Welcome to my blog and welcome back for Week Two of the Bee Patriotic Sew Along For this sew along we are sewing patriotic things from the Bee Patriotic Bundle or of course you can use fabric from your stash:) Grab your book VINTAGE CHRISTMAS and let's do three more blocks this week. This sew along will be easy to follow... simply sew directly from the book! You can make your blocks in the exact same prints that I did by of course looking at each block photo for placement or you can "bee the boss of your own quilt" and switch it up! CLICK HERE to download the schedule of what blocks that we are sewing each week as well as the cutting guide for the smaller quilt setting if you are making the 6" Blocks. (12" Block setting is already in the book) Okay ...let's do this!! First up we have the GLISTEN BLOCK from page 39 of the book. This is another block that all of a sudden looks so different with red and navy instead of red and green. I think it looks like a big firework just exploded! Our second block for this week is HOLLY AND IVY BLOCK on page 41 of the book. Now that I'm thinking fireworks... this could be one too! Instead of Holly and Ivy we could call it the OOOOO and AWWWW Block because that's the sound everyone makes when fireworks explode LOL Last block for this week is MISTLETOE BLOCK on page 59. I really really really love this one and the color combination of it. That gingham in the corners gets me every time because I love it so:) I think I'll use my quilt to wrap up in during every 4th of July fireworks from now on:) There are a couple of things that I wanted to share with you this week. One is my SUPER STAR PILLOW TUTORIAL that I did during my Bee Happy Sew Along. It's super easy to make and I used my Sew Simple Shapes. As you can see I also used the same Bee Backgrounds fabric and a lot of the prints that I'm using in this sew along. CLICK HERE to check it out... I hope you want to make one!! I also wanted to show you this block that I made during the Farm Girl Friday's Sew Along for my first FARM GIRL VINTAGE BOOK My block is called OLD GLORY and it's on page 47 of that book. Of course it's in 6" and 12" sizes... which makes it perfectly interchangeable with all of the blocks in my book Vintage Christmas!! The remaining thing that I wanted to share with y'all this week is another summer memory that comes with another recipe or two! I'll give you a recipe first: *Hello Dolly's 2 cups crushed graham crackers 1 stick real butter 1 can sweetened condensed milk 1 cup chocolate chips 1 cup coconut flakes 1 cup chopped nuts (pecans or walnuts) Melt butter and mix with graham cracker crumbs. Press evenly into bottom of a square pan (9x9) On top, layer the chocolate chips, coconut and chopped nuts. Evenly pour the sweetened condensed milk entirely over the top. Bake for 30 minutes in a 350* oven. The top should be lightly brown. Let them cool completely before slicing them into small squares. I grew up in a camping family and mom did a lot of food prep beforehand. One of the things that she ALWAYS made were Hello Dollys for as long as I can remember. She made several batches to last throughout our trip! Mom layered them in tupperware between waxed paper and put them in the freezer until it was time for camping. Then she kept them in the cooler so that the chocolate would not melt and they would slowly unthaw in there. Another thing that she did was make what she called "Hobo Dinners" and they were for the first night of camping. She would make these the night before we left ...refridgerate them and then put them in the cooler right before we pulled out of our long farm lane that us kids called "the rocky road" lol Here's how she did them. She would start saving soup cans before our trip so that she had plenty. She would take the lids completely off and labels off too... and wash them up good and put them away until it was time. Each can was for one individual dinner. The night before was food prep... who knew mom was before her time!! Starting in the bottom of each can she would layer the following: 1.Sliced carrots (these go first because they take the longest to cook) 2.Diced potatoes (peeled of course) 3.Diced onions (she only added these for those of us who liked them) 4.Fresh sweet corn and then about a tablespoon of butter or what she would call "a pat" The final layer was a well seasoned 5.Hamburger patty squished into the top until it was even with the top of can. She topped each of them with a double layer of tin foil and an elastic band to hold it on. When we arrived at our campsite (which seemed to take forever to us kids) the first thing that dad would do was to choose the campfire site and build a fire. Then while he was setting up the rest of the camp... it could be burning down to nice hot ashes to cook the hobo dinners. Once the ashes were hot enough he took the elastics off but left the tinfoil and set each can in the fire...off to the side where he shoveled hot ashes. It didn't take them long to cook and we would all pack a pair of mittens so that we could hold our own can and eat our hobo dinners around the campfire. We all got a can of "pop" and afterwards we roasted marshmallows! We would sit around the fire and talk...laugh and sing under the starry summer night. We were happy that we were there and we would begin a plan of all the fun things that we would do starting in the morning!! We always had a great time and some of my fondest memories of growing up were camping with my family and friends. I still love to go camping to this day... but its not so rustic now and instead of going camping I go clamping! Well I hope this post wasn't too long for you and if it was ... you can skip the boring parts lol I will be back here next week with three more blocks...yay! xx Lori