Valentine embroidery

I pulled out the embroidery machine over the weekend and did a shirt for Hayden for Valentine's day. (click photos for larger view)



This was a fun design to stitch out but I somehow got mixed up on the thread color changes and didn't do the hearts quite as I'd planned.



I thought that the shirt with the tights would make a perfect Valentine's outfit. Sure is a lot of pink!



It's exhausting having your photo taken all the time!

Birthdays

Yesterday was my 59th birthday. Thus far in my life I haven't had issues with turning a year older but perhaps next year I might have a hard time with the age. We'll see.

I bought myself a gift last week - a so fugly they're cute pair of Danskos.



I suppose the socks in the photo just add to the fugliness.

I also got a surprise gift - a new laptop because my old laptop died, It wasn't even close to 60.

Check back with me in a year to see how I feel about turning 60!

It's sewn!

I finished stitching the blocks together for my Monterrey medallion quilt. Hayden has decided that she really loves this quilt and wanted me to lay it out on the floor so she could sit on it. (I don't know why blogger flipped these first 2 photos because they were not flipped when I took them. click for larger view)



She also wanted to count the stars.



She thought it would be fun to make "quilt angels" and was a bit disappointed when she stood up and didn't see evidence of an angel in the quilt!



Now I need to make a couple of pillow shams to match.

Monterrey Medallions & Baking

Last year some of my quilting friends decided to make a quilt called Monterrey Medallions. After seeing their quilts start to take shape I got to thinking that I might like to make it in a black and bright color combination. I finally finished all the blocks and laid them out to see what everything looked like.

This is a bigger quilt than I usually make (it's supposed to finish 90 x 90) and I don't have design wall big enough for it so had to lay it down on the floor. (click on photos for larger view)






I just laid it down on the floor without trying to arrange things. Obviously I'll need to move some things around so that the colors are more balanced. It's funny how some of the colors stand out more in the photo than they do in real life.

Wonder how long it will take me to sew the blocks all together....

Every once in a while when the grandkids are here we bake what we call a colorful cake. We use a regular yellow cake mix and put the batter in numerous bowls. Then we use food color to tint each bowl of batter a different color. The batter is then spooned into the cake pans and it makes a really cool looking cake when it's done.

Of course the highlight of the baking venture is licking the bowl and there were 8 bowls to lick!






We didn't have any canned frosting in the house so I made a traditional butter cream frosting from the recipe on the powdered sugar box. Noah asked me if I could make sure to get 'real' frosting next time I was at the store because he didn't care for the frosting we made. Times sure have changed haven't they??

Happy New Year!

It seems like it has been forever since I paid any attention to my blog. Maybe one of my New Year's Resolutions should be more frequent postings.

We had a lovely holiday season. Our Christmas tree was a bit bottom heavy after Noah and Hayden helped put on some ornaments. (click photos for larger view)



The kids were so excited about opening gifts that they were even happy about receiving clothing!



There's always such a mess of paper and ribbon.



True to form sometimes the boxes are more fun than the gifts they contained. Noah had fun decorating this box.



We had our holiday dinner on Christmas Eve and several good friends were able to join us. Everyone (almost) always tolerates the Christmas crackers and the silly hat each contains.






When Craig was a teen he used to make a time-intensive Black Forest Cake for some of our holiday dinners. He recently mentioned that it had been a long time since he'd made one so I decided to make it in his honor this year. It takes a couple of days and I'm no so sure it's worth all the trouble. The most time consuming portion is making the chocolate curls. This photo has turned itself on its side for some reason, so you'll have to use your imagination (or tilt your head) to get the full effect.




Now that the holidays are over, it's time to get back into my sewing room. It will feel good to get back to some projects.