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I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, if you celebrate it. My boys got a little pose in to celebrate the occasion.

Poor Rico was so traumatized by having antlers on his head that he hid behind the couch for an hour to recover. He’s so sensitive. Bender suffered no ill affects.

I had today off work. I love having the day after Christmas off. It’s a lazy, easy day with no obligations and no responsibility. It was a good way to prepare for a very hectic work week.

I wanted a few things out of this day. Number one, I wanted a good night sleep. So I took some Advil PM before I went to bed last night. Number two, I wanted to sleep in… nothing specific to get up for. I got that done too. Number three, I wanted to stay home all day, putter a little and maybe actually get some things done. which I did. Number 4, I wanted to start work on finishing a UFO quilt that has been sitting unfinished for far too long.

It was really rainy all day so we didn’t get a walk. But we did get a little excitement. I have four dogs in my house again this evening and this was all unplanned.

Holy cow… that’s a terrible photo, but it serves as proof that they were at my house and being taken care of.

I got a text this afternoon from their mom that she was in the hospital and had to have her gallbladder removed. She asked if I could take her boys. So I met her neighbor at her place and gathered Ernie and Bogart up, along with all their stuff, and brought them home. It’s likely that their owner will be going home from the hospital tonight, but I’ll keep these boys until tomorrow afternoon. I’m glad I was here to help her out.

After some rambunctious play when they arrived, everyone needed a nice nap.

I had a nice Christmas holiday. I had friends over for dinner on Christmas Eve. I usually go all out for this meal. Most years I cook traditional northern Italian fare from my childhood. But I wanted to do something different this year, so here’s my menu (click on the dish to link to each recipe):

Bacon wrapped pork tenderloin. I found this recipe in this article. If you like thinking about delicious things to make for Christmas, you should take a look at this article. It certainly got my salivary glands moving! Here’s a photo of mine when it came out of the oven. This recipe is definitely something I’ll make again. (I just got up and ate a couple pieces right out of the fridge!!! It’s so yummy, even cold!!!)

The meat is rubbed with garlic, Rosemary, olive oil and other spices. Next time I make it I’ll probably put it under the broiler at the end for a few minutes to crisp up the bacon.

Waldorf Coleslaw. I make this recipe a lot! Partly because it’s a favorite of one of my dinner guests. And partly because I just love it! And I’m always happy that it makes a lot because it keeps for a few days in the fridge and I love having it for leftovers.

Roasted Kuri Squash. I had never had Kuri squash before. I helped harvest this from my brother’s garden when my friend and I visited earlier this year. Kuri is one of the winter squashes. This recipe is made using coconut oil and maple syrup and lovely warm spices that go so well with the squash and with the season.

It was fun to eat this squash that was grown by my brother and his wife. My sister in law even tested this recipe for me a few days before Christmas because the recipe said it wasn’t necessary to peel the squash. She informed me that it, indeed, was not necessary to peel the squash.

Asparagus with olive oil and garlic. I didn’t use a recipe for this. I just put the asparagus in a zip loc bag and put in a little olive oil, a couple cloves of chopped garlic, salt and pepper. Then I cooked it in a skillet on top of the stove.

For Dessert I made a Meyer lemon cake. I made this cake for Christmas a few years ago and remembered it and wanted to make it again this year. You should know that I’m not a baker. I rarely bake. I think it’s been ten years since I made cookies. About the only time I bake is at Christmas. This is a really good cake. You start by simmering a pound of whole Meyer lemons in water until they’re soft. They you remove the seeds and puree it all in the food processor… skins and all. It’s a little more involved than I would normally make, but it’s worth the effort.

You have to separate five eggs, whip the yolks with sugar, and beat the whites into soft peaks. This is not the type of thing I would normally do. But, it is Christmas after all!

Here’s the finished product. I served it with a dollop of vanilla ice cream.

I was really happy with how it all turned out. It was fun to watch my company eat seconds and thirds of everything!

Christmas Day I had most of the day to myself. I took the boys for a nice long walk. Opened some gifts and made some calls to friends and family. Then in preparation for heading to a friend’s home for Christmas dinner I whipped up the stuffing I volunteered to make. My friend made a turkey breast and legs for dinner but didn’t want to make stuffing. Her husband was so disappointed, and so was I. So I volunteered and she was all over it.

I made a recipe that a friend of mine has brought to my last four or five Thanksgiving dinners. it’s a good recipe. I’ll definitely make this one again.

I did not opt to add water chestnuts. What kind of lunatic puts water chestnuts in Christmas stuffing?

That’s mine all ready to go into the oven. It came out all crispy and brown. So yummy! You could easily make this recipe with the regular bread stuffing rather than corn bread. But the corn bread is really good.

I had a great time at dinner last night. We laughed a lot and ate a lot of good food. Once I got home, I took the dogs out for another walk. I was so stuffed that I was physically uncomfortable the entire walk! I just wanted to get home, take my pants off, and lay down the sofa. Which I did!

So, back to today.

I actually made it into my sewing room and fired up my Bernina! I’ve decided that I want to finish up my Jewel Frames quilt top before my New Years weekend is over. Here’s the quilt all laid out on my design wall (and floor) a year or so ago.

When I took it down from my design wall I carefully stacked and numbered each row and placed them all in a project bin.

All I have to do is sew each numbered stack together into a row and then sew the rows together.

I got two rows completed tonight and then sewed those rows together.

This quilt will be another one for my bed. It’s 9 blocks by 9 blocks. I’ll also put some borders on it to make it big enough.

My friend gave me this kit quite a few years ago… maybe six years ago. I added more blocks than the throw-size kit provided. It’s a free pattern that came with my kit, but a quick Google search gave me a couple of places to get the pattern. I can’t vouch for the sites that are offering it, so I’m not including a link here. You’ll have to go find it yourself.

I mentioned in my last post that I had ordered a couple of quilt backings. The first was Kaffe’s purple damask flower which will eventually be combined with my recent orange/pink/purple quilt top.

That will be a bold quilt when it’s done, but that purple for the backing gives me a very good reaction!

The other backing is this Philip Jacob’s design. It’s called Luscious. The color way is ochre.

I mean… COME ON!!! Isn’t that the most amazing fabric! I don’t have a quilt in mind for this fabric as of yet, but I do have a couple of ideas.

Here’s one idea. I found this quilt on Pinterest. Unfortunately, someone pinned it in a way that it doesn’t acknowledge the maker. I would like to give someone credit for this. It’s basically larger fabric squares (which would be this fabric) alternating with 25 patch blocks. It will be fun to find fabrics to combine with that gorgeous luscious.

I feel like this pattern might be in one of my many Kaffe books but I haven’t had time to look through them yet. It would be easy enough to figure it out without a pattern. I would want to figure out an efficient way to make those 16 patch blocks. They are very random, but they could be made with somewhat random strip sets put together in some what random ways. I’ll noodle on it.

Tonight is my regular melancholy ending to a long weekend. The good thing is that I’ll be really busy this week so it will fly by. Then I’ll have another long weekend and I’m thinking I will try to take an additional day off next week. If the weather cooperates, I might take a drive to the coast. That would make me, Bender and Rico all very happy!

I’m sitting in my warm and bright living room tonight listening to the wind blow and the sleet hit the windows. It will probably turn to freezing rain at some time tonight. I stepped onto the patio and scraped up some of the ice balls.

As these little ice balls pile up they solidify together and become a sheet of treacherous ice. The streets are already looking pretty slick.

But I’m really happy to be in a warm and bright house tonight. My power went out around 9:30 this morning. It was windy all night long and continued today. It’s cold too. Actually temps in the 20s. Wind chill takes it down to the low teens. A power line a few blocks away was knocked down and it affected my neighborhood, while the the street that runs parallel to mine never lost power.

It was a long day of waiting for the power to come on and trying to work on my phone and iPad (both operating on cellular connection), and watching the temperature in the house steadily get lower and lower. I did several meetings for work and kept on top of email, but that was about all I could do.

I took the dogs for a walk around 11 am, thinking it would be a good way to warm up. So I bundled up and headed out. We walked for about 2.5 miles. It was blustery and cold, but it was dry. When I got home the 60 degree house felt nice and toasty!

I ate a sad little lunch of crackers with butter (because Bender ate my half-loaf of bread while I was in the shower) then had a couple more meetings. Around 2:30 I took my phone and iPad to my friend’s house one street over so they could charge. Then I took the dogs for another 2.5 mile walk. It was still dry and blustery. I stopped at the park on the way home to let the dogs run free for a while. Then I dropped the dogs off at home and headed back to my friend’s house. They gave me a nice hot cup of coffee, filled some thermoses with hot water, and filled a thermos with some hot soup. The husband then took me for a drive to see if we could locate where the power outage was and we found four power company trucks about a half mile from my house. They were working on a downed power pole. It was a relief to know they were on the task. They estimated that the power would be back on around 6 pm.

My power actually came on around 4:30 and it was the most amazing feeling! I was so relieved that I wasn’t going to spend the night in a cold house! It’s amazing how wonderful a bright and warm home feels!

We had an ice storm two winters ago. You can read about that storm here. It’s kind of scary to see another one approaching. They can cause huge amounts of damage and power outages that can last days.

I’m going to work tomorrow morning and then take the afternoon off. My plan is to get my house ready for company for Christmas Eve dinner. I also need to plan out my menu and when to make what. It looks like the weather will keep me at home so It’s a good thing I got all my grocery shopping done earlier this week.

The fabric my friend purchased for me at her local quilt store that’s liquidating their KFC fabrics arrived earlier this week.

I bought a few yards of that white buttons fabric on the far left because I thought it would make an interesting neutral background for something… much more interesting than a solid white background. I saw a quilt made with this as a background earlier this week and it was interesting.

I bought the two pieces of feathers in the center because they’re so gorgeous!

The black octopus on the far right…. well… I just love it and have a kind of ridiculous amount of it. I have two pieces of it that are each large enough for a quilt backing. This piece is four yards. I have no plans for it but it makes me feel happy to know it’s in my stash.

Then a few days ago I got an email from Hancocks of Paducah… who is having a nice sale on KFC fabrics. So I purchased two pieces that will be eventual quilt backings. One for my recent orange/pink/purple quilt… this one…

The other one for a quilt that will be made FOR this particular backing. I have an idea on this. I’ll share more when this fabric arrives. It’s already in Portland, according to my package tracking info. Happy Christmas to me!

Yesterday was the winter solstice. It’s usually a good day for me. I really dislike how early it gets dark in the winter. I really do LOVE the long summer evenings with hours of light. I always think that if I can make it to the winter solstice, I can make it through the dark winter. I love knowing that the sun is slowly coming back to these northern climates.

I took the boys for a walk yesterday afternoon in the glorious sunshine of the shortest day of the year… when the sun is as far south as it will get.

It was a nice walk.

We decided to take another walk last night in the dark… knowing that bad weather was on the way. When I got home I was greeted by an un-invited quest in my kitchen.

Yup. That’s a mouse perched atop my backsplash. OMG!!!

It’s not unheard of to see mice in the house when it turns cold. I probably get a mouse or two every couple of years. So I pulled out my mouse traps (I always keep some on hand) and set a couple in the kitchen.

Then later last night I went into my guest room to find a Kaffe quilt book and noticed two intact hazelnuts on the floor next to the closet.

What an odd place to see two abandoned hazelnuts. So I had the bright idea to set a trap in that closet.

It’s very common to catch a mouse the first night you set out traps. So when I woke up this morning I checked all the traps I set. Nothing in any of the traps I set in the kitchen. But when I checked the trap in the guest room closet… there he was. Departed. Former mouse.

So the first thing I did (well, the first thing after disposing of the recently departed one) was to clean and disinfect all the kitchen counter and backsplash surfaces. It’s a relief to know that my hunt was successful. I’ve left a couple traps set in the kitchen and one in that closet just in case this guy invited his friends. But I’m thinking he was it.

I’m looking forward to this storm being over. Hearing on the news tonight that two major interstates around Portland are closed. I’m really glad I don’t have to travel anywhere.

Keep you fingers crossed for us!

It was another crazy week. I don’t know where all the time went. But it’s the weekend with just one week until Christmas and I’m enjoying some free time.

I didn’t get any sewing done at all this week. I feel like I didn’t have the time. Part of the reason is that I have visitors again. These two hooligans showed up on Tuesday after work.

They’re really good boys. They get along really with Bender and Rico and my boys just accept them in the house. And they’re pretty easy to take care of. But I have twice the number of dogs in my house that I usually do. So there’s extra work and effort involved.

They will be here until Monday evening.

The end of the calendar year is a really hectic time if you’re a fundraiser. So I’ve been swamped at work. The rest of December will only get worse. Luckily, we get a bit of a reprieve after the first of the year. I’ll probably take a couple days off. And my friend who visited last September is planning another trip in February. So that’s something to look forward to.

So with all that… not much sewing has been happening. But there has been fabric. My friend called me last weekend to let me know one of her local stores was liquidating all their KFC fabrics so everything they had was half off. She sent me photos and I had her pick up a few pieces for me. I was a little disappointed I didn’t see anything I thought I needed for a backing. A half off sale is a great time to purchase fabric for quilt backs. These fabrics will arrive on my door step on Monday.

Some really exciting fabric stuff happened today. Many months ago I pre-ordered some fabric from the Kaffe Fabulous at 85 collection and it finally arrived in shops last week. The collection is all rebooted out-of-print Kaffe designs. I didn’t buy everything from the collection, but I bought enough.

I typically buy half yards when I’m stash building. But these fabrics will only be on the market this one time. So I bought a yard of each. And I know I’ll want more of some of them and will regret not having more.

I mean… look at this!!!

And this…

That photo shows the entire yard of fabric, so you can see how big the scale of the design is.

And speaking of scale… this photo shows one of the original Kaffe oriental trees in green, and the new blue version from this collection. The scale of the new print is much larger.

And now I’m wondering if all these fabrics are at a larger scale than the original designs. I don’t remember hearing anything about it. Maybe I missed it.

It’s a quiet night here at my house. I have four dogs who are all sleeping soundly so I’m laying back and having a quiet night myself. Tomorrow morning I’ll go and play pickleball and try not to freeze my ass off. Then I’ll come home and start finalizing my menu for Christmas Eve dinner. I’m making some bacon wrapped pork tenderloin with a really good Waldorf coleslaw that I make often. It will work really well with the pork. I’m going to make a really yummy lemon cake for dessert. Now I just need to decide on another side and a veggie. I’ll share my recipes later once I get everything planned.

And here’s these knuckleheads making themselves comfortable on my new quilt!

I haven’t felt very inspired the last few weeks. I’ve been looking at the work of others and thinking about upcoming projects. I have a lot of ideas, but I’m having a hard time finding the inspiration to get into my sewing room and get something done.

But tonight I forced myself to get in there and get something done. I’ve been planning to make some pillow cases for my new bed quilt and the fabric arrived a week or so ago. So there were no more excuses. It took me about 1.5 hours to get these two pillow cases done. And I’m really happy with how they look on the bed!

I’m so glad I went the pillow case route rather than making some kind of shams. I just don’t think my life is formal enough to justify shams. But these simple pillow cases make it look more finished while not being to involved and complicated.

As a reminder, this is the tutorial I used for the pillowcases. I followed the pattern for the queen size pillows except that I cut four inches off the length and I’m glad I did. There would have been way too much fabric flopping on that open end if I hadn’t.

One thing I love about these pillow cases is that they’re made with the burrito method, which means you sew the pillow case body and accent band inside the cuff (the pink stripe in my pillowcases).

You roll the full width of the pillowcase into one long burrito and then sew one long seam. The accent band and body of the pillow case are all rolled up in that burrito.

Then you turn it right side out and all those raw edges are buried inside. It’s really quite brilliant!

Here’s one pillow case with that burrito seam sewn and all turned right side out.

The side and bottom seam are French seams. The third side is on the fold.

A French seam means you first sew your bottom and side seams with the wrong sides of the fabric together first. Then you trim the seam allowance, turn the pillowcase wrong side out, press it, and sew a 1/4 inch seam all the way around the sewn edges. So all those raw edges are contained inside they seam allowance. This photo shows me approaching the sewn corner of this pillowcase.

They’re really beautifully finished and really easy to make. I really appreciate things that are well made.

Several years ago I made about a half dozen sets of pillow cases out of batiks and gave them as holiday gifts. People loved them. I still have one set left in my drawer. I should pull them out and use them!

Here’s more photos of putting these pillow cases together tonight.

It was a bit of a dreary week here last week. There were at least two days that were so rainy we didn’t get out for a walk at all. Days like that are really difficult and my boys are almost sad on those days. I get a lot of this on those days…

We did manage to have a good weekend. Rico had his regular sheep herding lesson yesterday and then we stopped for a nice field run before we headed home.

The creek that runs along this park had left its banks and my boys thought that was so much fun! The creek was so deep they actually got a little swimming in.

They are quite sure that I should be throwing sticks.

On Saturday evening I had an impromptu pot luck dinner and a few hours of conversation with friends. It’s been a few months since I hung out with these friends as a group and it was a great and much needed evening.

I met another friend for brunch today to celebrate the holiday and exchange our gifts. It was a lovely meal of delicious lattes, beignets and eggs Benedict. After that, Rico had another sheep herding lesson and he was brilliant! It was a lot of brain work for both of us and I was happy with how we did.

I didn’t get home until a little after 4:00. The good news is that I got my outside holiday lights up earlier this week and I was welcomed home by warmth and happiness!

I took that photo the other day after I got the lights and wreaths up. It wasn’t quite dark enough to show the lights well. But I just love coming home and seeing my outdoor lights on. It’s so nice to have them all on a timer. I love seeing them when we come home from our night time walks. And we did get a nice three mile walk in once we got home.

I love sending holiday cards every year. I like to have the cards ordered by Thanksgiving. And that gives me a couple of weeks to get them all written, addressed and in the mail. I got the bulk of them done on Friday night.

I sat down t my dining room table and finished up around 40 cards. I dropped them in the mail Saturday morning.

I’ll finish the rest of them up in the next couple days and have them in the mail before the week is over.

After the rainy streak we’ve had over the last 10 days or so, we have a clear streak coming up. But it also comes with some cold.

I’m perfectly happy to trade some warmth for some sun!

The most amazing thing that happened this week was that I walked past a free table in my neighborhood that had a brand new Patagonia rain coat in my size and my favorite color!

That was a pretty sweet find! It will probably last me the rest of my life.

I haven’t hit my sewing room since last Sunday. Honestly, I just haven’t been inspired to. I’m thinking that I went on such a feverish productive jag over the last couple of months that I’m a little burned out.

So this week I’ve been thinking a lot about future projects… I looked at a lot of pictures, savored color and fabric combos, bought a pattern or two, and spent way too much time on Pinterest. I also ordered a few more pieces of shot cottons for my stripes and shots quilt, as well as some KFC Fabric to make pillow cases to go with my new bed quilt.

An order of a few more pieces of shot cottons arrived a couple days ago. So I did get into my sewing room tonight and pressed and cut a few more strips for the stripes and shots quilt. I now have 20 sets cut and ready to go. That’s half of what I’ll need for this quilt.

I have a few more pieces of shot cottons that should arrive this week, then I can start pairing up the duplicate strips of the solid shots with the additional 20 unique stripes I have waiting. I may start sewing these pairs together this week. I want to sew them on my Featherweight.

I had one last quick project I wanted to make tonight for a holiday gift at the request of a friend… before I put my Bernina away for a few weeks.

Several years ago I made a bunch of “corn bags” for friends and for people at work as holiday gifts. Basically, they are a flannel bag containing feed corn that you can put in the microwave and use as a heating pad or to help take the chill off. I was first given one by a sister in law many years ago and I used mine so many times and so often it literally fell apart!

This time of year I heat mine up a couple of times every day to warm my hands while I’m working. I just get so cold sitting all day and when it gets dark so early.

I make two different styles. One is a simple rectangle about 8×12. The other kind is about 7×20 and has baffles or section filled with corn. It’s great to throw over your shoulder, around your neck, or to wrap around your hands.

Since I had made a bunch of these a few years ago I still had some feed corn in the garage and had pieces of flannel left over. I like to use a dark flannel since it will get lots of use and the corn bags are not washable. If it gets too dirty and ratty, you just have to throw it away.

I start with cutting a piece of flannel 8 inches by width of fabric. Then I trim this folded piece to 8 inches by about 20.5 inches — so unfolded it would be 8 inches by 41 inches. .

Then I press a 1/2 inch hem along one long side of this piece.

Once that 1/2 inch hem is pressed, fold this piece of fabric in half, right sides together, so that what were the selvedge edges are together. Sew along the long edge that does not have the hem pressed over and one short edge. Use a 1/2 inch seam allowance. Leave the long hemmed edge at the top un-sewn.

Turn this piece right side out and press. It should now measure 20 inches by 7.5 inches.

Using a piece of chalk or a chalk pencil, mark off five four-inch sections.

The edges with the folded hem should line up nicely. You will basically have a long flannel pocket with five open sections. Sew along each of the lines you marked, back tacking at the start and end of each line of stitching.

Now it’s time to fill these sections with corn. I get 50 lb bags of whole feed corn at the farm store. You can buy smaller quantities on Amazon but it’s a lot more expensive.

Make sure you get whole corn. You don’t want to get cracked or ground corn. And you want feed corn. Not seed corn.

And for the love of God… don’t use pop corn!!!

So, why do I use corn instead of rice? The corn seems to hold the heat longer. I think it also holds up better over time than the rice.

To fill the bags I make a funnel from a piece of paper and some tape. I put about 1-1/4 cups of corn into each section. You can adjust to be as full or loose as you like.

Once the corn is in the first section, hold up the bag so the corn falls to the bottom, away from the opening. Then put in a couple of pins horizontal to the opening to keep the corn away from the opening so you don’t sew over corn when you close this.

Continue filling and pinning until you have all five sections filled and penned.

Then take this whole thing to you sewing machine and stitch one long line along the open tops of the bag, making sure to keep the two sides of the bag with the folded hems lined up so that your line of stitching catches both edges.

And that’s your corn bag. I heat mine on high heat for 3 minutes. You should test this out in your microwave and for your personal preference. I like mine really hot! Try 1-1/2 minutes first. If that’s not warm enough, try 2 minutes. Go up in 30 second increments until you find the right time for you. Be careful because you can get warm and cold pockets in the corn. I shake mine up a bit when I comes out of the microwave.

When I woke up this morning it was snowing. We don’t see a lot of snow in Portland and people usually do panic a bit when a storm comes through. It snowed almost all day. This is looking out the front of my house across the street during the early afternoon.

Here’s a view of my back yard first thing in the morning.

After snowing most of the day, here’s the accumulation we got.

It’s a little sad as snow storms go. But it was a great day to be inside and warm just watching the snow fall.

Since it wasn’t much of a day to be outside, I managed to get my living room cleaned and got my basic holiday lights up.

I love having all these lights during our dark and dreary winters. It makes me feel so much better and makes the house feel warm and cozy. I don’t typically put up a lot of holiday decorations. I might pull a few out of the boxes in the garage, but for me it’s really all about the lights.

I also took advantage of a snowy day inside and got most of my Christmas cards addressed. I’ll work on them over this week and have them all ready for the mail later this week. Here’s the photo I took for my card this year. I wanted to show one of my quilts and just couldn’t leave the dogs off.

We had a few windy days early this week and it all brought down a lot of leaves.

I have two huge Sweet Gum Maples on the south side of my back yard. They provide lovely shade to my yard during the summer months. And they drop A LOT of leaves all through late November and all of December.

My yard guys came on Wednesday and got them all taken care of. That’s a lot of leaves!

They were working in an absolute downpour. But once they were done and gone, the sun came out.

One of those big trees is still full of green leaves. I’m glad my yard guys will be back next week.

I’ve decided I’m going to make pillow cases to go with my new bed quilt, rather than making shams. I had hoped to use fabric from my stash rather than having to purchase more fabric, but I didn’t have any pieces that are in the quilt that are large enough. So I ordered a couple yards of the Lotus Leaf fabric, shown at the bottom of this photo. That will be for the body of the pillow cases.

The cuff and accent band will be made from the stripe and zigzag that are from my stash. All three fabrics are in the quilt. The zigzag is left over from the backing and the stripe is left over from the binding. So once the Lotus Leaf arrives I’ll be ready to go.

I’ve made a god number of batik pillow cases over the years. I’ve given a lot of them as gifts in sets of two. Here’s the pillow case pattern I use.

I went and played pickle ball Saturday morning. It was cold and windy but the sun was out. Someone took a photo and posted it on Facebook. I’ve drawn a black arrow to show where I am on the court. I’m wearing a teal fleece and black baseball cap.

Happy work week!

I really dislike the Sunday of a four-day weekend. There’s something a little melancholy to me about the last day before heading back to work. The more the day passes, the more I feel it. So I’m savoring my last few hours before it’s back to the grind.

I wasn’t terribly productive in my sewing room this weekend. I was VERY productive today outside my sewing room.

After a leisurely breakfast I took the boys out for a nice four-mile walk. It was good for all of us!

When I got home I started stripping beds and washing bedding. I washed four loads of bedding. I washed the sheets on my bed and on the guest bed. Then I had an extra set of sheets from the guest room to wash after having two sets of company a couple weeks ago. The last load was a new set of flannel sheets I bought last spring that I wanted to put on my bed.

Here’s the new sheets. They are Christmas dogs!!!

I love climbing into a bed at night that has fresh sheets on it! And flannel sheets when it’s cold are extra special. I might actually have to go to bed early tonight!

And… I put my newly finished quilt on my bed.

Now I need to make some pillow cases and some curtains!

Once I had laundry going I pulled my turkey out of the fridge and pulled all the meat off the bones and got my stock going for turkey soup.

Turkey soup is one of my favorite things about Thanksgiving leftovers. This smelled so good as it simmered for a few hours. Then I strained it all and put in some noodles and left over turkey scraps.

I got four containers filled and in the freezer and there was a bowl leftover for my evening snack! Mmmm.

I did get into my sewing room at around 8:30 tonight and I pressed and cut the fabrics for six more sets of strips for my woven stripes and shot cottons quilt.

It takes a good amount of time to press and prep these strips. I felt like this little bit of work was quite an accomplishment. I still have a few more shot cottons on their way to me so I’ll wait until I get them to cut more strips. I may start sewing on these later this week.

I am cutting two of each shot cotton as I go.

I have a total of 16 sets of fabrics cut so far.

One thing I love about pressing these fabrics is getting a really good, close look at each one. They are so gorgeous. Look at the colors in this one… and the color variation in each stripe. It’s just so amazing!

While I was up in Battleground, WA, yesterday for Rico’s sheep herding lesson, I met a friend for a field romp with the dogs. I got to meet her teeny tiny puppy, Robbie. He’s a Phalene breed. Basically, a floppy eared Papillon.

I just loved him! He’s crazy tiny… only about 7 lbs at 7 months old. He won’t get much bigger. He is really spirited and a little pistol! It will be fun to watch him grow up and take on some exciting dog sports!

A lot of this goes on when it’s rainy. They want some action!

It’s a good thing they’re always game for a nice cool walk.

I almost always take the day after Thanksgiving off of work. And I made sure of it this year because today is my birthday! I’m going to dinner at a friend’s house later this evening. Here’s some pretty flowers a friend of mine sent me.

She sends me flowers every year and they’re always beautiful and last forever!

I had hoped to take the boys out for a nice long forest walk today, but it’s been raining all day. So I ran a bunch of errands first (dropped a package at the P.O., picked up some dog food, went to the bank, filled up with gas, and ran to JoAnn’s to pick up a purchase) and found myself with some free time to play with some crumb pieces that I’ve had in a bin in my sewing room.

I needed the product I picked up at JoAnn’s for my afternoon project.

Is it odd that I’ve been sewing as long as I have and have never had a pair of pinking shears? You would think that I would have had a use for them before now.

Well, today’s project called for them. Here’s today’s project. Read on to see how I landed on this.

I ran across this tutorial for some fabric tree ornaments a week or so ago. I thought they were cute so I printed out the template and dug in. Well, It was a little too fiddly for me. Hand quilting, although I love the look of it, is not something I’m going to do. It also turned out really small.

It was a bit of a mess and I didn’t enjoy making it. Definite indications that I won’t be making another one!

So I started thinking about how I could accomplish the same basic thing but make it easier and less fiddly. Here’s what I landed on.

I pulled out my bin of left over crumb pieces. I picked out the smallest and oddest shaped ones.

Then I used the template from the tutorial I linked to above and cut these crumb pieces into tree shapes.

I used a ruler to cut the long sides of the tree and used some small scissors to cut the bottom and trunk.

Then I took the little trees I cut out and lined them up on a scrap of fusible fleece (glue side up).

Using my teflon sheet over the top, I hit this with the iron to adhere the crumb trees to the fleece.

Then I cut the fleece to be the same size as the trees.

Next, I lined up all the trees with the fleece facing up and hit it with some spray basting.

Then I arranged this sticky little trees on some scraps of fabric, wrong side to wrong side. I cut 7 inch pieces of thin red ribbon and tucked the ends between the backing and the crumb tree making sure that the ends were about 1/2 inch below the top of the tree — I wanted to be sure I would catch both sides of the ribbon with the topstitching to come.

Then I used my walking foot to topstitch around each tree, leaving enough beyond the topstitching that I could pink the edges. I made sure that I was catching both ends of the ribbon at the top in my topstitching.

Once the top stitching was done I used my new pinking shears to trim away the edges of the fabric and fleece.

I pushed the ribbons to the side as I trimmed each side of the top point of the tree. I was very careful to not cut the ribbon. I was successful almost every time.

Just to prove I’m human, here’s a picture of one I messed up. I cut through the ribbon on one side and almost completely pinked through the trunk!

Oops.

Here’s a few close up photos.

They turned out much better than the one I made from the tutorial. But rather than ornaments, I think they’d make great little gift tags! If you use a backing that is lighter and not too busy, you could easily use a sharpie to write someone’s name on the back.

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. I found that my plans changed at the last minute and I ended up having Thanksgiving by myself. And I actually enjoyed it! I played pickleball for four hours in the morning in the fog! I was a little surprised there were so many people there! I had a blast. I took the dogs with me and tossed the ball in the park for them before we headed home.

When we got home I rested with a few icepacks for a while then started cooking. I bought a 13 lb turkey and spatchcocked it to cook it. Basically, you remove the back bone and press the down on the turkey to flatten it (have to break some bones) and you cook it flat. I cooked it at 450 degrees for about 1.5 hours, and that was it! The dark and light meat cook evenly so your don’t dry out your breast meat trying to get your thighs and legs up to temperature.

Here’s a terrible picture of the turkey when it came out of the oven. There’s a reason I don’t write a food blog!

One of the things that had me most excited about cooking a turkey is the giblet gravy.

My mom always made giblet gravy. I’ve made the gravy for my potluck thanksgiving with friends for years, but I’ve never made giblet gravy because most people don’t like giblets. This giblet gravy made me so happy.

I made a limited meal… only the things there are the most important to me on Thanksgiving: Turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes and giblet gravy.

It was a very brown meal but it was very good!

Happy day after Thanksgiving! It’s time to get ready to head off to dinner with friends to celebrate my birthday!

I made a bunch of these ornaments last year and decided to write up a quick tutorial for them. They’re a quick, fun and easy make. They make great gifts, or are even fun tied to the top of a package. It’s great to have some on hand to give to people who visit during the holidays.

I made these using some of my Kaffe Fassett Collective scraps but you could use any scraps you have on hand. For me, the more colorful and bold the better!

Materials:

1. You’ll need two different fabrics for the front. One for the top/sky section and one for the bottom/snow section. (more on the fabrics I used below)
2. Some fun fabric scraps for the trees. I used Kaffe Fassett Collective Fabrics. You can go crazy here!
3. Some light Heat and Bond, used to adhere the trees to the background.
4. Some thin ribbon or cord to hang the ornament by
5. Poly-fil stuffing, or other stuffing you like.

I used this polkadot fabric for the top/sky…

And this fabric for the bottom.

I used the same white fabric for the back of the ornament.

You can really use any fabrics you want. You can make it a daytime scene by using a white on white dot, or a light batik dot, or even a snowflake batik or white on white. You could use solid white for the bottom or white with black swirls, or a batik that has different shades to it, or even something with some silver in it.

Here are a couple batik options that would work for the sky.

I wanted to have a night time scene with snow on the ground. I like the fabrics I used because the polka dot makes it look like it’s snowing in the dark. I thought the bottom fabrics made it look like hills, but several people have commented that it looks like animal tracks in the snow.

Cutting and assembling the ornament body:

Cut your top/sky fabric 4.5 inches wide and 3 inches high.

Cut your bottom/snow fabric 4.5 inches wide by 2 – 1/4 inches high.

Sew these two pieces together along the long sides using a 1/4 inch seam allowance and press the seam allowances to the dark fabric.

This piece ends up being 4.5″ wide by 4-3/4″ high. I leave an extra 1/4 inch for the seam allowance at the bottom. The larger 1/2″ seam allowance at the bottom makes it easier to close the opening.

Cut a 4.5″ x 4-3/4″ piece of fabric for the back of the ornament. I used the white fabric.

Making and applying the trees

I fuse heat and bond to the back of my scrap fabric first. Then use this template to cut the three different size trees needed for the ornament (I round the corners a little when I cut them). Download the PDF file and print it at 100%. Make sure that it’s the correct size once printed. I made a 1 inch mark on the template to help you verify it’s printed at the correct size.

From the scraps left over from cutting the trees (with heat and bond on the back), cut three 1/4 inch by about 1 inch pieces for the tree trunks. I cut the trees and trunks from the same fabric. You could use a contrasting or brown fabric if you like.

Peel the Heat and Bond paper from your trees and trunks and arrange your trees on your pieced front piece. Tuck your trunks up under the bottom of each tree leaving about 1/2 inch sticking out at the bottom. Using your iron, carefully fuse the trees and trunks to the front of the ornament according to the Heat and Bond instructions.

Make sure you leave enough room at the bottom for the 1/2 inch seam allowance!

Stitch around the edge of the trees and trunks. I used my regular foot, but you could do this with free motion quilting if you like. This photo shows the stitching well.

Cut a length of thin ribbon or cord 6 or 7 inches long and sew the ends to the right side of the center top of the front of the ornament. Here’s an example.

Finishing the ornament

Next, with right sides together, sew the front and back of the ornament together with a 1/4 inch seam allowance on the top and sides, and a 1/2 inch seam allowance on the bottom, leaving an opening at the bottom. This larger seam allowance makes it easier to close the ornament once it’s stuffed.

Here’s an illustration of how I sew these pieces together. Note the blue lines of stitching. These lines of stitching make closing an opening so much easier! I use this trick on any opening I have to close.

Trim off the corners making sure you don’t cut through the stitching, then turn your ornament right side out. Gently push out the corners and press the piece.

Stuff it with the Poly-fil to the puffiness you like, gently pushing stuffing into the corners. Hand-sew the opening closed with a thread that matches your fabric, and you’re done!

Feel free to share this tutorial with friends.

I didn’t get much of anything done this weekend. I played pickleball Saturday night with one of the clubs I belong to. They rented an indoor pickleball facility in Portland and only club members could take part… at no cost. I played from 6 pm to 9 pm!!! I don’t think I sat down for more than 60 seconds or took a break longer than the time it takes to get a few sips of water. I had a blast and slept so soundly last night.

Which was a good thing because I got up this morning and played pickleball again! I played for nearly four hours! It was really cold when I got to the park at around 9:30. I played for the first two hours with my gloves on! Luckily they have some grippy patches on the palms and fingers. Although it was cold to start, it was nearly perfect by the time we were done! And I’m exhausted! I think I’ll have another good night sleep tonight.

I took the dogs with me to the park and tossed the ball for them before we headed home. They had a great time and the enthusiastic run was so good for them.

Then, after a little bit of rest after getting home, we all headed out for a three mile walk before it got dark.

After a dinner of left over roasted chicken, potatoes and carrots, I hit my sewing room to start pressing and cutting the woven stripes and shot cottons.

I ended up with 40 different stripes that I’m going to use in this next quilt.

That will give me a really nice variety of fabrics. I have 16 different colors of the Kaffe shot cottons. I went online to Missouri Star again Friday and ordered seven more colors that I don’t have. I wanted to have a little more variety in the solid colors.

So once these fabrics arrive I’ll have 23 or so colors. I’ll use two of almost all the solid colors in the final quilt. That will give a nice variety.

So I selected a group of stripes/shot combos that use one of each color of the shots. I don’t want to make any further pairs until I have the additional colors. Here’s the first set of stripes/shots combos.

Then I started pressing and cutting.

I decided not to prewash these fabrics. I thought about it for a couple days, even posted a question on the Kaffe Fassett Collective Facebook page. I got advice from a good number of people… pretty much evenly split on whether or not I should prewash these fabrics. Let me just say that I never prewash fabrics.

A couple of people whose advice I respect and trust advised that there was no need to prewash. One of those people was Liza Roos Lucy. She works with the Kaffe Fassett Collective designing and making quilts that appear in Kaffe’s books, and has more knowledge and experience with these fabrics than anyone else you’ll find. So with her advice my decision was made.

It takes a good deal of time to press these fabrics. They are a bit wrinkly and crinkly, even after pressing them.

But I think that’s one of the things that makes them so wonderful. They are so earthy and natural! All the crinkles and irregularities are part of what makes them so appealing.

I’m using Best Press when ironing these fabrics to add a little stability and make them easier to work with.

I typically use a mask while working with Best Press because it gets into my lungs and makes me cough. And I had to order more Best Press. I’m not sure I have enough to finish pressing and prepping the fabrics for this quilt.

I got ten stripes/shots 2.5 inch wide pairs prepped and cut tonight…. and it took a long time!

Those colors remind me of this photo of stones in a lake in Glacier National Park. The colors are rich and vibrant, but they feel very natural… definitely colors you would find in nature.

While I was cutting I cut two strips from each of the shot cottons, knowing that I’ll need those two strips for this quilt. Might as well save some time and trouble.

After pressing and cutting my fabrics they still felt a little damp so I draped them all over the back of my sewing chair to dry before they get stowed away again.

And it made me wonder if there’s a way and a place I could store these without folding them so I won’t have to press them all again. Maybe a flat cardboard box under my guest bed. Hmmm. I might actually have the perfect box in my garage. It should sure save a lot of time the next time I cut!

I’ve decided that I’m going too use this layout for these fabrics.

And now I just have to decide if I’ll set these blocks on point. I think this quilt will be infinitely more interesting if I set them on point. I’ll decide once I have some blocks done and on the design wall.

A short work week coming up. I will enjoy it as work will be really hectic until the end of December.

I took a quick weekend trip up to Seattle to see my 95-year-old aunt with my brother and sister in law. My brother and SIL arrived at my place on Friday afternoon. We got up Saturday morning and were on the road to Seattle by 9:30. If traffic is good, it’s about a three hour trip. We made good time and were there early in the afternoon.

My aunt is 95. She is the only remaining sibling of my mom’s. She is in amazing shape. Sharp as a tack and in great physical shape. She still lives alone in the house that she raised her kids in. She goes up and down her stairs five or six times a day!

It was so much fun to get to see her. She was always very light hearted and fun, and it’s no different now. And she’s teeny tiny! She’s going to be 96 in a couple weeks!

After my brother and SIL went to bed Friday night I sat in the living room and asked my aunt all kinds of questions about my mom. One that I’ve wanted answered for a long time is why my. mom didn’t wear a white wedding dress. She wore a beautiful teal suit instead.

She told me it was because my dad hadn’t committed to converting to Catholicism until it was too late to plan a white dress and wedding mass. My aunt was married a week later. She said they would have had a double wedding if my dad had committed sooner.

I was pretty sure I still had my mom’s wedding suit So when we got home on. Sunday I dug into my cedar chest, and I was right. There it was, and I was horrified to see that is was moth eaten.

My SIL modeled the suit. It’s such a beautiful color, and my mom’s waist was tiny! She’s not actually IN that skirt. She’s holding it up at her waist.

While I was digging around in my cedar chest I found my dad’s army dress coat from WWII.

I took the granny photos with me to deliver to my cousin and my aunt gazed at them all weekend long. My nephew was even going to leave them at her house for a few days because she was enjoying having them.

On Sunday evening three of my cousins and their spouses came for dinner. My SIL, my brother and I made some traditional family food — polenta and beef with brown gravy, served with some tasty pecorino cheese and a gorgeous green salad. It was accompanied by wine from my cousin’s winery. It was really fun to see everyone. It’s been a long time since we were all together.

We hit the road for home Monday morning and were on the road by 10 am. We made really good time and were back at my house in time for lunch and a nice walk with my boys. Oh, and Ernie came with us!

I took some pictures of photos my aunt had displayed in her house. They brought back such strong memories from my childhood.

This is my grandfather… my mom’s and aunt’s father. He immigrated to the US from Northern Italy around 1918 (my grand mother traveled alone and joined him in Wyoming ten years later). The second image of him as an older man was blown up from a photo of him on the sofa with me and my siblings. I was a baby at the time. I have a photo that was taken at the same time somewhere.

Haha! I found it!!! that’s me on my sister’s lap at the far left. My brother that lives in Oregon is the one sitting at my grandpa’s left.

Here’s photos of my grandfather and grandmother. My grandfather died when I was five. He was the only grandparent I ever knew. My grandmother died when my mom was pregnant with me.

And this last photo is of my mom and her siblings. That’s my mom in the dark dress in the center on the chair. My aunt that I visited is the baby on the far right. Her twin is the big boy on the far left.

My mom was the middle of five children. I just love this photo. It was probably taken around 1927 or 1928.

While I was gone my shot cottons arrived in my mail box. I pulled them out tonight and refolded them. Amazingly, the cuts are really generous. I bought half yards and most of these measured a full 21 inches! I can cut a 2.5 inch strip and still have a half yard of each piece.

That pictures shows why these shot cottons are so special! Look at all that color and texture. You can see the depth of color in each piece. GAH! Their so amazing!

So I had to see what they look like with my woven stripes…

They’re so rich and earthy. I can’t wait to see this all come together!

Here’s a little more eye candy…

And a little closer view…

Gorgeous! I think I’m going to make a 16 patch from these fabrics first. Then I’ll think about other ideas for these gorgeous stripes!

It’s clear and cold out there tonight. It’s the first night this season that required a parka on our walk!

I love walking in cool weather! So do my boys. But I have to say, I’m already a little tired of the darkness. Today it was pitch dark before 5 pm. By December 21 when the days start getting longer, it will be completely dark at 4 pm. I can’t wait until the days start getting longer.

We have a few cool and sunny days coming up, and then the rain comes back on Monday. I will enjoy the sun while we have it. I’m happy to take cold weather if it means we get some sun!