Saturday, November 30, 2024

Thanksgiving

 A lovely day at my neice's, again.  Everything was delicious, but I think my favorite this year were the mashed sweet potatoes with candied pecans. Yum! I am going to make them for my party. That's not to say that I didn't love the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, broccoli, and pies (pumpkin and pecan).

She always has a signature drink and this year it was a chocolate martini with this cute ginger bread man perched on the rim. She got them at Trader Joe's and they had a big notch on the bottom, meant to sit on hot chocolate mugs, but equally good on a martini glass. I am going to borrow this idea, too. I stopped at Trader Joe's on the way home.





Her daughter always make a charcuterie platter. So attractive and full of delicious goodies. I ate too much, as usual.



Lovely tablescape, different every year.



She found these large pinecone candles at Aldi's. Faux light, of course, but they even glowed inside, making them look so very real.

Another perfect Thanksgiving and now the rush to Christmas! I started my decorating today. So much still left to do. It's a lot of work,  but I do love the results. I hope to finish this week.


Saturday, November 23, 2024

Toward 2025

 I am participating in a project, Toward 2050.  There will be a massive labyrinth at Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, AZ. You can read all about it here. We are making banners similar to prayer flags. I made two of them a couple of months ago and Ann Morton, the designer, sent out a call that they are still 900 short of completing this huge job. The deadline has been moved to Dec. 31. If you are interested you can sign up on the website.

They are to be environmentally themed banners. The last two that I made  a while ago were flowers and cacti. This time I chose fish, mainly becasue I had a huge stash of fish fabric. The flags are two sided so I had to make 10 panels for my five flags. 

I chose to fuse the fish down and then button hole stitch around each one with variegated threads. I also printed out SAVE OUR OCEANS on some of them. On some of them I used an ombre blue fabric from my stash  and others my hand dyed shibori fabic in aqua. 












These last two were part of Round Robin a few years ago. I made the shibori fabric and the next person handpainted the fish. I had to piece the other side of the panel.





I am linking up with Off the Wall Friday. Please pop over and see what everyone's doing.

Friday, November 15, 2024

The Zoo Quilt

I started this baby quilt abut 20 years ago. I made all of the blocks and cut out all the sashing and then I never finished it. It was rather complicated piecing and I thought it would only be for future grandchildren. No grandchildren, so they were put away. Every once in awhile I would see them on the shelf and think how cute they were. My sister was over one day and I showed them to her and she convinced me to finish it.

The quilt was from Margaret Rolfe's book, Patchwork Quilts for Children. You made a grid, then drew the pattern on the grid, cut them apart and drew them on your fabric. The piecing directions were very good and I follwed them carefully. I am pleased with the results and now I am putting it together.

I am now in the process of free motion  quilting it. The quilt will measure about 46 x 68, a little big to FM quilt on my standard machine. So I picked out the stitching down the middle length of the quilt top, making two long narrow panels that are relatively easy to quilt. I will then sew the two quilted panels together. I have done this before many times with great success. 

I will show you the whole thing when it is finished. Now here are the cute zoo animals and the alternating pieced block.















Alternate block. I like the yellow for its cheerfulness and also making it gender neutral.


I have decided to donate it next year to the Festival of Trees, where all profits go to Ann's Place, which gives care and comfort to cancer patients and their families.

Please hop over to Off the Wall Friday and see what other talented people are doing.