Wish You Painted Your Lace?

I've been stitching along on my current Crazy Quilt Purse project.  When I first chose my lace pieces, I liked the way they looked in white.  Once I had my seams embroidered, I decided I should have painted my lace:

It looked very stark to me so what did I do since my lace was already sewn on and embroidered?  I grabbed my colored pencils:

I have the watercolor colored pencils so once I colored my lace, I used a small paint brush dipped in water to blend the color into the fibers:

You don't want to soak the lace because you don't want it bleeding into the background fabric.  Just a light dab of water will help the color blend into the fibers of the lace.

This is a great way to deal with coloring fabric, lace or trim after it's sewn on.

Hand Needle Felted Halloween Mouse

My sister Kathi made this absolutely adorable, little hand needle felted Halloween mouse:

Is this absolutely precious or what!!!  I really don't know how Kathi does these soft sculptured dolls out of wool!  I can do needle felting but not the beautiful things that Kathi makes!

Stitching A Purse

Lesson 9 of my Online stitching class is done!  All I have to do is to type it up and send to Jason.  I'll share a sneak peek with ya'll tomorrow.

In the meantime, I started stitching on this purse:

It doesn't look all that exciting at the moment, so stay tuned!  Once I get more of the seam embroidery done, I'll post close up photos of them.

Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins

The other day, I had some very ripe Bananas that I didn't want to go to waste.  I hate throwing food away.  I made what I always make with over ripe bananas, Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins.  My sister Kathi always tells people I put chocolate in everything but that's really not true.  I never put chocolate in my Blueberry Muffins or my Apple Muffins or my Apple Cake.  But chocolate and Bananas really go well together!  And chocolate after all, IS a food group!  Well, it is in my book!  LOL!!!

Anyway, now that it's just about Fall, I bake more often so you'll be seeing some more recipes pop up on my blog from time to time.  Here's my recipe for Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins:

3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
5 teaspoons Baking Powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
2/3 cup vegetable oil
5 bananas
1 12 ounce back Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

In a large bowl, mash bananas.  Use a fork or potato masher.  In another bowl, combine all dry ingredients.  In a Pyrex pitcher or another bowl, combine wet ingredients.

Add the wet ingredients to the bananas and mix well.  Add the dry ingredients to the banana mixture and mix well.

Stir in chocolate chips.

Line cupcake pans with paper liners and fill to the top.  I always add sprinkles!  That makes them pretty!

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 22 - 25 minutes (until done).

Enjoy!

Edwardian Lady Purse

Now that my Crazy Quilt  Christmas Purse is finished, it's time to start a new project.  Well, as soon as I finish stitching up the example for Lesson 9 of my Crazy Quilt Online Course.

This is the block I'll be working on next:

I haven't done anything in black for awhile so I thought this would be a nice change from my brighter pieces.

Here are the embellishments that I pulled for this purse:

There's some interesting things in this photo, don't you think?  I'm very fortunate to have a decorating store nearby who gives me their outdated fabric and trim books.  Some of these pieces are things that they gave me.  Beautiful things!  And who doesn't love beautiful things?  All perfect for crazy quilting!