A Crowning Achievement

Well, this is the reason that I have neglected writing so long. Every god forsaken hour that I could get away from Eric during the holiday season, I was working on this blanket. He thought I was out blowing on our money--he even made me break down in tears one evening after I had placed a thousand pins around the edge to keep the binding on! So when he finally opened this baby up on Christmas day I just had to give him a hard time!



We started by cutting all the crown bags in half and cut out 30 squares of the gold fabric (quilter's flannel), which the bags were then stitched to (via mom on the sewing machine). All the squares were then stiched together and the batting/fleece basted to the squares. My mom and I then used embroidery thread to hold the two together. Then the tough part came---getting that darn gold cord pinned around the edges. It took my mom and I roughly three and a half hours to pin and bast it!



We ended up breaking a needle or two on the sewing machine trying to get through that heavy cord and fleece, but god willing and the creek don't rise, we finished the Sunday before Christmas. All that was left was to put my signature patch on the back and press the thing! It was an effort of love! And guess what he uses it all the time! It is warm and wonderful.

Here's the full thing---not bad for a two week rush job! Since Christmas I've also done some baking for New Year's Eve. Eric and I decided to have a big shindig at our place this year, and it was a lot of work! We rented a walled tent to expand our garage and this mobile touch DJ thing called a quebbie! I made Eric run cable to the garage, put up the dart board table, and get the ping pong table from my parents. It was a true party place! We had roughly 40 people show up and most of them spent the night!

I ended up making lots of deli, veggie, and fruit trays--pure convenience foods. Then I baked white chocolate macadamia cookies, oreo crunch brownies, buckeyes and a cajun shrimp dip. The best thing I swear was the grape I punctured with a fork and soaked in grape vodka for two days. They were dangerous!!! The below picture is banana nut bread I made on New Years Day. I ended up having a bunch of rotting bananas left over, so just had to make something!

The bread is a definite repeater! Moist, flavorful and the pecan glaze on top is delicious! I'll post this recipe below and share my other New Years treats within the next few days! Enjoy~

Here's a close up of the sliced bread---can you see the crunchy pecan glaze on top--oh my god, so YUMMY!