A Riley Blake Christmas

Several years ago someone gave me a Riley Blake "Alpine Wonderland" charm pack, but I never knew what to do with it.  Every Christmas I always thought about it, but never used it until I saw a fun Zig Zag Table Runner Tutorial from the Missouri Quilt Company.  I have a "Favorite Things" party I'm going to this week and I thought it would be fun to stuff my stocking with a Christmas table runner among other treats. 

Sewing charms together is incredibly fast and simple, but I had a bunch of other things I (cough) was supposed to be doing instead of starting a new sewing project, so I didn't get around to layering it and quilting it until the following day.  Technically speaking I didn't have a whole lot of time to spare that day either, but I really wanted to work on it, so my home just remained a little dirtier yesterday, and my to do list got a little longer.   

 The stitching is just stitch in the ditch, so it's nothing fancy, but it's still really cute.  I made the backing a bit more traditional, so that if you just wanted the normal Red and Green it would look nice flipped on the back as well.

Now it's time to conquer that To-Do List!!

Cookie Exchange

This morning I had my 8th annual cookie exchange party.  This year I was looking for a molasses/ginger cookie that wasn't hard.  I love ginger snaps and I like regular molasses cookies, but I wanted to find one that was soft and chewy.  These guys fit the bill!

Recipe here.

I always like to try new cookies.  I was searching for another fun cookie to try when I came across Texas Sheet Cake Cookies.   If you like the cake version you'll enjoy the cookie version.  Yum!!

It was a wonderfully low key time talking with great friends while eating cookies.  That's my kind of a party!

Ornaments for 2017

This year the ornaments were so much fun to come up with for the kids. 

Little Man:  It had to be Harry!  After the awesome Harry Potter birthday party and Harry Potter Camp, and then Halloween costume...again, how could we not get him a Harry Potter ornament?!

Little Lady: She's always got a stack of library books sitting next to her bed.  She reads all the time, and almost always has a book attached to her if she's not talking to someone.

 BB: His most beloved object is his Polar Bear.  It goes everywhere with him.

Little Guy:  There is much weeping and wailing when Little Guy's blankie has to be washed.  He hates being without his blankie and he most definitely won't go to sleep without it. 

These are our ornaments from our vacation out West this past Summer: Albuquerque, 4 Corners, and Mesa Verde.

 

November Stitches

This month Steph asked us to make 2 low volume plus blocks for do.Good Stitches.  She wanted us to chose two different colors for the pluses.  I must have Christmas on the brain, because I chose green and red.

Caring Kits for the Homeless

Over the last couple of weeks I have noticed a woman with a shopping cart outside the library and another homeless man walking up and down Classen as I drive my daughter to cello. I’ve been feeling that nudge again that I should be doing more.  Quite a few homeless migrate down to Oklahoma because of the milder winters.  I decided I wanted to put together some Care Kits, so that I could have something ready in my car to give them.  A friend from church saw my post on Facebook about it and asked if I would be willing to coordinate a get together to make kits.  I agreed, and this morning we came together and in about an hour we put together 70 Caring Kits for the homeless and another 10 hygiene packets.  It's amazing how much you can accomplish in such a small amount of time when multiple people come together to accomplish something.  We had 12 ladies donate and help out this morning.  Here are a few of us at the end.  

Here's an awesome link that gives great ideas if you've ever wanted to do something similar, but weren't sure what would be the most helpful and/or needed.  We're headed downtown to Little Lady's cello lesson this evening, and I'm hopeful we'll be able to hand one out.

Granny's Suitcase

This October block for do.Good Stitches is "Going to Grandma's."  Kristen asked for one suitcase in pink and lime green and another in blue and cherry red.

This is the first time I've sewn anything in almost 2 months, and it felt good to pull out the sewing machine.  I have a number of projects that need to be worked on, so I'm going to try to squeeze more sewing into my life.

An Awesome Doctor

My husband doesn't talk a whole lot about his work, because of all the patient confidentiality, and plus, when he gets home he wants to enjoy his family.  Recently I have had several individuals approach me about a friend they know that was talking about what an amazing doctor their child has and how much they love him, and each time they realized their friend was talking about Joel.  This week the head of the nurses mailed a kind thank you note to our home.  Joel doesn't like any special attention given to him, but I want his children to know what a special Dad they have.  He puts his whole heart into everything he does and that includes his job as a Pediatric Oncologist.

 

A Gothic Novel

This month I decided to tackle #7- A Gothic or Horror Classic.  I put off this category, because I kept thinking of Frankenstein as my only option.  When I finally looked at the Goodreads list, I was surprised to see some of my favorite books on the list.  I think the definition in my head was a bit different from reality.  I chose to read Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca.  I've been kind of busy, so I thought I would spend the whole month slowly reading it, but I got sucked in and couldn't put it down.  I loved this book!

Can we just talk about the second Mrs. De Winter for a minute?  She's so painfully awkward and backward.  Normally a character like that would drive me crazy, but I rallied around her and desperately wanted to help her gain her footing.  I was thrilled with her evolution as a character.  I loved her almost as much as I couldn't stand Mrs. Danvers.  Creepy, anybody?!  How'd you like to have the head of your house staff in love with your husband's dead first wife?  No thanks!

The mystery of the first Mrs. De Winter and her shadow left hanging over Menderley is so interesting.  The description of Menderley is so vivid that I could picture the grand estate with the beautiful gardens, the field and forest, and the foreboding ocean and bay.  The imagery was stunning.

The book was interesting all the way to the very end of the book.   I'm so glad I gave the Gothic books category a try and read this book.