AYOS - The End

It's the last day of the year and this is my last entry in Another Year of Schnibbles 2012!  And, I didn't miss a one.  Whew!

December's Schnibble was, again, another Little Bite.  This one is called Morsel - and designer Carrie Nelson has provided patterns for a few different pincushions in the pattern - all very cute.

I chose to make mine in my Little Black Dress scraps and it a very elegant pincushion indeed!  In fact, I put my very elegant white pearl head pins in it and it looks lovely.

I filled it with crushed walnut shells.  I now only have enough crushed walnut shells left to make 999 more pincushions!

Thank you to Sinta & Sherri - and Carrie - for another great round of Schnibbles.  It has been fun!  You can check out the parade of Morsels starting tomorrow on Sinta & Sherri blogs.

Thank you all for reading along with me in 2012 - I hope you'll stay with me in 2013 (and I will do my best to be a better blogger and post more often!)

HAPPY NEW YEAR

EVERYONE!!

Christmas Recap

Every Christmas, at the end of the day after all of the gifts are opened, the dinner eaten, and the family leaves, my husband says "Well, it's all over for another year."  My grandfather used to say the same thing.  The cycle continues.  It makes me feel a connection to the people who aren't with us any more and reminds me how similar we all are.  Kind of like quilting.  o:)

We had a very, very nice Christmas.  

The quilts were a hit...

 Son Bill and Daughter-in-Law Raqhel

Nothing says Christmas like a skull sweater (she's 23, when do they grow out of that????)

Daughter, Ariel and "Gramma" (my mom)

I think we've had enough...

 Bill photo-bombing

My treats were  a hit again this year.  I didn't get to make everything I had planned but the staples are my pickles and shortbread.  These are "Easy Refrigerator Pickles", they're a little sweet and a little hot with some garlic and onions. Yum!  I found this recipe in a Cooking Light magazine years ago and have been making them ever since.  You can find the recipe here.

Some years, I would love to skip the shortbread, but I think there'd be a revolt.

The recipe:
    1 cup butter
    2 cups flour
    1/2 cup sugar
    1/4 tsp salt (if using salted butter. I use 1/2 tsp if I'm using unsalted)
    1/2 tsp vanilla

I cut up the butter in pieces and put all of the ingredients in a food processor.  Pulse until crumbly, then process until the dough comes together - about 40-50 seconds.  I used an 8 wedge pan and one recipe makes one pan.  I usually double up so I get two pans.  Bake at 325 degrees for about 40 minutes.  I let cool a bit before taking the shortbread out of the pan - then let cool completely on a wire rack.

I forgot to take a photo of my cracker toffee, but that's another super easy recipe that we've been making for years.  A lot of recipes call for brown sugar, but we always use white.  I also add chopped hazelnuts after the chocolate is spread before it cools.  I either put the pan in the frige or outside on the ledge if it's cold enough until the toffee cools completely.  Then break into pieces and enjoy!

I can't believe it's all over for another year!

Shop Hop Win and Modern Siggy Blocks

Sure didn't mean to blog-fade again, but 'tis the season!  Both work and Christmas prep have had me crazy, but work is over until next Thursday and I've got all of the gifts bought and wrapped.  I still have a bit (a lot) more sewing to do...but I think things are under control.

I did take some time this morning to go shopping with a friend.  I've been racing from one thing to the next the past couple of weeks and didn't think I had time as I have so much more to do before the big day.  But then I thought about what's more important and decided I'd be much happier taking the time to have a girl's day out.  Cathy and I went here and there - she helped me shop for a last minute gift for my daughter and we went to the LQS and out to lunch today.  I'm so glad I did - it definitely gave me a lift, not to mention we were very productive!

I've been meaning to post about a couple of things.  I was super lucky during the recent shop hop in October and won the basket at my very last stop - Granny's Sewing Den (which is conveniently about 3 minutes from my office).  I stopped there the very last day of the hop during lunch and got a phone call at 5pm saying I'd won!  Well, that was certainly worth the trip!  The basket - which was actually a really cool tote bag - which was great because the last thing I need is another basket - was filled with great loot.  It included some "green" batting, a bunch of patterns, three spools of thread in beautiful colors, a book on color, some fabric and a little wall hanging kit.  Thanks, Granny's!

I also received my Modern Siggy Swap blocks last month.  I got about 60 blocks from all over the world!  It was so fun looking at each block to see where they came from.  So glad I participated in this swap - my first!

I also wanted to mention my "Black Friday" Shopping (yes, this post is ridiculously overdue - bad blogger!).  I don't really do the whole "Black Friday" thing anymore, but the Joann's coupons were too good to pass up because I really needed to stock up on batting...and rotary blades.  At 75%, I couldn't resist!  I splurged on an entire 40-yard bolt of Warm&Natural.  I'm putting a date on it so I know how long it lasts me - I think I'll be good for a while o:)  I also treated myself to a new 6"x12" Omnigrid ruler (the lines are wearing off at the edges of mine after 18 years of hard use!) and the June Tailor Shape Cut Pro ruler I saw at our guild meeting last month (thanks, Pat!)  Can't wait to try that one out!

I'll be back before Christmas to show off all of the goodies I've made!

Santa's Workshop

Christmas gift-making is in full swing here...both in the sewing room and in the kitchen!

Every year I make a number of different goodies - usually sweet & sour hot pickles, hot tarragon mustard, quick toffee, shortbread, caramel corn and a few other goodies.  I'll share those recipes and photos in another post.  Today, I made the pickles and got started on the mustard.  Then, it was back into the sewing room ... because I don't have elves to help me out.

I am obsessed with making these very cute - and super easy - tissue covers (tutorial by KimQuiltz).  They are like potato chips - you can't stop at just one (which takes about 15 minutes start to finish, by the way!)  Everyone's getting these.  So far, I've made seven...

Purse construction is also in full swing...I'm making 5 of these striped purses from Jessica Levitt's Modern Mix...

I've also started the quilting on the Helix quilt  (from Emily Herrick's Geared for Guys) for son Bill.  This quilt was almost an epic fail.  You need to be careful and label all of the strips and carefully follow the instructions to sew them together. I did that and things were going well.  Until the cutting of the corners at 60 degree angles.  Angles and I do not get along.  Particularly ones that aren't 90 degrees - those I can usually handle (geometry was NOT a strong suit in school).  I thought I was doing fine until I started sewing on the corners to square the quilt back up.  This would be the wrong way to do it:

It hit me at 4:30am that I was sewing the corners back onto the corners I just cut.  Duh!  You needed to sew them on to where you didn't cut to square it up (this probably makes no sense, but trust me)  I will say that the only reason this quilt didn't wind up wadded up in the trash is due to the help of friends.  Becky and Lindsay both came to my rescue at different points in the making of this quilt - talked me off the ledge and provided two more hands and more brain cells and we figured it out and it's now on the frame.  Whew!  Thanks, friends!

I'm going "modern" in the quilting of this very modern quilt.  Straight lines in the green area and boxy meandering in the brown.  This is gonna take a while.  I've already gone through one bobbin and I only got one pass done.  How many more days until Christmas???