Post-Thanksgiving

Hi everybody, hope all of us in the U.S. had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Timothy and I spent Thanksgiving Day hiking in north Georgia. We packed in our turkey sandwiches, pumpkin pie, and apples and ate at the end of the trail next to waterfalls falling over and in between 90' tall granite slabs. We had some heaven-sent wet weather to help Georgia's terrible drought, complete with blustery wind sending the leaves everywhere, falling temperatures, and it was fabulous. The only thing that could have made me happier was a blizzard. I love violent weather (the kind where nobody and nothing gets hurt :-) ). You could even hear the very strong winds blowing through the forest and what a miraculous sound, made me think of home.





Oops did the wrong color combination for Block Swappers earlier, so got this group done that is due December 1st, and will be able to use the earlier combination for next month.


And got this stitched out this morning before work. It's a design that I digitized a few years ago in PatternMaker. Next I'll age it and then use it in a project.

Thanksgiving Day

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. I hope everybody has a lovely day today, with no stressful accidents as the poor Vogue dolls are having above. This photo was caught by a good friend of mine, Betty. Betty makes miniature foods, as you see here, in addition to styling these incredible doll dioramas. We both have Vogue doll collections, inspired by our childhood when we each had a 50s Ginny doll that was new at the time LOL. To think they are 50 years old now. I can think of walking into that hobby shop in my hometown as if it were yesterday as they say.

Thanksgiving Menu (driven by need to have WW low-points dishes)

Turkey

Dressing (double fiber bread, faux butter)

Fat Free Gravy

Relish Tray

Sauteed Red Cabbage with Apples

Mashed "Potatoes" with Fresh Chives (mostly cauliflower)

Peas and Pearl Onions

Pumpkin Pie (fat free evap milk, faux sugar)

Jo Morton Show and Tell November

It was a phenomenal Show and Tell this past Tuesday at Jo Morton Little Women Club:

And finally, a pair of shoes found at the secondhand store last night that will receive a decorative coat of paint, hopefully tomorrow:

Pencil Sketch

Came across this sketch I did after seeing a wonderful antique quilt at the old ELCO show in Michigan in the 1970s. The colors were exactly the same, incredible bronze for the stem and leaves, deeper even more gorgeous bronze for the flower centers and an old barn red for the petals. The notes say that the large blocks were set 3 x 4, and that there were varying shades of red, burnt orange, etc., for the outer borders. These days I would have snapped a photo with the digital and drawn it in EQ. Wonder where that quilt is now.

Crying Into My Quilts

Not to dwell on Misery, but Regular Work took a dramatic turn for the worse this past week. Didn't know there was any more downwards space available for that to happen. Brought in three handmade items for a quick refresh of the display areas around the media center. Thank goodness for a UFO Stash :-) :



Note the simplistic mottos so beloved by government bureaucracy. If anybody can think of one for the middle item that is on the door to my "office", do let me know and I will add it with alacrity. Will these displays win me any brownie points? They will not. I reside there as a stranger in a strange land.

Too tedious to explain why, but this sewing machine arrived Friday at Regular Work from the warehouse. I had chosen it weeks earlier, along with other broken-down items that the poor schools can get from the rich schools that have discarded them as unusable junk. It turns on and the needle goes up and down. Progress. But does anybody know what that thingie is sticking out to the left?

On the up side, had an absolutely delightful day yesterday working at the LQS. So busy, interesting, and fun.

BOMs

Whoa, Second Saturday Sampler is coming right up and the BOMs were not done until now:

Getting At It

The sewing room is rearranged and much improved. To celebrate, I made this curtain from Moda sampler fabric (using up two yards from stash in the process) to go across a storage cubbyhole (intended to hold firewood, I guess, but it's holding quilt paraphernalia now mais bien sur.

Now not only do I have fabric stash, but I have upholstery fabric stash. Three pieces bought several years ago and never stitched up. The other two pieces both feature elephants and are wonderful but today's project was making a table topper of sorts out of the third stash-ette for my antique wooden box that, if left unprotected, gets scratched up by the kitties:

This fabric may not show up very well, but I was attracted to it because it looks just like those small woven antique textiles from the early 1900s. Don't know what you call them, but I have a few. It would be so nice if I could whip up those other two pieces as well.

Finally bit the bullet (the $100 bullet) and got the glass table top I have long been visualizing to protect my treasured ultra-primitive linoleum-topped farm table. That linoleum couldn't have taken another inch of shabby chic-ness :-). Can cats scratch glass??


And this just looks like a normal fireplace, I know, but for the past year or two, there have been two large art tables in front of it and a large metal desk to the side of it that I've used for quilting. It's fun to have the fireplace back again:


Tried out the new Sidewinder today. It threads bobbins separately from your machine. Well, it's a bit loud and clackety and has a few foibles but I guess I'm glad I have it. Can't stand unthreading the machine.


This was a lucky thing for me. I ordered a yard each of these colors online. After some time had passed and no arrival, I emailed to ask about it, the order then got miscut to half yards, and the dealer just sent the extra half yards along in addition to the yard cuts.


And finally here is a favor from Houston, bestowed on us at the LQS.

Saturday

It is so hard to catch a picture of Jack.

Look at this fungus thing. It's a foot across.

This is the first set of blocks I made for Blockswappers; we each get a set of 12 assorted back, all in brown and beige. The dark brown is from my stash, an old Documentaries from Benartex. Next set is brown and pink, both from stash, the brown a Nancy Halvorsen (Harvest to Home, again from Benartex) and the pink, heaven knows, no marking and it has ancient zig zag scissoring on the edges:

Finally got the working part of the house rearranged and looking much, much better. Boy, now I am ready to get on with quilting and art.