Holiday Lemon Bars

  I don't do a lot of baking from scratch but this recipe always turns out great and it's really easy to make.  I wanted to share it with you.  I have not seen a lemon bar recipe that uses nuts in it and they really add a lot of flavor.

Lemon Bars

Crust 
1 cup butter; softened
1/2 cup powedered sugar
2 cups flour

Filling
4 large eggs
2 cups of sugar
1 tablespoon flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice (3 or 4 regular size lemons)
1 cup finely chopped pecans

To make the crust cream 1 cup butter and 1/2 cup powdered sugar.  Gradually stir in 2 cups flour until blended.  Pat over the bottom of an ungreased 9 x 13 x 2 inch baking pan.  Bake in a preheated 325 degree oven for 15 minutes.

While the crust is baking, make the filling by at once, beating 4 large eggs slightly with a fork; add 2 cups of sugar, 1 tablespoon flour, and 1/2 teaspoon baking powder.  Add 1/3 cup lemon juice, and 1 cup finely chopped pecans.  Stir (do not beat) until well mixed.  Pour over warm crust.  Return to oven and bake 45 minutes or until lightly browned.  Loosen edges and let cool.  Then cut bars and remove.  Freezes well.

Here's a picture of the lemon bars I made from this recipe on Christmas Eve.

Hat Knitting In The Round With Pretty Yarn

     I love knitting hats.  When I taught myself to knit in 2011, the reason I started was so I could make myself a pretty knitted hat.  It took me almost a year to get to the point where I was ready to knit a hat.  Knitting in the round is interesting, some folks do it with double pointed needles ("dpns") and some folks do it with circular needles.  I found that I can't handle dpns very well, so I taught myself how to use circular needles, with lots of help from the internet.  The trick to circular needles to have the right size for your project.

   I was going through my yarn stash the other day and I found this skein that I love.  The yarn is Lion Brand Wool-Ease, which is a blend of lamb's wool and acrylic.  It is machine washable and dryable.  The color is white/multi.  It's bright white with tiny glittery bits in it to make it sparkle.  You can't see the sparklies in this picture very well.  Sorry.  I only have the one skein of this yarn, perfect for a hat.

    Here is the start of my hat.  And yes, I do need that many stitch markers (100 stitches, a stitch marker every 10 stitches), the orange stitch marker represents the end of the round.  This is a simple 3 knit, 2 purl rib pattern and I can always tell exactly where I am by where the stitch marker is.

     I'm using my size 8  16" fixed circular knitting needles (Rainbow wood (f/k/a Harmony) needles from Knitpicks.com) to knit the body of the hat.  The pattern says to knit the body of the hat to 5.5", but I always make mine longer.  I like to have my ears covered with a hat.  When I get to the the crown decreases, I will split the stitches up evenly between two circular needles and finish the last 10 rows.

     I'm knitting my favorite hat pattern (I've made about 30 of these since I started knitting).  It's really simple to knit and the finish is super cute.  The pattern is called "Hat Fit For A Boyfriend" (it's a great hat for girls, too).  This is a free pattern on Ravelry.  Here is a link to the pattern on the designer, Stephanie Nicole's, website.  There are no pictures on this old website page, but the entire written pattern is there.  Here's a picture of one that I made.  I especially love the decreases at the top of the hat and the way they work.  So clever.

  That's all for now.  I'm disappearing for the Christmas holiday.  I'll be back next year.

 Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone!

Testing, 1, 2, 3, Testing

    I bought a brand new walking foot for my Bernina 1530 a few weeks ago and I'm just getting around to testing it.  I want to use the walking foot on the Bernina to straight quilt my Pretty In Pink quilt when I get my batt.  Here is a picture the pretty little walking foot installed on my machine and a picture of my the front and the back of the sample I just stitched.  It's perfect.

   One note about the walking foot and why I wanted to test it.  Last year I bought an off brand walking foot for my Bernina 1530 from an ebay seller.  I was saving over $100.00 and I thought it would be fine.  The motion of the off brand walking foot was not smooth and although the stitches made using the foot were fine, I wasn't happy with how the machine was running.  So I had some extra money a couple of weeks ago and decided to spring for a Bernina brand walking foot.  I am so glad I did.  There is a world of difference in the two walking feet, the Bernina brand foot runs smoothly and you can see how even the stitches are on both sides.  I'm glad I bought it.  I do a lot of straight line quilting and will probably get a lot of use out of this beauty.  

   One other test I did was to make a 5 Minute Block (the pattern is from Suzanne McNeill).  I'm thinking about using this block for a scrappy Christmas quilt, but I couldn't decide if I would like making it, so I had to try it.  Still not sure about it.  But here is my test block.  It was a fun block to make, I probably need more contrast in my fabrics.  

Update On Pretty In Pink Quilt.

   I finished trimming and ironing the rows on Tuesday night and I just finished sewing the rows together.   Here it is.

       Next week I will iron and piece my already washed solid light pink backing/binding fabric.  I'm going to piece in some blocks from the tops across the back to give it some interest.

       I still have to buy a batt for this quilt project.  I'm going to do some on line shopping for that after the first of January.  My local stores do not carry Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 batting (my favorite) so I always have to buy them on-line.  I usually order from the Connecting Threads website.  They seem to have the best prices even with shipping charges.

Pins, Pins, Pins, and Of Course, Pincushions.

     I love, love, love pincushions and pins.  One of the best things about sewing are all the fun notions I get to have.  Pincushions and pins are so simple and I am one of the sewists that can't sew without them.  I also love that they can be super decorative.  I buy them, I make them, I can't get enough of my pins and pincushions.

   When I make a pincushion I try to fill it with emery sand (not always possible) because it's so good for sharpening my pins.  I buy emery sand on Amazon or etsy.com so it's super easy to get and one pound of emery sand goes a long way.  You only need a little emery pincushions to help sharpen those pins.


       These teacup pincushions (I used the idea from a blog called MrsMMakes, link here) are filled with polyfil because it was the best material to get the nice plump pin cushion top on the cup.  I did cover them with wool (another good material to use for pins).  The pink cup has wool felt I bought in squares from an etsy seller.  The blue pincushion and the green pincushion are covered with felted wool I knit myself.  To make the blue and green covers I just knit a quick square of stockinette stitch from my wool yarn stash, felted it, filled it with polyfil, sewed it up and glued it into the cup.  The teacup is then glued to the saucer.  This is a super quick and fun project and they would also make a great gift for a fellow sewist.  The hardest thing about making these pincushions was finding a not too expensive pretty teacup and saucer to use.  I always go to ebay or etsy for my teacups and I try to buy them out of season like early in the year before Mother's Day and well before Christmas because the prices go up for those holidays.

       I have no idea what is inside these tomato pincushions I bought, I think it is sawdust, but I don't think my sewing room would be complete without a tomato pin cushion, or two or three.  I found the following information on wikipedia regarding these cuties:  "According to folklore, placing a tomato on the mantel of a new house guaranteed prosperity and repelled evil spirits. If tomatoes were out of season, families improvised by using a round ball of red fabric filled with sand or sawdust. The good luck symbol also served a practical purpose—a place to store pins.  Typically, the tomato is filled with wool roving to prevent rust, and the strawberry is filled with an abrasive to clean and sharpen the pins."

     I made the little wool pincushions with yarn I had in my knitting stash.  I posted how I made them here. 

      I made this big crazy, wonky pink pincushion with wool felt that I filled with emery, the best of both worlds.  It's really heavy and great for using at the machine because it's low profile and it doesn't get in the way of my sewing.

   I bought this felted wool pincushion because it's so pretty.

   I have a few more pincushion projects that I want to make.  There is a completely cute pincushion made using a 3" embroidery hoop, the tutorial is here.  And I know I really, really, really need a very cute ring pincushion to have for my hand stitching sessions, and that tutorial is here.

Pretty In Pink Quilt Update

   All the 9 patch blocks are made.  I made 34 nine patch blocks using 3 inch strips for this quilt top.  They will be alternated with solid blocks of the white on white rose print fabric.  I love, love, love the green center on these.  I'm really glad I did that.  I still have to iron and cut the blocks for the solid blocks.  The 9 patch blocks have been ironed and trimmed.