Are We Finished?

 

I started these guys last Saturday night, too. ( It should be obvious by now I have a short attention span.)  I worked on them a little bit each night until early Thursday morning when I put what might be the finishing touches on them. 

The pattern is from Sweet Dreams Patterns.  I picked it up at some quilt show over the last few years.  I realized when I was pulling up the link I have several of the patterns and have already made a few.  I also found another one I “need!”  I followed the pattern for the most part, but improvised if I didn’t have the correct supplies.  The pattern said to sew the buttons on after stuffing the snowmen.  I maybe crazy, but I’m not going to that much trouble.  I tied bits of pearl cotton through the button holes and glued them on.  Also the wire for the ear muffs was just supposed to be a black 16 gauge wire.  I didn’t have that, but I did have silver wire and instead of one strand, I wrapped it around the handle of a wooden spoon to make the ear muffs.  I thought I was going to have mutiny on my hands when I went to put the second snowman on top of it.  All three males in the house were opposed and thought the snowmen should stay separate to save the spring.  I vetoed the vote.  I bought the pattern because I LIKED the stack!  The snowmen are supposed to have twig arms, but I think I like them without.  Finally there was supposed to be a rusty tin star on the top hat.  Apparently, rusty tin is no longer in.  I couldn’t find any anywhere I looked in town.  That’s alright, he looks fine without it.  So are they finished, probably because I’ll be moving on to something else  to fit my attention span.

Does the Proboscis Matter?

I’m going to an ornament/gift exchange on Sunday.  I could have purchased something, but I always prefer handmade items so out came the embroidery machine again.

The designs for these fellows came from the Machine Embroidery Snowmen set by The Stitch Connection.  They are made from scraps of batting.  Is it possible a longarm quilter has batting scraps?  I couldn’t find exactly the buttons I wanted and settled on these for the noses.  They are a little large and my boys have told me they look more like penguins than snowmen.  So in this case the proboscis does matter, and I made snow penguins.  Both boys also asked why I gave them a crown of thorns.  They aren’t buying that they are holly and fir halos or wreaths.   I guess that is what comes from living with a house full of males!

Christmas has come and gone …(almost)

We celebrated Christmas last night (Christmas Eve) which has been the tradition in both my family and my husband’s family our whole lives.  Santa has never been a big part of our celebrations.  He is just a guy that dresses in red, is used for decorative purposes and is a nice story. I won’t tell you what my FIL says about Santa.

When I was a child we always opened presents at my grandparents house.  We always had before opening presents.  My uncle’s (He is 12 years older than I am) birthday is on Christmas so he usually chose the meal.  I think most of the time we had homemade pizza.  Once everyone finally finished eating and things were cleaned up we got to go into the living room (the living & dining room were usually closed off except for special occasions and Sabbath) and open presents.

Based on that background, I make the boys wait until after we eat and it is at least dark outside before opening presents.  I have been accused by my children of continually coming up with more things that have to happen before they can open presents.  Jesse was practically twitching on the 23rd waiting to open presents and tried to talk us into opening them that day.  I finally gave him  a time he could use for countdown  — 5pm.  We had a simple dinner at 4pm and were actually ready to get started at about 4:50 pm.  The cameras were even charged and ready to go.  The boys made out like bandits as usual.  Have I mentioned they are the only grandchildren on either side? My sister and brother-in-law are also very good to them.  Every year Guy says there is too much, but every year he is just as guilty of spoiling them as anyone else.

I was in line behind someone at Sam’s Club at the beginning of the month and the cashier was telling the lady it was much cheaper to buy for boys than for girls.  I almost laughed out loud!  That may be the case when they are little, but when they get older they tend to have a long list of electronic wants.

 Both boys recieved digital cameras and accessories and have spent today running around taking pictures of some very odd things.  They also each received a game for their Nintendo DS, a lego set (Nolan a market street set and Jesse a train set), pajamas, classic game controllers for the Wii, money and small Swiss Army Knives.  Jesse also got Sonic & Mario at the Olympics for the Wii, slippers, a Cutest Kitten Wars book, and Nintendo Monopoly.  Nolan got Fox Trot books, a Gerber Multi-tool, and Stop Motion software. 

Nolan had played with the demo version of the stop motion software, but it put the words demo version through the middle of the screen.  Once he loaded the software today he went back and reprocessed his early video.  He and Jesse can get very creative with this.  Here is one of their early videos — someday you might be able to say you saw their work here first

It’s too bad the quality is so much worse once something is loaded on YouTube.

We had a nice dinner today with  family and a friend.  It wasn’t a traditional Christmas dinner, but everyone here seemed to be fine with that.  Dinner consisted of Homemade Lasagna, various breads,  salad and Apple berry crisp and Ice Cream for dessert.

I have to admit I have a feeling of let down every year once Christmas is over.  I have fun getting ready for it and once it is over, just the clean up remains.  However, I do have something to look forward to tomorrow.  Ruth’s Stitchery one of my favorite quilt shops is having her after Christmas sale tomorrow!  She always had hundreds of bolts of fabric (usually anything over a year old) in the back room for 40% off and 50% if you finish the bolt.  Plus many other things on sale.  This is when I buy my backings, but I will be there when the doors open tomorrow with my color wheel and 3 in 1 color tool in hand looking for fabric for my next color class project.

Christmas Sweets

Today was the first full day of vacation for my boys and we finally got around to make goodies for Christmas.  [I had intended to do it earlier, but am fighting another nasty cold.  It is the third so far this school year and puts me ahead of where I usually am for the whole school year.  Not sure what is going on, Guy suggested stress.]  My weakness is sweets — forget the salt give me the sugar.  I tend to overdo it with making sweets for Christmas. So in an attempt to restrain myself I’ve started making just one choice per family member.  The boys each helped to make their pick.  I think the number one sweet for Christmas in this household is Chocolate Scotcheroos.  We can count on Guy to pick that one so everyone else can come up with another option.  I’ve decided to include recipes for each pick here.  There appears to be a theme to our choices — the majority contain commercial cereal and the other equally used ingredients are peanut butter and chocolate. 

Guy’s Choice — Chocolate Scotcheroos

1 c. sugar
1 c. light corn syrup
1 c. peanut butter
6 c. Rice Krispies
6 oz. semi-sweet chocolate morsels
6 oz. butterscotch morsels

Combine sugar and corn syrup in microwave safe bowl and microwave until the mixture bubbles, stirring about every minute. Remove from microwave and stir in the peanut butter. Mix in the Rice Krispies. Press into a 9 x 12 pan which has been sprayed with cooking spray. Using waxed paper to press the mixture into the pan and avoid burning your fingers.

Combine the chocolate morsels and the butterscotch morsels in a microwave safe bowl and microwave at half power until the mixture melts. Stir once every minute. Spread the melted mixture over the Rice Krispies and allow to set up. You can chill to speed the process. Cut into bars. These are very rich so smaller bars are better than larger ones.

Nolan’s Choice — White Trash

2 lb. white chocolate (white morsels work)
2 T. vegetable oil
3 c. wheat chex
3 c. rice chex
3 c. corn chex
½ lb small pretzels
½ lb. pretzel nubs
3 c. Crispix
1 can mixed nuts

Combine the last seven ingredients in a large bowl.

Combine white chocolate and vegetable oil in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave at half power until the chocolate is melted stirring every minute. Pour the white chocolate over the other ingredients and stir gently to coat. Spread on waxed paper to cool. Break into pieces and store in covered container.

Jesse’s Choice — Peanut-Butter & Chocolate Kisses

½ c. margarine, room temperature

½ c. peanut butter

¾ c. packed brown sugar

¼ c. granulated sugar

1 egg

1 t. vanilla extract

¼ t. salt

1-3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 t. baking soda

3T. granulated sugar

48 milk-chocolate candy kisses, unwrapped

Preheat oven to 375F.  In medium bowl, beat together margarine, peanut butter, brown sugar, ¼ cup granulated sugar, egg, vanilla and salt until light and fluffy.  Add flour and baking soda, beating until thoroughly blended.  Shape dough into 48 balls, using a rounded teaspoon for each.  Roll balls in the 3 tablespoons granulated sugar.  Place 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets.  Bake 8 – 10 minutes or until light golden.  Immediately top each cookie with a candy kiss, carefully pressing down firmly.  Remove cookies from baking sheets; cool on racks.  Makes about 48 cookies.

My Choice?  I’d have picked the Chocolate Scotcheroos, so I let the boys sort of pick the fourth — Muddy Buddies
9 c. Chex cereal (any variety)
1 c. semisweet chocolate chips
½ c. peanut butter
¼ c. margarine
1 t. vanilla
1-1/2 cups powdered sugar
In a large bowl, measure cereal; set aside.
In a microwave safe bowl, stir together chocolate chips, peanut butter and margarine. Microwave uncovered on High 1 minute; stir. Microwave about 30 seconds longer or until the mixture can be stirred smooth. Stir in vanilla. Pour mixture over cereal, stirring until evenly coated. Pour into a 2-gallon resealable food storage plastic bag.

Add powdered sugar. Seal bag; shake until well coated. Spread on waxed paper to cool. Store in airtight container in refrigerator.
So that and a long nap pretty much took up my day.  There are enough sugary treats in the house to make me even sicker, unless I can find will power somewhere.  Anyone know where I can buy some?

He Came, He Saw, He conquered

This is a picture of my oven.  “Big Deal,” you say?  Actually it is.  On Sunday this space was filled with a single wall oven, a microwave and another drawer.  The display went out on my old oven and after check prices on parts it would have been around $250 just for the part.   I had been wishing for a double oven, so rather than spending the money to repair the old we put it toward the new.  That is where the “adventure” began.  We received the call saying the oven was in on Saturday.  Guy and Nolan took my Element on Sunday and managed to just fit the oven into the back.  Monday night after work Guy started tearing apart the cabinets and lowered the shelf to hold the oven.  Tuesday Guy went and bought the outlet to attach to the pigtail on the oven.  He was talking to me on the phone about it having 4 prongs and I commented that the old one had only 3.  So then we were wondering if the wiring is wrong.  I crawled back in the hole and started taking digital pictures and emailing them to him.  I finally ended up taking the cover off the receptacle and pulling it out of the wall so I could get a picture of the actual wiring.  Come to find out when they wired the receptacle they just skipped the ground wire, it was there.  So Guy replaced the receptacle.  Now there is a lovely hole all wired and ready to go.  How are we going to get that oven into the space.  Thankfully I borrowed a dolly from the school yesterday and we brought the ovens into the house on that.  (Guy had used one of the boys’ skateboards to take the old oven out.)  We still had a problem.  That oven is in the corner of the kitchen so once it was in front of the hole there wasn’t a lot of room to work.  Also we couldn’t lift it.  We finally leveraged a board under the oven on the dolly.  That brought it to the right height and we could now slide it into the hole.  It is installed and ready for it’s maiden baking.  Bless Guy’s heart, he just kept plugging away until it worked.  I’m seeing all kinds of possibilities here.  Now I can bake a whole batch of granola at one time instead of in two sessions.  We can bake two Papa Murphy’s pizzas at once rather than doing the kids’ first and then ours.  I won’t have to stack food on top of other  dishes if I’m trying to do a big dinner.  I can bake two things at once that take separate temperatures.  Oh yes, this is good!

Yesterday morning we had a two hour delay for school because of weather, so I started working on more samples for Embroidery Club today.  The theme this month was embroidery on paper.  Before taking the boys to school, I managed to embroider this toilet paper.  (The image is clickable if you want to see it bigger.)  Why did I want to embroider on toilet paper?  Because I can.

Last night I managed to finish one more sample — a candle wrap.  I used one of the blackwork run designs in my Bernina software and just digitized a straight line.  I then enlarged the design and embroidered it on Mulberry paper using metallic thread.  Yes, I know paper burns.  So rather than a regular candle I purchased one of those battery operated tea lights.  It fooled my husband last night he thought there was a candle burning in it. 

Because of the delayed start at school yesterday, I had to take the boys rather than Guy.  (The school is on the other side of town from where we live.)  Rather than coming home and working on customer quilts like I should have, I finished my Christmas shopping and met Guy for lunch.  That means I now need to wrap all that stuff.  I saw that Suzanne wrote on one of her journal pages that she doesn’t go all out on wrapping presents any more.  I think I am even worse than her.  About all I do anymore is put the paper on them (Paper I bought after Christmas the year before for $1 a roll).  I don’t usually bother with bows  and sometimes not even names.  That way the boys have to wait to find out which gifts belong to them.  Suzanne said her boys wouldn’t mind if the gifts were just in plastic bags.  I will admit that we have actually done that for birthdays the last couple of years.  Nolan and Jesse just don’t care.  Enough confessions about what a pitiful gift wrapper I have become.  I’m off to quilt until I need to pick the boys up from school.

Decompressing

I don’t expect to have a lot to say today.  I’m working on recovering from this week and putting my house in order.  The dinner theatre went well and I took a couple of pictures of the boys to post, but somehow I managed to wipe out everything on my camera this morning.  They are pleased, the don’t get really excited about the plays they participate in at school.

We have a very eclectic collection of ornaments on our tree and I thought I would post a few pictures of Christmas decorations and ornaments I’ve made over the years.  Some are from books or patterns, some are copies of ornaments we’ve purchased and some I just made up.

This ornament is made from safety pins and beads.  It goes over a light on the tree so it glows.  The directions came from Christie Low.  A few years ago  we wrote a handout and had a demonstration day for our guild to raise money and Christie provided the directions then.

 

 

 

     I painted these penguins when we lived in California over 8 years ago.  They are probably some of my very favorite ornaments.

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 These three ornaments are burned out light bulbs.  The idea for them came from a tole painting book.  After making these guys I ended up with quite a collection of old light bulbs.

 

 

 

 There was a picture of one of these ornaments on one of Carol Duvall’s Holiday specials several years ago.  There weren’t any directions, but I decided I could do it anyway.  They are quick and pretty easy.

 

 

 

 

 We bought one of these ornaments and I decided to make more.  They are just tongue depressors painted and decorated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 This is another ornament where we bought one and I decided to try my hand at making one.  I’m not really into Santas, but he was too cute to pass up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

    These snowmen were made from patterns.  They are all made from batting.  The trio sits out most of the winter and their noses have faded from our bright Colorado sun — which we have even in the winter!

 

 This group of snowmen were also made from a pattern.  Are you starting to sense a bit of a theme here?  I did a Snowman Collector block of the month in 2000 and have been stuck on snowmen ever since.  The quilt top is finished, but still waiting to be quilted.

 

 

 

 

 This snowman is just a paint can from the hardware store.  This is one I actually came up with on my own.  The can is covered with batting and then decorated with buttons, felt and other fabric.

 

 

 

 

 This snowman is made from Terra cotta pots.  These happen to be very small pots, but they could be as big as you wanted.  I don’t remember where the inspiration came for this fellow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Even snowmen stockings.  The directions for these came from one of the Spirit of Christmas books.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Finally a nativity set made from a 2 x 4.  The designs were  placed on the wood with a wood burning tool and then filled in with simple painting.  I didn’t have a nativity set yet when I made these.  My children were small so these were a safe set for them to play with.  I now have three nativity sets, but still really like the simplicity of this one.  The directions for this set also came from one of the Spirit of Christmas books.

I didn’t take the time today to pull out patterns and books to give specific titles today.  If anyone is interested in the specifics for anything you see here I can do that in the near future.

 

Stop & Breathe

This week is exceptionally busy so this may be my only post for a few days.

Monday was Guy’s birthday he caught up with me once again for a couple of months.  I thought I had actually managed to buy a gift that would surprise him.  He has been talking about this saw for almost a year.  When I checked Amazon.com it was almost $100 less than I could get it here in town with the free shipping.  The scheduled date for shipping was on his birthday, but then I received a notice that it had shipped and was due to arrive on Monday.  How cool is that — here for his birthday and I didn’t have to unload it from the car.  Last Thursday he comes home and says, ”Hey that saw is a lot cheaper on Amazon.”  Oh great, there goes the surprise.  I went ahead and told him it was on the way, because we sure didn’t need a second one showing up on the front porch. 

Today Quilter’s Anonymous met at my house.  (Guy says first you have to admit you have a problem, but it is actually my mini quilt group.)  We had our gift exchange today.  It was great! Everyone made gifts for the name they had drawn this year and the gifts were all awesome.  There were four quilts, a beautiful fiber runner, an embroidered shirt, hand knit socks and fingerless gloves and last, but not least the gift I received from Joyce, a purse.  We sent emails to our group discussing our likes and dislikes and I specifically said I like blue and yellow.  Isn’t it cool?  It has pockets all the way around the inside, too.      

While we were chatting today we somehow ended up talking about a female police officer that frequents the quilt shop where two of our members work.  I made some comment about how the vests police wear make them look buff.  I then received some teasing about liking my husband in uniform.  I frequently quilt for one of the other members and she has met Guy and she said something about him being good looking even when he isn’t in uniform.  In case I haven’t mentioned it before, Guy volunteers as a deputy with the Sheriff’s office.  The volunteers go through the academy and have all the same authority as any other deputy when they are on duty, they just don’t get paid.  Anyway, the Sheriff’s office recently took formal pictures of the volunteers to have on file.    Since about half the group hasn’t met Guy, I went and grabbed the picture and passed it around.  I got a kick out of the comments — they went something like this — “Oh, he is good looking, he still has his HAIR!”  I’m posting the picture here so you can be the judge (No matter what you decide, I’m keeping him!).  It’s a pretty good picture, but Guy wasn’t pleased that they spent most of the day on the range before they took the pictures so they were sunburned, had hat hair and weren’t freshly shaved.

The final thing that is making this week hectic is the Christmas Dinner Theatre at school tomorrow.   The teachers and students provide the theatre and I provide the dinner.  We are having soup, salad, bread and dessert.  The soups are all homemade (also vegetarian) and I had planned to bake the bread as well.  At this point I think I will be stopping in at Panera tomorrow to buy some bread.  For soup I have a mild Chili, Mock Chicken Noodle soup, Minestrone, Taco soup, and Baked Potato soup.  The first four are finished except for adding noodles to some of them and the baked potatoes just came out of the oven for the last one.  For most of the soups I quadrupled the recipes.  How did I end up with this job anyway?  Oh, yeah it was my idea several years ago to add the dinner as a fund raiser and to get more people to show up.  So now I do it twice a year, at Christmas and in the Spring. 

So until I finish with clean up tomorrow night, I will continue to remind myself to breathe!

No Black Friday for Me

A few years ago I decided there weren’t any sales good enough to get me out of bed in the middle of the night to stand in line in the cold waiting to spend money.  Which means today was a relaxing day.  I quilted a small whole cloth and I am very pleased with the final results.  I will post pictures after it is bound.

As soon as we finished eating yesterday, Jesse said something like “Thanksgiving is over, now we can decorate for Christmas.”  Jesse is the only other one in this family that gets excited about decorating for Christmas.  I didn’t start dragging Christmas decorations out last night, but I did start this afternoon.  The tree is up and the lights are on it.  We will add the rest of the ornaments over the next few days.  This is it lit up tonight. 

I’ve always liked to squint my eyes, and look at the tree in the dark.  Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about — really cool rays come off the lights.  OK that’s the weird fact for today.  I used to be adamant about having a real tree.  After all my Dad was a logger when I was a child and we would go out an cut our own usually for free.  I think the last time I remember going out the permit was $2 in Oregon.  When Guy and I got married we moved to Virginia — DC Metro area and I still had to have a real tree, but they were getting pretty expensive.  While we lived in California I didn’t put a tree up, because we took the boys to their grandparents’ houses in Oregon every Christmas.  The year we moved to Colorado, I finally succumbed and bought a fake tree.  There are benefits.  I can put it up as early as I want and it isn’t anymore a fire hazard the day I take it down than it was the day I put it up.  It has also more than paid for itself over the last eight years.  The drawbacks are no evergreen scent and the type of tree is the same every year.

My organization efforts continue.  This week’s Fly Lady zone was the master bedroom.  Our bedroom happens to house all our home office stuff, too.  I managed to make a large dent in the stacks of paper and layers of dust.  Guy even helped me clean off a shelf that housed software documentation.  Going through it we found we didn’t need most of it so the shelf is almost cleared.  Some serious layers of dust are also gone.  Guy did come down to the basement today and said “Fly Lady doesn’t have a zone for a sewing room/basement do they?”  I promise I will get to that part of the house too …….Eventually.