Thimbleanna

Month: August 2009

Recipe O’ Rain

Well, how’s the weekend going?  It’s slow and lovely here.  I was off of work yesterday and it Rained.  All.  Day.  It was a beautiful, steady downpour — just perfect for quilting or knitting.  I spent the day holed up in the dungeon sewing and came up for air long enough to take a few pictures of the raindrops on our pretty Rose of Sharon.

Rainflower

It seems to be slow out there in blogland too.  I’m sad to see more blogs being lost to twitter and facebook, which are just too busy for me.  I’m much happier with the slower pace of blogs.  Oh well, it’s good to have so many choices, right?

Since my sewing wasn’t productive enough to have any show and tell, it’s time for a recipe.  My little recipe section provides me with a repository of recipes I don’t want to lose.  I have a stack of recipe clippings that need to be cleaned out (which pales by comparison to MeMum’s I might add), and it’s much easier to find them if they’re on the internet.  More than once, I’ve been in the kitchen and pulled up a recipe on my blackberry — very convenient!   So — here’s a recipe for Corn and Blueberry Salsa.  MyDadLovesMeBestSister brought it to our last family get-together and we all loved it.

Blueberry Corn Salsa

Corn and Blueberry Salsa

1 1/2 c. cooked and cooled fresh or frozen yellow corn kernels
1/3 cup chopped red sweet pepper
1/4 cup snipped fresh chives or thinly sliced green onions
3 tablespoons thinly sliced fresh basil
2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/4 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 cup fresh blueberries

Combine corn, sweet pepper, chives, basil, maple, syrup, lemon juice and salt. Add blueberries and toss gently to combine.

Blueberry Corn Salsa

Easy Peasy.  We enjoyed this salsa over grilled salmon (apologies to you non-fish lovers), but I’m sure there are many other ways you might like it.   Happy Weekend!

XOXO,
Anna

Random Chit-Chat

  • Thanks for all the birthday love for MeMum and TheFirstChild!   BigBoy’s present from SweetiePie was a skydiving adventure with her and four of his friends. They sat around the air field all day on Saturday, but the weather was bad so, they decided to try again on Sunday morning.  At 10:57 a.m. on Sunday I sent SweetiePie this text message: “Well? Are we having any luck?” At 12:13 p.m. she replied with “We just landed!!! That was F—ing amazing! Will call in a bit!” SweetiePie never swears, so to get a “F” and three dashes means it was pretty darn incredible!

Skydiving

  • Remember when Toni sent me some Vegemite?   Well I finally got around to trying it. Just like everyone said — with toast and some butter. The good news is I didn’t hate it. The bad news is I didn’t love it. It must be an acquired taste and I probably didn’t love it because I expect something sweet on my toast. It was definitely fun to try it out though — thanks again Toni!
  • The Very Cool Penny has decided enough is enough. She wants Free Spirit Fabrics to start printing their Flea Market Fancy line again, so she’s started a blog that will act as a petition of sorts and a place to share the Flea Market Fancy love. So, if you’re a Flea Market Fancy Lover,  run over to the new Flea Market Fancy Freaks blog, sign up and share the Love with us!

FMFF Blog

  • Did you know that The Vintage Workshop has a new blog? I love their clipart for craft projects. If I were smart, I’d wait until September 1st to tell you about them so that you won’t know about their very cool fabric giveaway. But you know I love you, so there ya go.
  • The Little Red Hen posted an interesting way to quilt fabric with the decorative stitches on her machine. I decided to give it a whirl on some potholders that I made for a friend, and I LOVED it! I used a simple wavy stitch and I’ll definitely be quilting that way again.  (Embroidery design from embroidery library.)

Potholder

  • Shutter Sisters had an interesting post about Aha Moments the other day, probably just as I was having a huge Aha Moment of my own. But not in a good way. Fortunately, I have my beloved Hester and I can retreat to the dungeon to do a lot of little mending.

heart

  • And last but by no means least, Don’t Look Now (haha), but ….well, Kellie is having a FANTASTIC giveaway. RUN over there and sign up!!!

Kellie Quilt

Whew! That’s it — thanks for hanging in there. Hope you’re having a good week!

XOXO,
Anna

Oh, p.s. — my e-mailbox filled up on Monday night, so I missed responding to a few of your comments from the last post.  Sorry — I’ll catch you next time!

A Birthday Week

It’s been a big birthday week here in ThimbleannaLand.  First off, today is TheFirstChild’s 25th (Eeek!) birthday — Happy Birthday Big Boy!  I know I’m his mom, but isn’t he a cutie?

BabyBoy

When he was little, people used to stop us and tell us what a pretty baby he was.  One time, when he was out having a sandwich with TheManoftheHouse, a man stopped to say “I’ve heard of looking like your father, but that’s ridiculous!”  I’m happy to say that’s no longer the case (Yay!  He has my eyes!), ’cause don’t you think after all that childbirth and labor that your baby should look just a little bit like you???

And then we have MeMum, whose birthday was on Tuesday.  She was a cute baby too — naked and all!  Look at those curly little yellow locks.  We all love this picture documenting her early days into stripperdom.

MeMum Naked

MeMum collects beaded purses, so for her birthday, I made her this little blue beaded purse.

Beaded Purse

Thanks to Marsha’s kindness — I won a beautiful little white beaded purse from her a year or so ago, and knew right then that I’d want to make one for MeMum.  Marsha was more than willing to share all the info on how to get started in beaded purse knitting.    I ordered a beginner’s kit from Purse Paradise and thoroughly enjoyed knitting this little purse.   Super fun, and I’ll definitely be doing beaded purse knitting again.

Beaded Purse

Marsha makes beautiful purses and she shows some of them on her sidebar (I love the gorgeous white wedding purse and the black purse!) AND she sells them — you should go and check them out! THANK YOU so much Marsha for all your help — you’re a peach!

Well, I’m off to spend the day with MeMum for a belated birthday get-together.  I hope you all have a fabulous weekend!

XOXO,
Anna

A Little Machine Embroidery

I’ve been playing with my embroidery machine a little bit.  A week or so ago, a friend brought me some fabric and asked me if I’d embroider a monogram on some fabric for her.  Even though I’ve learned to say no to some requests (when I was younger, I didn’t know how to say no, but MeMum taught me how to gently decline some of those gracious “offers”), I’ll never be able to repay this friend’s kindnesses to my boys, so I gladly accepted.

Monogram B

My friend is re-doing her daughter’s room and has purchased a little 2-seat ice cream set for one corner of the room.  Several years ago, I monogrammed the seat backs for our ice cream set and she wanted to duplicate the look.

Monogram K

Our ice cream set sits in the corner of our sun porch.  Doesn’t that adorable quilt that Toni sent me look cute hanging there with “She likes to Nap”?  (It’s true — I Love to Nap!)

Monogram K

Thank you again Toni — I had an ugly wreath hanging there and your quilt is just what that corner needed!

Now…here’s to a happy slide into the weekend for all of you!

XOXO,
Anna

(P.S.  Some technical info for those of you with embroidery machines: these letters come from the Arabesque Monogram Set at Embroidery Arts.  I love Embroidery Arts monograms — they’re beautifully digitized.  I doubled the letter size with my Easy Sizer software.  Easy Sizer is a product of Echidna Sewing (an Australian company) and if you don’t have good re-sizing software, this company can’t be beat.  I looked on their website and didn’t see the Easy Sizer software, they may have sold out to another company by now, but I’m sure an e-mail to them would get some answers.  Years ago, I read on a Yahoo board that they were the best sizing software available and that certainly has been true for me.  My Viking sizing software can’t handle increases more than about 50%.)

Julie and Julia and CrazyMom and Me

Have you all had a good weekend?  We’ve had a nice relaxing weekend here in ThimbleannaLand.  The whole family made the trek to visit TheFirstChild and SweetiePie to celebrate the birthdays of MeMum and TheFirstChild which will occur next week.  It’s always fun when we get together — the cousins are always entertaining and I love to see how they interact with each other.  MyDadLovesMeBestSister probably wishes that my two now-grown boys would leave her three now-adolescent children alone, but hopefully all their lives will be enriched by the mayhem!

Before the big day out, TheManoftheHouse and I went to see Julie and Julia.  Meryl Streep was wonderful and I thought Amy Adams was pretty cool too.  I don’t know that I’d say I loved the movie, but I did really enjoy it — especially with the tie to blogging.  The whole idea of “stalking” a chef from a blog sort of made me think about “stalking” a quilter from a blog.  If I could stalk a quilter, who would it be?  Who is my idol?

Old Quilts

I finally decided that my true quilting heros are all dead.  Long gone.  I love old traditional quilts and the more I’m overwhelmed by all the fabric and pattern choices that we have today, the more I’m in awe of all those women who came before us.  The amazing quilts they made with so few resources.  Can you imagine what they would have done with the wide variety of fabrics that we have?  It’s a little scary to think about it!

Nine Patch

So, speaking of stalking quilters, I might be stalking CrazyMom.  Did you notice that she’s having a second round of her 9 Patch-Along?  (Day 27 already — where has the summer gone?)  She said she just wanted to make another one, but I’m thinking this round might be for her flunkies from round 1, so that we can get caught up.  A Remedial Quilt-Along.

Nine Patch

A second chance – I’m going to do better.  Really.  I’m ready for you this time, CrazyMom.

XOXO,
Anna