Promises, promises

I would love to say that I just stepped outside my door today and snapped this picture.  Minnesota just doesn’t work that way.  It was taken on Halloween.  No tricks involved.

Aren’t the colors yummy?  Now continue on to the next picture which is a closer version of the same tree taken today.  The colors are gone – honestly I didn’t make it black & white, it really is that color.  But isn’t it pretty anyway?  Love the hoar frost when it sits heavy on the trees.  Apparently, the birdies are loving it too.

How’s this for another before & after?  Only one month apart.

How long ago was it that I promised you a really, totally, yummy recipe?  No need to answer that – I know it has been a long time.  There is only one catch to it – it uses 2 products from the Tastefully Simple company. My daughter who is a senior consultant with this company lives in Denver.  Which, as you all know, is NOT next door to Minnesota.  I don’t think.  Anyway, since she couldn’t bake me a cake for my birthday, she sent me the cake mix and caramel sauce and the recipe.  I know you could get a caramel sauce somewhere else (but I know people who, when asked what they put this caramel sauce on, reply “a spoon”.  It’s that good.)  The pound cake mix might be pretty exclusive to them, I don’t know.  Luckily, I have connections…………..which I could share if you beg.  Here ‘tis:

Absolutely Almond Toffee Pound Cake

*Absolutely Almond Pound Cake Mix

*1 cup water

*3/4 cup melted butter

Prepare cake as directed on pkg. with water & butter.

Stir in:

*3/4 cup toffee bits

Spray 9x9 pan with cooking spray

Arrange:

*3/4 cup whole pecans on bottom of pan

Pour batter over pecans.  Bake at 325 for 45-50 min.

When cool, serve with:

*Creamy Caramel Sauce 

I would have liked to show a photo but it was gone too fast for me to snap a pic.  (caramel lovers in the family, don’t ya know).  I’m telling you – your taste buds will be doing the happy dance with this cake on your lips.  I did say lips – not hips – didn’t I?

Speaking of hips, some of the folk at my house needed to rest theirs after our Thanksgiving feast.  How many homes across America that day had people & dogs on couches with football on the TV?  

And really, football?  If I had known the person/fiend/psycho who invented the game, I would have said “go back to the drawing board honey, ‘cuz this game isn’t going to catch on”.  And the “outfits”?  Whoa, momma.  Those are strange.  Remember when Linda Evans was on TV?  On “Dallas” I think.  Anyway, she started that whole fad of padded shoulders so that we’d look smaller in the hips in comparison.  Hasn’t anyone told the football fashion people that that style is so last year?  And their little outfits are kinda shiny looking polyester.  Who wears polyester?  By choice?  And knee-high socks? No, wait, they’re wearing TIGHTS!  OMG, I used to wear tights when I was a little girl and had to wear a dress when it was cold out.   And what’s the deal with tucking a towel in your waistband?  When the Indians wore that it was called a breechclout.  I suppose there’s a purpose but I’m not sure I want to know what it is.  It could be kinky.  And I’m not even going to bring up what those helmets do to their hair.  There’s a reason there are no women playing professional football.  I’m just sayin’.  Maybe I’ll start a grassroots anti-football-on-holidays movement.  We could substitute a good quilting program or a fun gardening show.  Let’s think about it, ok?

My real motivation to write today was because I want a friend, MJ, to see some of these pictures.  The Loose Threads were at my house yesterday but MJ is on some sort of 2-week vacation at the Mayo Clinic.  Next time you feel the need to “get away from it all”, I’m suggesting you think warm, sunny & tropical.  Whatever your excuse, everyone missed you MJ.  So here are some of the happenings:

A little light brunch – Swiss & ham crepes, Waldorf fruit salad, cinnamon streusel coffee cake and sunny sunshine OJ.  I suppose we could have eaten more but we needed to save ourselves for afternoon coffee.  Seriously.  Lori brought little individual cheesecakes.  Wow, were they good.  A few Christmas goodies needed to be sampled too.  So much to do, so little time.

Our mini- T blocks we worked on last month at Denise’s.. Lori’s 4-square and Karen’s done in Christmas red & white.

  

 

These next 4 were from the month before that.  Same block – all different.  The black bordered one is Connie’s and next to it is Judy’s.  The bottom 2 are mine. 

Judy was busily working on some American Girl doll clothes for her granddaughter.  She will be thrilled! 

A new knitted hat from Jean:

Carole finished one that has been waiting in the wings – for about 5 years.  I totally understand and it IS a great quilt!

Karen made these table toppers from the same pattern (New Leaf Stitches).

She also made this angel wallhanging from a Buggy Barn pattern in Batiks! 

Pictures really are worth a 1,000 words so I’m just gonna let these pictures speak to you while I sign off………

 

 

Housecleaning 101

I have discovered that the best way to get myself to sit down and write is to start some serious housecleaning.  Which is some serious un-fun stuff.  So when I work at it for a little while, then I’ve earned the right to work on a blog post.  Ta Dah – here I am.  Floors are vacuumed.  Good enuf for this minute. 

Mrs. Farmhouse told me that it’s easier to write if you don’t wait so long in-between because now I have so much to show/tell that I hardly know where to start.  Since I last wrote, I’ve gone to Loose Threads, then to Woolies and throw in a trip to Minneapolis besides. Lordy, girls, there’s some good stuff happening.

Firstly (is that a word?), just a quick farm report.  It’s been a horrible fall for farming.  The sugarbeet harvest that started Sept. 29th and should have taken about 10 days – is still going!  This is unheard of – it’s been over 7 weeks now and still counting.  Our own sugarbeets are mostly harvested but there are many acres still waiting in our area. The soybeans are still being worked on.  Enuf.  Enuf.  I’m so.o.o.o.o bored with farming, aren’t you?

When the Loose Threads met this month, we were working on continuing our project from last month.  We had each cut out fabric for 12 blocks, then sewed them as a group.  We’d all go home with different blocks than we started with, making for lots of variety.  The scrappy look is good, you know?  Did I mention that the blocks are 4 1/2”?  Just cuter than a bug’s ear.  Which, when I think about it: are bug’s ears cute?  Do bugs even have ears?  If you have the answer, I guess you can let me know.  But in the meantime, here’s what I’m saying about cute:

Carole showed us the baby quilt she’d made with an adorable fabric set in an attic window pattern.

Karen brought a couple things to show.  One, an old top that she & others hand-quilted and two, a quilt she started at our retreat last winter:

   In this group, we are very, very health conscious.  For instance, we arrived at 9:30.  At 10:00, we had coffee and shortbread.  At 12:00 Denise served us a delish chicken casserole a salad and some wonderful bread still warm from the oven. Then a tasty apple bar from Carole to top off our meal.  Denise also served us each a little fat 1/8th bundle as table favors. 

Back to our health – at about 3:00, we decided to stop for a coffee break – along with, yep, you guessed it – PIE!  Jean brought the pie which was a recipe that Ms. Penny served us last month at Woolies!!  (another health-conscious group)

I wish I had a picture, but really, it is so very delicious and actually it is about as low cal as a pie can get:

Miss Penny’s Turtle Pumpkin Pie

• 1/4 C plus 2 Tbsp. caramel ice cream topping, divided
• 1 graham cracker pie crust
• 1/2 C. plus 2 Tbsp. pecan pieces, divided
• 1 C. cold milk
• 2 pkg. (3/4 oz) vanilla instant pudding
• 1 C. canned pumpkin
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1 tub (8 oz) Cool Whip

Pour 1/4 C. caramel topping into crust; sprinkle with 1/2 C. nuts.

Beat milk, pudding, pumpkin and spices with whisk 2 min.  Stir in 1 1/2 C. cool whip.  Pour into pan.

Refrigerate 1 hour.  Top with remaining wool whip, caramel & nuts just before serving.

 

As I said, we are a very health conscious group.  It’s all about the quilting – not about the food.  Ya, uh-huh.

I had a few days rest after the excitement of Threads before making a quick trip to Minneapolis with Karen, aka Mrs. Farmhouse, aka Farmhouse Woolens.  I know, this is confusing, but trust me, if you don’t know Karen, you want to. 

This is where we went first – our favorite woolen store filled with hand-dyed wools and hooked rugs:  L J Fibers at the Wooly Red Rug.

Yes, I know there’s a reflection of me in the window but I was in a hurry to get inside.  I mean, look who got to the door first…………..(Ms. Karen)

Well, not to worry, there’s wool a-plenty for all.  Well, maybe there’s enuf – Denise & Kari were also shopping with us.  Oh dear.  Oh, don’t worry about me – I did just fine.

Farmhouse Woolens was considering adding a “couple” greens to her inventory.  Yes, she made some excellent choices.  How could she not when she had such helpful and knowledgeable assistants?????

This is just one section of delicious things……

And this awesome hooked rug (hooked by LJ herself) is just one of many, many more.  Well, I’m telling you that rug hooking is calling my name.  Denise has already jumped in with both feet and I think she’ll have several more joining her real soon.

We headed over to gift market from there to “help” Karen buy some things for her store that will be opening in February.  Obviously, since we were such good help with the wool, she knew that we would continue to help her with “top notch” advice.  That is what you were thinking, isn’t it Karen?  Whatever.  She was stuck with us and she did very well in spite of it.

SO THEN, on Thursday, we had Woolies.  More good stuff.  Oh yeah, we ate well too.  Let’s see. Arrive at 11:00.  Eat appetizers and iced tea.  12:30, eat lunch of 2 different casseroles, to-die-for bread and other assorted good things.  Topping it off with 2 kinds of bars.  A really rich pecan bar and a pumpkin bar with cream cheese frosting.  Don’t worry tho – we had a little snackey-poo mid-afternoon.  Whew.  Anyway, it’s not about the food!!!!

The show ‘n tell will knock your socks off:

 A sample of a kit Karen will have in her store:

 a Ms. Jean stitchery:

Karen’s quilt:

2 punch needles from Penny’s hands:

A wool bouquet & quilt from Shod:

Wool pumpkin banner quilt– Joyce:

Denise gave us a great rug hooking demo but I must have lost my camera but we all learned a lot from this advanced beginner and we can’t wait to try it ourselves.

A couple things I just finished in my wood shop, a tray and a chalkboard:

 One more thing.  Our hostess, Ms. J, had the most awesome Christmas Cactus I have ever seen.  What do you think?

Holy Samoley, girls, do you think this got a little long?   If you’ve only got a minute, just look at the pictures.  They’re worth a thousand (of my) words!

To all the Americans, if I don’t get back to you before then, have a wonderful Thanksgiving Day on Thursday.  To all my other friends, I wish a great week and the time to reflect on everything in your life you are thankful for.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poetic License

Long, long ago in a land far, far away, lived a number of beautiful, intelligent and talented women.

You may want to take a moment for a reality check here.  This is after all my blog and I can say pretty much whatever I want and call it “Poetic License”.  I don’t think there are blog police out there evaluating the accuracy of my statements.  My own sainted Mother was not always accurate in assessing my truthfulness.  I leave it to you to decide where I’m invoking “Poetic License”.

Now, where was I?  Oh ya, blah, blah, beautiful women, blah, blah.  Also known as the Woolies.  This is not a quilt group altho all of us quilt.  This is not a garden group altho all of us have gardens (I’m sure you’ll soon have one Karen) nor is it even a woodworking group even tho we all have wood in our homes.  It did take us a while to determine a plausible excuse er, reason to be together.  Well, we all like wool so that was to be our common denominator.  Obviously then, we would be The Woolies.  We did draw up a lengthy list of rules & goals for the group.  The final rule was that we would have no rules.  This works very well for us as we are morally opposed to rules and goals & deadlines.  We did briefly consider naming our group the Dull Needles but we felt it might have a negative connotation and tend to lead us into depression thereby causing us to have no fun when we got together to do nothing.  I know you’re with me on this.

We met this month at the  home of yours truly.  Since it had been about a year since I’d cleaned my house, it did take many weeks of effort to be ready.  Thankfully, I have now done that little cleaning chore for this year.  Whew! 

September means back to school here in MN/ND land so that was my theme.  Do y’all remember the Fischer Price School Bus?  I found our old one and it was the centerpiece and that kinda got the ball rolling on this party.  First of all I wanted to make sure everyone knew they were at the right party so I made it easy for ‘em:

I realized of course that the set up of the scene was terribly wrong.  I quickly moved the Weebles from the FRONT of the bus to BEHIND the bus.  We don’t want anyone to think I’d intentionally run over the wee ones.  Goodness gracious.  Now, you might notice the little chalkboard – I made one for each of my guests that day.  JM actually USED hers to take a couple notes!  Way to go JM!

Whoa, back up the truck – that was NOT what JM was writing.  I wrote that.  She wrote other important stuff.

Keeping with the school theme, I served an apple cake with hot caramel sauce.  It is super easy to make and let me warn you that you’ll want seconds of this one…….

Fresh Apple Cake

4 C. chopped apples

2 eggs

2 C. sugar

2 tsp. cinnomon

2/3 C. oil

1/2 C. chopped nuts

2 C. flour

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. baking soda

Put apples in bowl & break eggs over them.  Stir.  Add sugar, oil, cinnamon & nuts.  Combine flour, salt & baking soda and add to mixture.  Stir well.  Bake in 9X13 pan at 350 for about 45 min.

There now, wasn’t that easy??

Caramel Sauce

1/2 C. sugar

1/2 C. brown sugar

1/2 C. butter

1/2 C. cream (half & half)

1 heaping Tbsp. flour

1 tsp. vanilla

Combine all ingredients, except vanilla.  Bring to a boil & cook for 1 to 2 minutes, until thickened, stirring as necessary.  Add vanilla.  Serve over cake.  Top with whipped cream.  If you want this to be a diet recipe, leave off the whipped cream.  Ya, like that’s going to help……….

Now hang with me here ‘cuz I’ve got some serious show & tell for you today:

A couple embroidery on linen projects by Jean plus a small stitchery she made and then made a frame for:

This cutie is Jean’s too:

Ms. JM has finished her wool garden.  It is so awesome!

And this adorable mini – those little blocks are 2 1/2”.  Too cute for words.

And this little stitchery she’s working on:

Now here’s our favorite machine quilter girl with all kinds of wonderful goodies:

 

Penny, did I ever tell you how much I  LOVE RED QUILTS?  It would look so great in my home.  Hint.

Criminy, I almost forgot Ms. D’s show & tell:

I know, it looks like I’m hurting the little darling, but I assure you she was very happy.  There was a set of 2, but I didn’t get a picture of her other granddaughter.

One more thing.  On my last post, something happened to son #2 and his body was removed.  You can’t really tell from just seeing his arm how handsome he really is so I’m giving you all one more chance to be amazed & astounded at the perfectness of son #2.

You’ll have to refer back to my last post to get a gander at son #1.  He doesn’t usually wear a beard but has just returned from a fishing & camping  trip in the boundary waters.

You’ll be happy to know that I’ll talk about our daughter & granddaughter – the Divine Miss O – another time.

OK, that’s it.  I’m done.  This post got really, really long so I don’t expect anyone to read the whole thing.  But the pictures are good.  Probably.

Ms. Faye