Shredded Pork Deliciousness & My Top 5 of 2012

First of all, I have to share this recipe.  I made shredded pork last night for the very first time (or as my husband and children refer to it as "pork butt" as they snicker -- yes we are rather juvenile here.) from Pioneer Woman's blog.  It's made with Dr. Pepper and chipotle peppers.  We ate it on hamburger buns for bbq sandwiches.  It came out so deliciously moist, I would have never guessed.  Halfway through cooking, I was flipping it over and not liking the smell or the looks of things, but when it was finally done...to die for!  The only difference in mine was that I only had a 3 lb roast versus her recommendation of 5-7 lbs, so the Dr. Pepper was cut in half to 1 can, I only used a half a can of chipotle peppers, and the cook time was just 3 hours from start to finish at 300 degrees. 

Check out the recipe here. I was uber impressed that mine actually looked like the pictures when I pulled it out of the oven at the end.  Hubby was in heaven and ate like a pig.  Definitely a recipe that will become a staple around here.

Back to business....I can't believe 2012 is ending and we're on to 2013.  Where does the time go? My babies are growing up too fast.  I swear the older I get, the faster time flies.

What are you doing to celebrate? This is the first time in 3 years my two older children weren't in Oklahoma with their dad.  We're having a little party with Grandbea, my mother-in-law.  We will be counting down the hours with lots of games from my husband's  much-loved show, Table Top.

For eats, I've planned piglets in blankets (little smokies wrapped in crescent rolls), homemade dutch oven bread, crockpot mac n cheese, copycat Chili's skillet queso, homemade hot apple cider, and chocolate muffins (at the request of Miss Molly). Plus, some champagne for the grown ups.

Since we are coming down to the wire tonight, I thought it would be fun to post the Top Five most popular posts from my little blog from the entire year.

Top Five Sewing Chick Posts of 2012

#5 Fleece Sunflower Pillow Tutorial.  This tutorial I came up while actually making someone else's tutorial project.  It was a peony-like fleece flower. I kept thinking how bright and sunny a sunflower pillow would look, so I whipped one up and loved it so much I had to share. 

#4 Upcycled T Shirts into Rosette Embellishments  I'm always surprised at what's really popular on my blog.  This was the fourth highest on my blog.  It's a fun little embellishment.  I love to make these rosettes because no matter what, they always come out looking fabulous.

#3 Ribbon Flower Baby Headband tutorial.  I love these little headbands on Miss Molly.  I happened to be playing around with the ribbon to make an accessory to go with her outfit and I just loved how the flower came out. 

#2 Jointed Waldorf doll tutorial.  This is one of my most popular posts even lately.  I love to make these Waldorf dolls and it's fun to share my love with everyone else.  If you haven't tried one, they really aren't as scary to make as you might think. 

 

#1 Spiral Hot Dogs.  Who knew such a simple idea could make hot dogs so delicious?  I was surprised at the popularity of this post.  In fact, it was a spur of the moment that I decided to take pictures of my husband making them. 

Melt in Your Mouth Brown Sugar Fudge

I'm a born and raised in Texas girl, and my family LOVES Tex-Mex food.  When I was a little girl there was a local restaurant called The Monterrey House.  They would give you these little bits of candy in the chip basket that were Mexican candies called Leche Quemada.

I loved those little candies, and even now 20-30 years later - god, I feel old - I still remember the taste and never can find anything like it.  So, I've been on a hunt.  I found a recipe that was literally 4-5 hours long.  Who does that?  I'm not stirring for 5 hours.  Then yesterday I found penuche.  It's brown sugar fudge.  It tastes almost exactly like those little candies.  So, today I attempted my own.  Most recipes have heavy cream in them.  But, I looked for a recipe that had marshmallow creme in it because that's what I had on hand.  Plus, on a snowy and icy day in Texas (Yes! Our first White Christmas ever I think!), you don't leave the house because down here we don't know how to drive in that kinda weather.    

So, after cleaning up the kitchen after dinner, my reward was this recipe.  I made the penuche tonight and it's heavenly. It literally melts in your mouth, but it's very rich. One little piece will do you, and if you eat more, you will feel the sugar overload.  My 8 year old loved the taste and texture combination. Everyone else was asleep, so he was my only taste tester so far, but he's usually the best taste tester.  He loves all his momma's cooking :D.

This recipe has an option of nuts, but I left them out as a lot of my family (i.e. me) doesn't like nuts.

Penuche Fudge

2 tbs butter - cold
1 1/2 c sugar
1 c brown sugar
2/3 c evaporated milk
5 oz marshmellow creme
1 tsp vanilla
1 c pecans - OPTIONAL

Line a loaf ban with foil or plastic wrap.

In a 2 or 3 qt sauce pan, warm milk on medium then add white and brown sugar.  Stir constantly with a wooden spoon until rolling boil.  Then, add the marshmallow creme.  Stir and stir and stir until the marshmallow creme is completely melted.

When the mixture is back to a rolling boil set the timer for 5 minutes.  STIR CONSTANTLY!  Do not stop stirring until the timer goes off.  Then pull the pan off the heat, mix in the vanilla.  Drop in the butter, as one big piece is fine, and let it sit for 2 minutes without stirring.  The butter will be mostly melted at the end of the 2 minutes.  Then, vigorously stir until well mixed -- for this I used a metal whisk.

Pour entire contents into loaf pan and allow to set until firm.  Mine set in about an hour's time.  Then, remove the plastic wrap/foil from loaf pan and cut fudge into squares.  Store in a covered container for up to a week. 

Snow Day!!

As I've said many times, we're in Texas, which rarely gets snow. Funny thing, Mr E kept begging me for snow on Christmas -- like it was my decision, lol. And, when the meteorologists started saying last week, we might be getting a white Christmas, I did not believe them. Then, as it got closer and closer, they started increasing the amounts of snow that was going to happen.  Amazing, we woke up to a yard covered in snow and it was still falling. I think we probably had about 4 inches, which is amazing for here. 

I wanted to share my children enjoying the snow, so I can look back years from now and remember the time. Miss Molly has never seen snow or played in the snow. I think the last time there were flurries was when she was about 8 months old. I rushed her outside bundled in blankets and a hat and had my oldest hold her while I took a picture of all three of them.

 She LOVED the snow and begged to go out many times a day the past couple of days, until her shoes and pant legs were caked with snow and her little toes were red when I finally got her in and undressed. She calls her mittens her "mermits." I have no idea where she came up with that name, but she asks me to put her "mermits" on a hundred times a day. 

This is Mr E the minute he walked outside. 

This is Miss Molly picking up a snowball for the first time. 

This is when Miss Molly walked outside for the first time while it was still snowing. 

This is my dear Ms Em, who was just hit in the face by her brother, who you can see laughing like a crazy man in the background. Don't worry, she retaliated. 

Merry Christmas!!

Wee Wonderful Dollies

I saw the Wee Wonderfuls book on the library catalog online one day and decided to check it out. Unfortunately, it had a bit of a wait on the request list, so it took me until this week to get it. 

I love the cute stuff in it.  So so so so cute!! I decided to try my hand at these little slumber party dolls.  I'm doing this from memory, I can't remember what they were called.  But, I loved how they had little balls for hands and their hair was ADORABLE.

Call me lazy, but I skipped the sleeping bag thing and just made two of the dolls.  I'm not one to use patterns.  I hate patterns, except my own.  I also hate following directions, but who doesn't?

So, I tediously traced these out and cut them out and then cut the fabric.  I followed step by step instead of doing my own thing because I wanted to do these right.  The directions were a teensy bit confusing because I think a step might have been forgotten about closing up the doll bottom.  I looked and looked, but could not figure out where it said to close the very bottom of the doll body.

All in all, if you are new to dollmaking, this is probably a great way to get your feet wet with detailed instructions and great illustrations.  Even the embroidery stitch illustrations will really help someone who hasn't made dolls.  However, I've discovered in the last couple years that I am a Star Trek Borg.  I feed on efficiency.  I need to go the shortest most direct route to get somewhere.   So, had I not followed the directions step by step, I would have been done a whole lot faster, which drove me a little crazy.  It's a lovely book, so if you're a dollmaker, it might be a great book for inspiration 0to get your creative juices flowing to create something of your own, but it's probably better if you make something up yourself. 

Here they are.  I call them Olivia and Flynn, and yes Flynn is a girl.  Flynn is the one with the single bun on her head.  I don't know why, but dolls tell me their names as I'm making them.  I'm not crazy and yet have no idea how it works, but by the time I finish a doll, her name (or his) is definitively decided and it's not by me.

Hair is blonde much like Miss Molly.  Eyes are a dark violet/purple, as Miss Molly has my eyes and my lovely husband likes to tell me my dark blue eyes are violet -- which is nice because I always assumed I was weird and they were probably navy or something not as nice as violet because no one ever has dark blue eyes like me.

They were made out of some much loved scraps.  The double bun girl is Olivia.  She has some of my much hoarded and loved Munki Munki fabric scraps from these adorable wedding day pajamas.  I love this print, it is so so cute! I kept looking for the perfect thing to make out of it, and the dolls in the book told me that they were definitely the thing to do with that fabric.  I've literally being holding on to it for years. Flynn's dress is mainly a flannel Amy Butler.  I cannot remember who the designer is for the sleeves, but I thought the fabric coordinated nicely. 

Even though I've made tons of waldorf dolls with embroidered eyes, these eyes scared me.  But, they came out great! I really like using a 6-string embroidery thread over my usual 3-string.  In fact, I might change to that if it comes out nice on my next experimental waldorf doll.

All in all, a great book to have in your collection when you want a doll to whip up for a birthday or christmas present. 

Gutermann Thread is AWESOME!!!

I love to use a wooly nylon thread in the loopers of my serger.  Lately, my local Joann's only carries Gutermann's bulky nylon, so I made to the switch to it.  It is so much easier to thread in the loopers than the YLI wooly nylon because I don't have to twist it; it just fits right through.  So I switch to using Gutermann's exclusively because it is so nice. 

Then, a couple of the spools of the Gutermann's bulky nylon starting doing something weird.  About halfway through the spool, when a fair amount of the plastic at the top of the spool was exposed, it would catch on the top of the spool.  If I didn't notice it and undo it with my fingers, it would pull the thread tight in the serger, then break the thread and my serging was HORRIBLE!  And, it would do this literally over and over again.  I finally would have to chunk the spool with half the thread still on it.

This thread was rather expensive, like close to $5 a spool, I think.  So, after the second spool did this to me, I emailed the company and explained the situation and asked if there was a way I could make the spool stop doing that -- because I had tried everything.  I even filed it with a nail file to smooth the plastic in case something was sticking up in it.

 

The very next morning a nice lady at Gutermann emailed me, and asked me to send them my spool of thread that was messing up so they could figure out what the problem was.  Then, she said she would compensate me with a replacement thread plus some extra for the inconvenience.  Yesterday, I got my package.  Not only did it have a replacement spool, they also sent along an additional entire box of the same bulky nylon.  I couldn't believe it!  Isn't that a nice thing to do?

American Girl Mermaid Tail Sewing Pattern

 The downloadable pattern has finally arrived!  And, it's only $4!  Please head on over to Etsy or Craftsy to download your very own copy.  The pattern is completely digital, which means you print it right from your computer and can get to work as soon as you want!

Click here for Etsy
Click here for Craftsy

You can whip up 2-3 mermaid costume sets with just 1/2 yard of a four-way stretch dancewear fabric.

This is a great last minute gift you can whip up in an afternoon for the little girl in your life who loves American Girl. This is an easy to make tutorial for a mermaid tail and bandeau style top for your American Girl or similar 18 inch doll. It also fit my 18 inch Waldorf style dolls.

Recommended fabrics: dancewear fabrics, four-way stretch lycra and spandex knits.