The Last Design Wall Monday of the year...

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Fa La

La La La

La La La La

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Well, it's all over... the presents are unwrapped and you have leftovers falling out of the refrigerator..  Now comes the fun part!  You get to reclaim your sewing room!  Mine turned into wrapping central and a warehouse of wrapped presents..along with storage for the extra table and chairs and at one point two bicycles were parked in there..

So here is my design wall today...

That wrapping paper needs to be put away for another eleven months..  On the right is a charity baby quilt...Sometime in the last few weeks I put the blocks together so now it needs quilting..  And the blocks on the left are part of a quilt that I started back in September at a sew-in.  The pattern is by  Kristy who is president of our Modern Quilt Guild in St Louis... It was featured on Moda Bake Shop..

It always takes me awhile to get back into the pattern once I have left it for awhile..So far I have pulled the finished blocks out and separated the other pieces I have.  Today I hope to get back into the pattern and figure out where I left off...lol  

So I will leave you with a photo of the tree right before we had to wake up the son and his girlfriend so they could open presents...it was 9 am and even though we had turned up the sound on the TV...Opened his bedroom door and let the dog in...there still was no sign of life...  Finally I went in and said "Merry Christmas, get up!!"...lol  Then I let him go to her room and wake her up...(yes, we are a PG family, no co-inhabiting til married) ...  Everything was a hit..

Ha...see that big red plastic bag on the right side?  Have you ever tried to wrap a body pillow?  I could not find a gift bag or box big enough, so I just stuffed it right back into the target bag and tied it shut!!  The son opened the body pillow cover and could not figure out what it was... I finally told him that the other part was in the bag...  He liked it then... lol

I of course was spoiled by Santa...A bird feeder to hang outside the sewing room window, a GC to a great local quilt shop, a Garmin. new wallet and a Flat Screen TV for the sewing room...which I have decided to return.. I have a perfectly good TV and I would love to have a DVD player...Now that I have a real library I plan on utilizing it to borrow some good movies to watch while I sew...

The grandkids gave us a selection of games they enjoy to keep at our house...We got Jinga, Sorry and Phase 10.    Can't wait to have a game night! 

And I think the grandkids all loved their presents... They were all here on Christmas Eve...I decided that this year we would have a Mexican food buffet... We would eat and then open gifts... Then we realized "someone" had forgotten to put the chicken enchiladas in the oven! LOL  So we popped them into the oven for 40 minutes and changed the plans...we opened WHILE dinner was cooking...

And we had Birthday Cake for a special grandson who turned NINE!! on Christmas Eve...Chocolate cake, chocolate icing and sprinkles baked by his Great Aunt Cupcake..  

So that's it for 2011...no more design walls this year... On to 2012!!

Nancy

Need some help...

Right to left ....DMC 4180, 4030, 4120 and 4070

I am certainly getting my money's worth with this pattern..  I started the little one on the left with a variegated thread I had up in the sewing room...then realized that pink was the only color I had...so I took off for Michael's and bought 6 more colors.  I love these...  I will use some regular colors to do the faces and hair..

And I am doing all backstitch.  I usually do a stem stitch, but I have always wanted to do an all backstitch embroidery so this will be it.  I am getting better as I go..

BUT...I want to change the word to something else.  It would have to be something to do with Winter as these kids have on coats and hats and one has a scarf...  I would like to be able to have this out longer than just the Christmas season.  Any ideas??  One family has 4 people, but I don't know if I want to put B. K. O. A. (the first initials) on the front of a pillow.  It looks like I can't spell... and the other family has 5 so I could draw another one and put M. K. G. J. A. on it.  What do you think?  Or I could use a 4 letter word that is winter themed, like COLD or SLED or um... that's all I can think of...

And Pat asked me yesterday what thread I use... I use two strands of DMC most often..  For the redwork I had some Floche that I remember now that I bought at a local thread store.  Floche is a little more delicate than DMC and has a tendency to shred so you have to cut it shorter and that means you have more ends to deal with.   And you don't separate it, so there are less tangles.. 

So any ideas on a words or thoughts on using initials...

Nancy

The last Christmas post....and cookie recipe

ding ding.....update - Here are your pictures, Pat. I couldn't bear to cover Santa's face..lol

This will be my last post until after Christmas....I am overwhelmed right now. There are lists to be made, food to be shopped for, presents to be wrapped and maybe some more shopping.

Of course that means that I totally spent today baking cookies. I was looking for a traditional macaroon cookie recipe and stopped when I read this one. It is NOT the traditional macaroon recipe. This one is AWESOME!! I love coconut and I love oatmeal cookies. I love a crisp cookie and this one fits all three criteria....

They are called Button Macaroons ... I am guess they are called this because you only use 1/2 tsp dough per cookie and they turn out about the size of a button...who knew??

1 egg separated
1/3 c sugar, remove 3 tbl for egg whites
1 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 tsp vanilla
3/4 c quick oats
1/2 c coconut
1 tbl butter, melted

Beat egg white until foamy white and double in volume in a small bowl with electric mixer at high speed; beat in 3 tbl of the sugar, 1 tbl at a time until firm peaks form. Set aside

Beat egg yolk well in a medium size bowl, beat in remainder of the sugar until fluffy-light. Stir in the rest of the ingredients. Fold in beaten egg white.

Drop by half teaspoonfuls 1 inch apart on well greased cookie sheet. Bake at 325 for 12-15 minutes. Cookies will spread. I got better luck spraying the cookie sheet with Pam than when I used a silpat sheet.

Cool on wire racks, store in airtight container. Yield 3 dozen (although I only got 2 dozen plus 4 cookies....)

I had good luck doubling this recipe and got a about 4 dozen cookies. Of course I counted them after sampling them. So maybe it did make 6 dozen and I ate 2 dozen? No, couldn't be!!

I wish you all a Happy Holiday Season...

See ya next year...

Nancy

It's beginning to smell a lot like Christmas....

We are snowed in with about 5-6 inches of the pretty white stuff. We never lost electricity so what's a girl to do??

BAKE!!!!!

I made Oatmeal Crispies yesterday so they are ready to slice and bake. I made Fudge for Dummies, and have Spritz cookies in the oven now. (Santa! if you are listening, I could use a new battery operated Spritz cookie maker. Mine died) They smell so good. They are disappearing as fast as they bake, so I can see I will have to make another batch when everyone is back at work and school.

A couple of years ago, I wanted to make up some trays for friends and family. I can bake cookies, but I am not good with fudge. I either burn it, it seizes up or it just doesn't taste right. I went up to the local grocery and picked up a box mix. It was really good, but way too expensive. It would have cost a small fortune to buy enough mixes for all the fudge I wanted to make. So....I cheated. I bought one box and before making it, I measured all the ingredients. This recipe "Fudge for Dummies" is the result.


Fudge for Dummies -

In a microwave safe bowl put
4 tbles butter (not margarine)
1 Cup Sweetened Condensed Milk
16 oz Chocolate Chips

Microwave on high for 2 minutes. Stir to combine and add 1/2 tsp vanilla.
Pour into 8x8 Pam sprayed pan. Cool, cut and enjoy!!

I did do some sewing this morning. I monogrammed two sweatshirts for my step-dad for Christmas. DH drew his name in the $10 family Christmas present. I told him he was in charge of his own gift getting. He surprised me by finding something on ebay that was perfect. Last night I asked him if it had been shipped yet. Our Christmas is this Saturday and it needs to be wrapped. After checking the listing, he nicely told me that the shipper is on vacation until Dec 26th. UH OH!! That won't do...
so I guess I will give monogrammed sweatshirts again this year. Good thing he likes them.

Off to the sewing room as soon as the last batch of cookies is out of the oven.

Happy Snow Day!!
Nancy

I feel lucky...I feel lucky....

Remember that song from West Side Story??? This week, I have been singing..."I feel Lucky, I feel Lucky..I feel lucky cause I won three times"....Good thing you can't hear me. LOL

I woke up Monday, got my cup of tea and started reading email and then my list of blogs. I opened up an email from Linda of AllStitchedUp and she was telling me to hurry over to Lynette Anderson's blog. What?? I won?? YIPPEE SKIPPEE, (read her blog here http://lynetteandersondesigns.typepad.com/lynette_anderson_designs/ ) I won a copy of her book Rainbow Cottage. I love Australian designers. They are so imaginative.
Monday was also my quilt guilds Christmas Party. I just joined this guild in October, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I started out by getting lost. My directions said to "turn right at the Purple House". Hm....I wrote these directions quickly during the meeting. So was the "purple house" a restaurant? a gift shop? I am not familiar with this little town so wasn't sure. Well, I shouldn't have worried. The "Purple House" is just that...a purple house. Bright purple I might add. I turned right, and then the directions said turn right again. Ok, I did and now am at a dead end. I circled around to try again. OH!! I must go OVER the RR tracks. Ok.. I am just a little bit late... Drop off my quart of Veggie Soup, my wrapped pot holder and sit down.... I had a great time getting to know some of the other members. As the newest member, I was asked to draw the winning ticket for the raffle quilt. HA HA....remember the purple house? Her daughter WON!! LOL I got a wonderful pot holder in the exchange and then they drew names for the centerpieces. I won a little live Christmas Tree. How cute is this??



Got home right before 3pm, sit down and download email....Guess What?? I won again... This blog http://apronista.blogspot.com/ is having a Holiday Apron Giveaway. Designers are donating aprons that they made and you too could win!! I won an apron designed and made by Pat Sloan. Yea ME!! Pat Sloan is my favorite quilt designer. I love her free, whimsical folk art quilt patterns. Check her out at www.quiltershome.com and she has a yahoo group too... She also blogs...

I really should have dragged my b-tt to the store and got a lottery ticket..don't ya think??

Happy Sewing Day!! I am off to my Redwork Club Christmas Lunch. We are trading red/white items.

Nancy

Quiet Sunday....

Today has been fairly quiet. We (ok, I) decided that today would be Christmas decorating day. We get a live tree so that waits until just a few weeks before Christmas. Don't want a fire hazard!! But, I do like to put all the little "stuff" around and make the house look festive.

This is the mantle in the family room -



This hangs in the dining room -



This hangs in the front hall way -



And this hangs -




Oh, this doesn't hang anywhere. I made this in the sewing room this morning. It is a casserole cover made from one quilted scallop edged placemat from Kohls and one same size mat with Insul-brite inside. I put a loop on it and I will find a big button this week to stitch to the top. This will hold a 9x13 pan very easily.

I am glad almost all of the decorating is finished. I still have a few things to do since I didn't have any of the command sticky things, need some green string and some AAA batteries. Then all will be finished.

The coming week is going to be very busy. Tomorrow is the Christmas Party for the Pike-Lin Quilt Guild. We are to be there by 10 am with a quart of homemade veggie soup and an appetizer. We are to have a pot holder swap.

Tuesday is sewing day with Miss Nancy and Anne. It is also my DH and I 36th wedding anniversary.

Wednesday is Dr's appt. and some last minute Christmas shopping. Then dinner with my sister for her birthday on Thursday. She will go out Thursday night also, but that is a LONG story and you wouldn't believe it if I told you.

Thursday is Patches Redwork Club Christmas lunch at the Mother-in-law house. We will have a Red and White exchange.

Friday is OPEN....(right now)

Hope you had a Happy Sewing Day!
Nancy