roses, asti, living room clean-up, 3 dudes quilt off frame

I’m beginning to think these roses aren’t real!  Here they are, Sunday (11/29) morning…they are TWO WEEKS old:   

 and they are still gorgeous.  Now Michael would tell you that it’s because I keep the house so cold it’s like they are still in refrigeration :~).  Today is the day we were doing Thanksgiving…. so we started off with mimosas, and finished off the bottle with just straight Asti….heaven!   

 We both spent a pretty lazy day and it was wonderful….Michael finished a library book….I got my tables cleaned off (I thought I had before pictures…but must have deleted them….TRUST ME….there were 2 HUGE piles on top of the end table, and lots of mess on the bottom of the glass one….they look terrific now) 

and we took a long golf cart ride to drop off some Angel Tree tags and to look at the new construction in and around Sun City.  Michael made potato/carrot mash to go along with our turkey, stuffing, gravy and rolls.  The turkey was so tender…this was a boneless/skinless turkey breast I got from ALDI’s last year….I bought 3 of them and they were all great.  We spent about an hour downstairs after dinner and I got my quilt off the frame, trimmed, and the bobbin ends all sewn in.  

 The rest of the evening we watched TV and I continued knitting on a scarf.

outdoor decorating, Cookie & Elsie, quilting done on 3 dudes quilt, new dog quilt

As I ran out the door Saturday morning (11/28) to run to the store, I saw the rest of Michael’s outdoor decorating:  

Why yes…those ARE golf balls hanging from our swirly tree :~).   

By the time I got home, the house smelled like heaven, as Michael had made his traditional omelet before heading off to golf here at SCCL.  He said he wasn't going to keep score as his back was really still hurting....but he eventually came home with an 86 and seemed very happy.  I made my own smurfy egg sandwich and headed to the studio to start quilting.  Every time I came upstairs for something….there was sharing going on:     

I spent all day on the THREE DUDES quilt 

and by 7 PM is was done…with barely a quarter inch of batting leftover….WHEW!   

This was the last piece on my roll of batting and I was hoping it would be big enough.....and it was, but just BARELY!!!  While it was stitching out, I did manage to sew together another Clinton School quilt…these embroideries were provided by Joyce…a woman in the Machine Embroidery group.   

 

After sewing it together I got borders on it and it is ready to be quilted (this is one of the 10 quilts I mentioned yesterday).  Michael and I had leftovers for dinner, then watched TV while I knit away on a scarf for Clinton.

Christmas Food Day with Pat W, Michael stringing outside lights

My honey made me a fabulous toast/cheese/bacon/egg for breakfast on Friday morning (11/27) so that I was fortified to dive into my “day in the kitchen”.  He left then to take Cookie for a walk just as Pat W showed up around 9:30 and we dove right into making stuff.  Pat made dipped pretzels, 

cracker toffee, 

nut clusters 

and tiger bark.  

I made 6 runs of white trash 

and 2 runs of cracker toffee.  Pat C stopped by around 1 PM to pick up her quilt.  She is giving it as a gift to someone in SCCL and asked that I not post the picture until after she has given it….so you’ll just have to be patient :~).  By the time Pat W. left at 3 PM, we were both beat!  I cleaned up the kitchen and lay like a dead thing in the living room...reading, while my honey strung our Christmas lights on our outside tree and porch post.   

I finally roused myself enough to go downstairs to survey my quilting situation. When I first got my long arm….it didn’t work for quite awhile…and once it started working, I did a lot of practicing making dog beds.  When I finally felt like I kind of understood it, I quilted every quilt top in my house!  It was a fabulous feeling.  As time went on this year, I pretty much kept up with quilt tops I was making….but then I got a bunch of customer quilts, and my piecing kind of accelerated and I now have TEN….TEN quilt tops in my house!!!!  Granted, I did 3 during retreat, and one is a donation from BG when she was here in July but still!!!  So, I see a bunch of quilting on Miss Scarlett in my future!  Michael & I had wonderful Thanksgiving leftovers for dinner, courtesy of Keith & Sharon and I got the backing placed on Miss Scarlett for my last quilt for Sterling School for this year.  The top is the THREE DUDES quilt pattern that I worked on strictly at Scrap Happy Quilters on Thursdays for many, many months.  Loree is completing the same design…all with batiks…it is so beautiful…I can’t wait until it is done.  I finally headed upstairs around 8 PM to veg and watch TV for the rest of the night.

Christmas cactus, Thxgiving at Ken & Sharon's

Michael’s Christmas cactus is blooming and he took a picture Wednesday morning (11/25) 

wish my mom were here to see it

before heading out into the COLD morning for golf.  I headed downstairs to start quilting on the new customer quilt.  I was shocked when I heard footsteps upstairs at NOON….when Michael fell during the last performance of the play, I showed you a picture of his elbow, but he also hurt his back.  It was hurting so badly during golf that he came home early, and then headed out for another chiro treatment.  When he came home he announced that he was supposed to be icing his back….15 minutes on to 45 minutes off….so he spent a couple of hours resting and icing.  In the meantime, I spent all day and into the early evening completing the quilting on my latest customer quilt.  I had to rip out part of a row, so that slowed me down quite a bit, but by 7 PM I was finally done.  I started to sew in the bobbin ends and got just one set done before Janice and I had our weekly SKYPE session.  Once again, we couldn’t see each other  :~(.  You know, we ALWAYS used to be able to connect, but since SKYPE stopped supporting their previous version, and forced me to download a new one, in about 15 tries I would say we’ve actually seen each other once…..pretty poor new version.  Anyway, around 9 I headed upstairs to snuggle with my honey and watch TV.

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Happy Thanksgiving!!!  We had a very productive morning on Thursday….while Michael took Cookie for her walk, I made cranberry sauce, a chocolate pie with a cinnamon graham cracker crust, rosemary rolls and homemade Bailey’s (for a hostess gift, but of course I had to try it to make sure it was good  :~).  When Michael came home he cleaned up the kitchen for me, then we both got to relax for a bit.  I finished off my latest book THE DEVIL”S CAVE and it was very good.  Just before 3 PM we packed everything up and headed over to Ken & Sharon’s.  Pat & George arrived shortly afterwards and we had a great time talking and drinking and eating appetizers.  Ken & Sharon have a beautiful home and an incredible bar in their basement….I’ve never seen anything like it.  We sat down to eat around 4:30 and there was so much food I think it took 15 minutes to pass all of the dishes before we could settle in to eat.   

Ken (host), Pat, Michael, Myrna (Sharon's aunt) and George

Myrna, George, Sharon (host)

Everything was terrific and we sat around talking until 8 PM when we finally started packing to leave.  Our hosts insisted that we take home leftovers, so we all packed up several TOGO containers.  When we got home we were kind of tired and just plopped down on the couch to watch TV for several hours before bed.