabric for a project I am working on with no back ache or neck ache.  The height of this cutting table is perfect-no more stooping over!  I love it.   Now I can get to work on some of the larger-sized projects I have been wanting to get started on. 

I want to get my Halloween decorations up tomorrow.  That is my plan.  I also have some dusting to do.  Now that I have that wonderful cutting table, it may be hard to drag myself out of my craft room!  Have a great week everyone and take care.  Nancy

I Seem to be Wonky Even When I Don't Mean To....

Hi everyone and I hope you all had a great weekend.  I have a birthday coming up this week and am ever closer approaching the big 50!  I will be 48 and officially the older woman in my husband's life as he recently turned 47 and we shared that age for a week and a half.  By the way, he was surprised and very happy with his gift-an ipad.  He was a little upset I had spent so much as we never do that for birthdays but he got over that! 

On to the reason for the title of this blog post.  I sewed a ruffled wristlet with a tutorial from Melanie at Texas Freckles.  I enjoyed making it and I love the fabric I used.  However, when I was done and was pulling it right side out and fluffing the ruffles, I noticed the top ruffle is a little wonky.  I didn't do this on purpose.  I still like it but if I make another one, I think I will measure more carefully and give it an extra once over before I sew.  It is a nice size when you don't need a big purse.  I had some cute fabric with French writing on it that I thought would make a cute ruffled wristlet but maybe I should go with a visually forgiving fabric that won't show any unintentional wonkiness! 

Now for a little something that will make your mouth water.

 I made these yummy hot sandwiches with an awesome recipe from Stephanie O'Dea and her blog A Year of Slow Cooking.  They are peperoncini beef sandwiches.  I used mild banana peppers in the place of peperoncinis and they came out amazing. 

The family loved them.  They were all nice and melty after a trip under the broiler.  My guys all chose to put horseradish sauce on theirs but I had mine plain.  It was plenty juicy for me.  This is definitely a keeper.  It would be great if you had company and wanted something easy but filling.  The leftovers were good too! 

 

Well, I hope you all have a great week.  It is getting very fall-like here in the Northeast and I am not unhappy with that at all.  I love the crisp cool air and the chilly nights.  It is great sleeping weather. 

It also puts me in the baking mood.  I am thinking of making a big batch of muffins this week and freezing some.  What have you been baking?  Take care.                Nancy                                                                                       

Friday Night Sew In

Happy Saturday evening everyone.  I finally got a chance to post my FNSI project from last night.  I made two Halloween place mats for my new eat-in kitchen.  I love anything vintage for Halloween and this fabric caught my eye.  It is called Halloween Postcards and I love all the images-especially the ones with cats in them! 

They turned out really cute and were very easy.  I used an older pattern from Simplicity.  It is number 8474 and it might be floating around on Ebay.  I usually look there for discontinued patterns with classic designs that never go out of style.  It has 10 different place mats and a simple napkin.  The place mats are all different shapes and sizes so it is a good pattern to have.  I enjoyed taking the time to sew last night.  I have a tv in my craft room that gets Netflix so I have been catching up on the series Once Upon a Time before the next season starts on the 30th of this month.  I have gotten hooked on it! 

I also participated in the fat quarter swap from Ninth Street Notions again and received my fabric today from Ann in California. 

She really selected some pretty prints.  They all have just a touch of sparkle to them so they should be fun to work with.  They look like Spring to me so I may head in that direction.  I hope she likes the vibrant batiks I selected for her. 

Tomorrow is my husband's birthday so we are going away for the night tomorrow night.  I took Monday off so I am looking forward to a little relaxation myself.  I can't wait to see my husband's face when he sees what I got him this year.  It is a big surprise!  Take care everyone and have a good week.  Nancy

Guess What I Painted.....

I love denim shirts.  They are so versatile.  I decided to paint some classic country motifs on just a plain chambray shirt.  I followed a pattern in an old paint book I came across.  You just add textile medium to ordinary acrylic craft paint and it is there for life!  As anybody who has tried to remove paint from their clothes knows, I think the textile medium isn't to make it permanent-that isn't necessary.  It makes it softer so it doesn't crack.  It moves with the fabric better.  These motifs were relatively easy-not much shading needed.  You could use a stencil if you aren't a painting kind of crafter.  After I painted the shirt, I had my husband cut out matching wood pieces to the items I had painted.  I painted those and let them dry. 

Then I added metal button cover findings I bought at my craft store.  I was really happy with how everything turned out.  You could buy small wood cut outs at your craft store that match your button up shirt.  Or you could just buy plain wooden discs or other shapes and decorate them with paint and beads and put these button cover findings on the back.  What a great way to personalize a plain shirt.  Just make sure you take the button covers off before you wash your shirt! 

I thought I would show you this other shirt I made a while back.  I bought a plain denim shirt and some crochet cotton doilies.  I used fabric glue to attach the doilies to the pockets and collar.  Then I added buttons from my collection.  I thought this approach made it really feminine. 

In my continuing admiration of the Pioneer Woman Ree Drummond's baking prowess, I made her homemade granola bars .  They were amazing and I usually could care less about granola bars.  I did not dip them in chocolate as she suggested but they were very tasty just the same.  A cold glass of milk and it was a very yummy snack and quite healthy with the wheat germ and all. 

Well, I am heading off to bed as another long school week will start tomorrow.  Take care everyone. 
Nancy