the farm quilt is finished

It finally happened, I finished my farm quilt for my niece:

and it has arrived  and she likes it!

She uses it as I spy quilt.

They are so many things to look at,

it is the perfect game...

And I love the final texture of the quilt:

I added a lot of details to my original blocks, like eyes to all the animals.

I embroidered a world map for the globe (it is a little potato-like..!), I also added details to the Dala Horse, the cow got its tails, the cat its whiskers.

The tractor got a stirring wheel, the ship its legs, the butterfly its antennas, and I just realized I forgot to stitch the seeds in the pears! Well too late now, I do not think it matters.... 
Eleanor looks perfect with it,

and I hope she enjoys it for a few years!
Happy sewing!

a sweet peach parfait with homemade granola

It is the perfect time of the year to go on the weekend to the orchard to get some peaches, and like in previous years, we purchased too many! Well a half bushel is about 20 lbs, so that is quite a few peaches!
A great and "healthy" way to eat the peaches (besides neat of course!) is to make some peach parfait with homemade granola.

It is delicious!

To make my granola, I use only oat (2cups),

 canola oil (1/4 cup) and honey (1/4 cup).

I mix the 2 liquids together

and then coat the oat with it,

it looks like it will not work out,

but it does!

then I bake it at 350F for 20 min until golden,

it has happened many times to go much darker

as I forgot about it, it is just as delicious.

As soon as it is done, I transferred it still hot

onto parchment paper,

otherwise it sticks to the pan.

It keeps for at least a week in a dry container,

if it lasts that long!

I cut a lot of peaches and stir them with some lemon juice and a little sugar. I let them stand for 20 min, and took some of them to make a little compote, fancy work for just cooking them for 10 minutes, reducing the amount of juice.
I cooled the peach compote in the fridge for a few hours.
Finally I assembled my parfait: compote on the bottom, yogurt on the top  (I like greek yogurt, unsweeten) and whatever level of granola you need!

It is best to wait until last moment,

so that the granola remains crunchy.

I made so many that I used some small canning jars (from IKEA)

to keep them on hands for snacks for the kids,

they did not last very long...

they were eaten so fast that I need to make more granola!

Since I had so many peaches already cut, I also made a peach crumble with some flour, brown sugar and butter:

That was quite tasty too! Here are some peach recipes from previous years:
peach crumble with oats:
peach cobbler:
peach pie:
Of all of them are quite good, but for an easy afternoon snack, nothing beat cutting a peach in small pieces, adding some yogurt and sprinkling some granola and enjoy the taste of summer!

Happy day!

Paris-page, a little embroidery for Bastille day!

 Happy Bastille day,

or Fete Nat, as we call it jokingly!

I set up this little vignette to commemorate the event:

a new little embroidery: Paris-plage from "les brodeuses parisiennes",

an Eiffel tower, an espresso in a Laughing Cow cup,

and of course a crepe,

a great beginning of the day!

It is my 3rd embroidery from the same pattern set

that I used for my Amsterdam vignette,

and my after-ski vignette.

These embroideries are so fun to make,

and decorate with, just the right size and amount of time!

I dream of summer vacations at the beach....

It will happen, 

I just need to wait a few more weeks!

Happy sewing!

the farm quilt: finished top?

Here is my pieced top for the farm quilt:

and I love it!

So pretty, happy and fresh...

Last time it was just a bunch of blocks:

hanging on my small design wall in my sewing room.

While it is pretty much perfect (ish!),

I thought it could use one more touch;

my niece's name:

Since I have another book from Lori Holt:"Spelling Bee",

I used her pattern and quickly spelled her name,

using the same print that are in the quilt.

Now I just need to sew some more background fabric,

and the top would be really done!

And then the real hard work really begins:

quilting it!

It is not too big so it should fit nicely in my machine,

but still it is my least favorite part of making a quilt.

And finally I will add all the legs and eyes, and details

to all my creatures.

Happy sewing!

a simple teenager bathroom makeover, part one

This bathroom makeover started with Miss C. mentioning that the medicine cabinet mirror was not the best  and that she would like a new one.

Pretty right?
We found the perfect mirror at target and I was just planning  on hanging it up and calling it good. Well it turned out to be another one of those stories:  "if you give a mouse a cookie..." One thing leaded into another quite rapidly!

I removed the ugly and dated medicine cabinet and found the wall needed patching, a lot. And then I saw how rusted the old light fixture was, and how most of the bathroom looked tired! We had not done anything to it since we moved in 8 years ago besides shower curtains and sink faucet.
So I removed everything: mirror, light, towel hangers.... and started patching all of the walls! Because this was just supposed to be a minor change, we tried to keep everything on a tight budget.
Miss C. shares the bathroom with Brick Master for a few more months (he will go away to college in the fall,

can you believe I am the mother of a high school graduate?!) so it has to appeal to both of them, but mostly to her as he does not really care. Luckily for him, she likes it simple and black!

Once the walls were patched up, Mon Cheri installed a new light fixture from HD and I painted it all a nice gray, the same gray I used for our bathroom during the ORC Master suite. With the new mirror, light and paint, it looked already updated.

Miss C. is really into cactus so she chose a shower curtain with that theme and put some on the ledge of the mirror (she has a small collection of fake and real ones, perfect for the bathroom!)

For the towel holders, we decided to not buy traditional ones  as I did not find ones that I really liked (unless they were very expensive) So instead I purchased a coat hanger with 3 hooks from HD, unscrewed them and mounted them on 2 different pieces of wood to make 2 towel hangers.

We could have stopped there as she was quite pleased with the outcome, but I suggested I would do a couple more things.... that I will share next time!

Happy Day!