Sister's Choice Quilts

Fall Quilts Around the House

This will be a photo-heavy post.  I have a ton of fall and Halloween quilts that I love to display at this time of the year.  I thought it might be fun for you to take a little tour with me around the house.  In some of the photos, the lighting isn't so great, but you get the effect.  Click on the photos to enlarge and see more detail.

Hall table.

Mantle.  I changed it up this year and am really happy with it.

Detail of arrangement with pheasant.

Nine patch and oak leaf quilt on the table next to my reading chair.

Fun Schnibbles quilt from a few years back.  Glass pumpkin collection on ledge in back.

As you see, I have a lot of these seasonal table toppers...  I can pretty much put one on every table.

Coffee table in the living room.

Even Eva's tv table gets a quilt.

Kitchen island.  Another Miss Rosie Pattern- Little Bits.

Dining room buffet.  If your quilt is too big, you can always drape it down the back and it still looks fine.

Dining room table.

Hope you enjoyed the little tour.  I have Major.Jet.Lag.  For two days I woke up at 2:00 AM raring to go.  Last night I made it to 4:00 AM.  It is killing me.  So tired.

 

 

Until Next Year

We have had such a fabulous trip to Ireland this year.  Each time we go, we find new things to explore and enjoy.  The photo above is of the Giant's Causeway in Bushmills, Antrim County, Northern Ireland.  We had never been to Northern Ireland, and it was breathtakingly beautiful.  I had no idea the scenery was so dramatic.  We are standing on a cliff at the very top of Ireland.

These weird basalt rock formations are what Giant's Causeway is famous for.  Very dramatic.

We took a tour of the Bushmills Whiskey Distillery, which was quite interesting.  Since my son in law is a winemaker, it was pretty fascinating to see the similarities and differences between winemaking and whiskey-making.  Both use white oak casks for aging.  Winemakers are continually tasting their product, using big baster like implements to draw wine out of the barrels for tasting every few months of the aging process.  Whiskey makers don't actually taste at all.  The pros just smell a sample of the product and know how it is doing.  It makes sense, doesn't it?  Imagine taking a sip from hundreds of whiskey barrels.  It would not be good for a person.  At the end of the tour, we had a choice of having a glass of Bushmills 12-year-old whiskey to sip, or having a whiskey cocktail.  I went with the cocktail and it was delicious.

Well, it is time to go to the airport for the 11-hour flight home.  I hate saying goodbye to Ahren, but he will be home for Christmas, so I won't have to wait long to seem him again.

Thank you Ireland, it has been amazing.

Bookshops of London

Londoners certainly appreciate their bookstores.  I have a number of favorites which I always try to visit when I can.  Daunt Books is in Marylebone, a fancy London neighborhood.  When you go in, it is like entering a church.  Doesn't the light from that back window set off the shelves of books?

My number one favorite bookstore experience may be Foyles.  When I enter I literally hear angels singing.

All the bookstores we went to were heavily promoting Margaret Atwood's latest book "The Testaments", the sequel to "A Handmaid's Tale". 

Just look at this special edition of Jane Eyre.  

Next up was Waterstones, which was really into The Handmaid's Tale.  It gives me an idea for an easy Halloween costume...

This amazing shop, Hatchards, has been in business since the late 1700s.

We have been taking the Underground everywhere and were discussing between ourselves how interesting it would be to find a book about its history and creation.  What do you know?  Hatchards had one.  It must weigh ten pounds though, so it will not be coming home with me.

If I lived in London, I do not think I would have a dull moment.

By Popular Demand

I'm at Fortnum & Mason and I'm Never Leaving

We had been to Fortnum and Mason previously but had never taken the time to explore the lower food court.  Fortnum and Mason is known for their selection of teas, and that is what we had concentrated on.  We were really missing out on an extraordinary experience.

I never realized how extensive their offerings were.  In our English novels, some character often appears with a "hamper" full of F&M delights for a romantic picnic, but seeing it with my own eyes was mind-blowing.  I expected cheese and wine and perhaps some exotic jams, but who knew they had a produce section and a butcher's stand?  I am just going to share some pictures, as they speak for themselves.

If you can't tell what you are looking at, they have assorted hams that can be sliced right off the leg.  I know.  It kind of made me take a step back too.  I am interested in where my food comes from, but that is a bit up close and personal.

Wish I could have brought this home to Eva, but I don't think it would have survived the journey.

Yesterday we had a VIP tour of the Harry Potter Studio.  I may have been photographed on a Quidditch broomstick...

Loving London

We are having such a great time in London.  We've had gin cocktails at a Victorian/Steampunk style place called Phineas Foggs.

I got to visit Daunt Books in Marylebone.

And  I picked up the new Tracy Chevalier book A Silver Thread.  Tracy wrote The Girl with the Pearl Earring if you recall. This latest book is about Violet, a young woman who has been made very much alone by the loss of her fiancé in WWI.  To support herself and make a life that is meaningful to her, she joins a group of women who do embroidery for Winchester Cathedral.  After WWI, due to so many men being lost, there was a huge surplus of single women with no prospect of ever marrying or having families of their own.  This book explores the "thread" that ties women together as well as how these women were trailblazers at a time when single women were considered a pretty worthless drain on society.  I can't wait to read this one!

We saw the changing of the guards and toured Buckingham Palace.

We took a boat ride down the Thames.

And had cream tea with scones in the Cotswolds.

We really are having a fantastic time.  We toured Buckingham Palace yesterday, which was amazing.  That being said, we felt very "herded" through things, and there was an awful lot of just standing around waiting for things to happen, like the guards marching by etc.  We also toured Kensington Palace, which was pretty blah imho.  They do have a lot of Queen Victoria memorabilia, which was very interesting to me.  Do you watch the British TV series Victoria on Amazon?  It is so good.  Anyway, a lot of her gowns were on display and it was wonderful to inspect them close up.  Did you know when her dear Prince Albert died she went into mourning for the rest of her life and never wore anything other than black dresses and a gold charm bracelet he had given her? 

We are doing a tremendous amount of walking.  T.r.e.m.e.n.d.o.u.s.  Between 6.5 and 7 miles per day.  With luck, I won't gain weight from all the clotted cream and jam on the scones I have been consuming at every opportunity. 

Our Favorite B&B

Our favorite B&B is one we discovered two years ago by a happy accident.  We had planned a drive to the town of Enniscorthy and there was a mixup in our hotel reservation.  The hotel employee recommended a B&B outside of town called Anam Cara, which luckily had room for us.  We drove over to meet the owner and discovered the place to be not only welcoming but extremely luxurious.  We clicked immediately with Moira and Michael, the owners, and have included a stay there every year since.

It turns out, that Moira lived in rural California for some years, in the town immediately next to ours!

She has her personalized license plate on the wall in her kitchen.  The girl has a sense of humor, that's for sure.

This year there was a couple from Virginia who was visiting as well, and we had a lovely time drinking wine and getting to know them in the cozy living space.

That big bathroom is not typical of what you normally find in Ireland, I have to say.  But I sure did enjoy that tub and the luxury bath products Moira provides her guests.

 

Our bedroom was palatial, and we enjoyed a great night's sleep.

The breakfast we were given each morning was enough to get us through most of the day.  We started out with a fruit parfait and finished off with eggs, toast and smoked salmon!  And do you see, Moira has the same Royal Albert china I have at home?  I knew we were kindred spirits.

The town of Enniscorthy has lots of things to see, but I have to say, we didn't want to leave Anam Cara we were so comfortable! By the way, the name Anam Cara means Soul Friend in Irish.

 

 

Kilkenny and Waterford

We are off to a great beginning with our trip through southern Ireland.  We left on a three-day drive in the south of Ireland and had a lovely time when we stopped in the colorful city of Kilkenny. I am not even sure what this alley full of umbrellas was all about, but it sure caught my attention!  At the time we were there, some sort of rugby competition was going on between Ireland and Wales, and everyone was wearing the town colors (black and yellow) and were walking around looking like big bumblebees.

We had been years ago, but felt we had to return to the crystal making factory in Waterford.  The tour there was fascinating.  Watching the skilled craftsmen work with the hot leaded crystal was awe-inspiring.  Somehow lumps of glass are formed into shapes and then blown, cooled, heated again in kilns and then magicked into vases, bowls, glassware, trophies, and other items.

On the tour, one is guided through the various stages of how prestige crystal pieces are formed, etched, and carved.  The fellow in the photo above is cutting grooves in a crystal bowl.

This was my favorite piece.  It is called The Four Seasons Bowl.  Each quadrant of the piece is etched with designs that represent a specific season.  That is Fall that you see above.  You could have this bowl to decorate your table for around $1500

I had to get a photo of this magnificent piece to show Eva.  It is Cinderella's Coach.  It is hard to see the scale of the piece in the photo, but it is about 24 inches long and maybe 8 inches tall.  

We ended the day by taking a drive out to see Hook Head Lighthouse, the oldest working lighthouse in the world.  Located at the end of a narrow finger of a peninsula at the southern tip of Ireland in County Wexford, it has been keeping ships safe for 800 years.  

We are having lovely weather, as you can see.  What a pleasant change for us, as when we left our area of California it was 99 degrees.  It has been in the low 60s here! 

Hope you are all having a wonderful week.

 

Dublin, I Have Missed You

We have arrived in Dublin and are nicely settled in at our son's house.  Our flight was ok, seats not so comfortable, but we did upgrade our food, which was a great idea.  Best meal I have ever had on a plane!  That first Cappucino upon arrival was wonderful.  Ahren went to so much trouble to make everything so welcoming and hospitable for us.  Even flowers in his entry way-not a bad touch from a bachelor!

Roses from his garden.

Our first stop was a little seaside town called Howth, just north of Dublin.  We love going there too buy seafood for our dinner later at home.  We got something called Plaice, which is flounder like.  Don't know if you can see in the photo below, but someone has arranged a smaller fish in the mouth of that big one at the top of the picture.  

Everything is always displayed so beautifully at the markets here.

We are headed off for a three-day driving trip through County Wexford.  Hope to post along the way!

 

Taking Pleasure in Small Things

I waited for the longest time, but the hummingbirds knew I was lurking and just wouldn't come to the feeder.  With these last days of summer, in the days before our annual trip to Ireland, I have been enjoying the simpler things in my life.  It has been fairly hectic, trying to prepare for the trip, check off all the "to do's", and sort out what we need to pack.  This past week I haven't had much time to blog, but I have had some time to step back, take a breath, and enjoy some of the simpler things in my life which give me so much pleasure.

Love this furball.  He is always sitting in my favorite chair when I want to sit down and read my book.

This is what I am reading right now.  Remember The Chilbury Ladies' Choir?  So good.  This is the author's "sophomore effort", and it definitely is not as good.  But still, I am enjoying it.  A curmudgeon of a middle-aged lady goes to London to search for her daughter Betty, who has gone missing during the Blitz of WW2.  She finds her daughter and a whole new outlook on life and what is important.

I pick up this memoir by Ruth Reichl when I have a chance, and so enjoy reading about her life.  The book documents her life after she was fired as the editor of Gourmet magazine, and is so interesting.  She pretty much cooked her favorite dishes for a year while she licked her wounds.

Speaking of licking, I am so in the mood for some fall-inspired food.  Last weekend, I seasoned and browned up some boneless pork chops and covered them with a mushroom cream sauce.

Is there anything more heavenly than perfectly browned and caramelized mushrooms?

Except maybe that first cup of coffee in the morning?  My favorite is Cinnabon coffee pods for the Keurig.

Or maybe sitting on the front porch to watch the sunset with a glass of wine?  Oh.  Except the dog is in my spot.

Whatever they are for you, try to enjoy the simpler things that add the most pleasure to your days.