St. Patty's Day Cabbage Anyone?

Have I mentioned before that our Katie, was born on St. Patty's Day???????

These are pictures you may have seen before, from her Irish Honeymoon last summer.

 

No, we didn't eat Corned Beef & Cabbage each year because she wasn't fond of it as a child and she was a Taco girl!  So we ate tacos every St. Pattys Day, sometimes in green spinach tortillas!

One cabbage recipe that has always been a hit, however is Cabbage Lasagne!  I know, sounds a little off putting at first, but wait til you try it!  We've even done this Dutch Oven style over the campfire for a Llama Association Rendezvous Potluck.  We just bagged up the layers in ziplocs at home and put it together at the campsite.  I made it last night for our over the phone surprise birthday party where we shared not just one but TWO birthday cakes that our Irish Lovin' girl was unable to partake in.  We made her suffer without a shred of guilt!  We giggled and laughed all evening!  We also had the delightful company of our youngest son, his girlfriend/fiancé & her little nieces, ages 5 & 9!  Those little girls have our son wrapped around their fingers and lovingly call him No-No, the nickname Noah was given by a former basketball coach!

 

Cabbage Lasagne Recipe

 

Brown 1 lb. Ground Beef

add 1 diced onion & 1 diced bell pepper & saute'.  Drain.

Add one Jar/Can of Spagetti Sauce with Mushrooms.

In a 9 x 13 baking dish layer 1/2 head chopped cabbage.

Cover with 1 lb. of grated Mozzerella Cheese.

Top with Ground Beef Mixture and Bake at 350 for 1 hour.

 

If you're doing Crockpot or Dutch Oven you can double the recipe and do multi layers.

That way you won't waste half of a perfectly good head of cabbage, unless you're making Cole Slaw to serve on the side.

 

Last night I wanted one pan to go and one pan to keep at home for later.

I used the other half of my cabbage for the second pan and only doubled the meat, peppers, cheese and spaghetti sauce (combining 2 different favorite flavors)

I stuck to just one onion because for my tumbly, one onion goes a long way.

I just divided everything up evenly as I layered back and forth between the two!

 
I hope you try it and enjoy the cheesy goodness as much as we do!

I wish you all a Happy St. Patricks Day, as mine has been so blessed these past 31 years!

Katies 4-H/FFA/Growing Up with Critters Memory Quilt in Honor of her Vet School Graduation.

 

 

~Nancie O'Anne

 



Country Homecoming Quilt Along Month Two

It's time to share the next two blocks for my Country Homecoming Quilt!

I worked on a very uncharacteristically primitive buttonhole stitch while watching 4 episodes of The Quilt Show at the computer this afternoon with Maecee cuddled up behind me in my office chair.

Did you know that since this is International Quilting Weekend you can log on to The Quilt Show and watch any of 160 older episodes of the show for free?  This goes through Sunday and I made a short list of a few more that I want to see before the weekend is over.  I struggle a bit with the idea of paying to watch a show online...but then again, we pay for subscriptions to Quilt Magazines, right?

So here are the next two blocks, I was inspired by a door that one of the other participants made last month who was brave enough to cut it on the bias.  I love the crosshatched look!  I decided that this month I needed to try adding shutters to my windows!  Aren't they cute with shutters?  Again, the big picture window in the living room is my own design choice.  HOME, to me, always has a big front window...otherwise, how are you going to share your Christmas Tree with the rest of the neighborhood?  The grey and green house may get another couple of windows, we'll see.

I purchased the awesome red homespun with the little gold and black stripes running through it last month when I had that "Tree, Tree, Tree, SQUIRREL!" moment. 

It is the prettiest red!  Love, Love, Love It!

Oh yeah...check out the chimneys on the grey/green house...Its this cool woven stuff with little saltbox houses and stars in it that I found in the tub of an old wringer washer at one of the local LQS's.  I dug every little scrap of it out that I could get my hands on and stuffed it in my little grab bag.  In true salvage fashion the door and shutters on that house came from a little 6 x 6 square that was in the same tub!  SCORE!

 

Rather than tracing every little window and shutter individually, I'm doing the math and cutting a strip of fusible web large enough for several same size pieces at once, fusing it to my fabric then cutting them out with my trusty ruler and rotary cutter.  So much more efficient!  Especially when you've been doing other things and now find yourself in a time crunch!

To see what the other participating architects have been building, take a trip over to

Kim's Big Quilting Adventure!

 

 

My 5'9" tall Leprechaun...daughter...has a birthday Monday!

Shipped her package to her today...oh how I miss her naughty little Leprechaun ways!

Since she has relocated we are getting together Sunday night with the rest of the kids who are in town and we are going to Skype her and then sit and eat her birthday cake in front of the camera!  Teach her to move so far away!!!!!

Orneriness seems to be contagious in this family!  I'm not sure where they all get it!

 

Watch for Rainbows!  Pot o' Gold or not, they're a treasure in themselves!

 

~NancieAnne

 

 

 

Quilty Fun Progress

Here are the most recent Quilty Fun Sew Along blocks that I made last weekend!

 

We're on the downhill run now as we are just a few weeks from making our final blocks and setting our tops together!  Don't let this dissuade you from starting though...it's never too late to begin!

 

If you'd like to see a ton of super cute blocks, visit the Quilty Fun Flickr Page.

You can find it HERE.

 

I've purposely saved some of the steps that I consider "filler" blocks so that I can make decisions about dispersing colors around the quilt.  It might be scrappy and fun, but I still feel the need to do some planning and evaluating to bring some of my own wonky sense of balance to the finished product.

 

~Nancie Anne

 

Stash Beyond Life Expectancy? Who Me????

As part of my Quilty Goal Setting for this year I'm trying to be good. 

I'm trying not to add to my stash.  I'm trying to match up what I have with patterns I love. 

Really I am! 

Sound familiar?????

I Fail...I fell off the wagon and bought more homespuns for Country Homecoming on the way home from work last night! 

I stopped in to look at Quiltmania and I had one of those Tree, Tree, Tree, SQUIRREL! moments!

 

Oh well...I know I'm not alone...

 

 

So...I,

in celebration of my success as an Intuitive Fabric Collector

aka someone who just knows she'll need that incredible chunk of fabric someday

& will kick herself if she doesn't purchase it now!

(Can you believe I just thought of that all by myself?)

 

I invite you to join me in entering the Keepsake Quilting drawing to WIN FREE Fabric for Life!

 

Would you like to win free fabric for life?  Say What???  Who wouldn't?!?!?!  Well, one lucky winner will win free fabric for 20 years and that's quite a stash!  Two more winners will win free fabric for a year, not too shabby either!  There are more prizes beyond that!  You can enter daily by Clicking Here!

Good Luck!  I figure my odds of winning are waaaay better than becoming an Olympic Medalist!  Right???

~Nancie Anne

Building Houses & Playing Catch-Up!

 

Block Fourteen in the Quilty Fun Sew Along is Neighborhood Houses! 

Imagine That!  I seem to be building a lot of structures these days!

Is this just by happenstance? 

Or is there a deeper reason for all this construction going on in my sewing room?  Hmm...could be...

These little houses make me think of little Hawaiian Huts!

 

I also played a little catch up by assembling the Flying Geese filler strip sets from Week Five!

Not exactly flying in perfect formation, now are they?

 

                                                               

In this weeks mail were these two generous spools of Aurifil Thread from

Fat Quarter Shop.

I was the happy recipient of these as a result of posting my Spring Tulips block

on the Quilty Fun Flickr Page. 

 Each week they select three winners from the postings of the current block!

Another big thanks for Fat Quarter Shop for the prizes that participants are enjoying and most especially for hosting this Happy & Fun Sew Along featuring the talents of Lori Holt of Bee In My Bonnet!

 

Back to work tomorrow...sigh...

~Nancie Anne

 

Maecee's Sunday Post...

MoMmy SeZ shE nEeDz a RooMeiR sEwiNg ChAiR...

Im' nOT SuRE WhY...

ThIz OnE Already HaZz AwL tHe GoOd ThReaDz

An' SeAmZ CoZzY 'NuFf  TwOo mE!

 

WaGs 'N  KiSsez!!!!!

MaEcee!

 

Country Homecoming Quilt

Several months ago, I came across a group of bloggers making the Country Homecoming Quilt.
By the time I discovered what they were doing they were nearly done and, after all I was happily consumed with Country Charmer at that point.  I fell in love with the homey feel of those bloggers homespun quilts, and particularly with the applique border.  Having had little experience using homespuns, but a healthy sized collection of them picked up on sale, I put it on my "to do someday list" and began what turned out to be a lengthy search for the book!



  That was a rude awakening.  I couldn't find anyone carrying the book, my one attempt at ordering it through a shop fell through when they wrote back and said it was out of stock.  Searches on Amazon and eBay revealed prices that made me gulp, usually twice the original list price!  Then one day several months ago, while on Amazon for a different reason, something just spoke to me, I plunked the words Primitive Gatherings Quilt into the computer, and lo' and behold, there it was!  Someone had listed a new copy for the original list price!  I didn't blink!  SOLD!!!! Ka Ching!

I crossed my fingers, hoping that this time the book would actually arrive...and it did, in brand new pristine condition! 

I've since bent it, drooled on it, & drug it to my bedroom and back, giving it that lovingly used patina!

Still, I hesitated to begin.  Homespuns fray...A LOT!  Aargh!  Then I recalled one bloggers post about what a struggle this quilt had been for her to complete.  EEK!  I still wanted to dive in and do it, but then there are all those other projects going...TWO Country Charmers as it turns out, a stack of UFO's and WIPS, not to mention the holidays...and THE JOB. UGH.

Then came January...everyone was chatting about goals vs. resolutions and what new projects they might do this year and I was making my list of unfinished quilts to finish, and setting goals to have things completed by certain birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera!  I had also committed myself to The Quilty Fun Sew Along and strrrrreeeetching my style horizons in that way!

Well, then Kim, you know, that little overachiever at Kim's Big Quilting Adventure posted that she'd really like to make this quilt too and was anyone else interested?  Well heck, yeah!  I was hopping up and down with my hand waving frantically in the air!  This was just what I needed.  Another Quilty Support Group!  This was a quilt I really wanted to do in conjunction with others who wanted to tackle it!

And who says all those other projects have to get done this year, anyhoo?  I don't see no Quilt Police hangin' in my 'hood!  Weeeelll...there is that little devil on my left shoulder and the little angel on my right shoulder...

Kim outlined a plan to do 2 blocks a month for 6 months, then take a couple of months to complete the outer border which sounded quite reasonable to me.

Maybe I'll have time for some of those UFO's & WIP's after all!  One can only hope!  I have a couple of daughters tapping their toes in a rather testy manner.

So!  I got out my saws, hammers & nails, and began construction on my first two houses,

 with an ample supply of heavy spray starch to help keep my foundations from raveling!

I'm being extra careful with my pressing to avoid distortion and have found the piecing to be really easy and fun!  The seams matched up beautifully!

Then it was time to add doors and windows.  I created a few originals, 'cuz that's just the way I am! 

I decided to go with the old fusible web and buttonhole stitch 'em down method on this project.  The book gives destructions...'er instructions for needle turn, but I'm going to save needle turn for things that I feel are more heirloom in nature than this project is intended to be.

I'm doing my best to let go of my perfectionism and let plaids fall where they may...out of line, off kilter and out of whack!  By George!  If the author of the book can do it, so can I! 

This is a primitive project after all!

So here are my 2 houses for February!  Be still my pitter pattering heart!

I decided that I wanted the first one to look like there were candles glowing inside the house.  The thought just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy on wet, overcast, soggy, drippy days like these!

The second one I decided that I shouldn't get quite so overzealous with and simplify a little...

that won't last forever though!  Heavens no!  Not me!  Take the easy way out?  Never!

I hope you, my bloggy friends, had a Happy, Happy Valentines Day!!!

~ Nancie Anne