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A couple of pieces of toasted sausage bread spread with a goat cheese mixed with Italian herbs served with an antipasto salad is my idea of a great summer lunch or supper.

This is a recipe that I developed years ago.

Directions:
Brown sausage (remove casing from sausage) and pepper.

Combine warm water, yeast, sugar, salt, margarine, 1 egg and 2 c. flour. Beat until smooth.  Add 1 c. flour or enough flour to make a thick batter.  Add enough additional flour to make a soft dough.  Turn out onto lightly floured board; knead until smooth and elastic, about 8 to 10 minutes.  Place in a greased bowl, turning to grease top.  Cover; let rise in warm place free from draft, until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.

Punch dough down; turn out onto lightly floured board and divide into 3 pieces.  Roll each into rectangular strip about ¼ inch thick.

Stir cheese into sausage mix; spoon onto rectangular piece.  Roll (long way) and pinch long edges for seal.  Repeat with 2 other divisions. Place on greased baking sheet; cover. Let rise until doubled, about 45 minutes.

Beat remaining egg; brush on loaves.  Bake at 400° F. about 25 minutes.  Serve warm.  Refrigerate leftovers; reheat to serve.

© Linda Woodward Geiger. All Rights Reserved.

Continue reading »]]> I just love Mode Bake Shop! Loads of fresh and whimsical designe that appear every couple of days or so. The projects, complete with “ingredients” and instructions range from quilts, to quilted toy leashes. The cup Cozy recently caught my eye. I had all of the ingredients and since I absolutely abhor sweating vessels containing cold drinks (use absorbant stone coasters everywhere in the house), I decided this cup cozy was right up my alley. It works beautifully!

Ingredients:

• 10 5″ charm squares (A charm pack could make 4 coordinating Condensation-erators!)
• 2 buttons
• A scrap of batting approx 10″x15″
• A pony tail tie
• General sewing supplies

I’ve made a couple of these using the 5″ charm square. The cup cozy, however, is large. Useful for large drink containers, but two large for a normal size tumbler or a can of soda. Think I’ll experiment using 4 inches squares. But for now….

© Linda Woodward Geiger. All rights Reserved

Continue reading »]]> Your Story by Scrapper’s Guide produced the theme of “Early Childhood through Grade School” for the month of May. As usually, as the the month neared its end, I completed the task. Here are the pages that I developed using paper & elements from Ever After kit by Krystal Hartley (Copyright 2010) and Scrappers Guide. The photographs are from my family collection.

© Linda Woodward Geiger. All rights reserved

Continue reading »]]> There are six quilt shops in North Georgia participating in the “Shop Hop” this week (Thursday through Saturday, May 10-12, 2012). My window of opportunity to complete the circuit of shops was yesterday so I skipped my usual early morning workout at the fitness center—I needed to be in Dahlonega about 9:00 am.

1) I began the Shop Hop at Magical Threads (315 Church St., Dahlonega. A quaint old house with every nook and cranny stuffed to the gills with fabric, notions, and a selection of yarn. I found some charming fabrics, but always find this shop difficult to navigate, at least n my mind, I would organize things a lot differently. I escaped Magical Threads without opening my purse.

2) Stop number two was at The Common Thread (598 Grove Street North, in Dahlonega).  Sharon, owner of the shop, always has a delicious display that greets everyone that walks through the doors. The Civil War prints were spectacular with lovely shades of muted reds and blues. If memory serves me correctly these fabrics were called “Blackbird” by Moda. This shop has a longarm-quilting machine and offers the service of machine quilting.

3) My next stop was in Blairsville at the Fabric Center & Quilt Shop (307 Cleveland St.).  This large open room shop carries a large variety of fabrics and has some lovely quilts on display. The quilt by Charlotte caught my eye because it was so full of life and yet display a cool (temperature) look. Charlotte used panels, border, and over-all print from a Red Rooster Fabric collection by Sandy Lynam Clough, called Sandy’s Garden.

4)  Country Stitches (30 West Main St., Blue Ridge, Georgia) was stop number four. This is another old house turned into a shop with numerous rooms, nooks, and crannies. Actually many of the small rooms would have been tight on living space in their day.  The owner, Priscilla Ryan, has love fabrics and lots of quilt projects displayed, but few quilts. I can never leave this shop without a pattern and accompanying fabric for a purse, tote, or food warmer. This is not a shop where I could easily pull together fabrics for a large quilt. I personally need space to stand back away from fabrics so that I can really see how the various designs and colors will work—there is not room to easily do that in this shop.

5) The Quilt Shop on the Square (44 North Main Street, Ellijay, Georgia) is just off the main square. Pam Clark, storeowner, has a nice shop with lovely quilts and projects displayed throughout the store. The store offers lots of classes on quilting techniques and machine embroidery. A wonderfully appliquéd quilt with a county church in the mountains caught my eye, Judy, master craftsman, gave me permission to photograph her work of art. Here I purchased some fabric for a set of placemats.

6) The last stop on the circuit was in the town of Jasper—The Quilt Shop on Main. Karen Williams, owner, has more energy than I can imagine and has an eye for decorating! Like several of the shops, lovely quilts were displayed and in many instances kits were available for purchase. The shop has a longarm quilting machine. I’ve never been in the shop when it has not been humming away on someone’s special project. Both Karen, and her husband, Keith (a pilot), operate the longarm. I left the shop with a delightful Moda jellyroll.

Conclusion

The shop hop was a day well spent—full of inspiration! I even managed to stay in control of my budget—well, that is until today when I drove back to Jasper to The Quilt Shop on Main. All last evening and this morning while having my annual eye check up, I kept thinking about a wonderful quilt that would be easy (I don’t have a lot of experience with bed size quilts) and just perfect on my bed. At first I thought I’d just purchase part of the fabric, but in the long run that did not make a lot of sense. What would happen if I couldn’t find the fabrics I needed to complete the border, binding, et al. Now to make the time in my busy schedule to make the new quilting projects I have, as well as a few old projects that haven’t made it to the cutting board yet

The Common Thread

Garden Quilt by Charlotte

County Stitches

Appliquéd quilt by Judy

The Quilt Shop on Main

© Linda Woodward Geiger. All Rights Reserved.

Continue reading »]]> You can call me a bread lover—I adore freshly baked bread straight from the oven. Yesterday I was meandering through some of my old recipe books when the recipe for “Herb Garlic Baguettes” from a KitchenAid mixer recipe book caught my eye.

Ingredients:
1 pkg active dry yeast
1 tsp. sugar
1 c. water
3-1/4 to 3=1/2 c. flour
1 tsp. dried basil
1/2 tsp. dried oregano
1/2 tsp. thyme
1 tsp. salt

Very nice and tasty with all alone, but even better with a bit of pesto and goat cheese.

© Linda Woodward Geiger. All Rights Reserved

Continue reading »]]> After being under the gun to complete February assignment, I made time to complete not just one set for the month of March but two. This was an easier challenge, particularly since this is the time of year that I adore and allow myself the time to investigate the new growth of spring. It seemed only natural to focus a couple of layouts to spring’s beauty. My walks this year have been limited to Gibbs Gardens (daffodit page) and Amicalola Falls.

Credits—Spring Flowers
Photographs: Linda Woodward Geiger; paper: Your Story Backgrounds and Clusters. © 2012 by Digital Scrapper; journaling cluster—elements from Jenny Binder, English Garden; Krystal Hartley, Ever After; and Joanne Brisebois, Recollection; and font: Monotype Corsiva

Credits—Quilting
Photographs: Linda Woodward Geiger; paper: “Every After” Kit, © 2010 by Krystal Hartley; stitching element—Happy Harvest Kit by Susan Bartollini; frame cluster—”English Garden” kit by Jenny Binder; “Ever After” kit by Krystal Hartley; “Recollection” kit Joanne Brisebois; and font: Kendric

© Linda Woodward Geiger. All Rights Reserved

Continue reading »]]> During February, the Scrapper’s Guide challenge was to create at least two pages that might illustrate the scrapper’s personality and quirks.

Admittedly, February was a very hectic month for me and at the 11th hour, I frantically worked on the challenge. I’m not very happy with the results, but to be fair I’ve finally decided to post them on this blog to continue the saga.

Credits for papers & some elements: Ever After Kit copyright 2010 by Sweet Shoppe Designs; Cluster: design by Linda Sattgast: “Recess” kit and elements © 2009 by Heather Roselli; and family tree: adapted from “Heritage Album” kit by Jessica Sprague

© Linda Woodward Geiger. All Rights Reserved.

Continue reading »]]> Digital Scrapper is one of my favorite places to learn about digital scrapbooking techniques. I’ve been a premium member for many years and really enjoy the monthly theme kits (papers, elements, and even quick pages) as well as their weekly scrapbooking tips. Linda Sattgast has recently begun adding structured classes.

“Your Story. Brillant” is her newest offering which particularly appealed to me for two reasons—the theme easily relates to family history, and the goal is to produce two pages a month (more if one has time time and resources). At the end of the year each student should have a book to publish with a minimum of twenty four pages. Each month has a different focus. This month the focus is “People I Love” and I’m sharing the two pages that I have created.

These pages were created using my photographs, elements and papers  from “Ever After” kit by Sweet Shoppe Designs, and paper by Krystal Hartley from “Ever After” kit, copyright 2010 by Sweet Shoppe Designs.

I’m already thinking about what I will do for next month’s project—”Through My Eyes.”

© Linda Woodward Geiger. All Rights Reserved.