quilt, by gayle thomas

Our guild had a stitch-in last night and today, and during today's, they held a 2-part workshop on making teddy bears. And I took it! I'll share more about it, with pictures of my first bear in progress, tomorrow.

Today, however, I am sharing with you this awesome short film on quilting. It's on the NFB.ca blog. Very inspired and well-worth the view -- it's full of modern and traditional methods of quilting, kaleidoscoped into beautiful eye-candy. Even if you're not a quilter, it's fascinating to watch, and well set to some toe-tapping tunes!

Oh, and ps: Godiva strawberry truffles? YUM!

:)

Valentine's Day Breakfast - Looks like a QUILT to me !

Love the colors.  They would make a great quilt!

Thanks to Gwen and Jerry I had a colorful breakfast with the Valentine's candies, my oatmeal and fresh strawberries. The blue candy is chocolate covered blueberries combined with chocolate covered pecans and I added chocolate covered raisins and strawberries!  Oh and a little coffee to get me started on this bright and sunny Monday morning!

Happy Valentine's Day to all!

 

Note:  I did not eat Ritch's candy.  Although it was tempting!

what a guy!

I'm just gonna take a few well-deserved moments here and brag on my man. He is the total stuff!

Last night (after receiving flowers at work) I came home to a prepared meal. I was so grateful! And let me tell you, my darling man is a *great* cook! We had a hearty stew that was just wonderful. And he cleaned up after dinner to boot.

Then he showed me a picture of what he thinks our next big purchase for RV living should be:

Is that awesome or what???? It actually is pretty cool. It's portable, fits a full place setting for four, and it will SANITIZE our dishes while it cleans them. With all the sickness the two of us have been enjoying over the last two months, that's pretty important. Even when I rinse the dishes in rinse water with Clorox diluted into it, I don't feel like they're as clean as they need to be!

Cute, non? It looks a little like a microwave! I just wanna pinch its cute little cheeks! Ahem. Anyway . . .

So, as if all that (flowers, dinner, dishwasher) is not enough, this morning Todd, my SUPERman, leaves when I leave for work so he can open and shut the gate for me. He's so sweet! So as he walks to the gate, he opens my car door and slips me a little sugar . . . literally *and* figuratively!

What can it be?? I know one thing . . . it's from one of my favorite stores, Two Friends! (I did lots of Secret Pal shopping there.)

A heart-shaped box of Godiva chocolates! Godiva chocolates are my favorite! They even make flowers smell better. Really, they do! Can you believe this husband of mine? Flowers & dinner yesterday, chocolates today . . . gracious!

Yum, yum, yum. This is true love. I am a spoiled, pampered wife. I know I've got it good! You know what the best part is, though? He's such a godly man; he loves the Lord and serves Him with all his heart.

I am blessed.

:)

Oh. My. Goodness.

And I've not even tasted of it yet! But it sure is beautiful to behold, if I do say so myself. Of course, I didn't come up with the recipe, I just followed it very, very carefully!! The true test comes after dinner tomorrow, when Todd and I slice into it for dessert! Shoot, if it didn't need to refrigerate for at least two hours before serving (and Esther notes that it's better when refrigerated overnight), I'd load it up in the car and take it to Station 6, and we'd get into the darn thing right now! :) Ha! At least that way I wouldn't have to worry about eating more than one piece!!!

I was very impressed with the whipped cream/sour cream frosting. It was superb. Very light, and not overly sweet. It will probably be the perfect compliment to the marmalade and the very dense cake. Man, with five eggs, four egg yolks, a cup of butter, a cup of oil, and a cup of buttermilk -- talk about rich! It needed a light frosting!

There are some things I would do differently next time, if there were to be a next time (which there probably won't be, since I'm not taking the Kitchen Aid mixer on the RV).

For instance, I would definitely only purchase name brands. I didn't purchase name brands for the heavy whipping cream or the marmalade. I don't know that it'll make any difference, but something niggled at the back of my brain that if you want to bake the finest product, use the finest ingredients. File that.

I don't think I did a good enough job tapping the air bubbles out of the cake batter pans, before I put them into the oven. It didn't seem to pose a problem, I just think I could have done better.

I would use a little more marmalade next time. Twelve ounces didn't seem to be quite enough to nicely cover both of the inner layers and to lay a nice showing on the top.

Other than those things, I believe it was GREAT! I can certainly now understand Esther's reluctance to make the darn thing, though. Good gravy, what a time consumer!! I remember in one of the books, Esther (Bollick) fumes that no one eats cake any more, much less bakes them from scratch. I don't wonder why!!!

Still . . . it did look awfully grand and impressive, sitting there on the counter. I will try to remember to take a picture of it before we slice it tomorrow night!

I think I'll try Lew Boyd's chocolate cake next.

Bon nuit!

:)