Bee Buzz

We had a great time last night at the Whacky Ladies bee meeting! Pretty good turnout, although two members were out of town. Mother-of-the -bride Marilyn brought pictures of her daughter's wedding last Saturday. Also an autumn quilt which someone gave as a gift at the wedding, along with a journal to record wishes for the bride and groom. Each guest was also supposed to tie a knot in the quilt, but that did not work out too well, so Mom will do that for the wedding couple.

Carolyn brought us prints from her Hudson River cruise in October, which she had made into greeting cards. We each got to select a card. Mine is awesome- Tres Monet! I have never personally seen anything like this along the Hudson River.

Janice is already partly prepared for Christmas. She made up calendars with pictures of her two adorable little boys and scrapbook-type layouts. She also had a very cool Christmas wreath quilt for her mom (who is also very cool- an Irish lady who visited our bee once when she was in town.)

Cathie Recca is turning into a fabulous fiber and multi-media artist. She brought us some new books on landscape quilts and embellishments, and also her fabulous Autumn Leaf Challenge. That squirrel is her first-ever attempt at thread painting. We refrained from slapping her!

The leaves are dryer sheets painted with Lumiere and stitched down on top of artificial leaves. What a great idea!

I showed off my assorted gifts from Violette's blogiversary prize- and this is so funny. Remember the "Gratitude" altered CD case? One of the girls actually opened the case last night- and inside was a DVD with lots of Violette's videos, including her TV appearance on Weird Homes! I never even thought to look inside. There are over sixty minutes of videos! Fun!

Speaking of videos, I showed my Slideshow Movie of my recent trip to New York. I love making these. I used Windows Movie Maker, which comes with Windows XP. You can add songs and make the lyrics fit certain pictures by moving the photos around. I used this software to create Dave and Emily's rehearsal dinner show. My daughter-in-law Miranda showed me how to use this software. It is a lot more entertaining to look at photos with a music soundtrack!

Then Carolyn showed us a DVD she had purchased on how to do applique. Our resident Applique Queen, Jean Houghtby, was vacationing in Florida, but we all had comments about the techniques in this video. The results were perfection, but the preparation looked like torture to me. I don't like to have to work with so much precision and so many pre-sewing steps.

Finally- what you have been waiting for. The Food! I decided to make "That Pumpkin Stuff That Dorothy Makes" from The Sweet Potato Queens Big-Ass Cookbook. Nobody gnawed their neighbor's arm off to get to it, but it was a fine fattening dessert. You can feel your arteries clogging just reading the ingredients. I also made Armadillo Dip, which actually uses ground beef, not armadillo meat, which is a good thing since it is difficult to find armadillos around here. This was very spicy and salty and definitely would go well with frozen margaritas. By the way, I have an excellent recipe for these which made me world famous at all the public schools in which I taught. (At teacher get-togethers, not actually in school.) I will share that one in a future post if my adoring public demands.

Charlie has just left for the mountain cabin Without Me. It is time for serious deer hunting, and is getting frigidly cold up there. Time for me to quit painting bathrooms and get back to some serious quilting.

I am the (Sweet Potato) Queen Bee tonight

It is my turn to host my quilt bee tonight! I have belonged to this group of quilters for about ten years, although the membership has turned over quite a bit in that time. We are a very informal group called The Whacky Ladies. Our skills range from beginner to professional. We have such a good time, even if only three members can attend. All we have to do as hostess is have a room available and fix a snack of some sort. Being the overachievers that many quilters are, it often goes way beyond that with seasonally decorated homes and to-die-for desserts. If you remember, I hosted a big outdoor party here in October, the client pig-picking. So, I still have my outdoor decorations and Halloween lights. Unfortunately, my painting projects upstairs have taken WAY longer than anticipated. My downstairs is OK, but the upstairs will be off limits unless I can somehow manage to work on putting it back together today. So, notice, I am blogging instead of moving furniture and scraping windows!

Anyway, I am a big fan of the Sweet Potato Queen books by Jill Conner Browne. She is a hoot! The last one that I purchased was The Sweet Potato Queens' Big-Ass Cookbook. I am not a big foodie or much of a cook, so you know that when I am entertained by a cookbook, it is something special! I think Jill must be a fabulous Southern hostess despite all her self-deprecating humor. So, I have bought ingredients for three of her recipes, and may just make all three because I can't decide.

The first is Linda's Killer Cake with No Apples. It reminds Jill of an apple cake, but the secret ingredient is a full can of Betty Crocker Rich and Creamy Coconut Pecan Frosting- which actually goes into the cake batter before baking.

The next one sounded just right for an autumn get-together: That Pumpkin Stuff That Dorothy Makes. Sort of like the Better Than Sex dessert that everyone was wild about ten years ago.

For a hearty appetizer, I will try Armadillo Dip, even though we don't serve alcohol at bee meetings, and this one is recommended to go with Knock You Naked margaritas.

If you are thinking that this does not sound like your usual cookbook, you are right!

Let me tell you how I originally learned about her first book, The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love. Charlie and I had boarded the plane for a wonderful business trip to Palm Beach, Florida. We did not have seats together. I sat next to a boring sort, and he was in a row behind me that was populated all the way across with women bound for a girl-getaway on a friend's yacht in Palm Beach. Man, they were revved for this trip. They all had handfuls of dollar bills when they sat down, which I did not understand until the beverage service began. Every one of them ordered a straight vodka. Then, their head Queen reached into her carry-on and pulled out a jug of Bloody Mary mix! Of course, this was pre-airline restrictions for carrying on liquids and gels. So, here was my husband on the aisle seat of this row of party girls who were getting blasted on their trip to get blasted. I was reading my boring Book Club assignment for the month, which was Galileo's Daughter. Now, I enjoy all kinds of books, but this one just dragged and bogged down, in my opinion. Guess what the party girls were reading aloud behind me- to my Own Personal Husband? The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love! They were dying laughing, and passing the book back and forth to read a certain page, containing the now-infamous Promise. Can't tell you what it is, you have to read it! Charlie was passing out business cards and getting invited to Happy Hour on the yacht, which as I recall was named Amazing Grace, or something like that. When we got to Florida, I headed straight for the airport bookstore and purchased-you guessed it- The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love. No, I don't dress up in tiara, green sequined body suit, and majorette boots, but these books are a lot of fun. I'll let you know how the recipes work out.