Easter Sunday Stash

The Easter Bunny arrived and left all kinds of fabric. Once the ham coma lifts, I'm going to do a little quilting. Happy spring!

Awkward

I received a sweet package from my buddy Yumi in Japan. She always spoils me.

I love this pretty pouch. Yumi is a very talented sewer and quilter.

She sent these fun Japanese prints. I adore these!

Look at the cute selvage!

Anyone remember cassette tapes?

The English on Japanese prints are notorious and hilarious. It's one of the reasons I love them.

Come on smiled!!

I conclude this post with proof I really am a silly teenage girl. Taylor Swift polka dot Keds. Yes. They were on sale, but I might have paid full price if I. Maybe I'll save my dignity and take off the brass guitar pick. At least I gave up the saddle shoes. They weren't even popular when I was young, but my friend and I wore them like we were raised in the 50s. Goofs.

And I can always tone the Keds down with my new socks. I may need a stylist.

I made a pouch to match. Kidding.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I hope everyone is spending some time having fun.

Myself, I'll be playing with fabric. Some new ones, too! Lucky me!

Cotton & Steel prints keep growing on me. Loved these two by Melody Miller.

Sale stuff. I have some Dr. Seuss in my stash, so this panel will whip up into a quick quilt. I kind of want a Dr. Seuss quilt! I'm sure I'll find a kid who would love a Seuss quilt.

I won this Blueberry Park charm square pack at our guild meeting. Really love these prints. Such great colors, too. There's a cool version I might have to add to my collection.

Two-inch half square triangles from the trimmings of my purse strings blocks. There are only 320. Might make a cute something. They're all sewn together, I just need to finish trimming them. I'm using this super easy method that I wish I would have learned long ago. Here are some tutorials that show how. Half Square Triangle Trimming. And if you have an easy angle ruler, this way is even easier. Am I the last quilter that didn't know about this tip?

My Try the World box was from Thailand this time. I made the tom yum soup this afternoon and it is the bomb! I haven't tried anything else, but I will.

Look maw, I'm eating vegetables with my bleu cheese and baguette. Caramelized onions are a vegetable, right? We don't normally watch football, but the Super Bowl was a great excuse to eat tapas for dinner. I might even swing it again for Valentine's Day dinner.

Sunday Stash #92

First off, this delightful date nut pudding. It's really a moist cake, but I highly recommend it. My mother-in-law served this cake to me many moons ago and I flipped! It was so good! She adds a dollop of cool whip or whipped cream but it's great without.

It took her years to give me the family recipe. I think she wanted to make sure I was a "keeper!" Ha!

I always forget about this cake and everyone loves it. It was my husband's paternal grandmother's recipe.

Date Pudding

1 cup boiling water

1 tsp. baking soda

7oz. chopped dates (the dry kind)

Mix this together and let stand while you do the next step.

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 Tbsp. softened or melted butter

Cream together until mixed. I just use a spoon.

1-1/2 cups flour

1 tsp. baking powder

The recipe says sift together, but I'm lazy and don't.

Mix everything together. The batter is kind of thin. Add 1 cup chopped nuts. I use walnuts.

Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.

Cotton + Steel christmas snow globes! So cute!

Black and white with some cool typography.

Halloween!

Dots and sugar skulls.

Color words and polka dots galore!

Some fun fat quarters.

Yummy Kaffe Spring 2015 jelly roll.

Hollywood went to St. Augustine and perused the antique shops. She brought me this fun metal box and it was filled with old unique machine feet. I have no idea what they do, but they're funky.

Sunday Stash #86

So much for the fabric diet. I was near my local quilt shop, so I thought I'd show some love. This little shop doesn't have a huge selection, but I still like to support them.

Funny cats and chalkboard art.

Peppers and tomatoes.

Snoopy and Woodstock.

Sewing themes.

This Riley Black Giraffe Crossings was on sale.

Picked this one up at Wally World during a trip the Inspector dragged me on. Our Walmart started carrying fabric again. Guess removing fabric from the stores a few years ago wasn't the greatest idea in a nearly four billion dollar industry. Doh! Most of the fabric isn't of the greatest quality, but this Waverly print was nice. And their notions are very reasonably priced.

I bought another Grabbit pincushion (affiliate link). I love these magnetic pin cushions. I have one beside my machine, but I use my cutting table to pin quilt rows before I sew them, and then I forget to bring the pin cushion back to the machine. It even comes with a slew of pins.

I've Missed You!

A gal at work ordered some of these Nature Box snacks and they were so good, I ordered some too. They have sweet healthy stuff, but I'm hooked on their savory snacks. So good. I highly recommend the Toasted Cheddar Stix. Not shown because we gobbled them down. If you want to try them, send me your e-mail address and they'll give you $10 off your first box.

Looking through my templates for a spider web template. Kind of fun to see what I've made over the years. I probably should toss them, but I've used a few more than once.

My only fabric acquisition over the weeks. It's been busy with summer fun and oh yeah, work. I do love Denise Schmidt's fabrics. Found this one on clearance at Jo-Ann.

Found my spider web template. These blocks are so fun to make. I'm using scrap paper as the foundations. I hope to make a few more after my weekend chores. I'm using this tutorial, but you can find many others out there.

I found a rack of lamb that didn't cost as much as my car. I brushed them with Dijon mustard, rolled them in an herb mixture and threw them on the grill.

Much to College Boy's dismay, I switched out the silverware. He has a certain connection with our old set, as in odd cutlery freaked him out. If a spoon didn't match our set, he refused to use it. I offered to put the old set with his "hope chest" items, but he declined.

I organized my gargantuan gadget drawer too. These oldies are my favorites. I stole the can opener from my mom's house when I moved out. Bad girl. And three biscuit cutters are normal for a Southern girl.

Bring on the fruits and vegetables. Summertime is my favorite. I hope you're eating well too! Happy Saturday!

Goodies from Japan

Yumi surprised me with a big box of fun. I can't believe she gave me her very first "soccer" bag. It's tiny, so that makes it even cuter. The hexies are only 2.5" across. Yumi made several of these bags while her dad was getting better in the hospital. Her pop is home now and reunited with his beloved kitty.

The soccer theme continued with nori rice ball wrappers that transform rice balls into fun soccer balls. I guess Yumi has World Cup fever too! The green curry tuna looks delicious. I can't wait to try it. I'm going to give that coworker that opens tuna every afternoon a run for his money!

Hollywood and her charge are going to make the candy sushi. There's a video that shows how to do it. Hollywood's Japanese language skills are nil, so she might need the video.

The beautiful fabrics on the left are from kimonos, I believe. I also received the prettiest scarf, which is gigantic. Maybe I'll be able to wrap it fashionably. I love scarves, but I can never get them to look right. I bet there's a You Tube video that could help me.

College Boy was able to preview the new Harry Potter area, Diagon Alley. He bought a wand that interacts with items in the park.

One night after work, Inspector Gadget decided we should ride our new SunRail commuter train. We parked our car at the depot close to the house and sat in the upper level for the ride. I'm happy to say we didn't hit any cars along the way. Apparently, people in central Florida like to disobey railroad crossings. Luckily, no one has been hurt, but this train has only been open two month and four cars have been creamed.

We got off the train in Winter Park and had a hard time choosing where to eat. There are so many places we wanted to try. We settled on Blu on the Avenue, which had a rainbow sushi roll special. They were also practically giving away Blue Point oysters. We ate those so fast I didn't have time for a photo!

After our huge appetizer course, we split a lobster cobb salad. The presentation was so pretty.

The lobster grilled cheese was very good too. We split that as well. Definitely no room for dessert, but we did have time to wander the area and stop off for a night cap before our came to get us.

 Here comes the train. Time to go home.