This is much better than it looks

I have a much under-utilised  food processors- right now the name escapes me and I can't be bothered going to the kitchen to look ;o)  It is possibly a Cuisinart.


Anyway.....  I love nut butters. I don't know whether to be saddened or relieved that Number Guy hates them. Hmmm.....Anyway (part 2) I saw a recipe for  pecan butter and decided to give it a whirls.  I bought 3 bags, ate about half of one and chucked the remainder into the food processor this morning. I sure am glad that I went for a good model of FP- although the nuts became warm due to the action of the blade the machine itself didn't come close to becoming warm.

Anyway (part 3) if I can get my phone and Mac talking to each other I will post a pic. Here goes.

(Hooray! It worked. What a PITA- I have to do so much fiddling about that I cannot remember what I did)

 This may not look inviting but  believe me it is divine. I added a little salt and some maple syrup- 2 tbsp of the latter, a good pinch of the former. I may stir in a little more of both, we'll see. My next step witl be to make some candied almonds and then make those into  nut butter.  Yumm.

Economy Block

I am not sure what it is about this  quilt block that I like, but it is my new favourite thing to sew. It is a paper-pieced block (but an also be done 'freestyle'). I saw it a few times on http://www.redpepperquilts.com/ and shelled out the very reasonable price of $2-00 for the PDF

This block has a few different names, such as exploding square, square in a square, but I like the name it has on Red Pepper Quilts- the Economy block.  I am also very happy that one of my Accuquilt dies cuts our the shapes I need. It is called the Value Die, the name of which I think goes neatly  with the block  name.

I think this might becoe a quilt,  but I am not going to get all stressed out, traing to do it in a very short time. I am going to fit these blocks in between other projects.. When i have enough I will will decide what I want to do with them.

Go!Baby

I have finally jumped on the die cutter wagon. Over christmas I saw a lot of people posting about Accuquilt productshttp://www.accuquilt.com/. Finally I could stand it no longer.

There are four options to choose from. I deliberately chose the smallest. There is a large number of dies for this little beauty, many the basic building blocks of quilting.

At the moment I am seeing half-square triangles (HST) together to form 3" squares. They are for some time in the future. This block is very versatile and there are numerous arrangements.

I have also started piecing Drunkard'sPath. This is another classic. Each unit is a quarter circle pieced into a square. It would be very laborious cutting the individual pieces with templates. The Go!Baby makes short work of it.  As is the case with the HST, this is a block which can be combined in a myriad of ways. Again, I am just going to piece and sew and when I have enough for a projects, be it a cushion, an apron or a whole quilt, I will decide what to do. In the meantime I am enjoying piecing the  Drunkard's Path, but it is a little tricky

I will purchase a bigger cutter some time in the future but this handy little cutter will still get a lot of use

This pic has both of the above blocks in it. Half Triangle Square is 3"

And of course, no sewing post is good without a gratuitous kitty pic. 

This is Willow. He is a Devon Rex boy of about 6 months in this picture

 above. In the image below we can see  a very sleepy Gittan being sniffed over by a curious Willow. Gittan is a 3 yo Devon Rex.  I can't say just how wonderful it is to have cats in our lives again :0)