Chocolate Chip Cookies

My husband requested cookies as my next baking project, so last night I whipped up a quick batch of my favorite Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe.  I've tried a variety of premium chocolates and I happen to like Guittard a lot.  My grocery store carries their Milk Chocolate and their Semi-Sweet Chocolate chips.

My husband likes Chocolate Chip Cookies made with Milk Chocolate chips and so that's what I used.

I really love baking.  I like to eat the stuff too, but more than anything I get an intense satisfaction out of people enjoying my baked goods.

Block Project - Block 11 - Lights and Shadows

I'm back on the block project now that I'm mostly healed up.  I did a couple of blocks before my surgery and didn't post them because the pictures were not very good.  As an aside, the baking pictures are all taken by my husband...you can tell who is the photographer in the family.  :)

I may post those at some point, but for now I'm going to start fresh.

The block is Lights and Shadows block number 5 on page 57 of Jinny Beyer's The Quilter's Album of Patchwork Patterns.  The block is 4 inch finished.

Lemon cake

I'm really trying to bake several times a week and so I'm trying a lot of new recipes. I saw a recipe in Everyday Food. The recipe uses the entire lemon, which intrigued me, though I was somewhat skeptical of how it would turn out.

The finished cake looked fine, though it had a strange texture, almost like a cross between pudding and cake.

I don't know if that's the intended texture or if something went wrong with my baking.  But aside from that... there was an unpleasant bitter taste, presumably from the lemon rinds.  I'd really like to know if it was me or the recipe, but I definitely won't make this again.

Baking!

Yesterday I didn't quilt.  My arm is giving me fits still and I was worried about hurting it further, so I decided to bake my husband that coffee cake he's been wanting me to bake.

I have a tried and true recipe that I know he likes, but I enjoy experimenting.  A few months ago I bought the book Flour 

Everything I've made out of this book so far has been incredibly delicious and she had a recipe for coffee cake so I thought I'd give it a go....

This is how the cake turned out:

Notice that huge dent in the top. Here's a better shot:

The cake tastes great. I just have no idea what I possibly did that caused that cratering effect.

What happens next...

My machine is back from the hospital.  :)  I asked what had been wrong with it and the clerk taking my money said they hadn't written it down.  Since I don't know what the problem was, I certainly hope it got fixed..  I'm ready to dive in sewing again and see.

It seems such a long time since I was able to sew and I can tell my arm is still going to give me issues, but I'm really anxious to get back to my "block a day" and to sew some quilts.

When I started this blog it was going to only be about quilting and other blogs would be about the other things I wanted to talk about.  I don't know why I segmented things so much, perhaps because I sometimes feel my life is rather disjointed with parts that don't quite fit.  I'm an older woman married to a much younger man with an adult son.  I love my family, quilting, MMOs, reading, baking and our dogs.


I've decided that I'm no longer going to confine this blog to quilt stuff alone.  Especially since I'm writing it as a personal thing and not because I expect any readers.


This past weekend I wanted to get some fabric cut out for a quilt.  That didn't happen.  I ended up playing Rift on Saturday.. I think I'm going to do a whole separate post on video games and me.  I believe I'm the only 50ish woman who quilts and plays video games...

Today's goal is to get the fabric cut out for at least one quilt....

Back again

Arm is a lot better now.  Not completely healed, they say that will take another three months or so, but I can type again and I was anxious to get back to sewing.

I tried sewing a bit while my arm was still in the sling.  Quilting withdrawal had me with the shakes.  :)   But my attempt quickly ended badly when the machine ate a bunch of the fabric on the patch I was attempting to sew.  It was difficult to get it back out.  I have occasionally  had issues with corners being eaten a bit but nothing like this.

I thought perhaps it was just a fluke but wrestling with it while my arm was still in a sling was too much hassle.  So I stepped back and decided to wait for my arm to heal more before sewing.  When my arm healed enough to try sewing I kept having issues with the thread breaking and more patch corners being eaten.  I decided my machine needed to be serviced.  So... sewing has to wait a bit longer.

In the meantime I'm really looking forward to some hand work.  Applique has always been a favorite of mine and after watching the latest The Quilt Show I'm really excited about doing some applique again.

A Snail's pace

Recovery is slower than I'd like.  I have wandered into my sewing room a few times and looked mournfully at the machine.  I can't wait to get back to it.

I get the sling off my arm in one week and one day.  My husband has been teasing me that I'm like an animal caught in a trap and I'm ready to gnaw off my own limb.

I haven't been able to do much of anything I enjoy.  Cooking and baking are difficult if not impossible, no sewing, so I've been left with reading.  Thank god for my Kindle.