Weekend Doings: August 2012

8/31/12

Giveaway Winner Announced

First of all I want to say thank you to everyone who participated on the giveaway and left such lovely comments. It was very fun and I hope to host many more giveaways.

The winner of the pincushion is #13 FarahLin Congratulations!

Thank you again for your support!

Martha.

8/27/12

Giveaway!

I'm very excited to be hosting my first giveaway! The giveaway is this little pin cushion I made specially for this occasion. The word "Pins" is hand embroider (by me).

If you would like to participate:

Please leave a comment on this post.
If you are a follower of my blog (existing or new) you have a second change to enter, just leave a comment that says "following"

The giveaway will be open through Thursday August 30, 2012 until 9:00 pm PST. Then a winner will be chosen at random and announced on Friday August 31. Please make sure you leave an e-mail address where I can reach you. I will be happy to ship internationally, so anyone can participate.

Good Luck!

Martha

8/26/12

Orange Cookies

This weekend felt like I was very productive. I had time to cook and bake and I made a lot of progress on my new quilt, but I will tell you more about my sewing on a later post. I made this amazing orange cookies and I thought I'll share the recipe with you. I have been making this cookies for a long time (they are my husband's favorites). I really don't know where the recipe came from originally. A friend gave it to me years ago when I first became interested in cooking, but I don't know where she got it from. Over the years I have made some adjustments to the original and this is my favorite version.

Orange Cookies

Makes 16-18 cookies

Ingredients:

1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 cup corn starch

4 teaspoons of baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

Zest of 1 orange (about a tablespoon)

1/2 cup butter softened

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1/4 cup fresh orange juice

Optional: 18 almonds to garnish cookies

Method:

1- Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (180 degrees Celsius). In a bowl whisk together flour, corn starch, baking powder, salt, and orange zest and set aside.
2- Using an electric mixer beat together butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add egg and continue to beat until well combined; then add orange juice and flour mixture and continue beating until all ingredients are well incorporated.
3- Using and ice cream scoop spoon batter onto baking sheets and top each with an almond. make sure you press the almond slightly into the dough. Bake for 15-18 minutes or until golden brown.

Enjoy!

Martha.

8/24/12

A Picture... A Moment

Blue Plumbago from the garden. I peek out of my kitchen window and I see it being constantly visited by bees, butterflies and hummingbirds; so lovely.

Looking forward for the weekend... how about you?

Martha.

8/19/12

Starting A New Quilt

I started planning for a new quilt. I had purchased this fabric a while ago with a quilt in mind. But I had many ideas in my head and I just hadn't been able to decide until now. I found the inspiration from this book. The pattern is for a doll quilt, but I think it will also look great on a large quilt. I did some sketching to decide on the fabric placement and I think I'm ready to start cutting my lovely fabrics and begin and new sewing adventure.

Martha.

8/18/12

Road Trip

Today I didn't get a lot of sewing done. Instead, my husband and I decided to take a road trip. And on our little journey we stopped at a farm stand/park very popular in the area, but we had never visited before. I don't know why it is such a lovely place to spend the day. The place is filled with antique farm equipment. I felt as if we went back in time. The park even has a small pond with ducks swimming in it. It is such a charming place I think I want go back soon.

I hope you are having a great weekend as well!

Martha.

8/14/12

Sunflowers

The sunflowers finally opened up. They look very impressive standing tall way pass the roof of the house.
Lovely summer colors!
Martha

8/12/12

In the Sewing Room

I decided to move my sewing room to a more sunny location in the house. So this weekend was all about moving furniture from one room to the other, re-organizing and getting settled. It was a lot of hard work switching rooms, thankfully my husband helped me a lot. He did most of the heavy lifting. Even though we were exhausted it was all worth it. I love my new room; I get a lot more natural light and the new layout makes it feel more spacious.

As part of my reorganization I needed some containers to hold small tools and scissors so I covered a couple of tin cans with fabric. And on the small one I practiced English paper piecing. It was my first time using this technique and I love it. I can't wait to do some more.

My small fabric stash is now neatly organized on my new shelves. I still have to do some organizing, but it is all coming together nicely. Now it is time to get sewing.

I hope you had a great weekend!

Martha.

8/4/12

Being Green

I went around the garden and everything looks great. I love summer! I took a few pictures of some of the greenery from the garden. The corn is growing very well, I hope I can taste it soon. And the pepper tree is filling up nicely after some heavy trimming it got at the beginning of the year.

The chili plants are thriving in the summer heat. I tried one the other day and it was quite spicy.

The last picture is a shot of my sunflowers; the are so tall they already reached the roof of the house. So amazing!

I hope you are having a great weekend.

Martha.

8/2/12

Alphabet Baby Quilt

I finally finished the baby quilt! I feel like I have been working on this project for a very long time. I'm glad is finished and ready to be delivered to my goddaughter. I think she will be very happy with it. She can use it to stay warm, use it as a play mat or to learn her ABC's.

All the letters on the quilt were hand drawn to give it a more playful look. I also mixed capital and lower cases I think it gives it more character. I got the inspiration for this quilt from this book. Such a pretty book filled with great projects.