Gooseberry Patch Early Review: Meals in Minutes — 10th Anniversary Edition — Butterscotch Brownies (Plus a giveaway!)

I echo Jen’s earlier post on how excited we were to be asked to be Early Bird Reviewers for new Gooseberry Patch books.  I collect cookbooks, and have been a fan of Gooseberry Patch since my sister-in-law, Rhonda, gave me my first as a gift many years ago (I think it was Celebrate Autumn).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love their cookbooks (I’ve got 14, and can’t begin to tell you how many I’ve purchased as gifts!) and “cook booklets” (too many to count!).  Unlike most of the cookbooks in my collection (many of which are purchased during our many family travels as souvenirs, and to be honest, contain ingredients I would never purchase and include directions I would never take the time to tackle), the Gooseberry Patch cookbooks are put to good use. I think it is because most of the recipes come from people much like you and I — busy and trying to eat well on a budget! So, Meals in Minutes — 10th Anniversary Edition was perfect for my turn to be a reviewer!  I’ll be posting several recipes this week which are the result of the sneak peek we’ve been privileged to have for this new book which will be hitting the bookstores soon, and we will even have a copy to give away!  Read through this post to find out how to enter to win a Gooseberry Patch cookbook before it hits the stores.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As soon as I heard from Jen that the books had arrived I started bugging her to get them to me so I could start my review process.  As you can see from the picture below, I didn’t have any trouble finding 2-3 recipes to try-out … the problem was actually deciding what to try!  Best of all, I already had all of the ingredients on hand to try every single recipe I tagged.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And, because life is short, I started with dessert first!  These things were so good that I proceeded to make a second batch to take into the office – I doubled all ingredients and baked in a 9″ x 13″ pan which made the bars just a little bit thicker.

Butterscotch Brownies

(page 197)

Alice Flood

Dallas, TX

 

Ingredients:

 

 

¼ cup butter

1 cup brown sugar, packed

1 egg, beaten

¾ cup all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. salt

½ tsp. vanilla extract

½ cup chopped nuts (I used pecans purchased at Priester’s, one of our favorite stops when roadtripping north on I-65)

Directions:

Melt butter in a small saucepan over low heat; remove from heat.  Stir in brown sugar until dissolved; set aside to cool to room temperature (cool enough that the eggs don’t start to cook when you add them!).  Blend in egg; add flour, baking powder and salt, mixing well.  Stir in vanilla and nuts; spread in a greased 8”x8” baking pan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bake at 350° for 25 minutes; let cool.  Makes 9.

Note:  I melted the butter in a small glass mixing bowl in the microwave oven, and then mixed all ingredients with my Kitchen Aid mixer.

 

Do you want a copy of Meals in Minutes — 10th Anniversary Edition before it hits the bookstores?

How to Enter

We will be giving away ONE copy of the cookbook.  If you would like a chance to win, leave us a comment in this post and tell us what your favorite soup, salad or sandwich is.  Leave your comment before March 10 at 9:59 CST.  Don’t worry about being creative in your comment, the winner will be chosen by a random number generator.  Please make sure that you fill out the required fields by putting your first name in the name field and your email address in the email address field.  We do not share email addresses and you will not receive emails from Threaded Together unless you win.

Winners

We will choose ONE winner randomly and announce the results here on Threaded Together on March 11, 2012.

Rules

One comment per person per giveaway post.  Duplicate comments and anonymous comments will be discarded.  Please make sure that the email address in your comment form is valid so that we can contact you (email addresses are never made public).  Winners must claim their prize within three business days after the date of notification of such prize.  We will disqualify any entries that we believe are generated by scripts and other automated technology.  No substitutions including for cash are permitted, except that Threaded Together reserves the right to substitute a prize of equal or greater monetary value for any prize.  Winners shall be responsible and liable for all federal, state, and local taxes on the value of their prize.  Relatives of Threaded Together are not eligible to win.

Because this is a family site and we get a lot of spam comments, all comments on this site are moderated.  If you comment doesn’t show up right away, don’t worry!

Enjoy!!

 

Special Eggs in a Basket

Life, it seems, has been crazy for all of us here at Threaded Together since the last post we put up was Chocolate Pretzel Pieces before Valentine’s Day.  I don’t know about everyone else, but I am HOPING beyond hope that my life is about to slow down a bit.  I am a high school teacher and just finished coaching Girls Indoor Track for my school.  My girls placed 3rd overall in the STATE, which is HUGE, but I am SOOOOO glad it is over.  I will now have more time to be organized at home (thanks hubby for carrying the housework load for the last four months!), get some projects done that I WANT to do, and SLEEP!  Yes, SLEEP!!!  Track meet days were literally 17 hour work days.  No joke.  Now that I am five months pregnant, those days have been pretty rough to handle!  So I am hoping this will mean more opportunity to post on our little bloggy blog. 

This little project was actually another thing I did for my family on Valentine’s Day, but any day is a good one to show your loved ones that you are thinking about them! 

Eggs in a basket is simply another way of cooking your morning eggs (some people call it chicken in a basket).  You cut a hole into a piece of bread, put the bread in a greased hot skillet, crack the egg into the hole in the bread, and cook it!  When it’s time, you flip the entire thing over – bread and egg together and cook to desired doneness. 

My children only like to eat their eggs scrambled, so I had to mix them up first.  To make the meal special for a special day, I used heart-shaped cookie cutters to cut the bread instead of a circle (any round cookie cutter or biscuit cutter will work if doing the round method). 

I put the heart cut-outs in the toaster oven and covered them in raspberry jam.  Eggs, toast, and jam!  What a great breakfast!  YUM!

Special Eggs in a Basket

• 1 egg
• 1 slice bread of your choice (I use honey wheat for everything)

Place a medium or large skillet on the stove top on medium-high heat (whatever you usually cook your eggs on).  Using a cookie cutter of your choice, cut a hole in the middle of the slice of bread (make sure the cookie cutter will create a hole large enough to hold the entire egg – which expands while it cooks!).  Place bread onto greased skillet and immediately crack egg into the hole in the bread.  Cook to desired doneness on that side and flip.  Cook until completely done.  Remove from skillet with a spatula and enjoy!

Chocolate Pretzel Pieces

Salty Sweet is one of my favorite flavor combinations.  Wait, is that a flavor?  In any case, I LOVE it!  This recipe is a super easy, super fast one that both kids and adults will love.  It is also a terrific recipe to get your kids involved in.  Admittedly, I am sitting and directing the “baking” of this recipe while writing the blog post for it.  It’s awesome to have such great helpers when I am feeling super lazy and just don’t feel like getting off my big preggo butt am 20 weeks pregnant and need to get rest every opportunity I can.  Of course, I have to get up on occasion to take a picture of my adorable assistants.  My children are unwrapping the candy pieces, arranging everything on the baking sheet, etc.  This is a great opportunity to teach the kids (project manager is 10 and his worker bee is 6 years old) the important steps of cooking/baking: tying hair back, washing hands multiple times, procedures with hot items, and more. 

We made this treat to give in a Valentine goody bag for the kids’ school teachers, and also for a little dessert to bring to a friend’s house this evening.  The kids are always so excited to give their teachers presents that they get to create on their own!!!

Chocolate Pretzel Pieces (number of servings typically decided on the number of Rollo candy pieces)

• 1 bag of Rollo candy pieces (our batch had 56)
• 1 small bag pretzels, either the small twists or snaps (the square ones…I think these work best)
• 1 bag of m&ms

 

 

 

 

 

 

Place the pretzels in a single layer on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Unwrap the Rollo pieces and place one directly in the middle of each pretzel.  Place in preheated oven and bake 1 – 2 minutes, just long enough to melt chocolate pieces.  Remove from oven and place one m&m on the top middle of each melted Rollo.  Push the m&m down enough to flatten/squish the Rollo.  Refrigerate immediately to set.  Enjoy!

This recipe can be created with any of your favorite chocolate pieces (anything that melts) and candy pieces for the top.  I have made this with Hershey Kisses to melt and pecans on top, etc…  You decide!!!

Happy Early Valentine’s Day!

Grow a Green Onion…From Your Old Green Onion

Oh Pinterest…how do I love thee?  Let me count the ways.

Seriously.

I fought Pinterest when I first heard about it because the last thing I needed was another piece of social media in my life.  I finally joined after a friend sang the praises of bookmarking crafts and recipes without having to book them on her web browser.  I love being able to pin craft ideas, recipes, and more and when I am looking for it later I don’t have to dig through thousands of links that are totally unorganized.  All the ideas are neatly organized in Pinterest.  Not only has it been helpful as a bookmarking tool, I have come across some great ideas I might not have found otherwise.  Since joining Pinterest, I have made laundry detergent, dishwashing detergent, vanilla and a number of other things (posts to come soon about each of those!).  If you are on Pinterest, follow me!

On to the discussion at hand!  A few weeks ago, I came across this picture of several green onions in a drinking glass.  The pin said that next time you use a green onion, save the white ends, submerge them in water and place in a sunny spot.  Green onions will begin to grow almost immediately.

I love green onion and it is the one thing that did well in my garden this year.  It was so nice to cut a piece of green onion off to use in cooking, on a baked potato and more whenever I wanted.  When we had one of our only cold snaps, they died and I had to start buying green onion again.  Though it isn’t very expensive, I almost always throw half of it away.

Until now!  Three days ago, I stuck a few pieces of the white part of the green onion in a glass on my kitchen window.  Yesterday, I had fresh green onion on my baked potato!

Black Bean & Rice Salad

This recipe can be filed under “Quick & Easy” for your weekly menu rotations … Now that the holidays are over, everyone is trying to get back into the groove of jam-packed schedules.  I tore this recipe from Three Many Cooks out of the newspaper last spring and have made it in assorted variations several times since — this version is my favorite. It makes a great meatless main dish, but I make it on a regular basis so I’ll have something substantial to take to work for lunch … other than an occasional lunch out with work buddies, I would much rather save my “going-out” funds for spending time relaxing over good food with friends and family (which is not only good for the budget, but also much better for the “healthy” eating I’m trying to do these days)!!  Even with the “splurge” of feta cheese (actually the “splurge” is probably the cherry tomatoes — good grief — just cut up a tomato!), I don’t think it costs more than $5-6 to make a large bowlful to enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup uncooked white rice – cooked per standard directions and cooled (I tried it early in my experimenting with this recipe using brown rice and didn’t like it as well, but I’m going to try it again since I’m still working on that “eating healthier” theme)
• 1 cup fresh corn kernels (or thawed frozen corn)
• 1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved (or 2-3 Roma tomatoes, diced)
• ½ cup crumbled feta cheese
• 4-6 green onions, chopped
• about ¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro (more or less, depending on how much you love cilantro!)
• Salt & fresh ground pepper to taste
• Lime wedges for garnish and to add an extra little kick

Dressing:

• ¼ cup olive oil
• 4 tsps. Lime juice (you can substitute lemon
  juice, but I think lime was better for this recipe)

Directions:

Combine the cooled rice, beans, corn, tomatoes, cheese, onions, and cilantro. Make sure you cool the rice before mixing with other ingredients or the feta cheese will melt. The pictures which follow are actually from a double batch I made a while back. This is also one of those recipes that can easily be “stretched” if you are feeding a crowd. You can double the rice and dressing and you still have a good salad; the other flavors will just not be as intense.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wisk the olive oil and lime juice and pour over rice mixture. Chill in the refrigerator at least one hour before serving. Serve with lime (or lemon) wedges. Salt and pepper to taste.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

How to make Sticky Popcorn

Hopefully I am not divulging any super secret family recipe today.  I feel like this is one of those snacks that I grew up on.  When I was little it was my job to shake the popcorn up in the brown paper bag.  As I grew older, it was harder for my mother to keep me away from the massive amounts of popcorn the recipe produces.  As an adult (pregnant no less) I ate this entire batch by myself in four days.  I know, that is pretty gross, but it was also sooooooooo good.  It is probably a good thing I didn’t have a glucose test any time around this week!!!

I also use in this recipe, one of my favorite small kitchen “appliances” – our air popcorn popper.  Truly, I think every household should have one.  It only cost $20 to purchase, and popcorn seeds in bulk are pretty darn cheap.  1/2 a cup of seeds also pops close to triple the amount of popcorn popped in a microwave bag – still in 2 minutes.  Not to mention – the health benefits!  Do you know popcorn is actually GOOD for you?!  It is highly recommended as a healthy carb, if it is all natural with no extra junk.  The kids like to sprinkle garlic powder on theirs, or parmesan.  We stay away from the butter because real, or fake, it just doesn’t taste right.

Of course, this recipe is not healthy for you in any way, shape, or form…

Sticky Popcorn:

• 2 cups of sugar
• 1/4 cup water
• 3/4 cup sweetened condensed milk
• 1 stick margarine (I use butter)
• 1 tsp. vanilla

Fill brown paper bag 1/2 full with popped popcorn.  Boil all ingredients except popcorn in pan until it starts to scorch, stirring constantly (if smalls chunks of brown start appearing remove from heat immediately – you boiled it too long…don’t worry, it will still taste fine).   Pour syrup on top of corn in bag.  Close up bag and shake.  Pour out of bag into bowl.

Stitch-A-Long: FINISHED

Okay, so it turned out to be a 25 month Stitch-A-Long, rather than a 12 month Stitch-A-Long, but it is still FINISHED! And, I do like this method of taking large projects and breaking them up into “doable” chunks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m afraid the budget doesn’t allow for a gorgeous double -matted frame job, so what to do, what to do?  I reached way back into my “toolbox” of sewing skills (WAY back, haven’t made a quilt or wall hanging in years!), and decided to turn it into a little wall hanging. I found some sweet fabric to reflect some of the dominant colors which are also found in my office (I spend much more time there than at home, so decided that is where it will hang — it will also help on some of those challenging days to remember these “Living with Charm” words).

I considered how wide I wanted the finished product to be, and decided that I wanted the emphasis on the stitching so the borders and binding are fairly narrow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It needed a little something to give it some form, but I didn’t want to use iron-on interfacing.  I had some leftover pieces of soft white flannel which worked perfectly!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then it was time for the binding … It has been a while since I mitered a corner, so Google was my friend!  I found this great free tutorial online at Jaybird Quilts.

Success!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bean Bag Chair — A Storage Solution (stuffed animals, extra pillows & blankets)

There will definitely be a theme of “the dissertation is done, so Debbie is starting to play ‘catch-up’ with projects” with my upcoming posts.  It has been so nice to sew/cook/craft again.  Not that I worked on the dissertation/school work ALL of the time, but I found myself feeling so guilty about doing anything else, that instead, I would just sit and do nothing or web-surf looking for new projects that I didn’t have time to do!

A while ago, Jen came across in a catalog this creative way to store stuffed animals.  Did she order a couple? Oh no, she said, “I bet Mom could make those a lot cheaper!” (I think they were about $75 in this speciality catalog).  I did manage to make one for Little S (who had the stuffed-animals-reaching-the-point-of-room-takeover situation going on!) and she received it for her birthday over a year ago. Both of the girls loved the project and requested I make them for the rest of the “grands” — I bought the fabric, even cut it out, but didn’t get them made until just in time for this Christmas.  And, they were a hit!

This “storage solution” would also work great for a dorm room or small apartment (to store extra linens, winter jackets, etc.).

Supplies:

Start out with any bean bag chair pattern.. I used “D” of Simplicity Pattern #5105 (which I can guarantee was purchased during one of JoAnn’s any-pattern-for-$1.99 sales — I do NOT pay full price for patterns!).

Heavy fabric, such as duck or denim (you do not want it to be stretchy!), according to pattern requirements

22″ long zipper (closed at one end)

1/2 yard mesh fabric (like what is used for laundry bags)

thread

Directions:

Cut out the fabric pieces according to the pattern directions.  Begin sewing pieces together, again, according to the pattern directions; however, instead of just a simple seam between two of the pieces, insert the zipper.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the piece which will be opposite where the zipper has been inserted, cut out some of the heavy fabric and insert a “window” of the mesh fabric.  In the “sample” Jen found in the catalog, this window was made of vinyl … so that was how I made the first bean bag — not a good idea!  Little S almost immediately zipped herself (we should have known!) into the bag and couldn’t get out.  Luckily, a little friend was over playing and we were alerted to her predicament!  So, before making anymore, I did a bit of fabric “research” and came up with the mesh idea.  If you’re making one of these for an older child or teen, or even a young adult, the “window” isn’t really necessary — mainly just allows for the furry friends to be remembered!

Continue to follow pattern directions to complete the “bean bag chair”, simply using your “modified” panels.

Since these “chairs” are likely to get heavy use (Little S drags hers all over the house so she can sit wherever the action is happening!), I double stitched all seams and top-stitched through the seam allowances which I pressed to one side.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Linking to:

Homemade Tomato Sauce (or Where I Learn to Peel a Tomato)

My husband is adhering to a strict Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) and I have been trying to be the supportive wife.  It hasn’t been that difficult once I realized I have lost 13 pounds since we started the diet!!!

There is a lot of information out there about the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (just google the term!) so I am not going to go into lots of detail (and the information is extensive!) but basically it means we have gotten rid of all processed and boxed food (which we had been slowly getting rid of anyway), white sugars and flours (the kids and I use wheat flour and I do use white sugar in some baked goods that my husband doesn’t eat but my husband has to use almond flour), and buy organic when we can.  We make a lot of what we eat from scratch now and the diet is similar to the Paleo diet.

Enter the homemade tomato sauce.  Do you realize how many recipes call for tomato sauce, stewed tomatoes or paste?  I didn’t until my husband told me that canned tomatoes et. al were off the list.  Tomatoes and homemade sauces made following the SCD directions are both fine.  I sort of followed a recipe and made my own homemade tomato sauce.

Ingredients:

10 tomatoes

1/2 cup of basil (1/2 a cup?!?!  seriously?)

3 cloves of garlic

1/2 tsp dried thyme leaves

1 medium onion

The first thing you have to do is peel and de-seed your tomatoes.  Supposedly, the easiest way to do this is to drop the tomatoes into boiling water for one minute.

Amazingly, this is what happens:

Move the tomatoes into a bowl until they are cool enough to peel.  The skin of the tomato falls right off.  To de-seed them, the directions that I read said to cut them in half and squeeze the seeds out.

Um…okay…

Squeeze, squish, splat…

So, when I cut the tomato it didn’t exactly cut in half perfectly so there was tomato flesh instead of seed.  I ended up just ripping the tomatoes apart and taking the seeds out.  My kitchen was a disaster.  My hands were covered in tomato juice so I couldn’t take a picture of it for you.

Cook the onions, 2 tablespoons of oil, and three pressed garlic cloves in a large pot until soft.  Crush up the tomatoes and add them to the pot.  Instead of crushing them, I put them in my food processor.  I also added about 3-4 cups of tomato juice (which is SCD legal).

Add the basil.  The recipe I (kind of) used said to use 1/2 cup.  Measuring out half a cup worried me but I dumped it all in the pot.

Simmer on the stove until the liquid has evaporated.

The recipe makes about 2.5 cups without the juice.  With the tomato juice added, I got about 4.5 cups of sauce.  I bagged the sauce up in 1/2 cup bags to freeze for use in the future.

And the verdict?

The tomato sauce was a hit.  My husband is planning homemade pizza (with almond flour crust) for dinner tonight and I think he is happy that I don’t have to keep asking if he is sure that he can’t have canned stewed tomatoes!  I thought that I added a ridiculous amount of basil but it wasn’t overpowering.  I didn’t add any salt or any other seasonings so it might need a little bit of salt if it is used as a pizza sauce rather than a mix-in.

Now if I find a recipe that calls for tomato sauce, canned tomatoes or tomato past, I have a substitute ready to go!

Marshmallow Shooters and Pillow Shields

Marshmallow Shooters & Shields

My dissertation was submitted and I had nothing better to do than sit and wait (right, and if you believe that I have an entire “to-do” list you can complete for me!).  So, over Thanksgiving I decided to start working on some Christmas gifts – many of which I had purchased supplies for LAST year!  This year’s “fun” gift was family sets of marshmallow shooters with shields!

 

SHOOTERS

 Supplies (for one shooter):

12-inch length of 1/2 inch PVC pipe (sprinkler/plumping pipe)

One – 1/2 inch end cap

Two – 1/2 inch elbows

One – 1/2 inch T joint

Craft glue (I like Tacky Glue)

Sandpaper

 

Directions:

Cut the PVC pipe into three pieces 2” long, and two pieces 3” long.  My original intent was to cut these by hand with a small saw…luckily, I ran into my neighbor at Lowe’s and when she found out what I was up to, she volunteered her husband and his nice, FAST table saw (we bartered 3 shooters in the deal!).  What was I thinking??? I did cut one piece by hand, and it took me as long to make one cut as it did for T.H. to do about 20!

It is also important to get two smooth edges (one for each end, since invariably big and little people pick them up and “shoot” out of either end).  Even though the table saw made pretty smooth cuts, I still used the sand paper to “finish” off the edges a bit.

Lay out as shown in the picture below.

 
Starting with the mouthpiece end (top right in picture), use a paint brush, Q-tip, or foam applicator, to brush a SMALL amount of craft glue around the edge of the connecting end (of course, if you put the glue on the wrong end, just flip it around – if it is smooth enough!).  You may need to add a few drops of water to the glue to get it to be “brushing” consistency.  Insert the PVC piece into the elbow and wipe away any excess glue. Repeat process for each PVC piece and connector.  I let the shooters dry overnight before putting them away to start on the next project – the body armor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hints/Notes:

*The PVC pipe comes in 5’ lengths – with careful measuring/cutting, I was able to get enough “little” pieces to make 5 shooters out of each length – if your pieces aren’t exactly 2” or 3” it is no big deal!

*You do not want to do the pipe cutting inside – we made a real mess on my neighbors’ patio!

*I made 18 of these shooters for less than $20, including a new bottle of Tacky Glue

*Play rules include “No aiming at heads” – Marshmallows travel at high speeds when shot!

*After the initial gift giving/opening, these shooters have been consigned to outside play only (see picture below – marshmallow stuck on INSIDE of living room window, found FIVE days after Christmas!)

*I think these would be fabulous fun for a sleepover, couples wedding shower, family reunion, etc. You would certainly “break the ice” quickly!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SHIELDS

 

Supplies for One Shield:

½ yard fabric (all one color, or assorted scraps – I used flannel, mainly because that was the only pink camouflage I could find)

½ yard of 3/8” wide grosgrain ribbon

12” of 7/8” wide grosgrain ribbon

1/2 yard of Heavy-duty interfacing

Polyester fiberfill

Embellishments – optional (e.g., buttons, silk flowers)

Pattern:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

Directions:

Since I made enough of these to outfit an army (or at least a large squad!), I started by cutting out a number of solid color pieces for the backing.  Then after cutting out an assortment of full pieces from the coordinating fabrics, I cut them into smaller pieces and did some mixing-matching – this means your finished front piece will be a bit smaller than the backing (because of the seams) – just trim to match (I’m all about making these projects fun and easy – not precise and perfect!).

All seams were about ¼” (give or take!).  Sew the two small pieces together – iron the seam and sew on a piece of the 3/8” ribbon (I used a zigzag stitch for this).  Sew the top piece to the bottom and repeat ironing and ribbon.  If you’re going to add buttons, an initial, or any other embellishment, now is the time!

Baste the interfacing to the inside of the solid back piece (or, if you were smart and actually bought iron-on interfacing, iron that stuff on!).  Flip it over and on the outside, place 7/8”
ribbon for “grips”.  See picture below for placement (I forgot to take the picture of the back as I was making these, so just used an extra piece of the interfacing … do NOT sew your grips onto the interfacing – because then they would be INSIDE the finished shield!).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stitch ribbon in place on each end (where the pins are in place).

Now, placing right sides together (after trimming the back piece to match the front piece), stitch the two pieces together, leaving a small opening so that you can stuff the pillow “shield”.  Trim the seam, and then turn inside out.  Stuff the shield and then top stitch to finish (and close the opening).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once the “battle” got heated, we were laughing so hard I had tears running down my face!  Too bad I forgot to make myself one!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wishing you and yours a healthy, safe, and Happy New Year!