May Basket Auction

I belong to our local guild here in Fortuna. It's called The Eel River Valley Quilt Guild. Every year they have a fund raiser where businesses and other members donate a basket full of goodies. They then have a silent auction where people put their bid on a sheet of paper. The trick is to come back and check a lot or someone will out-bid you. Most of the baskets go for lots of money, so I never get to actually buy them. I guess I'm a bit cheap. I did want to donate a basket this year. I filled with 4 of my patterns: "Charmed...I'm Sure", Criss-Cross Charms, Charms in the Car and my very first pattern, Sewdoku for Quilters. I put two charm square packs in there along with my famous "Taco Purse". There is some homemade stationary with birds, a "Deely-Bob-Scissor-Fob" and a pendant I made from a Scrabble tile. I also put some of my favorite things like: a "Purple-Thang", UdderCream hand lotion, quilting pins, a seam ripper and some chicken buttons. The duck in the middle of the basket is a recipe card holder from my favorite store, "Art and Old Things" right here in Fortuna on Main Street. I also bought the cute little bird that is sitting in a nest. I'm hoping everyone likes it and it makes the guild a lot of money.

Chirp, Chirp

Robin

Best Mother's Day Gift Ever!!

My grandson Kellen gave his "other grandma" (me) the best Mother's Day present ever!

A special greeting card he made himself. Here's what he said in his e-mail.

deer granma

hav a hoppy granma day!

luv Kellen.

Look at the concentration.....

"Let me see....I think I spelled everything right...."

"Yep....it's perfect!!!!""I love you Grandma Robin!!!"

What a little sweety! Thank you Kellen for making my day!

Robin

Yum!!!!!!........Rhubarb Pie

What a beautiful day here in our little world!! "Mr. Bird" loves his yard ( I think that's what I'm going to call my husband in my blog from now on) and was out side doing some gardening. Mostly getting rid of the weeds that have dared to show themselves in the borders and between the porch slabs. Every year we have to spray Round-up to kill them. I love our yard this time of year when it finally is warm enough to actually enjoy it.

I had noticed the other day that my Rhubarb plants were getting ready to harvest, so Mr. Bird pulled and topped them for me. I'm going to make two pies later today.

What a beautiful bunch of Rhubarb!!!

Since tomorrow is Mother's day I thought I would pay tribute to my Mom by sharing her Rhubarb pie recipe. My mother makes the absolute BEST Rhubarb pie in the world, bar none!!! Now that she's 80 it's harder for her to make pies, but I remember some Saturdays when she would make 5 or six pies at a time. We have a very large family (11 kids) and everyone wanted their fare share! Mom ran our family like a well oiled machine.

Here is the recipe:

Helen’s Rhubarb Pie

For one 10” pie-
Filling: Mix together:
4 cups raw rhubarb, cut in ½ inch pieces
1 ½ cups sugar
1 tsp cinnamon, or to taste
4 Tbs flour
1 scant tsp dried orange peel
2 eggs
Crust: Cut together 2 cups flour, ¾ cup shortening, and ¼ tsp salt. Beat together 1/3 cup milk and 1 egg yolk. Add to flour mixture and toss with a fork.
Add more liquid if too dry and less if too wet. Roll out dough for top and bottom crusts. Place bottom crust in 10” pie plate, fill with rhubarb mixture. Dot mixture with butter. Place top crust over all. Seal and flute edges and cut slits in top crust.
Bake at 450 degrees F for 40 to 50 minutes. Juice should bubble through slits in crust.

Enjoy!!!!

Here are my pies. The juice on top is the "bubbling" that has to occur before you know your pies are done. The house smells wonderful right now. I'm going to have a piece later on tonight when I watch TV.

Mother of the Year (with the cutest baby ever!)

I also want to send my awesome daughter-in-law a very special Mother's Day wish. This is her first Mother's Day and after all that she had been through since he was born, I want to nominate her as "Mother of the Year". Today our sweet little Kellen is 9 months old! He's been home from the hospital 3 months now. Time is flying!!!

Happy Mother's Day to all the special mother's out there!

Chirp, Chirp,

Robin

Kellen's Happy Dance

My grandson Kellen has been through alot in his short 8 months (almost 9) of being in this world. Thankfully he's doing great since finally being home from the hospital these 2 + months.
You can tell he's really happy being the center of his Mommy and Daddy's attention.
Shannon sent me this short video of him doing his "Happy Dance".

It just kills me not to be able to hold him and love on him! What a cutie pie!

Robin

Happiness is.........

Happiness is.....many things really. One of them is going to Ferndale to "Peaceful Day" and quilting. As you can see it was a beautiful day. Even the cows in the field behind the building were enjoying themselves!

Lots of us finished things that we had started, like Pam B. Here is her beautiful quilt from Sally Frey's retreat in Benbow. Pam does beautiful quilts, but doesn't like her picture taken.

Liz Scott from Scottie Dog Quilting finished a quilt she made for her sister.

She said, "If I had know how much I would like it when it was finished, I would have kept it for myself!"

It's always great to be able to spend time with some of my favorite people....like Brenda Lou from Scottie Dog Quilts, (Liz's Mom). She showed us how to make a braided rug that she found on Moda's Bake Shop.

I started the cute bear quilt for Kellen that I ordered from Connecting Threads. It's going to be super cute!

I also won a pattern using 36 charm squares. It was VERY tedious, but I managed to get this much finished. I just have to put the borders on. I will never make this pattern again, so I gave it to Pam.

Well, that's what I got to do yesterday. Friends and quilting. Life is good.

Oh...by the way...that sneaky Angie tried to get me to eat sugar by getting that cute little Cade of hers to give me a cookie! You have to watch that Angie like a Hawk!

Robin

The sugar challenge is on......

Yesterday when I was using the long-arm over at All Washed Up, Angie asked me if I wanted to join her in a challenge of giving up sugar for a month. I said, "Sure!!!".

So now the challenge is on........

Just to give us both some incentive, Angie suggested that if either of us gives in and falls off the sugar wagon, we had to buy the other one a Jelly-roll. That for me is keeping me commited.

I'm just going to have to turn to more healthy subsitutes when I get that craving. I'm really excited to see how it helps get some of these pounds off. (A never ending battle for me!)

I'm going to do some research and see if there are any non-sugar recipes out there. If I find any, I'll share them...

Wish me luck guys!!

Robin

Wonderful Neighbors

It's great to have wonderful neighbors. We are blessed to have great neighbors on both sides of us. A few days ago our neighbor Linda and Jay showed up at our door with a surprise.
Linda had made me a quilt rack. It's beautiful!!!! She's been working on it secretly since Christmas after I gave her a quilt that she had admired. I never expected her to make me a quilt rack!!! I quickly found a place of honor just inside our front door and loaded it up with some quilts. She said she might want to make them to sell if there is enough interest.





I just ordered the cutest quilt kit from Connecting Threads. It's their brand new pattern called "Baby Bear". I'm going to make it for our sweet little bear Kellen.

It reminds me of one of my favorite pictures of Kellen with all of his "stuffed up" bears.

I also got a call from Kellen....breathing into the phone. He got the 3 soft books I had made from panels. His daddy says he loves them. I forgot to take a picture of them before I sent them, but hopefully they will take a picture of Kellen reading them.

I'm almost finished piecing the quilt I'm making for Shannon's friend's wedding. Just the outer border to go. Then I can go quilt it!

Chirp, Chirp,

Robin