Merry Christmas to ALL

Our gifts are all wrapped and ready to open.  Now you may ask why they are up on the desk rather than under the Christmas tree.  Well, my faithful readers will remember that we recently adopted a rescue dachshund,




Sherlock. 




Now don’t misunderstand me, he is sweet, loving, and the most destructive dog we have ever had.  We have lost clothes, pillows, dog beds, a wall, and have holes in two quilts.  So I decided our gifts looked really good UP on the desk this year.


We did not have to put these gifts, from our son, daughter in law, and grandson in Colorado, up because we have already opened them.  Our tradition has been to open sent gifts on Christmas Eve (and what we give each other on Christmas morning) but with gifts that are sent directly from the store there isn’t any wrapping so by opening the mailer package the gift is already there.  So we are enjoying the coffee while we anticipate our Christmas. 







The same thing happened with the gift from our son, daughter in law and granddaughter in Maryland.  Can’t say I’m sorry cuz we have been enjoying little pieces of this wonderful candy.  I am trying to make sure there is still some for Christmas day but I’m not sure I will succeed. 






And here is what I have accomplished toward Celtic Solstice.  I really have made more units than this but this is representational of my efforts: steps 1-3.  I have not yet started step 4: I plan that for Thursday.  I really got behind on step 1 but now I that I have received my new rulers I will be able to catch up on them also.

I have been knitting, as reported in my last post, and have even started a new, small, project that will be the last gift on my list.

And now, again, Merry Christmas to all!

Bit by Bit

I have been working on Celtic Solstice, a little.  This is where I was this morning and since then I have added about thrice as many and started using the different purples.  I am still working on Step 1 but will be checking out Step 2 tomorrow, just prior to Step 3 coming out on Friday. 










I have a really good excuse for falling so far behind.  Saturday we had a great time at the Trans Siberian Orchestra concert.  Oh, my, what a fun experience.  Then early Sunday morning I woke up “not well.”  Getting over that has taken a while but mostly it has taken some days to begin to regain/sustain strength.  This is not the first time I have experienced this but it is so annoying to be slowed down when I really want to be up and going.  The up side?  I wasn’t hungry and seem to have an aversion to sugar, for the time being.  Wouldn’t it be nice if was a permanent “problem”? 



I spent most of yesterday  wrapping Christmas gifts, the ones that are being mailed (see, I am behind in this area, also).  And one package is even ready for mailing.  I seem to have run out of boxes so these will have to get sent tomorrow.









This is my wrapping station which still has to be available for local gift wrapping.  Did I ever mention how much I don’t like wrapping gifts?  I love making gifts, shopping for them, and buying them, but wrapping them?  Not so much.       Oh, I do like opening them when they are given to me. 







And what do good puppies do while Mom is wrapping gifts?  Why they sack out on the big flannel quilt, of course. 

Now, I’m off to bed to get a good rest so I can get something accomplished tomorrow.

Nite,   Gari

Christmas Past

Well, another Christmas has come and gone.  For the two of us it has been quiet and fun.

When our children were little they clamored to open presents on Christmas Eve.  So we settled on opening gifts that had been sent and left the ones from each other for Christmas morning.  DH and I have continued that tradition but now there are more of the “sent” ones than the ones from each other.  So with coffee and pie at the ready, we prepared for our gifts.  And I must say we were greatly gifted.



One of the things we were given was a box with pancake mix, syrup and all the fixing for a good Christmas breakfast.  So, of course, I broke out our new electric griddle and we had pancakes.  I had planned to take a picture of the pancakes on the plate with butter and syrup but forgot until they were all gone.  But let me say that it was a great way to start the day.

After some more gift opening and Santa sock stuffing, we were on our way to the big city (100 miles).  One of the traditions we developed after all of our children moved away to start families of their own was to eat Chinese on Christmas (it used to be the only place open) and more recently to go to the movies. 


So Chinese it was.  I love Kung Po Chicken and was delighted to not have a buffet but could order what I wanted.  And we brought a bunch back so I will have at least 2-3 more great meals from it.  Yea!!!





And then we went to see The Hobbit.  We saw it in I MAX 3D and it was great.  Of course I loved all of the books and all of the Lord of the Rings movies so there was no doubt I would also love this movie.  And I have a “slight” fear of heights and tended to squirm and jump a few times.  DH just laughed at me but he jumped, too.

When the movie was over we made a stop for a bowl of soup and brought some Village Inn pie home for today’s treat.

Our evening was topped by a pretty interesting storm.  We rode on the edge of it all the way home and only got a little rain at the end of the ride.  We, however, had gusty wind most of the way which made driving interesting. 

After we got home the storm hit.  We had power blips and for some reason our internet connection is down: I am running on my iPhone’s hotspot.  We got 3” of rain and are still having very cold wind gusts but the worst is over and it is going to be a really good sewing day.

Now, everyone get some rest so you will be ready for New Year’s Eve.  We will be going to bed early as we will be traveling to Jacksonville, FL for the Gator Bowl.  DH is a Northwestern grad and we can’t miss them when they are playing anywhere near us.

Have a great week.

Merry Christmas to Everyone

Santa stopped by this past week for a little coffee and talk.  It was so nice to see him able to relax on the deck even at this very busy time of the year.









But since I had all of my Christmas gifts either bought or made I was able to have this on my design wall.









All of the yellow and orange are steps 2, 4 and 5 of Easy Street.  I can’t express how excited I was when I finished step 5 on the day it was introduced.  I have never been so caught up.



I also have a bunch of 3 1/2” green squares cut but Bonnie said we didn’t need them yet.  Well, then, why did she have us cut them up?     Oh, yea, probably because eventually we will be sewing them to something else and, yippee, I’ll be ready.
Also on the wall are two of my teapot BOMs.  I finally began the applique process, doing the blanket stitch this time.



The teapot on the right is upside down, showing the stitching only.  It’s kind of cool to see just the outline, don’t you think?  On the left is my pretty flower teapot, the one where the spout was so light it almost disappeared into the background.



But look how great it looks when outlined by the thread.  I used the buttonhole on all but the “shading’’ pieces where I used a small zigzag.











It’s harder to see the stitching on this one because it is black and blends in so much better.








You can see some of the stitches here but I can tell you that it is not easy to stitch on those little pieces.  The light gray shading on this handle was one piece of fabric under the black handle but it still needed to be stitched….oh, my.



And this shading was done using the same fabric as the pot but I darkened it with a fabric pen. 

These teapot have been so much fun.


After all that sewing I spent the weekend having lunch with my daughter and great grandson, shopping alone (with no buying ) and then shopping with DH and buying (he is a really bad influence on me).

Today is Christmas Eve.  DH and I will spend the evening opening the gifts that have been sent by our families who live far away.  We will eat chili and watch old videos of Christmas’ past and remember when it was much noisier  around our house.  On Christmas day we will have a late breakfast (blueberry pancakes)and open our gifts to each other.  We will also spend time remembering that on this day we celebrate the birth of Christ, our savior.   What a wonder to live in a country where we are allowed to celebrate and share our faith: we are so blessed.

Merry Christmas!

Linking with Patchwork Times, Quiltville, and What a Hoot.

EDIT!!  Look what Santa brought us this morning.  Meet Elsa.  Doesn't she look happy to be here?  She is our 8th grandchild, second granddaughter and we are so excited.

Christmas Is a Comin’

This is where I spent all Wednesday afternoon, out on the deck having coffee with Santa.  It was in the mid-70s, the sun was out and I was able to finish one book and start another.  What a great way to begin the week before Christmas.




The night before we had dinner theater.  One of our family traditions, and our favorite, is Magoo’s Christmas Carol.  Even without the children here (ages 44-50) we still sing along and anticipate the funniest part, seen above.  We are watching one Christmas show every night: it is a way to enjoy our old traditions in a current way.



On the quilting front, I completed all of Step 4 of Easy Street and got them sewn onto Step 2.




I even got the green fabric cut into 3 1/2” squares, ready to use in the next step.  I really don’t enjoy the cutting part but spacing it out a week apart seems to make it not so bad.

 

After I got all that sewing and cutting done, I boxed everything up and put it away until Friday.


I did do some additional sewing.  I have begun the applique on my teapots.  My usual applique technique is a small zig-zag with invisible thread.  This time I am using the button-hole stitch with a coordinating thread.  I got one done and am in the middle of the second one.  I will be showing them on Monday.
Have a great week.  Don’t get too cold or blown away by the storm that is right now crossing the country.  Gari

A Baking Star Is Born

Next month I/we will be married 51 years.  In all that time I have never made a pie.  Every time I thought about it it seemed like it was really hard so I would forget about it.

 

DH came into this marriage telling me he LOVED apricot pie.  Have you ever tried to buy an apricot pie?  Well, they are really hard to find and we have only found a couple of bakeries that made them and none in the last 30 years.

 

Enter the mini pie machine.  Isn’t this a great looking idea?  But this machine retails for $150, currently on sale for $99.99.  I don’t know about you but $100 for something that just makes pies seems a bit high, especially since I lead Weight Watcher’s meetings and don’t eat a lot of pies.

 

However, last week we came across this.  It was under $30 so we thought it was worth a try.

Then we had to buy a rolling pin (never had or needed one before).

 

 

And today I gave it all a try.  See my new rolling pin?  Isn’t it nifty.  I rolled the premade pie crust very, very thin.  And here you see the bottom crust rounds, ready to bake.

 

 

Next I prepared the filling: dried apricots, Splenda, lemon juice and cornstarch.  It looks a little fuzzy here: it looked a little fuzzy in the making, too.

 

 

And here we have the pies after only 10 min. baking time.  Isn’t that impressive?  I realize they are a little misshapen but that is because I need to work on my technique a little.

 

 

I set them out to cool: they were really easy to get out of the machine. 

 

I was so excited with my success that I immediately sent for a recipe book that is especially for making mini pies of all kinds: pot pies, feta cheese & spinach pies, pumpkin pies, etc.  I see lots of pies in our future.  Especially since DH proclaimed the apricot pie a rousing success!

 

While the pies were cooling I spent some quality time in the studio and DH put lighting on our Christmas village. 

Now I just need to figure out how to hide the bookshelves and the niche.  They just seem to be junque collectors.  Maybe I will have to design a quilt curtain for these areas.  What a great idea!

Our Christmas Trip

We had a great Christmas.  We drove to MD with our two dogs and on the way we stopped at an antique mall that advertised it was “pet friendly.”

  Here is a fuzzy picture of Abby strolling through the mall, checking everything out.  What fun that was.

We spent Christmas with DS#3 and his wife and our wonderful granddog, Ponce.

Over the three days we were there we were treated to lots of good food and fun.  Our DIL is of Swedish descent and she is oh, so proud of it.  So she gave us a traditional Swedish Christmas. 

Here we have bacon fried brussel sprouts, ham, and Swedish meatballs for a Christmas Eve smorgasbord.  There was lots more but since I took this picture from her blog, this was all she shot.  And later that evening we “waddled” to a wonderful Christmas Eve service, attended by many members of her family.

On Christmas day we opened presents.  We had a great time, again.

Here is DH, and the puppies, doing a good job of getting that gift out of it’s wrapping.

And here am I doing the same thing.  The owl decanter was a gift from our son and daughter-in-law.  They know how I love hollow glass owls.

And this was the gift our DIL commissioned for DS#3.  Ponce was trying to decide if he was looking in a mirror or not.

Because of the snow storm heading for the east coast, we decided to leave a day early, on the 26th.   We left early in the morning and drove down I95, headed for SC or even FL to avoid the storm.  Well, that didn’t happen and about 20 miles south of Richmond we hit ice.  And, yes, it was not a good thing.

This is what happens when your car does a 90 degree turn on the interstate and then slides into a ditch.  We had to be pulled out, the car was not drivable, and is still in VA to be repaired.  No one was hurt, the puppies were so good while we went through this event but we were all grateful to be home again.  We will be driving back up to VA to get my car but not until sometime in January: next year.

I must say that throughout this experience we were blessed by being helped by the nicest of people.  And that made it not nearly as bad as it could have been.

I finally was able to get back into the studio this afternoon and hope to have something quilty to report for Design Wall Monday.

:-( No Design Wall Monday

I have had a very productive week and I completed all of the handmade Christmas gifts I plan to make. And, as a design wall photo, I am showing my leftovers.

But, that being said, I haven’t yet had time to start new projects or even get UFOs out to see if one of them can be completed. But starting today I will be packing up the gifts and bagging up the quilts I am going to put in the guild show in November and then I will be looking at what I want to work on next. I do have a comfort quilt that needs quilting and a flannel quilt I want to make and the jacket I just bought fabric for, so I guess it won’t take too long before I am busy again.

Friday DH and I went to a quilt show in Dothan, AL (and I forgot to take my camera). The quilts were very nice and some were outstanding. But the highlight of the show was a collection of vintage victory quilts, at least 20. Many were made during WW II but some were much older and some even from more recent conflicts. The owner of the quilts (I didn’t get her name) had excellent reproductions of the patterns and some of the history surrounding them.

One highlight of the show was that I got to play with an Accuquilt GO. And since I knew more about it than the girl vending, I got to show it to DH and demonstrate it (my first time). I told him that I keep trying to win one but so far I have been a failure in that arena.

Saturday morning I took some time to check out the “color” of fall here on my little piece of South Alabama.

We don’t get the brilliant color that can be seen further north but we do enjoy just enough to experience seasonal change.

Then I went into the studio, turned on the iron and sewing machine and just as I was getting started DH came in and wanted me to go to the school with him to watch Auburn play football. They have a projection TV and a 6’ square screen. So off to Subway we went and then got to the school just in time for the kickoff. And, I must say, we had a good time watching another great game where, of course, Auburn won. But no sewing got done.

So Sunday I locked myself into the studio and finished off my biggest project (see above). However, even that got interrupted when I remembered that I was supposed to be cleaning the PVC poles that we will be using for the quilt show. 2 hours later I was back at the sewing machine. It is not easy getting things done around here.

Our weather has been picture perfect: nights in the high 40s and days in the low 80s with blue skies and lots of sunshine. We need rain but since I am not a farmer and we had lots of rain during the spring and summer, I have really been enjoying the beautiful days and taking breaks sitting outside. I even drove to NWFL with the windows down because the fresh air blowing through the car felt and smelled so good. And while there on Thursday I spent about 30 min at the beach, watching the water and fishermen. It was so peaceful.

Well, those new projects won’t get started unless I get off this computer. Have a great week!