How to Make a Quilt in 7 Days

I have a new obsession... quilting. I got bit hard by the quilting bee this month. Over Christmas, I decided to make a quilt, my first one, for my bestie Sarah, since she's having her first baby. I like how our two firsts are coinciding. Hers is much more monumental than mine, but who knows, maybe some day I will be some phenomenal quilter, and baby T will be the proud owner of my very first quilt. We can all dream.

So since I only work three days a week, I have tons of free time, and making your first quilt in 7 days was totally do-able. (Since all 7 days weren't consecutive.) This was also a baby quilt, so it was pretty small.

Here's a list of things you'll need to make your quilt lickety-split, in no particular order:

• Loud music (I prefer Lady GaGa, reggaeton, and the Garden State soundtrack)
• Roller blade (not the skating kind, the cutting kind)
• Ruler
• Cutting mat
• Fabric scissors
• Thread in matching colors
• Iron
• Towel (ironing board)
• Fabric
• Jack Bauer
• Quilt pattern
• Snacks
• Sewing machine

This is the pattern that I chose. The link will tell you all the measurements and quantities that you need for fabrics.

Here's what you need to do each day:

Day 1 - Wash and dry all your fabrics (unless you are buying very high quality fabrics that don't shrink much, this step is very important so that when you wash your quilt, the fabric doesn't shrink around the stitching)

Day 2 - Iron all your fabrics, measure and cut the colored squares. Here are my pretty squares!

Day 3 - Measure and cut all the white squares and strips, make the pink triangles (here's the best triangle tutorial I found - you will see this involves sewing the white and pink squares together twice and then cutting down the middle - actually pretty easy), then you have to iron all the triangles open, and if you are me, you will then crack the kitchen counter by ironing 26 triangles open in the exact same spot on the counter while watching the last few hours of Season 1 of 24.

Day 4 - Start Season 2 of 24. Make green triangles the same way you made the pink triangles, iron the green triangles - if you had previously cracked your kitchen counter, this step will take extra long because you have to make sure your kitchen counter cools off completely every once in a while. The next step is maybe the most fun because you get to lay out your green zig-zags of your quilt. Play around with the patterns and see what works best. Remember that you have to make 2 zig-zags, so you want to ensure your fabrics are evenly distributed. Then go ahead and start sewing the squares together!!

Day 5 - Lay out your pink zig-zags and start sewing those. Once you have all 4 zig-zags done, the most tedious part is to press all your seams. Up until this point, I did not find any part of the whole process awful. The pressing of seams has to be the worst part of quilting. After you have pressed all your stupid seams, you are ready to sew. Follow the pattern listed on the website - green zig-zag, white strip, pink zig-zag, white strip, blah blah blah.

At this point, you can celebrate because you have done the hardest part!!

Day 6 - Call in reinforcements in the form of your personal quilting expert Leigh. Leigh will teach you how to layer and tack your quilt. Then she will take a nap on your very tiny couch. After that, she will man-up and show you how to bind your quilt. Binding is the process of adding the edge around the quilt. It's not that hard, and it adds such a nice touch, holding together all the parts of the quilt - the top, the stuffing, and the back. This is the binding tutorial that Leigh and I used.

Day 7 - Finish up your binding, cut all the extra threads off, and check all the edges around your binding. Sit and admire your work. And smile at your pretty quilt.

Sarah, I can't wait to give you this quilt. I can't wait to meet your baby girl, I hope she loves it!

My Pride and Joy

For many years I've been wanting an Advent Calendar of epic proportions. Last year I came up with the idea of having a wooden one in the shape of a tree. I wanted it to have little drawers and it had to be cute. I found one on Amazon but it was out of stock and also too expensive. So I had one commissioned. That's just how I roll.

This is how it arrived to me:

I had to get started by painting all the drawers.

I wanted the knobs to look like little ornaments, in all different colors, so my good friend Joel helped me paint the knobs. (Thanks, Joel!) Once all the ornaments/knobs got screwed on, I painted all the numbers on to the drawers.

When it all got put together, it looked like this:

The final step was to give the tree a glossy shine. 'Cause everybody loves a glossy shine. And stage it for a stylized photo. Fancy.

This advent tree is one of my favorite things that I have ever crafted. It was a lot of work to make, but I loved doing it and seeing the fruits of my labor. And in the end, I gave it away as a gift... I hope the recipient loves it as much as I do!!

Sew Me a River

So I promise that I've been baking a lot... I just haven't been taking pictures, and my camera is really crappy, so even when I do take pictures they don't come out very good. I've also recently been given a sewing machine, so I started doing a lot of sewing. I sewed almost all of my Christmas presents this year, which was actually pretty fun, and I'm about to embark on a new, secret sewing project that I'll post about when I'm all finished with it. :)

This is the first project that I made:

They are napkins, and I gave them to my aunt Tricia for her birthday. She loved them. There was no specific pattern, I just found two super cute fabrics that matched and sewed them together inside out, flipped them right-side-out, and then finished the seam. Here's a picture of all four napkins.

I also made infinity scarves as Christmas gifts. I got the pattern and idea from Pinterest (my secret love).

This was the blog that I used for the "pattern"

Here's two that I made, I added a little flower for decoration. I also did some plaid flannel and a jersey one.

I've been bit by the crafting bug, people, this is only just the beginning...

This Was Worth the Wait

I first saw the recipe for this about two years ago. I liked everything about it... the name, the ingredients, the blueberries... but for some reason I never baked it. For shame, Cara, because this is delicious. I don't want to waste any more time writing about it, because it's still warm out of the oven and I want to eat more before it cools down.

Blueberry Boy Bait

(adapted from the smitten kitchen)

2 cups plus 1 tsp all-purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp table salt
2 sticks (softened)
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup whole milk
3/4 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen (or, if you are lucky enough to have a friend named Ian, you should use the fresh Maine blueberries that he picked and sent down to Portland from the northern wilds of Maine)

Topping
1/2 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen (do not defrost)
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

For the cake:

Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350°. Grease and flour 13" x 9" baking pan.

Whisk two cups flour, baking powder, and salt together in medium bowl. With electric mixer, beat butter and sugars on medium-high speed until fluffy, about two minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until just incorporated and then scrape down the bowl. Reduce speed to medium and beat in one-third of flour mixture until incorporated; beat in half of milk. Beat in half of remaining flour mixture, then remaining milk, and finally remaining flour mixture. Toss blueberries with remaining one teaspoon flour. Using rubber spatula, gently fold in blueberries. Spread batter into prepared pan.

For the topping:

Scatter blueberries over top of batter. Stir sugar and cinnamon together in small bowl and sprinkle over batter. Bake until toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean, 45 to 50 minutes. Cool in pan 20 minutes, then turn out and place on serving platter (topping side up). Serve warm or at room temperature.

*(Cake can be stored in airtight container at room temperature up to 3 days.)

and to answer my mom's question... no, there aren't any boys knocking at my door... yet ;)

Woops, It's Been a While

Sorry for the delay in posting, everyone... Life sort of got in the way of blogging for the past month and a half. In short, I interviewed, was offered a job, accepted a job, and then moved to Portland, Maine for said job all in about 7 weeks. Yikes. But, the good news is that my new kitchen is lovely, and has plenty of space for cooking and baking, so I'm hoping to get back into it. This post is a good summer one. It does require some baking, but you can definitely get away with skipping the baking step... you'll see.

This is a Coffee Mudslide Oreo Pie. With ice cream. It's good.

There's tons of variations for this, and in my honest opinion, this recipe is not that creative of me. I'll list some of the additional things that I thought of adding at the bottom.

So what you'll need is:

1 Oreo pie crust

1/2 gallon Coffee ice cream (My favorite for this is Starbucks ice cream - it adds a really strong flavor and it's super good)

Extra Oreo's

To make the Oreo Pie Crust:

Crush 16-20 Oreo's in a food processor. Melt 3 tablespoons of butter and add to crushed Oreo's. Press into your pie plate. At this point you can bake it for 7 minutes at 350°F or you can just leave it. Either way, refrigerate the crust about 10 minutes until it's chilled.

To make the pie:

Let the ice cream soften for 10-ish minutes. Unless it's 100° in your house, then it probably won't take that long. While it's softening, crush some extra Oreo's in the food processor. These can also just be chopped up with a knife, it depends on how fine you want them.

Spread about half of the ice cream into the pie dish. Sprinkle some of your extra Oreo's on top of the ice cream. Make a nice layer. Spread the other half of the ice cream into the plate on top of the Oreo layer. Sprinkle the rest of the crushed Oreo's, and then decorate with Oreo's cut in half. Cover with tinfoil, put it back in the freezer, let it freeze back up, then serve.

Like I said, not that creative. But good.

So, some additional things I thought of adding:

Pecans

Hot Fudge (you could put this in the middle layer and/or on top)

Whipped Cream (on top)

Reese's PB cups

Different flavors of ice cream

Ritchie turns 4T

O.M.G. These cupcakes are sooooo good. I made a version of them back in July for Sarah's Bridal Shower, and they were great then. But then Ritchie was turning forty, and I decided to re-work them for his birthday celebration. My roommate loves him some chocolate and raspberry, so that's what these are - triple chocolate raspberry cupcakes. And everyone loved them.

Then I made them again for our most recent baby shower at work (Congrats Pao, Doug, DJ, and Isis!!) and again, there weren't any left over. So my suggestion would be to make sure you save some for yourself, otherwise you won't get any, they will be in other people's bellies.

This recipe (the non-raspberry one) originally came from Stef at the cupcake project, who got it from chockylit, who doesn't have it posted anymore. But Stef's original recipe has 4 different parts, and that was too complicated, so I just chose two - the cupcake and the ganache. Then I added my own touch.

You should make these they're ridiculous.

Triple Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes

(adapted from cupcake project)

Makes 18 cupcakes

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature

1-1/4 cups sugar

2 large eggs, room temperature

3/4 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 cup whole or 2% milk

1 teaspoons vanilla

2/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

2/3 pint raspberries, cut in half

1. Beat butter until softened.

2. Add sugar and beat until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.

3. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until well combined.

4. Measure the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder into a small sized bowl and whisk to combine.

5. Measure out the milk and vanilla and stir to combine.

6. Add about a third of the dry ingredients to the butter/sugar and beat to combine. Add about a half of the milk/vanilla and beat to combine.

7. Continue adding, alternating between dry and wet and finishing with the dry.

8. Stir in chocolate chips and raspberries

9. Scoop batter into cupcake cups about 1/2 full.

10. Bake at 350°F for 22-25 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. The raspberries add moisture to the cupcakes, so they are gooey, but the tester will come out clean.

11. Once the cupcakes are completely cool, frost with ganache.

12. If you want, you can add a raspberry to the top of each cupcake for additional decoration.

Chocolate Ganache

1/3 cup heavy cream

3.5 oz dark chocolate

1. Put chocolate in a bowl.

2. In a small sauce pan, bring heavy cream just to a boil.

3. As soon as it comes to a boil, pour over chocolate.

4. Whisk together until completely smooth.

5. Spread on cupcakes immediately (it's easiest if you use a spoon).

*Note* This may not seem like a lot of ganache, but I promise it will be enough for the 18 cupcakes. They don't need that much on top.

Happy Birthday Jill!

These cupcakes were enjoyed by one and all. Except me. Sometimes I'm critical of what I make (okay, all the time), and I thought these came out a little dry. However, the recipe that I'm posting below aims to correct that dryness by increasing the butter, so feel free to try them.

I made these for my cube-mate Jill's birthday... the big 2-3. She is also my biggest competitor in the baking department. She promises that I did not let her down. So without further delay...

Coffee Cake Cupcakes

(adapted from my girl Martha)

This recipe has three parts (but is really not that complicated):

Cupcakes

Streusel topping

Milk glaze

I made the streusel topping first, because it has to chill. So I'll put those instructions first.

Streusel topping:

1 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

3/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp unsalted butter (1 1/4 sticks) at room temperature

1. Whisk together dry ingredients, then add in the butter using a pastry blender or your fingertips. I used my hands to combine.

2. Combine until still crumbly.

3. Refrigerate for 30 minutes before using.

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Cupcakes:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 1/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp unsalted butter (1 1/4 sticks) at room temperature

1 cup sugar

3 eggs

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

1 1/4 cups sour cream

1. Whisk together first four ingredients

2. With an electric mixer on medium-high, cream together butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating until each is incorporated.

3. Stir in vanilla.

4. Add flour mixture slowly, then sour cream. Stir until just combined. At this point, the batter will be somewhat like bread dough, kind of sticky. I used a spoon to scoop out the batter, almost as if I was scooping cookie dough.

5. Line 24 muffin tins with paper liners

6. Divide batter evenly among lined cups.

7. Sprinkle half the streusel topping evenly over the cupcakes, pressing it into the batter with a spoon. Evenly sprinkle the remaining topping.

8. Bake at 350°F for about 20 minutes, rotating halfway through.

9. Remove from oven and let cool fully.

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Milk Glaze:

Make this milk glaze right before using.

1 1/2 cups confectioners sugar

3 tablespoons milk

1. Whisk together ingredients until smooth.

2. Drizzle over cupcakes