Tomorrow, bright and early (well, not bright since the sun won't be up yet!) we are hitting the road! We are driving all the way to Big Bend - still in Texas, but just barely. We guess it will take 10-13 hours. We're leaving some room for error. And stops.



We'll be camping for four nights, but then we're moving on to a cheap hotel, but it's a cheap hotel with free internet! Yay!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!

Unlike the first wedding quilt, I wanted to do a monogram on this one before quilting it to the fleece. Well, to be honest, I had thought to do a monogram on the first one, but forgot. Oops! Anyway, though the quilt won't be ready for our trip Saturday like I wanted, I did finish the monogram.



This was my first "real" embroidery project, and I'm quite pleased with it, especially the large "C". I could definitely use some practice, but it passes the 1-2 ft rule! I should be able to do the quilting pretty quickly after Thanksgiving, and finish by Christmas - which was my absolute, must-do goal.

I also have quite a long Christmas gift project list for after Thanksgiving, and some decorating project ideas, so hopefully I'll have things to share a little more frequently after the holidays! Thanks to those of you who have stuck around during this lull...

Aren't my titles creative? Haha! Anyway, for a while I've been wanting to come up with a useful sized tote, made from just two fat quarters (motivated by my Amy Butler stash). I wanted a pocket, and a large enough tote to hold a magazine or file folder. Here is the result:



The striped section is actually a pocket. I didn't practice using my Amy Butler fabric, but it came out well enough I'll probably make another one. Here is the lining (or outside if you want to reverse it!):



I actually really like this fabric. I've got enough to make another tote, maybe for part of a Christmas present.



Quilt #2 Update: All the strips are finished, and I should be able to completely assemble the top and maybe start quilting tomorrow! I will finish this before our Thanksgiving trip!!

Labels: sewing

We're getting together for a friend's birthday Saturday, and I wanted to take along a little gift. I had gotten some new freshwater pearls, grey with a beautiful green-blue shine. There were some swarovski crystals in my stash that matched perfectly, and I made a little necklace. I just cannot get a photo that looks right! This is the best I could do:



Okay, so I'm not home during when I can use natural sunlight anymore, and that would help. I also need to do a little more reading here (the Google search for "jewelry photography tips"), which would probably help. I was finally able to use Photoshop to adjust for the crummy lighting and get this picture which shows the colors a little better. Geez, I miss the beautiful afternoon light I used to have when I got home from work!

One picture that I think came out well was this one I took of a spider web in our kitchen window on a foggy morning the other day...



The whole web is covered with dew, and the foggy morning made it even more magical.

Not all desserts I try come out as well as the coconut bars below... For a dinner party a few weeks ago I decided to make pumpkin cheesecake. I've even made this recipe before! I had to make the dessert Friday night, after work, so I cheated and got a (quite good) premade graham cracker crust from the store. I whipped up the filling... and noticed something was wrong.



There as no way all that filling would fit in that crust. It turns out a pie plate is not the same volume as a springform pan! I could have figured that out on my own, I suppose.

I ended up filling the premade pie crust plus a normal pie dish with no crust and baking them both. The crusted pie was delicious, and I was able to serve the crustless pie to my low carb eating parents, who said it was good... but they always say that!

My favorite dessert to make for get-togethers these days is this delicious raspberry coconut layer thing my sister sent me the recipe to. You first bake up a crust of graham crackers, butter, coconut, and condensed milk.



After that cools you spread on a layer of raspberry preserves and put it in the fridge to chill for a few hours.



Finally, you sprinkle it with crushed nuts (I use pecans but the recipe says to use walnuts) and drizzle it with semi-sweet and white chocolate.



Cutting it up is the hardest part because it gets a little messy, but it tastes so good it's worth it!

In crafty news, I hand-stitched this little felt pouch for the jewelry Peter's coworker ordered. I am pleased with how it came out, and might assembly line a few of these to spruce up holiday gifts...



In progress: new tote, Ruffles scarf from Scarf Style, Wedding Quilt #2 (still!), Feather and Fan scarf from Wendy Knits (still!)... Peter is off to golf with the boys today so maybe I'll actually make progress on something!

Labels: cooking

When I was living by myself before we got married, Peter got me two adorable gerbils for my birthday so I would be sharing my apartment with someone to keep me company. Hershey is the brown one and Isabelle is the white one.



Even after we got the dog and the kitties, we still loved having the gerbils around. So did the bigger animals!





We'd sometimes find the cats doing anything they could to get closer to them, leading us to nickname Izzy "Snack" since we knew that's what she would be if the cats had their way!

At the beginning of this year we lost Hershey. It was sad to lose her, of course, but comforting to still hear Izzy moving around and entertaining the other animals.



Last night we lost Izzy. It hit me harder than I thought it would. I will miss her.

I have so many lovely beads and I want to be able to show them off, so I whipped up some more quick necklaces over the weekend.



Sorry the pictures aren't that great - I miss my beautiful afternoon sunlight when I get home from work! It was dark again today when I got home, and these pictures were actually taken this morning.



The green bead above is from the same auction as the beads in this necklace and it's a beautiful milky green - very hard to capture on camera.

   

I love the glow of the faceted vintage crystal. I also made a necklace with one of these yellow beads but could not get a picture I was satisfied with:



Okay, time to go sew up a quick jewelry pouch - a coworker of Peter's loved the jewelry set I made for the United Way auction and requested an identical set as a gift for his wife, to be paid for in real money! Very exciting. I made the set this weekend but want a little cloth pouch to present it in.

Labels: jewelry