Friday Foodie

With the holiday season upon us, I am sure you are looking for quick and easy dinner suggestions. This recipe is so ridiculously easy, it really doesn't warrant pictures but here you go.

 It is just three ingredients-
Beef brisket
1 package of onion soup mix
14oz can of stewed tomatoes

You will need a piece of beef brisket that just fits into your slow cooker. Go ahead and cram it in there. 

 Sprinkle the onion soup mix on top. I use Lipton's but recently saw a pin where you can make your own onion soup mix. Be forewarned I haven't tried it yet so I can't vouch. I will try it next time because I had the hardest time finding onion soup mix at the store. I had to settle for Beefy onion which I think is the same thing. The final result was the same.

 Pour the can of stewed tomatoes on top. No need to stir.

Put the lid on and heat on low for 6-8 hours, or overnight, or whatever. You can't mess this one up. 

I let mine cook overnight. This is what it looked like this morning. I really wish you could smell this. 

Just remove the meet and cut it or pull it and return to the warm juices to serve. If you want to get really fancy remove the meat and let it cool. Then slice it really thin across the grain. Use an immersion blender to transform the cooking liquid into a sauce that looks like it took hours to make. Return the sliced brisket to the sauce and warm it up before serving.

If you try this recipe I would love to know how it goes for you. Good luck and Happy Holidays!

Harry Potter Quilt

Hello world! Or rather, hello tiny fraction thereof that is reading this. The blog has been quiet but I have been busy. I am so excited because I can finally showoff my Harry Potter miniquilt:

I made it as a Christmas present for Kim (The brains behind Crafternoon Delight) and I finally finished it and gift it yesterday. Way back in May I stumbled upon the Sewhooked project of doom Harry Potter paper piecing library. And I said, self, this is the PERFECT thing for Kim. We all love HP but she really loves HP.

I chose to make a few paper pieced bookshelves into a wall hanging that she can put above her real bookshelf in her craft room. There are so many great patterns to choose from. I picked ones that had lots of books and other interesting items. One day maybe I will make the full quilted bookcase for my future craft room.

Block #1 - has some Felix Felicis (aka liquid luck). Hogwarts: A History, Quidditch throughout the Ages, and Magical Me by Gilderoy Lockhart. I imagine that it is signed on the inside flap by Mr. Lockhart himself. I machined embroidered Felix Felicis on the potion and hand embroidered the rest.

Block #2 - The Half-blood prince's copy of Advanced Potion-Making (2nd Edition) and Dumbledore's copy of The Tale of Beedle the Bard. Sorry you can't see the embroidery too well on that book. It wasn't the best choice of fabric. Harry left his glasses on this shelf (probably a spare pair). A little spider made his home in the corner. I think he is Aragog's great-great-great-great-great-great grandson. I machine quilted the spider and the web. Hand stitched the book titles.

Here is a close up of Aragog Jr.

Block #3 - This block has the first snitch Harry caught sitting on top of more books. You can't see which books these are but the bottom one is clearly The Monster Book of Monsters from the Care of Magical Creatures class. Above that is the standard book of spells 3 and Ancient Runes. I machine quilted the pages.

Here is the back. I used some HPesque fabrics. I also added different types of tabs to hang the quilt. The binding is colored for each of the houses at Hogwarts.

Linking up with Fabric Tuesdays!

NEW sewing machine!!!

Exciting Christmas news! My hubs got me a new sewing machine (and I get to use it before Christmas to finish sewing up my to do list). 

My first machine is a basic singer (like $100 worth). I was saving up for a fancy machine (think Janome Horizon) but I really don't have $2000 lying around. 

Well, Amazon was having some great deals and this baby was on sale for only $300! It is another Singer (I grew up with them and am very comfortable with them). A Singer 9960 Quantum Stylist to be exact. It has 600 stitches, needle up/down, variable speed control, start/stop button, an extension table and case, thread cutter, and about 15 different feet. My one dream feature that still wasn't met is that it still has a small harp space but it is slightly larger than before.

But seriously, this was a total steal and miles and miles better than my first machine. All the accessories alone would have cost $100 easy. The reviews online are mostly positive. Most of the concerns were about shortcomings with the decorative stitches which I really don't care about. 

If you are looking for a new machine and haven't yet been spoiled with a really high end one yet, I highly recommend this one.

As soon as I got it I decided to whip up this little quilt. It is a donation for the Salvation Army winter toy drive. I picked out a 4 year old boy. The machine came in on Friday and the gifts were due on Saturday. Yeah I can make this in less than 24 hours..

I call it Scootin' Squares

 38" x 43"

I used a Scoot fat quarter pack from Riley Blake designs. The center is made up of 4.5" squares and I added a free pieced border to make it larger. The color placement seemed random at the time but looking back at it -drives me a bit nuts. I did not mean for a red diagonal stripe. Also, somehow two of the same fabric got pieced together. Oh well. That is what happens when you marathon piece.

 

I used echo quilting to create a grid pattern. The quilt is bound with mod beads oval print by Heather Bailey for Westminster fabrics.

 

On the back I chose to piece together some leftover pieces. I also saved the two big print fat quarters. I love using up most of a bundle in a project. Nothing goes to waste here. The overall effect is a bit busy but oh well. I hope he likes it. I don't think a4 year old kid will be too judgmental of me. 

 

I tried out my letter stitches. Next time do it before you add the backing and binding...oops!

Wrap it up with a ribbon! I got this in to the donation center right on time. I even washed it first. Merry Christmas little guy!

It is also the second night of Hanukkah:

Yes those are birthday candles. Yes I forgot to light candles on the first night. Yes it is a frosty the snowman plate. Yes I am a terrible Jew. On Friday we will celebrate with latkes with sour cream and apple sauce, matzoh ball soup and brisket. Happy Hanukkah to my Jewish friends or friends of Jews out there!

Finished spinning!

I finished my spinning stars quilt last weekend and finally got around to taking some pictures. Katy at I'm a ginger monkey started a spinning stars QAL. I decided on a whim that this would be the perfect quilt to give to my 8 year old sister for Christmas.

 

Do you ever listen to the NPR radio program "Says You"? It's a word game show and recently one of the questions was: What is the difference between easy and simple. Well this pattern is simple but NOT easy. There are a lot of bias cuts to deal with and seams meeting up all over the place. I also decided to make it even more complicated by making my stars all different colors. This meant that I had to make the quilt block by block. It is not chain piecing compatible.

 

Quilt deets:

Name- Spinning Stars {and Geese}

Pattern - Spinning stars from Anna Maria Horner

Size - 60" x 60"

fabrics -  various prints from The center triangles are made with some Tula, a habitat print, domestic bliss and an art gallery print. Probably something else in there too. The solid octagons are either Oakshott cottons (blue, purple, olive) and connecting threads solids and mirages. The stars are  domestic bliss, flea market fancy and two connecting thread prints (the honeycomb and blue dot fabs).
Piecing - paper pieced each block using a foundation paper piecing template I designed. (final block size is 15" instead of 18")

quilting - free motion with Aurifil Vareigated thread from the eat your fruits and veggies pack
Binding - Parisville eyedrops machine bound. 

Here's a close up of the quilting. I love the way the vareigated thread blends in or stands out depending on the color of the ring. I left the centers bare so they would pop out.

The back was pieced with mostly Kona Gray to show off the quilting. I added in some leftover prints because I ran out of gray didn't want the back to be boring. But seriously, I like pieced backs best.


Quilted loops

And quilted stars. You can really appreciate the quilting on the back.

I echo quilted the geese and made a spiral in the center. It looks like the geese are circling the sun (aka a star). This is, like, sooooo meta.



 

This quilt took a long time (for me) to finish. Look back at the progress here:

Introduction, template test, fabrics selection
First block
Top finished
Quilting

In the end it was all worth it. It is one of my favorite finishes and I believe the worthy recipient will enjoy it for years to come. I tried not to make it too childish so she could grow into it. Now comes the hardest part - mustering up the energy to get it to the post office.

The scraps from this quilt (over 13 ozs of scraps people) were given away as my Sew Mama Sew giveaway. Linking up with Plum and June.

And the SMS Giveaway winner is...

Commenter #109. Carolyn! Who said:

 If I have to pick just one, I enjoyed the Maggie Sefton knitting mysteries. But I am constantly reading (love the free book for the kindle on Amazon!).

Now I had all intentions of posting a screen shot of the random.org number but I accidentally hit the back button so you will just have to trust me on this one.

Thank you all for participating and I enjoyed reading all your comments. I have enough book suggestions for a lifetime.I hope you will stop by my blog again. I finished the spinning stars {and geese} quilt. Here is a sneak peak...

WIP Wed - EPP travel pic

If you are looking for my  click right here.

Hey WIPpersnappers. I'm getting my WIP post in under the wire this time. I've been working on a project that was for the traveling picstich blog hop which finished a few days ago. Deadlines are not my forte this week.

This is a photo of Apaneca, El Salvador (My hubs homeland). I used Anne's palette builder from  Play Crafts blog (aedesigned on flickr) to make a palette.

She came up with this beautiful bundle on her Fabric Friday post based on the colors in the palette and then I bought them (I made a few substitutions so I could purchase them all from one place).

Please don't drool on your computer.

Then I started some EPP diamonds. Baste on a plane! (and in a hotel!). EPP is great for traveling. I am a EPP convert. Plus, I got to use a little needle envelope my friend made for me.

The diamond are becoming stars. This will turn into a very large pillow.

Happy Wedneday (almost Thursday) which means it is almost the weekend and then almost vacation time in a few weeks woohoo! Check out all the other WIPs here.

Sew Mama Sew GiveAWay Day!

Hello readers, old and new. It's time for me to participate in my first Sew Mama Sew giveaway day. I love scraps so I thought I would give away a big bag of scraps so you can do something fun with them. 

The scraps are all designer fabrics leftover from making this quilt top:

For more info on the fabrics used see here.
.

Most of the pieces are irregular and pretty small. They would be perfect for making wonky star blocks.

But it is a really big bag. 13.2oz. I weighed it!

To enter: please leave me a comment the name of your favorite book or a current read that you love. If you just want to comment on ze fabrics I guess that is OK too. This give-a-way is only open to US residents only until December 7th at 5pm PST (3pm CST). Winner will be chosen by Mister Random.org.

Check out all the other entries here and good luck!