Special Treat

I wasn't sure that I would have time to post again before Thanksgiving but I do have a few minutes. 
Thought I would share with you a great recipe for something a little different - would be a great treat for everyone after their scrumptous Turkey dinner.  This is one of my sister Viv's great recipes and everyone at Chatter Time loves it - so if you want to make one more great treat here you go -

Cranberry Upside Down Cake

Topping
1 1/3 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup butter

2 1/2 cups fresh cranberries
1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

Cake Batter
1 cup butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 eggs,
2 cups sour cream
2 tsp vanilla
3 cups flour
3 t. baking powder,
2 t. baking soda
1 t. cinnamon,
1/2 t. salt

Line 9 X 13 pan with foil. In saucepan, combine brown sugar, 1/2 cup butter. Bring to boil, pour into pan and spread to edges. Sprinkle with cranberries and pecans. Cream together 1 cup butter, sugar, eggs, sour cream, and vanilla. Add in flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Mix just until moist. Pour batter over cranberry mixture. Bake at 350 degrees for 60 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into center of cake comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10 minutes, then invert onto serving platter and carefully remove foil. Serve warm.

Enjoy and Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's the beginning of the holiday season with Thanksgiving this Thursday - can time go any faster? 

We had the opportunity to go downstate this past Friday to Battle Creek to watch the Charlevoix Girls Volleyball team participate in their first ever state semi-finals.  It was good to see the many Charlevoix supporters and the girls did great!  They did not win their match however they tried hard and their attitude was great!  Way to go Lady Rayders!

After watching those games, we then headed over to Ann Arbor and showed our granddaughter, Maddie, Michigan Stadium. What a sight - even in the dark!  Then we stayed near Flint where Maddie and I shopped on Saturday while Papaw Mike went to the  Michigan/Nebraska game.  Go Blue! 

While driving home Saturday evening, we couldn't help but notice all of the Christmas decorations already in place and lighting up neighborhoods. It won't be long before Santa is loading up his sleigh!

At the shop we are getting ready for Demo Daze - December 1, 2, and 3.  We will have lots of great demos plus great quick and easy gift ideas - some to make - some already made for you!  Always something to do - do you think that has anything to do with time moving so quickly?  And talking about so much to do and get ready for guess we better get to the shop - have a great week, a wonderful Thanksgiving and Happy Quilting!

Fall and more

When we were getting ready for our 4th Anniversary at the shop, we put some pumpkins on the shop porch and at the classroom door.  They looked really good so we just kept them there.  This past Monday morning when we got to the shop, the squirels were having a pumpkin feast and pumpkin seeds were everywhere.  But they - the squirels - small red ones and the larger gray ones - were so entertaining we kept the pumpkins there for another day.  They are going to be fat little squirels!

One of our customers brought these cute little ornaments that she made in to the shop. They are really cute and she is going to do a class for us - yea!

 



Have a great day and happy quilting!

Mystery and more

Well we had our mystery class last weekend and we had lots of fun.  For those of you that have not participated in a mystery class before it really is a fun project.  There is some degree of trust needed in your quilt shop and instructor because you don't have any idea what your finished piece is going to look like but if you are willing to relinquish a little control, you can have a lot of fun and end up with a beautiful quilt!  We did a mystery quilt top using one of Debbie Caffrey's mystery projects and loved every minute of it.  Our oldest daughter, Val, from Las Vegas was our mystery instructor and along with all of her great tips not to mention her sense of humor everyone in the class had a wonderful time.  Val is teaching the mystery class at The Christmas Goose Quilt Shop in Las Vegas next weekend so I said I would only show one picture of the finished project so as not to spoil the mystery totally - so here is Val (center) along with two of the class participants holding up the finished quilt at our picinic celebrating the finish of the class -

Oh - its the picture of the back of the quilt - so I guess it is still a mystery - hope anyone that does a mystery class has as much fun as we did.  We will be having another mystery class so stay tuned!

This past weekend was a beautiful weekend for fall colors and we took advantage of it by doing a little color tour of our own - here is just one of the pictures we took!  Hope you all have a great weekend quilting or doing whatever makes you smile!

Each Day

Another beautiful day here in Charlevoix.  What a great run of good weather we are having and I will take another 3 months of this but I think Mother Nature may have something else in store for us so will just enjoy each day as it comes.

We (Hearts To Holly) will be celebrating our 4th anniversary next weekend.  Can hardly believe that it has been four years since we opened the shop - things have progressed quickly and we have grown from  having about 800 bolts of fabric when we opened to having over 2500 bolts now and we put them in every nook and cranny of the shop.  When people stop in they comment about having to look everywhere - every corner to see everything and it takes them ahile to go through the shop.  Don't you just love old houses?  They have so many corners that make things interesting!

Well enjoy today - make the most of it - live it to its fullest!  Happy Quilting!

Fall At Its Best

Fall is here but we are getting a bit of Indian Summer this week and it has been absolutely beautiful!  Sunny days and crisp cool nights - what a great place we live in.  And we still have some roses!

Hearts To Holly is bustling with lots of good things - Mystery Weekend (October 7-9), 4th Anniversary Celebration (October 14-15) and so many great classes - Spicy Spiral Tablerunner, October's bag of the month, Sew Simple Pineapple (great technique - no special ruler), It's A Wrap, and many, many more.  If you don't get our newsletter that has all of the classes listed, go to http://www.heartstoholly.com/ and sign up.

We have started a new fun thing at the shop - Fat Quarter Lotta - buy a fat quarter, we put your name and phone number on it, wrap it up and put it in our Fat Quarter jar.  When the jar is full, we will pull out one lucky fat quarter and the winner will get all of the fat quarters int he jar.  We don't know how many fat quarters will fit in the jar but think it will be close to 100 - just imagine getting 100 fat quarters (25 yards of fabric) for just the cost of one fat quarter.  Do you feel lucky?

Well guess that is it for now - hope to see you at the shop - in the interim - Happy Quilting!

Here Again

Well time certainly seems to get away from me.  Here it is the last of September.  Fall is definitely in the air - pumpkins are everywhere and the honey crisp apples are ready for eating.  The shop has been busy.  We were up at Sault Ste. Maire MI this past weekend vending at a quilt show and the quilts were beautiful.  I am always in awe with the amount of creativity and talent that surrounds us.

Last night our Moda salesperson - Mark - was here to show us the new fabrics coming after the first of the year and there are some great ones.  One line in particular that I liked - and those that were with me - was the "Stitch In Color" line.  It is bright and fresh looking - really some different designs in the fabrics - just really great looking.  This is a picture of the panel or "cheater" fabric.  Mark actually had a large tote made out of it and it was cute!

There were lots of other lines that caught my attention too - Minick and Simpson are bringing out Prairie Paisley II - lots of nice fabrics there!  I was trying hard not to over spend and to some extent I did okay but probably ordered more that I thought I was going to - but that just means there will be more for everyone to oogle over. 

We are doing some fun things at the shop over the next few weeks - a Mystery Weekend, October 7, 8 and 9, our 4th Anniversary celebration, October 14 and 15, Demo Daze, December 1, 2, and 3 and lots in between as well.  We have lots of classes - Chenille Applique, our Bag of the month, Spicy Spiral Table Runner - something for everyone.

Well guess that is it for now.  Take care and Happy Quilting!