Where does the time go?

I have been rather busy lately. Can you tell from my lack of blogging?! With school starting and kids to run here and there, I have not had much time to myself. I am here right now to remedy that...

I went to the World Quilt Show here in NH a week ago with my blogging friend turned friend in real life, Brenda. What a blast we had! One of the highlights for me was that Brenda taught me all about wool and I bought a ton of it. Mind you she out-bought me in the wool department ten to one. Love her! We got a bargain, too. These were big fat quarters of wool (18x30)and ranged from $3.50-$5 a piece which was far cheaper than anything else at the show. No doubt you will see some woolly creations from me soon!

In fact, my wool obsession is such that I bought this book from Amazon. It is so colorful and full of fun projects. I also pre-ordered Kaffe Fassett's latest book which comes out in about a week. I am super excited to get this one too.

Another exciting thing that happend was a lady from church, Pat, asked if I wanted her rubber stamp/craft collection. Of course I said yes! Once upon a time, long ago, I sold Stampin' Up and so I love stamping. Now Pat doesn't do things by halves. When she does a hobby she goes full steam ahead. Just look at what she gave me.... The Iris shelving was included! Each drawer is filled to the brim with stamps, glitters, powders, papers, envelopes, an embossing gun, you name it, it's in there. Plus she gave me a bunch of tins and baskets filled with ribbons - there are literally thousands of yards of ribbon. I will never have need to buy ribbon again. Any presents I give will be tied with so much ribbon that the recipents will need industrial strength scissors to cut it off! And that is not all of it. There are more bags full of stuff behind what you see. Not quite sure where it will all be going yet, but I will, of course, find a place.

Pat had made it clear that she was giving all these things to me for free, but feeling rather bad about that, I asked what I could do for her. She immediately said, "Make me a pie - I can't make pies"! Now making pies is something I can do. She had a fruit pie in mind, but I'm thinking a certain bacon and egg pie might be in order?!! And since we are going apple picking this week I think I could swing an apple pie too. I'll let you know how that goes....

Now last of all, I got my laugh for the day thanks to the great Quilt Taffy blog. I have little kids in my home who are more than a little fanatical about High School Musical, and they can't wait for the third one to come to the movies in October, so of course I had to copy Quilt Taffy and do one of these. I showed this to the kids today and they were literally rolling on the floor laughing!

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Cotton Spice

I am so sorry I haven't blogged for over a week. I didn't even realize until Upstatelisa reminded me....thanks Lisa! I have been rather busy, including a nice flood a week or so ago of sewer water in the basement. Don't worry, everything is fine now, but hubby and I sure had fun (is that what you call it??) cleaning it up at 2am. We didn't even have a shop vac so hubby went to Wally World - yes at 2am and joined the line of others buying shop vacs for the same reason. Thanks to a nice tropical storm the drains couldn't handle the storm water and sewerage. And of course, brilliant woman that I am, I decided to do laundry at 1 in the morning and that just opened the floodgates - yes pun intended - and well the rest is history.

But I must say, my basement has never been cleaner. Being doused in bleach tends to do that.

ANYWAY...

I have exciting news! The very latest issue of Cotton Spice Magazine is out, and I have another project in it! Woo Hoo!!! You can check out the magazine here, and my project is on page 38. It is the pumpkin table topper/wallhanging which I blogged about here last Fall.

It is fast and easy and a ton of fun to make. I also love the new style and fonts Karen and the team at Cotton Spice have used in this issue. And there is a special section on Sunflower projects - I am loving this issue! Soooo much fun!! Remember, the magazine is 100% free and there are 112 pages of it for your viewing pleasure:)

Temperatures around here have finally dropped and I even wore a jacket yesterday. I love this time of year! Not hot but not too cold - a crispness in the air. We can't wait to go apple and pumpkin picking. I have really enjoyed making these new American traditions. I do love how much Holdays and seasons are celebrated here. It seems like there is something fun going on all year round!

Oh and you probably noticed I changed my blog around a bit. I'm still playing, so don't be suprised if it looks different next time you visit! I really like the 3 column template - Blogger doesn't offer it, but you can easily change it yourself by following these very easy instructions. Thanks for the heads up Lisa!

This is what you do when you WIN!

Oh yes, I was a winner over the weekend. Pink Penguin had a giveaway going of some darling fabric which she picked up on her recent trip to Japan. She was giving away 3 bundles of it, and yesterday what arrived in my mailbox but this.....

I was so excited! Now I know I'm late jumping on this bandwagon, but in case you haven't seen, she has this awesome tutorial on her blog for these little fabric bags, so what better to use her fabric on?! So this is what I made today...
This one is entirely from the Japanese fabrics, and I'm giving it to a dear Japanese friend I have here.

This one is to go in my orange kitchen...
And this one in my living room... It will match this... Remember that I made this while I was on vacation in Utah? Well it now is happily hanging in my living room and gets on very well with my red leather furniture:)

I see more of these bags in my future. I'm thinking of doing the top part in a single piece of fabric, instead of little squares, and doing some applique on it. Along with the 1000 other projects I have in my head. If you look at the photo of them all together up top, you will notice that they get progressively taller/skinnier. I played with the size of the boxing-in part - go see the tutorial to see what I'm talking about! The wider one is done exactly as in the tutorial if that helps.

Bacon and Egg Pie

I don't often do recipes on my blog - in fact maybe I haven't ever? I know I've shown photos of things, but this Bacon and Egg Pie was just too yummy to not share! Plus to me it's a taste of home. Bacon and Egg Pie is everywhere in NZ! Actually, in NZ, you name it, they make it in to a pie. And I'm not talking about sweet pies, but savory. Steak, lamb, pork, rabbit, anything!

But best of all, this pie is Easy with a capital E!

So here we go....

Ingredients:

2 sheets of puff pastry
1/2 pound bacon cooked and cut up
2 medium size tomatoes
1/2 onion diced
1 cup cheese (I love extra sharp)
Salt and Pepper
Dozen eggs loosely beaten
Anything else you may have leftover in your fridge - maybe some broccoli, asparagus, peppers - anything!


First I defrost the pastry and put one of the sheets in a dish. My dish was about 10 inches square but if you want to use a larger one, just roll out the pastry a bit to fit. Make sure it goes up the edge of your dish a bit to hold everything in.

Then I layered the ingredients on top of the pastry - bacon, onions, tomatoes (from my garden, woo hoo!), cheese, then the eggs get poured all over. Sprinkle some salt and pepper on top of all of this. Or in the middle if you are so inclined.



Next you lay the second pastry sheet on top - I cut it to fit the dish. Squish the edges together and don't worry if some egg oozes out. It's all good!

Cut some slits in the pastry with a knife and brush the top with an egg/milk wash. You don't have to do the wash - it just makes it look all pretty:)

Cook in the oven at about 425 degrees F for around 30-45 mins or until it looks golden and delicious like this....


Cut, serve, and try not to faint when you taste how delicious this is! It's the perfect thing to impress your friends. They will think you are so clever when really you just threw it together in 5 minutes! It would also make a great easy dinner - put a nice salad and some breadsticks on the side and you're all set.