It's Time

 It's time to officially get ready. While Thanksgiving is its own holiday it does get short shrift being right next to Christmas.  Christmas has been out since before Halloween and by now, it's full force no holds barred.  

And we, too, are at the starting line waiting for the starting gun. This week is our kick off. I made 6 different cookies that now live in the freezer till the weekend the kids come for our Christmas.  Yesterday we went to get our tree.  We tried a different tree farm, one closer to home, smaller and new to us.  

PH was on the hunt. What a pleasant experience this farm was!  We really only had to pick one out and point to it and one of the guys working came with a chain saw, cut it for us, offered us a ride back in his golf cart thingy but we opted to drag it back ourselves and walk.  We may LOOK old but we are not giving in but it was kind to have the offer of a ride. There were families, kids each calling out their favorite tree, photos being taken, the weather was incredible.  What a happy morning!

We have one of those tree stands that has a spike in the middle that you push the tree down onto. But a hole needs to be drilled in the bottom of the tree for that to happen. Since we've had this kind of tree stand we haven't once had to tie the tree to the ceiling or curtain rods or come home to find it lying on the floor.  We love it.  PH said as long as he is alive we will have a real tree.  We brought ours home, put it in the stand with water, I put the lights on and we now wait for the girls to come Wednesday to decorate it.

Today was noodle making day.  We had a couple of changes.  Elizabeth isn't here for noodles so Adelaide invited her boyfriend to come be the extra set of arms.  He was a quick study and did very well.  

Noodles is such a messy job, that's why daughter wants it done once and we make a double batch but Elizabeth enjoys the day, too, so we made a batch for Thanksgiving today and when she gets home there will be another noodle day for Christmas.

She WAS with us, though. 

I was official noodle hanger when I took a break from cranking the machine. 

Aren't they pretty?  They'll dry for a couple of days and then get cooked up on Thursday. 

And so it begins.

Snowballs

 Isn't it interesting how you can lay out your project, let it sit either on a design wall or Thinking Bed and STILL miss things?  Many years ago, in another lifetime, I finished a cross stitch sampler, positioned it on a chair so I could walk by and look at it before sending it to the framer.  I looked at the thing for a week, determined it was good and sent it off.  When I picked it up at the framer there it was, a whole row of miscounted stitches.  At some point I determined that any mistake I found AFTER was not going to be fixed.  The thing was professionally framed and hanging on the wall. 

So, here it is, the snowball quilt that didn't hide the bird fabric.  I whipped if off the machine and outside into the sleety rain to take the photo. It isn't finish ironed yet, I truly whipped it off the machine, threw it over my shoulder and outside to pin up.  

I had fun with choosing the fabric for the other squares and remembered that when I did a few other scrap busters I had more fun with those than precisely planned quilts.  The flying geese, the butterflies, this, they were more fun. After doing so many browns I realized I needed some lighter squares so back to the stash I went. This really was a stash buster in that I was able to use pieces that were bigger than scraps but had been cut in to for other things. (I recently saw a post where a guy said anything less than a fat quarter is a scrap!  What???)  These are 6 inches finished. 

The term 'snowball pattern' is loosely interpreted here for the sake of shape, not white snowball squares. We get enough of those for real in winter. 

The mistake?  After seeing it when it was photographed, the upper right quadrant isn't balanced in color.  Too many darker browns gathered together up there. No, I'm not fixing that. And that last row on the right looks wonky because it was breezy and they were moving. 

I really like that the birds aren't hidden, that fabric shows up well and making them every other square makes it all about them.  You can see the need for the iron finish and that will happen.  

Dining room table is cleared off but I think I'm going to make another one of these and start the cutting for it.  I can't remember when I put together a quilt top so quickly.

But for now it's time to start baking cookies. 

All Dressed Up

It's that time of year - again - it's creeping up on us.  We try to fit in as much as possible with as many as possible and this place is a must for us.  

Our annual trip to the Broadway Bar, all dressed up in its Christmas finery!  Quite amazingly we were the only ones there yesterday with the exception of four at the bar.  Never, ever has this place been empty.  But it was during the week and just past lunch and evenings are the most busy. We know to go in between.  This place has in the past decorated for Christmas from November till after the holidays but last year the owners decided to leave Christmas up all year so technically, you could be here in July and just post your photos in December!  But we didn't and don't do that.  

We come with Friends Richard and Marilyn when you are supposed to feel the Christmas cheer. It's tradition.
 

My quest for a quilt pattern that wouldn't hide the bird fabric ended with the snowball pattern.  I never thought I liked it but it was really perfect for the amount of fabric I had, it's center is big enough to show the fabric, it let me use other fun combinations to coordinate and I could use them every other.  Also it's so easy and quick I'm really plugging along.  If I didn't take a nap I'd have finished it by now! 

That Time of Year

 

It's that time of year.  The time of year I wish I had two refrigerators. I've even thought of getting one of those smaller ones for the garage but then I look in the mirror and wonder how long I'd need it. So till then we just don't get much else in the one we've got because it's chock full.

It's peppermint patty time.  

                                                               Yesterday I made 872.

                                        And today I coated them in chocolate.  I didn't wear white.

This time of year there's a lot of chocolate going on in this house.  Six hours after I started doing the chocolate and the last tin was packed and in the fridge I was in my jammies and robe and done for the day.  

I give these to lots of people throughout this season. From friends to hairdresser to butcher to snow plow driver to taking them as my dish to pass at parties.  House sure smells good, too! 

Cleaning up

The past couple of weeks I've spent time making sense of bits and pieces and parts of projects.  I just had to get them out of my brain and to the point of being basted...then they could sit again and wait. But at least they got to this point.  

I used what I had and some of what I'd inherited, including piecing together batting from Friend Marilyn's discarded stuff.

In these photos the pieces are wrinkly but the pieces were nice and crisply layed out in the beginning, then they got folded and sat for a week.

These teeny HSTs were in a bag of Sally's things I got at retreat a time or two ago.  Sally does teeny tiny work and if she is letting something go, well, I figure she already did the hard part. So I sewed them together, gave them a border and they'll go well either on a table or not. But they aren't in a jumble bag anymore.

I was to the point of quilting this.  I chose big stitch and took it to retreat and didn't get near to finishing it even a quarter of the way.  Well, enough is enough. I finished it, bound it and will sew that down.  Done.

This was as far as I got in Audrey's Bramble lessons.  I got distracted then tired of it so it sat folded up. I put the outer borders on and it's as big as it's going to get. I actually like this a lot.

More of Sally's mini nine patches.  I chose what worked with brown and this picture print

which I love and will hang somewhere.  Trust me, it won't be this wobbly when I quilt it. 

This was the first one I tackled.  More of Sally's nine patches and when I realized I didn't have enough of what I used separating the nines, I used them to separate the nines.  Then when I audition threw the tomatoes on top I just stood back and smiled. This is my favorite.  

Remember the Little Women dish towel?  It was either going to go big or go home.  It went home. Again, I got tired of looking at all these orphans and just tagged a border on this and called it done. I think I know where it's going to go.

I spent time on this one.  Again, Sally's nine patches in 30s prints. I spaced them with a little cherry print and put a little space border on and that yellow is old, old fabric. I made a pink scrappy border from yet more of Sally's 30s prints I inherited several retreats ago.  I do love a nine patch and so does Sally, as you can see.

As if I need more UFOs, I was in our local thrift store two days in a row and on the second day the craft room had several unfinished cross stitch squares.  This group was finished. There are six and I couldn't leave them there when all six had a total price tag of $1.00.  I'll trim and just do a simple summer border and make a simple summer cover. No fuss or muss but they will be constructed.

Now, I'm on to the project that uses the bird fabric I asked for help with a couple of posts ago.  I was going to do an Irish chain but the pattern calls for 2 5/8 yards and I only have 2 and for it to work I need the larger amount.  So I decided on a snowball quilt because I can intersperse many coordinating colors along with the birds.  It was actually quite fun to pull a pile of fabrics to use.  I just need to be home long enough to start. 

 

Tree

 I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!!  I AM CAUGHT UP ON THE TREE!!!  FINISHED OCTOBER LAST NIGHT!  YES, THIS WARRANTS CAPITAL LETTERS!!

A Thought

Here's a thought for you.  When you die, what recipe would your family want the most?  Not YOUR favorite, but the one you are known for, the most requested, the one that will send the family scrambling for when they can't ask for it anymore.

I learned this the hard way.  After both grandmothers passed away my brother and I would ask each other, "Did you get the recipe for....?"   He had the Sicilian grandmother's recipe and technique for her spaghetti sauce but neither of us got the brownies.   I searched and found recipes for the Polish grandma's placzek and cruschiki and city chicken and apple pie.  I spent more time with her and watched her during baking and cooking times.

I've asked two of our grand daughters what they will want the recipe for.  Elizabeth, without missing a breath, said "cruschiki."  And Adelaide said, "peanut butter cookies."   Well, there are hundreds of recipes for peanut butter cookies but the one SHE eats is the one I make.  

I take a Sharpie pen and write across the cover of a cookbook that the special recipe is inside.  Peanut Butter Cookies In Here   or Easter Recipes in Here (for the cruschiki)  and Corn Fritters In Here.  So when I die and they are sorting through the cookbooks it's there, right on the cover.  

 I came across this cookbook and Friend Laurie sent me a photo of it, "This looks like you."  And I agreed so when it was published I bought it.  

This author discovered favorite recipes engraved on gravestones.  She collected them and the stories of the women who made them and put them together in this book.   They are mostly common recipes that we all pretty much know. Chocolate chip cookies,  spritz cookies, no bake chocolate cookies, snickerdoodles, etc.  Each recipe is preceeded by a little story about the woman so we kind of get to know her.  

One woman, the one who made the spritz cookies and apparently had quite a following absolutely refused to share her recipe.  Until she died.  Then it went on her gravestone, carved in granite for anyone to see.  

I love the idea of this, I had never heard of recipes carved on gravestones, I thought it gave new meaning to "you can't take it with you."  

But it also gives my "When I Die" mantra new meaning.  I KNOW what it's like to be sorry not to have asked the questions or gotten a recipe or memory.  I walk around saying "when I die...." every time I see the grands but now they know.