An Odds and Ends Sort of Day

Sunday was spent mostly in the Sweat Shop and mostly doing a bit of this and a bit of that.  Of course there was some playing around with scraps, and I'll show you those blocks next weekend.  I also played around with the Country Cottages quilt, working on the sashing and adding a little more to the December block.  Remember that all of these blocks will also get button and bead embellishments eventually, but those will need to wait until the quilting is done.

Cuter now with the snow and the smoke, isn't it?  It also repeats design elements from the first (January) block.

The final project I tackled was quilting the George Schnibbles--I hope to be able to show that one a little later this week.  It's funny but I realized it's much better to cut fabric while watching the Sunday night programing on PBS than to run the machine at 100 mph working on quilting.  I kept stopping to listen to the dialogue, so I don't think I got much done.  By the way, did you watch the first episode of the Bletchley Circle?  I'm not sure how I'll manage to wait until next week to see the second episode.  I love the idea of these four women working to solve a crime--not an unusual premise for a TV show, but since it's set in the 1950s and the women are former WWII code breakers, there's a little bit of a twist.

Remember my fabric scraps/food comparison from yesterday's post?  I also worked from my "food scraps" today to make what turned out to be a pretty good dessert.  I've posted a recipe before for a simple cake I sometimes make with a chocolate cake mix and a can of cherry pie filling; I've always wondered what it would turn out like if I changed up the cake mix and pie filling flavors.  Well, I had some kind of yellow cake mix in the cupboard along with a can of apple pie filling--both had been there so long I was afraid to look at the "best by" dates but I thought it was worth a risk.

The recipe?  Grease or spray and flour a 9" x 13" pan and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Mix together a dry cake mix, 3 eggs, and a 21 ounce can of pie filling.  Bake for about 40 minutes.  Easy, right?

The only thing I would have changed is to add some cinnamon to the mix.  Since it's an unfrosted cake, I served it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream; whipped cream would have been lovely too--maybe a cinnamon whipped cream, in fact.

The weekend is over and it's back to work in the morning.  Time to go find my bed.