Links, Woolworths Famous Cheesecake, Flowers at Last

Neither fine nor entirely foul lately. We seem to be enduring a new season composed of sunlight in thin bursts, cloud cover, rain showers and winds at times cool enough to make us shiver. Overnight temperatures dipping down almost flirting with freezing. Springish, I guess you could say but keep a coat/umbrella/duck boots handy.

In spite of it all, we have flowers! In the garden!  They ignored the frost warnings and decided to bloom anyway. We have a number of small bunches of daffodils dotted throughout the flower beds adding just a touch of colour here and there. We've also let all the dandelions be for now hoping to help early bees but sadly we've not seen one.

And luckily the weather does not put a damper on all the loads of things to love.

I loved this tutorial on how to applique using freezer paper from Simple Bird Studios.  One of the best I've seen and somehow seems to be my favourite method as well.

Wendy in this excellent post at her blog Pieceful Thoughts shared her favourite ways to find fabric. I picked up a few ideas to note for future reference.

I saw this panel on One of Nanette's posts at Chopin- A Passionate Quilter; she is embroidering it and I fell in love with it.  Embroidery is like my first love and this is on my wanted list as well.  From the French General site.

                            
I enjoy Karen's videos at Just Get It Done Quilts so much.  Plain talking/explaining and she is real about life too.  This one is about finding useful quilting items from the Dollar Store.  I also liked the one about using masking tapes in quilting. Always something to learn!

I made this particular no bake cheesecake last Sunday.  The  Famous Woolworth's No Bake Cheesecake recipe which someone said is over a hundred years old!
 My mother worked at Woolworth's for over 25 years in the Ladies and Children section. It was a surprise when I heard she wanted a job later in life but it suited her.  She loved her co workers and the socializing and chatting with all the shoppers her job provided.  When I came home for Christmas that first year, I could see a difference in her. She was much more confident somehow and livelier. And she was making her own "bit of money" as she called it.  She also still gets her small Woolworth's pension after all these years.

This has been published often and I know I have a copy poked away in a scrapbook somewhere but who needs that with the internet.


 I did not have lemon jello and used orange instead. With a simple graham cracker crumb bottom and a bit of whipping, this is easy to put together as well as tasty. It is very light which makes it a great summertime dessert.  I made sure my Carnation milk had been in the freezer till it had thickened a bit before the whipping. Hubby is having no problem eating his way through a 9 x 13 pan of it. LOL

How does my Sweet Pea afghan grow!  It is keeping my knees warm as I crochet which is needed as our basement is cool where the t.v. is.

I showed you Lucy's colourwash version of her Dune blanket. Here is the regular version in shell stitch. A soft muted palette Lucy says inspired by walks on a beach when there is still a chill in the air. Could apply right now today! All the Dune blanket details can be found here at Attic 24.
                                 
More photograph blocks while I dicker about with the borders of those flower blocks.  Mindless fun sewing with my little Brother sewing machine which is such a workhorse.  It's small enough I can strip it down to fix things...would not dream of tinkering with the computerized Singer Quantum in such a way.

Littler grandson with an egg from their hens. He is enjoying the hen keeping very much.  They have "designer" hens this year which give them different coloured eggs...just for fun.  He tells me that he loves nature which is music to my ears.
                                
And with his happy face I'll close this post.
Hope you follow some of the links included today...so much information and inspiration to be found there! Happy Thursday all.
Linking with Not Afraid of Color, The Jesh Studio, Esther's Quilt Blog, The Needle and Thread Network, My Quilt Infatuation, Em's Scrapbag, Quilt Fabrication, Sugarlane Designs, Busy Hands Quilts and It's a Small Town Life.