Southern Style Homemade Biscuits

My good friend Bonnie shared how to make homemade biscuits.  They far out weigh the ones that come in the tube package.

Ingredients:

2 cups of sifted flour unbleached all purpose

1/8 teaspoon baking soda

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons butter

1/4 cup shortening

almost 1 cup of buttermilk

vegetable spray

Make sure to preheat your oven to 450 degrees. 

Bonnie sprayed the back of her pans with vegetable spray.

Combine all the dry ingredients in a large bowl, mix well with whisk.

Cut shortening, and butter with pastry cutter until resembles small pea size balls.

Add buttermilk, and mix until just combine, if it appears a little on the dry side add a little more buttermilk. over mixing will result in hard biscuits.

Turn dough  onto a floured board or a floured plastic bag.

Fold the dough 5 times no more. With your hands gently press dough down to  1 inch thickness. Do not use rolling pin.

Dip biscuit cutters in flour to cut shapes of dough,  or you can just cut them square with butter knife dipped in flour.

Bonnie uses her scraps to make peach cobbler. Place peach pie filling underneath the biscuit scraps, add cinnamon sugar, and pads of butter on top of biscuits.

Bake the biscuits for 10 minutes at 450 degrees.

Bake the cobbler at 450 degrees for 40 minutes ..

Happy baking 

Log Cabin Quilt

This is a quick log cabin quilt that my friend Margaret hooked me up with. What I like about this quilt is that it quilts as you build the blocks, which make the process quicker than the normal hand quilting. Pick dark's and lights when choosing material. I used some of my scraps, and added to it. This quilt is for my grandson Robert he is a Raider fan. My friend is so amazing she surprised me with a piece of Raider material.

Cut all strips.

Back side of blanket.

Low loft  polyester batting.

Top material muslin fold in half iron, and fold in half again. This is done to find the center of the square.

With black material on bottom, batting on top of that, and white muslin on the top. Sew first 2 1/2 inch square through all 3 layers. Make sure to pin the square in the center using the iron marks to center the square. Pin the out side of the layers of materials or the square will shift.

Place the next piece right sides together, sew one side only finger press back as shown in the photo.

Build up the next layer right sides together.

Finger press back.

Continue until you have build the whole square. Repeat 20 times.

Here you can see the layers.

This is the back of the quilt which will be sewn by hand.

Button Eyed Rag Doll

My Granddaughter loves that new cartoon Lalaloopsy, they are these large bubble head stick figure cartoons. I wanted to make a rag doll that had the big button eyes like the Raggedy Ann doll so this is what I came up with. I used the Simplicity pattern 1900 for the body, and cloths. but changed the face.

This is the body with the head.

The hair is cut out of felt, sew it on before sewing the back to the front.

Sew the stitch marks for the hair. Do the hair for the back on the back part of the dolls head.

Sew the pigtails the same way.

Sew the eyes on by hand, sew the pigtails on the top of the head by top stitching.

Sew with the felt, and the pigtails on the inside.

Turn inside out, and stuff with batting.

I sew the cheeks and mouth by hand after the doll is stuffed.

I painted the eye lashes with puff paint, and the shoes are painted with acrylic black paint, then glazed with glossy mod podge which gives the shoes that patent leather look, and my baby girl can't loose her shoes that way too.

Here is the same doll this time I painted the face.

Molten Lava Chocolate Cupcakes

This recipe is real easy, quick too. It satisfies  my husbands late night chocolate craving. Start by pre heating the oven to 500 degrees.

Supplies: cupcake pan
double boiler or you can make your own with a glass bowl inside a pan with water
 whisk
2 glass bowls

Ingredients:
4 oz unsweetened chocolate Baker's baking chocolate
1 stick of butter
3/4 cup flour
4 large eggs
1 cup sugar

In a double boiler melt chocolate, and butter.

 In a bowl beat the 4 eggs, add the sugar, and flour.

Spray pan with non stick spray, and flour pan, it will keep cupcakes from sticking.

Add the melted chocolate, and butter mixture to egg mixture. Beat by hand only, fill cupcake pan at top level.

.Bake at 500 degrees for 6 minutes. Remove cupcakes and serve immediately. Enjoy by themselves or add a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Yum! Chocolate molten cupcakes.

My First Basket Weaving Class

I was thrilled to try my hand at basket weaving, this basket is 13 inches wide, 18 long, and 11 inches tall. I also weaved straps to the side. I use it to carry my art supplies, I like that I can see whats in it easy.

This is where we weaved the bottom of the basket.

My friend Nan taught the class.  This is where I started weaving up the walls, the clothes pins give you an extra pair of hands.

You can see the wall starting to take shape.

This  the top of the basket where I put the inside reed, the rope in the middle gives the basket a more finished look.

The last part is the reed that wraps around the top.