New Year, New Quilter

Gregory and his Star Wars quilt top

Our two local grandchildren have had an extra week off from school this week. Gregory (and his sister) spent the day with us yesterday and helped us to un-decorate the house. There's something about packing away the trees and all the decorations that makes everything look so bare and wide-open; it's sort of a clean sweep and re-examination of spaces that, just days before, were filled with greenery and treasured mementos. I love Christmas; but I love packing it away for next year all over again, too! 

Especially when I have such great helpers!

After lunch both of the grandchildren got to work! Gregory settled to a routine of sewing four-patches until he had completed his own 48" X 48" quilt top made up entirely of inherited Star Wars scraps. He loved moving his blocks around on the design wall and finally coming up with his final layout (above, left). He's learned a LOT during the process; he's a proficient ironer now and understands the importance of a consistent seam allowance. We'll load this top onto the longarm in the coming weeks and he'll quilt it himself, following a simple pantograph. 

While her brother was sewing Lynnleigh transformed our Christmas card fronts into gift tags for next year's Christmas presents! This is a great recycling project made even more fun by involving a young and eager crafter. The card backs and photo cards are stacked and bound together with a ring for our morning devotions. Each day a new family or individual comes to the top of the pile and they're prayed for specifically by name. This is a tradition that I've blogged about before here. The dear friend who started this tradition for us has long ago now joined the Church Triumphant but lives on through her shining example. The gift tags from the card fronts has sort of evolved over time. Lynnleigh did a great job! With this New Year firmly underway I am focusing on that chosen guiding word: "mindful". Stay tuned. In the meantime, help me to welcome another new quiltmaker into the fold. 

Way to go, Gregory!

Sometimes, when the house seems to be chaotic and full of boxes,

 and there's kids running around here and there, 

it might just be time to cuddle up, all warm and cozy-like, in front of the fire with a  good friend. 

Life is Good!

Behind the Scenes

Hi, I'm Gene the Gingerbread Man, I wanted to give you a quick glimpse into where Mrs. Goodneedle has been and what she's been doing for the past week. She and Mr. Goodneedle stay busy! With a porch ceiling to work on and shopping and baking to be done, all in preparation for an Open House on Saturday evening.

With all of that baking going on the kitchen looked like a bomb had gone off!

Sugar cookie dough is rolled out on an antique pastry cloth that Mrs. Goodneedle inherited. 

These are her MIL's wafer-thin sugar cookies (the pastry cloth is imperative). The recipe is an old one, instead of a numeric oven temperature listed it calls for a "moderate" oven and uses powdered sugar in the dough in place of granulated sugar. These cookies have stood the test (and taste) of time for generations.

Chocolate Crinkles

Almond Cookies, Mrs. Goodneedle's specialty cookie.

This place has been hopping; lucky for me, I've been able to avoid greedy hands and hungry mouths just in the nick of time. (Sadly, that's not the case for some of my friends!) Slowly, but surely, the tree was decorated and the flour, butter, eggs, spices and sugar were put away and the kitchen resembled that of one in a home and not a commercial bakery once again. We all longed for calm to settle back in. Here we all are, below, after being given our final touches of buttons and bows, making us all the more delectable!

Of course, there were grandchildren to visit and performances to attend at their respective schools.

And a new (to her) grocery-mecca to check out in the Capital City for Mrs. Goodneedle. She wasn't disappointed in what she found there. Even the shopping was conducted at an escalated pace! 

She saw this at WalMart and thought that she and her stitchy friends might like to wear them, but it was vetoed when she contacted them (they're no fun, it even lights up!) There was not much sewing happening behind the scenes, there simply wasn't  time. (Except for some super-secret Christmas gift-giving stitching I saw her doing! Shhhhh!!) Ho! Ho!! Ho!!!

All too soon the week had whizzed by and it was time for the Open House!

Hungry hoardes arrived and devoured the food. They all seemed to enjoy themselves.

Sigh. There's my friends, there's very few of us remaining today. 😢 RIP

Today she's recovering from her busy week by the fireplace while she sips a cup of tea. If I know what's good for me I'll exit at this point before she looks for something to nibble on during her "break". I'm outta here~

Wishing you a peaceful and calm week before Christmas!

Life is Good!

Up next: Removing Stitches

  GENE THE GINGERBREAD MAN for:

 

Christmas Card Confusion

How did we get here already? Yes, this post is about Christmas cards; but, how did we get from Thanksgiving to Christmas at the speed of light? Over the weekend I rounded up all the turkeys and fall decorations to pack them away, once again. It seemed like the entire month of November passed in about a day and a half. Sigh. Anyway-- on the day before Thanksgiving we took our annual Christmas Card picture with the grandchildren, or attempted to. Putting a Thanksgiving feast for ten on the table is nothing compared to persuading begging (!) four children to change clothes and  all smile and look at the camera at the same time. This whole procedure took less than twenty minutes, total, but they really didn't want to stop playing long enough to capture a picture-perfect moment! Okay, moving on. I snapped, literally, hundreds of shots and found one; yes, only one, acceptable enough to use. It still wasn't quite what I had in mind; but, hey, it's what I had. I also had a sizeable discount coupon for an online made-to-order photo card company, one that I hadn't used before. I ordered our cards that evening, agonizing over the design and composition. I submitted my order in time to grab the discount and got an email almost immediately informing me that the cards were underway and that I would receive them in the mail no later than November 28. "Wow, what great service," I thought.

As promised, several days later a box arrived from the card company. Imagine my surprise and disappointment when I opened the box and discovered these inside! "Oh, NO!", I croaked out (last week was one of profound silence around here as I was a victim of larygitis). Mr. Goodneedle was pressed into service, calling the card company and explaining that we had received cards that weren't ours.  The card company instructed us to dispose of the cards received by mistake and that our replacements, as well as the other couple's, would be on the way directly. I told Mr. Goodneedle that we simply could not throw Paul and Lauren's cards away, their address was inside the box; they needed them back! So, I addressed the box to them and we mailed it off. It's just the right thing to do.

Yesterday we received two boxes in the mail; you've probably already guessed what happened. Our correct card order plus a box from Lauren; our cards had somehow gone to them! She, too, couldn't throw ours away and mailed them to us. Now we both have double orders; but what a great story we both have. Plus, we have enough photo cards for bookmarks for the rest of our lives! Whenever I look at this Christmas photo I will smile-- for many reasons, and they're all good! 

I still don't know how we got to December so quickly though!

UPDATE!!

A third box of cards arrived today! 😲

Life is Good!