12.28.2011

Olallieberry Pie


Every summer we go to the Swanton Berry Farm to pick olallieberries.


What is an olallieberry? Well it pretty much a blackberry and raspberry crossed together and looks like huge blackberry although tastes a little sweeter.



We spend the good portion of a morning picking and tasting




And then we come home with these beauties


(I thought this was funny)


After we get them home we wash them in the sink and then bag them, 8 cups to a bag, and freeze them. (Okay so we might have some ice cream with them on top too.)

Why do we pick these berries and freeze them 8 cups to a bag? PIE PIE PIE. It makes the best pie, well all fruit pies are the best, and we make them for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Ingredients:
- 7 cups of fresh olallieberries (or 8 cups frozen)
- 1 cup sugar
- 4 tablespoons of cornstarch (when you freeze them they are super juicy as they thaw, so I tend to add about 10 tablespoons of cornstarch)
- 2 pie crusts (top and bottom)

First Evan makes the pie crust, I can't make pie crust as adding water one tiny teaspoon at a time is just insane to me and I don't have the patience for it, so he makes the crust and I make the filling


Mix the berries, sugar and cornstarch. You should thaw the berries completely and drain the excess juice off (or save for a smoothie) before adding to the bowl - I didn't do that this time, as we were running late on making the pie and forgot to thaw them the day before - so I added more cornstarch than normal.



Add filling to pie crust bottom


then add the top and bake at 400 degrees for 40-50 minutes


All done.


I love this berry pie, and blogging about it is making me hungry so I think that I am going to go and have the last slice before The Bubb gets up from his nap :)



12.24.2011

Merry Christmas

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Christmas Eve today and Merry Christmas to all of you who are already celebrating in your part of the world :) Thank you to everyone for reading, commenting and encouraging me to keep on blogging. It has been such a pleasure to 'meet' all of you and thanks for taking the time out of your busy lives to stop by for a few minutes! Merry Christmas!

12.23.2011

Brown Paper Packages

tied up with string. These are a few of my favorite things...


This year I took a little simpler approach to wrapping the gifts. I wrapped many of them in kraft paper and tied them with the vintage ribbon I got from a friend, yarn or sparkly ribbon. I decided that the Bavarianesk ribbon worked really well with the plain paper


and I like that they aren't too overwhelming under the tree, just simple and neat. Plus they will travel well for us as every year bows seem to come off and the thin (but cute themed paper) gets torn or scratched on the way down to parent's houses. So we'll see how they fair this year.


Although I haven't worked out the to/from tag problem but hey I still have a few hours 'till Christmas :)

12.20.2011

Fastest. Fudge. Ever.


I love me some fudge so when I saw this recipe over on V and Co. (via MADE) my thoughts were this: Hmmm 3 minute fudge tasting the same as regular fudge, I don't think so. BUT I had to try it to see if it was just as good. AND IT IS!! so so yummy.

What do you need?
- 14 ounces of condensed milk
- 24 ounces of chocolate. I used 10 ounces of dark chocolate chips, 14 ounces of milk chocolate chips
- 3 minutes of your time in front of the microwave
- 30 minutes - 1 hour of time to be patient in front of the refrigerator, well I guess you don't have to stand there :)


How does it work?
- Pour chips into a microwavable bowl. Add nuts, peppermint, whatever else you think might taste good, I added 1 cup of chopped walnuts.
- Pour condensed milk on top of chips and mix with a spoon.
- Put bowl in microwave and microwave. I did six 30 seconds sessions (3 minutes total) as I don't trust my microwave enough yet to not burn the chocolate. Stir in between each session.
- Pour gooey chocolatey goodness into a pan. I used a 9x12 pyrex dish. I also dumped some walnuts on top at this point so that it would have a topping.
- Put into refrigerator to wait until hard. I ate them after 30 minutes and they were hard enough to cut and stay together but I like firmer fudge so this morning I thought they were even better.


Happy Fudge Day! (and yes a few bars may have disappeared while taking pictures ;) sorry Evan!)

12.19.2011

Echo Collection by Lotta Jansdotter

The Echo Collection is here! Well part of it :) My order keeps getting back ordered and back ordered due to the popularity :( but I do have 5 of the prints now that I am excited to be selling in my shop.


I love the designer, Lotta Jansdotter, as it is so refreshing to see these prints in the fabric market! So excited to get the rest of them! Hopefully any day now :)


12.16.2011

Last Minute Ornaments

In case you're needing some inspiration for some last minute ornaments, I thought I'd share some of the ones I made last year

Paper Ornaments


Half Eaten Gingerbread Men



First Ornament

Or if you felt like making your own envelopes, which I actually did last year due to poor planning and lack of envelopes available at the store, as I make my own cards. But luckily this year I ordered ahead of time, although I do miss the bright colors over boring white envelopes. But my husband appreciated the extra couple of hours I had :) and not slaving away with a glue stick.


I've also been pinning a lot of felt ornaments, although I am definitely running out of time to keep making things! Off to work on my wreath, but you can check out the one I made last year here.

12.14.2011

Marine Quilt


Can it be almost a  year later that I have finally finished this quilt? I purchased the fabric (Marine Life Collection by Dan Stiles, 100% organic cotton) last February and then tried to make a quilt here, but it didn't work out so I made a lovey, as a temporary compromise with myself. Well a few weeks ago, I decided something HAD to be done so I made it into a patchwork with 6" squares, usually my squares are 5" after sewing as it makes the math easier :) I thought a slightly bigger square would be better this time as the print is so big.




So excited by the bright colors! For the back I used organic cotton sherpa by Michael Miller, as it is super thick and then I don't have to add batting. The Bubb loves sherpa, he has another blanket with farm animals on it and it is now his "go to" blanket over everything else, and we decided it is because he likes the weight/feel of the sherpa.


I quilted two rows on either side of the patchwork lines and I love how the back looks this way.



I think that I might give it to him for Christmas, although he'll probably enjoy the box more :)


I hope everyone's last minute projects are coming together!

12.12.2011

Christmas Stockings


After 6 years of being married, we finally have some Christmas stockings! Yeah! Granted this is only the second year that we've had an actual fireplace, so I can't really use that as my excuse anymore. (Last year I ran out of time and didn't have fabric that I liked).


However, when I went to the quilt show in October, I found some large rick rack that I couldn't pass up, and I thought stockings stockings stockings. However last week when I was planning out the designs, it wasn't working, the fabric (I thought maybe a stripey patchwork front with some of my scraps might be fun) just wasn't coming together in a pleasing way. So instead of forcing it I decided, well maybe this year it isn't going to work out either.


As I was getting out the felt to make a Christmas star (we are having an all plush/felt tree in honor of The Bubb) I found some gray and red fleece that I had intended to make some pants out of and thought, stockings! The fabric for the tops came together really fast and I knew it was meant to be :) I love how projects work out like that sometimes!


So here are my fabric combos:  Gray Fleece (Joann) / Michael Miller Ta Dot in Moss, Red Fleece (Joann) / Tiles in Verte by Anthology, White Minky Fleece / Kei Japan Honeycomb Dots in Red.


Since I was making more than one, I decided it was best to make a pattern. I started by freehanding a stocking shape onto some tracing paper. Then after revising it a few times, I cut it out and used this as the pattern for all three. I wanted a big fat boot like stocking, my husband laughed when he saw how wide they are at the bottom :)


From here I cut out two sides, stitched the lining band to the top and added a hanger made from the super large rick rack. So excited by this.



For now they are hung over the fireplace with nails until we get some proper stocking holders.


I actually saw the perfect ones about 4 years ago at Kohls but alas I didn't have stockings at that point so I didn't get them. Well I am still on the hunt and will get there eventually.


Happy Monday everyone!

12.07.2011

A Little Christmas Cheer

We've been slowly working on getting our Christmas items out the past few days. We have our tree up with lights, although not decorated yet (hopefully tonight), Evan hung up white twinkle lights on our balcony last night (yeah for power outside) and so this morning I got around to hanging up some ornaments in our front window.


So a quick backstory...on Monday I went to Michaels to buy ornaments to dangle in our window, however upon entering the store the line was like 20 people long, so I thought I'll talk my time and it will clear (as sometimes in retail there is a huge rush for cash registers all at once). I look around and there aren't that many people in the store, so 25 minutes later I get back up to the front, only to find that the line has now wrapped around to the back of the store and is like a 100 people long. This is at about 12:45 on a Monday. So I have a few questions. Why are there not more workers in the store? and two where did all these people come from? and why are they all here now? I felt like I was in the middle of Black Friday (although I've never gone). As I started to walk to the end of the line, and saw all the crying unhappy kids. I looked down at my smiling happy Bubb and then looked at the time and thought there is no way I can make him wait an hour in line. I stopped my cart with my whole two items in it, picked him up and walked out the store. Headed 100 feet over to Target and found some ornaments and got out of there in 10 minutes. Happy Bubb. Happy Mom.

Anyway sorry for the tangent. I got this package of 5 ornaments


that are shatter resistant, aka plastic, can't they just say that? and they are a little different than what I had planned - two colors in different sizes and maybe like 10. I found some clear cord around the house (I was planning on fishing line, but we don't have any) and tied them to the ornaments and then taped them to the top of our window.


Side note: I actually ended up using clear thread instead of this clear cord as it wouldn't tie securely. And in retrospect I would probably tack them to the top of the window instead of tape as they are starting to slip a little, although that makes it more interesting. Perhaps I will fix this over the next few days.


I am pretty happy with how it turned out considering that I deviated from my original intentions many times, funny how projects work out this way sometimes.


But The Bubb likes to bat at them, although we never have the blinds (attached to doors on the window) open so he won't get too many opportunities. And since I've caught up with all my Etsy orders (happy dance) I am off to make some felt ornaments for the tree. Happy Wednesday!

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