Happy Holidays here at home.

This has been a busy month, the good kind of busy, not the stressful stuff.

It took me a long time to get around to decorating.  I usually start right after Thanksgiving but I think it was the 4th before the tree went up and then I spent all week just putting ornaments on. (No, the tree is not that big - I just kept getting interrupted.)

Our sweet little tree with my Peppermint Quilt on the wall behind

I've been hand quilting in the mornings.  You can't finish a quilt if you never work on it.  (You can quote me on that!)   I know it's going to take a couple of months to finish this particular quilt so you'll probably see pictures of it on my blog for a while.  AND, they will pretty much look the same but thank you in advance for indulging me.

I'm hand quilting it quite heavily with parallel lines in the blocks that alternate direction from block to block, and all around the flying geese.

I'm absolutely in love with this fabric from the Pat Nichols II Collection so it's a pleasure to quilt.  I'm just enjoying the process - no hurry here.

I have boxes of pictures etc. that I'm determined to go through and organize.  I was cleaning out an old notebook last week that I had divided into different sections for daily life.  One section was immunizations so I took all those records and passed them along to my youngest son.  There were awards and quilting patterns and "to do" lists and on and on and on.  

One thing I found was a record I was keeping  from 2003 of my fabric purchases.  I had the date, the store, how much I bought, and the fabric line and designers name.  Two things stood out to me;

1.  Just how often I went to a quilt store.  The quilt stores in my area were making a haul!!!

and

2.  I am currently working on 2 quilts with some of those very fabrics I bought almost 15 yrs. ago.

I am quilting the Pat Nichols quilt that I call "Puttin' on the Chintz" (pictures above).  And, I am hand piecing rising sun blocks from the Good Shepherds line from Salt Box Farm by Deb Strain.  It just seems so funny that I would finally be using these fabrics at the same time.  But, the good news is that I liked them then. . . and I still like them, a lot.

My holiday disaster this year came in the form of blonde fruitcake.  I invited two of my grandchildren to come and help me bake.  They were excited to see all the nuts, raisins, dates, and colorful fruit.  It was great fun.  After the 3 loaves had baked for quite a while, and didn't seem to look right, I went back and reviewed the recipe.

I had neglected to put in the baking soda!!!

So we have fruitcake that is glued together with sugar and flour.  Yum!

  

I cut a few slices and then cut them into squares.  I put them in some oatmeal cookie dough and baked them (remembering the leavening).  They turned out pretty good.  I think that's what I'll do with the rest of the fruitcake.  My husband is such a good sport.  He ate the smallest loaf any way.  

New this year is a treetop angel by Willowtree.  She's a beauty.

Thanks for checkin' in,

Robin

PS I finished clue #4 this afternoon.  Tomorrow I get to make a shark sleeping bag.