Christmas Biscotti

I made my cranberry almond biscotti here this morning in Saskatoon.  It was very popular so I decided to post it on my blog.  It had also been popular when I packaged it in Holiday tins and gave it out for office gifts.  I also took some to the Common Threads Guild meeting (Holiday Party) in December.

Here is the recipe:

Cranberry Almond Biscotti

2 ¼ cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

2 large eggs

1 cup sugar

½ cup oil

2 tsp almond extract

1 1/3 cup slivered almonds (toasted)

2 cups dried cranberries

Line baking sheet with parchment paper. Mix flour, baking powder, and salt . Mix eggs, sugar, oil and almond extract. Add dry ingredients. Add almonds and cranberries. Divide batter into 2 parts. Pat into 2 bars (about 4 inches by 9 inches). Bake for 30 minutes at 350 F. Using a serrate knife cut slices. Rearrange the slices (turning them on their side so they can dry out). Bake for another 10 minutes.

To toast almonds spread out on cookie sheet and bake in 350 F oven. Stir frequently unit toasty brown.

From the kitchen of Joan Fulton

Christmas Quilts 2011

I finished 2 quilts just in time for Christmas. The Pittsburgh Penguin quilt is for my niece, Lauren.

Here it is on the long-arm when I was part way through quilting it.

I custom quilted this one - trying out a different quilting pattern in each round on the quilt.

This quilt was for Mom for Christmas. The center is from 2 hand dyed pieces that I dyed at Ricky Tims quilt retreat last summer. The one is a spiral combined with a mottled hand-dyed piece. I had another dark hand dyed piece for the border. I quilted it using the Linda Taylor feathers and curls pantograph. The swirls in the quilting design coordinate well with the swirls on the quilt.

It looks nice on the back of the couch in their living room.

Fireplace is working and Starting to Get Things Back in Place

After over a week of waiting for the fireplace guy to come and fire up the fireplace he came on Saturday morning. As you can imagine, this is a busy time of the year for the fireplace guy. The fireplace is working great - and sure warms up the family room. The mantel is leaning up against the front of the fireplace - hopefully they will put that up tomorrow. I stained it yesterday.

On Friday morning we got the long arm quilting machine moved from the living room (where it had been during the renovations. It really did take up a lot of space in the living room.

On Saturday I quilted a quilt - and it sure was wonderful to be able to walk all around the machine with ease.

Here's a update on the bathroom.  The red and purple spiral quilt goes really nicely with the red sink..

I put up ceramic tile as a backsplash in the laundry room.  You can also see the paintbrush and roller that I was using when I was painting this weekend.

I got out my Christmas quilts and started to put some more things on the walls. It sure does feel more like "home" with things on the walls.

The quilts laying over the couch are ones that I had started before the renovations for people who were leaving our department. Needless to say, things got put "on hold" during the renovations.

Coming Down the Home Stretch

There have been lots of updates over the past two weeks. The laundry room is now finished - it sure is nice to have the washer and dryer back and functioning (the weekly trips to the laundry mat  got the clothes clean - but that is about it.)

There has been lots of painting done both last weekend and this weekend. Here is the new quilt studio!

The lights in the half bath, the entry way and the hallway match. They have silver on the outside. Behind the silver hang crystals - so when the light is on there are rainbow effects all over. Here is the light in the entry way.

Here is the matching light in the bathroom.This picture was taken before they got the sink installed.

Now here is the sink installed - it looks great!

Here is the tile floor that Linda Mason came over and helped me put in. The tiles are round porcelain tiles of various shades of off-white with gray around the edges. When the light shines on it differently you get different colors.

The fireplace in the family room is coming along. I am not sure quite what the schedule is and whether I will have a functioning fireplace for Thanksgiving or not.

Hardwood Floors

The hardwood floors are installed, stained and finished. They look great! 
I just need to wait for the floors to set and the smell to get out of the house. 
Here is the family room, taken from the kitchen door.

Here is a picture of the new quilt studio room, taken from the door off the hallway.  The window is the one along the side of the house, that is right next to the garage door when looking at the house from the outside.

The gas fireplace is framed in. I made the decision to go for the gas fireplace part way through the process and now am getting quite excited about it.  They ripped out the stone steps and built new steps. I am going to cover the steps with tile that will match the fireplace to provde a break from the hardwood floor.

The door to the garage got installed this week - so now I am not heating the whole garage, which is very nice.

I now have walls - and soon will have flooring

The drywalling is not quite complete. However, I sure can get the feel for how the space is going to be now that the walls are up. It is going to be great work space.

Here is the laundry room.

Here is the new quilt studio. This view is taken from the corner of the room and looking towards the family room. The garage is on the right and the new bathroom is just to the left of the opening.

 I am very excited about the recessed lights - this room is going to have great light.

The hardwood for the flooring is now sitting in the house - they way it should get acclimated to the place they are installing it before they do the installation. The flooring is to be done this week.

In the end I went with hardwood flooring for the family room as well.  I had gone back and forth between hardwood, cork - but settled on hardwood when it was determined that we could actually install hardwood in the family room.

Weekly Udpate

Things continued to move along with respect to the renovations. Yesterday the plumbing guy was here. Here are pictures of the new laundry room.

I am getting very excited about the new bathroom.  Here are things ready for the toilet and sink:

I know the importance of that plumbing under the crawl space. However, what I am really getting excited about is my new sink, which came in this past week. Here is the sink. It looks much nicer without the plastic and styrofoam packing material.

Here is the glass shelf that is mounted right under the sink, which is all a wall mounted unit (nice a sleek to not take up too much space).

Here is the faucet - it is a waterfall type.

Progress has also been made on electrical work. I am looking forward to all of the light from these pot lights in my new quilt studio.

Update On Renovations

It's been a little over a week since the renovations stated and we are still making progress.  Yesterday, the family room needed to be cleared out. Of course that meant dealing with all of the cords that connect the stereo system and TV. Anna Lee (my grad student) came over to help me - and we took lots of pictures of which wire came out of which location.  If the pictures aren't enough when I go to put it all back together I'll have to get Don Lucyshyn to come back down here and set it up again - since he was the one who set it all up initially.

Once the TV and stereo were out of the way we took up the carpet- voila empty room! This room will have cork on the floor.

Now for an update in the other area. Here is the new 1/2 bath all framed in. By repositioning the bathroom and cutting it down to just the size needed for a 1/2 bath I am gaining a lot of extra space.

Here is what will be my new laundry room.  As you can see, the washer and dryer have been disconnected - so I experienced one of the externalities associated with getting renovations done - the laundromat! It wasn't too bad - but I sure will be pleased to get my laundry room functioning again!

Day 2 of Renovations

They removed the hardwood floor from the old quilt room. They will then lay new hardwood floor across the whole big room.

They did actually get started on construction today - they framed in the new wall between the garage and the house. Now I have a plastic wall between the house and the garage.

Demolition

I left home Thursday morning with all of the walls in place and when I got home at 5:00 this is what I found. They say demolition goes the fastest - and that sure is true.

They have kept the washer and dryer in place - at least for now. I expect that before long I will be headed to the Laundromat - but for now it is nice to still have them. it is just completely open to the garage right now.

The wall between the garage and the house is getting adjusted. Previously there was an 18 inch jog in the wall, which made the garage very tight.  After the renovation the wall will be straightened out and it will be easier to open the car door in the garage.

Here is the view from standing in the laundry room area and looking towards what will be my new quilt studio - all of that space is going to be wonderful!

Here is the view from the old quilt room (where the long arm had its original home) towards the expanded space for the quilt studio.  the vertical window was in the study before.  It sure doesn't take them long to knock down some walls.