Virtual Cookie Exchange Blog Hop 2021: Vanillekipferl and Pattern Giveaway

It’s Cookie Exchange time! First I would like to thank Carol of Just Let Me Quilt for organizing it again. This is my favourite blog hop of the year, and I never really have enough time to join many blog hops but this is the one I try not to miss. I started working on my project in July this year, knowing that with my health issues I would need extra time. And for once I actually finished with lots of time to spare. No last minute night shifts for me this year.

And once again, I have a German cookie recipe. (For previous entries, check German Butter Cookies in 2018, Hazelnut Cookies in 2019 and Mandelsplitter in 2020.) This time I made Vanillekipferl. I think this is as German as it can get. Or maybe Austrian. Because I started thinking about the name. Vanille means vanilla, and Kipferl means the crescent shape of the cookies. But Kipferl is not a very German word, in fact these cookies are the only context I could think of. So I looked it up, and it turns out that it is Austrian which makes perfect sense. Yes, they speak German in Austria but they have different words for some things that the average German does not understand. And Kipferl fits right in there. I also found out that the recipe originated in Vienna, so it isn’t even German at all. But they are delicious and one of my favourites for Christmas.

Vanillekipferl - Vanilla Almond Cookies


In Germany, the four weekends of Advent leading up to Christmas are a big thing, and we traditionally started baking on the first weekend. In most years that’s the last weekend in November. My mother is a fabulous baker, and she made lots of Christmas cookies but she stored them all in safe places and we didn’t get to eat most of them until Christmas. She needed them for another very German tradition: “Bunter Teller”. It literally translates to “colourful plate” and means a plate full of cookies, chocolates, nuts and other delicious goodies. I have three siblings, and each of us would receive their own plate as an additional Christmas gift, and nothing on that plate needed to be shared. If you have siblings, you know how special that is. If you would like to know more about this tradition, check out this post by German Girl in America. She explains it in detail and with pictures. We used to have some of those coated cardboard plates with Christmas images that she shows, and I got all excited seeing these vintage paper plates. Exactly how I remember it.

In our house we don’t believe in waiting until Christmas because there is always so much food anyway, and it feels like you are eating constantly. So we start eating our Christmas cookies as soon as we make them, nibbling one or two with our coffee in the afternoon. There is always enough left at Christmas, and when our son comes home, he will happily make more, especially if most of his favourites are already gone.

A few words of caution/disclaimer: This is a German recipe. Germans measure only liquids by volume, solid ingredients are measured by weight. And everything is metric, of course. With the help of the internet I have provided the imperial measurements but there is no guarantee these are correct… it’s the internet after all. So if a number looks suspicious to you, please double check the math.



And once again I have come up with a Christmas mug rug design. I am always super busy towards the end of the year, not only with longarm quilting but I also have to finalize the new BOM project for next year, and I always send out handmade Christmas cards. A few years ago I started designing next year’s Christmas card right away and always buy the fabric in December, thinking this would take the pressure out of the last minute rush. And then I put everything in a drawer, forget all about it, and suddenly it’s November, and I haven’t worked on my cards at all. At least I don’t have to scramble to come up with a design and run out to buy fabric but it still takes up a lot of my time in November and early December. So in July I decided I could count on Carol running the Virtual Cookie Exchange again and started drawing Christmas designs. This year I played with holly leaves and came up with two designs that I liked. I couldn’t decide which one I like better, so I kept them both. The pattern is ready to go and will be published next week. Here is a little preview, and I am also giving away three digital copies of the pattern (English/Imperial measurements only). If you would like to win one, please leave a comment and enter the giveaway. Entries will be accepted until Sunday (December 12, 2021, 11.59 PST), and I will announce the winners on the following Wednesday and email the patterns. Please scroll down to the end of the post for giveaway rules and guidelines.

061 Deck The Halls Mug Rug 1

Deck The Halls Mug Rug #1

061 Deck The Halls Mug Rug 2

Deck The Halls Mug Rug #2

Comment moderation is turned off for today to make it easier for you to enter the giveaway. But please don’t leave your email address in the comment text. It is not necessary to do so, and the spam protection software will kick in and not publish your comment, so it will have to be moderated after all. I will be happy to manually publish it but please keep in mind that I am in the Pacific time zone and will still be asleep when this post publishes.


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thank you for visiting today, and please make sure that you visit all the participants of this blog hop and look at their fabulous projects and mouthwatering cookies. Here is the full schedule of all four days of the event.

Monday, December 6

Creatin’ in the Sticks
Inflorescence
Quilt Schmilt
Sew Many Yarns
Pumpkin Patch BC (that’s me)
Just Because Quilts
Treasured Nest
Cathie’s Craftworks
Scrapdash

Tuesday, December 7

MooseStashQuilting
Songbird Designs
Beaquilter
Selina Quilts
Life in the Scrapatch
Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life
Homespun Hannah’s Blog
Cynthia’s Creating Ark
Samelia’s Mum

Wednesday, December 8

For The Love Of Geese
Days Filled With Joy
Food for Thought
Karrin’s Crazy World
Becky’s Adventures in Quilting and Travel
Stitchin At Home
Words & Stitches
Colletta’s Kitchen Sink

Thursday, December 9

Just Let Me Quilt
Home Sewn By Us
Just Sew Quilter
Ms P Designs USA
Quiltscapes
Texas Quilt Gal
Creative Latitude
That Fabric Feeling

 

Giveaway Rules and Guidelines

Please take the time to read them.

    • You must leave a comment to enter the giveaway. If you don’t leave a comment, your winning entry will be ignored and cancelled.
    • You are only allowed to enter once.
    • The winners will be announced either on Wednesday, December 15 or Thursday, December 16, 20201
    • You must give a valid email address when you enter the giveaway. Any email returned to me loses the ability to win automatically.
    • I will email the digital patterns to the winners right away. Please check your spam folders if you are announced as one of the winners and didn’t receive an email. Especially Gmail likes to send anything I send straight to the spam folder. If you have a Canadian address with Shaw or Telus, they are even worse and often reject my email address without notifying me or the recipient.
    • No purchase whatsoever is necessary.
    • You must be 18+ in order to win a gift.
    • All winners are chosen at random.
    • All winners will be announced on the blog via the Rafflecopter entry form and a post. All winners must allow for their first name and first initial of their last name to be announced on this blog.
    • Odds of winning a prize are based on the total number of rafflecopter entries.
    • This giveaway is void where prohibited by law.



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Coming Soon: Virtual Cookie Exchange 2021

It’s almost October, so definitely not too early to start thinking about Christmas. Once again Carol of Just Let Me Quilt will host her Virtual Cookie Exchange in early December, and that’s a blog hop I don’t want to miss. I actually started working on my project in July, and it’s almost done. I am very proud of myself for not procrastinating until the last minute. Of course it all depends on the right idea coming along, and I ended up with enough inspiration for two designs. It was indeed Christmas in July!

Virtual Cookie Exchange Logo 2021



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Seaside Adventure Row Along – One Fish, Two Fish

What a crazy year it has been! Normally I would have written a few more posts about this year’s Row Along but with my constant health struggles I just didn’t have the time. Many of you are probably aware that Marian of Seams To Be Sew – who came up with the Row Along concept and organized the event every year – unexpectly passed away in March. We had just started the preparations and voted on the theme when we heard the news, and we decided to continue with the Row Along in Marian’s memory. Melissa of The Quilting Room With Mel kindly volunteered to take over as chairperson and put a lot of time and effort into making it happen.

One Fish, Two Fish EQ

One Fish, Two Fish – EQ Design


Inspiration for my row hit me when I was browsing the Northcott Fabrics website. They generously offered their fabrics to all the designers again this year, and we could choose anything from their current collections for our projects. I have always loved the look of ombré fabrics but I usually don’t really know what to do with them. When I saw the Stonehenge Gradations Ombré collection, the colorway Indigo jumped out at me right away. I could almost swear it was called “Ocean” at the time but I might be wrong. In any case, I suddenly had a vision of colorful fish swimming on this blue background, with the color getting darker towards the ocean floor and lighter towards the surface. The other fabric I chose was a light blue for the bubbles. Thank you once again, Northcott, for your beautiful fabrics.


DP39420-45 Stonehenge Gradations Ombre Indigo

DP39420-45 Stonehenge Gradations Ombre Indigo

9020-42 Toscana Escape

9020-42 Toscana Escape


For the fish, I used leftover batik scraps. The bright colors shine on the blue background, and batiks often have interesting patterns that I thought were perfect for tropical fish. The bubbles were scattered randomly across the background. The instructions are for fusible machine applique (the only kind I do), and I used a machine blanket stitch to applique the pieces.

One Fish, Two Fish RA


Once again, I added borders and turned my row into a wall hanging. I would have entered it in this year’s quilt show but unfortunately Covid is still around, and we won’t be able to have one. I am keeping my fingers crossed for 2022.

PPP-060 One Fish, Two Fish


The pattern for the row will be available for free download for a week. Afterwards the pattern for the complete wall hanging will be available for purchase.

EDIT: A week has come and gone, and the full pattern for the One Fish, Two Fish wall hanging is now available in the pattern store, if you missed the free row download.



EDIT: Der One Fish, Two Fish-Wandbehang ist als Kaufmuster auch auf Deutsch und in metrischen Maßen im Shop verfügbar.




And before you leave, don’t forget to check out the other two rows that are being published today. Visit Kris at Scrapdash and Althea at Blue Heron Quilting for two more fabulous free patterns. They are only free for a week, so be sure to visit right away. New rows will be posted every Monday until the end of October. For the full schedule please check The Quilting Room With Mel.



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Seaside Adventure Row Along 2021

Another year, another Row Along! Thank you so much, Marian of Seams To Be Sew, for all the work you put into this, it is very much appreciated. This year’s theme is “Seaside Adventure”, and I just signed up again to design a row. This time I don’t have a design in my head yet, just fragments and ideas. So many things I could do with this, I am very much looking forward to this one. Ah, the possibilities! This is just a post to let you know what is coming. If you want to join the blog hop and download the free patterns in September, then there is nothing you need to do right now, there is no sign up required. But maybe you feel inspired by the theme to come up with your own design? You don’t have to be a professional pattern designer to join the Row Along but in this case you have to let Marian know you would like to participate. More information can be found here on her website.

Seaside Adventure RAL Logo

 



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Virtual Cookie Exchange Blog Hop 2020: Mandelsplitter and Pattern Giveaway

Welcome to the last day of the Virtual Cookie Exchange Blog Hop 2020, and a big thank you to Carol of Just Let Me Quilt for organizing it again. I wish I could join more blog hops but with my main business being longarm quilting I simply don’t have the time. But I didn’t want to miss the Cookie Exchange, this is my 3rd year, and I love all the delicious recipes and Christmas projects that are being shared.

Once again I will be sharing a German recipe. After German Butter Cookies in 2018 and Hazelnut Cookies last year, I am going with Mandelsplitter this year, a German chocolaty delight that requires no baking. The name translates to “slivered almonds”, and they come in all kinds of variations and are very popular in Germany. I have been making these for 30 years or so, and somehow the recipe got lost during our move to Canada. I was sure I had scanned and saved every recipe I wanted to keep but this one was nowhere to be found. Not a big problem, I remembered the amounts of chocolate and almond slivers and how to put it together.


I have to back up a bit here and admit that I don’t like to cook at all, and baking is only marginally better. It’s not that I can’t do it, I am just not loving it. I love eating though… 😀 Anyway, my husband loves to cook, and he is quite good at it, you can actually taste the love he puts into his creations. Both he and my son belong to those people who religiously follow every step in a recipe and carefully measure out each required amount. I on the other hand believe that these amounts and instructions are only suggestions which sometimes leads to tension in the kitchen, especially when my husband tries to write down one of the recipes that I have only in my head, and I can’t give him proper amounts and just say “as much as you need”. This also applies to the Mandelsplitter recipe because I honestly don’t know how much butter and honey I use. Somewhere between one and two tablespoons, I start out with one and add more when the almond slivers look too dry. Anyway, we made them last weekend, and they are delicious, even with my eyeball measurements. The taste of roasted almonds with a hint of caramelized honey, all covered in chocolate… yum!

A few words of caution/disclaimer: This is a German recipe. Germans measure only liquids by volume, solid ingredients are measured by weight. And everything is metric, of course. With the help of the internet I have provided the imperial measurements but there is no guarantee these are correct… it’s the internet after all. So if a number looks suspicious to you, please double check the math.



Quilting for others cuts into my own sewing time, and this year has been especially crazy with everybody cooped up at home, producing quilt top after quilt top. So in between getting them turned around as quickly as possible and trying to come up with a new BOM design for 2021 I did manage to make another Christmas mug rug called “Reindeer Romp”. The pattern is ready to go and will be published next week. Here is a little preview, and I am also giving away five digital copies of the pattern (English/Imperial measurements only). If you would like to win one, please leave a comment and enter the giveaway. Entries will be accepted until Monday (December 7, 2020, 11.59 PST), and I will announce the winners on Wednesday and email the patterns. Please scroll down to the end of the post for giveaway rules and guidelines.

PPP-058 Reindeer Romp Quilted Mug Rug

Comment moderation is turned off for today to make it easier for you to enter the giveaway. But please don’t leave your email address in the comment text. It is not necessary to do so, and the spam protection software will kick in and not publish your comment, so it will have to be moderated after all. I will be happy to manually publish it but please keep in mind that I am in the Pacific time zone and will still be asleep when this post publishes.

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thank you for visiting today, and please make sure that you visit all the participants of this blog hop and look at their fabulous projects and mouthwatering cookies. Here is the full schedule of all four days of the event.

Tuesday, December 1

Creatin’ in the Sticks
Doreen – Just Let Me Quilt Guest
Bumbleberry Stitches
Home Sewn By Us
Quilt Schmilt
Food for Thought
Life in the Scrapatch
Ms P Designs USA
Just Sew Quilter
Cathie’s Craftworks
Cynthia’s Creating Ark

Wednesday, December 2

MooseStashQuilting
Karen’s Korner
Sew Many Yarns
Selina Quilts
Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life
Days Filled With Joy
Words & Stitches
Just Because Quilts
Beaquilter
 
 

Thursday, December 3

Quiltscapes
Websterquilt
DayBrook Designs
Karrin’s Crazy World
Samelia’s Mum
Songbird Designs
For The Love Of Geese
Stitchin At Home
Dreamworthy Quilts
That Fabric Feeling

Friday, December 4

Just Let Me Quilt
Quilt Fabrication
DesertSky Quilting
Seams To Be Sew
Happy Cottage Quilter
Pumpkin Patch BC (that’s me)
The Darling Dogwood
Kathleen McMusing
Scrapdash
 

 

Giveaway Rules and Guidelines

Please take the time to read them.

    • You must leave a comment to enter the giveaway. If you don’t leave a comment, your winning entry will be ignored and cancelled.
    • You are only allowed to enter once.
    • The winners will be announced either on Wednesday, December 9 or Thursday, December 10, 2020.
    • You must give a valid email address when you enter the giveaway. Any email returned to me loses the ability to win automatically.
    • I will email the digital patterns to the winners right away. Please check your spam folders if you are announced as one of the winners and didn’t receive an email. Especially Gmail likes to send anything I send straight to the spam folder.
    • No purchase whatsoever is necessary.
    • You must be 18+ in order to win a gift.
    • All winners are chosen at random.
    • All winners will be announced on the blog via the Rafflecopter entry form and a post. All winners must allow for their first name and first initial of their last name to be announced on this blog.
    • Odds of winning a prize are based on the total number of rafflecopter entries.
    • This giveaway is void where prohibited by law.



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Coming Soon: Virtual Cookie Exchange 2020

In less than four weeks it’s time again for the Virtual Cookie Exchange! Carol of Just Let Me Quilt is hosting this blog hop again, and I have signed up for this fun event with lots of delicious recipes and Christmas projects. I already know which recipe I am going to feature. If you are a chocolate lover, this one is for you, and it doesn’t even involve any baking! So mark your calendars and make sure you don’t miss the fun (and the calories).

2020 Cookie Exchange Logo



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It’s A Garden Party Row Along – Coneflowers

Coneflowers Row


Welcome to this year’s Row Along, and thank you so much, Marian (of Seams To Be Sew), for organizing it again. The theme this time is “It’s A Garden Party”, and once again I had a hard time coming up with something. Weird, I know, because the possibilities are endless. Or maybe that was the problem. I just couldn’t decide and didn’t feel particularly inspired by any of the ideas I had. I thought about a desert garden and a Japanese garden and drafted all kinds of things but somehow it never came together the way it looked in my head. Finally I decided that I was making it much too complicated and had to scale down and simplify all my grand ideas, and I ended up with this lovely vine of coneflowers.

Coneflowers Finished Row


Our design drafts had to be handed in to Marian quite some time ago, or I would probably have ended up with a vegetable garden row. If you followed my Block of the Month posts this year, you know that I took up gardening during the pandemic as a way to pass the time, as many others did, and I am very glad I did. Watching my veggies grow and tend to them every day helped calm me down and keep my sanity. Well, mostly, in any case 🙂 I added a bug, a butterfly and a dragonfly to my row design, you can almost hear them busily humming and buzzing around the garden. I attached two borders to my row, quilted it and turned it into a wall hanging. I had a lot of fun filling the background with various designs. And once again I found the perfect backing fabric. I like to match the backing to the theme of the quilt, and I didn’t even think I would be able to find a coneflower fabric but I was wrong, I didn’t even have to search very long.

PPP-055 Coneflowers Wall Hanging


Coneflowers Back


I also used the design in a shopping bag for my mom. Germans have always been good at carrying reusable shopping bags, there haven’t been free grocery bags in decades but you would still be able to get a free bag when purchasing clothes. That has changed in the meantime as well, and my mom asked for a pretty reusable bag to take along. I resized the coneflower panel for the bag and framed it with bright leftovers that I didn’t even think would go together but I actually like the result a lot. And so does my mom.

Coneflower Bag


Northcott Fabrics generously offered their fabrics to all the designers again this year, and we could choose anything from their current collections for our projects. I chose three fabrics again, the ivory background, a green one for the vine and leaves and a brown one for the flower centres. Thank you, Northcott, for your beautiful fabrics.

9025-11

9025-11 Essence

23332-76

23332-76 Rod and Reel

9020-360

9020-360 Toscana


The pattern for the row will be available for free download for a week. Afterwards the pattern for the complete wall hanging will be available for purchase.

EDIT: A week has come and gone, and the full pattern for the Coneflowers wall hanging is now available in the pattern store, if you missed the free row download.



EDIT: Der Sonnenhut-Wandbehang ist als Kaufmuster auch auf Deutsch und in metrischen Maßen im Shop verfügbar.



And now it’s time again for a giveaway! This is organized by Marian and she makes the rules, you can find them at the bottom of this post. Please make sure you also read the details about shipping costs etc. at Seams To Be Sew. Our sponsor today is Northcott Fabrics, thank you for your generosity. The winner will receive one of the beautiful FQ bundles pictured below.

Northcott-large


a Rafflecopter giveaway


The Electric Quilt Company is also supporting the Row Along once again this year. This time you don’t have to be a winner to enjoy their generosity, they have supplied a coupon code that is valid for the duration of the event and can be used on any of their products except for EQ Academy. Use GARDENPARTY20 during checkout for a 20% discount.

EQ8


I have been designing my quilts with EQ for 20 years, and I love the software, it offers so many possibilities. I couldn’t decide what fabrics to use for the borders of the Coneflower wall hanging, and I imported pictures of the ones I was considering into EQ and auditioned them. Here is a picture of some of the possibilities. To be honest, I still couldn’t decide, I loved the bright turquoise fabric but I thought the grey one looked so elegant. I finally let my husband pick, and he chose the turquoise/orange combination.

EQ Designs


Comment moderation is turned off for today to make it easier for you to enter the giveaways. Please don’t leave your email address in the comment text. It is not necessary to do so, and the spam protection software will kick in and not publish your comment, so it will have to be moderated after all. I will be happy to manually publish it but please keep in mind that I am in the Pacific time zone and will still be asleep when this post publishes.

And last but not least, here is the full schedule, be sure to visit all the participating bloggers to see their fun projects.

 

Tuesday, September 8
Blue Heron Quilting
Carolyn Butterfield
Made By Marney
Pumpkin Patch BC (that’s me)
The Devoted Quilter


Thursday, September 10
Bobbin In Quilts
KISSed Quilts
Patchwork Breeze
Songbird Designs
Stitchin’ at Home

Tuesday, September 15
Daughters of Dorinda
Elizabeth Coughlin Designs
Just Let Me Quilt
Lovingly Lissa
The Quilt Rambler


Thursday, September 17
Fabric Bash/Carpe Blogum
For the Love of Geese
Kathleen McMusing
Ms P Designs USA
QuilterChic

Tuesday, September 22
Heleen Pinkster Quilt Design
Patti’s Patchwork
Quilt Schmilt
Scrapdash
Your Sewing Friend


Thursday, September 24
Charisma’s Corner
Clever Chameleon
Dragonfly’s Quilting Design Studio
Kathy’s Kwilts and More
Mountain Meadow Designs


Tuesday, September 29
Cynthia’s Creating Ark
Miss Loreen’s Schoolhouse
Moose Stash Quilting
Tuning My Heart Quilts
Cheryl LaPlante


Thursday, October 1
Barbara Dieges
Linda B Creative
Orange Blossom Quilt Design Studio
Ursa Minor
Sunflower Stitcheries and Quilting


Tuesday, October 6
Bumbleberry Stitches
Charlie’s Daughter
Seams To Be Sew
The Quilting Room with Mel
Words & Stitches


Thursday, October 8
Duck Creek Mountain Quilting
Lynn’s Beauty
Quilt Art
Renee’s Quilting Addiction

Sew Incredibly Crazy


Tuesday, October 13
Show and Tell Day
Participating blogs to be announced



Marian’s Rules and Guidelines For Giveaways:

Rules and guidelines are also listed on the Rafflecopter window of each blog’s giveaway entry on their featured days post. Please take the time to read them. 

  • Giveaways offered by sponsors are assigned to the various bloggers/designers for their featured day.
  • There are no prior announcements on who is doing which sponsor except to the sponsor and blogger/designers themselves.
  • You’ll have to visit the blog or the featured blog to enter the giveaways.
  • Some giveaways can also be entered at Seams To Be Sew. You must have commented at the blog of the designer/blogger’s post to enter at Seams To Be Sew, Winners who win from entering at Seams To Be Sew will be checked for the comment. This does not mean that commenting at Seams To Be Sew will get you an entry, it doesn’t.
  • When you enter a give away that asks you to answer the question asked on the entry form, you do need to fill in that box. No answer means your winning entry will be ignored and canceled.
  • You are only allowed to enter once at each of the featured day sites. Giveaways are different at each site, thus you can enter those giveaways.
  • I will start announcing winners on September 15, 2020, and finish announcing winners on October 15, 2020.
  • You must give a valid email address when you enter the giveaways, any email returned to me, loses the ability to win automatically.
  • You are given 3 days to answer the email, if you do not answer within 3 days a new winner will be drawn. Check those spam/junk mail folders, you may miss that winning email if you don’t do so because there are no exceptions to this rule.
  • If you are notified that you are a winner, in all cases except for digital downloads and gift cards/certificates, you will need to provide your name, address, city, state, zip code, country, telephone number, and email address.
  • No purchase whatsoever is necessary.
  • You must be 18+ in order to win a gift.
  • You are responsible for claiming and paying any tax owed on the value of any gift that you win. Prizes valued at $500.00 should be claimed.
  • All winners are chosen at random.
  • All winners will be announced on the blogs via the Rafflecopter entry form and/or post by the blogger at the site where they won and here at Seams To Be Sew. All winners must allow for their first name and first initial of their last name to be announced on this blog.
  • Odds of Winning a prize are based on a total number of rafflecopter entries during each week and in total for all giveaways.
  • This giveaway is void where prohibited by law.
  • Participating bloggers/designers may enter any of the giveaways.
  • The word giveaways in the rules and guidelines are also known as sweepstakes.



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It’s A Garden Party Row Along 2020

For the sixth year in a row, Marian of Seams To Be Sew is hosting her Row Along, starting in September. This year’s theme is “It’s A Garden Party”. I already have a design in my heard, “just” need to draw it out. I am sure we can expect to see lots of pretty rows in September and October. As always, if you just want to participate by hopping from blog to blog and collecting the free patterns, there is nothing you need to do right now other than mark your calendars for the event. But if you are interested in joining with a row design, head over to Marian’s site to sign up here.



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Virtual Cookie Exchange 2019: More German Cookies and Pattern Giveaway

Thank you so much, Carol, for hosting the Virtual Cookie Exchange once again. I have collected so many interesting cookie recipes during this blog hop, I will be busy for years trying them all out! I have only been living in North America since 2013, and German Christmas baking is very different from North American Christmas baking. And while I enjoy trying new recipes, our Christmas baking is still mostly German, and I will be sharing another of my favourite German recipes.


Today’s recipe is called “Haselnussblüten” which literally translates to “Hazelnut Blossoms”. They do not look like real hazelnut blossoms though, just flower shaped cookies with ground hazelnuts in the dough. Ground hazelnuts and almonds are staples in German Christmas baking, and while I can get ground almonds at the grocery store here, I have trouble finding ground hazelnuts for my baking. There is a store in Vancouver that carries them but it took a while to get used to having to drive 100 km for some ground hazelnuts. The recipe calls for ground cinnamon and cloves, just a pinch of each. I usually add more. It really depends on what you like, and I love the taste of cinnamon. (I also double the amount of spices I put into my pumpkin pie, not just cinnamon but also ginger and cloves.) Feel free to add more or less, depending on what you like. The original recipe also calls for some hazelnut glaze that you can buy at German grocery stores. I have never seen anything similar here, not even at the German deli, and we substitute semi-sweet chocolate for it which works just fine. My husband is usually the one who decorates the cookies, and he has developed his own system of how to use the liquid chocolate to glue the hazelnut to the cookie which always makes me laugh.

A Christmas tradition that I very much appreciate is baking cookies together with my son. I started getting him involved as soon as he could stand, guiding his little fingers with the cookie cutters, and we made cookies together every year. He turned 20 this year and is in his third year at the University of British Columbia. He will be coming home next week, and I really enjoy that he still wants to bake cookies with me… and not just eat them 🙂

A few words of caution/disclaimer: This is a German recipe. Germans measure only liquids by volume, solid ingredients are measured by weight. And everything is metric, of course. With the help of the internet I have provided the imperial measurements but there is no guarantee these are correct… it’s the internet after all. So if a number looks suspicious to you, please double check the math. Another difference are North American ranges. Having to choose between “bake” and “broil” doesn’t really translate to German full convection ovens. So please keep an eye on the cookies and decide for yourself if they need longer or are done faster in your oven than required by the recipe.




Being a longarm quilter, this is my busy season, so I haven’t had a lot of time for working on my own projects. But I came up with a little mug rug design that I call “O Christmas Tree”. The pattern will be published next week, here is a little preview. And I am also giving away five digital copies of the pattern. If you would like to win one, please leave a comment and enter the giveaway. Entries will be accepted until Sunday (December 8, 2019, 11.59 PST), and I will draw the winners on Monday and email the patterns. The patterns will only be availabe in English and with Imperial measurements. This is my first time hosting a giveaway with Rafflecopter, and I hope it all works as planned. If there are issues, please be patient and let me know, and I will try to fix them ASAP. Please scroll down to the end of the post for giveaway rules and guidelines.

Comment moderation is turned off for today to make it easier for you to enter the giveaway. But please don’t leave your email address in the comment text. It is not necessary to do so, and the spam protection software will kick in and not publish your comment, so it will have to be moderated after all. I will be happy to manually publish it but please keep in mind that I am in the Pacific time zone and will still be asleep when this post publishes.


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thank you for visiting today, and please make sure that you visit all the participants of this blog hop and look at their fabulous projects and mouthwatering cookies. Once again here is the full schedule of all five days of this event.


Monday, December 2
Creatin’ in the Sticks
Ms P Designs USA
Home Sewn By Us
Vroomans Quilts
Cathie’s Craftworks
Sew Many Yarns
Just Because Quilts
 
Tuesday, December 3
MooseStashQuilting
Stitchin At Home
Barb – Hosted by Just Let Me Quilt
Hill Valley Quilter
Little Penguin Quilts
Everyone Deserves a Quilt
Selina Quilts
Count it *all* JOY!
Purring Cottage

Wednesday December 4
Made By Marney
Homespun Hannah’s Blog
Beaquilter
Cynthia’s Creating Ark
Life in the Scrapatch
DesertSky Quilting
Sunlight in Winter Quilts

 

 
Thursday, December 5
Quilt Doodle Designs
Ridge Top Quilt
Pumpkin Patch Patterns & Quilting (that’s me)
Websterquilt
Bumbleberry Stitches
Kathy’s Kwilts and More

Friday, December 6
Just Let Me Quilt
Kris Loves Fabric
Domestic Felicity
Karrin’s Crazy World
Songbird Designs
Melva Loves Scraps
Brenda’s Quilt Blog


 

Giveaway Rules and Guidelines

Please take the time to read them.

    • You must leave a comment to enter the giveaway. If you don’t leave a comment, your winning entry will be ignored and cancelled.
    • You are only allowed to enter once.
    • The winners will be announced either on Monday, December 9 or Tuesday, December 10, 2019.
    • You must give a valid email address when you enter the giveaway. Any email returned to me loses the ability to win automatically.
    • I will email the digital patterns to the winners right away. Please check your spam folders if you are announced as one of the winners and didn’t receive an email. Especially Gmail likes to send anything I send straight to the spam folder.
    • No purchase whatsoever is necessary.
    • You must be 18+ in order to win a gift.
    • All winners are chosen at random.
    • All winners will be announced on the blog via the Rafflecopter entry form and a post. All winners must allow for their first name and first initial of their last name to be announced on this blog.
    • Odds of winning a prize are based on the total number of rafflecopter entries.
    • This giveaway is void where prohibited by law.



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Virtual Cookie Exchange Blog Hop 2019 Starts Today

Virtual Cookie Exchange 2019


Another year has come and gone, and it is time again for Carol’s “Virtual Cookie Exchange Blog Hop”. She has five days of fun planned for you. My turn to post is on Thursday, so today I am only going to share the schedule. Be sure to visit these amazing bloggers for cookie recipes, Christmas projects, giveaways and other fun stuff.


Monday, December 2
Creatin’ in the Sticks
Ms P Designs USA
Home Sewn By Us
Vroomans Quilts
Cathie’s Craftworks
Sew Many Yarns
Just Because Quilts
 
Tuesday, December 3
MooseStashQuilting
Stitchin At Home
Barb – Hosted by Just Let Me Quilt
Hill Valley Quilter
Little Penguin Quilts
Everyone Deserves a Quilt
Selina Quilts
Count it *all* JOY!
Purring Cottage

Wednesday December 4
Made By Marney
Homespun Hannah’s Blog
Beaquilter
Cynthia’s Creating Ark
Life in the Scrapatch
DesertSky Quilting
Sunlight in Winter Quilts

 

 
Thursday, December 5
Quilt Doodle Designs
Ridge Top Quilt
Pumpkin Patch Patterns & Quilting (that’s me)
Websterquilt
Bumbleberry Stitches
Kathy’s Kwilts and More

Friday, December 6
Just Let Me Quilt
Kris Loves Fabric
Domestic Felicity
Karrin’s Crazy World
Songbird Designs
Melva Loves Scraps
Brenda’s Quilt Blog



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Coming Soon: Virtual Cookie Exchange

It’s almost mid-October, and Christmas will be here in no time. Carol at Just Let Me Quilt is hosting her Virtual Cookie Exchange and Blog Hop again this year, and I couldn’t help but sign up. Mark your calendars and make sure you don’t miss the fun. I already have a recipe in mind that I am going to share, and depending on time and inspiration I might come up with more fun stuff. Yes, I know… I always complain about how busy I am but you have probably realized by now that I just can’t not be busy. And it’s quilty stuff which means it is mostly fun. Carol hosts awesome blog hops, I wish I could join more of them. Right now the Halloween Witchy Stitchy Hop is going on, check it out if you haven’t already done so.

Virtual Cookie Exchange 2019



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Once Upon A Story Row Along – Show and Tell Day

Today is Show and Tell Day for the Row Along, and here are the links to the participating bloggers. I already posted a picture of the finished wall hanging that I made from my row here in my original Row Along post. We are ten days away from the Chilliwack Quilt Show, and I am busy with preparations. And since I have nothing better to do, I have signed up for another blog hop. I will share the details in another post, today please visit the participating bloggers and check out their project. There are a few more giveaways that you can enter as well.


Tuesday, October 9
Show and Tell Day

Just Let Me Quilt
Words & Stitches
Duck Creek Mountain Quilting
Ursula Prandtstetter at Tuning My Heart Quilts
Elizabeth Coughlin Designs
Linda B Creative
Charlie’s Daughter at Bobbin In Quilts
Seams To Be Sew – Layout Tutorial



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