Busy Girl!

Here's my to-do-before-Christmas list:

• Sew dolls and doll clothes - for Laurel and for the little girl at church who's card we drew
• Sew coloring wallets for kids, and one for little girl
• Make doll blanket for little girl
• Finish Laurel's doll sleeping bag
• Bake - cookies and a coconut cake to enter in a holiday recipe contest
• Study French - I always say this, then I always find something else to do
• Wrap presents
• Finish some aprons (can be finished after Christmas too)
• Start my new quilt tops (can be finished after Christmas too)

How's that? I have a craft day on Saturday at the community center - just for moms, no kids! 4 hours of getting things done - hooray! I'm getting things cut out and ready to sew so that's all I have to do while I'm down there. I'll post pictures on Sunday of the finished products.

Oh, and one more thing. Take an adorable picture of my kids in their Von Trapp Family outfits. Super matchy matchy Christmas outfits. If I wear my new red coat, I match as well. And Aaron has a dark suit with a red tie that matches too. We might have to be in the picture as well.

What I Think About . . .

I've stopped wondering what might fill my mind if things like lemon macarons with lemon curd didn't pop in there all the time. I've gotten the macaron bug (and yes, it is spelled macaron, I promise). I'm planning on making some for Christmas as goodies for friends. Chocolate ones.

But I thought, hey, wouldn't Lemon ones be tasty. Or vanilla with lemon curd.

See, all that brain power could be going to something else, but instead, I think about pastries.

Sigh.

Could be worse. The world might be a better place if people just thought about cookies. And ate them. With big tall glasses of milk.

New Project

I bought the Love U fabric, ready to make that quilt from Moda Bake Shop. Come to find out what I thought was white was a little bit creamier than it looked online (the perils of online quilt shopping!). So I'm saving the white fabric for the same quilt, just pairing it with another project. I bought a second Love U jelly roll . . .
And I'll be making that quilt up top there, from this quilt along. Very, very simple. I'm loving it.

Apologies for this goofy post. It's late and I'm tired. The photo got deleted and I didn't want to redo the entire post. So the pictures are out of order. We'll all survive!

Love Checkin' The Mail . . .

. . . and finding this loveliness to distract me from my French studies. With the last of my spending money, I ordered the binding and backing for my Oh Cherry Oh! quilt (see earlier post) and then these four patterns to inspire me. I'm super excited for them.

Part of me wonders when I'll find the time to do any of this, but truthfully, I'm kinda hoping Aaron gets into BYU or ASU or one of the other schools we're applying to for law school/business school so that I'll just have to stay home and stop going to school. I'm kind of going right now because, well, I can. It's cheap and it's doable right now. Not so sure that will happen when we're dealing with a law school/business school schedule. Which means I get to stay home and do all the other things I want to do.

Happy sewing!

'Tis The Season

Aaron continues to disagree with me, but I still say that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I love a holiday about being grateful and delicious food. Such a winning combination. It's just going to be my little family with my parents this year but Mom and I are still making it all. Because the next best thing about Thanksgiving is the leftovers! Which is why I don't love getting invited to someone else's house that is not family - you don't have leftovers!

Here are my two favorite desserts that I'm going to try to make. Well, the lemon meringue tart is getting made. It's my fave - I made my first lemon meringue pie when I was 13. It was our first Thanksgiving in Kennewick and Gran helped me with it. I still associate lemon meringue pie with Gran.


It was that same Thanksgiving that Gran made a coconut cake. I didn't help make it, but I sure helped eat it. This was the beginning of my obsession with coconut cake as well. See, I'm a Southern girl at heart! I have a fabulous recipe for one and I'm making it, even if it means I'll be snacking on it for days. That's some good snacking, if you ask me.

Your turn - favorite Thanksgiving desserts?

Big Plans for Thanksgiving

I received a lovely gift from a very special person with strict instructions to spend it on myself. I have a tendency to buy things for the kids all the time, especially around this time of year with birthdays and Christmas.

I wanted to use the funds to create a memory something. So I bought fabric. First, I bought this:

in jelly roll and layer cake form (by the way, I love Moda's pre-cuts and their names). I'm going to make this quilt, found here:

Then I found this fabric.

For this quilt:

Online, free pattern found here. My goal is to get at least one quilt top done over the Thanksgiving weekend. And have the pieces cut for the other one. We'll be at me parents', so I'll have extra hands with the munchkins. I just might git 'er done!

Butterflies!

These are the butterflies for Laurel's birthday cupcakes. Instructions are found in this book. Not too difficult, although working with those candy melts in tricky. I don't think you can let them get too hot or they get grainy. I'd like to make them again and cover a cake with them - she has patterns in the book for large and small ones. Very pretty and very fun.