Toffee Recipe

From Julie: So here is the toffee recipe that everyone was asking for.

 

Ibby’s Metaphysical English Toffee

                (from the book "Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder" by Joanne Fluke

 

Also, recently known as

 

"Christmas Crack"

 

Preheat oven to 350, rack in the middle position.

 

16-oz. box Keebler Club Crackers

1 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar

2 cups milk chocolate chips (12-oz. bag)

2 cups chopped pecans or sliced almonds

 

Line a 10 x 15 cookie sheet (jelly roll pan) with foil.  Spray the foil with Pam or other nonstick cooking spray.

 

Line the pan completely with Club crackers, salt side up.  Cover the whole bottom, breaking the crackers if necessary to make them fit.  Set the pan aside while you cook the toffee mixture.

 

Combine the butter with the brown sugar in a saucepan.  Bring it to a boil over medium high heat on the stovetop, stirring constantly.  Boil it for exactly five minutes, stirring constantly.  Adjust heat if it sputters too much.  Pour the mixture over the crackers as evenly as you can.  Slide the pan into the oven and bake the toffee for 10 minutes.

 

Remove the pan from the oven and sprinkle the milk chocolate chips over the top.  Give the chips a minute or two to melt and then spread them out as evenly as you can (I put the pan back in the oven for a minute).  Sprinkle the chopped pecans over the top of the chocolate and refrigerate (or freeze) the pan.

 

When the toffee has thoroughly chilled, peel it from the foil and break it into random-sized pieces.

This stores very well for a longer period of time in a plastic bag in the freezer.

 

Portable Ironing Table

Debbie brought her ironing table to Friday/Saturday sewing this month. Isn't this a clever idea for having a small ironing board right beside your sewing machine or anywhere you need to sit and iron.

It is a TV tray table covered with several layers of batting and fabric - just staple the fabric onto the underside of the table. Easy as can be to make and can be folded and put away when not needed.

A friend of Debbie's made this for her - a great gift for a quilter!

 

Debbie used the CSQ design wall to create this very patriotic quilt for a veteran. She used blocks leftover from a recent CSQ BOM and the center panel was found in a box of donated fabric that someone brought that morning. The light fabric with little flags was also donated to CSQ! Nice job, Debbie! 

 

 Notice her iron and table in the lower left.

 

 

Quilts for Veterans

Sewing on Friday and Saturday was a fun time visiting and sewing and especially nice that some of our newer members joined us. These quilts for veterans are all a result of group efforts - cutting, sewing, pressing together and discussing fabric choices, etc.  A couple of them still need borders, but we ran out of time!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meeting photos

If you missed the meeting this month you missed a fun program about using men's ties in quilts. Elsa and Estelle showed us how to prepare ties to use in a quilt (or other project) and gave us lots of great ideas. Then we had a  fabulous show-and-tell.

Carol took the photos and you can see what you missed (or revisit any of the quilts) in our Flickr file:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/94945132@N03/with/22530829657/

WHEAT Food Drive at the December meeting

The next meeting will be our annual holiday pot luck. Bring your favorite dish to share and consider also bringing something for the WHEAT pantry. Cathy Williams sent along this note to let us know what they need. Money, of course, is always helpful! They purchase perishables every time they have the pantry so any funds raised would go to that.

We continue to assist with several bags of fresh and staple groceries to approximately 80 families residing in Western Hanover County. 

Following is a list of items that will assist us in assisting our community's needy and food insecure:

any type of canned vegetable or fruit

6 ounce cans of tuna

spaghetti sauce to feed a family of 4

boxes of mac 'n cheese

8 ounce boxes of spaghetti noodles

cereal or oatmeal

pancake mix and syrup

dish detergent to hand-wash dishes

clothes detergent

bar soap

shampoo

toilet paper

paper towels

small jars of jelly

pouches of dried milk

boxes of dried mashed potatoes

boxes of dressing

hamburger helper

$ to offset the cost of fresh foods purchased the day of the pantry (Make checks payable to WHEAT and include your address. Yo will receive a tax receipt.)

 

Also, if you are doing your holiday shopping at Amazon please consider using smile.amazon.com. It's the same Amazon but you also pick a charity (WHEAT is one and so is the Virginia Quilt Museum). A percentage of the sale goes to the charity you choose. It's a small percentage but it all adds up!

Bring any finished Veterans quilts to the November meeting

We are going to try to do a delivery to the VA this month.  Please bring any completed Veterans quilts to our meeting tomorrow.  We're hoping to have 20- 25 quilts this time around.  Thanks!  Susan should be there and we can discuss scheduling the delivery.

Nov BOM & SEW-ATHON

Karen started our year off with "Back to Basics" and we are going to re-visit making 4-patch blocks again this month. All those 4-patches we made during Karen's program turned into quite a few 4-patch quilts for veteran's. 

Our block this month is a traditional 4-patch block - pieced blocks set with solid blocks.

4-Patch - 12"

 

Kits have been made that include:

2 strips of fabric, a light and dark

2 6-1/2" squares. 

 

Sew the strips together, press towards the dark, and cut into 3 1/2" segments

Sew into 4-patch blocks

 

 

Sew the blocks together, positioning the DARK fabric to the center - See block above.

 

Please note: The kits contain various strips of fabric for the pieced 4-patch blocks, so yours may not look exactly like the sample block. Just remember to place the dark fabric towards the center. 

 

 

REMEMBER, we are having a SEW-ATHON dedicated to making quilts for veterans on Friday & Saturday, which are our regular second Friday/Saturday sewing days. Karen and Betsy have already prepared several quilts so sewing, ironing and assembly can begin right away. There will be lots of fabric and we will keep cutting and sewing and see just how many quilt tops we can make in 2 days.

 

Please  join us - 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.