Where Have I Been?

I had an email from Yvonne saying she missed my Saturday beauty tip today. Okay, here it is, Yvonne: Sleep in later on Saturday. And if you're Sharon, sleep until your lips return to your face at noon. So, besides sleeping in, I seem to have spent an inordinate amount of time today trying to find a little chin whisker that was bugging me, but all's well now and I accomplished my beauty mission for the week!

Last night, of course, I spent several hours at Quilters' Corner "working" on a project. What a nice way to end a work week! I think I did a little more chatting and browsing than sewing, but I DID get some sewing done! At least our group last night worked harder at their projects than did the group today--most of whom were still shopping two hours after the class started! More about that later, though.

So here's a photo of the wall with the snowman projects hanging on it--these are what we were supposed to make:

And here's mine:

Yeah, not many similarities are there? Sorry about the photo that only shows part of it, but I hope to get a better one later when I have some room to spread it out on a larger bed. Maybe when it's quilted. But more about that later. At the class last night, I didn't get the last two borders on, but I finished that up this morning. After my beauty sleep.

Oh, and here's a photo of the food table last night--this wasn't even all the food. We had a great "9 can soup" that I'm going to make tomorrow and share with you--I think--and a pumpkin dessert that was very excellent for this time of the year. No photo of that--sorry! They didn't put it out until a little later and by then, I forgot. But here's the recipe--you really NEED to make this stuff. You'll love it, your husband will love it, and your children will erect a monument to your cooking abilities!

UPSIDE DOWN PUMPKIN PIE

Ingredients:
29 oz can pumpkin
1-1/4 cups sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
12-oz can evaporated milk
3 eggs, well beaten
1 box yellow cake mix
1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
1 cup melted butter or margarine

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine all ingredients EXCEPT the cake mix, nuts, and melted butter. Mix well and pour into 9x13-inch baking pan. Sprinkle dry cake mix evenly over the top. Sprinkle nuts on top. Drizzle the melted butter over the entire cake. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour. If the cake is not done, turn the oven off and let stand in oven 15 minutes. Cool and serve with whipped cream.

They tell me this stuff shouldn't be served warm and that it's better if you let it stand for at least a few hours before serving.

So, anyway, today I finished those borders and realized I needed some batting because I'd like to pin a couple quilts tomorrow. You all know I don't really like to get dressed and do the make-up and hair thing on weekends, but my camera batteries also went dead and we had no more batteries! Yikes! So with all of you in mind and knowing you like blog photos, I forced myself to get dressed, etc., and head out of my hermit home. At the first quilt shop which is closest to my home, they were out of the type of batting I wanted. This is, I think, the fifth time I've gone there for batting, and on four of those occasions, they were out. So, I hopped back in my car and headed across town to the very same quilt shop I was at last night.

Why didn't I buy batting last night? Well, all I can say in my defense is that batting isn't as sexy as fabric and looking at rolls of batting doesn't get my creative juices flowing, so I don't spend a whole lot of time thinking about the stuff and what I might do with it. In other words, batting was the last thing on my mind last night. But--the quilt shop had a second session of the Thimbleberries class today, and that's how I know that quite a few of those gals were spending a heck of a lot of time today still shopping TWO HOURS into the class! I was afraid I wasn't going to make it to that quilt shop before they closed at 4 p.m., but I knew they'd let me in if I knocked and begged. Luckily, I made it there with two minutes to spare. They even offered me some more of their wonderful soup that I'm going to tell you about tomorrow, but I didn't want to spoil my dinner.

So, that's what I've been doing. Oh! That and opening mail! Vicky posted to her blog the other day about fabric--surprise, surprise!--and so I'll admit that she gets a partial Meg for my purchases. Yes, I had to hop on over to the Fat Quarter shop and buy some Roman Holiday and Madeira Jolly Patches (along with some sale charm packs). It was actually a cumulative Meg since she talked about the Jolly Patches awhile back and then talked about the Madeira not long ago. Of course, I didn't fall for her attempted BOM Meg, so half a Meg to you, Vicky!

And look at this excellent pattern designed by Marcie! I just LOVE this one! Do you know Marcie? Someday I'll be able to say "I knew her when . . . ." Check out her blog. From there, you can click on her store where you can look at her great patterns and buy one or two or five. Oh, and when you go over to her blog, just ignore that clown post. No idea what she's talking about. I think she's probably losing her marbles. But she's a really good pattern designer!