Supermarket Surprise!

Lately, I've noticed that I eat a lot of the same things, over and over again. It's nice to have favorites, but variety is the spice of life! While I usually take the opportunity to try something new when the chance arises (like when I ate alligator in New Orleans), my kitchen isn't a place where that often happens.

There IS such a thing as too much mac and cheese.

Making the same things is easy (especially when you know the recipe by heart) but it gets boring. No matter how delicious something is, after the fifth or sixth time you no longer look forward to it. In the spirit of livening up my cooking, I've decided to start a new segment called Supermarket Surprise!

I'm fortunate to live near a grocery store that has a great selection of ethnic and Kosher foods, but I hardly ever venture into those aisles. I make a list of what I need and just go to the aisles where list items reside. Very little adventuring involved. But no more! There is a fantastic wealth of food stuffs in those aisles, and I haven't heard of most of them.

So once a month, I will be preparing a dish made with a "surprise" ingredient. Here's where the surprise comes in. I'll look for something that I haven't heard of before and I'll buy it, whether or not I have any idea of how to use it or prepare it. Then I'll go home, research it a little bit, try a recipe I found using that ingredient, and tell you about it.

Sounds easy enough, right? I already bought my first item. It's something a littler "safer" than I could have otherwise chosen, but I didn't want to throw myself into the deep end of new foods right away. I'm making it in a few days, so look for the follow up with my first Supermarket Surprise!

No more sewing for me

I was so, so close to getting this Halloween quilt done. I have about 1/3 of it quilted. And now my machine is broken beyond my ability to repair. The nearest repair shop has over 10 reviews on Google saying "Don't ever go here" and the next closest one that can service my machine is over 50 miles away.

It doesn't look like I will be doing any sewing soon, since I can't exactly just go out and buy a new machine. So, for the foreseeable future it's just recipes from me. I was hoping to post a tutorial soon, but that's going to have to be put on hold as well. Maybe I can use this as an opportunity to work on some no-sew crafts I've been meaning to get around to.

Studio Glamour Shots

I am so excited about having my own sewing space that I wanted to take a few more photos to share. It doesn't look like the novelty of having my own sewing space will wear off any time soon. Not that I'm complaining!

I think I need another spool holder.

The stool is a new addition, too. I used to have a fold-up one, but it was cheap and broke (and almost took me out with it). One of these days, I will get around to making a chair pad to put on top of it. I think I want to do something along the lines of this pillow pouf, just with less fluff so it isn't too bulky. I think I can do one half of that pouf and staple it to the underside of the chair.

New Crafts Soon!

This week has been a little hectic, so I wanted to assure you that I'll be posting up some new crafts soon. I've been working on a full-sized homespun quilt for Hubby-to-be and the mini quilt kit that I purchased from the Quilters Unlimited show. Sometimes I have so many projects going at once that none of them get finished at all.

And very soon a quilting surprise for me should arrive in the mail. I can't wait to test it out and finally see what it's like to use one myself. It should make my large quilting projects much easier. But I have to get the homespun quilt top finished first. As soon as I try it out, I will have a full report on it and if it's worth the pricetag.

Welcome!

I'm Ashley and I have a crafty soul. I love all sorts of crafting, particularly quilting, sewing, and knitting. I'm also an avid DIY-er because being creative and hands-on is in my blood. Here you will find my latest projects, tutorials, and crafting tips. Hopefully you'll find some useful projects and tips here. Thanks for stopping by!