Burrito Anyone?

Mexican Food

My family love Mexican food. I think our nearest restaurant is at Lennox Head 25 mins away. So we don't get to eat it very often - apart from my lame home cooked version. When we were on holidays in Yamba last week my husband and I were reading 'Coast' magazine and the feature profile was a new-ish local Mexican restaurant called Sol Cantina. Just reading the description of the menu, and the preparation in the marinades, made our mouths water. We vowed to check it out. My husband wanted to go for lunch but I insisted on dinner instead. He was glad that I had dragged us all out in the end.

Sol Cantina is run by an ex-SoCal husband and wife. They relocated themselves and 4 kids to this wonderful little coastal town about 2 years ago and set up a restaurant where diners can find an authentic Mexican flavour. The decor was ecclectic and I loved the artwork on the walls. Another plus was the booth seating - very helpful for keeping 3 kids in their seats. It was great service and the owner, Taylor, was a friendly fellow who had surf movies playing on 2 BIG screens. For a Tuesday night it was full of diners, mostly families.

Our kids ordered chicken burritos, my husband, pork ribs and myself, chicken fajitas. Both meats had been marinated to a melt-in-the-mouth standard and I relished the red capsicum and guacamole. Needless to say our kids ditched the delicious salad and chicken burritos for the plain tortillas that came with my meal! So unadventurous of them. (The burritos made for a nice lunch the next day though). I also had a Corona beer for the first time in a few years - I am so missing out!

This morning my 4 year old daughter requested that I make chicken burritos for dinner tonight. I stocked up on extra large tortillas. I've done all the prep. work and my husband is cooking them as I type this.

Pillow Cases (Burrito style)

I have been making pillow case burritos these past 2 days. I followed an  easy pillow tutorial, from Twiddletails, I found on Pinterest. So far I have made 5 out of the 6 Halloween themed ones and have yet to start on the Liberty fabric 4.

I have had to tweak the pattern a bit owing to the fact that maybe USA standard pillows are longer than ours. I also had to use up the larger pieces of my Halloween fabric - of which there were not many that offered me width of fabric WOF.

This Week's Stats

Completed projects  - ZSSA Nesting Boxes

                                          - ZSSA Little Pocket Pillowcase

Currently in progress - Halloween Pillowcases - 5 done 1 to go

                                               - embroidery snowglobe

                                              - 'Say Cheese' polaroid mini blocks - 10 more to do

                                             

Yet to start  - 4 Liberty Pillowcases

                        - QCA Bee block for October

                         - Wombat Stew House Block for Jane

                        - Mystery Quilt back 

                        - Katie Jump Kites - ready to baste

                      

On Hold projects   - Sherbert Dreams Quilt

                                      - Craftsy BOMs from June, August and September

       

What's your favourite Mexican dish?

Linking up with...

Help Me Find a Pattern Post Please

About 2 weeks ago I was browsing through my blog reader and came across a NEW blog to me. It was by an quilter in the USA who was asking readers to make blocks for the servicemen and women  (Valour or Hero Quilts) and she displayed some of the colours and fabrics needed to be used as well as a FANTASTIC rectangle block pattern. I did not PIN IT or BOOKMARK the page and all my efforts to go through my search history have proved fruitless. If you know of this recent post PLEASE write a comment below. I would be ever so grateful to find that post again.

Little Pocket Pillow Case

Piggy in a Pocket

This is a very sweet little project and I highly recommend checking out some of the ones made in the Zakka Style Sew Along Flickr group. All of the teddies are cute and some of them are in photos with their new owners.

Now my mum gave Frances the softest Gund pink piggy when she was a newborn. Piggy Pinktail is still Fran's favourite bed pal and he has been through the wash a bout 5 times! He's rough, scraggly and stained by blue texta but he is 'real'.

So with this project I decided NOT to make the matching teddy but rather a larger pocket pillow for Piggy to slumber next to my daughter.

Fabric

Frances helped me choose some pin, orange and green 4" squares from the stash. I think most of these are Amy Butler prints. The apples and feathers prints were just from the scrap  box.

Cutting and Sewing

I was determined to make the diamonds despite my instincts telling me that they were going to be a lot of work to cut, sew and match up the points.  I had thought about somehow using paper as a foundation but decided that making strips might work instead.

I think that they would do so IF the strips were longer than my 4" but as you can see I had mixed results.

Failures

My diamonds were not sewn up correctly and I could not be bothered unpicking titchy seams so I ditched my diamonds and sewed up the remaining 2" strips into a rectangle.

I had planned on using this cute 'Hello Kitty' gingham fabric for the back of the pillow and also to line the pocket, but I ironed it with a hot iron and it melted and shrank. I hate fabric like that! So I decided to stick with Kona cotton in 'snow'.

Changes

From this point I kind of abandoned the pattern in the book and improvised my own version.

Size - I see no use in another small toddler pillow (we have about 4 of these from Preschool days) so I made it regular size at 37" x 20".

Pocket - I made the pocket much larger to fit Piggy. It is 10" x 7". I added batting and interfacing for strength and then sewed the right sides together and turned right way out.

Quilting - I added quilting in diamond shapes to make up for the earlier loss.

Piping - I don't know what piping cord is, so I made a narrow 1" strip from scraps and sewed that in half to use instead.

I am so happy with the results. I finished it close to midnight and so Fran was fast asleep when I put it under her head. I whispered to her that I had finished 'Piggy's Pocket pillow' and she promptly snuggled up to him. Awwwwww!

I even gave Piggy a new pink gingham ribbon. He does look chuffed.

2012 Challenge to Myself

"Aim at nothing and you are sure to hit it"

Now Australians are not, by nature, over achievers. Our mantra is more "stay modest and try your best" than "You are a winner!". But I do think that setting some goals is helpful in life. So I have set myself some goals to achieve in 2012. And here is the list:

Quilting

1. Participate in a 'block swap". I have already signed up with 12 ladies from my online 'Quilt Club Australia' group. My block is slated for February, and I plan to do a scrappy log cabin. 
2. Participate in a 'BOM - Block of the Month'. Again there is a great online one with video tutorials from Craftsy.
3. Make a few quilts using real patterns. Including a 'Civil War' churn-dash, a traditional 'Star' block, and a 'Fussy Fairytales' one with my '1001 Peeps' fabrics.

Sewing

4. Learn how to sew in a zipper and then make many many pouches.
5. Make a layered skirt using an Amy Butler pattern.
6. Make a few pillow cases and cushions.

Organisation

7. Write and stick to a family budget.
8. Establish a working and practical Household Notebook that has easy access to important information.
9. Sort through the moving boxes in the garage that have not been touched since we moved in 2 years ago.

Computing 

10. Learn to use my Creative Memories computer programs and templates to create pages. 11. Learn some blogging tips. 

12. Get back into photography now that I have a new digital SLR camera.

That's all I can think of for now...but 12 seems achievable. I am sure there are many sub-goals that will be reached along the way.

Writing them down is a start at least...and it will help me to stay accountable by making them public.