Monthly Archives: December 2012

Heather Ross Rocks

I love Heather’s new book, Heather Ross Prints: 50+ Designs and 20 Projects to Get You Started. This book has a CD with her art work which she is allowing you to use in your projects. You can print her designs on fabric, paper, wall paper, etc. and use these designs as you please. What a fabulous idea … very modern; a new innovative approach to marketing fabric designs. Heather has been selling her designs on Spoonflower for awhile and this is a great way to learn about designing and printing your own fabric designs. The book has lots of projects and even a tutorial for drawing your own designs.

I have not made anything from the book, but here is a quick quilt I made from Heather Ross 10″ squares, a variation of my Cake Quilt pattern. This really is one of my favorite quilts. I love the colors together!

Apple Cranberry Cake Pie

Is it a cake or is it a pie? This is a new spin on Nantucket Pie, which occurred simply because my husband, Bob, got carried away peeling apples for the Thanksgiving pie this year. I had to do something with the extra apples, and I was not going to roll out another traditional piecrust. I was thinking easy, and Nantucket Pie is easy. So I got out my quiche dish and made this pie.

It is a yummy desert. Bob requested this for Christmas Day, so I have put aside quilting for the day to make this pie.

The Ingredients are the same as for the Nantucket Pie … with the addition of the Apple Pie filling , so if you want to make Nantucket Pie, skip the apple pie filling!

Pie Filling:
2 cups whole cranberries
½ cup sugar
½ cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Apple Pie Filling:
2 apples (Macintosh, Cortland, or one of each)
¼ cup brown sugar
½ tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. ginger
¼ tsp. nutmeg
¼ tsp. clove
1 tsp. vanilla
1 Tbsp. corn starch

Batter:
1 cup flour
1 cup sugar
6 Tbs. melted margarine
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Peel, core and slice up apples. Mix the brown sugar, vanilla a spices together and mix in with the apples. Place apples in a buttered and floured quiche dish.

Pour cranberries on top of the apples. Add 1/2 cup of sugar (and nuts if desired).

Mix batter ingredients together and pour over cranberries and apples.

Bake in 350 degree oven for 35 to 40 minutes. If you have included the apples cover the pie with aluminum foil and bake for another 15 minutes to ensure the apples are cooked enough and to thicken the filling!

This is what my sink looks like when Bob is not here to help when I am baking!

But before I clean the dishes …. Grady is hungry!

iPad Drawing Fabric Designs

I have been using the Draw Free app to draw designs for Spoonflower. Admittedly, they are not the most sophisticated designs, but it is too much fun to resist. I put a whole set together and ordered 8″ square swatches, 15 for $20. I’ll have to put a little quilt together with them.

Here are some of the fabric swatches for my designs. I have also included screen shots from the Draw Free app so that you can compare the designs to the fabric swatch. The colors came out pretty close to the drawings considering that I did not do any color editing.

Kaffe Fassett Cake Quilt

This is what I did with 40 10″ squares of Kaffe Fassett Millefiore and Paperweight fabrics. I did have to add a few fat quarters into the mix.

Peggy Anne’s Quilting and Sewing Company is selling packages of 10″ squares and then all you need are the fat quarters or some extra yardage to make this quilt.

I have put a pattern together with the directions which is available as a downloadable file in my little pattern store.

The quilt is 64″ x 73″ which is a nice lap quilt or a perfect size for the charity quilts that the North Parish Quilt Guild puts together for the Hole in Wall Gang Camp! I’ll have to make one for them, and I also might put a couple of kits together for other guild members to put together.

Handmade Bead and Wire Bangle Bracelets

I have a collection of bead and wire bangle bracelets that I made a few years ago. I spend so much time quilting that I just don’t find time to work with my beads anymore. These bracelets were sitting in my jewelry box just waiting for me to pick them up and start wearing them again.

I took a class to learn how to make these, but there is a book that gives you step by step directions. There are quite a few tools and materials involved, but it is a fun hobby if you need a change of pace from quilting … but, I still have too many UFOs and commitments to BOMs …. maybe I can sneak in a new bracelet or a necklace!

The book that I have with instructions for making the bracelets (and other bead and wire projects) is “Bead on a Wire: Making Handcrafted Wire and Beaded Jewelry” by Sharilyn Miller … available from Amazon.com, and yes I will get a small commission if you use this link!

Cat Toy?

Cat Toys???