Passover

I don't know exactly how it happened but our seder took a turn towards the silly this year. In years past, we have always had thoughtful, insightful discussions at our seder table. Not this year. It probably had something to do with the plague props I brought home from school. Even when the girls were young we didn't use plague props! Why this year? I don't know!

I just did!

My new salt and pepper shakers set the tone..........This has nothing to do with the silliness, just a great picture!

Poor Ms. A! She asked me when she would stop being the youngest at the table?! I told her as soon as she has children she can stop saying the 4 questions !!!!! (4 questions info here and here) LOL!! In actuality we all helped her. She has been the youngest for 23 years now!

As I said, I brought home all of my plague props from school. Here are Mrs. S. and Mr. FancyPants trying to keep up with us! They had finger puppets and were racing to get them on their fingers as fast as we read!
In order to use all of my plague props we had to read them twice! Here are all of the other props. Ms. A and C2 were in charge of the second set of props. I didn't have the patience to get the photos in proper order.....

blood...

frogs....

locust....(LOVE this ENORMOUS prop!)


hail..... (falling from the sky in this shot!)

on the ground here.....

cattle disease............

C2 is demo-ing my fancy schmacy cow that collapses toy!

Pharaoh and Moses with one of the wild beasts.......


It just goes to show that making a seder memorable is fun........

(the sunglasses represent darkness......C2 realllly appreciated his kiddie glasses!! LOL!)

...................NO MATTER WHAT YOUR AGE!

(did ya' notice the matzo kippot!)

Oooooo FUN!

I've been waiting and waiting and finally.....................

I ordered this on Sunday and got it on Weds. Couldn't be happier with the customer service. Couldn't be happier with the possibilities of this book. Can't wait to get started!

Passover Brownies

I don't know how many out there reading this blog are Jewish, but if I can save even one person from expensive, horrid boxed mix or dry homemade Passover brownies, this posting will be worthwhile!

If you do not celebrate Passover, you are totally unaware of the cardboard food we endure during the holiday. During the 8 days of Passover it is forbidden to eat any foods that

"have been made from the five major grains (wheat, rye, barley, oats and spelt) and has not been completely cooked within 18 minutes after coming into contact with water." Flour products come into this catagory. We do eat matzo

and have come up with any number of ways to manipulate the otherwise library paste ( it is only flour, water and salt) into tasty holiday dishes. Desserts are not usually one of those tasty dishes.

We like these brownies so much that the girls request them! Unheard of in Passover dessert circles!!!! (click on the photo to make bigger) I used dark cocoa this year. That is why my brownies are nearly black. In the past I've added KFP chocolate chips. I do not add nuts because my family doesn't like them. All in all though, MMM, MMM, GOOD!

(To really be fair, cardboard food only comes into play if you try to substitute the matzo and matzo products for your regular products that leaven. Ever since DH and I stopped eating bread and bread products, the only problem Passover posed for us is that we are required to eat matzo at the seder and that we want to eat the holiday foods we grew up with . Like any tradition we look forward to the foods of the holiday. Other than that, leaving out leavened food is not difficult to merge with our everyday diet. Meat and vegis and fruit have no leavening!)

Locker Hooking rug

I looooove this rug. It took me about 6 weeks to finish (4 weeks to do the bulk of it) and used up 11 yards....no not a typo.....11 yards of fabric! It weighs a ton!!!!!! I can't seem to go into the sewing room and use my machine but I'm still having a good time with other fabric projects!

Shot glass vs. garbage disposal

Grinding up a shot glass in the garbage disposal..................stupid!

Having a garbage disposal rusting away and needing replaced......already known.

Creating large holes with the shot glass.....................incredible.

Spending money that wasn't expected.......expensive.

Being all ready to make horseradish and Passover bagels but can't.................annoying.

Needing to wash the dishes from making chicken soup and Passover brownies but unable to .....frustrating.

Breaking the glass (huh??) pan collecting water when the disposal crashes down onto it.........ridiculous.

(cool picture through the drain.......)

Looking at DH's "plumber problem" (use your imagination) all afternoon as he fixes the disposal......uck!

Getting this picture of DH...................priceless!

More Chatter

Ahem..........more, uhm, well, photos from my camera phone!

Just chatter

Is this not the cutest? I won't tell you where or how I got it but will say that sometimes camera phones aren't the best thing for retailers...........

The truth behind the quilt

You saw the finished product of Ms. A's quilt. What you didn't see was the horrid thing it was before it became Ms. A's quilt!

I don't know how Ms. CCCat managed to get this thing in shape but she is the pinning QUEEN! She measures and pins and measures and pins and my uneven, poorly sewn quilt miraculously became one that was only 1/4" off from top to bottom. To be fair to myself, and my ego, I never planned on this becoming a quilt let alone one as big as it was. It took a few years to finish, I managed to make some sashing 2 1/2" and some 2"! I used mostly Kona Cotton for the sashing but a bit of some realllllly cheapo black came into play at some point. I never really measured correctly and so.....well.....it was a lousy, lousy top.

I couldn't get the borders on correctly and once again, Ms. CCCat fixed it. How, I'll never know. However, when you look at these pictures you will see the wrinkles, bubbles..... mountains even that we mangaged to pin and quilt out! All in all it is an amazing feat that we, and I do use that term veeerrryyyy loosely, managed to finish this and Ms. A is sleeping under it today.

Ms. A's quilt

The name of this quilt is...."I used to be a pillow."

It all started a few years ago..........I had been reading about using scraps and telephone book paper to make blocks. Intriguing idea! I made one block. Ooooooooooooo fun! I made another and as the late painter Bob Ross would say, "It got to feeling good." A few more blocks and I thought, hmmm, "I have these brand new very big pillow forms...I could make a pillow. In walks one or the other daughter and they say, "Hey is that a quilt for me?" Big sigh! A few years and a few hundred blocks later....viola' ! A quilt!

In the course of quilting this monster, (It was shaped something like a trapazoid when we began it........My wizard Ms. CCCat managed to pin it to death and it finished with only a 1/4" variance from top to bottom!), we became slaphappy. We were not sure what to do once we finished the top border.

We knew what I was going to quilt into the body but were looking for some pizzazz!

Ms. CCCat, who by her name loves cats, suggested we quilt cats into it. I was totally against it as Ms. A hates cats! I think my exact words were, "Ms. A hates cats..... HEY, Ms. A HATES cats! Let's do it!!!" I'm such a good mom! So., as a joke, we quilted one cat into the top.

Like Lay's potato chips, that wasn't enough so we quilted cats with each pass of the longarm. It became a game to hide them in the freemotion quilting!!!!

Suddenly, Ms. CCCAt came up with the idea that we needed mice for the cats to chase! Soon we were quilting a mouse AND a cat. Before you knew it, we had the idea to put mice in the entire border!

All and all it came out cute! Ms. A has a great sense of humor and cracked up when she saw the quilting, and we had a great time goofing around with the longarm.
The photos are not the greatest but it really came out cute. I also made her matching pillowcases....no cats!

Minkee Monday

I know, it's all or nothing with me. No posts for a month, then 2 in one day....go figure!


Ms. Minkee discovered that I wear dangle earrings! I was sitting on the floor and she jumped on the rocker. She was having a blast just batting at them!

Mrs. S's Birthday

Mrs. S made me very old last week....she turned 25! I don't know how that can be as I am still 25!!!!! Here were her presents....

I don't know how many of these birthday banners I've made but the book was an investment well made.

I bought the pattern for this candle mat at Quilt festival in Houston and actually made it in two days! While I was on spring break I bought a Bedazzler and bedazzled it! It was so much faster than tying on seed beads!!!! Plus it was too much fun! I would have liked to use some jazzier wool felt but these were the colors I had.

The cupcake pattern came from this blog. Mty version came out kinda wierd because I used wool felt for both the outside and liner of the cupcake holder. It is good enough but I'll try it again when I'm in less of a hurry and I'm sure it will look better.

I also made her puppy pillowcases but as ususal, forgot to photograph them!

All in all a mostly homemade birthday. Whew! It's so much easier to buy gifts!

March Gift

Better late than never......on posting that is! Here are the March gifts I gave my girls. I do believe I used up the bulk of the bagel fabric. It is so rewarding to use something, maybe not to extinction, but enough that it is truly a scrap!

Kreative Quilting Award

I'm soooooo slow! I'm not unappreciative.......just slow!!! On March 14th, Esteemarlu sent me this award.Thank you so much Esteemarlu! It makes me happy to know that even with my haphazard blogging right now, you are still out there!!!!!!

I actually have finished projects to post!!! WhoooooHOOOOOO!

Another luggage tag friend!

It has taken me an eternity to finally post this but it is from Pam. I don't think she has a blog but here is a picture of her fancywork!!! It is so exciting to know that others are enjoying these luggage tags as much as I!