Chocolate Chip Cranberry Cheese Bars & Antiques

Saturday the Friends of Richards Memorial Library held our first Appraisal Day fundraiser. I had to find something quick and easy to bake up late Friday night. I'd been craving Cranberries, so I went to Ocean Spray's website and tried their Chocolate Chip Cranberry Cheese Bars. The dry ingredients mixed together well but I did put the whole thing in the fridge to cool while the oven was warming up. I find it best to do this if the butter starts making the crumble texture turn to mush. (You can also catch a bit of my cherry apron in the background. It was my fist sewing project!) Next I mixed the wet ingredients together while the bottom crust was baking in the oven. You pour this over the hot crust and then spread the reserved crumble on top of the whole thing and put back in the oven. The result is a very heavy pan!

I taste tested the next moring and was slightly disappointed that there was so much in them. I think maybe 1/2 a bag of choco chips would have been enough, or maybe it would have been better to have a larger cheese layer since it came out so thin. I wasn't thrilled and my husband didn't come back begging for seconds, but I put them on a platter and brought them anyway! Come on, you would have too. They were still pretty good!

Well, whatever reservations I had about bringing them disappeared when I saw people gobbling them up. There were several baked goods and these were gone within an hour! Fortunately we didn't run out of cookies/bars/bread - we had just enough!

Appraisal Day was our new idea for a spring fundraiser. An appraisal house in Boston (Skinner Inc - you may have seen them on Antiques Road Show) sent two appraisers for five hours. We sold out after 2 1/2 hours, so it was a very sucessful event. I saw SO many interesting items! There was a gumball machiene that looked and worked like a slot machiene, a ladder that collapsed into one long beam, and my favorite - a stunning crystal bowl that looked like it had sunflowers all around it. One woman had Barbie and Ken dolls from 1962 in their original boxes with the little booklets in the original plastic. They had never even been taken out of the boxes. Apparently Ken isn't worth that much but Barbie was worth quite a bit.

My mom got this Native American knife from her father. The appraiser told us it was used for skinning buffalo and is fairly rare. It's not worth the $20K I was hoping it would be, but it's still a very neat item to have.

Dehydrator Dreams

My coworker just got a Excalibur dehydrator and said it is amazing (but really loud). One of my favorite things to eat is fruit leather so I'm thinking of buying one. They are pretty expensive, but everyone seems to rave about this brand. Bill and I are going on a camping trip in June so I think it would be fun to take along some fruit leather, and dehydrated fruits and vegetables. We're only going for two nights so maybe getting a whole dehydrator is a bit excessive,...but it's so cool!

I didn't knit at all last night. I got home from pilates and decided I'd done enough for one evening. I really like the Stott Pilates mat I got from Amazon - I have no trouble rolling around on my spine using this mat. Well, I should really say, any trouble I have rolling around on the floor is not the mat's fault. hee hee. My favorite moves are seal (tap feet, roll on spine, tap feet again) and boomerang.

First Ice Cream of 2008

Yesterday was a staggering 80 degrees! It was beautiful outside and I was in no mood to do any chores at home so Bill and I headed up north to Kimball Farm. We played a round of mini-golf and then couldn't help but treat ourselves to some ice cream. I tried the Chocolate Almond, which was delicious, and Bill tried the Buttercrunch (also good). I still think that Richardson's ice cream is the best around. They sell it at the Big Apple in Wrentham but haven't opened up for business yet. The lines for ice cream at Kimballs were long, but it was worth the wait for the first ice cream of 2008!

Now for blankie progress! I think I've finally got this stitch figured out. I had thought that the puff was created by the YO and slipped stitch, but that actually creates the divider. I also changed the needle size from the size 10 suggested to 9. You can see from the picture that the first three (bottom) puffs are looser and less defined than the top three. I'm going to make it in white with a couple of stripes near the ends. Should look nice - I'll post a picture once I'm done!

I have also started a Jean Greenhowe puppy. I haven't gotten very far so I won't bother putting up a picture yet. I couldn't find the same color used in her creation, so mine will be a cute dark tan. I just ordered a lot more Astra yarn for these projects - I'm going to need a house soon just so I can have a room to store my craft supplies.

I haven't done any baking lately but I'm gearing up for some early spring canning. I opened a jar of strawberry rhubarb jam that I canned last May and it was divine. I had a little trouble with the blueberry jam I made (a bit too firm) so I'll have to try to be more careful testing the jams while they cook.

Blankie from Hell & Cherry Fruity Cap

Just when my head started to swell from my amazing knitting abilities, I was put in my place. I started a new project last night (i.e. the blankie from hell) and simply could not figure out the pattern. It's sort of a bobble (which I admit I need practice at) but does not look at all bobble-like when I'm done. It's really called a puff stitch blanket but I can only find instructions for a crochet puff stitch. I'll try again tonight, but this time I'm only going to try the pattern instead of co all 152 stitches and starting the blanket!

On a good note, I've been making a lot of Fruity Caps to sell and give as gifts. I tried a cherry but I'm not sure how i like it. At first I put a brown pipe cleaner up into the long stem so it would bend, but then my mom convinced me that was somewhat dangerous for a little kid. I argued that I'd sewn it in really really REALLY well and that it wouldn't poke through but I thought I'd better rip it all out. Let me tell you that it was sewen in really really REALLY well because I had an awful time getting it out! I replaced it with some fiber fill and it still looks good. It doesn't have the awesome bend I acheived with the pipe cleaner, but now I don't have to worry about some kid getting poked in the eye.

Where does the time go?

I'm not sure how nearly two years have gone by (was I in a coma?) but here I am!

Here is my latest kitted creation from one of Jean Greenhowe's books. The duck is so cute and has a removable hat. It's hard to tell from the picture, but the little blue guy on the right is his whale friend. I chose to make the hat removable because it's not a gift for a small child.

I really LOVE Jean Greenhowe's patterns. They are a bit time consuming and not for those who hate sewing up seams or working with small needles. The end result is just so charming though, that I use it as motivation when I'm grumbling about sewing up my endless seams.

I have been having trouble finding DK weight yarn that wasn't in baby colors, so I ordered a whole bunch of Patons Astra. It's good because it comes in so many colors and is affordable. I'm still looking for a green that would be good for a witch's dress or monster. Astra doesn't really have a good color green for that (think Oscar). If anyone knows of a good DK weight that's this color, please let me know!