October Sewing Projects

I'm working on two quilts, a few new kitchen towels, and kid aprons!




One quilt is a carryover from last year. It's a quilt for my boys and Halloween featuring Riley Blake's Boo to You. I bought an entire fat quarter of the line last year when it came out and fell in love! Ryder had the best time pointing out different characters. It's finally coming together and almost ready to be quilted. The boys are excited as am I.

The other quilt is another Riley Blake quilt. This one uses the new fall line, Decadence. Its beautiful. The browns, oranges, yellows, greens, and whites. I love it. The pears take the cake for me though. It reminds me of a mainland/ Hawaii mixed Autumn. The great colors of the trees and other foliage in the states and the green I see now in Hawaii. The white is helping to make it bright, which I love!! I plan on entering this one into the Celebrate Color competition over at Stitched in Color for the month of October so I'm working on this one around the clock. It could quite possibly be my most favorite quilt design yet. Stay tuned!

For the kitchen towels, I want to try a few different fabrics. I want something really soft and absorbent. These could work out great and become my go-to Christmas gift for the distant family and friends. I am planning on using my scraps of Riley Blake's Decadence line for my fall kitchen towels and getting some custom printed fabric of my logo for the business.




I'll post more about the kid aprons on a later date. They are too cute!




Photo Credits: Fabric.com and FatQuarterShop.com

Where are the orange trees?!

Living in Hawaii has its pros and its cons. One good thing is being able to go to the beach in the dead of winter and not freeze your hiney off. The worst (for me) is being here during the mainland's autumn season. I miss the orange and red leaves. The smell and feel of cooler weather.


I'm OCD about how my house smells. Bath and Body Works is my best friend and I like to change the smell with the season. Spring and summer for me is Vanilla Coconut. It's tropical and fun. Fall and winter is Creamy Pumpkin. I do a lot of baking during these seasons. Both for my family and the business. And no matter what I bake, it always smells WONDERFUL with that scent.


Being in Hawaii I don't get the same satisfaction of smelling that decadent pumpkin scent. It just doesn't feel right. It's hot outside. So hot that candles melt if left outside from an outdoor candlelit dinner with the husband. I like to curl up on my porch swing with a light quilt and a cup of coffee during October. My coffee here, if drank outside, has to be iced and even a light quilt is too hot.


October is my favorite month. And Hawaii is ruining it this year for me. Damn you tropical paradise!!

What do you get?

When you combine a heavy dose of butter, sugar, chocolate, and a sprinkling of walnuts?

The most delicious English toffee in the entire world. Crunchy, sweet, salty goodness. Whenever this is made, my house is filled with the most delectable, sweet butter scent.

When I was still in highschool I had the pleasure of working in a small confectionery close to my home. I was the owner/chocolatier's assistant. Doing everything from mopping the floor and washing the dishes to creating new flavors. Her most popular item was her toffee. I would make about four batches every day and go home smelling like bliss. It was a great time in life. I loved helping her out and gaining knowledge of the chocolate world. And taking home the toffee that wasn't sold in time was always a plus too. ;)

I never learned her recipe as we always just used prebagged ingredients. Sometimes I wish I could find the sweet owner just to taste that toffee again. She tought me a lot and was one of my dearest friends at the time. While my toffee is different (and better in my opinion) I still want to remember all of those times we spent laughing in the kitchen. I only hope that my children will eat my toffee in years to come and remember the fun times we have in our kitchen creating it and other things.

I'm working on getting the Etsy shop back open and you can bet this will be the first thing listed. It's a definite crowd pleaser and my go to gift for just about everyone. And bringing a big platter full of toffee to an army BBQ is a huge ego boost. ;)

Sweet Quilt for Sweet Skylar

Living in Hawaii your friends become your family. My best friend used to be my next door neighbor. We used to do everything together. Our kids are best friends. Our husbands do the man thing at the grill together. We do the wine thing (when we were both "unpregnant"). And after Tyler deployed and came back we got "issued" a new house. They became pregnant and wanted to move closer to the beach. Now we live 30 minutes away from each other and try to find time to get together as often as possible.



Anywho, catch the part about her being pregnant? Well shes having another little girl. Her oldest is by far the most beautiful girl I've ever seen and I can only imagine what little Skylar is going to be like. Sweet I'm sure. Hence the name, Sweet Quilt for Sweet Skylar. It's what I've been calling it as I've oodled over it and loved on it while piecing and quilting and binding. That quilt has love all over it. Hopefully she will love it just as much as I have in just a few weeks!!


I used a jelly roll of the pink Lily & Will II from Bunny Hill Designs. As soon as I saw it I knew I wanted someone to have a baby just so I could make something with it. The quilt pattern was adapted from Moda Bake Shop. I quilted it using straight lines every inch or so. I just love the fussy cut Middle block with all of the little bunnies!

Who is the Worst Blogger Ever?

Apparently I am. With Tyler coming home and us going on vacations I just havent found the time. I honestly can't believe I didn't blog all summer!!

But were home for a while now and life has returned to our normal. So start expecting more frequent posts!

Sprinkly Mix Bake Stir

So this year for Christmas my aunt got me the most perfect gift. Vinyl lettering that fit my personality. I knew that I wanted to go home and put them up right away. But then it hit me that you can't remove and reapply vinyl!! And with us moving around so often, I didn't want to have to buy a billion of these! (we really move a lot.) So this is the solution I came up with.

I went to wally world and found a bunch of frames that were on clearance. They were only $1!!!! And they were the right size! I also picked up some scrapbook paper that matched the decor of my house (black, white, and some brown).

Not until I got home did I realize that the dang frames had lettering on it!!! I was so frustrated. I tried scratching at it and a tiny but came off. I tried my pot scraper with no luck. Then I realized that my grandmother bought me an el cheapo ceramic knife that I haven't put to use yet. So I pulled that sucker out and started scraping. Ta da!

I decided that if I ever decide to change my decor again, I didn't want to be stuck with this set of papers. So I applied the vinyl to the outer glass of the frames. That way I could easily change out the paper. It also helped with picking which paper to use for each frame. Because the really busy prints looked best with the large, dark brown letters while the soft prints looked best with the lighter letters and delicate details.

I know that some of these are a little crooked in this picture and I have since fixed that but hey, you get the picture. Btw, the clock was only $20 from big lots if you like it. And for this project I spent a total of $11 bucks (6 $1 frames, and the scrapbook paper cost $5). If you are looking for this set of vinyl, I saw some at Target the other day.

What do you get?

What do you get when you combine pistachios, almonds, sugar, and dark chocolate?

These:

These are my Dirty Verde truffles. The bottom layer is a lovely, rich pistachio gianduja (john-do-yah). Just for reference let me give you an example of what you can expect from that. Nutella tastes just like a hazelnut gianduja. You can only imagine what this pistachio version tastes like! On top of that is a pistachio marzipan. Pretty much an almond and pistachio dough. Covered in dark chocolate and topped with chopped pistachios, these truffles will not disappoint a pistachio fanatic!

When I was handing these out as samples a few months this is what was said about them:

"If you close your eyes and bite into these, you feel as if you have been transported to a forgein country and are biting into pistachio bliss."

"This is the best variation of a pistachio dessert anyone could have created. Thank you!"

I created these a few months ago with plans to use them for Mardi Gras season as well as St. Patrick's Day. Keep checking back for other treats you can expect to find at Orange Lily Confections. If you would like to order, please shoot me an email at janae@orangelilyconfections.com and we can put together an order!