My Eyes Were Bigger Than My Stomach!

West Chester Farmers' Market yesterday - and as usual - I over did it! I simply cannot say no to gorgeous produce - look at my cache - 5 different kinds of salad greens, broccoli, baby beets and their beautiful greens, Swiss Chard, radishes and local tomatoes!
And my favorite vegetable - spring's candy - sugar snap peas!!!
From Highland Farms - lovely sheep's milk feta, Camembert and fresh yogurt.
It will take careful menu planning this week to be certain I use all of my produce. Tonight - grilled salad pizza. I made my own pizza crust with organic flour - my husband manned the grill topping it with spring onion slices and Camembert while on the grill. After it came off of the grill I topped it with salad greens and flavorful tomato slices - and dressed it with a simple shallot vinaigrette - - - CRAZY DELICIOUS!!!
To accompany our pizza I made a quick saute of sugar snap peas, radishes and carrots - tossed with lemon zest and lemon juice - so refreshing!

Have a look at the flowers I picked up at the market - peonies, and - - -
a beautiful mixed bouquet - - - thank you to all of the amazing farmers who work so hard to put this amazing food on our table!

What Did I Do To My Serger Now???

Had to head out to Hinkletown today - - -
I tried to change my serger to a flatlock position - - -
But I got the cutting knife stuck - - - drat!

Then it happened - - - I found the first strawberries of the season - - - real strawberries, locally grown - - - not those styrofoam berries sprayed with strawberry smell that they sell in the grocery - - - real, honest berries - - - perfect!

I love this little tool to clean the berries - it makes such quick work of it.
Oh - - - and yes I got my Bernina fixed! Perfect!

Bathing Babes

Yes - I am using a doll as my model today - all of the neighborhood babes were napping when I wanted to snap my photos! Spring brings a flock of new babies - time for one of my favorite baby gifts - a homemade hooded towel. Back when I had my babies a neighbor gave one of these little gems - I actually still have it! They are perfect - all you need is a wash cloth and a bath towel - make sure it's super soft for the baby!
It just couldn't be simpler - fold the washcloth in half, right sides together. See the pins on the right end - that is my back seam of the hood - just sew a quick seam, making certain you back-tack.
Now, create a cuff on the front of the hood and secure with pins.
Find the center of the bath towel along one of the long sides. Position the seam of the hood at the center point - right sides together as shown.Now pin the hood to the towel - your towel will not lie flat at this point - don't worry. Sew the hood to the towel - back tacking to secure the ends of the seam
There you have it - a great hooded towel. I will typically add the name of the baby using my embroidery machine along one end of the towel, but the name of this yet to be born baby boy has not yet been made public.
I always include a nice collection of my favorite baby bath products - Burt's Bees - just smelling these products make me remember bath time with my babies!
Here's another pic of the towel on my doll - I always leave the tags on the towels.

Doing My Civic Duty

It's Election Day today - time to put on my civic duty duds! This will be a sleeper election - the turn out is expected to be minimal - - - how will I pass the time???

Here's my reading bag - I've got my current issue of the Hancocks catalog - i-phone in hand - yes, there could be fabric shopping from the polls. A number of other recent periodicals and catalogs I've been stashing to distract me from the long day at the polls.
And, have a look at this book - Shadowfolds by Jeffrey Rutzky and Chris Palmer - I picked it up at City Quilter 2 weeks ago - the technique is amazing!!!
This is a pattern for one of the projects -
Here's a look at the partial process - I cannot wait to try this! I need a slow election day every now and again to catch up on my interests.

Have you voted today???

Top 10

Where have I been - - - well here are the Top 10 reasons I've been absent:

10. Plain and simple - SPRING FEVER!!!
9. Moved daughter #2 to her 200 sg. ft. studio in NYC
8. Returned the following weekend with all of the Ikea pieces we were missing - arggggh!!!
7. Busy cooking - lots of great, healthy recipes - promise to share them with you!
6. Organized my sewing room - all my fabric is neat and organized - for now!
5. Starting a Farmer's Market in my community - it's a lot of work!
4. Returned to program chair for my guild, Calico Cutters Quilt Guild - more work.
3. Sewing is not to blame - haven't turned on my machine in the past 3 weeks - I just needed a break. Speaking of "break" - I did manage to break my serger in that time span - drat!
2. Gardening, weeding, mulching.
1. Worth Repeating - SPRING FEVER!!! I got it bad!!!

Hope you too are enjoying spring!!!