First Day of Fall

Yay! I am SO ready for fall! Not a hot weather girl and living in the southern California high desert area I'm usually ready for fall by mid-June. We've had exceptionally warm weather all summer long, but yesterday the high was 67 and it even rained a little -- special treat!

It was chilly this morning so when Dan got up at 5 he threw this leaf quilt on the bed so I wouldn't wake up cold. He's totally a keeper!

Got into the sewing room around 8 and started the blocks of the day....

Two more finished!

Then started pressing and trimming yesterday's leader/ender blocks.

Now that I'm close to being done with this step, I realized the cutting would be a whole lot easier with the rotating mat. I have the 12" and am considering investing in the 17". I'd love to hear your thoughts on this as it is truly an investment.

Pressing and trimming done...then Dan wandered upstairs and declared today a Scone Day! Gave him the choices of lemon ginger, pumpkin spice and mixed berry; he decided today felt like a very berry day.

The dish to celebrate the change of seasons is from Longaberger pottery collection.

Next up, pressing the three sashing strips to make up the next row of the quilt I'm making for Rhonda.

I did have time yesterday to get the sashing strip unit made and attached to the top of the second row. My goal for today is to piece and attach the next two strip units and sew half the quilt together. I know, I'm getting ambitious!

Again, thoughts on the 17" rotating mat -- do you use yours enough to make it worth the $?

Bake Something Delicious!

We promote quilting classes on Craftsy quite often.  Their classes are amazing and we love quilting so it's a logical match.  But did you know that Craftsy offers classes on LOTS of other hobbies??

And they're having a big sale this weekend!!  ALL classes are under $20!!

Click HERE to get the sale price on any class through our affiliate link.

What will you make this weekend??

What will you Craftsy?

Craftsy is having another great sale.  In fact this is the second biggest sale of the year.  EVERY SINGLE CLASS is 50% off.  So if there's a class you've had on your wish list... now is the time!  It doesn't get any cheaper than this!

We always promote everything quilting because that's what we love most but there are so many more fun classes out there so today is all about everything BUT quilting!

These are just a few examples from Craftsy's HUGE list of classes.  All classes are 50% off now through Monday.  Click HERE for the sale!

 

Happy Craftsy-ing!!  ;)

Artisan Bread in Minutes

My fabulous assistant Monica and I got to go to the Craftsy Instructor Summit in Denver the end of January.  We were able to hear many excellent speakers talk with us about promoting our classes, our brands, etc.  I learned a lot, but Monica is a total computer chick, so she got so way more out of it than I did – made her even more knowledgeable about all the social media stuff.

I, on the other hand, listened to what made sense to me and kind of zoned out when they got technical.  But another awesome part about being there was that I got to meet a lot of the other Craftsy instructors and network with them.  I even got to meet my bread baking idol, Zoe Francois!  I have to admit, although I’m not ashamed of it, that I was a total FAN GIRL when I met her, complete with posing for pictures.  I don’t think I jumped up and down and squealed when I saw her, but I can’t say for sure that I didn’t, either.  ;)

I’ve been baking bread out of Zoe’s book, “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day” ever since it was published several years ago.  (See the pics of my bread in this post!)  It’s the only way I ever bake bread now, so my bread machine has been sitting in the pantry for a very long time.  When I saw a few months ago that Zoe was teaching her methods on Craftsy, I immediately grabbed the class and couldn’t wait one second to watch it.  The main reason was that, even though I had been baking out of the book, there is nothing like watching Zoe actually do the techniques and listening to the instructions as she does it.  It was amazing and I would definitely recommend this class!

Plus Craftsy is hosting a big giveaway..... Today through March 13, use this link to shop for ANY Craftsy class and you'll be automatically entered to win $1,000 for the craft-focused charity of your choice!  (Be sure to use the link because that's how you'll be entered to win!)

At  the end of the month, Craftsy will select one lucky winner at random and notify them that they've won!  The winner will then choose a craft-focused charity to receive the $1,000 prize.  It's an easy, fun, and impactful way to make a difference!

P.S.:  Even though I was sort of giddy around Zoe, she was very nice and gracious.  Definitely my all around baking hero!


Visit Zoe's website HERE.  


Click HERE to check out Zoe's class!

Double "D" Cupcakes -- Lancaster CA

Company coming for dinner tonight -- yeah, I could bake something, but....then I remembered the letter from my friend Marilyn Norris who owns Double "D" Cupcakes. Marilyn's been baking and selling her treasures for a while now, but the letter said that she had opened a retail store. Did this mean that I could actually get cupcakes at a moment's whim and a ten minute drive rather than calling and placing an order for later in the week?

Seems so!



Here's Marilyn in the entrance to the shop; the table holds a nice display of pictures from various events where she has catered the cupcakes as well as a book with beautiful pictures of all the goodies!



The kitchen is gorgeous -- look at all that space! And those ovens! And those big tables (I know, we just want to throw cutting mats on them and start setting up sewing machines, right?)! That's Cassie with her back to us, frosting a cake for a special order for delivery later this afternoon.



Recognized the big container, but this one holds frosting -- in my house, it would be full of rising bread dough...looks remarkably similar!

Big machines for mixing up the cake batters and frostings....

Oh, my -- and the pantry!!

Double "D" sells two sizes of cupcakes: standard size, known as "Baby D's" and the larger "Double D's", which are twice the size for less than twice the price. I can easily scarf down one of the babies in one coffee break -- whoops, I just did!

I've only done that once with a Double D -- it was chocolate peanut butter (my favorite flavor and absolutely to die for!), I ate it at about 3:30pm with a cup of coffee and couldn't eat dinner that night! Now we cut them in quarters and share...

If you live locally or are making a trip here, Double "D" is located at 620 W. Ave. L in "Sweet" 103 in Lancaster; phone is 661-510-0480. They aren't shipping cupcakes yet, but probably will be soon, so you can keep posted on that by either going to the website, http://www.doubledcupcakes.com/ or by becoming a fan on their Facebook page.

An advantage of the Facebook thing is that the available flavors are posted each day, so if you do want to go in you can call ahead of time, tell them what you want and it will be all ready for you when I (oops, I mean YOU) get there!

So I'm just finishing up my coffee break and now I have to get out a brush and clean the red velvet cupcake crumbs out of the keyboard -- hate it when that happens!