Pinterest Started it.....

Scroll to the bottom for the cake recipe, please!

ETA:  I am linking up with My Repurposed Life....8/25/12



I may never have to leave the house again.  I can get antiques on eBay.  I can order most of my sewing supplies at various websites and now there is Pinterest to give me ideas.  Because I don't have enough already.

Earlier this summer I saw a coat rack on Pinterest that was made from old insulators.  It gave me an idea.  I had always loved those old insulators and I thought it would make a great towel rack.  I needed one in my upstairs bathroom, aka: The Boys' Bathroom.

I thought we had several in one of the barns.  I was sort of right.  We HAD several.  My FIL gave them away.  We did still have telegraph insulators.  Driving home from my son's one day my husband spied some of the electrical insulators at a junk antique store on the side of the road.  That man has a heck of an eye.  I was going 60 mph when he hollered.  We turned around and bought four.

I wanted a shelf above them and after trying to hang towels on them we found the smaller telegraph insulators worked better.

I still liked the blue green of the electrical insulators.  So, we used one in the center. I love how it turned out!

This wood was from a tree on our property.  I am not sure if my husband sawed this one or if it was so close to the house we had a tree trimmer do it.  It was milled on our property, too. We are so friggin' green I expect a Nobel Prize at any minute.

Hubby was reluctant to use these boards because of the bug holes in them but I felt it added character.

So, it started with Pinterest but we added our own touch.  Still gathering junk antique items to put on the shelf.  Fortunately for me it is high enough I can't see that it needs dusted.  So a few dust collectors are okay.

One of my other Pinterest finds was a recipe for a Buttermilk Skillet Cake with Praline Topping.   That is what I started with.  This is what I ended with.

It was good.  VERY good.  I tweaked the recipe slightly.  The main changes I made were using maple flavoring instead of vanilla in the cake and using powdered buttermilk.  I just added it to my dry ingredients and the water where the recipe said milk.  I also baked it in a 10 inch iron skillet.  Worked perfect!  So, I called my new version a Maple Buttermilk Praline Cake.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 6 TB  butter, at room temperature
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 large egg yolk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon maple flavoring
• 3/4 buttermilk or 3 Tablespoons dry buttermilk and 3/4 cup water
• 
  
• Praline Topping:
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• good pinch of salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup coarsely chopped pecans (or walnuts if that's your thing)

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat your oven to 375' F. Grease and flour an 10" over safe (ie: cast iron) skillet, along the bottom and up the sides. 
2. In a medium bowl whisk together the flour, dry buttermilk,  baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
3. In another medium bowl, with a stand or hand mixer, cream together the granulated sugar and butter until fully incorporated, about 3 minutes. Use the full three minutes.  It really makes a difference.
4. Add the egg and yolk, one at a time, beating for 1 minute between the two.
5. Beat in the vanilla and maple flavoring.
6. Now....with the mixer on low, add half of the flour. Beat until incorporated. Add the buttermilk (or water if using dried buttermilk), and beat again until incorporated. Finally, beat in the remaining flour until almost fully incorporated. Stop beating and continue with a spatula to fully incorporate the flour.
7. Pour / spoon the batter into your prepared pan.
8. Smooth the batter in the pan evenly. (Put a pan on the bottom rack. Just in case.) Bake for 35 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
9. While the cake is baking, make the praline topping: Combine the brown sugar, butter, cream and salt in a medium saucepan. Bring to a soft boil and let boil for 3 minutes.  Mine was a little grainy so I think I will cook for 3:30 next time.  It may tend to froth.  If it does just stir it down.
10. After 3 1/2 minutes, remove from heat and stir in the vanilla and nuts. Allow to set for about 20 minutes to thicken up a bit.
11. Once the cake is out of the oven you can add the praline topping in the skillet or remove the cake, and while it's still warm pour the praline over the whole thing. Either way be sure to add the topping while the cake is warm.

Enjoy!!!

Okay, finishing this post.  Linking up with Nicole at All the Small Stuff.  Probably link more later.

Keep stirrin'!!

Mary

I'm Baaaaccckkk! (Tetris QAL week 5)

Hello, all!  I have been taking a bit of an unplanned hiatus.  I have worked a ton of hours the past two weeks and we canned and froze stuff both weekends.  Part of this was precipitated by a failing freezer.  I currently have about 5 gallons of peppers waiting to be processed and a ton of tomatoes but I am burnt out.

Tonight is my quilt club.  So, I am trying to play catch up in the sewing room - where I have NOT been for three weeks!  First up was my Tetris QAL.  I did not get Week 4 done until about 15 minutes ago.  Here is is.

Too late to enter in the weekly drawing but still done.  I forced myself not to skip ahead.  They go super fast. I was just in a funk after all the physical work and couldn't bring myself to sew.

I did week 5 simultaneously with week 4.  I did finish it in time to enter this week's drawing!  Yay, me!!

This is all five weeks laid out on my "design floor".  As you can see, I am carrying over from one week to the next.  I am some how short one red tile.  I looked in my sewing room but it seems to have been taken hostage in an unknown location.  Probably by one of the other WIPs I have in there!  I do have more of that fabric, so I can just cut another tile.

I am enjoying this project and I love how it looks in real life.  Thanks, Melissa, for letting me play along!

Going to sign off, grab a shower, run to the PO and then back to the sweat shop to sew more.

I have to go to the PO this morn because my son (29 years old) once again left from his visit and left things behind. I wonder if that boy thinks I won't let him back in if he doesn't have something here.  He and his wife both have keys to the house!  He needs part of what he left before the weekend.  So, Mama is going to go ship it to him.  I try to do my part to keep the PO in business locally!

As Tigger says, TTFN!

Hope to be back posting more later today.

Keep stitchin'!

Mary

p.s.  Forgot to say I am linking up with Melissa for Week 5 of the Tetris QAL.

Tetris QAL: Week 3

I posted on Monday about getting caught up on my Tetris QAL.  I was so excited.  Even though I was to work nights on Tuesday, I was like a kid at Christmas and got up at 6:00 to get the blocks for this week......They weren't there.  I went back to bed for a couple of hours and when I got up again there they were!

So, I made this week's block and then things went nuts around here.  I couldn't stay connected to the internet.  The power went off several times.  Things blew and rumbled and it seemed like we would have rain but we did not.  Since the first of May we have had less than a quarter of an inch here at the farm.  What that storm DID give me was a massive migraine.  I can't remember yesterday at all.  I HATE that.  But, when I looked at my camera I found I had finished my blocks and taken pictures!  Apparently the past two days weren't a total bust.

They did laugh at me at work.  I managed to work but I am a little brain damaged from the meds.  So, I had post-it notes stuck every where to remind me what I was doing there and what I needed to do.  Ever see Grey's Anatomy?  Remember when Derrick removed Izzy's brain tumor and she had no short term memory?  It reset every 10 seconds or so?  That is what the past couple of days have been like for me!

Back to the block.

I love how these are turning out.  I decided to make this one fit beside week 1.  I really wish I had let some of the tiles of weeks 1 & 2 stick out to the side.  Live and learn.

Here are the three weeks together.

(I have no idea why there are rubber gloves laying on the floor in my sewing room.  They are new but I am not sure why they are there.) I really like how it is coming together.  I am playing the game and letting the tiles go where they fit without fussing about the color.

I think this would be fun to do with Christmas prints and my do it again like that.  I think I would use smaller blocks so that it is a wall hanging or table topper size.

Can't wait for next week's but I won't be able to sew them until the following Friday!!!

Linking up with Happy Quilting Week 3.

Keep Stitchin'!

Mary

Tetris QAL Catch Up: Week 1 & 2

Hello, all!

Last week I posted about joining Melissa's Tetris QAL.  (It is the previous post)  I had great intentions but night shift so kicked my butt last weekend.  Then may kids all decided to come home.  You get the picture.  I didn't do anything!

I was supposed to work this past weekend but took Saturday off to be with the kids.  We have some temporary summer help and she wanted the hours.  So, it was  a win- win.  I will just say that between 9:00 p.m. Friday night and 9:00 p.m.  Saturday my dishwasher was ran FIVE times.  I did a lot of cooking but no sewing.

I am off today and back on nights again tomorrow.  I made these blocks my priority.  Did I mention I had not cut the fabric yet??  I was trying to decide on a size.  I debated and calculated and mulled... Finally, I got out the Tetris game and looked at it.  I can be a little anal wrapped up in the details at times.  I wanted room to have a block or two "falling" when the quilt was done.  I decided to cut my fabric at 4" and make the six blocks in the quilt along and then two more on top with whatever sticks up and one falling, I hope.

After cutting wrong twice, here are my fabrics.

 The bottom right IS purple. I was having a hard time getting it to show true today and then the camera battery died.  I don't know why.  I charged it before I went to Texas.......in March!

Being a week late I noticed folks were taking pictures of their grid.  So, I did, too. Coloring has never been a strong point for me.

Melissa's directions called for white as the filler but I wanted black like the game.  I wish the detail on the fabric showed up better.  All of them are prints of some sort.  The orange has a little diamond design in it.  I now wish I had not used that pink batik. It is flimsy and it stretches too much.

This is Week 1

Here is Week 2.  See the orange and red in the first row are carry over from Week 1.

Tomorrow she publishes the tiles for week 3.  Hopefully I can get it done before I go to work tomorrow and be caught up!.

Thanks for looking.

Going to do another post today about other quilty things.

Keep Stitchin'!!
Mary

p.s.  I didn't want to rethread another machine or move anything.  So, I am just doing these on the Janome 6600.  I do love that machine but it is kind of noisy right now.  I need a new bobbin case after a broken needle.  Don't ask.  It was ugly.  Brought my husband up the stairs to laugh at me as I muttered and cursed.

Tetris Quilt Along

Hi, all!  Back on nights again.  One more and I am done with them for a week.  I found a quilt along I am going to do.  I will be a week behind but I think I can catch up on my days off. It is a Tetris quilt along over at Happy Quilting.  I have looked at several of this week's blocks and I laughed at myself.  Everyone kept saying, "I have never played Tetris."

Boy, I have!  That is the one video game I could kick my boys' butts at. When they were in elementary school they played chess competitively.  Just as soon as the kids went in for a match we mothers picked up the Gameboys to play Tetris.  I just couldn't resist this QAL even though I have more irons than I do fire right now.

I did go to my sewing room and sew a strip on the wrong side of 10 blocks.  I was very upset until I set down to take them off and realized the tension was messed up.  The stitching came out easily.  I will have to fix the issue and try again.  I want these blocks done before my kids come home this weekend.  This quilt is for my DIL and I want her to help decide the layout.  Then I can work on my tetris quilt blocks.  Kind of excited about that!

Hopefully I will have some pictures to post tomorrow.  It isn't too late to join in.  Hop on over the Melissa's and check it out!

Keep stitchin'!

Mary

Little Finishes For Friday

I was busy this week.  Seems that I spent a lot of time ripping stuff out on the Orion's Star.  Finally figure out what I had done wrong. I really shouldn't work on something like that when I am having a migraine.   It is on its way again and there are no pictures of the glaring mistakes.  So, only you and I know!  I have 9 blocks completely done and the all of the centers for the other sixteen are finally correct.

I posted last Saturday about making pillow case dresses.  I made a couple more this week.

The trim on the bottom is white cotton lace that I threaded some 1/8" ribbon I won in a giveaway at Craft Nurse Quilts. It is a piece of teal and a piece of purple.  I then had to tack that ribbon in place every 6" to keep it from sliding.  Sometimes my lack of forethought is astounding.

One of the others I had made was too small.  So, back to the scrap heap.

That little button says, "Cute as a Button" and she surely is.  I can't wait to see her in it.  I used the hot dog pillowcase technique to add the bottom accent.  If you google it you can find several references if you have never seen it.  I have done it for years and just didn't know what it was called.

Okay....what else did I finish.  Hmmm....on Sunday I did a bag for Meghan's Birthday.  It turned out cute and I hope you check it out.  I also finished my BOM blocks that evening.

 I love this block.  Those larger blocks are actually red.  It is such  a cute block but I am sick to death of the yellow in this quilt.  At our meeting on Monday she tried to get us to sign up for next year's Civil War BOM and I said no.  Then I went back yesterday and signed up (after she offered to change one of the fabrics for me)!

I also went to the fair and looked around.  Next year I am entering some things in the fair.

Today the UPS man came.  He brought me this.

I know.  She looks a lot like Ida.  She is the same model but she really needs a face lift.  So.... We are going to paint her RED!  She will look so smoking hot!  I can't wait.  I hope she is done for the next time I go to retreat.  I may actually do some work on decorating my sewing room if I have her around to look at.  I am going to name her Barb after my Aunt Barb.

Aunt Barb was a lot of fun and wilder than a March hare.  She got married at 15 at the business end of a shotgun.  Rumor has it that gun was pointed at her!  She pierced her own ears in the bathroom one evening and when she asked if they were even her husband passed out.  Aunt Barb had three sons, too and her favorite color was red.  She would approve I am sure.

I am going to link up was Sarah over at Confessions of  Fabric Addict.  She is having a great giveaway.  Whoop, Whoop!!!  Be sure to hop on over and enter.  Say something nice on some of the blogs.  We all love comments! Also linking up with Richard and Tanya.

Keep Stitchin'!

Mary

Mary Had a Little Lamb...

....three times over.  And, apparently, one of the lambs grew up (actually all did) and is having a little lamb of his own.  First grandchild is due in December.