Winter Baking

My daughter and I made some of my mom's poppy seed cake. I've eaten this every Christmas for as long as I can remember remembering. It's something I make throughout the year, but I must make at Christmastime. Here's the recipe if you'd like to make it.

Poppy Seed Cake Recipe
2 c sugar
1 ½ c vegetable oil
3 c flour - sifted
1 can (12 oz.) evaporated milk
4 large eggs
4 heaping Tbsp Poppy Seeds
1 ½ tsp baking soda
½ cup chopped walnuts
½ tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a very large bowl, combine the sugar and eggs; beat well. Add oil and cream well, about 2 minutes. In a separate medium-sized bowl, sift together the dry ingredients. Alternate adding the dry ingredients and the can of milk to the egg mixture until well combined. Gently fold in poppy seeds and walnuts. Pour into a greased bundt pan & bake 1 hr. For cupcakes, bake 25-30 minutes. For jumbo cupcakes, bake 35-40 minutes.

xoxo,

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Sewing 101 - How to Use Your Auto Threader

This is for Yolanda. xoxo

Some of you may have an auto threader on your sewing machine. Let me tell you, they are rad. I love mine and never thread my needle myself anymore. How do you know if you have an auto threader? Well, hopefully you've read your manual which will tell you. You can also look on the machine itself. If you've only got this little guy that comes down, you've just got an auto buttonhole maker:

You can tell because of this symbol, which is universal for buttonholes.

If you pull that guy down and you still have another guy to pull down, congratulations, you have an auto threader!

Here's how to use it:

Thread your machine as normal, but don't thread the needle.

Make sure your needle is all the way in its up position and pull this guy down. A little hook will go into your needle's eye.

Wrap the thread around the mechanism like so, and hook the thread on the little hook peeking through the needle's eye:

 Release the lever, which will pull your thread through the needle's eye.

Not photographed - pull your thread all the way through, et voila! You are now threaded!

xoxo,

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Chevron Baby Quilt

Full disclosure, I totally took every single aspect from this quilt (with the exception of colors) from this tutorial via Aesthetic Nest that was featured on UCreate a few weeks ago. She even provides you with info on where to buy your fabric. I used Premier Prints ZigZag Village fabric, which is a duck so it was a little heavier weight than normal quilting fabric.

I loved making this quilt. I really like wholecloth quilts where I don't have to piece anything, and it's rare for me to find one I love so much. It's truly the chevron print that makes this particular quilt because you use them as a stitching guide which gives the chenille back it's fun zigzag (all explained in the tutorial I linked to above).

I used four layers of flannel on my back, and had only washed it once. It'll get fluffier than this apparently. I used a blue & white plaid, a chocolate brown, a white with teensy blue polka dots, and a light blue in that order from bottom layer to top.

The finished measurements are 41" x 49". I know Anneliese's are 45" x 45", but my flannel was 44" wide before sewing, so I couldn't get it that big. The binding is a Kona cotton, but I don't remember the name of the color.

It was a good 6-7 hours for the sewing around the chevrons, and 2-3 for the cutting (which killed my pregnant, arthritic hands), and maybe 2 hours for the binding. Not a ton of time for a quilt so lovely, but one you wouldn't want to whip up in a day. I did it over the course of three weeknights and a weekend and it was very easy to get done in time for Christmas. I cannot recommend this quilt and tutorial enough. Thank you Aesthetic Nest for your lovely tutorial!!

xoxo,

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My Christmas Tablescape

Hello darlings! I hope you all had a truly lovely and heartwarming Christmas! Ours was wonderful and lovely. The tradition in my husband's family is that we have Thanksgiving at his mom or sister's house, and we have Christmas at our house. I get to cook both meals, which I totally, totally love. I only wish our families were bigger so I could make even more food!! :)

So this was our first Christmas at our new home. Our last place was much smaller than this house, so the decorations all "fit", whereas here we have a few years to go before we have enough Christmas stuff to fill all the common areas. Now I love Christmas and I really, really love decorating for Christmas, but I do not like buying new stuff when I don't have to. I used lots of stuff I had on hand to make my little tablescape here.

Now, as I mentioned on Flickr, I don't feel like I was able to really capture how cute this table was, even with my awesome camera. One thing on my to-do list this year is to get better at taking pictures of compositions.

Because we had seven folks to dinner for a table that really only sits six comfortably, I decided to forgo the placemats. I used a cheap-o silver charger that I had on hand (I saw them for sale this year at the WalMart for $1 a piece) as the base. Then I used my china (Noritake Crestwood Platinum) and a salad plate from my mom's china set that she gave me when she moved to Texas. I got the red napkins from Target and had the rando "silver" napkin rings on hand because I love buying random silver napkin rings.

For the centerpiece, I just got down my two red vases (they're usually on top of one of my bookcases, originally from Target like 10 years ago), got out my "silver" candlesticks and popped in red tapers, and then got a large candle holder, popped in a glass with a votive candle inside, then filled it with cranberries. It was inspired by this wine cork candle holder over at the blog Two Twenty-One which I found via Pitnerest. Because everything bright and beautiful is found via Pinterest. :)

The goblets are Libby brand ($5 for 4 at the WalMart), and the cute coasters I've had forever.

Lastly, I made white chair covers for the chairs which will now be there year round. For all you sewists out there, this was relatively quick and easy. It's not a slip cover, so they don't have to fit perfectly (and they don't), so all you have to do is trace the side of your chair to make two side pieces, then measure the length of the entire front and back for one long piece, sew those puppies together and BLAMMO! New chair covers. I made mine white so I can take them and bleach them when necessary.

How about you guys? Do you do the cooking at Christmas? Do you have any fun ways to decorate your table? I'm always looking for ideas!

xoxo,

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