the weekend of thanksgiving . . .

This is going to be a culmination post ... covering the long weekend which isn't really over, because we get Monday, too -- but that will be for another day's post.

Wednesday was pie and prep day. I love pie and prep day! This year's was particularly good because I found the *best* pecan pie recipe. Pecan Pie is Todd's favorite, and for years I've struggled to find a recipe that felt no-fail and tasted delicious.  

This year, thanks to Genius Kitchen and PCrocker, my search is over. I admit that I made a few changes right off the bat ... because I've never met a recipe that I couldn't tweak ... but I don't feel they were terribly significant. The recipe calls for 3/4 cups each of light and dark corn syrup. I had light only, so I used 1-1/2 cups of it and instead did 1/2 cup each of white and brown sugar, instead of the 1 cup of white sugar.  I upped the 1-1/2 teaspoons of vanilla to a solid 2 teaspoons (I mean, c'mon) and used pecan halves instead of coarsely broken pecans. And it was stellar. Five stars from Todd!

Thanksgiving day was beautiful here in North Alabama!  Sunny and the afternoon temps were in the low 60s, which was great, since we were eating al fresco!

Todd had a lovely fire going in the fireplace, and we had tarps up on both sides of the pavilion to keep the breeze at bay. I cook the turkey at the oven in the pavilion ... because turkeys do not fit in the RV oven! It means a lot of back and forth for basting, but I do believe it was worth the effort . . .

Oh yeah! He was pretty spectacular! We had a lovely spread and something about mid-way down the buffet must have caught Ellie's eye--I'm pretty sure it was apple pie!

I love that we share the day with family! We missed our California crew very much, but got to spend some FaceTime with them. ♥

Friday was Turkey Soup day. This is a time-honored tradition that dates back to at least my childhood and it's one of my favorite Thanksgiving foods!

I had a bit of a mishap with the process, which I won't go into here, but we recovered nicely and had soup to share. (Along with homemade bread and semi-homemade eggnog!)

Saturday was a play-in-the-Nook day and Iron Bowl day! Roll Tide! Mary of Needled Mom had shared a photo of a Twisted Pole runner she'd made.  I found the pattern source at Vicki's Fabric Creations.  Vicki is incredibly talented; she had created the pattern and very sweetly emailed it to me.  I plugged it into EQ (see comment above regarding tweaking recipes) and then resized it for a window valance. And then again for a mug rug.  I'll be all Christmas matchy-matchy!

Runner - 36" X 16"

Valance - 37" X 11"

MugRug - 8.5" X 5.5"

I started the process yesterday and got all 48 of my 2-1/2" HSTs cut for the first valance; now to trim them to size! 

It is a process. But making them was really easy -- I used the 'eight-at-a-time' method (as described on Blueprint). So stitching them up was quick. 

By 2:30 it was time to come in for the Iron Bowl! Roll Tide!  I admit that I struggled a little bit to stay with it in the first half. I was a little anxious! But the second half was a little more relaxed. Enough that I was able to work on whipping up some hexi flowers. 

I've made a LOT of progress this week--all things considered--and only have seven more flowers to go!

Whoohoo!!  I'd love to finish those up today -- perfect slow Sunday stitching, no??  In no time I'll be connecting flowers!

Enough from me . . . linking up to Kathy's Quilts this morning . . . be sure to stop by and see what others are working on this lovely Sunday!

:)

more turkey talk and a little zen . . .

Do you see this . . . ?

It's boring, isn't it? Especially after my pretty red cast that I had last time, with the Alabama "A" on it. This is just ... dull. A pretty color, but dull nonetheless.

So I had an idea. It involved turkeys. It would have involved pumpkins, but we're so close to Thanksgiving, I figured I should stick to turkeys. So I pulled out my fabrics, some fusible webbing, my (new!!!) iron and some felt and here's what I came up with . . .

Kinda cute, right?!

A little tacky glue and voila!! No more boring cast for me!

I also bought a pineapple yesterday, for my darling little turkey head.

Isn't this just AWESOME?!!?

Mr. Turkey Head agrees ... a pineapple is so much better than borrowing Mr. Cardinal's body!

Mr. Cardinal agrees too.

So a turkey day and a zentangle evening! Here's a little look into our introduction to zentangle at last night's guild meeting. This is the little kit that was handed out to us:

The 8.5X11 sheet of paper had examples of different modes of zentangle. Pretty cool. Plus a micron fine point pen, a soft charcoal pencil, four drawing tiles, and a tortillon (which is the long, skinny white thing that looks sort of like a homemade cigarette). Oh, and that piece of paper that had all the different zentangle doodles on it? Cut it out and fold it on the lines and it made an icosahedron, which looks like this:

Source.

Here's a closeup of the tortillon. It's a smudger. Seriously.

No really, it smudges. You'll see.

Our first step was to put a dot in each of the four corners and then connect them with a line. This was our 'border'.

Then she had us draw a big loop. There was no right or wrong way, though she did give us guidelines. Once we'd drawn that, we set down our pencils and picked up the pen.

This design was called 'pepper'.

Then she had us do this little criss-crossing opposing lines thing.

Next we did a 'mooka' design (the one that looks like hearts, sort of) and then 'printemps' which was a bunch of closed spirals.

After that we took our tortillon and smudged the lines. See how it gave it dimension? It's pretty cool.

This is Jocelyn's . . .

Hers looked GREAT! She was a natural, that's for sure. I was so glad that not only she picked me up and brought me, but that she stayed and enjoyed herself! We were sitting at a table with a pretty rowdy group of older quilters. At one point we were laughing so hard (and loud) that people were looking at us!! Joc leaned over to me and said, "Quilters have big personalities, don't they?!" LOL!

So the two of us followed the same directions, but look how different they turned out!

So here's our two and two from the ladies sitting opposite us . . .

Isn't that wild?!? We really did have a blast!! The card on the top right belongs to my dear friend Jane, of Grandmama's Stories. She joined Joc and I (and the Stitcher's Group) for dinner last night and then joined the guild, too! I am so excited to have a quilty *and* bloggy friend in the guild with me! And I was so blessed to have my beautiful girl with me too (especially since I wouldn't have been there if she hadn't come and gotten me)!

And . . . that's zentangling! I've got a couple more blank tiles I'm going to play with. The 'mooka' was pretty cool -- it was a lot like stippling -- as is the 'amaze' and the 'echoism'. I can see where quilters could tie zentangling into the quilting and even into an embroidery methodology. It was fascinating *and* fun!!

So that's that . . . and this is Friday -- have a GREAT one!!

:)

turkey head . . .

I teased a little bit yesterday about a turkey head. You may remember THIS post, where I shared the fun care package my mom had sent me. One of the things in that package was the pattern and materials for a turkey head. Well, for a turkey centerpiece ... the head gets wired into a the base of a pineapple, and the leafy top acts as the turkey's fine feathery plumage! There's one similar HERE on pinterest (I don't have my pineapple yet, so you can see how it'll look attached).

So here's the pattern my mom sent me . . .

And here's what I came up with . . .

I'm really pleased with how he turned out -- but it's hard to visualize how great he'll be without a body.

Hmmmm ... Mr. Cardinal, may I borrow your body for just a bit?

I'm pretty sure he said yes. Great, thanks!!

Still missing something ... let's see what I can find to give your back end a little extra fluff.

Mmmm, mmmm, mmmm. What's that you say, Mr. Cardinal? I can't hear you!

I know! Joc's flowers will fit the bill . . . or rather, the back . . . quite nicely!

Oh yeah, now he's looking like Tom Turkey!! Isn't that fun? He was very easy to put together, too. I used the blanket stitch to outline the head shape, except where the bill and the waddle were tucked into the head, where I did a tiny running stitch (which you don't really see because the waddle hangs over them). I stuffed him with my infamous pillow stuffing. I hot glued the waddle to the head in three places, leaving little gaps to give it dimension and the eyes are small white buttons, with black sequin centers. And there's floral wire running up the back of the neck, and the wire will be how I secure him into the pineapple!

Okay, okay Mr. Cardinal, let me free you up . . . but where to put Mr. Tom for now?

Ha! Well, that will do in a pinch.

Jocey finally taking her flowers home! But it's a good thing I had them today.

This picture so reminds me of a picture of my youngest sister. My Pop wrote a book (well several, actually) on tin can crafting. And in the book, there's a picture of her bending over sniffing the tin can flowers. Too cute!!

And to top it all off?? Look what fun things came in the mail today!!! My mommy sent me a little happy!

It's Eleanor Burns's Autumn Leaves pattern! Thanks, Mom!!

And it's hard to see, but the topper on the right is actually a turkey! It's TOO cute! And it came with it's OWN ruler! A 4.5" On Point ruler! I needed one of those! (Don't say anything Sarah!) Hmmmm. It *is* a quilt in a day pattern . . . think I can have one done before Thanksgiving?!?

:)

design wall plans . . .

Okay, so this week my design wall is actually the seat and seat back of my couch and sewing chair, respectively. It's easier for a gimpy me to not set up my flannel design wall and just use what's at hand (or butt, as the case more often is)!

Okay, so this is what I've got lined up for this week . . .

On the couch seat: I've got two more of the CSAL blocks traced out and ready to stitch on.

On the couch seat back: I've finished the hand quilting on my Christmas Star table topper and will trim and bind it this week. Definitively. I've really made up my mind on this. Bam. No, forget that. I mean: BAM!!

On my sewing chair seat and seat back: I've pulled my Orange Crush quilt blocks out again. I've got two more to actually piece, but then I've got the material all cut and ready to set them on point in their respective sashings.

I want to get a good handful of these blocks sandwiched and adhesive basted and ready to start lap quilting! I love these blocks; I love the orange and purple together so much! And I've got some gorgeous stencils to quilt with -- I think I've collected a different one for each block.

Okay, so there it is -- everything that I'm planning on. Who knows what will come up, though. (I'm pretty sure I'll also be working on a turkey head this week!) I (usually) love (usually) surprises (usually)! Be sure to visit Judy Laquidara's Patchwork Times to see what other talented quilters are working on this week!!

Happy Monday!

:)

wonderful day . . .

Yesterday, Todd headed out on shift and *I* had company!! First Jocelyn, and then Kim and Sawyer joined us!!

Sawyer, bless his little heart, had allergies and was so hoarse, he could hardly be heard. So what did Jocelyn, Kim and I do? We asked him to say things, because he sounded so cute! In turn, he decided he really liked Jocelyn's cup (and particularly the straw) and he deserved the cool drink of water.

Sawyer, how much do you love your Neesey?

Neesey, I love you this much!!

He also loves to see photos and video of himself. Jocelyn had a captive audience, for as long as she had video.

Isn't he darling?! Overall Sawyer -- see what I mean, with that hat?? And have you seen the youtube clip of the baby, working the iPad, swiping her finger across the screen? That's nothing -- Sawyer's been doing that for seven or eight months or longer!

It was a chilly but beautiful day. At my request Joc had brought some of the ingredients I needed to make a potato and corn chowder. I love it, but Todd doesn't, so yesterday was a great day to make it.

It turned out wonderfully and Joc and I (and Sawyer, though he and Kim had already had lunch) all enjoyed it!

Joc had also brought me some beautiful red fabric. I'd seen where someone participating in the Christmas stitch along had done the cute embroideries with white floss on the red background. I was very impressed with how it looked, so much that I wanted to give it a try.

I got the light box out and prepped my square.

Oh yeah, it's awesome! I love this look!!! I'm so excited! And what do you think goes better with a chilly evening and Christmas stitcheries?

Hot chocolate, with plenty of whipped cream, of course!! Talk about capping off a day right.

And one final thing. Just in case you're wondering what this pumpkin kind of girl does in a turkey kind of month . . .

That's right . . .

That's what *this* pumpkin girl is talking about! (You didn't really think I was done with pumpkins, did you?!)

:)