July 2014 - Yearning to Create

Basketweave Fabric Table Runner

A while ago I pinned a basket weave quilt pattern that I saw here at honeybear lane. I thought she did an awesome job and I wanted to try it. I decided to start small so it would be easier to handle – besides, I needed a little runner for a corner cabinet.

This was fun and so quick and easy! The part that took the longest was choosing the fabric! I cut the fabric into strips – can’t even remember what size I did. I think it was 1 1/2 inch wide strips, and obviously the lengths varied as you can see.

I securely pinned each strip to my batting piece which was actually just a piece of a dropcloth – it was just to add a little weight to the project so it was perfect.

So first I laid down my bottom piece (right side out), my dropcloth piece, and then pinned my strips through it all.

Then I pinned my first piece to be woven and just took it through the strips.

And then I just kept adding more and more strips and wove them though, pinning securely at each end, and sometimes in the center.

I love that you can see how it’s going to look as you do it.

There it is – all woven and pinned.

Next step was to sew up and down every line. Yes, you’re going to get poked a few times – wear gloves if you must!

The sewing lines as seen on the backing.

And there it is, all sewn with the edges trimmed – how easy is that?

I think the frayed edges add to it’s charm!

It needed an edge though so I just cut a thin strip, diagonally sewed pieces together to make it long enough, and then ironed in a fold line.

(The other day my 20 year old daughter approached me looking all thoughtful and asked, “Mom, what’s the opposite of ‘irony’?” I thought she had been studying or something so I started wracking my brain to try to be of some help to her. “Um, let’s see, opposite of ‘irony’ , um . . .” (as I’m trying to recall my grammar lessons from so long ago). And then I admitted defeat. “I’m not sure Elle,” I humbly answered. “Do you know?” Then she got the cutest sheepish little smile and said, “Yes, ‘wrinkley'”. And then she scampered off giggling, leaving me standing there, shaking my head, feeling more than a little bit foolish! And even more so when I tried the same joke on one of my other daughters, and she knew the answer!)

The iron thing made me recall that little incident!

Anyway, I pinned and sewed it on, leaving the raw edges showing again because I like that look.

There is the finished back side . . .

. . . and the finished front side.

I didn’t bother to wash mine. When I do, the edges will fray up a little more.

That added a little more colour to the corner. Kat approves!

Banana Cake

I love bananas because they force me to bake something yummy once in a while (or I can throw them in the freezer until I’m ready to deal with them)! This banana cake recipe came from my friend Tammy and I absolutely love it. The cake is light and the icing is fabulous!

I also love the blue star plate that I got in Target a while back. It’s my tribute today to my American friends – Happy 4th of July!

Banana Cake

1/2 cup butter or margarine

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. baking soda dissolved in 4 tbsp hot water

1 cup mashed bananas (I use 3)

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 cups flour

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs. Mix soda and water and add to mashed bananas. Mix dry ingredients together. Alternate dry and wet ingredients. (Or if you’re like me and have a Bosch, mix all your wet ingredients and then throw in all your dry ingredients.)

Bake at 350 for 25-35 minutes in a 9×13 pan.

Icing (I double it!)

1/4 cup butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 tbsp milk

3/4 cup icing sugar

Melt butter – add sugar and milk. Remove from heat and add icing sugar.

Pour over your cake when it comes out of the oven.

Oh doesn’t that look delicious?

I recently used the cake recipe without the icing and made it into banana bread. I used two tin foil loaf pans and it worked wonderfully. Loaves seem to cook more evenly when they’re baked in tin foil pans – and it’s so much easier to get the loaf out of the pan when your pan is flexible! Next time I might throw in some chocolate chips, or chopped walnuts, or coconut too!

Yup, sure do love bananas!

Campfire Dessert – Roasted Strawberries

Okay all you happy campers out there – I have to share this campfire treat that is so much better than marshmallows (and I love me a few marshmallows burned over a campfire!).

We were at Young Women Beehive camp last week and roasted wieners wrapped in Pillsbury dough strips for dinner. I thought they tasted so much better than regular hot dogs! Anyway, we had lots of strips of dough left over, so Sis. F. went and got the strawberries we were going to have for breakfast, and invented this:

Strawberries wrapped in dough and roasted over the fire. They were soooo delicious! They best way I can describe it would be: it tastes like a little bite of warm strawberry pie on a stick. You have got to try this!!!

When I went camping with my family a few days later, we made them too.

Here’s how to create these tasty morsels:

Cut your dough in strips (ignore the Pillsbury lines in the dough). I believe it was the Crescent Rolls we used. Wrap your strawberry well. We learned a few tips as we went along:

– strawberries like to turn on the stick as they get heated, so use some dough to anchor the top and bottom of each strawberry to the stick.

– pinch the ends of your dough to other dough on your strawberry, or it may unwrap as it cooks.

Roasting time depends on how hot your fire is, or how high you hold it. But it cooks pretty quickly. Once the dough isn’t doughy, it’s done!

Give it a moment to cool down and then enjoy!!!

And if you don’t have dough, even just plain roasted strawberries was delicious. And so are grapes, and pickles – just not together! We found these dollar store sticks worked best for the strawberries because you could easily bend the wire ends to fit your strawberry. Having it anchored on two sides was so much better for roasting, but a little trickier to wrap the dough around.I love a little charcoal on my campfire cooking!

If you weren’t a happy camper before, you will be now!!!

Or maybe you don’t have to camp at all – backyard fire pits are perfect for roasting these beauties too! Enjoy!!!

(Edited to add: This year we discovered that roasted cherries are delicious too – either with the pit, or not. My guy liked to cut a cherry in half and remove the pit then embed it inside a marshmallow, and roast it that way. The somewhat sour cooked cherry mixed with the sweet marshmallow was a fantastic flavour combination.

Another new treat was roasted mandarin orange segments. They don’t need long over the fire but the outside turned crisp, and the inside tasted like sweet warm thick juice. Let it cool down a minute before you bite into its deliciousness!)

Canada Day

Happy Canada Day!!!

July 1, 1867 – Canada got its start.

Sir John A. MacDonald played a major part!

So if we do the math, today is Canada’s 144th Birthday!!!

One thing I admire about our neighbours to the south is how patriotic they are. They LOVE the Fourth of July and go all out in decorating and partying to celebrate their Independence Day. I don’t think we do half as much celebrating as they do.

I have a few Canadian decorations like this garden stake that sits in the garden all summer.

And I have this wooden flag on my porch. The other side of the board is a little house with the words Simple Life on it. I usually have that side showing all summer and then rotate it to the flag side for the holidays.

My porch animals keep moving – they’re alive!!!

But one of my favourite sights on Canada Day is this . . .

. . . our Flag!

The youth in each ward in town have an annual fundraiser. We pay $40 and they will put a flag up in our yard for every holiday from Victoria Day in May to Thanksgiving in October.