RANDOM THOUGHTS

These are strips for my eldest granddaughter's quilt.  She loves reds and blacks, so when I wanted to try a Sylvia's Bridal Sampler Quilt, it seemed a good color choice.  I loved making all of the blocks in the book and even added a few others I made up or found online.  Took me a long time, and it's taking a longer time to get it together! A few strips are now sewn together--it's going particularly slow since hurting my knee in a fall a few months ago.  She picked out a bunch she wanted and her little sister picked out some she wanted--after she had gone through EVERY SINGLE ONE and made comments.  This from my little girlie girl who is totally color blind and sees only in black/white/gray!!  

Strips of Sagie's red/black/white quilt.

Made this wonderful bread the other day...banana, orange, cranberry, pecan, oatmeal bread.  Absolutely delicious.  One thing I do to make yummy citrusy breads/cakes/cookies is to quarter the fruit, get seeds out then pulverize the whole thing in my Cuisinart.  Gives phenomenal flavor.  Basically used a banana bread recipe and added a cup each of cranberries and pecans that I ran through the food processor, too.  Used a cup of oatmeal to replace one of flour.  Used about half cup of yogurt and half cup of butter, instead of all butter.  It didn't rise much.  Also, stuck badly to bottom, but such great flavor.  A 2 oz. slice is about 160 calories...used myfitnesspal.com to figure that out.  A great site if you're wanting to lose weight and need a way to track what you eat.  My daughter in law uses an iphone app for it.

Proud girlie girls with fruits of their labors!

Didn't oil pan well enough, so bottom stuck!

My twinnie girlie girls came to visit gramma and boppa for several days this month.   They told their mom they couldn't wait to "do projects" with gramma.  It's their first time being her alone--once before came with their older sister, but this time it was just these little cuties!  I taught them to sew on my "baby" brother machine.  First they traced designs on paper.  Then they sewed those cute little baggies for Halloween goodies.  We filled little baggies with candy corn and those silly pumpkin candies to put inside the baggies.  Next we made "witches brooms" by baking peanut butter cookies with pretzel rods stuck in them.  When cool, we put some melted chocolate and colored sugar.  We put all the goodies in boxes for their family and my son's family.  We had a bunch left over that hubby took to church to share with friends.  It was soooo quiet after they left.  Glad I have some pictures of them to remember fun times.

 Third of my four girlie girls tracing a pattern on paper