Autumn Blessings

Can you tell I'm in an "Autumn" mood?

I just finished these two little charts

and quickly made little pillows

to display in my living room.

My son is already giving me a hard time about

all the tiny pillows I have on my curio cabinet.

I explained to him that I will change them out with each season.

Makes sense right?

Boys....what do they know?

This is Autumn Blessings by Plum Street Samplers.

It's a free download and you can find it HERE.

I fell in love with it immediately :)

She's got other darling freebies on her sight as well!

( I love me some free stuff )

This is "Just a Little Autumn" by Sandra Dering.

It's also a free chart, but I just can't find the link back :(

And since I was out driving around running errands,

I just happened to drive right past 

one of my favorite thrift stores.

They always have a great selection of unused patterns.

I mean I was right there....

it would be foolish not to go inside....right?

I got 4 Halloween costume patterns,

4 doll clothes patterns,

and 4 childrens jammies in different sizes.

I love to make new jammies for the grands for Christmas :)

Who doesn't love snuggly new flannel jammies????

Now all I have to do is wait for Joann's to 

put their flannel on sale for $1.99 a yard 

and I'm good to go!!!

Breakfast Pecan Coffeecake :)

There are few things I love more than meandering through a good Thrift Store. Just as I shop the outside isles of the grocery store each week and avoid the packaged foods, I have a pattern with Thrift Stores too. I will NEVER buy, shoes, hats, or underwear that has been previously owned, no matter how "gently" used. I'm not saying that I think everyone should feel this way....it's just my "thing". The isles I like to forage around in are the isles with old patterns and sewing notions, the fabric and old kitchen linens, embroidered handkerchiefs, cookbooks,  kitchen stuff (got my bread maker for 5 bucks and I use it constantly!) household items, furniture and of course, clothing. Today I am making a wonderful Coffeecake from a cookbook I found at a Thrift Store for 50 cents called "All-Butter, Fresh Cream, Sugar-Packed, No Holds Barred Baking Book". With a title like that you know it has to be good!

Breakfast Pecan Coffeecake
Topping:
1 1/3 cups (lightly packed) light brown sugar
1 tblsp ground cinnamon
1 1/2 cups chopped pecans
8 tblsp ( 1 stick ) softened unsalted butter

Cake:
2 2/3 cups all purpose flour
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
12 tblsp (1 1/2 sticks) softened unsalted butter
1 cup plus 2 tblsp granulated sugar
2 tsp vanilla
4 large eggs
1 1/3 cups sour cream at room temp

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9" springform pan with butter or vegetable oil.
2. For the topping, combine the brown sugar, cinnamon, and pecans in a medium sized bowl and mix in the softened butter with a fork or pastry blender until it is incorporated. Set aside.
3. For the cake, mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a small bowl. Set aside.
4. In a medium sized mixing bowl, cream the butter, sugar and vanilla medium speed until light and fluffy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
5. Add the eggs one at a time and mix on low after each addition until blended, about 5 seconds.
6. Add in the dry mixture in 4 additions alternately with the sour cream. When everything has been blended, mix on low and blend until smooth, 5 seconds.
7. Spread 1/2 the batter in the prepared pan and distribute half the topping over it. Spoon the remaining batter on top, smooth it out evenly and distribute the remaining topping over the top.
8. Place a piece of foil or a cookie sheet on the bottom oven rack. Then place the cake on the center rack. Bake for 40 minutes until the cake top turns golden. Gently place a piece of aluminum foil over the top of the cake pan (do not mold it) and continue to bake the cake until a tester inserted in the center comes out dry, about 40 minutes more. Serve warm (because trust me on this.....you won't be able to wait for it to cool off! ) or at room temperature.

Git 'er done!

 Yesterday was a day to Git' er done! I'm in a stocking swap with some friends and one of the swappers is a huge fan of the classic Levi's 501 button fly jeans. Being a 501 lover myself (I lived in mine back in junior high and high school) I decided to try and find a pair at the thrift store and make the stocking out of it. It pained me to cut them up but at the same time there was some satisfaction in slashing a pair that has the waist measurement of 28 inches! I edged the stocking in bias that I cut from some 25 year old christmas fabric that I had and of course I had to use the button fly on the stocking as well. I love the way it came out and I hope my partner gets a kick out of it too.

After tackling the stocking, I set out to do the finishing work on the 4 jammies that I made for my grandsons. I actually made 18 *gasp* button holes. (well actually 23 if you count the 5 that were wanky and needed to be carefully taken out and re-done). Don't you love it when you finish a project that you were dreading?

And last but not least, I stitched the final x's on my stocking cross stitch. This piece will be the center of a wall hanging quilt. And as I have never quilted before it should be interesting to see how it all turns out. Today I'll be cutting and assembling the quilt top and hopefully next week I can show you my completed "first ever" mini quilt :) 

The Fabulosity of Fleece :)

 I have to say that I really enjoy sewing fleece. It comes in so many colors and patterns and because it doesn't fray, it's just so fabulous to work with. When I went to the thrift store the other day I found an uncut McCalls pattern (7768) for 25 cents that has 10 different hats for infants, toddlers, and children. As soon as I saw the pattern I knew I wanted to make this one for my youngest grandson Gabriel. I can already picture his cute little grinning face with the deep dimples wearing this hat! I love the fleece I got on sale at Joann's last week for 1/2 price too! I also made another dinosaur for my grandson David who will be 3 years old next week. He talks about his imaginary dino friends all the time. Aparently he has 2 orange dinosaurs that he interacts with.

A few months ago I made him an orange dinosaur and I embroidered his name on the side. This orange dino has a different patterned fabric for the back scales and I embroidered "Two" on the side :) His Mommy is organizing a Dino themed birthday party for him and he'll be getting this new orange dinosaur to complete his set of 2 as well as dino jammies from us :)

The 80's called......they want their shirt back!

Our very clever daughter decided to have an 80's themed birthday party for her hubby a few weeks ago. He was born in 1980 and was turning 30 this year so it seemed like a fun idea to do the 80's party. My original idea was to dress like Olivia Newton-John in her "let's get physical" video and have my hubby dress up like Richard Simmons. The hubby was definately NOT into that idea.....so I decided to have him channel the oldest brother from the movie "Goonies" instead and since I could not find the proper exercise ensemble ( if I had only known that I would need it someday I could have saved my shiney white spandex unitard and bright blue thong to wear over it that I actually wore to the gym....in public....*sheesh*) I went with the "old faithful" outfit of oversized denim shirt with ginormous shoulder pads ( I used folded up dish towels ) and black leggings with big hair and black heels. It was a really fun party and it seemed a shame to waste that amazing denim shirt I found. I mean come on......it was embelished with puff paint! No one does workmanship like that anymore! So I decided to re-purpose the shirt and the awesome bandana that my hubby wore. I used up some darling western Michael Miller fabric that was left over from my grandson David's baby quilt to make him a fun boy apron. He loves to cook in his own little kitchen and help his Mom around the house. Not too shabby for shirt I paid $1.91 at the thrift store! One more Christmas gift to check off the list :)

Thrifty Treasures!

Even if I'm not feeling well and haven't had much sleep the night before and I'm on my way straight home to rest and eat lunch, a large red sign that SCREAMS 50% OFF in front of the Thrift Store is more temptation (obviously) than I can bear! So here are my new treasures:

A beautiful glass cake plate - $2.00 ( I love clear glass serving pieces because they match everything) A darling red with hearts flower pot - $1.50 (my mom's kitchen is red with hearts and she's leaving for Germany again in July and when she comes back I always stock her fridge and put fresh flowers on her kitchen table the day before she comes home to welcome her back) A super cute Giant dominos game for my grandsons to play with - $1.75

A wooden spice rack - $2.00 (I'll be painting it white with red cherries to use for small embelishments in my scraproom and I'll post the before and after hopefully next week) A large cooking pot - $5.00 (I've decided to try my hand at canning my own sauces and salsas and I needed a large pot. All in all it was a great trip. I'm still sore and tired, but Thrift Store therapy should count for something....right?