The Big City Quilt Debut

When k-ster's niece got married in May, I decided it was time to try a pattern I've had my eye on for a while.  I follow http://www.aprilrosenthal.com/ on instagram and when I saw her Big City Quilt, I knew I had to make it.  I can't tell you what struck me- probably the octagon pattern- but I loved it from the beginning.

I bought and downloaded the pattern and was shocked at how simple it was.  The hardest part was suffering through  making all of the HST (half square triangles).  The only part I really don't like about them is drawing that stupid line down the center.

I decided to go with a grandmas fabric stash kind of feel.  Sort of lights and pastels.  No reds, but lots of everything else.  I noticed in one picture, there was a sprinkling of blackish fabric throughout, so I wasn't too worried about using a few darks in mine.

It all came together really well, but I had a mental crash over trying to get the corners of the octagon to line up just right.  I fiddled and winged my own way of doing it and I'm sure there's some smooth and fancy way to get it right every time, but everyone assured me what I was doing was right.

I did the twin size with the intention of not adding a lot of borders because I want it to be more like a throw than a blanket for a bed.

It was just big enough that I needed to either piece two pieces together or try one of the large fabrics meant for quilt backing.  My Joann fabrics doesn't have much in the way of choices for the 108  inch fabric, so I had a lengthy debate about what to do.  I hate fabric waste, and piecing was going to end up with a huge back that would mostly be cut away because it was juuuuuust too big for one 44 inch piece.

So, I went with a white back.  None of the other choices really worked and I thought the white would continue the light color scheme.  I loved using the one large piece on the back so there was no back seam and shifting around as I quilted.
.

It was small enough that a twin size package of batting was perfect!

When I machine quilted it, I ran into a very small snafu at one edge and needed to cut the border back before I bound it.  Which I completely forgot about and happily cut up a bunch of fabric for the binding.

After I had sewn on one and a half sides, I remembered the need to trim that one edge and at the same time, realized I didn't have enough fabric for the binding.  That was a shame because I really liked the way it looked.

So, off it came and I selected the only fabric that I had a lot of.

By the way, I realize that in this picture, it looks like I think the binding and the orange in the block match and I want you all to know that I absolutely do NOT think they match!  I thought about this when I posted it on instagram!  One is soft salmon and one is bright peach!

Also, I've been using the clover binding clips lately and love them.  I don't have enough, so I had to use some pins and I have to say that my favorite part of the clips is not getting poked or getting the pins stuck on things.  The only place I feel like I still have to use pins is in the mitered corners.

Sadly, I chose the nastiest, muggiest, hottest days we've had to quilt and bind this one, so I had no choice but to finish the binding in the hammock!  She got married in May but I didn't even start this until afterward, going with the get it to them within the year rule.  I've never done that before, but I had no time beforehand.  I knew if I didn't do it when the mood was striking, I'd never get it done!

I am a one trick pony and I did my signature wavy line quilting.  I did it a little narrower than I have in the past and I really liked it.  I think this was the easiest one to quilt so far.  I made some changes to the set up in my sewing room and I quilted it on the width, so it was a shorter distance for each line.

The colors are not quite as dark as they look in all of these pictures.  The ipad isn't the best at getting the colors right, but I like how it all came out.  I like the randomness of it, but at the same time, I also think this quilt with each octagon in the same colors would be really neat.  No one else I've said this to agrees.  I guess that means I'll have to try it!

I also thought doing a super dark background (where all of the white is) with light or white octagons would be really neat too.  This pattern will be around for quite some time, I think!

By complete accident, the periwinkle matches the blue in these flowers so well, it almost makes me want to make a whole quilt of just those!

Just another intersection I wanted to share.  The green in the top right is a swamp scene that I think is hideous as a large piece, but with small pieces, it had so many colors, it goes with everything.  I used it for a purple and green quilt that I made years ago and didn't realize I still had a nice piece of it left.

All of the material in the top and binding was from my stash!  I don't know what it says about me that I have that much in my stash.  And plenty more to make another one.  I don't have a huge stash.  It all fits in two of those things you hang in your closet to store sweaters.   I have two hanging on a rack and organize my cottons by color.  To me, a stash would be shelves and shelves of a million fabrics that are not organized in any way!

I don't have any quilts for myself that I've made, and I'm suddenly thinking I might need one of these for my living room!

I really like the way April designed this and would definitely make another one in her collection.

Linking here:
http://www.thesitsgirls.com
http://olives-n-okra.com/funtastic-friday-35/
http://www.flamingotoes.com/2015/08/show-and-tell-link-party-22/ 
http://www.myturnforus.com/2015/07/freedom-fridays-with-all-my-bloggy_30.html
http://olives-n-okra.com/merry-monday-65/
http://www.sewcando.com
http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2015/08/clever-chicks-blog-hop-151-with-brinsea.html

Indulging In A New Obsession With My Crockpot

When I went to see my sister a-ster in May, we had something called pho one night.  Pho is a Vietnamese soup that is so good, I couldn't stop thinking about it for weeks after I ate it.

What I liked about it is the way it was served.  You get the broth by itself, with all of the other ingredients sitting out and you add everything to the bowl yourself and enjoy it.  This keeps the vegetables really fresh tasting and still green, instead of looking like they've been cooked for hours.  And everything remains fairly crunchy.

When I got home, I still thought about it, but I don't know anywhere around here that serves such a thing.  I remembered that I had a recipe for it once, but it asked for star anise and I didn't know where to find such a thing in our local stores, so I gave up the idea.

I googled some recipes that seemed pretty straightforward, but I wasn't sure I'd be able to get it to taste like it should.  Nothing is more frustrating than getting excited to eat something you've enjoyed before and then you try it and it's  not quite the same.

Then I sort of forgot about it!  Until the other day, when my sister posted a picture of beanster eating pho and the obsession started all over again.

It turns out, it's not hard to make at all!

I used some of this recipe here, but I altered it a little bit.

My biggest dilemma was the anise.  I couldn't find star anise, but I found a few references to using anise seed instead.  I used 3 t. of anise seeds instead of 10 star anise.  I held back a little because k-ster doesn't like the taste of anise so I didn't want to totally ruin it for him the first time.  I would definitely use more next time.

I have an issue with cloves and cinnamon, so I used just a dash of both.

I didn't have fresh ginger, so I used about 1 t. of ginger.  I could have used more because I didn't taste it at all.

I also used scallions, which this recipe didn't call for, but several other recipes did.  I think they are essential, but be sure to put them out with the other stuff to keep them crispy.  Putting them in the broth when it's cooking would kind of ruin it.

I used some spinach, not 6 cups, instead of bok choy and I only used basil, not all of the other herbs she mentions at the end of the recipe.

I had already cooked a whole chicken, so I didn't need to worry about how long it all cooked, which was good because I didn't start this until about 3:30.  I put the broth and spices in the crockpot with the chicken for about 3 hours and then removed the chicken.  I added the spinach and noodles and let it go for about a half hour. 

Arrange everything in the bowl and then add broth and noodles.  Sadly, I didn't get a picture of it with the broth, but you get the idea.

It tasted soooooo good!  I didn't use the lime when I had it at my sister's but I did last night and it was good.  I need a couple of wedges to get flavor.  And when I first put the basil in mine, I didn't use enough and needed to add more.  This was directly from my garden and I was so thrilled to use it.

What I love about pho is the ridiculous combination of flavors.  Who would think anise, basil, lime, cinnamon and cloves should be together?  It's like every bite is a mix of all of those flavors.

K-ster also added some ground habanero that we have from his crazy pepper growing experiment last year, but I refrained.  I remember there being a pepper in the mix when I had it before, but I didn't use it then, either.

I made this on a very hot and humid day.  I put the crockpot outside, as I am known to do, and it kept the heat out of the house.  Soup on a hot day was kind of a strange choice, but I thought all of those light tasting ingredients might make up for it.  And it did!

The scariest part of this recipe, and every recipe I saw, was the fish sauce.  I knew it was going to smell deadly but I wasn't really prepared for how bad it would smell.  In the jar.  Once it was in the broth it was fine and probably added the saltiness that I seem to enjoy on in pho.

Now I have a jar of fish sauce in my refrigerator and I have no idea how else to use it.....

http://olives-n-okra.com/merry-monday-65/

How We Cookout

It's July and that must mean it's time for the annual cookout recap.  Or the Bauer BBQ, as I like to call it.  You'll have to click here to see why.

What started the year of my father's retirement party as become just a cookout, nothing fancy, but something everyone expects to do every year.

My sister comes from Maryland, my brother in law's family all comes for it, and there's always a variety of my parents' friends, my friends and my sisters' friends.

In fact, this year, someone drove up while we were well underway and even though I didn't recognize him, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and assumed he was a friend of someone.  Turns out, he just wanted to pay for another night in the campground, but if he had just walked up and had a kabob, no one would have asked.

For a while, anyway.

Speaking of kabobs, it's a law that we can't have this Bauer BBQ without my kabobs, so I made chicken and steak as always.

31 steak and 27 chicken kabobs.  With yellow squash from my garden.  I had to buy onions, mushrooms and zucchini this year.  Vague recipe here.

As exciting as our cookouts are, that is not a zipline in the picture above!  My uncle put up the colored ball lights you see below and then strung the extension cord across the other side.  All night, I kept thing I should just jump off the deck and zipline right across.

The required Corn Hole game was played until the mosquitoes took over.  In fact, thanks to the mosquitoes, the Bauer BBQ ended quite early and quickly this year.  Usually, we clean up all of the trash but leave all of the tables and everything out until the next day.

Someone said "help clean up" and people were running around dismantling the whole thing  until everything was put way except for the palm tree lights and the fancy scallop shells and colored balls.

Everyone was gone by dark.

There was nothing wildly exciting or catastrophic, so I don't have much to report.

I do, however, want to share my favorite picture of the night.

I call it "A Solemn Ceremony For Flushing A Goldfish".  Not because there was a goldfish involved but because I imagine that's the kind of scene you'd have for such a thing.

I have no idea what was going on.  That was the dessert table.  Someone must have been giving them a tour of the desserts.  It was clearly the most solemn and fascinating event of the night and everyone had to bow their heads in tribute!

Linking here:
http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2015/07/clever-chicks-blog-hop-149-featuring.html
http://www.sewcando.com
http://www.skiptomylou.org

Growing Corn In My Home Garden

I remember hearing that you can't grow corn without chemicals.  I always thought that was ridiculous because everything I grow remains chemical free and I figured I could try it with corn and see what happens.

One year, I think it was before I started my  blog, I grew corn pretty well.  They grew, made an appropriate amount of kernels and nothing got into them.  I remember eating them at two different meals. 

So, I was sure I could grow corn from then on, chemical free.

And then we had this debacle a few years back.

So, I vowed to stop wasting my timing growing corn.

But, in garden #2, the fence is much higher, so I thought I could outsmart the critters.  I thought it was raccoons that ransacked the cornstalks last time, and this fence is higher and flimsier, so I didn't think raccoons could clamber over it. 

 I planted the corn away from the fences, in the middle, where I thought maybe they wouldn't bother going.

Things have been looking good in cornland.

I was surprised to see tassels already out and the corns looking sort of ready in their husks.

Yesterday, I noticed that the tassels had disappeared on a few ears of corn.  Odd because usually, you wait until the tassels turn brown and then the corn is ready.

This morning, I went out to check on things, as usual.  My garden has been super slow, or so it seems, so only with the recent 90 degree weather have things started to really take off.

I say this every year and worry and then it turns out August is ridiculously plentiful, so I really shouldn't be concerned. 

I guess I just hate the waiting for almost all of July!

Everything looked good, as usual.  My favorite times in the garden are early in the morning, before the sun starts baking, and just after supper, before the sun goes completely down.

And then I saw this.

And this!

And I was heartbroken!  Something came in and knocked down a cornstalk and then stripped off the husk and nibbled all over one ear of corn.

Wondering if the others are actually ready, I pulled off one ear, but this was all that came.


I only have a few ears left because I didn't plant many since this was an experiment to see if I could avoid animal interference.  Because I didn't plant many, they didn't pollinate all that well, thus the many blank spaces.  Corn has this weird thing about needing every tassel to be touched by pollen in order to make kernels all over the ears, and if you don't plant a lot, in rows that almost touch, then that won't happen.

So, my dreams of a nice dinner with some homegrown corn have been dashed for this year.

I'm not going to pull out the remaining stalks because I still want them to be there to support some climbing beans that I planted, but I'm seething with rage thanks to what I imagine must be a very content squirrel.

Linking here:

http://www.myturnforus.com/2015/07/freedom-fridays-with-all-my-bloggy_23.html
http://www.thesitsgirls.com
http://www.olivesnokra.com/ 

How To Be A Sailor or Just Talk Like One

Here on Aunt Mildred's Porch, we do a lot of talking about crafting and cooking, but sometimes I just can't help teaching you a little something.

Today, I'd like to teach you 3 words so you too can be a sailor or at least just talk like one.

I think everyone is familiar with the term MAYDAY, which one says when one is sinking, in a plane falling from the sky or in some other dreadful situation where help is needed.  STAT.

I have known for a long time that the term mayday is actually from the French phrase m'aider which means help me.  I believe the entire request is pourriez-vous m'aider, meaning could you help me.  It's pronounced "mayday" thus the spelling in everyday sailor English.

You might have known all of that, but did you know the other two radio calls that sailors use?

One is securité.  No, not security.  Securité.  From the French, meaning security.  But pronounced SECURITAY.

Not so much a distress call, this term is often used when large vessels like ferries or big ships are entering or leaving port.  Over the radio one hears "SECURITAY SECURITAY SECURITAY" and everyone knows that they should prepare for a large ship going one way or the other.

This is the phrase that made me write this post.  We live pretty close to the ferry to Nantucket and many times, if the wind is blowing the right way, we hear the big whistle of it coming or going.  The other night we heard it and k-ster said it was coming (or going, I forget which) and when I asked how he knew the difference he said "because if it it's going (or coming, I forget which), they say SECURITAY SECURITAY SECURITAY over the radio 3 times."

I fell right off the couch.  K-ster is no speaker of French and to hear something come out of his mouth sounding French, but also sounding suspiciously like a character on Southpark is enough to make anyone wet their pants.

I didn't believe him, of course, because why would any sailor be using not just one but 2 French terms over the radio, so I asked my father, who spent his childhood around boats and a few years in the Coast Guard.  If anyone should know distress calls at sea, it should be him.

So, I casually went next door and said "oh, what do they say when a ship is entering (or leaving, I forget) a dock? "  There was a bit of a pause because I was on the deck and he was inside and I couldn't see his face.  K-ster was nowhere around, so I he didn't have any cuing.

"SECURITAY SECURITAY SECURITAY"

I don't think I caught my breath for 5 minutes, I laughed so hard.  My father is even more ridiculous when trying to speak French and sounds even more suspiciously like a Southpark character.

NO WAY, I said.  There is NO WAY non French men are yelling SECURITAY over the radio like that.  Except maybe Eric Cartman.

So, this prompted an extensive google search by father and daughter which also revealed one more distress call.

PAN PAN, PAN PAN, PAN PAN.

Again from the FRENCH!  This from en panne, meaning broken down, which again, I knew by the sound of it but could not imagine this was really true. This is delivered in a very staccato method, like dots in Morse code.

Nowhere near as funny to hear my father say because it didn't sound too French, but amazing to me that 3 radio calls are of French origin.

So, the next time you're on a ferry coming or going, listen to the radio and see if you hear SECURITAY uttered 3 times.  And if you hear either of the other calls, I'd say get your life jacket on and pray.

Linking here:
http://www.myturnforus.com/2015/07/freedom-fridays-with-all-my-bloggy_16.html

Running Away With Runners

I've noticed A LOT of people on instagram make lots of small quilts, mini-quilts, table runners, etc. and it dawned on me recently that this is probably the best way to perfect my quilting techniques.  Plus these small pieces are so much easier to wrangle through my regular sewing machine than an actual quilt, so it makes it fun to sew and quilt!

I've also finally figured out how to put small pieces of batting together in a usable way so I don't have so much waste.  I'm not sure I'd make an actual quilt with batting that I've sewn together because I'd be concerned that you would feel the ziggaged seamline inside or that it would be weak there and fall apart inside the quilt after  a lot of use and washings.

I'm in the process of making a small quilt for k-ster's niece, and it's not yet picture ready, so I'll show what I did with the scraps.  There are a lots of half square triangles in the quilt and there were a TON of leftovers that were already perfectly sized for something, so I put them to use in a small runner.  There are two sizes of half square triangles in the quilt, so I thought I'd make pinwheels out of the big triangles and use the small ones for borders.

I like making pinwheels even though (horrors) I don't ever trim my half square triangles!  I prefer to wing it and hope everything lines up and 99% of the time I'm happy with it.

My purpose here was to have the white show as the pinwheels, but all I see is the colored triangles and I'm not too happy about that.  I wanted the whites to just pop and they don't.

The white material was new for the quilt, but the entire set of triangles was made from my stash.  It's fun to look at so many fabrics and remember whose quilt I made out of them!  It amazes me that I have some fabrics left from quilts I made almost 20 years ago.  It's impossible to think I've been sewing that long, but my roommate got married in 1995 and I made my first quilt for her, so I guess that's 20 years.

Because I really have very little idea what I'm doing in the realm of quilting, my triangles border didn't quite come out as I planned.  The top points were swallowed by the binding and the bottom left corner points are not all as I want them to be.

This is a runner that really will never see the light of day because it sits on top of the bureau that k-ster refashioned from 5 drawers to 3.  I put two baskets on top of it for more storage and even though the bureau is as old as I am and has the scratches to prove it, I felt like it needed a runner so it wouldn't get more scratched.  No one will really ever see that I didn't do such nice points on the border triangles.

I also thought that instead of my trademark wavy quilt stitch, I'd try just doing straight lines.  I say try because even though I used my walking foot and the guide that can go on it, I managed to make some rather unstraight lines.

Lesson learned:  straight lines, like trimming blocks, just isn't for me!

I love the fabric on the back and binding and I vividly remember the quilt I made with it.  I was shocked to find such a nice piece in my stash.  I forget what the pattern was called but I think it was some kind of  Irish chain because I remember my mother saying she thought it was a really tough pattern.  I don't recall that it was tough, but anything that doesn't involved triangles is a breeze as far as I 'm concerned and I know there were no triangles in that pattern!







I really like making these little quilts to try out new things and play around with stitches.  I made a quick little mat to put under the water fountain for the cats so it could catch water if they start playing with the flowing water.

They haven't been inclined to play with it yet but this is a nice little mat to put under the stainless steel fountain on top of the tile.  I love the ridiculous backing.  I've had a pile of weird fabric from that 80s that someone dropped off for me at school a long time ago.  The woman used to do a lot of craft fairs and included very outdated patterns for things that were quite popular at craft fairs in the 80s and the fabric reflects that country kitsch decor.  I never do anything farmy or country, so I thought it would be fine for the back!

Now I feel like the top of everything needs a little mat and I'm kind of on a roll!

Linking here:
http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2015/07/clever-chicks-blog-hop-147-with-chicken.html
http://olives-n-okra.com/merry-monday-62/ 
http://www.skiptomylou.org
http://www.flamingotoes.com/2015/07/show-and-tell-link-party-18/
http://www.sewcando.com
http://www.thesitsgirls.com 

Underground Mysteries

I've been growing potatoes for a few years and no matter how many times I see the green plant up top and root around underneath and come up with potatoes, I'm still amazed every time.

I have an old black wheelbarrow in the greenhouse where I threw in a couple of potatoes a few years ago.  I like getting the potatoes but sometimes they interfere when I want to plant something else in there.

In the fall, I decided to comb through the entire thing and take out every last potato so I could use it this spring for something else.  We had that wicked winter that killed anything that might have been hanging on in the greenhouse, so I was sure potatoes were a thing of the past.

Imagine my surprise when a new potato plant came up a few months ago.  This one was kind of small and I don't remember it flowering, so I figured it was a dud.

As I was getting supper together the other night, I thought I'd go out and see what I could find.  I was amazed when two really big potatoes popped out along with a few small ones. 

I treat my potatoes very poorly.  I ignore them and don't keep mounding up the soil around them as they grow taller.  I dig around and disturb the roots before they make potatoes and I take them when they are pretty small.  And somehow, they continue to do what I want.

I'm not a huge fan of potatoes so I don't grow them in bulk to store for the winter.  I don't really care if they grow or not and this neglect is probably why they thrive!

Onions, on the other hand, I totally get.  I can see their tops from the very beginning and it's easy to brush some of the soil aside to see how big they are getting.  For the past couple of years, I've been growing onions but this seems to be the best group ever.

There are tons, probably over 100.  Last year, I grew about 200 and harvested more than I could count and they lasted me almost all winter.  I do a mix of red, white and yellow.  They come from Dixondale Farms and they have a group of those 3 mixed for people like me that don't care too much about the particulars of onion varieties.

These take up  2 long rows in one garden and about 10 feet in another.  They are simple to grow and can be fairly close to each other.  When the tops fall over, it's time to harvest.  My harvest is pulling them out, laying them on trays of newspaper in the greenhouse, out of the sun, and covering them with newspaper, hoping they will dry properly and not rot.

Last winter, some mice got into them toward the end because I didn't do anything to prevent them getting in.  I didn't realize they'd look for them.  I'll have to be strategic this year because once they find something, they come back trying to find more and I'm not willing to share!

Trying Shrimp Tacos For the First Time

When I hear the words fish/shrimp and tacos or burritos together, I tend to get a little squeamish.  I always first think of a "typical" taco of hamburger, cheese and tomatoes or a "typical" burrito full of beans.  Neither of those images supports adding fish.

However, we've come so far in our definition of tacos and burritos these days, it's hard to even recognize them as the  tacos or burritos of my childhood.

I follow www.taunieverett.com on instagram and she mentioned these Honey Mango Shrimp tacos and I thought it might be just the thing to add some variation to my supper routine.  I get into such a rut of making the tried and trues because I know them and they are fast, and some nights, I think I'd rather just eat a can of ravioli than think of another supper plan.  Then I get a grip on myself and gag at the idea of canned ravioli and hop in the internet.

I liked everything in the ingredient list and as the day went on, I started thinking about how great that salsa was going to be.

I do not ever have mangoes on hand because they are fairly expensive here and I doubt their quality is great.  No mango farms here in New England!  I actually had very few of these ingredients so I had to make a trip to the grocery.  I was thrilled to find a small cabbage because even cut in half, I had way more than I needed and a large one would have been ridiculous.

I do not ever cook shrimp in any fat or oil, so after I picked myself up off the floor from the shock of using that much butter, I simply cooked them in themselves and drizzled a little honey when they were done.

I'm still trying to imagine 1.5 cups of butter for shrimp.

Here's my version:

I completely forgot about the cheese until hours after supper.  Pretty funny because I had specifically bought cheese for these. We liked them so much without the cheese, I'm not even sure I'd use it in the future.

The mango salsa is amazing but since I like to cut back on sugar, I'm not sure I'd use any sugar at all next time.  It was really sweet and if the mango is ripe enough, I think that would be enough sweetness.   I added a little extra chili powder but I think I'd add more or perhaps a slight shot of something spicier.  I'm not a spice fan at all, but I think a little kick with the sweet would be good.

The cabbage doesn't do much for taste but it adds a great crunch and some filling to put it all together.

The only problem I had was filling the tortillas.  They were impossible to  keep together with all of that deliciousness falling out, so it was a major mess with juice dripping everywhere! 

Now, if I could just get my act together to make my own tortillas from www.annies-eats.com and use them for this, I think we'd have a real winner!

Linking here:
http://www.thesitsgirls.com
http://www.myturnforus.com/2015/07/freedom-fridays-with-all-my-bloggy_9.html
http://olives-n-okra.com/funtastic-friday-32/

Summer Celebration Trifle

K-ster's uncle invited us for a clambake on the 4th of July, so I brought a dessert.  I don't think I've ever made a patriotic dessert before,  but I wanted to use my Pampered Chef trifle bowl, so I got cracking.

I knew I wanted to use blueberries, strawberries and cool whip.  And I was debating lemon filling or banana filling.

I went with the lemon filling.  I'm not a boxed pudding mix kind of person, so I went to www.allrecipes.com to find a lemon pudding recipe.  I ended up using a lemon custard recipe that was good, but I'd go with banana the next time.  I'm sure you could use boxed puddings and no one would be sad.

Except for me, but I probably won't be going to your cookout anyway.

I totally made up the layering, but I'm sure you can find a real recipe out there.  Here's what I did:

layer angelfood cake around the bottom

add enough pudding to just cover it

spread enough cool whip to cover that

sprinkle some blueberries over it, focusing more toward the edges of the bowl

cut the strawberries lengthwise and place them up against the glass- you're going to put cake and filling inside this and it looks decorative when the strawberries are out like that

 continue layering until you run out of everything

If I had used banana pudding, I would have also use some bananas for layering.

I only had 1 angel food cake and could really  have used two.  I also only got a small thing of cool whip and I would use 2 next time.

I used 1 container of strawberries and I think I used 2 containers of blueberries but I can't remember!  

I recommend using 2 of everything, including 2 recipes of the filling or 2 boxes if you prefer.  I felt like I  had to make it all work because it's all I had and it made the layering a little stressful!

Once the first spoonful comes out, no one cares how it looks because it gets mushed together, but it's pretty when you carry it to the table and it looks like you put some effort into the look of it.

And I love that the Pampered Chef trifle bowl has a lid for transporting it!

You can see that it's also standing on a pedestal but I didn't bring it with me because I was afraid it would get left behind.  I love that it comes off and stores inside when not in use, but carrying the pedestal to a cookout seems a little strange.

And by the way, that clambake?  I thought we'd have a few lobsters to share, some clams and maybe some corn.  I can't tell you my shock when there were enough lobsters for everyone to have their own and then some plus more clams that anyone could eat at one cookout.  And the corn was fairly plentiful too. 

What did you do/eat for the 4th?

Did you know that I do facebook Pampered Chef parties?  You only have to play along with me and invite your friends to join in and you get all of the hostess rewards and freebies!  Check it out.  https://www.facebook.com/joannaspamperedchefpage

Linking here:
http://www.thesitsgirls.com

The Paneled Sunsuit Debut

Did you wear sunsuits as a little girl?   In my house, they were a summer staple.  I remember wearing them until I was maybe 10 or so.

One of the things I didn't like about them was that they had to be untied when I had to go to the bathroom and then someone had to help retie them.

Obviously my sister www.callajaire.com remembered those days when she created the Paneled Sunsuit.  These straps have elastic, no ties, so anyone can get them on and off with ease.

In fact, this pattern has so many options, you could make an entire summer wardrobe and not repeat yourself!  Shorts, tanks, sunsuits, skirts, dresses....  Seriously, this could keep you busy for a while!

This pattern just released today and I'm so excited to share the link with you!

When she first mentioned that she was creating a pattern to sell, I thought she just meant she was doing the sunsuit.  When I went to visit in April, my job was to keep beanster busy, while beanster thought her job was to keep auntiejo busy, while my sister did some behind the scenes details on her pattern.

Even though I knew there were dress options that she was offering at that point, I had no idea until I saw this today just how many different things you can get from this one pattern!

I saw a few of my 5th grade girls trying to wear sunsuits this past month and they just weren't working for them.  They were too tall and the sunsuits were too small.  These maxi dress options would have been perfect for them!  The skirts are great for the older girls too!  And the hemmed tank option is fantastic.

Don't think I'm not toying with the idea that I might be small enough to fit into the biggest size of this pattern.  If I can pull it off, you might see me sporting some version of this pattern sometime soon!

Don't get ahead of yourself:   I assure you I will NOT be wearing the sunsuit option!

You can see lots of versions on instagram.  Just look for #paneledsunsuit or look for @callajaire where you can see a lot of her versions.

If you sew, get to callajaire's website and buy the pattern to download now! 

Linking here:
http://www.thesitsgirls.com
http://www.myturnforus.com/2015/07/freedom-fridays-with-all-my-bloggy.html
http://www.skiptomylou.org
http://olives-n-okra.com/funtastic-friday-31/
http://www.sewcando.com
http://www.flamingotoes.com/2015/07/show-and-tell-link-parties/ 
http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2015/07/clever-chicks-blog-hop-146-with-chicken.html