Fun Surprise at Chick-Fil-A

Because of this pesky sinus infection, I was wake when Emily came home from work last night. I'm usually fast asleep by then. She came in with red roses. I raised eyebrows (of course) and asked where they came from. She said a customer in drive-thru gave them to her. He told her he gave them to his girlfriend, but she didn't want them. Emily gave half of them to one of her coworkers. Inquiring minds want to know the story behind the rose refusal. As Wesley says in Princess Bride, "Get used to disappointment!"

Here is my beautiful Buttercup with her share of the rejected roses!

~Joan

Cookie Party Pic

Above is a pic from the cookie party I had Tuesday night. One friend had already slipped away before I remembered to take a picture. I invited a great group of ladies over for a make-it-bake-it-take-it cookie party. You can see some of our results in front of the group, on my very messy island. We made three new-to-me recipes.

I had baked round home made sugar cookies that morning. I much prefer the flavor of my home made cookies to store-bought dough. Those were dipped into red, white, or brown chocolate melts and then sprinkled with crushed peppermints (yum, yum) or Christmas color sprinkles. I had already baked and cooled a Devil's food cake for cake balls. We also made a new-to-me recipe from my friend, Rachel. Easy Lemon Crinkle Cookies. They were quite possibly the easiest cookies I've ever made "from scratch". Here is the recipe:

1 lemon cake mix
2 eggs
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1-1/2 teaspoons lemon extract

Preheat oven to 375. Pour dry cake mix into a large bowl. In separate bowl, mix eggs, oil and extract. Add to cake mix. Mix thoroughly. Roll teaspoonfuls of dough into balls then drop into a bowl of confectioner's sugar. Roll until lightly covered. Place on ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 6-9 minutes. Remove to wire racks to cool completely.

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We had such a great time. I'd do this again next year. The best part? My sweet Susanna cleaned up the big mess after I dropped, exhausted, into bed that night AND she got up early the next AM to empty the clean dishes out of the dishwasher as a surprise. And, BOY was it!

Take time to enjoy having some friends over this holiday season.

~Joan

A Quilty Day is a GOOD Day!!

What's better than spending time with a friend? Spending time with a friend sewing and having a new Xmas table runner ready to quilt when she leaves! My young whippersnapper friend and I made matching table runners in just a couple hours today. Mine is one block longer than hers. I can barely wait to quilt this lovely addition to our family.

These are all Christmas Street prints from Thimbleberries. The second picture is a close-up of one of the blocks.

~Joan

11-20-09 Bull's Eye

Here is my Bull's Eye quilt so far. There will not be much progress on it for the foreseeable future. Something about a scavenger hunt, girls' Sunday school party, breakfast guests, extra play practice, feeding 20 on Sunday, and I think there is a major cooking holiday coming up, too. At least that's the word on the street.

So...I did the unthinkable and stored away all my parts and pieces for this quilt until my lovely friend can come over and play again. I might call this the potato chip quilt...just one more block...just one more...SO addictive. Each quarter block adds a little more flavor, a little more za-za-za-zing!! How much more can it take? About twice as much since this represents only half of the blocks of the finished quilt. Yes, it will be a feast for the eyes. To think that this is made up primarily of fabrics for which we could see no future.

~Joan

Memory Quilt #1 of 3, Mostly Pieced

Below is the beginning of my son's memory quilt from high school graduation. If you look back here you can see its humble beginnings. I wasn't sure where to go from the signed blocks. My quilting e-friend, Sam, sent me a pic of her beautiful quilt of the same block where she made half blocks to finish out the design. So I adopted her idea, and below is the result.

Then I had to figure where to go from there. James likes blue, so I added an inner blue border, below. I added it so that the half block row and the inner border combined equalled one of the star blocks in size. That way I had several options of what to do from there.

For starters, I added a border of 4" finished blocks all around, using the same colors as were already used in the center. This was taken at night under fluorescent lighting, so the colors are definitely not true.

I haven't measure it yet, but it is quite large already. I want to make it large enough to use on his bunk at school as a bedspread, so there will need to be some additions. I am going to measure tomorrow or Saturday and see where I need to go from here. It is a challenge to be to keep it masculine in color and fabric design. So far, so good!

~Joan

11-12-09 Bull's Eye Progress

Diane came over to sew again today. Here is a picture of our progress so far. After just two sewing sessions, we are nearly halfway finished with our blocks. These are just the completely finished ones. We have lots more in various stages of completion. Not too bad for fabrics we were ready to pitch, huh?

Luke made me a new design wall this morning that is far superior to my old one, although it did the trick for a many years. The old one was formerly screwed into a wall in our home. Now I don't have the wall space, so the most important characteristic of the new on is that it must be portable. We went to Lowe's and had several funny moments just being us. We got a sheet of 1/4" plywood and a piece of 3/4" foam insulation board. I had gotten a flannel-backed tablecloth on clearance yesterday for $3. I didn't realize you would be able to see the apples through the back, but oh, well.

Luke stapled the plywood to the insulation, then wrapped the tablecloth with the flannel side out and stapled it in to the plywood on the back. With the insulation board on the front, I can pin blocks in place if necessary. The plywood on the back makes it much better for leaning against a wall or bookshelf. Thanks, Luke! Oh, and yes--the Lowe's guy DOES speak English!

~Joan

11-11-09 Bull's Eye

I was up at 6 with a horrid headache, so I decided to sew a few half blocks. They take next to no thought, and I had my iPod playing the end of the book of Judges and then Ruth. Naturally I wanted to see what the addition of those blocks would look like, so I added them to my design wall to get the full effect.

Diane, I put half of the half blocks in your stack!

~Joan