Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Needlework Tuesday: Santa's Village Framed

Here is the final picture for this project I started a year ago.  I'm so happy to finally have it finished and framed.  I think the framer did a beautiful job.  Sorry about the reflection of my skylight in the upper left.

It's getting hard to hold back the tide of Christmas around here.  My amaryllis insisted on starting the show a few weeks early:





I've been working on my Christmas quilt.  Each block seems to need a million pieces.  Here is an example of the tree block.  I only had to rip out and re-sew one seam in this one.  It's a challenge to keep everything the right direction as I'm sewing.





Linking up today with Heather at Books and Quilts.

Thursday, November 21, 2013

The Dark Side of Chain Piecing

Chain piecing is a great quilting technique.  Line up the series of pieces and do them all at once.  No cutting thread in between so it's fast and efficient.

For my Christmas quilt I needed a bunch of little triangles sewn together.  No problem!  I've got this!  So between shuttling kids around in the car yesterday, doing laundry, and cooking dinner I made a long lovely chain of sewn triangles that looked like this:

Great stuff!  Just needed to press them and get them ready to trim:

Yay!  Lots of little triangles sewn together.  A good days work.

Except.

They weren't supposed to be sewn long sides together.  They were supposed to have short sides sewn together.  Since I chain pieced them, I managed to make the same mistake about 60 times.  Go me.  This nice little pile of half-square triangles got put into a bag to be used someday for something else.

Back to the cutting board today.  A million more tiny triangles.

See?  Short sides together with a big triangle attached.  Now they're ready for trimming.   I know yesterday I said I thought I was done making mistakes on this quilt.  Now I'm not so sure.  Obviously I need to pay better attention to what I'm doing.

My amaryllis bulbs tell me Christmas is coming.  Their holiday pots are covered up because I don't like Christmas decorations to come out before Thanksgiving.  The bulb on the right looks like it wants to open soon though. 


We finally turned the heat on and I put both cat beds by a vent.  They opted to share one though.  Hestia brought along a toy. 


Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Design Wall Wednesday: Cozy Christmas

Playing around with a new project.  Don't look too closely - this sample block has some problems.

Doesn't help that I laid out the whole thing and then did this as I started to sew it together:

Middle section sewed backwards.  I got distracted.  Ugh.  Ripping out on the first block may not be a good omen.  Then again, maybe I have made my mistakes and have it all figured out now.  It sure took some fiddling to figure out which direction I want to press everything.

Continuing backwards in time, this is the number of pieces in each block:

This should keep me busy.  I don't think I'll get it done this Christmas, but it will be fun to work on.  I need 6 of these blocks and 6 tree blocks and then a busy border.

I'm already worried about Christmas since this is one of those years where Thanksgiving happens late so we have a shorter season.  So much we always try to fit in!  Lots of concerts and parties and performances coming up soon.




Friday, November 15, 2013

Finished for Friday: Turkey tissues

I keep myself amused.  Once again I found something on Pinterest that I just had to make.  Who doesn't need one of these?

You can find the pattern at the Lion Brand website here.  It was easy to make, but I'm not a fan of working with this particular boucle yarn.  Splits a little too easily.

I'm sure when I pull it out next Thanksgiving I'll  laugh all over again.  My crafts make me happy.

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Santa's Village is Finished!

I started this project one year ago.  Every month a new pattern came in the mail.  I fell behind, I worked hard and caught up.  I worked ahead a little while I waited for the final pattern to arrive.  Today, finally, I put the last stitch in and attached all the buttons.  Just a little bit of gentle pressing and this will go off to the framers.





I put my initials in one little swirl and the year in another.

I am so happy this is all finished.  It took countless hours.  Every stitch was made while looking through a magnifier.  It's such a relief to be done with all of that kind of concentration.  I am ready to work on some other types of things now.

Can't wait to get this framed and up in time for this Christmas season.  Happy happy day.

Linking up with Heather for Needlework Tuesday.

Monday, November 11, 2013

That Girl

Drama Girl is a natural story teller.  Always something interesting to say when we're gathered around the table.  I want to write the latest one down before I forget.

When she was at he movie theater buying a ticket yesterday she noticed a woman with beautiful red hair.  Not being shy, she complimented the woman.  She wasn't expecting the reply she got.

"That means a lot to me.  It's a wig.  I have cancer and this is the first time I've been out wearing it."

I got a bit of a tear in my eye hearing this.  Good for her for saying something nice that she didn't need to.

And then, within 24 hours, I find this.  Her brother's homework that he accidentally left out where Drama Girl could find it.  She added a bit to the end:

*sigh* not really such an angel after all.

Friday, November 8, 2013

The Graduation Tears Begin

This was waiting for me at the breakfast table this morning.  I took one look at it and burst into tears.  Whoever writes this ad copy is a genius. See those baby feet?  "First to say hello?"  This is the biggest parental gut-punch I've experienced to date.  I'm having trouble maintaining my denial that my first baby is getting ready to graduate from high school.  That little girl is almost out of here.

The knife twists as I look inside the big glossy catalog:
ACK!  The guilt!  I never did finish the baby book.  This is my last chance to prove that I'm a good mom who captures memories appropriately.  "While he might not admit it now..."  is so true.  Drama Girl insists she doesn't want any of this stuff but the brochure knows that teenagers don't know what's best for them.  If I want to have any kind of bond with my offspring in the future I better capture all the memories NOW.  And let's not ignore the subtext that I might lose my memory in the future and need this memory book to correctly identify my children.

If I don't get her a ring, it's like I'm telling her that she and her story are not important.  Apparently a ring is her life.

I texted Drama Girl this morning when I knew she wasn't in class.

Oh thanks, I'm bawling now!

Don't buy anything from there, I just need the cap and gown

Seriously though, best marketing line ever.

I don't even get it.
Is that supposed to be the school talking?
They weren't even the first to say hello
My preschool was
The doctor who was there when I was born was the first to say hello

[she texts so fast I was still writing my reply to her first line]

MOM was the first to say hello. I knew you were there before the doctor did.

Are they really the last to say goodbye?
Won't that be college?
Or like
Whoever's at my death bed
Is my high school going to KILL me?


There was more to the conversation, but you get the drift.  I was laughing through my tears at that point.

So now, like the brochure suggests, I'm going to ignore her wishes and figure out how to mark this milestone.  Do people really still send out graduation announcements?  I've never received one that I can remember.  Seems like it's just a way to ask for a gift.  Do I have to get those little cards with her name on them?  I remember getting a million at my high school graduation and not knowing what to do with them.

Goodbye denial, you've protected me well for as long as you could.  This is all getting a little too real now.

Saturday, November 2, 2013

The Downside of the Hilltop

I really shouldn't complain about where our house sits.  We have a beautiful view that includes part of San Francisco Bay.  But if I were to sell this house, there are a few things I'd be sure to tell the new owners.  Living at the top of a hill has its drawbacks.

Kids have to play differently here.  We had a firm rule:  No balls in the front yard.  They still talk about the beloved Barbie ball that got loose and was never seen again.  Once it started bouncing away there was no hope of catching it.

Kids can't ride bikes here.  Too steep. Too many cars whizzing around blind curves.  No shoulders on the roads.

We've had to replace the brakes in our cars.  More than once.  Not cheap. 

It's not a neighborhood for walking.  Unless you're a fan of mountain-climbing.  So the kids only have a few friends close enough to walk to easily.  And no walking to and from school.  With their instruments and heavy backpacks, the hike up the mountain would just be too much.

Very few trick-or-treaters come around.

But with all of it's drawbacks, I still love this house.  It's fun to look down on the fog below some mornings.  It's fun to watch the big ships and little sailboats move through the bay.  It's fun to see deer all over the neighborhood.  So I'm grateful.  Just don't ask me how grateful I am the next time the car has to go in the shop.

Friday, November 1, 2013

Happy Fatigue

I am so exhausted today. Spent all day yesterday cooking and preparing for the party.  It all went well.  My kids have wonderful friends.  Several of them came over right after school.  Others came throughout the evening.

Several of the girls pitched in to help skewer fruit, set up the buffet, and even decorate the front porch.


I set up a photo area with props and today I found about 60 shots on my camera that I'd left in that room.  I have no idea how many they took with their own cameras.


And, true to form, the teenagers ate and ate and ate.  The big batch of deviled eggs was gone instantly.  Ditto the "mummy dogs."  Meatballs that I thought were too spicy were inhaled.  Wasabi Girl tried to sneak off with the chex mix.

I finally broke up the party at 11:00 because today there is school and work to get back to.

Today I'm moving pretty slowly.  I was tired to the bone last night.  Wish I could join Hestia and just stay tucked in bed for the day.  But it's happy exhaustion.  I'd rather have all the kids at my house than worry about my kids and what they might be doing at other people's houses. 


Here's the list of recipes with links, for my future reference, and in case you're interested.

Pumpkin Fluff dip with cinnamon grahams and nilla wafers.
Bacon Cheddar Deviled Eggs
Fruit skewers with Halloween peeps on top
Pumpkin chip muffins
Mummy dogs
Cocktail meatballs served  with rolls to make sandwiches
Chex mix
Marshmallow popcorn balls with mini m and ms added
Chocolate pumpkin rice krispie treats

Now to try to get some candle wax out of a tablecloth.  Any suggestions?  Of course it was a black candle...

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