First Guild Meeting of 2020!

We had our first guild meeting this past Tuesday.  It's always fun to start a new year.  Yours truly was inducted as president (can anyone say, IMPEACHMENT TRIAL!)  They have 2 years to either put up with me or go for impeachment.  

Our program was given by the founder of the Tiny Homes for Veterans project.  He started this project that now has a village of 49 tiny homes for homeless veterans in Kansas City.  They get to move in, have support to get their "stuff", whatever it may be, in order and then they move out to be successful in their lives.  When they leave, they get to take all of the furnishings of the tiny home with them.......furniture, appliances, everything.  Then the home is flipped in 72 hours with new stuff for the next person needing it.  We had made quilts to donate for the beds which each veteran will take with them when they leave.  Here are some of the quilts...........

And some of you may recognize this pattern............Kitchen Sink!  I made this one and it now resides at Aunt Judy's house!

We donated 10 quilts and some afghans.  

We also had a wonderful Show and Tell.............

This one wasn't quilted yet, but the piecing was amazing!

Love Gina's pumpkins and her Kevin the Quilter mystery quilt below!

This is Gina again (she's hiding) behind her Secret Santa quilt from Temecula Quilt Company's Christmas Mystery Quilt from last year.  She made hers in fall colors.  Mine was done in reds and greens.  I still love this quilt!

And this year's Temecula Christmas quilt along was called Dashing Through the Snow..........

I am still working on mine, but am making bigger blocks because I had lots of red scraps that I didn't want to cut down again.  I love how little and cute this is, but hopefully I will end up with something of a more usable size for snuggling!

Also from Temecula Quilt Company.............Tiny Trees!  Mine is pieced, but not quilted yet.  I think there are a couple of other people who did this, so maybe we will have a small forest at our quilt show next fall..........seeing these makes me to get mine finished.

Mary made this for her grandson..........

And Carrie had a UFO finish.

Darling Daughter headed back to school yesterday in the snow and extreme cold for her last semester of college.  She was ready and I think we were too.  Six weeks is a long break.  It is sad to think that this was the last time she will probably be home for any length of time.  

Cici is getting used to being an "Only Child" again.  The Hubs was wanting to get rid of this rocker in our bedroom because we never sit in it.  But that's where Cici sleeps at night.  The Hubs doesn't like her "looking" at him while he's sleeping.  I said, "If you're sleeping, how do you know she's looking at you?"  We're keeping the chair.  It's the only piece of furniture that Cici sleeps on other than his desk chair in the basement.  Maybe she just likes to be near him!

Christi

Apartments and Basket Weaving!

We're resting in a hotel in St. Louis this evening............exhausted from looking at apartments with DD today.  We arrived last night, drove around the Central West End of St. Louis (checking out the lighting around different apartments), and saw her office building.  The Hubs was much more interested in the very large concrete silos located between her office and Ikea.

This is a photo of the silos we took while we were driving today.  

DD had made appointments for us at 7 different apartment buildings (one an hour).  In the last demo apartment, we saw the most interesting decoration on the wall.........

To each their own, I guess.

We managed to finish our visits about 45 minutes early and DD immediately directed us to Ikea.  It's so conveniently located.  She found a couch and was looking for a bed with some storage...........

We decided this could be dangerous...........It makes me think of Audrey II, the plant from "Little Shop of Horrors" and it eating Sarah when she was reaching in to find stuff.

The driving wasn't that bad either.  We were using my new Christmas present, a Garmin, that we have named Holly.  I was a little disappointed that it didn't come with all of the quilt shops in the US already programmed into it.

Holly has done a pretty good job, even though she seems to have a little speech impediment............some of her pronunciations have been pretty entertaining.

Last week, I started working on a basket weaving project with Kelsey.  She picked a couple of really difficult patterns that I had never done before.  Our first efforts are on a Celtic Knot basket.  I decided to try it myself before trying to help her.

I had lots of assistance selecting reed..........

 She's sure she's helping!

So here is how the base is started.  She has now progressed further than me, but hopefully I'll catch up soon.

We're heading home tomorrow with a few stops in Columbia on the way.  I think we will all sleep well tonight.
Christi

Last of 2019!

I can't believe I never shared these photos!

We made it up to Iowa on Dec. 13th to see basketball games!  No, I'm not choking Jackson.  Notice I'm standing 2 steps above him to even have a chance to reach him!

I had dropped down a step for the photo with Carter.  They didn't win, but it was fun to see them play.  Hopefully we'll get to one more game this winter.

Some December sewing DID happen...........

I finished another of the barn quilt embroidery blocks.  I think that makes 3, maybe 4 that are complete............still a long way to go.

My Temmecula Quilt Company Tiny Tree was sewn together.  I'm hoping to machine quilt it this month and get it finished.

I helped my mom design some pillows to go with a Christmas quilt she pieced for my sister.  I thought these turned out cute.  Mom has them all finished and the quilt is now quilted, just waiting for Mom to bind it...........so, I guess she's ready for Christmas 2020!

I have decided to make my Farm Girl Vintage my may UFO Challenge for guild in 2020, so decided I should be getting the rest of the blocks cut out.

Cici was supurrvising the cutting.

Apparently she didn't agree with the fabric selection here...........

There was a break in the sewing to be sick with a sinus infection, but I finally got to do some more sewing on New Year's Eve................Christmas Baubles!  I thought this turned out really cute.

Here is the family Christmas photo from my parents house (weekend before Christmas)

 And here is TEAM PLAID........winners of a massive game of Hand & Foot!  There was also a round of Nertz played with about 10 decks of cards, but no one had time to take pictures of it!

Christmas Morning Photos............

 This little guy thought it would be safest to just sleep in the feeder..........first in line for food!

We took care of baby pigs and the neighbors' rabbits since they were out of town......

Hay for everyone!

The Christmas decorations have been put away

 No, Cici was not tucked away in a Christmas box until next year.

DD's kitten, Dory, has spent a lot of time resting.  Her Christmas break has consisted of declawing and being fixed.  Not the best gift, but she is finally starting to perk up and hopefully will enjoy the rest of the holiday before returning to college.

That's all from 2019..............on to 2020!
Christi

Food! Glorious Food!

The opening song from the broadway musical, Oliver!, seems like the perfect title for my post about Christmas and Birthday presents I received................ no farm machinery this year!

Up first........... Birthday gifts.  My birthday was the week before Christmas, so it all kind of blends (good cooking word there) together.

DD (darling daughter) shopped Amazon and found this wonderful recipe box.  (Apparently recipe boxes are very out of style since it is so easy to just google whatever recipe you want.)  I was so in need of a new recipe box.  The old one was crammed so full you couldn't pull the cards out.  This one even has a nice slot on the top to stick the recipe card in to hold it up so you can see it while you are cooking!  (I had to point that out to DD - she didn't even realize how cool it was!).  Then she wondered if the recipe card for banana bread would even fit in the slot since it has so much stuff spilled on it that it has gotten quite thick!  (Obviously I needed this cool slot thing before now.)

The divider tabs in my old box were also worn off, and you couldn't find anything in it.  We had several family discussions about where to place certain recipes...........should Crab Fettuccine go under seafood, entrees, or pasta?  

The Hubs got me a new red kitchen aid hand mixer.  There really wasn't anything wrong with the old GE mixer except that I had worn part of the blades of the beaters off (wonder what food that stuff ended up in?) and it was basically easier/cheaper to get a new mixer than to replace the beaters.  This new one is so quiet that I hardly notice it running!  I am also using some birthday cash to replace the blender (had to hold the lid together to use it.....it had been a wedding gift), so another red kitchen aid appliance is scheduled to arrive on Monday!  And my sis got me some dip mixes from Deal's Orchard in Jefferson.  For Christmas they brought us Deal's cider and popcorn!  Food, Glorious Food!

For Christmas Santa (aka The Hubs) brought me a new red kitchen aid stand mixer!  (Are you seeing the theme has changed from Green farm equipment to Red kitchen equipment?!)  I had wanted one of these for so long............ I spent Christmas Eve in the kitchen and got so frustrated with the old stand mixer (not that old, just never really worked correctly) that I unplugged it and carried it to the garage sale box in the basement.  When The Hubs was helping with the dishes, he commented that there was more goo on the outside of the mixer bowl than the inside...........I told him the bowl could join the mixer and all of its attachments in the basement.  

The best part was hearing the "shopping" story.  DD was shopping with him and she had already told me that he took FOREVER!  She said he was comparing prices in different places and constantly trying to figure out how to get the best deal (I told her he probably wasn't going to get to write this gift off on his taxes like he did the green farm equipment, so he really had to get the best deal!).

Then he had to share about his great deal.  He now knows all about Kohl's Cash!  By purchasing the mixer (and some really nice Cuddle Dud slippers - see it's not all about food) at the right time, he generated enough Kohl's Cash to get the pasta attachments FREE! 

I have to say that it does working amazingly well.  I mixed up 3 kinds of pasta dough in the time it used to take me to do 1.  And the pasta cutter is so fast..........no more turning the crank a million times.  And it takes up less space than my old pasta cutter and attachments..........yes, the garage sale box is overflowing!  We also mixed up pizza dough last night for supper.

I tried tomato basil fettuccine...........

Saffron spaghetti and rosemary herb fettuccine............

I put all the pasta in the freezer as we are still consuming Christmas leftovers.  That was a trick since we brought home half a beef from my parents.  And we had just butchered 2 pigs at Thanksgiving.

I have never seen my freezer so full.

This is the freezer above the frig in the basement that hardly ever gets used.  We also got special Pampered Chef forks for doing pulled pork, a mat for the oven to collect spills, soup mugs with sealing lids, and a starter herb garden (from one sister-in-law) so I can grow my own herbs for cooking and the other sister-in-law gave us a beautiful hand made ceramic planter so I have something to transplant the herbs to.  

I even received a couple of Bath and Body candles (which the hubs says are to light when I burn something in the kitchen and want to cover up the smell).  One is Spiced Apple Toddy and the other is a Caramel blend................see, it's all food related!

And lest my quilty friends be disappointed that there has been no mention of any type of sewing in this post, I can tell you that the new red stand mixer weighs more than even Lizzy the 201, my heaviest sewing machine!  Probably should have left the reindeer extra carrots for that delivery!!

Christi

December is Flying By!

This might be the prettiest pecan pie I have ever made!  The hubs' favorite pie is pecan.  The day before Thanksgiving, I was making this pie for our turkey dinner the next day and when I went to turn the oven on, it said "feature not available".  Excuse me?  You're an oven.  Baking is not a FEATURE, it's pretty much your sole purpose!  I immediately callled the local appliance business (we know them, go to church together, I was Nick's piano teacher, he was in DD's class at school)..........and I remembered that we had lost power for just a couple of minutes the evening before, so I went down to the breaker box and flipped the breaker a couple of times and it finally came on (the clock had always been working, so I hadn't realized there was a problem until I went to start baking a pie).  I hastily called Nick back (he was already out the door, but I caught him!).  

Of course the Hubs showed up even though he was really busy that morning (obviously that pecan pie was important), and we had to flip the breaker a couple of more times to get it to start heating.  Here are my awesome kitchen helpers - making sure it's going to work!  They say a watched pot never boils!  The pie did get baked, the rolls made, the turkey cooked, and it was a wonderful meal.

I made 2 more zipper pouches for the nephews' girlfriends.  Don't you just love the plaid!

DD did all the Christmas decorating while she was home on break.  She even ordered me cork lights for this hand painted bottle I got as a gift last year.

I had the wonderful opportunity to proofread a paper for her.  I've done a couple of more since and still have one to do.

One of my piano students left this note on my computer.  He was hoping that I (meaning DD) had this movie.  She does, so he will probably come watch it with her over Christmas break.  He's 9.  

I went down to Rolla to spend the night with DD and attend Jingle & Mingle at her church.  It was really good and a very fun evening.

Not much sewing has been happening.  I am trying to do the Tiny Tree blocks from Temecula Quilt Company's blog.  The blocks measure 2.75".  Here are the first 4.

I was able to get the next 4 done last night!

We seem to be very busy and not much is getting accomplished.  At least my gifts are purchased and wrapped.  No holiday cooking/baking has been done.  Maybe we will just diet for Christmas this year!

Merry Christmas!

Christi