Christmas at my house

It was a small gang for Christmas dinner this year, just 7 of us.  Other years we have had up to 15 people so I was able to cook one of those breast only, cook from frozen turkeys.  You take it out of the plastic package,  stick it in the roaster, cover it with aluminum foil and cook it for 3 hours.  When the little thermometer pops up, its done.  No muss, no fuss, no bones and not a pile of left overs, which is good because I am too busy usually during Christmas to deal with the left overs.  .  It was just a coincidence that both Nicole and I were wearing leopard.  We gave my mom the jacket for Christmas and then all of us were wearing leopard.  Yikes!

Sunrise

I was up very early one morning last week and saw something I don't see all that often.  It was a spectacular sunrise and I had to take a picture.

November

What a busy   month November was!  I knitted hats, tie dyed some socks, finished off a very old project and took part in a post card swap.

   This is my very old project .  I did this little quilt in a colour class that I did at least 14 years ago.  I was'nt to fussy on it.  I had a chance to use it as a teaching tool when I went to Michael's class to do a little lecture on quilting by the pioneers.  I let the kids practice hand quilting on it.  I was quite surprised that the boys in the class were much more interested in trying quilting than the girls.  One child that enjoyed quilting was a little girl that had some learning problems.  The little girl died in a house fire shortly after that.  I never wanted to take out all the big stitches that the kids had done because they were precious to me, so the unfinished quilt languished on the quilt  rack for  10 years.  I finally decided to just machine quilt all over the top, which also holds down the large stitches that the kids did.  I am so glad that it is finally done, all be it back on the quilt rack.   

     Hats,  I have been knitting like crazy.   I have knitted 7 hats in October and November and I am half way through number 8.  Then I have 2 more of the ribbed touques and I am finished.

Some tie dyed socks.  They are so much fun to make, I might get some more done before Christmas.

Autumn themed postcards. Mine is the oak leaf and acorn.  It is done with wool and wool felt.  The leaves one is done with a print background and silk leaves and the tree one is done on an embroidery machine.  Boy I would like to have one of those!

       This card swap was paint.  I used the setacolour paint and sun painted it and stamped with ink.  The other card's flowers are dimensional,  she used some interfacing and painted it until it was stiff.  I don't know if the flowers were cut out before or after.                                                                                                         

Halloween at my House

This is some of my Halloween decorations.  I decorated my sideboard fancy for Halloween and Thanksgiving.

This is a stitchery that I did last year.  I have it hanging in the hall all year long.
And my table runner, "The 3 Amigos"







A wall hanging that I did about 10 years ago.












Lastly, a wall hanging that I did when Michael was a newborn, the first year I did quilting.

Here are the afters

Everytime I have something figured out, they go and change it.  So here are the afters. Sheesh.

Sun Painting

In mid September I did some sun painting. You take Setacolour fabric paint and dilute it about 3 - 4 parts water to 1 part paint. You paint your fabric and then place various objects on it and leave it to dry in the sun. You get the outline image of your object. You can scrunch it, fold it, put epsom salt on it and you get wonderful effects. Here are my before and afters.

Thanksgiving

We sure missed Michael and Briar this Thanksgiving. It just wasn't the same. Michael and Briar both brought a sense of life and warmth to any occasion. However we did have a lovely lamb roast. I did Greek style potatoes with it and roasted carrots. We also had salads and buns and Pumpkin pie made by my mom. I hope Michael and Briar each send me some pictures soon so I can blog them.