Holiday Cheer!

Told you I was gonna work with something other than batiks, eventually. I had a pretty good time, too. These are all flannels- Maywood Studios, Benartex, Marcus Brothers and Moda. I haven't worked much with flannel- it seems that people either love it or hate it. I thought it worked nicely- you do have to open some seams when there is a lot of bulk, but I do that with the batiks, so nothing too bothersome. I found this pattern in an old magazine- sorry, can't find it right now. But it was super simple with just hour-glass blocks and bear claws. Guess what? I put a dark green/watercolor minkee on the back- talk about a snuggly quilt! Hope you all have a wonderful Xmas!

Evabeth's feast...

Last, but not least... Evabeth is 8. She is a sweetheart, in a grown-up kind of way. She tends to take things seriously. She was with John when he last fell on his face and she promptly checked him out, said he was bleeding and then burst into tears. Give that girl a job, though, and you can count on it getting done. She is very attached to her younger sister. When Eva and I went shopping for her feast, she must have asked me 5 times, "What do you think Bekah is doing, now?" The only time you find them apart is when Bekah gets too cold outside and Eva still wants to play. Eva would stay outside all day if I let her. (Every 6 months we take her picture in this exact spot. It is at Riley Childrens' Hospital, in Indianapolis. My nephew is a patient there, also, and I think my sister should take his picture there, too. OK, Lisa?)

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Her feast was scrumptious. While she and I were in the kitchen preparing her feast, Joe hollers in that she needs to hurry up because he is starving- he likes to tease the girls. She yells back, "The longer it takes, the gooder it will be!" Joe had a good laugh over that one! I think she was trying to create the atmosphere of a fancy restaurant, because she had Jacob stroll around the table playing his violin. He has a very loud violin-did you know different ones sound different- like a personality? Finally, she had to ask him to go ahead and stop, so we could hear ourselves think. She had chocolate dipped strawberries- she dipped them herself and they were soooo good. And she also had orange wedges in a big trifle bowl. She had to have candles at her feast because she knows how much the boys like to squeeze the oil from the peels and make sparks over the flame. You haven't tried that? Well, it is a lot of fun and I don't normally condone such behavior... but it WAS feast day!(Bill is getting nervous that the boys' table manners are going to shock the southerners... I have a feeling I know what he'll be talking about during their 9 hours of captivity on the drive down to Bama.) She had chocolate milk in stemware- Abe is going to be so happy when the fancy glasses get put away. He has to cover the top of the cup with one hand as he lifts it and brings it to his lips- to keep it from spilling over! He is so careful. Her main course was waffles, polish sausages and poptarts. giggle. But they thoroughly enjoyed everything. Her dessert was angel food cake with strawberries and whipped cream. She went around the table and used her best British accent to take their orders for dessert. When they said they'd have both strawberries and whipped cream on their cake she'd thank them for co-operating!

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We found a deal on her gifts. they were clearing out some shelves at Walmart- making these little stationary kits down to 10cents. We bought about 20, at least. They had a stapler, extra staples, tape and a hole punch- all in a cute little plastic duffle bag. She was so tickled with the find- she loves to draw and doodle and paste and punch. She could stay quite content in my scrapbook supplies- she has her own collection of less expensive papers. All in all, the feast season passed very well.

Paper garland...



Do we take Xmas cards for granted? I sure don't! I just love them!! I get all excited when we receive them. Will it have a wonderful pastoral scene? Or better yet, glitter? Oh, I do love the glitter ones. Or maybe something funny? Or whimsy? Or some adorable woodland animals? They are just so much fun to get! Of course, the fact that they come from loved ones and family and friends... well, that's nice, too! But can you imagine what a cool thing it would be to get these colorful little creations say, 100 years ago? What a treasure! I do have a problem with them, though. I can't bear to part with them. Just throw them away? Oh, say it never comes to that!! This is just one of the uses we have found for cards around our house. We make garlands out of them. Isn't it just too festive and fun? We crop them down to a nice size- I love the cropper- it has done for scrapbooking what rotary cutters have done for quilting. Sometimes, we even get 2-3 peices from a card. We punch holes in the upper corners and string them on satin ribbon- I get a whole roll for 50 cents. Ivory usually looks best, I think, but blue would be pretty as well as traditional green or red. I go under the card with my ribbon so that it doesn't cover any of the picture. They look great over the mantle- if you have one, or across a window sill or sash. I have ours hanging on the wainscoting. We also make gift tags from them and even hang them on the tree- very pretty. But the one most people rave over is the garland. It makes a really wonderful, homemade, thoughtful gift- at no expense! It is kind of victorian and just charming. And it saves a beautiful peice of paper from being thrown away. So it's "green", too. Cool.

Closer look at garlands...

John's Feast...

Some of you may feel that this isn't a good picture of John. Trying to find a picture of John where his lip, eye or mouth isn't bashed in... now that's a challenge. His older brothers keep threatening to teach him to put his hands out and catch himself. And yet, to no avail. John is like that. He's funny and happy. Happy and funny. He is 11 years old and a bundle of energy and enthusiasm.

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His feast was an extravaganza of kingdomness. At least, that's what he said! He had the table decorated with a golden lame table cloth, lots of candles, the good china with the gold edges... and colored twinkle lights. His gift was an assortment of mugs. His meal... well, his apetizer was Totino's pizza rolls and a pomegranate- (have you ever eaten a pomogranate? If you haven't you really need to try them. They are yummyliscious. Even if I can't spell them correctly. We just score the peel- like you do when you are peeling an orange and pull it apart. Now, there are a lot of seeds but well worth the effort.) His main course was home-made macaroni and cheese with little smokies in it and... beenieweenies. Wouldn't you just love to visit this kingdom? "Sire, your beenie weenies are served." A regal dish. And he had pomagranite floats or rootbeer floats. His dessert was orange dream popcicles. What a kid!

And I forgot! He also made crowns for everyone out of gold foil and glued little plastic jewels on them. So I had a table of royalty!

Do you see what I see?...

do you see what I see?... a star, a star...

Nope, scratch that! ...a pucker and a pleat, just waiting to be quilted in...

It's not nearly so poetic. And it ain't pretty, either. See how taut the quilt is on the bottom- which is the right side of the quilt- and how floppy it is on the top(left side?) Today, I'm going to take a minute and describe the problem, the cause and the remedy. Just in case some of you are mystified. And I know that this has probably happened to all of us, but we don't want it to ever happen again, now do we? This is not by any means an exhaustive study on the topic, just what works for me...

This quilt is basically a quilt of borders. Just long vertical stripes. I think it is a cute quilt- love the colors. It's for a 3 year old's daybed. (Guess what? The backing is horizontal stripes. Another quilt of borders.) The cause of this extra fabric on one side of her quilt is simple. She started on the right side and kept adding to the left. She would sew on a strip- until she came to the end- and then lop it off, add another strip, lop it off. Guess what happens? Yes, the fabric that is being sewn stretches and grows with every additional strip until the finished quilt is 7 inches longer on the left than on the right! No kidding. Now that the quilt has lots of fullness sewn in, there is no way to quilt it out. No way to cut it out. One just has to ease it in. And I consider myself the queen of ease, but there is only so much one can do with 7 inches. I did get the finished quilt to be only one inch longer on the left side, but with a fair amount of puckering in the quilting. You just can't tighten it flat because the right side is stretched to it's limits. Understand?

Now that we have shown where the fullness/length comes from, and some of the things that won't fix it (I don't consider puckers in a quilt top an acceptable fix) let's look at a more reliable remedy. Any time you are adding strips to the side of a quilt-such as in borders- always measure the quilt across it's middle, cut the strips to fit and then with a few pins, make it fit. Please avoid the temptation to make the quilt fit a strip. There is just too much room for variation. But think about it. If I am adding a 50" strip to both top and bottom of my quilt and a 62" strip to both sides- my quilt is going to be the same size all the way around. The sides are the same and the top and bottom are the same. Ain't that cool? Now for a quilt of vertical stripes, I'd think the best way of tackling it would be to cut all of your strips to the desired length and then, starting with the middle stripe, add a strip to each side, pinning, until completed. It only takes a few pins to hold the strips in place- one in the middle, one at each end and maybe two more in between the middle and the end. No more oddly shaped quilts! And it is such an easy step to do- a little measuring and a little pinning. No puckers, no floppy borders... ahh... all is right in the world.

Jacob's Feast...

Jacob(14y) is our third son. He's very quick on the up-take- you know, the kid who always gets the joke a few seconds before anyone else. He has always been a very easy child to be around- as long as you didn't expect him to do things like the other boys. He is more than capable of entertaining himself and never minded being different. He's very creative and loves being outdoors. He loves to read- especially books about survival or animals. He has an extensive rock collection and can spot a geode a mile away. He plays the fiddle and likes bluegrass music. Not your typical teen. And we like that about him!

His feast was uniquely his own. He popped in a bluegrass cd and took the children their gifts before they were invited in- bandanas in different colors and designs. The had to wear them to the feast. His bluegrass music was a hint- he was having a hoe-down! He had removed the kitchen table and had set up a "fire ring" in the middle of the kitchen floor. He had gathered some big rocks from the borders of my flower garden- no simple feat considering that they were covered in snow and frozen to the ground! Inside of his fire ring, he had stacked some wood, some flickering light bulbs and a kerosene lamp. It was really cool. We all sat around the "fire" on quilts and he served up a super feast of down-home food, all offered up in big cast iron skillets. He had boneless bbq chicken wings for an appetitzer, pop in bottles, and then steak, mashed potatoes, corn from the garden and white rolls- I don't rememer the last time I made rolls with white flour, but there was a whole lot of pounding on the floor, that night! Apparently, they liked them alot. We had also sweetened our butter with a little powdered sugar and cinnamon. His dessert was Texas sheet cake- which everyone groaned as they ate because they were just too full! It kept, and I noticed the whole pan had disappeared by lunch the next day. A couple of the older boys cringed over the choice of music, but they were good-natured about it. It really was a great feast!