Happy Halloween!

It's Halloween! Time to carve our pumpkins, dress up and go trick-or-treating! Let's hope the rain stays away!

Have a spooky day!

Pumpkin muffins

So today I made the easiest pumpkin muffins in the world. You take a box of cake mix, any flavor, stir in a 15 oz. can of pumpkin, and spoon into muffin tins. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean. Yum! No eggs, no oil. I usually use yellow cake mix, but I've also tried spice, chocolate, and golden vanilla. Sometimes I stir in a teaspoonful of pumpkin pie spice too. Kids *love* them, and they're reasonably healthy with all the pumpkin.

I've also got crockpot cinnamon applesauce simmering away right now...we went apple-picking a few weeks ago and we still have a lot of apples. This is delicious too! 6-8 apples, 1 cup of water, 1 tsp. cinnamon and 1/2 cup sugar (I mix white and brown).  Stir together and cook on low for 8-10 hours. Smoosh any chunks with the back of a spoon.


Ran into a little snafu with my quilt binding. I thought I'd attempt making bias binding out of striped fabric. I am totally not getting how to cut the strips to have the stripes going the same way. Is there a secret I don't know about? Do I just have a stripe defect? Anyway I think I may have had just enough fabric but after a few cutting mistakes, it was time to go to plan B. Which I didn't have. So I dug into my stash and found a pretty blue polka dot that I used to make my niece's Christmas present. Polka dots are better than stripes anyway. Pbbbt! My friend Michele says that there are polka dot people and there are stripe people, and we decided we are the former. Whatever that means.

On my way home from Wal-Mart this morning, I was bopping away to "Party in the USA" and I was horrified to learn that it's sung by Miley Cyrus. Really? I like a Hannah Montana song? Eek! That will totally embarrass my daughter.

The kiddos will be home soon...have a great day!

Flannel? Not as much fun...

...as I thought. I'm using it for the backing of my quilt, and it definitely stretches more than regular cotton. Thus I've come across a few puckers and tucks while quilting. I never thought there'd be so much cursing in quilting. Anyway, after some time with my seam ripper, I have most of it quilted. I did some meandering/stippling/whatever you call it in the middle..meh. It's still pretty rough.

I feel like I'm on a wild ride while I'm quilting this way. Seriously, it's like hold-your-breath and hang on! I kinda like it though, and hopefully it will get better. Now, it's not very neat but I only crossed a swirly once so I figure I'm on the right track (?). The outer border is going to be just straight lines, with in-the-ditch for the corner squares.

It's a rainy, windy, chilly day here in central NY. Luckily I didn't have to go anywhere so I've been doing laundry and cleaning in between sewing sessions. My quality control specialist has been slacking off though.

Bye for now!

Fun lap quilt

I'm working on a cute little Christmas lap quilt...in one of my favorite festive fabric lines, "Have a Sheri Berry Holiday." It's got beautiful corals, aquas and spring greens. I started with the panel, and added two borders in the same group. I did make (my first!!) pinwheels blocks for the corners, using my favorite "Darla" fabric and some Kona cotton in Snow.

Sorry about the glare, too sunny today I guess! Here are some closeups...

Oh! Look who's here to rumple up the fabric!

That's one of my kitties, Holly Berry. We usually call her Hol-Bear. My cats are irresistably drawn to anything I'm working on.

Anyway, so I pinned it all and now it's just waiting for me to quilt it. I've been struggling with experimenting with stippling, so I'm going to attempt that again. I had mixed results with a Halloween quilt I just made. I guess the only way to get better is to keep going with it, right? I'm using a darling flannel backing that I found on fabric.com....isn't it cute?

I love it, it's going to make this a warm snuggly quilt! Ok, better go finish doing some housework...joy!

Pumpkin Patch Primitives giveaway!

One of my favorite quilt shops, Pumpkin Patch Primitives, has an amazing giveaway going on now. Brenda is giving away drool-worthy bundles of "Pumpkins and Spice," and a $100 gift certificate to her shop! So go and enter the drawing and tell her that I sent ya!

Is this thing on? *testing testing* Well, hey! Welcome to post number one of Jen's Fun Little Things blog. I think this will be me rambling about crafts I make, things I cook, and various funny tidbits about my family. I've been quilting for just about a year and a half now, and after reading many fabulous crafty blogs I thought it'd be fun to make one too. Well, not necessarily a fabulous one, but a blog nonetheless. So thanks for reading. I'll be taking pictures and posting them too. Ok, over and out for now!