The Stitch Up

Goodbye 2011

After our quiet Christmas we went out to visit my parents for some fun and some more relaxation.  Mom and Dad live out in the desert.  It's beautiful and serene, and we always have a nice time when we visit.

We played games, walked in the hills and just enjoyed family for a few days.  I brought along a travel project - a cute 2012 tea towel by Curious Doodles and got quite a bit done between the plane rides and time spent around the kitchen table chatting with Mom.

We got home just in time for New Year's Eve which we spent quietly.  We took advantage of the weirdly warm weather by grilling outside.  

After dinner we snuggled on the couch to talk about the past year and what we hope for the new year.

I will of course have resolutions or plans for 2012, but I've enjoyed just feeling the excitement of the start of a new year and all the hope and possibility that it promises.  Happy New Year to everyone!

On to Christmas!

I refuse to think about Christmas before I've celebrated Thanksgiving.  Well, technically I guess that's not true.  I try to start some of my Christmas crafts before Thanksgiving.  But, Christmas songs, Christmas decorations, early run-ins with Santa Claus?  I don't want any part ot those things until after I've stuffed myself with turkey and stuffing.

The Christmas crafts I started are going to be hostess gifts.  I decided to make some coasters with cute Christmas fabric on one side and a little embroidery on the other side.  So far, the unfinished process looks like this:

I'm using embroidery patterns from The Floss Box, Martha Stewart, and the book A Rainbow of Stitches. 

I've got a ton of cute Christmas fabric.  Not all of it will be made up for coasters.  To be honest, I'm not sure how I'll use it.  I went a little crazy in the fabric stores but I guarantee I'll figure something out.

I fell in love with this Alexander Henry fabric.  I'm thinking it might look cute as a Christmas apron.

At the very least I could put a frame around this and enjoy it that way!  

Now that I'm ready for Christmas it's full steam ahead.  I hope there will be plenty of time to finish these Christmas crafts and others.  Merry Christmas all!

Seasons Greetings

Due to crazy work hours this holiday season is kind of getting away from me.  I DID have a great Thanksgiving with my folks and my brother and his family in Arizona.  It reminded me of growing up in California where the holidays involve putting lights on palm trees and having the doors and windows wide open on Thanksgiving day because it is just too hot in the house otherwise.

 I've really come to enjoy Thanksgiving and Christmas on the east coast, the snow and cold mark the change in season and make if feel special.  But there is still a lot to be said for being able to wear shorts in December!

Despite being distracted by work, the weather here is getting me in the mood for Christmas.  I did a little decorating, had some friends from my book club over for a Christmas cocktail party, and am now wrapping up gift buying and stocking up on egg nog for the big day.

So despite lots of work I have found time for some Christmas play.  My one regret is I have not had time this year for any Christmas crafting.  I did buy Alicia Paulson's felt ornament patterns and I plan to make a few of these over Christmas weekend, when I finally have some time off.  I figure I won't be late for this year, but rather a year EARLY in preparing for next Christmas.

Sadly, I'm off to the office now - Merry Christmas all!

 

o-HI-o Road Trip

We decided to take a road trip to see the Hubby's parent in Ohio for the 4th of July.  It's a pretty trip through Pennsylvania and Ohio is a great place to spend the 4th.

Our first stop when we get to Ohio is a local burger place that makes THE BEST burgers: Swensons.

 

Mmmmmm.  People - I'm not kidding.  THE BEST burgers.  I get the hot fudge milk shake, Hubby gets the coffee shake and we get our cheeseburgers with the works.  Heaven.

There are always a lot of fun community activities going on around the holidays in this area of Ohio.  We went to a great concert with the Cleveland Symphony playing patriotic marches and songs and we hit the local 4th of July parade.

Watching the 4th of July parade required another food stop:

The fact that the parade started at 10 am did not stop us from getting some frozen custard.  It was hot out after all, plus...frozen custard!  Enough said.

Blackberry frozen custard the breakfast of champions!  The Hubby said watching me eat this cone was like coming across a crime scene, but people, let me say again - it was hot out!  And the cone was melting!  And I don't think this is all that bad:

 

Harrumph.  Let's move on to some pics of the parade shall we?

The parade route.

The local American Legion post.

   

 

 

 

 

Some patriotic cars from the parade.

 

 
 Some of the cool floats in the parade.

I love a good parade and this was a great one.  The 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays and this was a great place to celebrate it.

 
 
 
 
 

 

Happy Mother's Day

Just a quick note to say Happy Mother's Day to all the Mom's out there, including my own.  She is the very best.

 

Christmas Crafts - The wrap up

Yes, it is almost February and I still have some Christmas notes to make.  I am proud to say that we have managed to take down the Christmas tree and lights though, so that's something.  I wanted to post on the hostess gifts I made this year for Christmas.  The idea was that these would be accompanied with a plate of cookies, however I was lucky just to get a couple of these to their intended owner.  The cookies were one step to far.  I have high hopes for next year though!

I made some tea towels with Christmas designs.  They were fairly simple designs which just used an outline stitch and a few french knots here and there.  But they came out pretty and I think you could jazz them up however you wanted with trim or beads or what have you.

The first designs were free patterns from The Floss Box.  This is a great embroidery/craft blog at any time, but she has great design ideas for Christmas.  I put three ornaments on each tea towel and tried to mix up the patterns with each towel:

 

A couple close ups of the ornaments:

 

 

I also did a couple of Christmas trees designs as well.  This is from the always awesome  Badbirds blog.  Again, this blog is great at any time of year for people who love to embroider.  She usually has a free pattern every month and they are fun and quirky and like nothing you'll find on any other site.  The Christmas tree pattern is lovely:

  

So that's the last of my Christmas crafts.  I'm reminded again this year that if I want to get things done in time for Christmas - I need to get started sometime in June!  I've book marked a ton of great patterns and ideas from other bloggers in preparation for some really organized crafting for 2010.  We'll see how it goes!

 

 
  

Christmas Crafts - Baby Gifts

This is not really a Christmas themed craft project - these are items for a new baby our friends had last month.  A little girl that is a cutie!  But these have been keeping me crafting during the holiday season so I figured they could be included in my holiday crafting.

Sublime Stitching  is, as always, my go to for cute patterns for baby gifts.  First, a couple of adorable freebie patterns from the Sublime Stitching blog that I put on some ruffled onesies from Dharma Trading Co.:

 

 

I also whipped up a couple of bibs - again from Dharma Trading Co and with patterns from the Sublime Stitching book:

 
 

 

I love making baby gifts - it's always a chance to use some of the cuter patterns I have and pretty pastel thread!  

Next post will be a Christmas themed craft - really!
    

Christmas Crafts

Oh the weather outside is frightful

 

and the heating system is so delightful

and since there's no place to go

   

Let's sew, let's sew, let's sew!!!!

First Christmas craft post is a gift for the hubby.  We watch "It's A Wonderful Life" every Christmas eve, and it's a movie that the hubby really loves.  When I saw this pattern posted by Jacqui Davis I thought it would make an awesome ornament.  She used a still from the movie to recreate the drawing that Mary drew of her first date with George.  It's so cute!  However, I could not manage to get the pattern small enough and still be able to embroider it in order to get it ornament sized.  So, I decided to make a little bag to hold a store bought ornament that I picked up at a german Christmas store in Middleburg, VA.

I decided to go with all blue for the embroidery:

I chose a backing fabric that was Christmassy but didn't over do it, in case the hubby wanted to use the bag at another time of year:

  

I did a simple pocket for some blue trim for a handle, stitched the two sides together and voila:

 

This pattern really makes me happy.  It's a Wonderful Life is the greatest Christmas movie out there and I think this bag will be a nice reminder of all the things about the movie that we enjoy.

I have a few other Christmas project up my sleeve.  More to come!!

 
 

Christmas Eve

Last week was a little hectic. I had to finish grading exams and figuring final grades for my two university classes, I had work at the law office, I had to start some cooking for the party we were throwing on Saturday the 22nd and I was finishing up a little something for a lovely lady I know through the embassy who is a wonderful friend and has been an inspiration for me in cooking, crafting and life in general. Her husband, who is a very thoughtful man, asked myself and another friend to supply one of our handmade gifts to give to his wife, our friend, Eva. We were more than happy to oblige. Tara gave a BEAUTIFUL hand knit scarf made from recycled sari silk that is off-the-chain delicate and lovely. I embroidered these pillow cases, which will be given to Eva today for her birthday and I can't wait to find out if she liked them:

They were fun to make, but after I was finished I had nothing to concentrate on but making food for the party. I made brownies, mini frittatas and meatballs a couple of days ahead of time and froze them so I just had some coconut macaroons, pico de gallo and dip to make on the day of our shin dig. People - I have learned one thing after this party: you can never make enough meatballs. I used about two pounds of hamburger and had almost three dozen meatballs, but they went like hot cakes. Next time - I'm going for 4 pounds of meat and enough meatballs to satisfy the entire party!!! The party was great, we had such an awesome mix of people, there were guests from Germany, Algeria, Jordan, UK, Latvia and of course Spain. It was wonderful to be able to spend time with so many interesting and diverse folks and definitely one of the highlights of living in Europe.

Now we're just relaxing and wrapping gifts.We may head out for a little lunch and some last minute shopping later.
Our socializing isn't over yet though. I just finished making some pumpkin/pecan bread to take over to a friends house for a Christmas Eve party she's having tonight and tomorrow in the late afternoon we're heading over to another friends for an evening of games and finishing up leftovers. It should be lots of fun!

We did decide to break with tradition and let the cat open a gift today. Mostly because we bought it to torture her with. It's one of these "finger flyers" that you shoot across the room - this one is a pig and it makes a screaming/oinking sound when you fling it. We thought it would make her crazy and we would laugh when she tried to attack it. Instead, kitty seems to have formed an attachment to the pig:

As weird and unsettling as her pig-love is I suppose it's in keeping with the general goodwill of the Christmas season. Merry Christmas everyone!

Cookie Exchange

I've done a lot more cooking since we arrived in Spain and my most recent plunge into domesticity was really fun! A few of us from the embassy and the university got together and did a cookie exchange. About 6 of us were involved so we all made 6 dozen of a specific type of cookie and then brought it along to the cookie exchange. We then got to taste everyone else's cookies and box up a combination of every type and take it home to pass out for gift plates. I handed out a dozen or so varied Christmas cookies to our portero (doorman - who is actually a woman), my law office, and the hubbys office. (we kept one or two cookies for ourselves as well...) Everyone was thrilled with the results and the whole afternoon was pretty fun.

My contribution to the cookie exchange was thumbprint cookies. There are a few steps involved but overall it's a really simple cookie to make.My recipe made about 3 dozen cookies, so I prepared 3 dozen the night before and 3 dozen the day of the cookie exchange.I filled the cookies with plum jam and they looked festive and tasted yummy!
The cookies the other ladies brought were fantastic: Iced oatmeal cookies, brownies frosted with peppermint frosting, sugar cookies shaped like candy canes, some yummy swedish cookies, lemon cookies, oatmeal chocolate chip, chocolate with peanut butter chips - I was stuffed after trying everyone's treats but it would have been rude to pass any up, right?

The host, Kate, threw a great party and made some fantastic chile to counter-act the sugar high we were all suffering shortly after diving into the cookies. Another of the women from the embassy brought a Betty Crocker cookbook from 1963 that her mother had passed on to her (she used the recipe in the cookbook for the candy cane sugar cookies) and it had a suggestion for a cookie exchange party. It was kind of funny reading the description in the book of how to throw a great cookie party - it included having all of the ladies go around the room and describe where their cookie recipe came from, what it meant to them, etc. I think most of us had just downloaded the recipe off the internet and didn't have any nice story about our recipes. But we did have a nice time chatting about 101 other things. As many of the women work at the embassy in the political or economic division, they have interesting perspectives on a variety of things going on the world now. Eva, having spent 18 years in the mortgage industry had some great insight into the current mortgage crises, and the rest of us are pretty ready to hold forth on just about any topic that pops into our heads. I imagine it was a different type of conversation than might have been had back at a cookie exchange party in 1963, but maybe I'm wrong. The basic enjoyment of getting together with friends for good food and conversation is the same now as I imagine it was 40 years ago and will probably be the same 40 years from now. The future cookie-exchanger Louisa, Kate's little one year old, already seemed to enjoy the fun and will probably head up her own cookie party sometime in the future.