Sunday Sundry 12-18-16

Come on over and sit a while!  The chairs are extra cushy!

We've had two very snowy weekends in a row, making things look quite magical.  Mind you, I haven't had to drive in it much, so I'm of a happy and generous mindset looking out at the scenery from the comfort of home.  

Last week's snow reminded me of marshmallow fluff.  I was humming THIS tune all day.

 "It's a marshmallow world in the winter...When the snow comes to cover the ground..."

This morning, the fresh snow was like fine sugar, sparkling in the sunshine.  That made it a little easier to swallow the news that today's high was supposed to be -3 degrees.  I think we actually may have gotten to zero or a tad above.

Meanwhile, I've been cranking out the Christmas in the sewing room.  Quite a few more zipper pouches, mug rugs, and other things have been created.  Some of them have already been gifted as well.

Still, there are a couple more things to finish.

A friend had requested a table mat in the colors of a different season.  I've made her ones with Christmas and spring/summer themes in the past, so I chose fall.  (You can find my string ring table mat tutorial HERE, if you're interested.)

Yesterday I basted a quilt but could not find my Kwik Klip.  That's the gadget I use to help close the safety pins in basting.  I looked and looked, to no avail.  I fear it may have rolled off the table into the wastebasket.  Last I saw it, it was in that general vicinity.

Instead, I grabbed a chopstick that I'd been using to help turn the zipper pouches.  

It worked as well as, maybe even better than, the Kwik Klip!

I've had fun making Christmas Tree minis from Kevin's tutorial.  They're a great mug rug size.  

So far, the "tree farm" has produced a grove of six.  Cute little things, aren't they?

In the kitchen, I've succumbed to the urge to bake for the holidays.  No, that's not really true.  I'm baking for ME.  The holidays couldn't care less if I baked!

When I was a kid, one of the things I remember we had at Christmastime was an Orange Date-Nut Cake.  It was baked in a tube pan and then you poured an orange syrup over it and let it soak in.  It was sort of like a lighter version of a fruit cake, as in not quite as dense and minus the candied cherries.  Really sweet, though.  You needed to have it with a cup of strong black coffee to balance the sweetness.

I can't eat that way anymore (no gluten or dairy, and way less sugar), but I miss those flavors.  So I adapted a gluten-free nut bread recipe and it worked!  Minimally sweet (only 1/3 cup of sugar versus multiple cups), but still rocking the orange-date-nuttiness of the original recipe.  Woo-hoo!

Here is the recipe.  Merry Christmas!

Orange Date-Nut Bread

2 cups gluten-free flour (I mixed my own: ½ c. EACH sorghum, tapioca, rice, and almond flours)

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon baking soda

1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon xanthan gum

2 eggs

1/3 cup brown sugar

¼ cup butter or butter substitute, melted (I use ghee)

¾ cup orange juice, freshly squeezed (about 3 oranges, juiced; add the pulp from squeezing back in)

1 Tablespoon fresh orange zest

1 cup chopped dates (use unsweetened whole dates and cut or snip them into pieces with scissors – I  also soak the chopped dates for 5 minutes in boiling water and then drain the water off)

¾ cup chopped walnuts

½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Stir the first five dry ingredients together in a small bowl.  Set aside.  In a medium bowl, mix together the eggs, brown sugar, melted butter or substitute, orange juice, and orange zest.  Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until moistened.  Stir in chopped dates and walnuts, and chocolate chips, if using.  Spread batter into a greased loaf pan.  Sprinkle with 1-2 teaspoons of coarse granulated sugar, if desired.  Bake 40-45 minutes.  Let the loaf cool for 10 minutes in the pan before removing it to a rack to continue cooling.  Enjoy!

Rays of Light

I tell you what, these first six weeks of my husband's retirement have been an adjustment period.  I am not retired myself yet; that's not on the horizon for at least a half dozen or more years.  

One of my jobs is done from home, and both jobs are somewhat flexible.  Nevertheless, I used to have my own weekday routine, of a sort.

Now?  Not so much.  It feels pretty boggy and nebulous to me.

These days I wake up and smell the coffee, literally, and wonder what day it is (used to be I only woke to the smell of coffee on the weekend, when Norm made it).  There is a sameness to each day, and although I've tried to maintain some of the former touchstones, the days seem to blur together and slip by, one into the next.  Also, it's midwinter, and I'm sure there's some cabin fever that factors into that equation.

One thing I continue to do is throw open my bedroom window first thing in the morning and let all the heat out of the room the direct sunshine warm my face for 15 minutes or so.  There's science behind that strategy, with sunlight and seratonin and Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD.  When the sun's not shining, I park myself in front of a light box at breakfast during the winter months.  Have for years.  It definitely helps keep the winter blues at bay.

[Icicles on the river birch outside my window]

One of the upshots of Norm being retired is that he's been going for walks with me on milder days, i.e., above 30 degrees.  I'm not a particularly cold-loving gal.  Mostly, I don't want to wipe out on an icy sidewalk.  It's good to be able to grab a supportive arm as I totter over the slippery bits.

And so we're finding our new groove, little by little.

Speaking of sunshine, this lovely little runner brightened my day when it arrived in my mailbox recently, a gift from fellow quilter Marei.

What a lovely surprise!  Wonderful piecing and quilting, isn't it?  I love it!

The news from my sewing room is that I finished the Joy in the Evening quilt this past weekend.  

The multicolored thread I ordered came in, looking somewhat different than the first spool, but close enough that I don't think anyone will notice.

I really like how it turned out.  It makes a cute kid's quilt or lap quilt.  I will probably be donating it, unless someone in the family makes a claim.  (Edited:  Donated to Badger Honor Flight fundraiser.)

Also worked on the Quilty 365 circles for February.  I'm enjoying using various reds and pinks from the stash and scrap bins.

I've also managed to temporarily sidetrack myself with another task, sorting through several decades' worth of old photos which belonged to my in-laws.  They've sat in a big storage box since 1999, when my father-in-law passed away and the house was sold.

[Father-in-law Ed on the far right]

I was looking for an old photo of my sister-in-law the other day, to surprise her with on her birthday.  Didn't find the photo I went searching for, found another instead, and one thing led to another.  

[Ed in the Civil Conservation Corps, late 1930s; mother-in-law Marion, 1940s, lower right]

Pretty soon I had my whole cutting table covered in piles of old photos.  Why this job has fallen to me is another story, albeit somewhat of a mystery.  I think every family has its "keeper of things," and/or its family historian.  Perhaps it defaults to the person who shows anything resembling an interest.  I bet you could name the person who holds that honor in your family.  Is it you?

[Ed was a tank driver in the 7th Armored Division at the Battle of the Bulge in WWII]

Anyway, it may take a while to dig out.  

If you don't hear from me in a couple weeks, send reinforcements.  Or cookies.  That works too.

Three Amigos

Now that certain gifts have been duly gifted, I can show you what I've been working on.

I finished a couple of Christmas table toppers for friends.  I did one in a Carpenter's Star pattern.  

It measures about 19 inches square, which is, yes, an odd size.  Reason being, I flubbed the math.  I cut 3-1/2 inch squares to start with, but then my half-square triangles ended up being too big.  So I had to trim each HST down about a quarter inch.  How did I know it was too big?  Well, I had one of those "about yay" measurements to work with, where someone separates their hands by a certain span in illustration, and you take mental note of that size.  I'd be shooting for about 18 or so inches, in other words. 

See, last month my friend had asked if she could commission me to make her a Christmas table topper, something to set her poinsettia on.  I gave her a halfhearted yes, which she may have interpreted as more of a no from my lack of enthusiasm (sorry!).  But inside my pea-brain, a light bulb clicked on and I was thinking it'd be the perfect thing to give her for our Christmas gift exchange.  And I'd make one for our mutual friend and fellow gift exchanger, too.

So that very afternoon, I started working on them.  I used parts of a charm pack of Blitzen fabric for the center star, and supplemented with other things in the stash.

For the second topper, I decided to make a string star, slicing some of the remaining Blitzen charm squares into strips, mixing them up, and re-sewing them together into squares. Then I made HSTs from those strippy squares and put them together to make the star.

I still had some charm squares left.  I'd been using all the reds and greens in the pack for the previous quilts, and had separated out the aquas and grays.  So I made another string star for myself!

Have you been doing any stealth sewing this season?  Do tell! Mum's the word!

Linking to Confessions of a Fabric Addict's Can I Get a Whoop Whoop.

Twenty on the 20th

The official tally from Snowpocalypse 2012 in our county was 20 inches!

This was deck view yesterday, after it had finally stopped snowing.

It was 9 degrees when I woke up this morning, but the sun is shining brightly and it really does look like a winter wonderland!

Despite blizzard conditions, the mail still came through on Thursday and brought with it a squishy containing these beautiful fat quarters from Michelle.

It was definitely a day brightener!  I just love those rich colors and fun prints.

Yesterday was the day to finish my Christmas crafting.  

I got the last of the pin-up guy/girl pillowcases done—and wrapped before I thought to take a photo.  Then I put one last Christmas pillowcase together just for me.

I made candy sleighs using this tutorial, which I first saw when Thea made them—thanks for the great idea!

Somehow I seem to have missed the bottom row of four Hershey miniatures, but they still came out cute.  These will be for nieces and nephews.

It was the winter solstice yesterday, and I am so happy the days will be getting longer, minute by minute, from here!

Sharing

I had a lovely Christmas breakfast with friends Kathy and Marie this past Saturday.  They now have their gifts, so I can show here on the blog what I made for them.

Marie gave me a fabric bundle last Christmas.  It was fun to work with it and then give it back in the form of a table mat/mini/wall hanging.  When I was de-cluttering the sewing room back in October, I moved a stack of vintage platters and noticed that one of them coordinated with what I had made for Marie. 

That led me to make a similar Dutch Rose/Swoon block for Kathy in fabrics that matched another vintage platter.

By then, I was on a roll with the theme and made two more, one to match this Universal Cattail platter...

and one for this Stetson Marcrest Swiss Chalet platter.

Inspiration is everywhere, don't you agree?

And here is another mini I made during that time.  These are scraps left from my Chain Linked quilt.  Quilted in a variegated Sulky thread on top with white Isacord in the bobbin.

(Back - "Woodcut Garden" by Paula Prass)

I've paired it here with a thrifted retro Peace bank by Enesco, circa 1999.

May we all find true peace this holiday season, and foster it day by day.

Declutter Report No. 3

Another trunk load went to Goodwill this past week.  Thankfully, they accept computers for recycling.

Before donating the PC, I removed the hard drive, which I'll dispose of myself after taking a hammer to it.  I'm saving that task for PMS week.  ;)

Tomorrow, a friend is coming to take the futon off my hands.  Yay!  I hope she isn't revolted by the cobwebs and whatnot we'll find underneath when we move it.  I am actually looking forward to doing a thorough vacuuming once it's gone.

"Out the Door October" is officially over, since we've flipped the calendar page, but the decluttering and reorganization will continue.  I'll spare you any more photos of my rubbish, however.  You're welcome.

I'm curious:  How do you organize your fabric?  Do you have a folding system?  Stack it on shelves?  Organize it by color or fabric line?  Put it in totes or boxes?  Stash it in a closet (or under the bed)?

I ask because I just don't know where to go with it all.  I need a system, but not sure what kind.  I am an out-of-sight / out-of-mind kind of person, i.e, if I put it away, I tend to forget about it.  I am more a "piler" than a "filer," so right now my fabric is stacked wherever there is a flat surface, and that looks bad.  But I feel that I need to see it to get the creativity flowing, on the one hand, and yet being surrounded by it at all times can be overwhelming, on the other.

Please share what works for you.  If you've done a blog post of your organized space or system, leave a link.  If you feel anything but organized, feel free to share that too.  If you too are a piler, have you found a way to have your piles and file them too?

In other news, I posted photos on Flickr of a couple of recent finishes.  These will be Christmas presents, so I am "hiding" them over there, where the recipients have promised not to peek.  The rest of you can see them by clicking HERE and HERE.  Have a good weekend!

Sunday Sundry 1-8-12

You know, sometimes I get to thinking about a Sunday Sundry post and I'm at a loss for words.  So this evening, I'm going to focus on some randomness in photo form from the past few weeks.  Some are things I haven't mentioned but have meant to.  Others are just of a moment I thought to take a picture.  Maybe the light was right, maybe it was wrong, but something made me pick up my camera and shoot.

There was Pyrex under the Christmas tree, from hubby!

Apropos of nothing, we watched Crazy Stupid Love last weekend, and, whoa, does Ryan Gosling have some crazy, stupid abs, or what?  Very funny movie, though. Steve Carell and Emma Stone really cracked me up.

This past week, I put away the Christmas decorations, except for a couple little things that will stay up a while longer.

(Sometimes the crop feature in Picasa makes a really cool auto-selection.  How does it know?)

I was delighted to receive a beautiful holiday wall hanging for Christmas from my buddy Michelle at The Gypsy Quilter!

She did such pretty quilting on it, right down to the holly leaves and berries border.  I love looking at it and marveling how she saw to quilt it.  The curved lines really work well with the angular nature of the blocks.

I am working on finishing up the the scrappy string ring (dresden plate) from Friday, making the sample block into a wall hanging.  I did straight line quilting, mostly, but FMQ'd a spiral in the center circle—a very wonky spiral.  I'm debating whether to unpick it and try again, or just leave it as is (leaning toward the latter).  In a year, when I look back on it, perhaps I will feel like I have made some good progress in my FMQ skills.

Speaking of which, the first quilting exercise for the Free-Motion Quilt Challenge is up at SoCalGal.  Time to make some sandwiches (quilt sandwiches, of course) and get to practicing.  Work on that wonky wobble.

Tonight's dinner prep work.  In real life, the shadow was not so obvious.

Raw materials, awaiting inspiration.  Another lovely Christmas gift from a friend, including the pin:

The sky was pretty at sunset the other day.  My hand, not so steady.

View from my back window. 
I moved the camera, but I kind of like the effect.

Try, try again.

Those are a few sights from here at Chez P.  I'll leave you with a sound heard in my sewing room today.  I sometimes get tired of my usual music rotation, so today I closed my eyes and ran my hand along a row of older CDs, telling myself that no matter what it was that I picked, I would play it.  It happened to be Sting, circa 1999.  Not bad, considering it could just as easily have been Backstreet Boys.  When it came to this song, I remembered why I'd bought it; I like Sting's funky side!