Yum {a recipe}

We love our chocolate. And we love our peanut butter. But together. Too good to be true! This recipe is a must-have, must-make, must-eat by everyone in this family. We call them:

Nana Crackers

-1 box Ritz crackers

-2 packages chocolate almond bark

-a varying amount of peanut butter

Melt chocolate bark in pot. While your chocolate is melting, sandwich the peanut butter between your crackers. When your chocolate is entirely melted, drop your peanut butter-cracker sandwich into the chocolate. Carefully flip-flop your cracker sandwich around till entirely coated with chocolate. Set on wax papered pan. Let be until chocolate is dry. We like ours refrigerated. Yum. There's no other word for them!

xxxox Us

A Fabulous Friday

{our picks}

our Spring cleaned home

deluxe chocolate marshmallow bars

Bachelor Mother (the cutest movie ever!)

self portraits and braided crowns

butterfly kisses

Since we're separated by many miles this Fabulous Friday, we decided to make a "favorites pool" representing all that we love together.

our Spring cleaned home — what could make us happier than to have the entire house cleaned before leaving for vacation!? It just makes vacation that much sweeter. (Ok. So we admit it…. entire house might be stretching it! But it doesn't hurt to dream a little, does it?)

Deluxe Chocolate Marshmallow bars — if we can't decide what sounds good, we can almost always agree that these sound the best. The hardest part comes when it's time to choose which soda pop sounds best to go along with them!

Bachelor Mother — an adorable movie that made us laugh so hard. So cute and clean and black & white!

self portraits and braided crowns — we love taking fun self portraits. And the braids? We found Mommy was right; you never really out grow them. Because all of her girls still love them and wear them.

butterfly kisses — something that is always extra special. Not only do we love giving them, but we love getting them too.

What do you love most this Friday? xx KAA from the other two A's too

surprise, surprise!

rosa lea is in the shop and ready to ship!!!

Our little chic sisters apron pattern is also in the studio, new and improved, and ready to ship! We're so excited about this pattern!

Darison is wearing our original flounce style (but it's a little bit more flouncy) and Emerson's sporting the new addition to the little chic sisters apron — a fun, girlie-girl ruffle!

We love the way the little chic sisters apron works with the chic sisters apron!

You can spin, you can swing, you can jump, you can dance, you can smile, (and we're positive you can cook), in this little number!

happy sewing! love, the Long ladies

PS and don't forget ladies, we still have some of our other patterns on sale! Check them out!

at the end of our tunnel….

light.

So Apphia and Achaia are in Wichita, KS. And we're missing them! While they spent their day riding in the car (with a boat load of friends), and setting up for the show, we spent our day running errands and packing patterns (with a cold diet Dr. Pepper and an oscillating fan to keep us company). We thought about skipping over the job altogether and watching some of this. But we decided to keep it for Friday night (with pizza, of course!). We're good girls, even when our sisters aren't here to keep us in line. And while they're partying with our oldest (and fun) brother, we'll be having our own party watching this.

OHHHHHH! How exciting is this??? All the rosa lea patterns are ready to ship! See?

So for those of you sweet gals that have pre-ordered, we'll plan on shipping them out very, very soon!!! For those of you who would like your own copy now, please order soon, 'cause we're planning on being out of town for a couple of weeks.

We're throwing bags around and wondering how it's all going to pan out. (Our bags shrink when we put things in them and our room is a cyclone.) But we're super excited, AND, we're seeing the light at the end of our tunnel as we check off the to-do's.

Hopefully, we'll be back Friday with our newest favorites! And then maybe a surprise post or two will happen to pop up while we're gone??

We love and miss you, A+A. But we're proud of us. Umm. We mean you.

hugs and a smack! A+A

Have Tote, Will Travel

I finished my tote!! I'm over-the-top-happy-excited about it.

As I mentioned, I used Anna Maria Horner's Art Student Tote pattern (and I might add here that everyone kept making fun of me because I went around calling it the "art student tote", in place of the plain "my new bag"…). I loved the look of the bag on the front of the pattern, but this time was my first making it.

And look! Not only did I make the biggest bloomin' bag on the pattern, BUT I also made that snazzy extension panel! It really does make this bag fit for lots of things. It's amazingly big.

Even though I figure I never need to give a good reason for making a brand new bag, I will tell you that I'd originally intended it for something in particular. Do you remember my embroidery project??? Well, I have really taken such a HUGE liking – no LOVING – to doing handwork that I need a bag to carry everything around. Speaking of embroidery, I just finished another project that I hope to share soon.

Now. I've come to the conclusion (with help, of course) that this tote might even be a teensy bit too large for my embroidery goodies, so I'm using this as a carry-on-a-trip-tote, and plan on making another Art Student tote – minus the extension panel – for my handwork. Good excuse to pick out more pretty fabric and have another new bag, right?? My thinking exactly. I mean, really, we're talking about the girl that was asking for purses and bags for her birthday before she was 7 years old.

So, I'm planning on carting around this lovely on our upcoming vacation. It should house a couple of books, notebook and pens, red and white mints, and a needlepoint tapestry project.

xox! Achaia

fabrics.sale.quilts.show.exclamation points.

FABRICS:: First off, we have some great new fabrics — Antique Flower in Pastel (above made up in a rosa lea), a pretty-sweet new line from Lecien and a few pieces of SuperFly, Jennifer Paganelli's newest line that coordinates so happily with the popular Crazy Love!

SALE:: This week all of Tanya Whelan's fabrics are 30% off through June 22nd! That includes Delilah, Sugar Hill, Sugar Hill flannel, and Barefoot Roses…. happy shopping!

QUILTS:: The Joplin quilt project page has been updated, so go check it out. There's exciting news there, and thanks once again to everyone who had a hand in it!

SHOW:: Next weekend a couple of us will be at the Wichita Quilt Show taking care of our booth where we'll have patterns for sale — and Lord willing that will include our brand new rosa lea dress and improved little chic sisters apron!! So, if you're in the area and want some patterns, or just want to come and chat, please do. We'd love to see you!

EXCLAMATION POINTS:: We noticed we may have overused exclamation points in this post (or do you ever over-use them??). We could possibly be doing that because its Friday and we're having pizza!

Happy weekend to all of you! xox Kristie, Apphia, Achaia, Abigail, & Abiah

more rosa lea…

Here's one thing we LOVE about the rosa lea dress. It layers over tessa bloomers and looks so very, very cute. Then, of course, you can play in your dress all day long! And for moms who like a little more length, the bloomers look like a petticoat… which makes the dress grow with the girl, too.

The fact that we have the cutest little friends to model for us helps, too! And here is the same dress with leggings…

We wanted to let you all know that you can pre-order the rosa lea dress pattern through our website now! Just pop it into your cart, and we'll ship it out as soon as the patterns arrive from the printer (which should be next week!). And if you'd like the tessa bloomers pattern as well, we've extended our $4.98 sale… but quantities are limited!

Lots of love,

the Long ladies

A Fabulous Friday

{abigail's picks}

1. My gorgeous AMH home dec fabric from Quilt Home

2. One of Amy Butler's newest bag patterns. I love it!!

3. This adorable cardigan from Lands' End Canvas in blush

4. Rich Mullins – especially the song My One Thing

{apphia's picks}

1. My new favorite bag

2. I love Grace Kelly

3. I love the all-American theme of this outfit, and I want to try out the vintage scarf in my hair!

4. I think having one brick wall in your bedroom is so awesome

{abiah's picks}

1. My shirt from Target!

2. This awesome movie!

3. I love S'mores… and these are too cute!!

4. Glitter that I got for my birthday. It looks a lot like this!

{kristie's picks}

1. A fellow Hoosier

2. I love this movie!

3. Texas

4. My kisslock clutch wallet

{achaia's picks}

1. I'm so excited about this big tote that I'm making

2. Anna Maria Horner's Field Study fabrics!

3. Top Notch cheeseburgers in Austin, TX

4. Vintage swimsuits

Now, now…. what are you taking pleasure in today?? Happy Friday! xoxx

dress

I love dresses! When we were at Quilt Market, and Abiah and I were socializing around, we dropped by a book signing booth and met Kay Whitt. (Her new book is SO fun!) She was so sweet and cute and her dress was adorable! Naturally, I had to tell her how much I loved it. That sparked my (our) interest, and I (we) set out to find her booth. (Bi and I were practically inseparable at market!) We found it. (whoo!) And we JUST HAD to pick a few patterns up! Among them was the Bebe dress.

I thought I might need a maxi dress for this Spring and Summer! I had purchased the fabric [different color way, but still fabulous!] quite a while ago from Quilt Home, and was saving it for just the perfect project. This was it!!!! The dress was a dream to sew up. And to say that I'm not a little in love with rayon now, is an understatement! It's so pretty and is really forgiving.

I just added some inches to the bottom to make it fully maxi.

I adore it! It's my ideal.

happy day!!!! xxAbi

PS have you sewn with rayon? are you getting the urge to make something maxi?

Mulberry try-out

This week, along with doing some deep cleaning in the studio, laundry, hauling a bit of hay, filling orders and other assorted things, Abiah and I made a mulberry pie. It was our first ever, and Abiah can take all the credit for the pretty lattice top (it was her first time ever making anything other than a simple top crust too!).

Some of the men in our family are really big on picking berries on our land, and wanting us to make something with them. Last summer was blackberries. Well, we tried a blackberry pie, but that didn't go over real big. Considering the fact that out of four men only one of them ate almost the entire pie because nobody else would eat it.

Well, I had a thought that our mulberry pie might bomb too. But…. it didn't! It was actually very tasty (if I do say so myself). In fact, as evidence from the top picture, we ate almost 1/2 the pie in one sitting. Success!

We hope you're enjoying what you're eating, wherever you are!

xox! Achaia & Abiah

PS… We forgot to mention that Artful Homemaking is hosting a giveaway for one of our patterns + fabric! xx