Mary Engelbreit Quilt

Remember the pillows I made when I made this chair cover awhile ago? Well now it has a finished quilt to go with it!



My mother in law is a very talented quilter and has made numerous goregous quilts for many years. Last summer she was kind enough to give me a generous stack of her Mary Engelbrit fabric. :D



So I decided to use the ME fabric to make a quilt for my daughter.

I wanted to make pinwheels and have it wrap around the center block. Which by the way was the challenging part of making this quilt, getting the pinwheel blocks the correct size to fit perfectly around the center block.



Here is the finished ME Quilt! Tada!!



It was very hard to take pictures of the quilt because all my daughter wanted to do was just hangout on her quilt.



I used a tulip pattern to quilt it all together.



Here is a better shot of the tulip detail that I quilted.



I made this big enough to fit her full size bed when it is ready to transform.

J's Birthday/Easter Dress

A couple of months ago I went to JcPenny to get J's pictures taken. I wanted her to wear her birthday/Easter dress I made for her for the photo shoot. Problem was I wasn't done with it. I was still sewing on the zipper minutes before we had to leave. I didn't even get to hand stitch it closed. So I brought a backup dress just in case. She did ended up wearing it and luckily I brought my little scissors to trim off some of the dangling thread. Here are some of her photos from the shoot.




So that was March and last weekened I finally finished the dress and I even sewed on a couple of pockets. The dress is now finally done!

A beautiful mess

One of my favorite blogs, Simplify, posted a photo of her messy sewing room.

Wish my sewing space could look this good.

photo courtesy of Simplify

I think this is the most beautiful mess I have ever seen. To me this room has exploded with vibrant cheerful colors and is screaming to me to go create.

Love it!

Rocking Chair makeover

When I bought this rocking chair for the nursery, I wasn't to thrilled about the color. Too pink! But we got it for dirt cheap and we just couldn't past it up. That was 2 years ago and last weekend I finally got around to giving this chair a new look.



I made a couple of cute Mary Engelbreit pillows to go with the chair. The ME fabric were left overs from a quilt I am making for Juliana, which I will post in the near future. I am super excited about this quilt btw!!



I picked a orange polka dot print for the backside of the pillows.



Now time to grab a good book and relax in this cute comfortable chair.

Basket lining for a bike

Summertime is almost here and what better way to stay cool this summer but by going for a bike ride and feeling the cool breeze. This is what my sister will be planning on doing anyway. She bought a cute pink beach cruiser last summer, something similar to the one shown below.

photo courtesy of Gossip Girl

So my sister asked me to make her some basket linings for her bike.

So this is what I created.





Now she can enjoy a bike ride to the park, along the beach, or where ever she wants, in style.

Happy riding!

Just Because...

When you have this...



plus this...



it equals this...



I saw this on a blog months ago and thought about it every now and then. And today I had to try it.



Maybe if I eat it in the dark the calories won't find me?

Honey Walnut Shrimp

Oh how I love Honey Walnut Shrimp! My husband was craving this last night and suggested we try making it. My first thought was its 7pm and its time to put DD to bed and I am in no mood to go the store, buy everything we need, come back and cook it and finally eat it at around 9pm. I was thinking more like take out instead. But I am married to a very passionate guy who if his heart is set on something he will try everywhich way possible to make me agree with him. So that is what ended up happening. Thankfully he found an easy recipe on the internet and luckliy we had everything in stock. So no need to go the store. Yeah.

So we attempted this recipe and here is what it looks like.




Mmmmmmmm. I am so glad we made this because it was sooooooo good! It was so easy as well! Here is the reciepe we followed.

Ingredients:

1 cup water
2/3 cup white sugar
1/2 cup walnuts
4 egg whites
2/3 cup mochiko (glutinous rice flour)
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 lbs large shrimp, peeled and deveined
2 tablespoon canned sweetened condensed milk
1 cup vegetable oil for frying

Directions:

1. Stir together the water and sugar in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and add the walnut. Boil for 2 minutes, then drain and place walnuts on a cookie sheet to dry.
2. Whip egg whites in a medium bowl until foamy. Stir in the mochiko until it has a pasty consistency. Heat the oil in a heavy deep skillet over medium-high heat. Dip shrimp into the mochifk batter, and then fry in the hot oil until golden brown, sbout 5 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels.
3. In a medium serving bowl, stir together the mayonnaise, honey and sweetened condensed milk. Add shrimp and toss to coat with the sauce. Sprinkle the candied walnuts on top and serve.

There is one thing that I must admit. We cheated and had a pre-made bag of "Honey Glazed Walnuts" that I bought a couple weeks ago for a future salad. We deceided to use it for this receipe instead which saved us time and it came out delicious!