Holiday Baking

Kristin has spent the last two days baking for the holidays! The house smells phenomenal and I can't wait to eat what she has made. I have had the biggest sweet tooth since the surgery and that is very unusual for me!

She started out with these Chewy Molasses cookies. Kristin likes these better then traditional gingerbread cookies. These are what really made the house smell like the holidays.

Later she went on to make my favorite cookies Spritz! Almond flavored shortbread essentially. I heard her crack up laughing. Seeing as she was the only one in the kitchen I went to check it out.

Seems that we didn't have any regular food coloring in the house....only neon. I guess we must have done some Easter egg dyeing with my grandson at some point.  They are the BRIGHTEST cookies I have ever seen. Oh well.....

This is the current stack on the counter....Double Chocolate, Chewy Molasses, Spritz, Thumbprints, and pound cakes.

She has some merengues in the oven right now too. As you can see I decided to hit the pound cake first! It is a really good thing that she is packaging up gift boxes right now though as I really don't need to encourage my sweet tooth to stick around!

Back to my Christmas Tree quilt....

One Task Finished......

Yesterday Kristin hung the evergreen garland outside around the front door, a younger more agile person's task.  However, we needed to find the outdoor extension cord, plug box and tree.  Today I managed to finish it up.  It looks so welcoming.

 

Once I was done with that task I got to go back to machine quilting my Christmas tree project.  Since it had been awhile since I've done anything but straight lines I figured I needed to doodle a bit on paper, then on one of my quilt sandwiches I keep near the machine to experiment.

Finished out my day actually getting both borders quilted and the binding stitched on.....hopefully I can get to the fun stuff tomorrow.  I love hand stitching so bring on the embroidery.

Thanks for stopping by, we will see what tomorrow will bring.

Holiday Distractions.....

Somehow at this time of the year I can be distracted so easily, jingle keys in front of me and I'm like one of the pups, I am in the car.  After running errands and a quick lunch, we returned home to hang some garlands and mix some dye concentrate.  Somehow work does sneak in every now and then.  What I didn't get a chance to do is machine quilt the remainder of the Christmas tree quilt.  So I will show a few peaks at our holiday decorating.

Kristin made this little pillow from our hand-dyed burlap including the poinsettias, which were created by stiffening the burlap and sending through a die cut machine.  It looks very nice in one of the chairs we refinished and upholstered in our hand-dyed linen fabric for our booth at fall International Quilt Market...I don't think I can part with the chairs for a little while they look so good in our family room.

These are just a quick peak at the corners of the mantle...love cedar garland and the way it drapes.  I found the patriotic Santa at a craft fair several years ago, just couldn't resist as I collect Santa's.  As I mentioned before our tree is decorated with Santa ornaments no two are alike, here is a quick peak at a few.

Did you spot the shell, corn cob, tomato pincushion, or old industrial thread spool?

We'll see what tomorrow brings....

It Works.......

The knee that is, today was the second day I sat at the sewing machine and actually got some stitching time in.  Today I machine quilted the center portion of the Christmas tree quilt I just could resist starting.  After dinner I went back to finish it and once done I did have to admit that was enough for today,  tomorrow is another day. 

I did finish up the holiday wreath for the front door right after getting home from physical therapy, guess that was just too much for me, cause guess what I needed before tackling the sewing machine....you guessed correctly, a little "cat nap".   Once the pups and I did that we were up for anything. 

After choosing to use our hand-dyed osnaburg and linen I knew I had to make a couple of changes to creating the quilt.  I also choose a batik for the center panel which was a bit light weight I did not want the purple linen showing through, so I decided to piece the quilt with a muslin center panel, an inner border in the purple linen and the outer border in the osnaburg, versus layering each fabric on top of the other as in the original.  This allowed me to layer the batik on top with nothing showing through and I can fray the edges as in the original design which I loved.


Hopefully tomorrow I can finish the quilting so I can start the fun part.....

Celebration Day

We love this time of year! No shows, Market orders have been filled, holidays, and some catching up on rest & relaxation! We will have to get cranking for 2016 show prep soon enough but in the meantime we enjoy lazy days!

I spent the early part of the day getting the background prepped for the wool tree (while Kristin was downstairs knitting and yelling at the Falcons game!). 

Maybe tomorrow I can do some quilting, however it is a physical therapy day. Might mean I just come home and take a nap....we'll see.

The best part of the day was helping my niece ring in her 20th birthday. She has been helping us for about a year now here at FOAW. Trust us when we say.....there is a lot of product that wouldn't have made it to your bags without her help.  We enjoyed taking the time to wish her a "Fabulous" Birthday (her favorite word.....she announces her "fabulous" self every morning as she comes in to work)! 

Here we are at dinner.  Amazingly we didn't even clear the section of the restaurant out! It has happened more times then we should admit to. We were quite well behaved if we do say so ourselves! 

Continuing Education...

I have to admit....I love learning something new. I love seeing someone else's take on a technique that I might not have thought of. Add in the fact of not being able to drive right now and that means online classes/workshops/videos/podcasts!  Now even if I may never use the technique talked about in the class I just might pick up something else that sticks with me. So today Kristin and I sat down and watched a few online workshops published through Interweave.

The first was Digital Imagery in Fiber Art with Wen Redmond. 

This one didn't really give me any new techniques but I did learn a good lesson about Photoshop and look forward to playing more with that. I can definitely use some improvement when it comes to that program.

Up next was Art Journal Color Courage by Dina Wakely. 

We LOVED this video! Obviously we work a lot with color....shocker right....but both of us work very intuitively.  We have never broken out a physical color wheel, although there are several in the studio, to put together the color combos we dye.  The way Dina takes you through color theory is great for any level of experience.  She works so free form that both of us can appreciate it and learned from it.

We have a few other videos we purchased on Black Friday from Interweave. We will let you know what we think of those as we go along. The Dina Wakely video is an awesome thing to have on hand. If you have thought about color theory and you like mixed media, she is definitely the way to go. She has an open and inviting manner on camera that will show you that you can do anything you want!

Playing in the Wool

The recuperation from this surgery sometimes makes me feel like there is no time in the day. My morning is spent trying to avoid thinking about going to physical therapy. Unfortunately not going is not an option if I want to get back to driving much less operating a sewing machine. Once I go all I can do is think of taking a nap!  That is something I definitely don't avoid but then all of a sudden it is dinner time and the day is over. Doesn't leave much time for creating....does it?

Today though I managed to stay awake and play with some wool for that magazine project I showed yesterday. This is as far as I got before falling asleep for that well earned nap!

I don't like the center background as it washed out in this photo. I think I will go back to the stash to find something with a little darker tone and more character. The Violets linen and Parchment osnaburg are perfect though. Here's a reminder of that pattern by Phyllis Meiring....

Now let's see how far I can get tomorrow....