Projects for March

• A new recipe: flourless chocolate cake, made for a friend with wheat/gluten allergies. Read more about it here. 

• Sugar Block of the Month - Forget Me Not Block

• Craftsy Block of the Month 2012 - 

String Block

Broken Spider Web

• Craftsy Block of the Month 2013 - Economy Block

Projects for February

February is a shorter month with only 28 days - I blame the lack of days on my lack of projects. :)

Chocolate ravioli became a favorite recipe during the month of February. Pie Crust + gooey chocolate center = deliciousness! I found the recipe here

 J moved into a new office at his work. We bought 2 end tables at Ikea and I added a little flair to one by creating a checkboard with vinyl pieces I cut on my Cricut. A few matching bottlecaps and we've got ourselves a gameboard. 

I'm continuing my online quilting classes:

• Sugar Block of the Month. 

This was a tougher block this month and I became best friends with my seam ripper. I didn't think paper piecing was incredibly hard until this block. It's not perfect, but a wise friend taught me the galloping horse theory. If a galloping horse can't see your mistakes, then decide not to worry about it and move on. I do have plans to remake this block before putting all the squares together and making the final quilt.

• Craftsy Block of the Month 2012

I'm continuing my efforts to make better on last year's quilting class.

Chunky Chevron Block

Balkan Puzzle Block

• Craftsy Block of the Month 2013

New February blocks on the left called Spring Blossoms, January blocks from last month on the right.

Dinner for a Friend

A couple in our Sunday School class had a baby. We signed up to take them dinner one night. There was one problem, all the recipes needed to be wheat/gluten free. I have high anxiety when there are food allergies involved - it just stresses me out. It's completely my problem! For dinner, I decided to order pizza from a great new pizza restaurant in our time - they have gluten free crust - score! I then prepared a salad with all the fixin's and all that was left was dessert. I asked a friend who is a great cook if she had any what/gluten free recipes and she didn't have a one. She told me to check Pinterest but sometimes I become so overwhelmed with all the options of Pinterest it stresses me out more than I already am! I searched the grocery store and found that Betty Crocker makes a gluten-free cake mix (warning: gluten-free cake mix is triple the cost of regular cake mix). I decided on yellow cupcakes with chocolate icing. I got home to make the cupcakes and realized that I didn't have gluten-free vanilla extract (it is about twice the cost of regular vanilla extract).

I then remembered about my Sugar Block of the Month class - every month's lesson comes with a recipe. It just "so happens" that February's lesson came with a recipe for flourless chocolate cake. I made the cake, added some gluten-free chocolate icing and dipped strawberries. It came out much better than I thought...too bad I couldn't try a bite!