Junie Moon

Thursday, October 20, 2016

October Bake-Along and Bake for Good

One of my goals this month was completing King Arthur Flour’s October Bake-along Challenge:Whole-Grain Bread.

After assembling all my tools and necessary ingredients, I got to work. It really was not at all hard to make this bread.

The challenge also fulfills my pledge to bake and share with someone in my community as part of Bake for Good Month. For every pledge made in October, King Arthur Flour will donate to Feeding America to fight domestic hunger.

After cooling, my nutritious bread offering went next door to my very pregnant neighbor.

Saturday, October 15, 2016

Halloween Time

A Halloween cross-stitch project finished early this morning is now added to my October decorations. I love this month—it does seem to me to be a magic-filled month.

My new Halloween decoration is NeedleWorkPress' "Halloween Time". I ordered everything I needed from 123Stitch.com.

The project is stitched on Weeks Dye Works 30-ct Grasshopper linen using one thread over one thread. Embroidery threads used are Gentle Arts Sampler Thread, Weeks Dye Works, and a Kreinik metallic for the numbers.

The finished piece fits inside Tim Holtz's Idea-ology assemblage clock. There is also a “Christmas Time” piece which came out at the end of September which I’ve got in the line-up to stitch. It can replace the Halloween work. As "times" change, I can store each piece inside the clock so nothing gets lost.

Thursday, September 22, 2016

Celebrating Autumn: Hobbits and Muffins

In addition to today being Autumn Equinox, it is also the birthday of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins! To celebrate, I participated in the Hobbit Day 5K. September is also World Alzheimer’s Month. As I honor hobbits, part of my race fee goes to the Cure Alzheimer’s Fund where 100% of donations goes directly to research towards a cure for Alzheimer’s.

Next up was King Arthur Flour’s Monthly Bake-along Challenge. The recipe this month is Inside-Out Pumpkin Muffins.

There’s ingredient (boiled cider) that needed to be made ahead of time as it takes a few hours, so I did this step last weekend in preparation for today’s baking effort. Here is a recipe card I made using "The Washington Post’s" recipe.

I could have skipped the boiled cider ingredient, but if I’m going to the trouble to participate in a challenge of any sort, then I try to do so as authentically as possible.

The finished results were photographed by looking down the top of the Mason jar where I let it cool before storing in the fridge. The picture reminds me of the mosquito in the amber depicted in the Jurassic Park movie.

The rest of the recipe was pretty simple and did not take long at all to make and assemble. Here is how it looked coming out of the oven.

These yummy muffins are perfect for saying hello, autumn!

I wish you happy autumnal days full of hobbits and yummy muffins.

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Goodbye, Summer!

Today is the last day of summer. It's hard to really see a transition to fall from summer in Florida, but we gave it a go today. I made Key Lime Pies in Mason Jars—here is the recipe link.

After tucking the treats in the fridge for later, my husband and I wandered over to the beach to say goodbye to summer. Living on the Gulf coast in the Florida panhandle, the water has brilliant days we call Emerald Days. Today’s water was gorgeous.

While we won't really see any cold weather until around Halloween, we still try to celebrate the seasons in our own beachy-kind of way. Goodbye, Summer!

Saturday, September 17, 2016

National Apple Dumplings Day

The National DayCalendar says today is a bunch of celebratory days, but I’m honoring National Constitution and Citizenship Day as well as National Apple Dumpling Day.

I made apple dumplings using King Arthur Flour’s recipe. Here they are fresh out of the oven.

The napkin is one of a set I made years ago to go with a quilt throw for picnics. My homemade vanilla bean ice cream goes perfectly with the dumplings. Here’s to standing up and honoring our citizenship and our Constitution!

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Chalk the Walks 2016

Today was Chalk the Walks which is “all about spreading joy, optimism and inspiration through the magical power of sidewalk chalk”.

You can read about this project here . I thought this was a great idea, so I prepared by buying my chalk and pondering what bit of positivity I wanted to share when the big day arrived.

Here is my offering:

Sharing positive thoughts with others in the world is a good thing.

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Filling in the Holes

“Needlepoint: the delicious art of filling in holes with wool.”

Carole Berman and Jennifer Lazarus

I started this needlepoint eyeglass case project whilst on a cruise and am picking it up again to hopefully finish soon. The front is almost done and then I can work on the back. I like to balance creative activities like this between knitting projects.

The needlepoint canvas is from the Elizabeth Turner Collection. The canvas, stitch book, and the needed yarns were purchased from Cabbage Row Shoppe during a trip to Charleston, SC. I always visit this shop when we’re in Charleston.

My embroidery scissors were purchased directly from Maison Sajou in Versailles, France. Along with the scissors, I got a little scissors case which included a chart for stitching my monogram.

All of my projects are organized in a bag specific to each project which makes it easier for me to grab and take to either the living room or on a trip. This particular bag (seen in top edge of first photo) is a pouch with two zippered pockets.