My very first finished...

Quilt!!

Here it is, finally!

It's a simple 9 patch baby quilt. It is for friends who had their baby a month ago now. I have no idea how big it is, but I'd guess 42" by 36".

This was my first time quilting so I stitched in the ditch along each row of blocks. It was fairly easy with no major hiccups, but I'm glad I did not ambitiously try stippling!

Binding was interesting though. I followed my Singer Complete Quilting Bible (or something like that) and was not happy with the end result. I machine stitched the binding to the back of the quilt on 2 sides. I decided to hand sew the binding on the other 2 sides and it came out much better. I hated the book's instructions on how to bind the corners; so I'll definitely be looking for a new and better looking method for my next quilt.




Close up of the quilt: Note, the colors did not bleed, it's the shadow of the late day sun.

A view of the back of the quilt...I LOVE this fabric. I think it's perfect for this quilt.

It's washed and ready to go to baby John's house this weekend...I don't know how I'll part with my first (completed) creation!

Next up: An Old Red Barn Co. Quilt-A-Long (see my side bar for the link). I'm off to pick out my fabrics today after work :)

Adventures in Traveling, Part 2

Murphy’s law…the story of my life.

Normally when traveling I keep a close eye on my belongings. In this day and age, you have to. To me, nothing is safe in the hotel room. I've read too many online reviews lately and even know people who have had items stolen from their hotel rooms. Everything should be locked away to not even tempt the housekeeping staff. Luckily, my hotel provides a safe. However, as you might’ve guessed, my safe does not work. So I basically left a laptop, wallet, mp3 player, camera, and GPS (it is the technology age after all) in an unlocked safe.

I ran up to my room, mid day and found my door open. Yep, awesome! Housekeeping had come, clean, and left my damn door open. So now not only is my stuff sitting in an open safe, but my door is open. Coincidence? I don’t know.

I went straight to the front desk, after checking that my possessions were in place. I got an apology. That’s it! Not a “we’ll look into it”, not even a “we’ll talk to the housekeeping staff”, just an apology by some creep with a British accent, so I'll admit the apology did sound nicer. I also told them my safe was broke. They said they would send someone up right away. Since I was attending a conference I said I would not be able to be in my room and they assured me it was not a problem. I go to my room half an hour later and my phone is blinking red. The safe fixer people left a voice mail (which retrieving was a PITA) that as I was not in the room, they would have to come back when I wanted them to open my safe. They even got the freakin message wrong! I put the little privacy, do not disturb, aka GO AWAY sign on my door and left it up for the remainder of my trip!

This stuff seriously only happens to me! Email me if you'd like the name of that lovely little hotel!

I believe in destiny…

I’m attending a work conference in Baltimore. I was asked to go suddenly to fill in for another coworker. I was only supposed to be here for 2 days, but as it turns out I’m here for the long haul.

At first it seemed like God, or somebody was keeping me from traveling. I had so many “stay home” signs, it’s a little eerie. First, none of my clothes fit. Literally. I know you have fat clothes. Every woman has fat clothes. Nevermind. As I’m writing this I’m remember my husband is one of my only readers and this is TMI for us newlyweds!

So aside from buying a whole new wardrobe (which is ok, it’s one of my 101 goals), my headlight burned out the night before I was set to leave. Yep! So I drove my butt to the local auto part store, picked up the light, and off I went to replace it. After an hour of arguing with Hubby, the light was in place, but it still didn’t work. Apparently the part store (jerk) sold me the wrong light. So we spent an hour pulling out the headlight (trust me it was fun) to replace something that already worked! So I said f-it I’ll drive during the day.

Day of departure: So frustrated with car last night, don’t pack until morning of trip. Late for work. Leave work around noon, forget insurance cards. Driving out of state with one headlight and no insurance cards = (potentially) lots of tickets. Forget business cards. You do know you are going to a business conference right??? Get lunch, get business cards, get on the road. Forget toothpaste. Awesome!

Stay tuned for more tales of my adventures in Baltimore!

Paying It Forward

"Pay it forward" (PIF) is the concept of doing an act of kindness, and asking that the receiver pay the debt forward rather than giving something back. I'm sure most of us are familiar with the concept, at least I am, from the Kevin Spacy movie Pay It Forward . I came across this at Angela's blog Moda...Home...Mom (which by the way is awesome!). Some how I lucked out and managed to leave the 3rd PIF comment and made a commitment to PIF.

So here are the rules: I will make and send a gift to the first 3 people who post a comment to my PIF post requesting to join this exchange and who PROMISE to Pay It Forward to 3 other people, and ask that they do the same, etc. This gift will be handmade by me and will be sent to you within the next 365 days. Crafting can take awhile and this way you'll have no idea when its coming! By joining this pay it forward, you have to Pay It Forward by making the same announcement and commitment on your blog (yes you need a blog to participate!). If you are one of the first 3 that sign up, please be sure there is a way I can contact you through your blog or email so I can get your contact info. Anyone interested?

WIP - Baby Quilt

I know, I can't believe it either....a WIP...from me??? (Sorry for the crappy pictures, these were taken late at night)

Quilt tops are so easy to make. The cutting is time consuming but the sewing is pretty easy if you can manage to match up the seams correctly. The scary part, for me, is the actual quilting. I have yet to actually quilt something, so I figured what better to start with then a baby quilt.

This particular baby quilt is for a friend who is literally due any day now. Her little boy is being stubborn, and isn't ready to make his big entrance into the world. I'm hoping to have this ready for his christening, which seems like a long time. But if you know me, you know that I'll be lucky to ever finish this!

The quilt is just a simple 9 patch. It will look tons better after it's pressed!

I have about half of the blocks done and hope to finish the rest this weekend. It's an ambitious goal though because this weekend is supposed to be beautiful!

More Easter Recipes...

As a newly married woman, I'm dividing my holidays between my new family and my "old" family. This year I celebrated Easter dinner with Hubby's family. MIL was serving ham and I CANNOT have ham on Easter without pineapple souffle. I couldn't imagine Easter dinner without it, so I made it.

Pineapple Souffle (Super Easy!)

Ingredients:
~½ cup butter, softened
~½ cup white sugar
~ 4 eggs
~1 (20 oz.) can crushed pineapple, drained
~5-6 slices bread, cubed

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350° F.
2. Cream butter and sugar.
3. Beat in the eggs. Beat well.
4. Stir in crushed pineapple and bread.
5. Pour in a casserole dish or glass baking dish. Bake at 350° for 1 hour.
6. Serve warm!

Notes: The recipe calls for more sugar (about 1 cup) but it really doesn't need it.

Review: I loved it. I did have to make this twice though. The first time I completely melted the butter and decided to use it anyway. Big mistake! I remade it, just prior to putting in the pineapple so it wasn't that bad. My second version could have used about 5 or 10 more minutes in the oven though (my oven is weird).

Everblossom Cupcakes

I've been trying to work on presentation. I just don't have a knack for it, but I still find myself trying. Right before the Easter holiday a woman at work sent me this recipe for Everblossom cupcakes so I decided to make these for Easter dinner at MIL's house.

- Picture from the family.go.com

Ingredients for decorating:

Batch of baked cupcakes - I used triple chocolate
Vanilla butter cream frosting
Butter knife
White candy melts
Candy Dots - m&m's in Easter colors

Here are my representation...


I will admit I made them from memory. I bought "whipped" icing which did not work very well. The candy dots did not stay very well and there was no way I could have stuck ten candy dots on each cupcake so I cut it down to six. It looks better with ten, but I thought that was too much candy.




Tray of cupcakes ready to go. These did not transport well on Easter. The icing did not hold the candy dots very well but I think with different icing it would have been fine. These were delish!

Happy Easter!!!

A few snap shots from our Easter celebration:

Each place setting had a dyed Easter egg with each person's name on it. Edible place cards - so creative!


After dinner, we hid the eggs that were still left on the table for the Easter egg hunt. Unfortunately one didn't make it across the lawn...I honestly have no idea how MIL's egg ended up like this...honestly!

Pictures of Gidget being a good girl during the Easter Egg hunt! It was easier to take her picture than it was to take anyone else's. Gidget had her "big girl" surgery on Friday so Paige stayed home on Easter. We weren't sure Gidget would be up for company, but she certainly seemed like she wouldn't have minded.

Anyone up for a game of fetch?? Anyone????