Sister's Choice Quilts

And So It Begins...

Well, this is a first.  We have our Christmas tree up and it isn't even Thanksgiving.  My husband bought a new faux tree this year, and since the boxes were sitting right in front of our front door where the UPS man left them, my husband decided to go ahead and set it up.  And it is beautiful.  I probably would have gone with colored lights, but he wanted white, so there we are.  We won't get the ornaments on until Thanksgiving weekend, so for now I will just enjoy the blazing splendor of all those 1000 lights!

I got these two fun little table toppers off to my quilter in North Carolina on Friday.  I will be so excited to get them into my holiday decor!  I love the fabric collections I used (Sweetwater's Cookie Exchange and Hometown Christmas).  I don't think it is even that obvious that I used the same fabrics in both little quilts.  They are crisp and modern and cheerful, just what I wanted.

Busy week this week.  And that is an understatement.  I somehow thought it would be a good idea to invite a friend and her daughter and twin grand daughters over for a tea party on Tuesday!  And it is a good idea, but I just wasn't thinking about the volume of cooking I'd be doing in this week, with Thanksgiving on Thursday.  Guess no sewing is going to happen, but I will let you know how my tea party fixings go.  I plan to make Madeleines, scones and little tea sandwiches.  Oh, and my famous pound cake.  Sara is coming early from work along with Eva, so there will be seven of us.

I plan to dust off the Royal Albert Old Country Roses and bring out my best lace table cloth.

I am going to try to make a centerpiece that has these reds and golds in it.  And of course use it for Thanksgiving too.  I will let you know how that goes!  I wish I could find a white pumpkin to hollow out and arrange red and gold mums and roses in, but I doubt I will be able to find any such thing at this point.  I'll let you know on Wednesday if I pulled it off!

I know you all must be busy this week too, with cooking and planning and list making.  Make it a good one!

Really Ozzie?

Really Ozzie?  What is it with dogs wanting to lie down on anything you place on the floor to take a closer look at?  As you can see, I am well on the way to having my red and white quilt finished and off my design wall.  As I type this, I have the top all put together and just have one final outer border to put on.  Next post will be my reveal.  I cannot tell you how glad I am to get this quilt into the "finished" category.  I have been seriously stalled out with it for months.  It will be a marvelous addition to my holiday quilts line up.

Thanks to all of you who participated in my little pattern giveaway.  The three winners are Laura Valdez, Sharon Amburn and Molly Hinchcliffe.  Please let me know your addresses ladies, and the packets of patterns will be on their way to you!  I am so glad to send them on to places where they have a chance of being used and enjoyed.

Where Does the Day Go?

Lately I have been wondering where on earth my day goes.  It goes, that is for sure, and I have been feeling I don't have much to show for it.  I was struggling with finding a topic to blog about, since I have not been sewing, when it occurred to me that I should just track my activities for a day and see what I came up with.

I have made a new friend who I have been walking with three times a week.  I clip my little Fitbit Zip to my waistband and it is incredible how quickly those steps add up.  We walk for just under an hour and the time passes so rapidly as we (mostly me) are yakking the entire time.

And it is a very good thing I have been doing some exercise, because I have also been doing some fall baking.  Nothing like cooler temperatures to put me in the mood to make home made bread or a nice pound cake.  I have been giving big wedges of that cake to friends, I swear.  Here is a link to the pound cake recipe.  It is really really delicious.  It is Taste of Home's Sour Cream Pound Cake.

Another thing I get an urge to do in the fall is to make slow cooker meals.  I wish you could smell my house as I write this.  I made a Stacked Enchilada Casserole from a recipe by Chunguh of Damn Delicious.  I have mentioned her recipes in the past, as they are reliably wonderful.  Chunguh is an adorable girl who grew up in a traditional Korean household, but who developed not only a knack for cooking American food, but who has a fantastic blog and a cookbook too. You have not lived until you have made her recipe for Shrimp and Grits.  Just saying.  It is worth visiting her blog just to see pictures of her dog "Butters", who may the cutest Corgi on the planet.

  

I have also been cleaning out the guest room closet in an effort to make more room for guests' clothing and less room for my bins of fabric and project boxes.  Those are going out to the shelves in the garage.  This has not been a particularly enjoyable project, but it needed to be done.

I am really going to have to get back to sewing because I find myself actually doing housework, like washing the kitchen floors.  No, no, no.  My time could be much better spent, I am sure of it.  

If things keep up like this now that my husband isn't under foot around the house all day, I am going to run out of things to do and end up getting back to the sewing room out of sheer boredom!

 

 

Bad Blogger

Sorry I have been such a bad blogger lately.  Life is just getting in my way I tell you.  Here are a few things we have been up to.

Eva and I made unicorn pumpkin cookies this weekend.  Now that is a concept isn't it?  We had the candy corn and while we were decorating the cookies, she got a brain wave that suggested the candy corn would make the perfect unicorn horn on our pumpkins.  I guess it works.

I mentioned in passing that I wished I could find a couple of lighted branches to stick in a fall floral arrangement, and the next thing I know, is my husband is presenting me four strands of lighted fall leaf garlands.  Well.  Thank you.  I think.  I am not sure how he jumped from lighted branches to four lighted leaf garlands, but more is more right?  So I have been trying to figure out where to put his contribution to our fall decor.  I have some pumpkins outside the front door, so that seemed like a good place for one of the garlands.  Three to go.

It's pretty lame, but I kind of threw the remaining three garlands out on the porch railing.  Actually, if we sit out there with our wine in the early evening, it is sort of festive and fun.

I have passed the half way mark with my scarf and am now decreasing stitches to form the triangle!

And this book, which I was honestly not enjoying much has finally picked up the pace and gotten good after 150 pages.  Not cool, but I have determined to stick with it.  Honestly, I don't know what happened to Kate Morton with this one.  There are too many characters, the story line is super confusing, and there is a ghost who is trying to tie it all together for the reader.  Not her best work.

Not much sewing, but I am probably going to get back to my red and white Christmas quilt any minute.  My husband has had a job offer that seems to be drawing him out of his retirement, so I will be my own boss in the upcoming months, as he will be living closer to San Francisco where the job is, and coming home just on weekends.  This is so funny.  He knows these people who are offering him the job.  The position comes up and they ask him to come in to interview for it on Thursday, and can he please start the next day?  All this before they interview him.  Ok, he's on board.

Hope your week is going well, and I hope to be posting more regularly!

Four Bindings, Done!

I'm proud to say I applied myself to the task and completed the bindings on four quilts over the weekend.  Three of them were table runners, but they are done and I am enjoying them as part of the Fall decor.  That's my dining table above.  The runner is my own creation.  Inspired by a quilt I saw on Pinterest, but ending up nothing what so ever like it. 

My hall table.  Inspired by a quilt I saw on Pinterest.  There are variations of this block to be found in lots of places including in the book Moda All Stars Mini Marvels.

My coffee table.  This quilt is an adaptation of a larger quilt from a book called Maple Leaf Quilts.

The upstairs railing overlooking the foyer.  Halloween Bounce, a Miss Rosie pattern.

This quilt has been finished for years, but I thought I'd share What's On My Bed with you all.  Birdseye, another Miss Rosie pattern.

It is amazing what you can accomplish when you put your mind to it.  My fingers are sore from the hand sewing, but I am so happy to get these quilts into circulation for the season.  

If you have not done it, you might want to read the comments from my previous post on how folks organize their bindings.  I sure got some great ideas and tips from those comments and know I will benefit from them in the future. 

Hope you all had a great weekend.  Glorious fall weather here.

Time for Some Fall Decor

I thought it was high time I got out my fall decorations.  I spent a couple of hours this week going through my things and putting out some favorites.  I think I typically over do it, and this year is no exception.  I just can't seem to edit myself.  That is my mantle, above.  I have done it the same way for a few years now and am still not tired of it.

On the coffee table, I just have a wooden dish with pumpkins, acorns and leaves.  A sneaky squirrel is getting into the acorns.

Some twinkly lights on a side table.  I got those hollow glass pumpkins at Pottery Barn last year, and I noticed they have them again this year.

I love these flameless candles.  They look very realistic, and you can program them to come on at the same time every day.  They cost a fortune, but you can use them for years, so in the long run it probably is cheaper than real pillar candles.

I have had this little collection of wooden Halloween decorations for decades.  I put them on a hall table outside Eva's bedroom, as I know she loves them.

I kept the dining room pretty simple, but I have to say that is one of my favorite fall quilts on the table.

My husband doesn't usually get involved with decorating, except at Christmas, but last year he came home with this funny lantern.  It lights up and has a purple lava lamp style display.  Predictably, Eva loved it and it has become one of her favorite decorations.  I put it on my little Tidbit table topper (a Miss Rosie Little Bites pattern), which has a touch of purple in it.

If you are wondering what the fuzzy white things in the background are, here is a close up:

Eva's new unicorn slippers, which we brought back for her from Ireland.  Which every seven year old girl needs, right?

Hope you enjoyed the little home decor tour.  Have you got yours out yet?

A Startling Encounter

Sorry for the little break.  I have been playing catch up with all the things I let slide the past couple of months.  My grand daughter is back at school now and normally things would be returning to a regular schedule.  We are getting things ready for our visit to Ireland during the month of September, and that has been occupying a bit of time.  

One funny thing happened last week.  I had just stepped off my front porch on the way to the car when I heard something very large crashing through the shrubbery right next to me.  I was so startled I shrieked.  It turns out a good sized deer had been resting underneath the porch and I had disturbed it by clomping down the walkway from the house.  I can tell you I was the one who was the more disturbed by the meet up.  After scrambling out from under the house, the deer stopped to nibble nonchalantly on my rose bushes while giving me a suspicious side eye glare.  After a moment it ambled off.  I hope it doesn't make a regular habit of charging out at me unexpectedly.  My heart can't take it.

Touches of Fall

My husband said I should wait until September 1st, but I couldn't wait.  As far as the weather is concerned, there is no sign of fall's arrival whatsoever.  Our temperatures are still around 100 every day.  Changing out some of my decor makes me hope for cooler days ahead!

An update on my recent complaint with some of the fabrics sent for a weekly sew along I am participating in:  The shop has contacted me and said they will replace the fabrics I am unhappy with.  They were pleasant and professional.  The matter has been resolved to my complete satisfaction, as I expected it would be.

 

Things I Have Been Loving This Summer

Happy August!  I thought it was time for another What I've Been Loving post, since the last one I did was back in May.  The items I will tell you about are all over the map this time.  Pour yourself a cup of tea or coffee and settle in for a chat!

Corn Salad.  Oh my gosh, I could eat this "side salad" as a meal in itself.  It is so full of all the flavors of summer and is easy to throw together.  Just look at those colors.  I took the picture before adding a cup of halved cherry tomatoes.  The recipe (below) is quite adjustable--leave out the cilantro if you don't like it, just go with half a jalapeno etc--anything goes.  It is great to make with leftover ears of corn, but it's so good, I will cook up the corn just for the salad.

Tap on the picture to enlarge it and make it easier to read.

For over five decades I have fought my curly hair.  As a teenager, at one time I would actually sleep on orange juice cans that I had rolled my hair around in an effort to straighten it.  Over the years I have used hot rollers, flat irons and blow dry sessions that take a half an hour to get my hair to be straight and shiny.  But that isn't my hair's true nature, and this summer I have been letting it have it's way, and I like it!  Do you fight your wavy or curly hair?  I have been using some products by Deva Curl that help your hair keep it's natural curl.  You can get a starter set for $30 at Ulta, which contains their four most basic products.

I have also been loving my shiny silver jewelry.  Do you exclusively only wear silver or only wear yellow gold?  Or do you go ahead and wear either metal depending on your mood or outfit?  My wedding ring is yellow gold, but there is something about shiny silver jewelry that is so summery.

The necklaces all came from JJill, and were very reasonably priced.  I bought them awhile back, but they have things that are similar.  The earrings and cuff bracelet I have had forever.

My house is smelling very summery with these candles from Yankee Candle.  I have been enjoying Mango Peach Salsa and Color Me Happy.  They are seriously yummy.  I have some end of summer/early fall candles lined up that I want to start burning (Harvest and Apple Cider), but these two are taking FOREVER to burn down.  I swear I burn them for hours everyday and the level hardly moves.  I guess they are a good value, since they burn so many hours!  I only buy them when Yankee Candle has a good sale, which seems to be every couple of months.  Do you like to burn candles in your home?  I love the warm ambiance they create.

I've been smelling pretty darn good myself, with the help of this fabulous body creme by Jo Malone.  It is such fun to visit a Jo Malone counter and try out all the lovely fragrances.  It is very hard to pick a favorite.  Their scents are all super simple (just one or two notes), such as the one I chose, Orange Blossom.  When it comes to fragrance, I prefer a perfumed body cream to a spray of cologne.  It lasts longer and is more subtle in my opinion.  And it moisturizes my dry arms and legs.  It is pricey, but lasts me a long long time.

Next up is some make up that has been making my life a lot easier.  Instead of liquid foundation I have been wearing a stick foundation and love the way it looks and stays on in the heat.  There are several excellent stick foundations that I have tried (MakeUpForever, Bobbi Brown), but my favorite is by Lancome, a brand I haven't used for many years.  This stick foundation comes in a gazillion colors (seriously, at least 40) and is so creamy and easy to apply.  You just draw it in stripes on your face, then blend it thoroughly with a dense flat brush.  The finish is so skin like and natural looking, light weight and lasts all day.  The foundation brush I like is by Sigma, but there are lots of good ones out there.  

Also in the picture above is a cream blush by Bobbi Brown that I love.  It looks way dark, but goes on pale pink and looks so natural.  I guess that is why they call it Pale Pink Pot Rouge.  The trick to using these cream products is the brush.  It needs to be soft, but very dense.  I dab the little Expert Face Brush by Real Techniques in the pot and apply just the tiniest bit to the apples of my cheeks, then blend super well with the brush.  It really looks very fresh and natural.  The brush is only $5.99 at Target!  And you could definitely use it with a stick foundation as well, since it has the denseness required.

I also adore cream eye shadow sticks.  I have found several brands to be amazing, with a great selection of colors (Laura Mercier, Bobbi Brown, Nars).  I recently discovered that good old Lancome has them as well, and for a bit less in price.  The thing with cream eye shadow sticks is that you just swipe them on, blend with your finger or a brush and you are done.  One and done.  And their staying power is better than powders any day.  They are particularly nice in the summer, in the heat or at the pool, but I love them all year long.

Last make up item, these Neutrogena Hydro Boost Lip Shines are available at your drugstore, Target, Kmart for under $9.  They come in a ton of colors and keep your lips looking glossy and tinted (but not sticky).  They are very hydrating and I like them so much I have nearly every color.  They do go on much lighter and more sheer than the color you see in the tube.  You can use them alone or as a gloss over your regular lipstick.

I can't do a favorites post and not mention a book.  Or books.  Ever since we started watching the Harry Bosch series on Amazon Video, I have been hooked on the books by Michael Connelly.  Harry Bosch is a detective, and there must be two dozen police procedural books that Connelly has written featuring him.  Every now and then I get obsessed about an author and if they are prolific, my life is taken over while I try to plow through all their books.

I was getting very tired of spending $9.99 for a new Kindle book every week, so I ventured out and discovered my county library.  Who knew it would be such a great library?  The one in our town is dismal, but if we just drive 16 miles to the county seat the facility is awesome and they have all the Harry Bosch books I could ever want.  Do you use the library?  It is such a money saver and you don't have to have the books cluttering up your shelves when you are finished with your book choice.

So there you have it, my favorites this summer!  Tell us what products or things that you have been enjoying!  It is always so much fun when folks share in the comments.

 

 

End of the Week Progress Report

Time for a little progress update.  I have been doing things, I swear.  I got this last minute little table runner on the table on July 4.  Actually, I have had it a couple of weeks but only finished the binding on Wednesday.  I love the little stars and swirl quilting design.

You can see I am making progress on my Aurora stars quilt.  Not too much more to do.  Just a couple of short rows.  Here is a different angle where you can sort of see how I am putting it together:

Lastly, I have resurrected my Primitive Gatherings Christmas blocks from the sew along that I did a couple of years ago.  I saw an awesome setting for the Moda BlockHeads quilt, and decided it would work perfectly for the Christmas blocks.

This quilt is not mine (darn), and was made by Judy Losey.  I saw this photo on the Moda Facebook page.  It is pretty spectacular, right?  The setting idea was created by Carrie Nelson, and you all know how much I love her designs.  Isn't it an awesome setting for a lot of different sampler blocks?  It really ties them together.  Apparently I will be making a gazillion flying geese in my spare time...

Hope you all have a great weekend!