Stuff and Things!

I spent the day at the Wisconsin Quilt Expo in Madison with Sandi of Piecemeal Quilts, her mother and two of her aunts. Yes, as has been pointed out, I am the baby of the group :)  I wouldn't have it any other way, though. These ladies are a blast, as proven by Sandi's mom started our day with some risque comments! I call it a winner of a day when I can spend it looking at quilts and fabric and laughing with some good friends, then enjoying good and (wonderfully) simple foods.

Speaking of food, I made some awesome (!!!!) and super simple cookie/toffee bar things. The recipe was called "Popularity Cookies". I highly recommend them!

Ingredients:

35 soda crackers or club crackers (I used club crackers, and I have no idea how many I actually used. I simply covered a 13" X 18"  walled cookie sheet)

1 cup of non-salted butter

1 packed cup of light brown sugar

1 cup of semisweet chocolate chips

1 cup of milk chocolate chips

1 cup of blanched, slivered almonds (a 4 oz package is exactly what you need, though I'd recommend giving them an additional rough chop or putting them through a quick whirl on a food processor after having made this recipe one. Additionally, you could really use whatever nuts you like. I'm thinking cashews would be heavenly on this! Regardless, I might also try toasting the nuts prior to putting them on the cookie bar thingies.)

Instructions:

1.) Preheat the oven to 400°F (or 205°C). Cover your walled cookie sheet with a layer of tin foil and line the crackers on the foil (I took the additional step of spraying the tin foil with non-stick spray).

2.) Combine butter and brown sugar in a saucepan. Stirring constantly, bring to a boil and boil for about three minutes. Pour over crackers completely; spread with a spatula if necessary.

3.) Bake for 3-5 minutes; watch carefully. (That's verbatim from the recipe. I'm honestly not sure what I was watching for. I pulled the tray from the oven when it looked like the toffee layer had gone solid.) Remove cookie sheet from oven, place it on oven door and sprinkle chips over baked crackers. When chocolate gets soft, spread over crackers with back of a spoon. Sprinkle slivered almonds on melted chocolate. 

4.) Place in refrigerator for at least 8 hours. Break into cookie-size pieces. This recipe freezes well. 

And since the Wisconsin Quilt Expo is a quilt show with the prerequisite vendors, I came home with loot! I've been a very good girl with finances lately, paying off credit cards and school loans, and, in general, not buying much for myself. So yesterday was a bit of a splurge. 

Now, before I show off the loot... I did go home with money left in my wallet, so I was a very good girl, and very restrained. Really.

Nancy's Notions got the lion's share of my money, and mostly in fabric. From left to right, a one yard cut of Iron Quick Fabric, 2 yards of Rocket Scientist by Kari Beyer, Daydream in the green colorway by Bernatex, #7914 Stripey Tiger by Maywood Studios, and two charm packs of Plume by Tula Pink. I was so excited to see the charm packs - I LOVE Tula Pink's fabrics, and I'm not normally comfortable buying a) designer fabric at designer prices and b) pre-cuts. However, the charm packs were $6 each, and I've not had a chance to pick up ANY of Tula Pink's fabric before, so I grabbed it.

Again, from left to right. Perl cotton in four colors and one yard of a Kaffe Fassett cross weave cotton in goldenrod. These are for the Urban Worm. I'm so glad I found what I was looking for at the Expo, rather than having to troll through websites and hope that on screen color would accurately reflect what would arrive in my package. One yard of Ellie's Emporium by Sue Penn. This will be the binding for the Test Your Skills Sampler. A new combination seam ripper and clipper. Needle grabbers for hand-quilting. Two packages each of universal and quilting needles - they were on sale for $2.39 a package! Embroidery needles. Pink and yellow leads for my Sewline Mechanical Pencil, and a new thimble.

Oh, and not pictured: the free tote I got from Nancy's Notions for spending enough money in one go with them. *facepalm*

By the way, after spending the whole day walking a concrete convention floor, guess what I did? Take my son for a two mile walk to downtown because he wanted to see the river.

Yeah, I'm insane.