5th day after Christmas

On the 5^th day after Christmas (Tuesday, 12/30) my honey let me be,

The result i-is what you now see
(you guys are SINGING this....right???)

 

 

 

 

 

 

You probably have to look REALLY closely (or click on to blow up the picture) to see the quilting on the red background, but you can see by the crazy label that I quilted with a varigated thread in crazy colors.  A day spent quilting on Miss Scarlet….heaven!  Another charity Sterling School quilt has been quilted…hopefully the bigger reveal will be tomorrow after labeling and binding.

 I was up early with lots to do on Tuesday (12/30).  I got a label stitched out and the binding 3/4 done on the wrong side before Jan picked me up before 10 AM.  We headed off to get her oil changed and tires checked, knitting all the while.  We made a few other stops on the way home, and didn’t get home until 2 PM.  I packed up and hustled on up to Stitch and Chat…and I took Michael’s quilt…it was a BIG hit!  I’m definitely HOT to make another quilt in this pattern, and want to start it right away…but I don’t think I can because it will interfere with getting done on my 12 days AFTER Christmas projects…oh well…guess I can be patient a tiny bit longer  :~).  I had a hair appointment after S&C and when I finally got home at 5 PM, Larry & Joanne stopped by to pick me up for dinner.  Michael was going to the movies, and L& J called to ask if I wanted to join them for Mexican food (YAY!!)  We went to Moe’s Southwest Grill and I had a wonderful quesadilla.  Once home, I headed to the studio and sewed for the rest of the evening. 

4th day after Christmas (BG's quilt), Cookie

On the 4^th day after Christmas (Monday, 12/29) my honey let me be,

The result i-is what you now see

BG brought 4 quilts with her when she came down in July, hoping to quilt them herself on my machine…of course, since I had only had it for 2 months at that point….it was still not working  :~(.  But now it is and I have finally quilted the first of her quilts.  She’s giving it to one of her granddaughters, so I quilted it with my favorite heart pattern.  I changed it just a little to make the hearts overlap on every other row and I love it.  At 76-1/2 by 94-1/2 it is the largest quilt I have done so far.  And it is SO NICE to quilt a quilt I don't have to label and bind  :-).

As for other news….Michael reminded me, so I called the dentist first thing in the morning….but because I am NOT in pain (yet), I can’t get an appointment until NEXT Monday :~(.  Michael asked if I wanted him to sock me in the jaw…since if I were in pain, they would fit me in.  Meanwhile I am worried about other pieces of tooth chipping off…as it is, I am SURE he is going to tell me that I need a crown on that tooth.  Oh well…nothing I can do about it, so I might as well quilt  :~).  All of my flat rate goodie boxes got sent out today while I quilted all day.  At one point, when I went upstairs, this is what I saw: 

 

How do they always find the new quilt?  Michael made latkes again for dinner, In the evening, I continued to knit while we watched a couple of Major Crimes before bed.

3rd day after Christmas

On the 3^rd day after Christmas (Sunday 12/28) my honey let me be (he was watching the Carolina Panthers),

The result i-is what you now see:

sugared pecans

dark chocolate dipped oreos with crushed candy
cane topping

bagged and ready to go!

Having Michael’s quilt finally finished….my “project” for Sunday was finishing up my food gifts, so that gift boxes could go out on Monday.  I did sugared pecans and dark dipped oreos with crushed candy canes as a topping.  As for the rest of the day….I made pecan pancakes for breakfast

and spent most of the rest of the day working on other projects.  I did take a 2 hour break in the afternoon to pick up 3 other ladies to head to a memorial service for another friend’s husband.  It was puffy things for dinner again…

mini chicken pot pies in puff pastry....YUM!!!

but no champagne…after all, we can’t drink a bottle EVERY night…can we? 

Michael was watching the Panthers play after dinner and I was reading my book.  I thought I had a crumb stuck in one of my teeth and reached up to see if I could feel what was happening…that’s all it took for a GIANT filling to fall into my hand :~(.  Guess part of Monday will be spent at the dentist…..

We ended the evening with a viewing of Mel Brook’s HIGH ANXIETY.

2nd day after Christmas...tan/blue quilt

On the second day after Christmas (12/27) my honey let me be (he went golfing);

The result i-is what you now see

 

 

This is the quilt that I did immediately after retreat….the one that I cut up Michael’s original blue fabric that I wasn’t quite done with  :~).  This is my first quilt for the Sterling School Project.  A local church (actually it is my friend Paula’s church) identified many kids within Sterling School who had NEVER had a bed to sleep in  :~(.  The church took on the project of building easy-to-assemble bed frames…the church is also buying the mattresses and sheet sets, and they asked our quilt group if we could provide quilts for some of the beds…so, this is my first.  It is also the quilt that I used to distract Michael when I was quilting his quilt.   What I mean is…I loaded up a double length of blue fabric and a double length of batting on Miss Scarlet.  When Michael was out golfing I got his quilt basted on, then I just threw this Sterling School quilt over the whole frame so that he couldn’t see HIS quilt (this was Nancy H’s suggestion and it worked beautifully).  I figured he wouldn’t look closely enough to tell that it wasn’t quilted.  I got his all quilted, then quickly rolled it up and started to quilt this blue/tan quilt.  He never noticed a thing….YAY! 

 

 

As for the rest of the day, I continued to work on projects to hopefully keep my “12 days” going.  Paula came by for SEVERAL hours and helped me load up Miss Scarlet for another quilt, and watched the process of it stitching out.  Michael was out golfing here at SCCL for much of the day, and came home very disappointed with his score.  He’s going to sign up for a few refresher lessons since he can’t figure out what he’s doing wrong.  It was a champagne and puffy things evening,

 

we finished up these homemade puffy things...

and added mozarella logs, and spinach/cheese phyllo pockets

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

along with continuing Christmas movie entertainment with WHITE CHRISTMAS.

1st day after Christmas (Michael's quilt), Elsie & Cookie

So, in the days leading up to Christmas….the “12 days of Christmas” song kept playing around in my head…and I decided to try a little 12 days of my own…..a challenge to accomplish 12 projects (some quilting, some sewing…maybe some food) over the next 12 days…so sing along (you all know the tune…right?)

***On the first day after Christmas my honey let me be;

The result i-is what you now see ***

This is a quilt I made for Michael for Christmas...and got all labeled and bound for my first after Christmas project.  This quilt actually has a tale all its own...

The tale of Michael’s quilt….one fine September day I went on a retreat with my friends.  I took along 8 different blue fabrics to make a quilt for my dearest honey…there were just a few blips along the way.  First, I didn’t read the pattern fully and completely.  Now, when I did the tumbling blocks, I knew I didn’t know how to do them, so I read the directions and read the directions and read the directions.  But with Michael’s quilt, it was 9 patches and solid blocks….piece of cake!  What quilter doesn’t know how to make 9 patches and solid blocks???  That was mistake number 1.  The quilt was set on point…if you remember my problems with the blue/green/purple quilt back in October/November, then you KNOW how my brain resists understanding quilts set on point…that was mistake number 2.  We didn’t have a design wall at retreat that was big enough to lay the whole quilt out.  We were laying it on the floor, but eventually I had to pack it all up and bring it home….and I neglected to label the rows before doing that…mistake number 3.  When I got home, I needed a LARGE space of time when Michael wasn’t going to be home.  That didn’t happen right away, so I started working on another quilt…I THOUGTHT I only needed squares out of the remaining 3 colors of Michael's quilt (6 & 7 & 8) so I cut up colors 1 through 5 for the new quilt that I started….can you guess…mistake number 4 (since it turned out once I finally got back to working on Michael’s quilt that I also needed more of colors #4 & #5...which if I had read the directions better...I might have realized).  When I finally got back to working on Michael’s quilt, I decided that I could cut the strips for color number 6…didn’t have my glasses on…just glanced at the book…and after not cutting strips for this quilt for 2 weeks, I cut a ton of strips at 1-1/4 inches…instead of 1-3/4 inches….mistake number 5.  I spent a fruitless 2 weeks trying to re-find more fabric on line…ordered it twice…it came in VERY purple-y…not blue.  Finally Jeannie found me another blue that I could use….so I finally completed that set of blocks.  AND finally Michael had a golfing tournament that included dinner…he was gone from NOON until 7 PM, so I excitedly starting laying out his quilt on my studio design wall.  That was a nightmare in itself…I thought I had screwed the whole thing up…was writing every 5 minutes to BG on IM about how it was ALL WRONG and I didn’t understand how Janice didn’t see it at retreat, since she was helping me lay it out on the floor.  Well….it was just my brain going wonky again…I HAD done it correctly…Janice HAD kept me on track at retreat.  The problem was, I needed additional blocks for color numbers 4 and 5…..and I already cut up and used that fabric in the new quilt I started  :~(.  So, now I start ripping apart rows so that I can cannibalize blocks out of them to make other rows and I finally figure out that I am 4 rows short and that that will make this rectangular quilt into a square quilt….not big enough for Michael :~(.  I pile everything back into a box and put it in the corner of my sewing room and am thoroughly depressed and not sure where I want to go from here.  Fast forward to the end of November when I have my regular Tuesday morning time with Nancy H.  She convinces me that of course I can get another whole top done by Christmas….and I believe her!!!!!  Jan and I go shopping the next week and I get all new fabric (I did get to use 2 colors from my stash…so only had to get 6 additional) and I begin again.  I won’t go into the trials and tribulations of the second quilt…these mostly relate to the weather and how it interfered with Michael going golfing…and so interfered with me working on the quilt…and all of those days on the blog when I just said I was sewing on things (and NOT getting my food gifts done…a fact that Michael noticed :~), but it is finally done and my honey LOVES it…so, it was all SO worth it.

 

Stay tuned for the 2nd day after Christmas project.

 

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As for what else happed on Friday (12/26), it was a beautiful day….it got into the 60’s and the sun was shining.  Michael spent time at the golf course doing some practicing…I had a lovely visit from Jan…we got to talk a lot and she got a very long scarf all bound off, and I finished off Michael’s quilt.  At one point I was downstairs sewing, and Michael was on the computer, and we had company....both squished together on one of the small sofa throw pillows:

 

 

For dinner we were invited to Paula & Doug’s house….and Jeannie & Jim were there when we arrived.  Paula made shepard’s pie for dinner (now why don’t I ever make that…it tasted great….I think everyone had second helpings...and maybe thirds  :~) and green beans.  There was a lot of lively discussion during and after dinner, and we played SCREWED and SHEIST for a couple of hours, and fit dessert in there as well.  It was a very nice evening and we didn’t get home until after 10:30.  We did just a bit of reading and then headed to bed.

Chistmas pics...

Merry Christmas Eve!  We woke up to a gloomy, rainy day here in South Carolina…a good day to stay home and play!  However, my very good friend Jan has a cold and feels lousy, so I ran to the grocery store and bought the ingredients for Mexican Chicken Soup, then went to her house to get it going in the crockpot. At least with everything else she has to do, she won’t have to worry about dinner for a couple of meals.  The store was a ZOO!!!!  It’s only because I love Jan so much that I was willing to go…the good part of it for me was that I decided to pick up a few extra ‘puffy things’ for us to have Christmas day….hope Michael likes them  :~).    Michael went through our HUGE pile of mail while I was gone (we both HATE mail…it never stops…just keeps coming and piling up until finally one of us…mostly my honey, tackles it), and we set about paying our bills and doing various other paperwork when I got home.  We got a little cleaning done and by 2 PM we were ready to kick back, relax and start our holiday fun.  Michael was on his computer while I tackled some mending (!) that has been on the back of my sewing chair for MONTHS!!!  It’s all part of the clean up campaign which will be going on from now until the end of the year :~).  I also got a bit of regular sewing done, and in the evening, we had an official start to our Christmas viewing, can you tell which movie it was?

 

yep....AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER, with the suavest of the suave....Cary Grant.  We we watched by candlelight

 

while snuggled up together on the couch.

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Merry Christmas!!!  We started our day with the traditional mimosas,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and a new breakfast: a mushroom quiche with a cheddar/parmesan crust….yum! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While we were eating, my neighbor Anne came over to show off her Christmas gifts.  A few weeks ago I told Bryce (her hubby) how much Anne seemed to enjoy one of my charity quilts.  I told him I would sell it to him and donate the money if he was interested in buying it.  We wrapped it up, along with the knitted ascot in tones of rust and burgundy.  Anne came across the street wearing both the ascot and the quilt :~). 

 

She said she literally squealed with joy and surprise when she opened it….guess I did the right thing by mentioning it to her hubby.  She stayed for a small piece of quiche (and never let the quilt drop from her shoulders, even while she was eating it!) before heading back home.  Michael and I continued to open our gifts every 2 hours….the funniest gifts were when we both got each other ITUNES gift cards….great minds think alike :~).  We also exchanged: a book on Paul McCartney, an off set spatula, a set of bowls for the kitchen and all 4 of the Indiana Jones movies.  Our holiday movie watching continued with GALAXY QUEST , after which we had some homemade puffy things for dinner: 

 

Michael wanted to read his new book after that…and I wandered downstairs to do a bit more sewing.

Joanne and I left early Tuesday morning (12/23), and we were both pleasantly surprised at how empty the stores were (Kohl’s, BB&B, World Market & Joann’s).  We were in and out of each quickly and were home just after 11, with everything on our lists.  Michael came home shortly afterwards from his own errands and we packed up bunches of food/drink treats and headed off to deliver everything.  That took a couple of hours and we both relaxed once we got home.  Michael was playing pool while I was trying to clean up my sewing area, and we actually played a game together (I am terrible!)  We had a yummy pasta/sauce/cheese casserole for dinner and watched SEEKING A FRIEND FOR THE END OF THE WORLD in the evening (a library DVD).  It was an interesting and ultimately good movie.  We also finally finished watching the special effects disk for STAR WARS before falling into bed.

Michael ran a bunch of errands on Monday (12/22) morning (chiro, pet store, BJ’s & Harris Teeter), since he cancelled golf as it was rainy and cold, and I spent more of the morning and early afternoon starting to write our post-holiday missive for 2014 and finally starting the quilting on the blue/tan quilt I made earlier in the year.  Since I now know that I can stop my quilting when I am 1/2 way through, and come back to it and be able to start back up in the right place…I stopped in the late afternoon and headed over to Jeannie’s for a visit.  She and her honey went to Joann’s and she picked up a few things for me.  She also made her first run of homemade Bailey’s…..yum….as of course she said I had to test for quality control since it was my recipe  :~).  We had crab cakes and baked potatoes for dinner, then just watched TV for the rest of the evening.  I ripped out the knitting I had just started (for the SECOND time) and went back to casting on for a new hat.  I have a lot of leftover wool from knitting my entrelac sweater.  I usually don’t do charity knitting in wool, and didn’t know what I was going to do with the leftovers.  Of course my friend Nancy H had the solution…she knits for an Indian Reservation where they don’t really have modern laundry facilities, so most clothing is washed by hand…perfect for wool things, so when I am finally finished using up all of the yarn, I will mail it off to Pine Ridge.

 

new hat

Michael left for golf here at SCCL around 9:30 AM on Saturday (12/20), even though it had rained overnight and was very cold.  He came home at 12:30, after having played 9 holes, chilled to the bone.  I read a bit in the morning and cleaned up the kitchen from candy making, then headed downstairs to load up a backing and batting on Miss Scarlet.  I hope to do a bit of quilting after Christmas, so if you want to see how to load the machine, or how to stitch something out, or anything else connected with long arming….drop me a note (or leave a comment) and I will make a list and call you whenever I’m doing whatever it is you are interested in.  I made onion rolls in the afternoon and at 5:30 we headed over to Ann Mary & Jim’s for a wonderful crockpot meal.  We had Jim’s beef stew along with green beans and the rolls.  They had apple pie and ice cream for dessert….yum!!!  We played SHEIST and SCREWED and talked for a LONG time after cards.  It was a really nice evening.

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We both had a lovely oatmeal breakfast on Sunday (12/21) while sitting in front of the fire and reading the paper.  Then it was off to our various tasks…I was banned from the upstairs for several hours, and Michael was banned from the downstairs while we tried to pull our respective Christmas presents together. I spent a bit of time continuing to sew together blocks from the design wall, and in the evening we settled in to watch the last of our STAR WARS movie.  We started to watch the ‘extras’ disk….and finally shut it off at mid-night (it wasn’t finished yet) to go to bed!  I did finish a new hat while we were watching the movie:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cracker Toffee

Friday (12/19) was all about cracker toffee.  It started out to be about dark chocolate, caramel, pretzel, sea salt bark…but apparently I can’t make caramel even with a candy thermometer, so I dropped back to my old favorite…cracker toffee. 

setting up after cooking in the oven



bagged and ready to go

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I got 3 runs of that done, which took quite awhile, and was reading my book in between when it was in the oven.  I had a long visit from Reed Baxter, who sold us our house 8 years ago.  We got caught up on families and everything that was going on.  At 5:30, Susan & Jim picked us up and we headed to dinner at MAMA RICOTTA’S (ravioli with sage/butter sauce…heaven!), and then on to Actor’s Theatre for TRAILER PARK CHRISTMAS MUSICAL and the returning characters from Armadillo Acres.  It was just as funny as the original and we all enjoyed it.  We were home by 10:30 and read for a bit in front of the fire before heading to bed.

ascot #2, Cookie & Elsie

I spent the morning and the early afternoon at quilting on Thursday (12/18).  I’m not sure anyone got as much done as we usually do on a Thursday, but we certainly all had fun.  I did finish another ascot while I was there,

 

watching all of the show and tell people brought.  When I got home I finally decided to tackle some of my super wide backing fabric.  I bought a bunch of 108 inch wide backing fabric, which is really nice because it is a pain in the you-know-what to sew together 44 inch wide fabric for backing.  Anyway, I got it for a really good price, which I intend to pass on to my quilting customers.  I cut a piece for a quilt I want to complete and got it all ironed (and believe you me, that was no small feat).  We had company in the studio: 

 

By then it was dinnertime and Michael made latkes (in honor of Hanukkah) while I had leftover pizza for dinner.  I read my book for a lot of the evening while Michael watched TV.

ironing board, minty crisps, lights on outside tree

Wenesday (12/17) started with good news/bad news.  The bad news was…it was another morning where I woke up at 3 AM, and finally decided to get out of bed at 3:30…the good news was…I got an awful lot done between 3 and 7  :~).  A couple of days ago my honey trash picked a new ironing board for me….Phil fixed the legs on the bottom and Larry gave me padding for the top…and I made a cover this morning.  It took me a bit of time to finish because as I was threading the thin rope through the casing on the underside to pull it taut...I was about 7/8 of the way done, when the rope pulled off of my safety pin.  I had to pull it out and start all over again  :~(.

eventually when this cover wears out I hope to buy some of that silver, teflon type
stuff to re-cover it with...but I was glad to find the green ticking fabric
at 4 AM in my stash!!!

 

I spent the rest of the morning getting things ready (still) for my after Christmas fun…and the afternoon making more food gifts.  I got 2 runs of minty crisps made and my honey got them all bagged up. 

please don't ask what it is with me and blurry pictures
because I have no idea!!!  these minty crisps
are setting up.

 

 

bagged and ready to go!

 

 

 

He made tortellini’s for dinner, after which I had my regular SKYPE time with Janice.  We watched a bit of TV afterwards and I finished knitting another ascot…just have to weave in the ends before picture taking time…

 

My honey finally got a picture of the tree outside of our house….Paula always organizes the neighborhood into wrapping their trees with white lights…it looks absolutely beautiful as you drive through the streets. 

 

 

This year Michael decided to add a little decoration to the tree as well

 

 

yep…those are golf balls hanging from our tree :~).

Caramel Popcorn

I fired up the oven early Tuesday (12/16) morning and got started on more food gifts.  I got 2 runs of caramel popcorn with peanuts done before Joanne picked me up for Stitch & Chat.  My honey ran a bunch of errands in the morning…including getting a patch for one of our tires with a nail in it :~(.  When he got home, he bagged up all of my popcorn production. 

baking it....

cooling it...

bagging commences!

 

When I got home from S&C, I fired up the oven again and made 2 more runs of popcorn, in between cooking a pizza for dinner.  Michael left for the movies with Larry to see EXODUS (which he said was basically a re-make of THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, but with better special effects), and I finally finished baking and bagging everything up at 8 PM.  I have 31 individual bags of deliciousness and 1 gallon bag for the golf club staff.  I kept trying to talk myself into sewing…but was just too tired, so I sat and read until after 10 when Michael got home…then fell into bed.

Even though there was a frost delay on Monday (12/15), Michael left for golfing at Fort Mill by 9 AM.  I headed to the store to pick up bagels sliced on the bread slicer, and 3 toppings (whipped butter, port wine cheese spread & garden cream cheese) for our Christmas party for volunteers.  This is the FIRST Christmas party we’ve had in 8 years!!!  I asked people if they were interested in bringing food to the last meeting of the year and everyone was very enthusiastic…and of course, I had NEVER seen at least 1/4 of the people who attended…free food always bring certain people out  :~).  We had a very short meeting and our election of officers for 2015.  The election was very emotional for me, for a number of reasons that are too long to go into on the blog, and when the time came to vote, I did what I thought I would do….I didn’t vote….I decided to leave it up to God.  It turns out that God (and the voters) think that Ida and I have been doing a good job as co-presidents, and we were re-elected.  This means that I will have less free time next year (I spent a LOT of time in 2014 working on stuff for volunteers), but I think we will again have a good year in 2015.  I had a few errands to run after the meeting and didn’t get home until 1 PM.  I spent a bit of time reading and a bit of time sewing until my honey got home from the course with a score of 85.  We talked for a long time (at the Volunteer meeting I found out several additional things about a recent drive we had that I was not happy about), and I think it was good to get a lot of things off of my chest.  Anyway, at 5:30 PM we picked up Ginny & Ken and met 12 of our other neighbors at STICKY FINGERS for dinner (a BBQ/rib place).  We had a good dinner, and retired back to Anne & Bryce’s for dessert and conversation afterwards.  It was a very pleasant evening after the stress of the day.

new alcohol inks, apron embroidery, humbug bags

Michael went golfing here at SCCL on Saturday (12/13), but came home unhappy with the result….his score was still in the 80’s, but he said he had no consistency with his shots what-so-ever  :~(.  I had a visit from Beth, who picked out fabric for 2 humbug bags, and a visit from Jan, who helped me with some quilting/ironing.  Other than that, I spent the day happily sewing away.  Michael and I dressed up and left the house close to 7 PM for a Christmas party at Martha & Harry’s.  What a delightful time…there was SO MUCH FOOD….all lovely finger food that Martha made…and SO MANY DESSERTS…I must admit I had 1 cheesecake bite and it was heaven.  There were several people we knew and many more we didn’t, so it was nice to meet and talk and hear all of the stories from someone new.  We were home after 10 and read for a bit before heading for dreamland….

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So….I’ve been working on a couple of secret projects for my after Christmas fun and on Sunday (12/14) I finally felt like I might actually succeed in getting them done!  My honey spent time reading in front of the fire….trying some new techniques with his alcohol inks…

 

and watching a bit of golf.  In between sewing on secret things, I managed to embroider an apron for my friend Beth…for one of her grandkids. 

it says Daddy's Diner...as she always helps her dad when he cooks

 

I also made 3 humbag bags…

 

 

Beth wants to buy 2 of them as Christmas gifts.  Finally at 8 PM, I headed upstairs and collapsed on the couch to watch TV with my honey.