Baking Bread

It's not as if I need to eat more bread-type things. It's just that it's another chilly day here, and that is perfect weather for baking.

We had a big pork roast for dinner yesterday, so there were a lot of leftovers that needed to be used. I put that meat on to simmer in a homemade barbeque sauce and started some buns in the bread machine. When the dough was ready I formed it into some big bun shapes and left it to rise for a while.

While that was taking care of itself, I made a couple of loaves of wheat bread with a side order of wheat rolls on the side and left them to rise.

After its rising, and baking the now barbeque/pulled pork was ready to put in some of those buns for lunch when Mr. Cutie Pie got home. I don't mind telling you - it was mighty good!

By the time we were finished with lunch, the rest of the baking was finished. Not a bad morning's work!

I hope you're staying warm at this end of the world, too! And for those of you in the southern hemisphere - enjoy your very warm weather!

Hugs and kisses,

Chickens and a New Calendar

Well, yes, here's one (ceramic) chicken basking in the beautiful blue skies today, even thought virtually everything that can turn brown out there has turned brown! It's still a gorgeous day with the most brilliant blue skies.

These are the chickens I wanted to show you. I need to add some more blocks to the quilt for our bed, so I had the scathingly brilliant idea to make some from various chicken fabric I have in my stash and for contrast - chicken wire fabric, also from the stash. Not sure yet if it will work with the other fabrics already sewn together, but we'll see.

I had a lovely surprise in the mail this week - a quilting calendar from my sister. Thanks, Sue! You brightened my day.

This is the one for August. Isn't it pretty! There are directions for all the quilts pictured at the back of the calendar.

Here's the one for January. Don't you just love him! He is one happy looking snowman.

I've been cruising around the blog world today, just checking in on what everyone's doing, and my goodness! What a lot of talented, creative people you are! You really insprie me. Thank you for sharing with us all!

Have a wonderful day!

Hugs and kisses,

Brrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!

We're bracing ourselves for another wintry blast here. And we're not accustomed to it. At all. Oh well, at least our winters are short. Wonderfully soon it will be my favorite season - SPRING! I can hardly wait for all the new growth.

One good thing about cold weather is........... I finally got back to working on my quilt. I was up quite late last night.

Quite early actually this morning. :) But I got most of the top sewn together. YAY!! One more row of squares should do it. Still have to make the backing, and I'm almost sure that I'll make another complete quilt top for that so I'll have a reversible quilt for our bed. Good idea, huh? This one is going to take a loooooooong time to finish - any way you look at it, so I'm pretty sure I'll have to sneak in some quick projects to keep myself from getting too discouraged.

I was cleaning out my lingerie (sounds a little better than underwear, doesn't it?) drawer last night and ran across a couple of sweet handkerchiefs that belonged to my grandmother.

This one I really should have thrown away years ago, but I just can't. You can see how thin it is - the other one is completely visible beneath it. This one was made by my grandmother's mother who died when my grandmother was only two years old. Even though the body of the little handkerchief is almost gone, isn't it touching that the handwork she did all those years ago is still intact and so beautiful!

And that's one reason so many of us love to make things by hand. The love that we put into a lot of those things will still be visible long after we're gone. This great-grandmother of mine who I never knew would have died around 1907, and I'm still admiring her beautiful handiwork!

Have a great day!

Hugs and kisses,

A Brand New Year

We had a little visit last week from my sister, her daughter and granddaughter. We all had such a good time.
It's always fun to see how the little ones have grown, and Miss Savannah is just a delight. We were sad to see her go. She had a good time with our daughter learning how to operate the camera on her cell phone.

I can hardly believe it, but here we are - already in another year! The possiblities are endless. It's up to each one of us what we do with this new year we've been given. I look back at 2009, and it was a very good year. Lots of things were made and cooked and grown and enjoyed. There was a lot of love shared here in Muddle Manor with some of the people dearest to us. We missed seeing our baby girl all year, but she will be here for a short visit next month, so we'll be content with that.

By the way, I found the little calendar above through TipNut. She printed links to free calendars, and this is one of them. I like it!

It's time to take down the Christmas decorations, the Christmas tree and the lines of Christmas cards that have brightened our home and hearts this season. I'm dragging my feet about it, because I like looking at them.

I've made a number of these little wallets for gifts this year. I have no pictures of those I've given away so far, but I have these that I made after Christmas.

I used leftover 5" squares from Moda Charm Packs that remained from various projects.
The instructions are basically the same as the tutorial I published here almost a year ago, just a little bit bigger square as the foundation piece.

Here's a look at the ones I have right now.

I love the colors and the designs on all these fabrics.

So of course I'm happy with how the fabrics look together.

It's handy how that turns out,

isn't it? :-)

I'm making curtains for the sewing room. I had bought and put up venetian blinds, which I really like. However our daughter's cat Jack has a strange urge to eat the strings that hold the slats in place on those, so they must be replaced. I should have known better, but I thought he had reformed. Silly me.

I have so many plans and desires for the new year. Don't you? It will be fun to see what we can accomplish!

Hugs and kisses,

Merry, Happy, Thankful!

We had such a good time last night. A total of twenty-two of us gathered at Muddle Manor for Christmas Eve. It was so wonderful to catch up with friends and family we haven't seen in far too long,

and to visit with those we see more often.

Old friendships were renewed and plenty of really important issues were discussed and world problems resolved. ;)

Our little house was stretched, but where there's love - there's always plenty of room!

I am so thankful for all the blessings that have been bestowed upon me and my family. Especially and more than anything, I am thankful for the incomparable Gift from our Father in Heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ!

I hope your Christmas celebration has been everything you hoped it would be.

Hugs and kisses,

Cookie Time

Homer Pigeon (I still love him, Charlie!) has escaped his glass-fronted prison and is riding high on the window shelf.

Along with various other feathered fowl...

What can I say? Most things outside my window have turned an unappetizing shade of brown and gray, so I have to have something bright and colorful to at least look through!

I've played around a little more with my Christmas quilt. I decided it needed a red stripe.

And if you look closely, you'll see that the stripe is covered with chickens! Quilts look so sort of naked to me at this stage. I always want to see them finished, and that's a long way off for this little baby!

I know I've been absent from posting for a while. I hadn't realized it had been so long. I guess I've just had the winter "blahs".

But there is nothing like baking a nice batch of chocolate chip cookies to snap you out of that, especially if you sample a few fresh out of the oven!

If you'd like to give these a try, here's the recipe:

Elaine's Special Chocolate Chip Cookies

Mix:

1/3 cup canola oil

1 cup butter

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

Add:

4 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup milk chocolate chips

1/2 cup bittersweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup white chocolate chips

Mix thoroughly and then drop by rounded teaspoonful onto ungreased baking sheets. Bake at 375F for 8 to 10 minutes, until light brown. Cool slightly before removing from baking sheet.

Makes about 7 dozen cookies.

I took a few minutes to put fresh sheets on the bed while the first batch of cookies was baking, and of course Chloe had to supervise to be sure I did it right. She had her trip to the vet last week to be neutered and she's almost back to her old self again. I missed her, and Mr. Sweetie Pie was just almost bereft without her to welcome him home every day! It's the sweetest thing ever. He didn't even want me to get a cat, and sure enough - I didn't. HE got the cat, because she loves him and tolerates me. Thank God for Bruno!

Have I mentioned before how much I love my KitchenAid mixer? Well, I do.

I've made many cookies over the years (and burned up many mixers doing it, too, by the way), and cookie making has never been easier than since I got my KitchenAid mixer I think it was seven years ago. And yes, those are orange shoes on my feet reflected in the mixer bowl. Don't judge me. ;-)

I'm heading back to the kitchen now to bake more cookies - peanut butter cookies this time, I think.

Hope your cooking and Christmas preparation is going along wonderfully well!

Hugs and kisses,

Working?

I've been trying to get my sewing inclinations working again. I don't know exactly what happened, but it's like Thanksgiving just sort of put me on "Hold". I have so many projects I'd like to get done (as always), but I have had to really push myself to work at any of them.

Last night, late, I sewed some white-ish strips to the squares I had made for our Christmas quilt. I wanted to lay them out and try to figure out how I wanted to put it together, but it's a pretty big size. Usually I would spread it out on our bed, but my honey had already gone to bed and to sleep, so that wasn't going to happen.

I don't have any empty walls in my house. There is something everywhere. This is not a huge house, and my sewing room is the smallest of the rooms. I just don't have a spot for a design wall. So I had the brilliant idea of putting a flannel sheet up and wedging it behind two pictures that are hanging on the wall in the den. After moving furniture around and getting the sheet hung, I started arranging my quilt squares. When I was about three-quarters of the way done, the sheet fell and all the quilt squares with it.

It was a definite, "Oh, well." moment. I decided maybe the floor would be a better place, and set about moving more furniture around and again arranging my squares. I'm still not happy with it, but that might just be because I'm not really in the mood to do it.

We're off to see my Mom in Mississippi tomorrow. I don't think the weather is going to be wonderful, but it will be good to get away for a few days with my HoneyBunny, and to see Mama and my brother. This is my Mom holding me a few years back. ;)

And this is our very beautiful granddaughter. Every time I see her she has a new unique look. How well I remember that age!

I thought of her when I saw this little pretty girl.

Hope you're having just the kind of day you love!

Hugs and kisses,