I'm not the first person to come up with this pattern, I have no idea who the original designer is, but after looking at a set of coasters my sister-in-law owns, I devised a plan...
    I should also mention I got a fancy new phone and attempted to use it to photograph the steps for this post - Let's just say it wasn't my best decision ever - but I think it will work for such an easy project. At least I hope so!

    What you'll need:
{For a set of 4 Coasters}
2 Fat Quarters
12 - 5 inch squares of Fabric A
8 - 5 inch squares of Fabric B
4 - 4 3/4 inch squares Lightweight fusible interfacing
Sewing Supplies (scissors, iron, ruler, thread, pins, sewing machine)

-Lay out the last 4 squares of Fabric A and iron on the fusible interfacing to the back of each square following the directions that came with your interfacing. These will be the backside/bottom of your coasters.

-Turn your interfaced bottoms right side up and lay the triangles on one at a time. It doesn't matter which fabric you start with, just alternate the fabrics as you go around the square. You will use two triangles of each fabric for this.

-Line the triangles up with the edges of the base as you go.

-When you lay on the last square weave one end under the first triangle.

-It'll look like this...

-Pin your sides so they don't shift too much as you sew around your coaster. Use a generoius quarter inch seem to ensure you're catching all the edges of your layers. Sew all the way around, don't forget to backstitch.

-Trim your corners, and trim up your sides if you are so inclined.

-Opening the x where you overlapped all your triangles turn the coasters right side out and iron flat.
-Pat yourself on the back and go grab a cold beverage to set on your fancy new coasters because you might just want to keep them for yourself after you get done!

-Then you can grab a couple more fat quarters and do it all again for gifting...Happy Coaster Making!

    We've been having some mad zucchini fever around here. We've been getting gifted crazy huge - big as my forearm - zucchini. They kindof invaded and took over my kitchen. The thing about those giants is that they aren't really great for lots of things, they don't really have a ton of flavor when they reach such massive proportions - but oh they are so good for baking, and baking, and...baking!

    I was making zucchini bread for days (at least it seemed that way), and my poor husband got the super fun task of grating all those massive veggies. After several batches of bread I inevitably ran out of sugar, and got seriously low on all-purpose flour. So I started improvising. I added whole wheat flour to the mix and opted to use honey instead of sugar. After a bit of research to figure out how to sub my sweetners I dove in. 

    To my amazement it came out pretty great! The whole wheat flour gave it a bit of a nutty flavor and a nice texture. The honey added a chewy moistness that made it a little more dense but in a saturated way that was really nice. Also, adding the honey dropped the oil required by a cup!  Score one for desperate subsitutions in the kitchen! I thought I'd share my modified recipe with you in case you ever got desperate while baking too...

Honeyed Zucchini Bread

4 cups shredded zucchini (pile it in a colander and press out as much water as you can)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups honey
1/4 cup oil
4 eggs
2 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspon nutmeg
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspon baking powder
(1/2 cup chopped nuts are optional)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Combine wet ingredients and dry ingredients seperately then mix the dry into the wet one third at a time..
Grease and flour pans - I used a bundt pan and two small (individual size) loaf pans for this since this recipe makes enough batter for two large loaves and I find my large loaf pans don't give me great results for bread.
Pour are bake: 20-25 minutes for the small loaf pans
45-55 minutes for the bundt pan
50-60 minutes for large loaf pans
Cool in the pan for 10 minutes and turn out to finish cooling.
Consume and make lots of mmm mmm mmm noises.

*Here is my resourse for the honey substitution in case you need a reference.
Happy munching!  :)
(#mycreativespace)

    The leaves have been changing, and falling, around here as we seem to jump through Fall. We've already had our first snow. It didn't stay long, a day and it was back to feeling like Autumn. We've been busy over at The Artist Place, rearranging, improving, growing. planning. It's fun to watch a concept evolve as we learn a new and sometimes better way to do things. I feel that way about TAP, and about my own creative process. I feel that way about life.

    I hadn't intended when I wrote my last post that it would be so long before I wrote again. It just sort of came upon me and then a month had passed and here I am after a haitus. I've missed this space, this bit of journaling I share with you. I wish I could go back over all that's happened in the last month and have lots of exciting things to share. But, that's not how it is here today. Today it's just like waking up after a really deep sleep and remembering a few of your dreams in bits and pieces.

    I've made a ton of Cake Cookies and Zucchini Cake/Bread this past month. I've knit more dishcloths, added to my crazy garter stitch blanket, become obsessed with the BBC show Sherlock, watched the first two seasons of The Walking Dead, the first season of Downton Abbey and Deadwood. I've had many lunches and dinners with family and friends, I've laughed outloud and cried the ugly cry. We've had lots to worry about in our home these last few weeks, and also lots to be thankful for, lots to hold on to. We're in the midst of heavy family prayer for health. I've also made plans to go on my first retreat next year with dear friends. I've been thinking alot about how you can feel 100 different emotions all as once, and also so thankful that is true.

    I've put the Etsy store on haitus for now too, it has been for this last month as well. I 'm creating for The Artist Place right now, trying to add variety to my collection there, and fill some gaps. It feels good to be apart of the community of crafters we have there. Especially the staff, we create together and make each other better in the process. We're constantly teaching and learning and the give and take is some kind of special. I'm beginning to believe that the friendships you form while creating can be some of the strongest ones forged. I still struggle with my own personal trust and anxiety issues sometimes. I still struggle with my big mouth sometimes too. I've often found myself saying 'Sorry I'm so bossy. Sorry I'm so opinionated.' and also just as much 'I'm so glad we're friends.' I'm excited to see TAP grow and to be a part of nurturing that growth.

  I did remember I promised you a look at my TAP apron, the one I've been embroidering with patterns that make me happy found over on Flickr. People keep asking if I'm done with it, and I think a good answer is for now. There's an awful lot of empty space that could hold more stitching when the want to comes back. 

    We've been talking about having a Holiday Bazaar in the shop this next month too. If we put our heads together and get our hands working it'll be happening on November 17th. I made two Christmas wallhanging quilt tops with my mom a couple of weeks ago and am needing to get them hand-quilted and finished up for the Bazaar. You could pray for me on that - we all know how not into hand-quilting I am, and how slow and non-progress like I could make the next couple of weeks if I focus on the not wanting to aspect of it. I've tumbled over other options in my brain a lot over the last week too and really keep coming back to the fact that they need to be done simply and by hand.

    So, my goal is to be back here in this space, keeping my journaling alive and having a good chat with you, Sweet Reader. It's not an exciting life by any stretch of the imagination but it is life. It's my story, or atleast a little bit of it, and gosh I just love stories. Don't you?
    
    Tell me a little bit of yours. What have you been up to in the last month?

If you've never joined a Twitter party then you've been missing out on some chaotic crazy fun! I am so looking forward to the happenings over in the Twitterverse tomorrow night - Compassion Twitter Party! Woo hoo! Come with your questions and come to meet, greet, connect, and learn. It's gonna be great! Look for me @HonorCrowned! Send me a message that you came over from the blog so I can follow you on Twitter too!

Here are the party details:

WHERE: Sign into Twitter to join the conversation. Not on Twitter yet? It's free and easy to sign up!

WHEN: Thursday, September 20, 7:00PM Eastern

WHO: Tanzania Blogger Amy Lupold Bair (@ResourcefulMom) is hosting this event. She will be chatting with Compassion's own awesome advocate and christain recording artist Shaun Groves (@shaungroves). Be sure to follow Amy and Shaun on Twitter!

HOW: Follow the hashtag #CompassionBloggers on Twitter. TweetChat is also a great way to follow the conversation.

WHAT(else): Everyone who participates by asking a question or making a comment with the hashtag #CompassionBloggers has the chance win some great prizes!

For more information you can go to resourcefulmommy.com. Hope to see you all there!

    A doodle stitching that didn't end up as a journal cover is somewhat exciting. A new project bag to add to the inventory at The Artist Place is a good thing. Finishing a project while also doing laundry is a happy morning. Happy Monday!

It's been a productive  couple of weeks of work, yes?

    The hubs and I made a weekend stay-cation type thing my big celebration. Just him + me in a nearly 140 yr old lodge in Estes Park, Colorado. It's a lovely and easy drive into the mountains with big results for making us feel out-of-touch although we were laughably close to home. I thought I'd share just a little bit of our trip...
     We headed out Friday afternoon after a couple of stops around town. Before we even left Fort Collins I knew it was gonna be a good weekend. We saw some yarn bombing at one of our stops! Yarn bombing = a good omen in my book!

    We checked into the Elkhorn Lodge and then turned right around to go explore. Not that we haven't explored Estes Park before, we have, but this time we were determined to find new things to explore and so we did. We walked through the lodge first of course. It's very old and it shows it's age in many ways, but it was comfortable and worked well as a place just out of the Scottish Festival crowded areas of downtown to retire to at night. Speaking of the Scottish festival I've never seen so many men in skirts in all my life! I tried to get my guy to take advantage of this one weekend a year time when he could don a skirt and totally fit in. Alas, he didn't go for it. I'm not too bashful to tell you he could rock a kilt like nobody's business. My guy has nice legs!

    After some exploring and finding a new local yarn and needlepoint shop called The Stitchin Den (for me)to fall in love with we grabbed some dinner and played one of the many games they had at the lodge. We went through three cases of CSI: Miami as an investigative team. I like games where you can play as a team or competitively. My guy and I love to work as a team and so we had a good time uncovering the who-done-it. We tried to do things we don't normaly do while we were stay-cationing and playing a board game instead of just turning on a TV was on that list. It was a really good decision! 

    We stayed two nights at the Lodge and both mornings we headed into the forest to go off-roading on two of our favorite nearby trails. It was crisp and beautiful and the Aspens are just beginning their change from green to gold.

    Saturday afternoon we found a few thrift stores we didn't know they had in Estes and another needlepoint store - two of my favoite things! Crafting and thrifting! We also decided to catch a movie at the oldest movie theater in the country that was built specifically to show moving pictures. The Park Theater was built in 1913 and is still so very cool. We saw Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World, it wasn't what I expected but it was a really good movie.

    We also tried new restaurants while we were away for the weekend - one of which was a pizza place called Bob and Tony's that will be on our favorite places list for Estes. We went into out time away intending to act like tourists and have a great time and I think that is just what we did. Had adventures, did some exploring, found new happy places, and just enjoyed our time together. Do you ever act like a tourist in your own backyard? I hope to excourage you to try it! It might take a little digging, but even in a small town that seems to not have much in the way of newness to offer there are still adventures to be found. I love that. It was a Happy Birthday indeed!

     If you've stopped by this blog at all before today you've probably noticed I'm mad about Compassion International. I love being a sponsor, I love telling people about my kiddo Buni in India, I love encouraging people to become sponsors themselves. I frequently say that you will not only change the lives of kids but you will change your life as well. So yes, I'm a big fan!

    This month I'll be talking alot about Compassion. September is blogger month at Compassion afterall! But, I don't want you to run away because you think I'm going to lay a big ol' guilt trip on you. I'm not. Even though I am totally in favor of everyone sponsoring a child (Right this minute I want to tell you go go go!) that is not what I came here to ask you to do. I came here to ask for a few mintues of your time and nothing more that a few words of love. 

    I'm here blogging today to ask you to pray. I realize not everyone can offer so sponsor a child, sometimes that just isn't going to work out. I get that. It's OK. What you can do - what is just as important - is go over to the sponsorship page and take a minute to pray over the kids there. You can pray for the batch that comes up automatically, or you can do what I do sometimes and sort them in different ways. Sometimes I pull up all the longest waiting and pray for them as a group, sometimes I pull up all the oldest or youngest kids, sometimes I search by country or by birth month. Whenever I feel inclined to go look for another kiddo to sponsor I go and pray over the kids. One day we will be in a place to add another sponsorship to our lives, right now this is what I have to offer. I pray for them to find just the right sponsor, I pray for God to make himself known in their lives. You can pray for a group of children or just pick one. Click on a face that speaks to you and learn their story. Share that story with your own kids or family. You can learn about the place the child lives, what they like to do, what the diet is like, what the weather is like, look it up on a map. Offer up a prayer for them and their family. I absolutely believe prayer is a powerful thing!Those few minutes of lifting them up can work miracles. 

    Lastly,
    Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
It blesses my heart to share Compassion with you.