Cookies and quilts

 I posted earlier that I would be working on some unfinished (UFO's) projects.  Above I have completed 33 6" finished squares from "The Farmer's Daughter 1920's" book.  Not having touched these in several years, I am choosing to finish them before the fabric rots.  After some thought, I realized that I am never going to get all of the squares finished as I am only a few pages into the many patterns.  So I decided to make a center panel from fabrics that I think would have been used during that time period.  The exception may be the first border, but this green was one I purchased when I went to Ohio several years ago with two of my quilt buddies on a trip.  Among other things, we stopped at quite a few quilt shops and I knew I wanted to use a green in a future quilt that was similar to one used by quilters in the first part of the 20th century. I think I must have been born a few years too late as I am constantly finding myself attracted too older things, especially old wooden utensils and furniture. Oh, well.

I remember that my grandmother had several pieces of linens that had similar flowers embroidered with black floss using the buttonhole stitch and my mother inherited them. Mostly I remember that they were dresser scarves and table cloths.   I do it a lot on appliqué.  This tree of life was one I saw in a magazine and I adapted the size to suit me so it is not proportioned as I saw it in the book.  But it will suffice.

With Christmas coming this week, I have been baking cookies and made some peanut brittle.  It was a little difficult to find raw peanuts, but I did. It has been interesting dealing with the humidity.  In Wyoming, dry weather rarely affected my baking.  I like crisp, crunchy cookies, but here everything absorbs a little moisture.  So my friend, Barb, who always loved a soft cookie, would be happy.  I miss all of the Christmas bazaars with her....she always wanted to see if a cookie was soft, so I would see her pressing on the wrapped treats to see if they were soft or hard.  (She is still alive and well and probably pressing on cookies I imagine.)

"A balanced diet is a Christmas cookie in each hand."

Christmas Rose

A few posts ago, I said that my intention was to finish some projects.  This quilt top is DONE! It will not have borders and measures 80X96.  I have the backing and the batting and most likely won't glue baste it until after Christmas, but will do that and start quilting soon after.  Rummaging through my UFO's I found the Pink Caramel 6 1/2" squares from the Farmer's Wife 1920's book.  I have 33 of them completed and worked on it last in 2016.  So that will be my next big project to work on.  It will get finished I hope.  My neighbor behind me with the chickens and new beautiful baby named Charlotte brought me more eggs last weekend.  I made a quilt for Charlotte and when I called to tell her it was done, she walked over in the rain, with Charlotte snuggled at her chest. She also wants to learn to quilt so I hope I can help her with that endeavor.

The Mr. and I have been busy, me at baking goodies and helping him when I can.  We mounted 3 of our tv's on walls, replaced all of the recessed lightbulbs (and adjusted some of the fixtures) as the bulbs were too small in the can lights. He is making shelves for an old sled that I have placed on end to be repurposed as a night stand next to a twin bed, put shelving in his workroom closet and lots of small projects with many more on the list.

My daughter gave me a couple of rose bushes this summer and I planted them in the beds out front, not expecting them to do well...I have never been  very successful with roses, but look!  It had one rose on the spindly bush this summer and when we had a freeze last week, I noticed that a partially open rose had frozen.  I didn't even know it had bloomed.  So look.....I have several buds about to open.  Please, don't freeze again!

I have spoken with some of my friends back in Wyoming this past few days.  I miss them but I very much intend to stay in touch.  I do not miss the snow.  I also received a wonderful card from my neighbor in Cheyenne and she informed me that they had lost their dog.  He was having health issues when we left and that another neighbor, a wonderful neighbor in his 80's had lost his dog.  So all three of us had to say goodbye to our furry friends this fall.

We took a drive yesterday to Littlerock WA as the Mr. is scheduled to play pool there next week.  Not being familiar at all with much here, we knew he would be traveling in the dark so thought it would be a good idea to find it.  Rather than take the interstate, we opted to take the back streets and roads.  Littlerock is just a wide spot with a post office in a trailer, a bar and a grocery store, but the drive was beautiful!  It was drizzling a bit, but a good deal of the drive was rural and with so many green acreages and trees, it was pleasant.  It took us about 50 minutes to reach this little burg, but it was a pretty drive.

"You can complain because roses have thorns, or you can rejoice because thorns have roses." ~ Ziggy

Candy Kiss Gnomes

With Christmas on the horizon I have been as busy as I can while still battling with this Sciatica.  Not a very patient person, I am not accustomed to slowing down so it has taken me more time to accomplish my tasks.  It used to take me one evening to decorate my tree and this year I spent 3 days between ice and Ibuprofen.  I have made a couple of batches of cookies and have more to make and I did get my cards out...who sends cards?  ME, but this will most likely be the last.  For one thing, I needed to let some people know our change of address and that brings another story.  We have had this address for 4 months and I had a dear friend tell me that I put the wrong return address on the card she received....How many others?  Yep, time to quit!

Yesterday my favorite daughter came and we decorated cookies together---mostly she did the decorating.  I found a Candy Kiss set of cookie cutters at Hobby Lobby. (she had shown me photos of triangular shaped cookies earlier and these reminded me of that similar shape.)

 As I got these out of order, bear with me. We made a royal icing with Wilton's meringue powder and water, whipped in the mixer and then added powdered sugar.  That's not necessarily an easy task as you can see that it snowed sugar all over me, the counter and even the stove.  I had a cake decorating teacher once say that if I couldn't write my name in my range hood with powder sugar that I wasn't doing it right.  I did it right yesterday.

 So as much as I tried, I still got these out of order.  See the kisses shape?  Erica colored the icing and she added a caramel flavor. She drew on these with an edible marker and in the bottom photo she was beginning to outline and continued to flow the icing on the hats. She thinned the icing and actually painted the face color on. When it was dry, the hats, beard, and blue coats were added as each color dried a bit.

 She added the nose, eyes and mouth and they are adorable.  We also decorated mushrooms that she made with a mold that she had ordered and I will post those pictures next.

I also received a package from a dear friend in Saratoga.  She had asked for pictures of the house and knows how I like to decorate.  When our son came to pick up some things in Cheyenne before we moved, he took all of our antlers, our elk antler mount and some other Wyoming rustic things that we didn't think we would have room for.  One thing this friend noticed was that I didn't have any antlers lying around.  We spent so many years hunting and they always reminded us of good times.  She reminded us that we needed a few and she insisted that she would send some.  I will post those pictures later also...Thank you Ginger!

"In the cookie of life, friends are the chocolate chips." ~ Salman Rushide