Quilting

We had a Foisy get together after the beach house and Maryellen, Nicole, Anne and I spent 2 days in my moms new craft room sewing and quilting away.  I made a little quilt for my good friend heather who is having a girl in a few weeks.

My first time using the quilting machine.  It was so much easier then I thought.

If you are wanting to make a quilt or do any crafts my parents would love to have you out for the weekend.  Between my dads shop and my moms new craft room they have everything you would need for just about any craft and they LOVE visitors!

Sweet and Sour Citrus Chicken Stir Fry

source

This stuff is so stinking good. I'm not usually big on Chinese type food because it's so heavy, but this is light and I daresay, healthy. The leftovers are fantastic. I found it on Our Best Bites.

Sweet & Sour Citrus Chicken Stir-FryRecipe adapted by Our Best Bites from this recipe by Alice Currah

Ingredients:

Sauce
2/3 cup orange juice
Juice and grated rind of 1 lime (about 2 tablespoons juice)
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 tablespoons brown sugar
3 tablespoons soy sauce
5 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons fresh ginger, minced or grated

Stir-Fry1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1″ chunks
Salt and pepper to taste
3 tablespoons corn starch
1 1/2 cups broccoli florets (fresh or frozen; if frozen, pull them out when you begin cooking)
1 1/2 cups green beans (fresh or frozen; pull these out of the freezer with the broccoli)
1 red, orange, or yellow bell pepper, seeded and sliced
1 small or medium red onion, halved and cut into 1/4″ slices

I added 8 ounces of mushrooms too. 

You can kind of do whatever veggies you like. 

Instructions:

In a large skillet, whisk together the sauce ingredients. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and cook for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and pour into a heat-safe bowl. Rinse out the skillet and wipe it dry.

Season the chicken with salt and pepper, then sprinkle with corn starch and rub the corn starch into the chicken.

Add about 1 tablespoon oil to the skillet and heat over medium-high heat. Swirl the pan to coat it. Add the seasoned chicken and stir-fry for 4-5 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through. Add the onions and other veggies and stir-fry until the beans and broccoli are tender-crisp. Add the sauce, a few tablespoons at a time, allowing the sauce to bubble up after each addition. Serve immediately over hot rice. Makes 4 servings.

I want to grow up to be like Grandma

This is from my blog, but I wanted to post it here too.

My Grandma Anderson always has the most beautiful gardens, full of color and life. I have always envied how she tended her gardens and received such wonderful results.

Ever since I have lived in Cedar I have been wanting to grow something, anything! I even attempted to start some seeds in our apartment, they died.

BUT, now that we have a house, I have been itching to plant. With constant snowfall I have not been able to until today!

It is officially march so I can now plant bulbs. The bulbs of choice are daffodils (courtesy of Grandma Anderson, I am tickled that I got some of her flowers) as well as some pink peonies. I am hoping and praying that they grow and I can start my own flower garden.

The last owners left these little gems (used to be a water feature). 

Grandma's Daffodils! 

Yes, I planted these after dark, and Yes, I am weird. 

Love, Nellie

Carseat Covers

I have two sister-in-laws having babies this spring, so I made carseat covers for them. The one on the right is supposed to be for a boy. The one on the left is supposed to be unisex, but it was so hard finding fabric! I ended up thinking the mushrooms were a little girly, and the other was a little too boyish, but oh well. I love how they turned out either way.

 I found the pattern on Etsy. I love that it has a button front so you can peek in, but still keep the little ones covered if you want. Her pattern was great, but I made a few changes. She used Grossgrain ribbon everywhere, but I decided to pipe it. I'm getting more confident with my piping skills. For the red one, I made my own bias tape and covered store-bought piping to make it a little more special. (Thanks to my sister for the idea)

 Buttons! Sometimes it's the embellishments that end up costing the most. 

Straight from Little House on the Dairy.

Moo.

Valentine Boxes

For F.H.E. all my kids came over and we had a lesson about loving one another.  After the lesson each family made a love box.  Over the next week we are suppose to write love notes to each other and put them in the box.  Most of the kids took off before I could get pictures but this is Jenny's Love Monster box and my attempts. It was so much fun! 

These were so cute

In November I was running a bit bored so I thought these might be a fun gift for the Grand kids for Christmas.  I knew they would be incredibly labor intensive but I had a bunch of time.  Soo...  Then the church decided to let the Sisters go on missions at 19 and all of a sudden my little part time job went to a 25 plus work week.  I was pretty crazy by the time I got finished with the pillows, but they were so fun.

The patterns for the pillows came from a "Art to Heart" book.  

The Book is titled Curiosities and Mischief by Nancy Halvorsen

First part was the hardest: the choosing of the fabric and the design for the pillow.  I wanted to used only the fabric I had in my stash and so it was hard plus the fact that I always have a hard time with deciding.

Second you applique the decorations and the names on the pillow top, I used wonder under and then appliqued on the sewing machine.  I added lace, ruffles, rick rack, buttons and even hoho's.  It was really fun to be so creative.

Third you put in batting and quilt the tops,

Fourth you trim it to fit pillow.  Make the bottom of the pillow so you have a slit to insert the pillow and sew top and bottom together.

I ended up doing 13 of these for Christmas and all of them were different.

 The boys were not as excited as the girls...  Oh well.  They still were fun.

My latest projects

January 5th Was Ella's baptism and Maxwell's blessing.  Earlier in the year I had volunteered to make Ella a dress and do the blessing outfit.  It came fast right after Christmas.  But all turned out well.

Ella is the first of three baptisms this year,  I can't believe they are all getting so grownup. 

 She wanted the dress pink and I found this pretty fabric several months ago and knew it would be perfect.  She looked so pretty.

My smocking teacher suggested this fun pattern, I love the nautical look.  I found the waffle type fabric as a scrap on a sale table and so glad I picked it up long ago.  It made the outfit turn out like I wanted it to.

Maxwell is such a fun baby, he loves his Mom.  By mid week after the blessing he was in the hospital with RSV, but now is all better.  So fun to have a baby around.

Valentines

Today is a very snowy day, a perfect day to finish up those Valentine decorations I have been wanting to get done and up.

This monkey sings and the grand kids love it, it also yells at you to put him down when you lift its arms, I gave it to Gary last year for Valentines Day day and he still isn't that excited about it.  But I loved it.

Fun with felt, I just cut out a bunch of o's and x's and hearts and ran them together 

with a heavy piece of string. I doubled the felt pieces to give them some weight

This is new, I made it with some fun scrapbook paper and a few fun buttons.

Look at those cute Grand Kids!!!!

 Elayna was helping Grandma, while Kat ran a few errands,  she is almost one, and such a cutie.

They are staying with us for a few months.

 The doily on the table is one Grandma Anderson gave me when I graduated from college. 

 I love it, and love how pretty it looks on the table.

On Sunday the lawn was finally cleared off from our December snow, I think there is probably 8 inches out there since yesterday with more to come.  It's pretty but a pain to get around in.

Quilted Pot Holders

I whipped these babies up for a friend's birthday recently. These would be great for a beginning quilter to practice on. They are kind of addicting. I think I ended up quilting about 20 or so pot holders for my friends for Christmas this year. I used all scraps. 

After that just use some Thermolam heat resistant batting stuff, and essentially make a mini quilt sandwich. I added little tabs for them to hang.

And striped binding. Of course.