Summer Fair - Pumpkin Pie Pancakes!

AnneMarie at Gen X Quilters is hosting Summer Fair: A Quilt and Recipe Show.  I haven't finished a quilt yet, so I don't have an entry for that category.  However, I do have a recipe to share with you!

You know that can of pumpkin pie mix that gets bought by mistake, then sits in cupboard until it gets donated or tossed?  (That's what usually happens here.)  That darn can of pie mix sat in the cupboard, taunting us, daring us to find a use for it.  So we did.  We had a pumpkin muffin recipe that we liked, but wanted something that was quicker, so we decided to throw some pumpkin in the pancake batter.  We love the results and only rarely make pancakes without pumpkin now.  Puppy Boy, who's a picky eater, devours these!  


Many of you may be familiar with buckwheat, but not sorghum flour.  Puppy Boy and I are gluten free for health reasons, this means we don't eat anything with wheat, rye, or barley.  Sorghum flour can be difficult to find, so feel free to substitute a different flour of your choice if you can't find it, or if you choose not to use it.

Pumpkin Pie Pancakes


Dry Ingredients
1 cup buckwheat flour
1 cup sorghum flour
4 Tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoon baking powder 1 teaspoon salt


Wet Ingredients
2/3 cup canned pumpkin pie mix or 2/3c canned pumpkin and 1/2t pumpkin pie spice mix
2 cup milk (use less or add more according to preference)
4 Teaspoon melted butter
2 eggs, slightly beaten

Measure the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl and stir to combine.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients.  Mix until combined. 
Cook on griddle. 
Makes about 24 4 inch pancakes.




Until later!

Fat Quarter Bags

I made a pile of fat quarter bags in May to give away as gifts in June.  Despite the fact that they were given away I'm just now finishing the blog post for them.  I'm not always timely...so don't be too surprised when I put up a post of the sewing I did for Christmas!

I had some lovely fat quarters left over from the sewing I did at Christmas and wanted to make something that would be appropriate for a wide age range (the youngest recipient was 3, the oldest recipient was older ;-)).  

After thinking on it and looking through the blogs I subscribe to I saw this tutorial for Fat Quarter Bags from Amy Smart on her blog, Diary of a Quilter. And I thought, "That's it!"  But I can't leave well enough alone and I made a few changes. :-)

So, here's what I did:

1. Added sew in interfacing to give the bags more body.  I imagine iron on interfacing, fusible fleece, quilt batting, re-purposed jeans or another hefty material would work as well.

2. Added a pocket, because you always need a pocket, right?  The pocket was sewn on to the fabric and interfacing for a bit more stability.

3. The bags are totally reversible.  I boxed the corners (both the outside fabric and the lining) prior to turning it right side out.

4. I left the opening to turn the bag right-side out at the top (between the handles) instead of along a side, then top stitched it closed. I thought this worked out better since the bags are reversible.

The directions for the tutorial worked really well, but I think if I make these again I'm going to construct them a bit differently. I'll probably sew the inner and outer bags separately, then sew the bags together while adding the handles. I'm thinking that with the alterations to the tutorial I made it'll be a bit easier to put it together that way. I learn something new with each project, even if it's that I prefer to do things using a different method!

Until later!

WiP Wednesdy #7

We really enjoyed the break in the hot weather that we had over the weekend, especially since it was Arts Fest and People's Choice weekend.  We had a great time walking through the festivals and seeing all the artists.  But now I feel like I'm melting again!

I was hoping to finish the placemats, sew a robe for Puppy Boy using the pattern by Dana from MADE and work on the Challenge block for the Skill Builder Sampler hosted by Leila at her blog Sewn.  Here's where things stand with those:
-I got the binding pinned to the placemats, but not sewn down yet (did I mention there's 8...and that sewing binding is my least favorite part?  It's just so tedious!)  So a little progress, but not done yet.
-Still in the gathering/planning stage on the robe.  The pattern is printed out, but it's not assembled yet, and I'm going to need to make some alterations since Puppy Boy is a pretty tall dude for a 3 year old.  The towels are bought, but still need bias tape though.
-I got the Challenge Block done, and I love it!  I also finished Block #4, and I'm really happy with how well my points line up in the pinwheels.  You can read all the nitty gritty details here if you want.

I'm not sure that I'm going to be doing a lot of sewing this next week.  I really want to get my Teacher Work Sample done this week.  It's going to be a bit of a pain, I have to reconstruct some stuff due to a computer hard drive crash. :S So, we'll see how it goes.  Maybe some sewing will be study break time, but it's more likely I'll be doing something to try to keep cool and play with the kiddo.

On Hold:
-My mom's jewelry keeper (Christmas gift) I'll pick this up when I'm done with the placemats
-stacked coin throw quilt

WiP Recap:
Last week's total: 5
Finished this week: 2
New this week: (1...maybe...hopefully)
This week's total: 3, maybe 4

Until later!