The China Dolls Meet Again!

I believe I've written at least one blog about the new quilting bee that has formed in my neck of the woods, the China Dolls Bee.  I didn't know how I'd manage with yet another meeting to attend, but I have loved being in this Bee.  The women are a fun, talented bunch, and we help and advise one another each time we meet.  We meet usually twice a month, taking turns hosting.  Yesterday it had rolled around to be my turn again.  Each bee member brings something to work on.  Many of these women are machine embroidery lovers and true experts, so often they bring their amazing embroidery machines.  Some bring handwork to do, applique or hand embroidery or perhaps sewing down the binding on a just-completed quilt.

The hostess usually prepares lunch for the group, and, oh, the wonderful meals we've shared!  Soups of all sorts this winter usually, but yesterday I decided to prepare a much-loved chicken wild rice casserole, plus two congealed salads, tomato aspic and pineapple/lime.  The aspic, I would say, got the most raves!

The last time we met, at Lynne's, was on Valentine's Day, which also happened to be her birthday.  She had made a delicious chicken chili and huge tossed salad, but also some beautifully decorated Valentine cupcakes.  Lynne invited the editor of the weekly paper for the two communities of China Spring [thus our name] and Bosqueville to come learn about this new quilting bee in China Spring.  This charming man is not only editor but also photographer, and as a graphic artist himself, he was fascinated to learn more about quilting.  He tooks many photos, some of which ended up on the front page of The Enterprise, his paper, under a huge headline reading "Queens of Quilt."

Below are two of the pictures Clint took:

Here I am, embroidering  my first Japanese embroidery, Sashiko. 
Am I right, fellow blogger LinLin, that I was the one who
got you interested in Shashiko?  I'm wearing
a little felt heart pin.  I made all of my Bee friends these pins; you'll
see them on many of them below!

From left:  Dodie, Hilary, Priscilla, Rita, Sandy, Alice B., Alice E., and Lynne, our hostess.  Lynne is the
maker of the quilt under which we are sitting.  When I saw this picture for the first time yesterday, I said
to the gathered group:  "You know what?  We are a pretty darn good looking bunch of women!"

And, just for fun, my aspic recipe:

1 box of lemon Jell-O
1 can of stewed tomatoes, any flavor, but preferably peeled, sliced tomatoes
1 tablespoon vinegar

Heat the stewed tomatoes to boiling.  Pour in the Jell-O and stir until dissolved.  Add the vinegar.  (Rice vinegar is mild, but I used red wine yesterday, and that was good and tangy.)  I have a large Tupperware ring mold that I use, and for this, I triple the recipe.

Pour into a small oiled mold or a small square Pyrex dish.  Chill until firm.  Serve with a dollop of mayonaise on a pretty lettuce leaf.

Book Buddies February Meeting

I made these stuffed fabric hearts for my book club friends.  We met at our house last week for a discussion (led by Rosemary) of the book OLIVE KITTEREDGE, a book most enjoyed, but admittedly it wasn't a particularly "hearts and flowers", Valentine's-Day-type book!  There was a chapter that touched us all, though, that focused on the deep love of a long-married pair.

  I decided in honor of Valentine's Day to serve a light supper and to give the Book Buddies their fabric hearts then.  The women seemed to enjoy the hearts and the meal!  I prepared tomato aspic, a chicken/wild rice casserole, and Cherry Carnival cake for dessert.  Of course the aspic was red, the casserole had red peppers in it, and the cake, naturally, was made with sour pie cherries.

The fabric hearts each had a pocket at the back, into which I tucked a little sachet.

Here are the Book Buddies at the table with their hearts!

From the right, Rosemary, Jo, Thelma, Ibby, and Genie showing off their
stuffed fabric hearts.

And from the left, Faith, Sharon, Judy, and Mona with their hearts.



Part Two--More Snow Pictures

Alas, I looked at the thermometer and saw that it was 36.  I looked outside, and sure enough, our lovely snow is melting.  BUT the sun is out and we have one of those gorgeous blue Texas skies!

So here are snow pictures several hours later, with the sun shining, shadows, and a blue, blue sky!

The same tree pictured in the previous post,
but the photo taken
 farther back.

Brave little pansies, peeking
through the melting snow!

Not a particularly good bird picture,
but it's the only one who was
out when I was.  Do my bird watching
and feeding friends know what
sort this is?

  Some people consider these nadinas "nuisance" plants,
akin to bamboo.  But the dwarf ones don't seem to be
as unruly as their full-sized cousins,
and only time will tell if they are
as invasive!



Here is Bill and Thelma's house, before the sun
came out--and their beautiful native
live oak tree.  We get the benefit
of both next-door neighbors'
trees.  All of these lovely trees were one
of the things that drew us to this
new development!

 Not to mention the lovely
cluster of live oaks across the
street from our house.



Snow in Central Texas!

I know well that snow in other parts of the country is causing great misery, so it made me feel (just a tad bit) guilty that I felt such a thrill when it began snowing here in Texas last night about 9:30. We just sat and watched it for a long time, with the room lights off and the yard lights on. It was beautiful, falling softly and gently, sometimes tiny flakes slanting down in the wind, other times big fluffy ones. In the night I got up to check to see if it was still snowing, and I was delighted that it was. This morning we got up at 5:30; it had stopped snowing, but I would imagine we’ve had more here than we’ve had in years, though I have no clue about how much.  The temperature is hovering in the low 20s.

So I dressed in my warmest fleece pants, heaviest socks, a light-weight fleece jacket underneath my heaviest parka, and wore my fleece-lined Merrill boots that I bought to have in Michigan when we visit there. The photos below are of our house and yard. Dear friend and neighbor Thelma stuck her head out of their door to say her camera wasn’t cooperating and asked if I’d take pictures of their house, for her to use on this year’s Christmas card. I’m sure mine will appear on ours, too!  I'll put pictures here, though, of our house only.  Thelma will get her photos via email, and I'll post all of these and hers and more on Facebook!

I love the way the spiral junipers look
bedecked with snow!

Side yard, right outside our bedroom



Our Sago Palm (most likely NOT native to Texas!)
was damaged in last year's hardest freeze, but it survived.
I wish we had remembered to cover it this year! 



Just over our backyard fence is this native live oak tree--these trees areone of the glories of Texas.  No one lives yet in thishouse that burned on Nov. 1, 2009, but it is
now totally and beautifully restored, and we
are hoping that we have new neighbors soon!

Valentine Hearts: Little Felt Pins, Bean Bags, and Sachet Holders

Friend and fellow blogger Linda sent me links to two great blogs, both of which had really fun fabric Valentine projects.  I printed off the instructions, and when I went to my Bee yesterday, I took along some handwork to do.  I stitched and stuffed the little felt heart pins, and I cut out some larger hearts from various fabrics.

Last night I worked some more on the heart pins, and today, I've made one heart filled with lavender for a sachet for my granddaughter Lia, and then three heart bean bags for her brother Locke, and for my other two grandsons, Malcolm and Dawson.  Since Lia will get both the sachet AND the little pins, I've also decided to fill one of the "boy fabric" hearts with lavender for Locke.  He loves this scent!  Once I noticed he had some hand lotion by his bed that was so scented, and he told me that he loved it.  So this one will be good for him to put in the drawer where he keeps his pajamas!

As always, click to enlarge the pictures.  I turned over one of the little felt heart pins so that you can see the little saftety pin that I sewed on it so that it can be pinned on to a dress or shirt. 

I decorated Lia's sachet heart with insertion eyelet with a narrow blue ribbon inserted.  For the boys, I ironed on some appliques, some of them purchased and a few felt hearts adhered to them with Steam at Seam.  In making the bean bags I learned that they need to be loosely filled with dried beans, so that I could then reinforce the edges with zig-zag stitching, which also served to close the opening I left to fill with the beans.  Lia's sachet is also rather loosely filled with the dried lavender.  I plan tomorrow to make some fatter, more solidly stuffed hearts to use as pin cushions.  These flat hearts aren't quite as cute as the plump, fully-stuffed ones!  All of these hearts are made with two fabrics, one for the front, the other for the back.  I turned the boys' hearts over in the 2nd photo so that the back fabric can be seen.



The purple with the eyelet trim is Lia's sachet; the three little felt heart pins below are hers
as well.  The green heart with football fabric will be Locke's lavender sachet--it's not yet finished.   The other two are beanbags for the other two grandsons.  



Here the boys' three hearts are turned over so you can see
the fabric on the back.  .

A Winnie the Pooh Throw

I loved it that our 10 year old granddaughter wanted a Winnie the Pooh throw for her recent birthday!  I had made all 4 grandchildren throws some 4 or 5 years ago for Christmas.  And I knew that Lia had long ago lost interest in the Disney princesses, which were featured on the throw I made for her then.  For her to ask specifically for a Winnie the Pooh blanket, though, warmed my heart. She seems so mature and grown up to me now, but perhaps she has at least one foot still in childhood!

Her mother searched the Internet for a blanket already made, but every image she showed her, Lia thought was "too babyish."  Then, searching for Pooh fleece online, I found this fabric, her mom showed it to her, and she loved it.  So of course I was delighted to make it for her.  The fleece came incredibly quickly, and today I bought the yellow fleece to back it, did the cutting of the fringe, and tied it.  She and her brother like to cuddle in these throws after their baths, while they watch a little TV before the bedtime tooth brushing, reading, and singing routines!

He now has two as well--the transportation-themed one that matching his bedroom, and a big boy one that features all sorts of sports balls!  His first he decided to cut to turn into a sleeping bag, so I made the second one with an open end for him.

I think Lia will like her Winnie the Pooh and the Starry Night throw!

Here's a close-up of Pooh.  The fabric
was titled "Starry Night Scenic"

Here's the entire throw, spread
out on our bed.

Katie's Noah Embroidery

Great-niece Katie's Bat Mitzvah was in October.  How impressed we all were with her command of Hebrew, her poise, and the maturity of this twelve year old!  It happened that Noah was the focus of that week's Torah passage.  Not only did Katie read this section of the Torah flawlessly in Hebrew, but then she presented her interpretation of this story of the flood, Noah, the Ark, the animals coming "two by two".

I had planned to make Katie a small quilted wall hanging as a Bat Mitzvah gift, but the one I planned and actually worked a bit on just wasn't special enough to my eyes. 

Then one day I happened to look into a wooden sewing box that sister-in-law Georgine had refinished and fitted out for me years and years ago--back in the 1970s.  I've used this pretty box as a decorative piece for years, but I had not looked inside it for ages, assuming it was empty.  In that box was a crewel embroidery of Noah, gathering the animals two by two.  I had begun this embroidery kit in the early 70s for my youngest daughter, Susan, who was born in 1971.  At some point, I stowed it and its wool away in that box and then it slipped my mind.

It seemed eerily meant to be--for me to have forgotten and then rediscovered something that would be so perfect for my beloved great niece, a wonderfully appropriate gift for a young girl who had studied the Noah story so thoroughly for her Bat Mitzvah.

I immediately began to work finishing the embroidery.  Years ago, I had embroidered Noah himself and one each of the larger animals.  None of the smaller ones, or the flowers, or the green serpentine line of grass that curves around the design, had been done.  I found that I loved doing this crewel work as much now as I did nearly 40 years ago, when crewel embroidery was all the rage. 

I finished the work well before Christmas, took it in to my favorite frame shop, and was told that they were so swamped, it would be well into January before they could get to it.  But now it is done, and I am delighted with how it looks in its simple frame.  Here is the picture framed and several close-ups.

This one is the best lighted one, but there's an odd
shadow on the brown sheep to the
left of Noah!

A close-up of Noah, and
the shadow on
the brown sheep seems to be gone!

Here are the rams with their curly horns,
snails, and the porcupines again.

The llamas, snakes, turtles, and
the rams again.

This one taken in different light--too
many reflections on the glass--but
at least the odd shadow on
the wooly sheep next to
Noah is gone!  Other
animals not having
close-ups taken of them
are giraffes in the upper left,
bulls in upper right,
and camels
in the middle, between
the sheep above
and the llamas below.

The giraffes that friend Nancy mentioned!

Beading at the Bee

Yesterday my quilting bee, the China Dolls, met for the 4th time at Priscillia's house.  This time, everyone was working on different projects.  Since my sewing machine is currently in the shop being serviced, I had to think of some sort of handwork to do.  I decided to bead this photo of a horned lizard.  I had done a similar picture for another project recently, but for that one, I had traced the lizard onto a batik fabric before beading it.  For this one, much more realistic, I printed the image of the horned lizard (or "horny toad" as we used to call them, growing up in Austin in the '50s!) onto my favorite ink jet fabric (fabric sheets which are backed by peel-off paper, so that they can go through ink jet printers), which is made Jacquard . For the lizard pictured above, I emphasized his horns and the most prominent dark markings on his body with brown or amber beads; for the characteristic white stripe down his back, of course I used white beads. I didn't bead the large mark beside one of the horns, however, as then the horn wouldn't have shown up well.  I used a single bead for the eye.  I plan to turn this into a framed picture for the man whose image this is--an image I got from Google images.  I'll perhaps add some hand embroidery and then I'll frame it either simply with fabric strips or perhaps with some small, simple quilt blocks.  Because this image cuts off his tail, I will likely extend his tail into the borders with some additional beads.  I think the beading on this picture shows improvement in my beading-on-fabric ability, compared to the first one I did!

Secret Project Revealed!

Recently I have been working, off and on, on a project that I was keeping a secret.  Why a secret?  Chiefly because if it didn't work out, I didn't want anyone but myself to know about it!  (I know--very silly!) 

Sometime in the fall I read about a contest in my QUILTING ARTS magazine, a contest for art quilts that would then become a part of their 2012 calendar.  The theme was "Feeling Pet-ty" and what contestants were to produce were 12"x12" quilts that portrayed a pet.

My first brainstorm (and I still think this was a super idea!) was to do a quilt called "My Granddogs."  For this I needed photos of the three granddogs in my life, Twist (Rob's border collie), Rolie (Kathy and family's miniature poodle), and Ace (Susan and family's Labradoodle).  I had a good picture of the young Twist, and Susan sent me a batch of excellent photos of Ace.  The problem was Rolie.  Since he is solid black, getting my hands on a good picture of him proved to be nearly impossible.  So, despite having put in a lot of work on this plan, I decided to try something else.

I decided to make a portrait of an unconventional pet, thinking that there would be hundreds of dog and cat portraits.  I wanted something different and edgy.  I delved back into my childhood.  I immediately thought about the little critters we used to call "horny toads."  My friend Kitty and I used to capture a baby horny toad, put it in a shoe box whose lid had holes poked in it, give it water in a bottle cap, but we never knew what to feed it.  So eventually we'd let the little thing go.  How well I remember how we'd stroke the baby between its horns, claiming that this hynotized it, though I'm sure it was just frozen with fright.  I can still remember how soft its little under belly was, in contrast with its spiny back.  (Incidentally, in those innocent 1950s, I had no idea that "horny" had a naughty connotation!)

After doing a search for images, I discovered that these are really lizards, not toads, and their official name is "horned lizard."  I found a wonderful photo online, wrote the photographer for permission to use his picture in a quilt, and then I started to work.  This quilt is now finished, but I am not going to publish here pictures of it, since it's soon to be competing with hundreds of others.  (But I will send my readers who are interested photos via email!)  I wish I had more time to perfect this quilt--I can see lots of flaws.  But the Jan. 7 deadline is approaching, and so I have photographed it as instructed and will send three 8"x10" pictures to the contest, along with a narrative about its inspiration, construction, and materials.

Meanwhile, though, I'll show you the images I was working on for the Granddog quilt.  And actually, all is not lost, for I have ideas for a Twist and an Ace product, to give to their owners!




photo above (taken years ago by me) and
below a traced image after I
scanned and enlarged the picture





Here is Twist, traced onto
muslin.  After hearing about
friend Linda's embroidered pet
portraits, I plan to do that for son Rob!



Here is Ace, a photo above
and then a picture printed onto  regular
paper after I doctored it
a bit with Photoshop.

The Ace portrait printed onto fabric,
appliqued onto a string-pieced background.
I had intended to turn this into
a pillowtop for Susan for Christmas, but I ran out of time. 

One Last Look at Christmas 2010

Giving two parties before Christmas, getting ready to spend it in California, doing the last-minute Christmas projects and gift-buying--all of these meant that I never posted about our Christmas decor!  This is our second Christmas in our new house, and I think I duplicated what I did last year.  Pictures are below.  After tomorrow, all will be put up--I am writing this on New Year's Eve.



This tree was new last year.
It's one of those "skinny" trees,
 pre-lighted.  Since it's
up on the bridge on the second
floor I used out-sized balls and kept
the color scheme to silver and white
and on it put all the clear glass,
acylic, and crystal ornaments.



Our dining room.  Every year
I put all the glass and crystal
candlesticks, trees, and
angels along the glass
centerpiece.  When all
the candles are lit and
the room is darkened,
it looks very pretty.

On the hutch in the breakfast area,
at the end of our kitchen, I always
arrange all the various Christmas decor
items that Supper Club folks
have given us.

The Santas are always on the
mantel.  Bob and I bought these years
ago.

This is our "main" tree.  It is located on the
first floor, in front of the window,
in Bob's study.  Pre-lighted, artificial,
pretty old now, but still in good condition.

Mother gave Bob the big Santa years
ago.  He is often on the coffee
table, but this year, I put
him on the sofa table for
awhile, and then moved him
to the sugar chest you
can see against the windows.  You
can see another Santa there, too--a
Scottish Santa that I got for Bob once.



A green and a red-dressed Santa, part of the
mantel display.