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I'll Show You

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I've been kicked out of the house a lot lately. No, Hubby and I are not fighting. Sure, we're stressed with the reno, but we're not fighting. It's just that I need to get one or both of the girls out of the house while he does messy or noisy work. There have been a lot of visits to friends and prep for our Christmas trip, but sometimes none of that can be done. What's a girl to do? Fabric shop, of course!

In total I went to four different local stores:
Traditional Pastimes

As you can see, I bought a wide variety of fabrics. Oh, and this isn't all of them. I saved some special ones from the photo because they are to be made into a quilt for new baby for someone who reads here. Generally, it was simply stash enhancement. A few pieces were for one quilt I have brewing in the back of my head.
It was good to go to a number of stores in a short period of time. We often get used to going to the same one or two places. Once I got out and about (yes, I am Canadian) I could see some big differences in the fabric selection. Hmm, maybe that isn't such a good thing when your money is supposed to be directed towards renos.
It wasn't all brand new fabric either. A few weeks back I swapped with Jacquie for this great retro fabric. She found it on a bolt and I begged her to swap with me. It is going to find its way on to our dining room wall, and maybe some placemats or an apron.

Speaking of walls, check out the sweet wallpaper we found hidden behind the basement bathroom's walls.

Not much quilty activity lately. Just getting the binding sewn down on this baby quilt. I'm trying to finish off a travel colouring case for The Monster. We have a 4 hour flight next weekend and I'm hoping this new treat will carry us for a bit longer than 5 minutes. Oh, and I started some Christmas baking.

Best get back to my budget spreadsheet. The girls are both sleeping, the dogs are finally outside for a spell, and Hubby is buying lumber to make some stairs. And I'm working on a spreadsheet. Fun times.

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If You Can't Buy Shoes...

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Stay-at-home moms don't get Christmas parties. Especially stay-at-home moms married to a self-employed men. There is no reason to go shopping and buy a fancy dress and wickedly sexy shoes. There is no babysitter to find and pay a small ransom. There is no mediocre prime rib dinner and boring dance. There are no door prizes, cheezy centerpieces, and someone embarrassing themselves.

Okay, it isn't all bad. But a night off is nice. My girlfriend Tanya to the rescue (she is so good at that)! She invited a few of us over for treats, gossip, and Grey's Anatomy. We all brought more treats too. That way none of us was really cooking and all our little girls stayed home with Daddy (or were already asleep).

We had a fantastic time. What a treat to talk without interferences from little girls demanding our attention. We ate way too much sugar and talked about everything from Barbies, pajamas, colo-rectal surgery, vacations, bilingualism, waxing, and politics. There was no need to watch what we said, and no reason to watch how much sugar we ate. Oranges gave us some semblance of feeling healthy.

My contribution to the night was peppermint bark. Williams and Sonoma be damned, make it yourself. I am by no means a chocolate making expert, so anyone can do this. If you know how to temper chocolate (to make it solid again at room temperature and a little but shiny), great. I don't, but I try. Either way, it is ridiculously easy and highly addictive. Just keep it in the fridge and no one will know the difference.

Peppermint Bark

4 candy canes
16 ounces semi-sweet or dark chocolate
10 drops peppermint extract
16 ounces white chocolate

1. Prepare a rimmed cookie sheet by lining it with parchment paper.
2. With candy canes still their wrapper bash them lightly with the handle of a knife or a wooden spoon. Don't bash too hard or you will have candy cane dust everywhere. Unwrap them over a bowl.
3. Chop semi/dark chocolate coarsely. In a bowl set over a pot of simmering water melt chocolate slowly. Pull off the heat just before it is fully melted. Stir to finish melting. Let sit, stirring occasionally, for a few minutes, until it is still warm, but not hot. Stir in the peppermint extract. Pour and spread around prepared pan.
4. While the semi/dark chocolate is resting, coarsely chop the white chocolate and melt in a bowl set over a pot of simmering water. Pull off the heat just before it is fully melted. Stir to finish melting. Let sit, stirring occasionally, for a few minutes, until it is still warm, but not hot. Pour directly over the semi/dark chocolate.
5. Sprinkle the candy cane bits over it all.
6. Cool in the fridge until hard. Break into bite size pieces.

Little Helper

I had a little helper the other night. Oh, she was so interested in what I was doing and insisted on helping. It breaks your heart. And drives you insane. Very insane. Just when you get things the way you want she starts placing/throwing blocks around or crawling over the blocks to get one where she thinks it needs to go.


You just can't get mad though. She is taking such interest in quilting. When she wakes up from her nap she comes straight to me at the machine, pulls up the chair next to me, and grabs hold of the quilt to help. Of course, it doesn't really help when you are trying to actually quilt and she's pulling in the opposite direction.

Is she too young to teach how to sew?

Poor Hubby. It's bad enough that he has one girl in the house with this expensive habit. Of course, this is also the girl that loves to go to the basement and look in the holes and watch Daddy bang things.

Oh, an actual quilt update. This was us playing around with the layout for the latest baby quilt. I went with a completely different layout. I thought this was far too busy. I'll post it as soon as the baby is born - my friend reads the blog sometimes so I don't want her to see it here first.

Tragedy

It was a sad day in the kitchen a few weeks ago. With an accidental bump of my wrist while turning on the oven I also turned on a burner on the stove. To maximum. Dinner was cooking away in the oven, and I may have had rice on another burner. We could smell the burning, we opened a window (one day we'll have a hood fan), and we checked inside the oven for crusty bits maybe burning on the dirty floor. Did we drop something on a burner? After about twenty minutes I finally noticed the smoke rising up from the cookie sheet.

Dammit. Dammit. Dammit.

This was the cookie sheet and Silpat Hubby bought me to avoid buying me a new oven. I was sick of burning cookies on my old cookie sheets and I blamed the oven. So he bought me these instead. I have to say that it really helped. I still wish I had a new oven, but I settled for buying two new cookie sheets and Silpats last week. Just in time for christmas baking.