Lazy mom cooks. (stealthy meat muffins)

Oh I was going to get you a link on stealthy vegetables and turns out it's a hot little topic! I totally do it. I also make my family eat whole vegetables because veggies are yummy. But I stealth them because then my sauces go further and how can even MORE veggies hurt. And in all honesty I TELL them, so if they grow up only liking veggies puried into things they can just make them that way for themselves.

Anyhow I'm a lazy mom. Sorta, I mean I think I'm a good mom. But some things I'm lazy about. This is one of my favorite recipies for when I really don't feel like cooking.
Ingredients. Now you can vary these, the important parts are the stuffing (any kind you like, although the cornbread ones make weird meat muffins) something wet, like the ketchut, eggs (not pictured) and ground beef (not pictured) The first thing is to put all your canned veggies in your mixer and mix the heck out of them. MMM that looks delicious.
Random: this is why I love an easy recipe. This is not poor photography, my kids really are two blonde blurrs. Also I'm not sure if it's important to the recipe so I'll add you should shout, "don't touch that" and "Get out of the kitchen" a few times while making this. Also "What did he do?" "Stop hitting your brother" and "get out of the laundry room" will work. Also the little corner where your fridge is makes an effective time out, adding "No talking, every time you talk I'm starting this time out over" to the things you must chant at your food.
So after you mix up the veggies add the other stuff. Yes, I used that whole bag of stuffing. I don't know how much ground beef, not tons. Do you shop at Costco? I use two of those odd circle things the meat comes in at Costco to make 24 meat muffins. Mix enough that the wet stuff pretty much dissolves the bread from the stuffing. It works if you don't but is odder because you can SEE bread in your meat muffin.

Then plop them into a muffin pan you sprayed with cooking spray. (I use Winn Dixie brand, I use a LOT of Winn Dixie brand stuff, not green beans though WD green beans are poop.

(apparently you should also yell, "What did you do to him" while blogging, then hold the short kid while he cries)

I like to add a good bit of catsup to the tops of my muffins. This looks like "frosting".. if you squint. Sorta. Anyhow baked catsup is super tasty. I justify the sugar in it by all those veggies I put in.
Then you bake at 350 until it's done. Like 20-30 minutes. Start looking at it around 20.

I rekon you don't have to serve a veggie with this. I'm serving pineapple for dessert.

quilt progress:

I'm quilting. All the time. My even feed is loud. It gives me a headache. But it's looking good.

Well the blurr children are calling for me to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. I'm an awesome singer. (no)

Pinned (stinking WIP)

I pinned Gram's quilt and I'm ready to quilt it. I hope it goes either quickly or unexpectedly enjoyably. I think the quilting is the boring part. Not boring enough to pay someone else to do it though. random close up
This is the freaking expensive batting I got. I got freaking expensive batting because I wanted it to look antique right away and this is so dense and thin I thought it would help me with that. I also accidentally went to the shop without my measurements. So I got three yards of this. It's like 80 inches wide. I have TONS left, I used about half of what I bought. Sigh. Upcoming baby quilt with freaking expensive batting.
To cheer myself up (after buying freaking expensive batting) I made my friend's son this change purse. He needs it for his milk money as he's a big Kindergardner now.
I got this fabric at the thrift store to back Ethan's quilt in. I love it in person with the fabrics of the quilt. It looks a little too dull here. I also got Volume 11 of Just Cards! magazine in the mail today, I have some cards in it! So that's fun. I'm such a dork, my neighbor was outside in his yard when I got the mail and I handed it to Ethan and said, "Look baby, Mommy is published in this magazine." Like either Ethan OR my neighbor cares! haha. But yall care right? :) TONS of my friends are in this one too. It's so fun. Sherri, Terri, Awana, Ethel, Vicki, Keri, Kim Hughes (who I don't know personally but I stalk her enough to "know" her), Charity, Karen, probably more, tell me if you are in it and I'll add you! I gotta go quilt.

Quilt sketches

Here are my sketches of how I might layout the zig zag quilt

On this first one the black lines are actually going to be little teensy pleats. Like little 1/4 inch piping that's not filled with anything.

This is the same thing but with green "piping" instead of black. Also it would have the extra white space on top and bottom, like in the first pic, I forgot to draw that in.
This one has no piping but applique black circle shapes. This my favorite becaue I love the high contrast, but Brian doesn't really like it too much.
And this is a final option. This is what I originally had in mind. The green zig zag lines represent me just using green thread to quilt those parts.
So what do you all think? Any opinions? Other variations I should try out? I'm only considering adding black, otherwise just the orange/green/white. Oh and Ethan loves balls and black, so maybe that's going to make him like the black circle one? I'll ask him tomorrow which he likes and come back and tell you. If he feels strongly about one (at the ripe old age of 2) I'll just go with whatever that is. Oh and any will have more/less rows as needed to make it fit his bed well.

I guess another option is no white rows, just lots of zig zags. I'm going to go sketch that up. If I plan that right will it just MAKE white zig zags in between the rows? If so I might do that. I like that idea, although it's TONS more cutting and fabric buying.

Ok I went and drew it just now. Couldn't wait. I like it a lot:

I think I like the idea of the white border and green binding. With some sort of thin green to hold the zig zags in. Probably that empty piping thing I said. Doesn't it figure the one with tons more stinking triangles is the one I like? I really don't like making those. I really LOVE them in quilts. Well maybe this will give me the practice I need. Oh and since this one has SUCH a strong geometric with so many zigs I think I would do the quilting freeform. I think. Maybe. I dunno.

Ethan's zig zag quilt.

I was inspired by THIS quilt a The Purl Bee. Ethan loves green and heaven forbid we make something that could possibly be Gator inspired. So I'm doing orange and green. I'm gong to need more green. I'm going to do a wide green border too I think. Trying to green it up a bit.
Close up of the zig zag action
I may do the quilting in orange and green thread too. Not sure.

Anyhow, Ethan is only 2, but he needs something for his bed (making this twin sized) and I looked for something that would be bold and fun for a toddler but maybe he can still think is funky and fun as he gets older. That's the hope at least, as I don't want to make him a new quilt every few years, I want him to cherish this one.

The fabrics are from Joannes in the fat quarter section. Cuz I'm cheap. I used the tutorial at Purl Bee for the layout, which I think is super clever. I squared with my Making Memories eyelet setter mat! Turns out it's 4 inches square, so after I sewed the triangels together I used that to make sure it was totally square and same sizes.

Finished the top to the quilt

Last night I finished adding the border to the quilt. I repeated those blue square detail blocks in the border corners. (my quilt model is in time out, so he didn't help with the pic)

Tomorrow morning I go to my first ever quilt show! Everyone cross your fingers that I don't spend ANY money. There is really nothing I need except to stop buying stuff. If they have a selection of Japanese fabrics, all bets are off! Oh and of course I need batting for this thing I might get that at the local craft store though.

More progress on Brian's Gram's quilt

Well I did the sashing and the little blue square thingies where it meets up. I'm really happy with it so far. I just want to do some wide, like 5 inch, border in the yellow and the top will be done. :) close up of the little square part.
close up of a block and it's sashing.
With 3 yr old child for scale. (It's important when modeling with a quilt to look distressed and hold onto your "junk") And the top block is a full block, I just hung part over the fence, yall knew that right?
And folded up. I love pics of people's quilts folded up.
I also foun a white cotton that is EXACTLY the same shade of white that is in the white part on the quilt. EXACTLY. So I got that instead of muslin. Oh I think I forgot to tell you at all, the medium blue just wasn't cutting it for me. So I was going to do white muslin. But the muslin only came in white white and unbleached. This white cotton I got is PERFECTION. It was only $4 a yard. So I got it. :)

Super Retro.

Went thrifting today. Found this fabulously odd fabric. It was sewn into an appliance cover. I checked and it didn't fit my sewing machine. I couldn't stand to see this in my kitchen. It was sewn so the fruit was upside down too. :( Anyhow.

I cut it up and made a zip pouch. (with the oddly colored fruit right side up)

Here is the back, which really shows off the green cherries and green strawberries.
Here is the little tab thingie. I piped the edges of it. You can't really tell in the photo, but they are piped.
Inside. It features a thrift find metal zipper. The orange is a scrap of Ikea fabric.
I made this piping with some cord I got at the thrif shop.
Total cost for supplies $1.50. And I still have about a mile of cord.

Gotta love the thrift shop. :)

Wish this bag were yours? You can get it HERE.

Spooky Halloween

I made another card. Two card posts in one day! It's like I'm some sort of cardmaker or something. *I did sew on this one though* You can't tell but the spider is glittery.
Inside view in second pic.

All stamps are Gina K Designs.

Super simple stamped Christmas Card

Yesterday I cleaned my craft room. A LOT. I took out all my fabric and folded it and organized it, cleaned drawers, all sorts of stuff. Really super clean.

It made me want to make a really clean card design. So I did.

I used the bias stripe backgrounder by Cornish Heritage Farms. The "joy" is from a Stampin' UP set. I added the dots in the stripe and the ones between the "joy" with copic specia glitter pens. It does shimmer in real life. That's it. Oh I used a stamp-a-ma-jig for placement on the "joy" part. I really like this simple card. :) I think I'm going to sell stuff today. On The Stamp Shack. So if you are a reader of mine AND a Stamp Shack member keep your eyes peeled, I might just sell some stuff off. I just put my Stampin Up order in finally, and it was $85. That's not bad at all, but as I only have $100 a month for spending, and a fabric addiction to support.... So I need to see if I can offload some stuff I don't use. :)

Oh and do you want to know what I got from SU? Ok here we go:
House of Haunts
Pocket Silhouettes
Inspired by Nature
and the Earth Elements WC crayons.

Those 4 things come to $85! Gulp.

Cute Monday

It's Cute Monday. My little help for the general crappyness of Mondays. (unless you like Monday, then it's a celebration of your awesome Monday)

Here's the list:
Best monkey fabric EVER: (click all the views, a mushroom chaises him!) http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=14786284
Happy food fabric http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=cat3_list_17&listing_id=15030633
Elephant pouch http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=15390243
Faces on food is always cute http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=15380757
Waterproof elephants http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=cat2_list_5&listing_id=15418044
More food with faces http://www.flickr.com/photos/sewsew/2806873632/
Super cute tiger plush http://www.flickr.com/photos/elbooga/2865539807/in/pool-cuteable
Stunning artwork http://www.flickr.com/photos/dudadaze/2865844798/in/pool-cuteable
Whole collection of fruit with faceshttp://www.flickr.com/photos/silvietta80/2563588263/
Stunning Alice in Wonderland photography http://www.flickr.com/photos/whoisalex/2599959083/
Super crinkly baby quilt http://www.flickr.com/photos/alissacrafts/2674964751/

Oh and in case you wonder why I don't post pictures of the Cute Monday stuff. Well I'm lazy. See to post a picture from someone elses site I feel I'd have to have permission. And I have a hard enough time getting permission for the pics I put on the Inspirational blog. I don't want Cute Monday to be work! Also you really should go to these people's sites/blogs/stores/photostreams. I rarely find something cute that there's not a whole bunch of more cute by the same artist.

Sashing update

After much consideration I think I'm going to sash. With a NEW color. I'll be honest I had not considered this. But a few people suggested it and I'm liking it. I'm thinking yellow. It has to be a country looking yellow though, so it goes. I'll go to Joannes and pick one out. Oh Or maybe I'll treck my lazy self out to the quilt shop and see what they have? Hmmmm, quilt shop!

I'm considering a dark blue on the little squares formed where the two sash rows come together. You know what I mean? Sorta like THIS.

Then thin white, thick blue. Then binding. I'm really wanting to do real binding so I'm gonna. Maybe machine apply it though. Love my machine. Gonna stitch in the ditch, but on the borders I will either hand quilt hearts all the way around or something else. I mean they will need something. :) Although THIS Ohio star quilt ROCKS and is quilted with a yummy stipple. (seriously, go look at this awesome quilt)

As I don't have this third color fabric, and it's Sunday (We don't shop on Sundays) I'm on a quilt break for now. Oh and thanks blog readers, it looks like my block is called "Ohio Star". So thanks people of Ohio for your great and easy star.

Oh and I realized just now that the darker squares were supposed to be Shoo Fly squares. See on the linked quilt how some squares have Ohio Star and some have a different pattern? Well looking at the half sewn stuff that I didn't understand so ignored I can see that the plan was to be an Ohio Star/Shoo Fly quilt. I guess when you hand you work 30 years later to some new quilter though you might see it deviate from the plan. I seriously thought the Shoo Fly square looked super odd and weird. But looking at quilts done with it I see the beauty. I need a quilt book! Sheesh.

To sash or not to sash, that is the question.

I've mentioned this before, but I'm making a quilt for Brian's Gram. It's made with material she purchased and had cut ages ago. I had to figure out what the pattern was supposed to be, and sew it all up. She gave it to me, but she doesn't know I'm giving her the quilt. (I don't think Gram reads my blog, if you do Gram, how about you just act suprised)

So I finished making the blocks. I mean, I think this is what they were supposed to look like. There are any number of patterns you can make with tirangles and squares. There was a half sewn block that gave me the idea that this is what was ment to be.

Phew, I tend to ramble.

Ok I'm thinking I like the idea of sewing them right together like this, then a thin border of the white then a fatter border of the blue. I have a medium blue for the backing and I don't know what I'll bind it with. Does that sound good to everyone? Other options are doing sashing with the white or blue, then a border with the other. Or reverse that, or no border, no sashing, but then it would be pretty small. And I'm almost certain that I will stitch in the ditch for quilting. I am considering hand quilting hearts into the white squares as well. We will see how fed up with this project I am at that point. Maybe just the white squares that are in the middle of the mostly blue blocks?
So there you have it? Sashing? Borders? White or blue? Binding color? Can I just stitch in the ditch or do I need to stitch huge X's in the squares to match the triangle bits.

Oh and for the record, stinking UFO WIP.

Zippers!!!

I recently broke my stupid No Buy to purchase these: It's 100 zippers. I love 100 zippers. I want 500 zippers! I love zippers. Got them HERE. They shipped the next day, priority mail, got them super fast. And you can see I got even prettier colors than their pic. Maybe they should use MY pic instead?
And arn't they the most lovely colors? I really think so. Only one is black. Not that I'd have minded more black, I like black. But these are more fun really. My favorite is this one peach one. Peach is a great color. I'm ignoreing those horrid purple ones. Some day I will need a purple zip and I'll have it. Joy!

Yesterday I hosted Kids Crafts Playgroup. I'm going to do it once a month. We made paper bag hand puppets. Here they are: The hand belongs to Stephen who cannot keep himself out of most shots.

My mom updated Thrift Finds more with no good teasers but a comment that I'll be happy with her crafty haul. She did let me know that the two BOLTS of interfacing was gone. They were $2 a bolt. I can't really think about that too much or I will get all ungrateful and jealous. Someone in the Treasure Coast is rocking some awesomely cheap interfacing. Lets all hope they make something lovely and that it blesses their lives.

Gifty goodness

Ok First up. Kim and I are doing a one on one Halloween Swap. I made this for Kim, she got it today. So I can show you: It's a quilted wall hanging. With bats. Kim loves bats.
This was my first time doing stippling quilting. I KNOW it's not supposed to cross, Kim doesn't know that though so I don't think she will care. I stippled my name right in too!
I also did a FREAK TON of satin stitching. Like too much really. But who cares, I like the look. I can tell it was too much because this tiny wall hanging quilt took THREE spools of thread. haha.

In other gifty news my mom SCORED BIG for me at her thift shop. Me, Mom, Kim, and my brother Jeff keep a blog called THRIFT FINDS which you can see the stuff mom got me on. I called her up and she said there really is tons more, doesn't want to totally ruin the suprise. I'm super excited.

Busy day, just one quilt

I have a super busy day today. We have church Craft Playgroup, here at my house in about 20 minutes. Then me and my boys need to go over to the church (poor planning on my part having everyone come here then me go there, should have had them go there) for our cleaning assignment. Also we are dropping off food for a Singles activity. They needed help with some food. It's good I'm bringing it as I keep eating a bit. Soon there won't be any left!

So with all that I don't know if I'll make anything today. I decided to share this quilt I made ages ago. Like 6 years ago... maybe more. Anyhow it is on my bed. It's the first quilt I ever made. Here is a close up.
And look at this funky binding. I am entirely self taught, well now I'm reading books and such but at this time I was, so I didn't know how to bind a quilt. So I did this, it's actually double fold binding, straight, not on the bias, and then I didn't know how to turn the corners, so I mitered them. Pretty bad huh? Oh well! haha.
I don't know if you can tell but I used the teensiest little stitch length too. Because I'm weird I guess. haha.

Dabbled Halloween Contest

I think it's a well known fact that I LOVE Halloween. I think it's the cutest holiday. And I like my holidays cute!

So when I saw that Dabbled was having a Halloween Contest I had to participate in some way.

I am a prize contributor for the contest! Hurrah. I'm giving this cute zipper pouch. I pieced blocks of Halloween fabric across the front and appliqued that all on, then sewed the ribbon over the edges. The bag has a black zipper and a little handle that is the same ribbon. It's lined with Halloween fabric.

So make something fun for Halloween. You get extra credit if you do a tutorial. I know most of my cardmaking friends are already doing ADORABLE cards. Why not enter them in the contest? You could win fun prizes. I just saw that food counts too! Halloween has the cutest foods!

In other news:

I spent the night in the Emergency Room last night. I woke up in the worst pain ever. Seriously worst pain of my life. I for REAL thought I was having some super rare 30 year old heart attack. The pain was in the center of my chest and went down my right arm. I was nausaus (sp). It was terrible. After about 30 minutes of trying to treat myself I had to wake up my husband. (who sleeps like a ROCK) We prayed and looked on the net and decided a trip to the hospital was in order. We woke up our kids and off we went. Place was empty at 3am. Great time to go.

Ok to make a REALLY long boring story short, they ran tests and took X Rays and so on. It's a GI issue. So basicly some super fancy way of saying heartburn. SERIOUSLY. I was totally shamed. I mean who goes to the ER because of heartburn? But you guys, it was MAJOR. I am not kidding the worst pain of my life. I've had two kids, some surgeries, been punched in the face, this was the WORST. (interestingly second worst was getting my dry socket after wisdom teeth removal packed)

So we get home around 6am. My kids don't go back to sleep. I'm amazed, they have been up sense 2am just like me. They are crabby and clearly tired and won't sleep. I fell alseep for an hour and they tore up the house. In general today sucks. Tomorrow should be fine after I get sleep.

Jennifer's bag

I made this bag for my good friend Jennifer. She's an American girl living in Canada so I thought she might like this red/white/blue color scheme. She got the bag today so I can show you. Sorry the pics are not great I didn't realize it until I'd already sent it off to Canada.

I'm particularly proud of the ribbon on twill detail on the little button thingie.
Here is the other side.
Inside, and the pocket.
And that's about it for this bag. It's such a fun simple bag to make. I used THIS tutorial. I believe this tutorial is so famous that people are refering to this bag as "The Tiny Happy Sholder Bag". I've seen it on lots of blogs, and no wonder, it's super easy and cute and deep and useful and fun.