October 2008 – Thimbleanna

Breakity, Break, Break

61 Comments / October 16, 2008 February 18, 2011 / Holidays, Quilting

Thanks for all the Bunny Love! Every now and then, we have to get a little silly around here. You know … it keeps TheManoftheHouse rolling his eyes. (And speaking of TMOTH, have you guys seen these funny Scottish Toyota commercials, here and here? Not sure why I thought of that … maybe it’s the man-car relationship? Then again, if that runner were TMOTH…LOL)

Anyway, while I was busy sewing this weekend, I made a table topper for MeMum. We were shopping this summer and she bought this vintage looking border fabric and gave it to me to make a table runner. ‘Cause we all know MeMum can’t quilt LOL!

I usually put the vintage-y print in the center and piece in the borders, but I thought I’d switch it up a little this time. I think I’d like it better this way if I had one more dark border around the outside. I’ll know for next time. All of the little prints in the middle are from a fat quarter pack that I bought at Judy Rothermel’s booth at the Chicago Quilt Show in April.

I love the little black bat fabric and the tiny pumpkin print on the right edge of the picture. Each of those patchwork blocks is a 2 inch square. I’ll give this to MeMum tomorrow — Don’t Look MeMum!

And while I was in the Halloween mood, I made up a few quick candy corn gift bags using this Halloween Clip Art from Martha Stewart.

Now, Boys and Girls, I’m going to take a little bloggy break. I’m going to turn off ye old computer and hopefully when I return I’ll have some fun stuff to show you. In the meantime, if any of you want to take a break, now would be a good time and then I won’t have so much to catch up on when I return. Really, it’s the least you could do — I’m taking this little break out of consideration for all of you. If I’m out of the picture, you’ll all have a better chance at winning the giveaways that occur in the next few weeks! So, go forth, win, and behave yourselves!

XOXO,
Anna

Jumping Bunnies

56 Comments / October 12, 2008 February 18, 2011 / Bunnies

Did you all have a good weekend? It’s been pretty busy around here, but last night TheManoftheHouse, BigDaddy, MeMum and I all went to see The Duchess. I. Loved. It. {Very Big Sigh} If you go, you might want to take a box of kleenex. ;-)

I spent most of the rest of my weekend in the dungeon. While I was sewing, Mama Bunny was busy tending to her new batch of babies. They’ve been pretty quiet and well-behaved up until today when Mama Bunny made the mistake of letting them read a few blogs.

After reading all about the adventures of Lesley’s newest chicken, the bunnies begged and pleaded with Mama Bunny to take them outside. As we don’t have chickens to visit, they decided they wanted to jump in the fall leaves. That would have been ok, except the leaves are still on the trees. So Mama Bunny came up with another plan.

She lined them all up on the hedge and let them practice jumping off the hedge into a makeshift trampoline. It was the best she could do on short notice, and now they’ll be all ready for jumping into the leaf piles.

They jumped and jumped for about an hour. Everyone was laughing and cheering and having a good time. On DickandJane Bunny2’s 6th jump, he landed on his back.

Cupcake Bunny1 wasn’t paying attention and she was so excited for her next turn that she leaped off of the hedge before DickandJane Bunny2 could get off of the trampoline, and she landed on his head.

This resulted in lots of screaming by DickandJane Bunny2 which brough Mama Bunny to the edge of the hedge to yell down at those two bunnies.

By now, all the bunnies were getting tired and Mama Bunny decided they needed to settle down. She made them get down off of the hedge and they all hopped over to the garden, where they listened to CementGirl read them a story.

After the story, it was naptime, so Mama Bunny made them come inside. They were pretty stinky from all that playing around, so Mama Bunny made them hover around the beautiful Strawberries and Cream Cupcake Sachet that just arrived from Alison this week (Thank You Alison!). It’s a fantastic sachet and after a few minutes near it, the bunnies smelled nice and clean.

Mama Bunny tucked them all up under a quilt for their nap. There was a lot of giggling and squirming, but they finally fell asleep.

Just looking at them makes me tired, so I’m off to bed! I hope you all have a Happy Monday!

XOXO,
Anna

P.S. Thanks to everyone who let me know that my comments on the last post were closed. Sometimes wordpress resets them for some odd reason. There must be something causing it, but I don’t know what it is. Hopefully they’re all fixed now.

New Jammies

38 Comments / October 9, 2008 February 18, 2011 / Sewing

I’m not saying anything earth shattering when I tell you that winter is on the way. (Well, I guess it would be big news to you guys in the southern hemisphere — you can ignore all this talk of cold weather and revel in your coming warmth.) Already tonight, I’ve read two blogs that have mentioned a chance of snow this week. Aaack — I’m barely adjusting to the idea of fall, but I know it’s coming.

So, during the sewing frenzy of last weekend, I managed to make some new flannel jammies from some fabric that had been aging in my stash. (‘Cause I couldn’t be caught wearing old ragged jammies with my new caterpillars, could I? And btw, should I be making these things for myself? No. I. Should. Not. I’m not going to tell you how close Christmas is ’cause you already know, but I have gifts to make and I’m starting to get nervous. This is my stall tactic.)

Fortunately for me, No-Mash Kim happened to blog about some CK jimjams that she received for her birthday, and even though she couldn’t keep them very long, she had them just long enough to inspire me. I loved the fact that the collar was a different fabric from the main body. (And coincidentally, I also just happened to be very short of the main floral fabric (Amy by Free Spirit.)

Do you sew-ers (I have to put a hyphen in there ’cause otherwise it reads like the place where you flush your waste and that just bugs me!) out there have a serger? I LOVE my little serger — it lets me make clothes 3 or 4 times faster than I did in my pre-serger days. These jammies only took a few hours to complete (not counting cutting out.) People are often intimidated by sergers, and I have to admit, I am too. Mine will do several different stitches, but I’ll bet 95% of the time, I use the same stitch — the 4 thread overlock.

C’mon Old Man Winter — I’m officially ready for you. That’s not true — the yard and house are still a mess, but we won’t talk about that.

So, let’s change the subject. I want to wish two of my bloggy friends the very best of luck with their fantastic new adventures: Sweet Nan has opened up her new online pattern and supply shop Nanny’s Quilt Patch. And Adorable Karen has opened her everything-you-could-want-for-woolens online shop, Farm House Woolens. (I can’t wait to get my hands on some of those needle punch kits.) You Go Girls!!!

Speaking of You Go Girl, you know how you see an idea and you scream Eeeek! and fall in love and think about it day and night? That’s how I feel about this adorable little patch that Cassie has made. I. Love. It. — so very clever.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

XOXO,
Anna

Halloween Towels

43 Comments / October 6, 2008 February 18, 2011 / Sewing

Well Hello There! Did you all have a nice weekend? Our weekend was perfect. We had beautiful weather, but I missed it because I spent most of the weekend in the dungeon sewing. Yipee! And, Friday night was the official start of fall in ThimbleannaLand — MeMum made her first pot of soup for the season. Ham and Bean. YumYum!

On Saturday, I was right in the middle of drawing around a template and Porky TheEmptyNestChild decided he needed to help.

He doesn’t sew very well though — he mostly just batted at my pencil and then eventually attacked my hand. After awhile he got bored, so he found a door open on one of my fabric cabinets and disappeared inside where he could curl up for a nap.

In the meantime, I’ve seen so many owls around blogland that I decided to make a few owls.

Nah, just kidding. I made some Halloween hand towels. (Don’t look SweetiePie!) When I went to visit SweetiePie a few weeks ago, we stopped in at Erica’s. They had lots of Halloween goodies in their shop and SweetiPie and I liked these spider towels.

The spider comes from a pattern called Spooky Hollow #141 by Little Quilt Company. The towels at Erica’s had a spiderweb on them, but when I got home I discovered the pattern didn’t have the web pattern, so I just drew them in and stitched toe-grabbers with white pearl cotton.

And finally, two quick things:

Erin is having a fun giveaway (her 1st!) and Juliette is hosting a fabric swap — they both look really fun, so you might want to check them out!

XOXO,
Anna

Three Layer Chocolate Cake

52 Comments / October 2, 2008 February 18, 2011 / Recipes

Thank you SO much, all of you for all the birdy quilt love. You’re the BEST imaginary friends ever! In return, I’ve made you a chocolate cake.

Ok, not really, but I would make you a chocolate cake if you lived nearby and we could sit and visit and have cake and coffee or your drink of choice. (With Chocolate Cake? It’s milk for me!) I must confess, MeMum made me this yummy cake last weekend. For several of us in the family, it’s our very favorite MeMum special cake.

We were talking the other day and MeMum said she’d just received a magazine that had this same cake recipe in it, except that they used whipping cream in between the layers. That’s weird, I thought, because Brigette just posted a recipe for a cake that uses whipping cream in between the layers when she was trying to save me from the microwave chocolate cake in a cup incident. (Speaking of which, Molly also posted a great chocolate cake recipe during the same incident. I forgot to mention that I tried her cake a few weeks ago and LOVED it — it has oatmeal in it and I’ll eat anything with oatmeal! It’s a great cake for grab-and-go munching – speaking of which (again!), Randi is hosting Lunchtime Favorites for her Recipe Swap today and Molly’s cake would be perfect in a lunchbox too.)

There’s probably some rule about the number of times you can change course in one conversation, so I’ll get back to MeMum’s cake. Er, Brigette’s cake. I looked at Brigette’s recipe, and sure enough, it’s almost the exact same recipe, except for that whipping cream. Frosting between the layers works better for us because our gang isn’t big enough to devour this cake in a day or two (no matter how much we love it!) Anyway, that tears it. If MeMum and Brigette have the same recipe, you know it has to be good!

Three Layer Chocolate Cake

1 c. unsifted unsweetened cocoa
2 c. boiling water
2 3/4 c. sifted all-purpose flour
2 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. baking powder
1 c. butter, softened
2 1/2 c. sugar
4 eggs
1/2 t. vanilla
1 c. walnuts

In medium bowl, gradually add boiling water to cocoa. Mix with wire whisk until smooth. Cool completely. (Do this several hours before actually making cake — at same time, set eggs out to bring to room temperature.) Sift flour with soda, salt, and baking powder. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease well and lightly flour three 9-inch cake pans. (Put wax paper in the bottom of the pans.)

In mixer, at high speed, cream butter and then add sugar gradually. Add eggs and vanilla. Beat for 5 minutes until light. At low speed, beat in flour mixture in 1/4ths, alternately with cocoa mixture in 1/3rds. (Do not overbeat.) Divide into pans — bake 25 – 30 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes in pans, then put on cooling racks.

Easy Chocolate Frosting

3/4 stick (6 Tbsp.) butter
5 Tbsp cocoa
1 lb. box confectioner’s sugar (which is approx. 3 3/4 c.)
5 Tbsp. milk
1/2 t. vanilla

Cream butter. Mix cocoa and powdered sugar together. Add alternately with milk to the butter. Then add vanilla. Spread on three layer chocolate cake. Garnish with chopped walnuts. (This cake is just as good without the walnuts, so if you don’t like them, leave them out. I have to have it with the walnuts though!)

And while we’re on the subject of chocolate, it’s really cooled off here this week, so I think I’ll go make a cup of hot chocolate, put on my fuzzy slippers and snuggle in for the V.P. debates. I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

XOXO,
Anna

Month: October 2008

Three Layer Chocolate Cake

Easy Chocolate Frosting