WAHOOOO!!! Fabric has Arrived.

And now, let the sewing begin.  It's supposed to be a hot and humid weekend, and I intent to spend my weekend in the cool of the air conditioning with my sewing machine.

This is the fabric I chose for the sashing for Krissy's vinylmation quilt.  I just couldn't resist Minnie.  The appliques will be placed on a solid yellow, just the color of the hearts.  And the cornerstones will be white with red dots.

Vinlymation are available in the gift shops in the park as well as in the online Disney store.  After purchasing one that you don't like or already have, you have the option to trade it.  Krissy has quite a collection, and really loves them.  (she still lets Jake and Izzy play with them though.

I'm also planning on finding using the camera to take some photos of my projects in progress.  Stay cool this weekend.  

Just Checking In

Just checking in.  I've been busy as a bee . . .  a Lindabee.  It hit me yesterday that there are less than 6 months til Christmas.  Scary, huh???  Here's what I've been up to lately.  I finally finished my Farmer's Market Quilt (sorry no photos yet).  I made a patriotic wall hanging for Kristin.  (also no photos).  I search out, cut, resized and printed characters for Izzy's princess quilt, Jake's Bubble Guppies quilt, Bubby's Mario Brothers quilt, and Kristin's Star Wars quilt.  These need to be done for Christmas.  I sized a Vinylmation pattern for Krissy's quilt, chose fabrics, fused and cut out the designs.  I selected fabrics for Krissy's, Izzy's and Bubby's quilts, and ordered those fabrics.  Jake's fabrics will have to wait til next pay.  I found and sized characters for T-shirts for Krissy and Bubby for Disney.  (They have no idea that they're going).  And I squared the Spin Cycle blocks for Pam's quilt.  I am the Queen Bee of multitasking!  I don't believe on working on one project at a time.

But the most fun thing that I've been up to is creating a coupon book for Mary's kids for the Disney trip.  As I said before, the kids don't know that the trip to Disney in late September is in their future.  I decided to make them a coupon book.  This is the first coupon that will be in the book.  As the plan stands now, Mary and family will come here for pizza the night before we leave.  (Fast and no cleanup)  Then we will give them the coupon book and the first coupon will let them know that the next morning they will be boarding the plane for Orlando.

I've made 20 coupons for the book, including coupons or invitations for ice cream bars, popcorn, character meals, rides, attractions, and the Halloween party.  I've had so much fun working with my graphics program.  It's outdated, I'm not sure you can even buy it anymore.  But I love it.  I've been working with transparency, adding photos, moving and tilting text and much more.

And while we're talking about Disney, I've added ads to my blog in an attempt to earn a little extra spending for our trip.  By clicking on the ads when you visit, you can help feed my piggy bank.  Have a great day.

The Verdict Is In

On my crock pot dinner.  Since the twins don't care for basil, I used granulated garlic, Lawry's seasoned salt and pepper.  The seasonings were great.  The chicken was moist, and literally fell apart.  It gets a 10.  The potatoes were cheesy with a slight taste of bacon (I used four slices)  and I can't believe that the cheddar cheese would have been any better.  They also get a 10.  But perhaps the best part of the meal was the bread pudding.  It was light and perfectly spiced.  The mulling spice has alot of spices in it, and the cinnamon is not overwhelming.  I would give it a 15 out of 10.

I have some leftover steak from Father's Day in the refrigerator, and I don't care for the taste of reheated meat.  I'm thinking about doing a Philly steak pizza with it.  It's supposed to be in the 90's today, but with the air conditioner, I think it will be ok to use the oven.  Right now I'm off to the sewing room.  Stay cool.

It's Monday Again!

Do you remember my wonderful triple slow cooker?  It's one of my favorite things.  After a busy weekend, we had a lot of leftovers.  And, I needed to put them to good use.  Sadly, lately I haven't been cooking a lot of good meals.  Call it lazy or call it summer blahs, but I knew I needed to start cooking some decent meals.  So, today I'm "crocking" in my triple slow cooker.  I thought I would have the kids today, but Izzy has a puny bug, and so they are at home with Mommy.  I looked through my crock pot recipes on Pinterest, today in crock pot #1 we have Beer Crockpot Chicken.  The winner in crock pot #2 we have Bacon Cheese Potatoes.    I didn't have any cheddar cheese, but had sliced American cheese leftover from the campfire on Saturday night, and substituted it for the cheddar.  And, in crock pot #3, we have Apple Raisin Bread Pudding.  I used the link recipe, but added a diced apple and substituted my favorite mulling spice for the cinnamon. And it used most of the bread leftover from the mountain man pies of Saturday night.  Right now my house smells wonderful.

The Father's Day campfire was so much fun.  Two of my nephews came, one with his family.  We had the Spam, meatballs, pepperoni, cheeses and ham for the pies.  Rod and I had baked a Texas sheet cake and Nestles Toll House chocolate chip bars.  And we also put out some pineapple and strawberries, much to the delight of the kids.  Mary brought some great baked beans, Kristin brought Hungarian sausage, and the twins brought a large assortment of chips.  Everyone must have enjoyed themselves because it was midnight before everyone was gone.  And it pretty much reinforced my belief that Family is Fun!

Something New and Different

I've never made a Halloween quilt.  I've done wall hangings, but not a quilt.  When I saw this one, I couldn't resist. It is being offered as a block of the month.  I signed up immediately.  It doesn't start until September and I probably won't start until after the first of next year.  But I will have it finished for Halloween 2013.

EUREKA!!!!!

Do you know what this is?  Most campers will know; but for those who don't, it's a campfire pie iron.  When it comes to campfire cooking, they are the next best thing to sliced bread (which you use in them).  It's one of our favorite pieces of equipment for camping.  We make mountain pies in them.  You butter two slices of bread.  Place one in the bottom of the iron, buttered side down.  Add your choice of fillings on top of the bread.  Jimmy and Rod like the pizza pies with pizza sauce, pepperoni, and sliced mozzarella cheese.  You could add cooked sausage, mushrooms, onions, peppers, or whatever you prefer on your pizza.  Then you place the other slice of bread on top with the buttered side up.  Close the iron and hold it over the campfire as shown in the photo.  Watch it closely.  When it's done, you have a pizza sandwich.  We've made them with apple pie filling (my favorite), cherry pie filling, and also with sliced ham and cojack cheese.

With Father's Day rapidly approaching, we decided to have a campfire cookout on Saturday evening.  It frees the guys up to spend Father's Day as they please.  We bought frozen little Italian meatballs last weekend.  Rod thinks we should cook some in sauce and then slice them, add shredded or sliced cheese and make little meatball sandwich pies.  A great idea in my opinion.  Which led me to start thinking.  What else could you put in a dinner or dessert pie???  As a kid, I loved grilled peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. (Still do, in fact)  So, it hit me - why not try a peanut butter and jelly mountain man pie.  I found a suggestion on Pinterest for a Nutella and strawberries pie.  Another grand idea, I believe.

 And then I remembered something we used to make on the fire at Girl Scout Camp.  Day Camp was famous for using government surplus food (am I giving away my age?).  One of my favorite lunches involved Spam, surplus cheese, and pineapple chunks all mixed together and put into a hot dog bun.  It was wrapped in foil and then put on the grill over the campfire.  I've looked everywhere for a recipe for this since I'm not sure this was all that was in that bun chocked full of deliciousness.  But no recipe has been found. (This recipe comes close.)  I'm sure gonna give it a try.

So, suddenly the Father's Day campfire has become a  "Mountain Man Pie Smorgasbord".  I'll set out some loaves of bread (the cheapest seems to work the best), some of the above fixin's, and butter.  And let the party begin.  My mouth is watering just thinking about it.  Do you have any other ideas for some great "Pies"?

C'mon Baby, Light My Fire!

And that's exactly what my friend Cindy has done.  She posted a picture of her Be Attitude quilt -- and it's finished.  I started mine long before she did, but she kept plugging along, and I put mine aside for another year day.  Now that I've seen hers finished, I really want to finish mine.  I've made a list of weekly goals.  I figure that if I can finish one block of a couple of projects each week or so, I will see progress and keep on trying.  I got our my case of Be Attitude blocks this morning and started to buttonhole stitch the block that's all fused.  Thanks Cindy for lighting a fire under my ***.  Is that rump roast I smell?

Organizing Embroidery Files

Yesterday I spent most of the day attempting to organize the designs for my embroidery machine.  I discovered that I have over 2500 designs and they were pretty much helter-skelter in my downloads file.  Some were still ZIP files, while others had been unzipped.  So, I created a new folder on my C drive (not under my documents) which I entitled Embroidery Designs.  Then I created a second folder which I called Embroidery ZIP files.  After this was done, I proceeded to move the designs which had been unzipped into the embroidery design folder in sub folders with them sorted according to subject.  I then used the same sub folders to move the zipped designs into the ZIP file folder.  So far so good.  But it had taken hours.  Finally I was ready to move some of the files onto my memory stick (Zip Drive). I copied and pasted the entire Embroidery Design file onto the memory stick.    I was feeling pretty proud of myself.  I had done a good thing - or so I thought.  I took the memory stick to the embroidery machine.  And that'd when I learned that the embroidery machine won't read any of the sub folders. I was so frustrated, but it was time to get dinner and so I put it aside for the evening.  This morning, I called my "How the hell can I do this" hotline (daughter Mary) and explained my dilemma.  And she told me that for her teaching files, she leaves them all on the memory stick and pulls out the ones she needs to use (or in my case, stitch) out into the main file when she needs them.  I have a baby shower this afternoon, but hopefully will get to try this out sometime over the weekend.  Hopefully what I thought had been a totally wasted day (Friday) will turn out to be a the good thing that I had wanted.