Spider torture

Tonight I had my first panic attack in a long time. It was all over a spider. Possibly more irrational than some of my previous attacks, although possibly more understandable than the breakdown in the supermarket over which brand of toothpaste to buy.

This was a monster. I'm home alone, and I just panicked. I videoed the thing! Then he disappeared underneath the sofa, leaving me stranded - I couldn't bear to stand up in case he ran over my bare feet. I had to ring my mum and ask her advice. I tried moving the sofa, prone with salad bowl in hand to trap him under, but he didn't appear, and still hasn't.

I'm now quite worried about going to bed in case he appears in the bedroom. I fear I may not sleep too well tonight.

See, I told you it was completely irrational.

I was meant to be working on my latest quilt tonight, but I've been too afraid to go anywhere or do anything! So, these lovely squares are all waiting for me...unsewn...while I wait for the spider to climb aboard and eat me.

Oh, and if you'd like to see the video of said scary spider, click here.

Key Lime Pie

A post in honour of my boyfriend. He went AWOL last week (turned out, he'd gone fishing, just didn't think to let me know). To make up for it, he made me a lovely meal at the weekend, complete with key lime pie. YUMMY!

It was a Jamie Oliver recipe and was delish. The pie filling was like a lime mousse and just divine. The base was a bit comedy mind you. The recipe said 12 digestive biscuits to 135g of butter. Had I been making it I would have instinctively known that was a bit ridiculous, but lovely Boyf trusted the recipe. Needless to say, it was like a lake of melted butter with a few breadcrumbs floating in it. We had to try to mop up some of the butter with kitchen towels!

After baking in the oven, and then chilling in the fridge, it looked OK. It was very very hard, and quite chewy like butterscotch, but it was nice all the same. But, I will be emailing the Jamie Oliver magazine from which the recipe came to tell them not to be so ridiculous with their pie crust butter/biscuit ratio in future. Poor Boyf felt distraught but I said it wasn't his fault - and it was yummy all the same.

(By the way, the pic is from the Jamie Magazine website - we ate all of the pie before I could take a photo!)

My favourite baby quilt so far

My latest baby quilt - lovely orange binding.

I hand sewed the binding for the first time, and I'm really pleased with the result - very neat, and I have to admit that the process was very calming. Sitting in front of a film doing some sewing.... some things the sewing machine can't make up for!!

Festival of quilts

I spent the day at The Festival of Quilts at the Birmingham NEC today. I'm worn out but happy - it was so enjoyable and calming, even though it tires you out. I saw so many beautiful quilts, I was so inspired - it was more like an art gallery than a show of quilts. I loved it. It's hard to choose a few pics to share!

Whoopie pies mark 2

Welcome to the whoopie pies part deux! Much more success this time. I used the same recipe, but I mixed it for a little longer and it became a bit looser, and I didn't refridgerate it (unlike the recipe's instructions) - it was a lot easier to handle unlike last time when it was almost solid.

I used a piping bag to squeeze the mixture on to the baking trays, rather than just spooning it out. This allowed a lot more control over the shape - even though it looked like 30 small dog poos...

I'm a lot happier with the final result. Much more control, much more uniform shapes, and they didn't fall all over the place.

For the 'whoopie' filling, I ignored the recipe's amounts and just made buttercream by eye as I normally would, and then added marshmallow fluff at the end. Again I didn't refridgerate it, there didn't seem any benefit from doing this. Much better - not sloppy or gloopy, just enough, and they didn't collapse like last time. And, crucially, they taste brilliant!!

Baking makes me happy, and cheers me up. I was feeling very down in the dumps yesteday, but this batch of whoopie pies really upped my spirits.