A Little of This and That!

We haven't posted much about our family for quite awhile so I'm doing a little (could be big!) picture post!

1/10/12 - A good day for David on his trapline - 6 beavers and a muskrat.

 

1/17/12 - Morgan at 9 months.

 

1/17/12 - Some of our big snow.

 1/18/12 - Bronwyn taking care of her baby.

1/18/12 - A pillow that Tara made.  She asked for fabric and sewing lessons for her birthday last year.  This is a project she got done.

1/21/12 - Some of the boys tend to howl when I give haircuts, but David falls asleep:)

 

1/23/12 - Bench Reid made in welding.

1/28/12 - Clayton and Rachel reading.   A normal sight in our living room to see kids reading.  Rachel only because she wasn't feeling good.

1/28/12 - David on his 40th birthday with his last gluten filled birthday cake.

1/29/12 - Morgan after a hard day at play:)

2/3/12 - Grandpa and Morgan - He came for a haircut and lunch (and no, I wasn't allowed to touch his beard!)

2/3/12 - Walker

2/4/12 - Rachel babysat while I went to the quilt retreat.  She let the kids do some scrapbooking.  Bronwyn at work.

2/4/12 - Forrest at work.

2/5/12 - When you think small boy relatives are being really good since there's no noise, you should probably check.  Walker's destruction.

2/6/12 - I finally made some pasty for the first time in about a year.  I'm really enjoying being able to take one from the freezer when I need something for lunch.  (I tried to make a collage of this but couldn't find the option anymore.)  All of the filling - 10 lbs. of potatoes - 5 lbs. of hamburger - 12 carrots - onions - salt - pepper.

Filling on the pie crust.

 

 All ready for the oven.

Finished product - about 32-35 total made.

 

2/6/12 - Another day on the trapline - 1 bobcat - 2 beavers.

2/14/12 - My darling little Morgan - crawling around under the clothes rack.

 

 2/15/12 - My little sweetie again, in a little outfit Aimee just made for her.  Morgan is 10 months old today already!!

Even though this was quite a few pictures, I don't really take a whole lot of pictures (where's the rest of the family, right?)  Hope you all have a great weekend.

Swedish Almond Cake

This is a delicious and easy coffee cake.  I got the recipe about 13 years ago at a bazaar.  Some young girls were selling the cakes whole and by the slice.  They were so smart, they even sold the recipe!!  I thought it was something too good to pass up and had to buy the recipe.  For many years I thought my recipe had disappeared in our trailer, and went the way of the dump.  Just recently I found it hiding behind some cookbooks, in a place where I didn't think I had any loose recipes.  I was so thrilled to find it!!

This recipe makes three small cakes.

Ingredients:

15 tablespoons margarine

6 eggs

2 cups sugar

1 3/4 cups flour

Topping:

1 1/4 cups almonds

1 cup sugar

10 tablespoons margarine

3 tablespoons flour

3 tablespoons milk

Melt the butter.  In a bowl, beat the eggs till fluffy.  Beat in the sugar and flour.  Beat in the butter.  Pour into three greased and floured pie pans.  Bake for 25 minutes at 350.  Meanwhile, make topping.  Put all ingredients in a saucepan and stir over medium heat till well mixed.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and keep warm till cakes are done.  Put approximately 1/2 cup of topping on each cake.  Bake 10 more minutes.  

The recipe says cakes are best served warm, but I did not buy this recipe after tasting a warm cake!!  I'm not really sure about that . . . it's good warm, but not too warm . . . and it's really good cold, too.

My family really loves this cake.  It is delicious!!  Give it a try and let me know what you think.

I'm linking up with Aimee at AJcrazies.

Crafter's Weekly - Week 6

I decided to join in with Aimee again this week.  We were supposed to make an outfit or article of clothing for a child.  I think the idea is to do my project last week and post it today!  I'm kinda slow and had lots of appointments and things going on last week so I finally got it all out this afternoon to do:)

I had a flannel nightgown that had been my Mom's and I wanted to make Bronwyn a nightgown from it.  It had a stain kind of front and center, so I lost out on some of the fabric.  I thought for awhile that I'd have to make one for Morgan instead, but I managed to make my pattern work even though there had to be a couple small changes.  I figured this way, it would eventually be Morgan's:)  I used Simplicity pattern #7682, which very possibly came from Mom, too!!

Over the years I've made quite a few nightgowns with elastic in the sleeves.  This is the first pattern I've ever used where you sewed ribbon on top instead of bias tape on the back side to use for the elastic casing.  I did the same thing for the casing at the neck.  I liked doing it this way and may use the idea on other patterns.  I like to make do with what I have on hand.

Here is Bronwyn in her new nightgown.  And yes, I know, the photography has much to be desired.

Bronwyn is quite pleased to be wearing a nightgown that used to be Grandma's:)

Linking up with AJcrazies.

Not sure if I'll manage this week's challenge!

Stitch 'N Chatter Annual Quilt Retreat

I'm a bit slow on posting . . . We had our annual quilt retreat of the Stitch 'N Chatter group last Saturday at the Firm Foundation Christian School.  I think this was the 7th year, and I've made it to all of them.  In addition to me, I had three girls there this year!  Morgan got to come because she goes almost everywhere with me (she's only been left twice).  Tara came along to take care of her, and Aimee came as a retreat attendee.

This year was our largest ever, with 28 ladies in attendance.  There were several who hadn't come before, and several who did other sewing, not quilting.  Four girls made food for us all day long, starting with hot cinnamon rolls in the morning and ending up with some kind of little chocolate delicacy right before we ended the day.

Enjoying afternoon snack.

Every year we have a silent auction, with things donated by the group.  The money earned goes into our comfort quilt fund.  I've put things together for the auction for several years.  Here are a couple pictures of some of our auction items.

 This quilt top hanging here, was one of the donations.

Each year Phyllis (I think Marti did once) chooses a quilt pattern for the group to make.  You can work on that quilt, or do anything else you want to do.  This year was the first time I chose not to make the quilt the group was working on.  I'd made a quilt similar to it last fall (right here) and didn't feel like making another one. 

This is an example of the kind of quilt Phyllis was teaching this year.  Some of the ladies were making their's scrappy like this one and some made matchy matchy ones.

I started a new quilt, but it sure didn't seem like I got anywhere on it!  I was doing applique, and between cutting out circles with Wonder Under and appliqueing them in place, I didn't get very far.  I ran out of Wonder Under and then I ran out of my thread I was appliqueing the circles on with!!  That was ok, cause I was kind of tired of working on them anyway.  The border is going to be pieced, so I got started on that.

Hard at work!

One of the ladies was working on a queen-size quilt.  I think she called it a postage stamp quilt.  The finished squares were 1" square!!  I just looked up the dimensions of a queen-size quilt and it's 84" x 102".  That's 8,568 1" squares!!!!!!!  That's a lot!!!

On the pieces of fabric with little pictures, she fussy-cut around them so the square would show them off.

I've gotten the rest of the things I need to finish my quilt . . . now I just need to get some time to work on it!!  I don't like things dragging on for forever, so I hope to get at it again this coming week.