Maybe Not the Best but some Favorites!

 

Being away from home for the holidays has been so relaxing and fun. A downside of course is that I haven’t been finishing any projects! So, encouraged by Little Penguins post, I decided to at least try to put together a year of finishing. 

Early in the year I participated in Project Quilting season 15. I intend to participate again this year My first completion of the year!

Part of the new year of sewing includes the Stay At Home Round Robin. A quilt along hosted by Gail at Quilting Gail !

This was not a favorite finish, but it was a finish 

Then there was a QOV presentation to my only living uncle, a Korean War veteran. He’s 92! The pattern is Long May She Wave by Alycia at Alycia Quilts.

A UFO being turned into a shower curtain!

And last but not least a quilt made for my youngest nephew, to celebrate defending his thesis.The two littles are his sons and I erased their faces. 

 I think I should probably keep better track of my finishes in 2025. I spend a lot of time scrolling through all my photos to find my favorites. Thanks for indulging me in this review. 

I’ll link up with Cheryl and friends from Meadow Mist Designs

Stay Busy and Stay Happy and Healthy and Hopeful!

December’24 Table Scraps Challenge ~~ Rainbow and Pluses

 

It’s the end of the year. The prompts from The Joyful Quilter for December were Rainbow and Pluses.

I would have liked to make a small plus quilt for a table runner or wall hanging. But we left home on Dec 6th to spend the holidays with our son. So no sewing machine! I did bring hand stitching…and I had been doing counted cross stitch at home. There were scraps of Aida fabric and a variety of floss colors on my cutting/ sorting table. 

Cross stitches are basically pluses on point! 😉  It is not yet a quilted item but I promise there will be quilting stitches when I get home to my batting and fabric!

My plan is to frame it and give it to my 8 year old great granddaughter. Her mom and dad, mostly Mom, repainted her room this summer. I think she will love the idea of us being BFFs. 

Looking forward to doing this challenge again in 2025. My scrap stash continues to grow and this challenge stretches my imagination!

Stay Busy and Stay Happy and Healthy and Hopeful. 

I Like Thursday. 12-25-24

 

I’m joining LeAnna at Not Afraid of Color  for the last I Like Thursday of 2024. 

Mr Busy likes to do puzzles. This is the first one he completed. 

Last Thursday our son invited his neighbors over for pizza and Rummikub. I tried a new to me wine. It was very good!

 Chocolate chip cookies were made by DS. 

I made Velveeta fudge because DS had never tasted it before. Then DS made 

Cranberry bread with orange glaze  from Natasha’s Kitchen. So so good.. a fun Christmas morning treat with Zen enhanced coffee. 

During the football we opened the  meat and cheese assortment our daughter sent. Mr. Busy made Chex Mix.

Are you sensing a theme here?

LeeAnna asked about a special Christmas gift as a child or teen. Mine was a special hair dryer the Christmas before I turned 16 (I think). It’s hard to remember that long ago. I found this photo on the internet.  

https://poshmark.com/listing/Lady-Sunbeam-Bonnet-Hair-Dryer-64d90873614973c9c97687c2. I thought I was pretty special I seem to remember mine was pink on the outside though. 

And then in 1964, on the 16th of December we welcomed our first baby. She was due on Christmas Eve, but came early!

 

StayBusy and Stay Happy and Healthy and Hopeful!

Judy. 

I LIKE Thursday Dec 19 th

 

Sharing with LeeAnna and friends at Not Afraid of Color  

We are enjoying our stay in beautiful Siskiyou County California. 

Some mornings the fog laid low in the valley! 

Other days it was mostly at the base of Mt. Shasta.

The turkeys visited the backyard…

then came to the front driveway.

The tree was finally put up and decorated.i love the tiny multi colored lights. 

This is holly and showing lots of berries and shiny pointed leaves in our son’s yard.

I’m not sure what this other red berried bush is. DS thinks it some kind of bamboo.,

In addition to a box of homemade fudge and a plate of cookies, we received a meat and cheese tray from our daughter

and a variety of nuts! 

LeeAnna asked:

Dec 19th

How was Christmas done in your childhood home/family?

Our family tradition is oyster stew, ham sandwiches , Christmas cookies and fudge and package opening, then Candlelight Services at our church. Mr Busy’s family didn’t do anything special on Christmas Eve, except go to church. Their big day was Christmas Day with Dinner and gift exchange and grandparents always in attendance. We had 4 generations often.  

Recently we have gone to a movie, played Rummycube, sometimes not really doing anything different. 

Stay Busy and Stay Happy and Healthy and Hopeful

Monday! Tuesday! Wednesday!

 

We got a tiny bit of snow last night! (Sunday) 

So no pretty photo of the mountain! 

I’ve had several people ask for the apple cranberry cake recipe. The link to AllRecipes! 

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/230039/cranberry-apple-cake/?utm_source=emailshare&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=shareurlbuttons

• Or:

  2 large eggs

• 1 ¾ cups brown sugar

• ½ cup vegetable oil

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 2 cups all-purpose flour

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 1 teaspoon salt

• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon  I would increase cinnamon to 1 1/4 teaspoons 

• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

• 2 cups chopped apples

• 2 cups fresh cranberries

• 1 cup chopped pecans

  Directions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9-inch fluted-tube pan (such as Bundt®). I used a 9x13 glass cake pan.

     
     

     Whisk eggs, brown sugar, oil, and vanilla together in a bowl until smooth.

     
     

     Sift flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg together in a separate bowl. Stir into egg mixture with a wooden spoon. Fold in apples, cranberries, and pecans until combined. Pour batter into the prepared pan.    Batter will be stiff.

     Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted in the center of cake comes out clean, about 1 hour 15 minutes.      Because I used a rectangular pan , I checked it at 40 minutes. It was perfect! 

     ENJOY!

     Stay Busy and Stay Happy and Healthy and Hopeful!

     

     
     

     ps: I didn’t post this until I was working on my I Like Thursday post! Yeegads! 

     
     

     
     

     
     

  
  

Slow Sunday Stitching 12-15-24

Linking up with Kathy’s Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching. 

I’m a bit late posting today. But I am sitting at our son’s house stitching on this while football is on in the background. 

This photo shows the white on the Santa hat. In actuality it is very hard to see.  I stopped in at WalMart and picked the lightest blue they had. And there wasn’t much! I’m going to try to outline the brim and the pompon with it and see how it looks. 

I brought only counted cross stitch items to work on. Next there will be an entry for the Table Scraps Challenge.  Rainbow / Pluses is the prompt.  Wonder if I can stitch my vision?  Fingers crossed.

Stay Busy and Stay Happy and Healthy and Hopeful. 

ScrapHappy Saturday!

 

Here we are. Almost half way through December, 10 days to Christmas Eve. Yikes, where did 2024 go?

Just because, I’ll show some photos of the  mountain! 

The fog and low cloud cover have been hampering our view. It’s in the 40s but damp and foggy!

Good days for sewing, but when you don’t have a machine, it’s a good baking day. 

An apple and cranberry cake. It’s got pecans too! Two of the three of us would rather not have the pecans, but that didn’t keep us from eating it!!LOL

I am away from my machine, but did explore one possible RSC block for 2025 before I covered up my machine and left. 

The potato chip block has caught my eye. I experimented with some ancient scraps from my overflowing green bin and  my purple scrap bucket was sitting out too! 

I haven’t done the math to decide how many blocks of each color I would need for a decent sized lap quilt,  but I’ll do that soon.

Have you ever made a potato chip block? 

Linking up with Angela at So Scrappy for todays Linky Party! 

Stay Busy and Stay Happy and Healthy and Hopeful!

I LIKE Thursday 12-12-24

 

I love the graphic I found on Facebook from SelfLove Rainbow. This is the season to remember that you are enough!

 

Another sunrise with the mountain in view!  Early when the sky is so pink, and another day with the fog hanging in the valley! 

Saturday our son made orange glazed cranberry bread. It was so yummy. The only help I gave was that I washed and picked over the cranberries, then tossed them in flour just before “scb” folded them into the batter. 

        

Sunday we drove to the Klamath National Forest to cut a real Christmas tree. I think it is a fir, it smells so good. The trees here are so tall and straight . I grew up in the Black Hill National Forest, so I’m familiar with evergreens. These are awesome. Mr. Busy carried the chain saw out of the forest, “scb” carried the tree. My view out the back window of the pickup.⤵️

LeeAnna posed this question for today! 

If you could eat only one type of cookie this holiday season, which cookie would you be eating a lot of?   Date filled cookies are a special holiday cookie for me! And I love them. 

  What would be the ideal way for you to spend Christmas Eve? Ideally, with family, oyster stew, ham sandwiches made with buns, not bread. An assortment of cookies and candy (especially fudge) and gift opening around the tree! Then Candlelight services at church.

Stay Busy and Stay Happy and Healthy and Hopeful!