Birthday Gifts and T-shirts

I received a bread machine for my birthday and some dark chocolate. The chocolate was yummy! It's almost half gone. The best part is that they are both gluten free!

As for the bread machine, I sought some advice from the celiac community on-line and as usual they were most helpful. They advised me what setting to use, what bread mixes to try and of course gave me some good TNT (tried and true) gluten free recipes to try. I haven't tried any yet, because I had a difficult time finding some bread mixes. It was recommended to start with a ready made mix so that I would know what the dough is suppose to look like in the machine. To order on-line was difficult also because I would have had to purchase the mix in bulk to off-set the cost of shipping! It was outrageous! I tried to order from Amazon, but many of the grocery items aren't shipped to Hawaii, which makes it really hard to get good deals on gluten free items and ingredients without paying an arm and a leg for shipping...and the search goes on! I'll keep you updated on what I find.

I am altering more shirts for dh...turning them in to tanks or muscle tees...perfect for summer! I also altered a pair of pants, which were torn at the knees, into shorts. Now he has another pair of shorts to wear at home.

Japanese Sewing Books and Sweet Potatoes

No. 2 daughter's ipod was acting up so we made a appointment at the Apple store in Ala Moana. While we were waiting for our appointment, we went to Shirokiya. Shirokiya has a new/used book/video section. We were browsing through there and I found these two sewing books. They were really cheap...I couldn't resist. One has bags and the other has all kinds of cute things.

Guess what! We found some potaotes! One was big enough to take out of the ground, but the other was still too small. My older daughter had the priviledge of digging it out.

Well, we scrubbed it, cut it up, and microwaved it, but when we tasted it, it wasn't sweet. (sad face) As you can see, it looked really nice, but... Anyway, I asked the Ag teacher at school, but he didn't know how to make it. There is another Ag teacher at school that need to ask, but I haven't been able to talk to her. In the meantime, there was some fertilizer on sale at Longs, so we bought that and my dh sprinkled some on the patch. We'll see what happens...

Sweet Potato Flowers and Mother's Day gifts

Did you know that purple sweet potato plants had purple flowers? I didn't. The flowers bloom in the morning and fall off the vine in the evening. If you notice in the picture there is a bud next to the flower. The flower was a pretty pale lavender on the outside. Near the center it was a dark purple. I asked the Ag teachers at school and they told me to dig around the area where the flower is because there may be potatoes! I asked them how far down the potatoes would be and they said not far, near the top, so I dug around the area where I saw the flower. I couldn't find anything (sad face), but the flowers are pretty. More on sweet potatoes in another post. :)

For Mother's Day I made a scrap rug and kaleidoscope hot pads.

Fabric and Muffins

I couldn't resist buying those two fabrics. They were $1.99/yard. I wish I bought more of the blue one, but when I went back, it was gone. (so sad) I'm not sure what I'll make from them yet, but the blue one would make so many nice things.

I made muffins using the Pamela's baking mix. They turned out okay. The recipe only made 6. I may have to double it or something if and when I make it again. I used the no fat variation. I had to bake it longer than the time indicated in the recipe.

Giveaway Winner and Sweet Potato Leaves

I entered a giveaway on Sew Mama Sew and won a rotary cutter. Yay! I didn't expect to win anything, so it was so nice to win something.

I harvested some sweet potato leaves, pictured in the plastic bag, then following the recipe on this website, I washed the leaves or immersed them in water, then blanched them for 2 minutes. I then drained them and chopped them. Next, I chopped garlic , stir-fried the garlic and the leaves. It was so good. The family loves it! We will be eating this weekly. Yum!

Turning Twenty Quilt and Sweet Potato Plants

During the break I took a class at Bernina where I learned how to make a Turning Twenty Quilt. It was so fast and fun! I used fabric from my stash. I didn't realize that I had that much fabric! For those of you who don't know this quilt is called Turning Twenty because it uses twenty fat quarters. I didn't have enough fat quarters so I used half-yards. I thought it turned out pretty nice. All I need to do is put a 6-1/2 inch border around the edge, then get the backing together and get it quilted. I can't quilt it myself because my machine is too small and this quilt is so huge! I will post about it again later. Hopefully I can get a picture of the whole thing when it's completed.

I don't know if you recognize the white printed fabric. That's the fabric I won in Bee Square's giveaway in January. Thank you Diane!

The sweet potato plants are growing very well, as you can see. I've started harvesting the leaves and cooking them. They are very nutritious. Apparently, they help lower cholesterol and are high in leutin.

I'll post the recipe I used another time.

Happy Easter and Quilting

Happy Easter! I meant to update this sooner, but I got busy with other things. I can't remember what things...but other things.

At church today we had our Easter Cantata. We've been practicing for weeks. It was called, In The Presence of Jehovah: An Easter Celebration. After church, we went to eat lunch at my parent's house. I made some gf brownies for that, along with some other food. Yum!

Anyway, during the break, I took another quilting class at Bernina. It was a two-day class. I borrowed a machine because I didn't want to lug in my machine. I love my machine, but due to problems with my neck and back, I am not able to lift heavy things. My sewing machine is h-e-a-v-y.

So, for the first class, they set up a machine for me to use and they put a quarter-inch foot (Bernina #57) with a guide on it. It was so wonderful that I had to get one for me to use on my machine at home. It was worth it! It inspired me to work on my japanese buzzsaw quilt. As you can see I finished sewing the blocks together and am now working on the borders. There are three borders for this quilt. I took this to my second class and the instructor helped me with it.

Oh, the class was for a Turning Twenty Quilt and I spent the majority of the first class cutting my fabric. I will put up pictures of that quilt in another post. Hope you had a blessed Easter!