Christmas 2015

Merry Christmas to all and a safe and successful 2016.

We gathered today for Christmas dinner, only eight, five were out of country/state etc! I made what has become our traditional meal for the day, Crown Roast of Pork, asparagus, roasted garnet yams and Monkey bread. There were homemade cinnamon buns for starters while dinner cooked and a yam cheesecake for dessert and about enough leftovers for DH and me tomorrow night so that worked out well.

Poor Button dog found all this Christmas activity just a bit too much and decided to take a nap on top of a pile of Matthew's quilts that he had stacked up on the couch.

By about 4:30 everyone had moved onto the next activity, so after I cleaned up the kitchen I decided to work on the Allietare quilt mystery clue 4. Clue 5 is due out and I wanted to get a little more done on #3. Here is how my four clues are looking, I am using dark blue instead of black and the blue stars are my grey.

None are completed with the required number but I have made a good start. The past weeks have been very busy as most others experience this time of year and we are off to Boston Sunday so I am not sure what will be accomplished sewing wise the next couple of weeks. I often get sewing in when niece has to go into the office, it's a good way to occupy myself. After a run to the gym I hope to sew on it again tomorrow.

I am linking up with Bonnie's weekly "link up party"

Usually the final Bonnie Hunter mystery clue comes out at New Year and we will be in MA- where the weather is warmer than Arizona, LOL! I had planned to take all my winter woolies but I may not need them at all.

In The Snowy, Snowy Mountains

This past week we had two good snowstorms always a positive sign for winter, and DH skied a couple of days at Telluride Ski Center. A lot of the snow had melted due to a temporary day or two warm up,  and this is how things looked Friday morning

On Friday night we drove into Montrose to attend the Nutcracker performance and on the way encountered a deer in a rather unfortunate way! Minimal damage to the vehicle but the doe was not so blessed, scared me, it was our first such and hopefully only experience.
Snow began drifting in as we returned up the mountain and by morning we woke to a few inches accumulation.

Temperature stayed down all day as the snow continued,

so I decided we should brew up a pot of gluwein!

 One pot led to another and we stayed quite cozy!

 The third clue had been released the day before for Bonnie's Allietare Mystery and it was prime sewing time. I had about half the clue done then ran out of one of the fabrics, just didn't bring enough with me.

 I am enjoying my little travel machine the Bernina 240, nice and compact and lighter weight than the larger Pfaff.
The snow continued overnight and there was probably 6-7" this morning, I took this series of photos early as the sun was coming through, makes some really interesting pictures.

  The snow plough had already been around by the time we were packed up and ready to leave at about 9:30 am, and the temperature was still in the teens.

 Just pulling away from the house.

 It was slow going the first couple of ours until we came down closer to Dolores when the roads were dry.

A fairytale winter wonderland, beautiful and treacherous for the uninitiated or overconfident, none of which DH is having grown up in Boston area. I am so glad, most Aussies have little exposure to these conditions and I do not like to drive on snowy roads!

Snow Surprise!

Last evening we were down in the town of Ridgway for the "Noel Night" hanging out with the locals for a couple of hours at Colorado Boy Brewery. This is their "snowman" rather unique right?

When we came back up the mountain last night there was no indication of more snow but this morning we awoke to about three more inches and still coming down gently!

 Here is where I sit to sew, terrible view right, LOL?!

Currently I am working on this little quilt, a nice size for a baby and gender neutral,  nice to have one on hand. It's a kit I purchased online from fabriccafe.com.

 This is a cute flannel quilt perfect for a boy baby I think, very quick and easy, as you can see I am staying occupied up here on the mountain.

  Tomorrow I will go stay with my friend Gale on the farm for a few days, DH can drop me there after church in Montrose.  I think he may go skiing in Telluride Monday, there is no skiing for me especially since I just found out I have to get double knee joint replacement!

Allietare Winter Mystery Kick-off

Linking with Heather at Needlework Tuesday
 Yesterday we met to begin the first clue of Bonnie's Winter Mystery

The now traditional cake and below the labels I made using purchased prepared fabric sheets and our ink jet printer.

 Some of the group who came, much smaller turnout this year - five last minute cancellations. We meet at the Chandler Police Station a nice big room for us to spread out our "stuff"!

Angela caught me rotary cutter in hand about to "dissect" some fabric!

The BH Divas!

More quilters actually finished their last year's mystery, Grand Illusion. Most followed Bonnie's color guide fairly closely but still there was color variation in the quilts. BJ chose totally different color-way and used yardage rather than scraps which I decided to do this year too. I know it will quite change the look but that's OK, it will not be so busy. That's BJ 's quilt second from the left and yours truly on her left.
This first clue surprised us all it seemed too easy, 296 Half Square Triangles in grey and neutral. My grey is the blue with stars as in the pic below.

 All are now sewn but most still need to be cut and pressed. I used the "eight at a time" method but others had their own preferences, I find this to be accurate and fast, I do not like fussing with nearly 900 separate tiny triangles!

 Here is a link to a tutorial on this method on Craftsy, no need to repeat it here.

It requires only sewing diagonally both direction either side of a drawn line. 

Then cut four times, horizontal and vertical 

then corner to corner each direction.

Eight magic triangles, and since I measured and sewed accurately my squares are exactly two inches unfinished, perfect!

Angela has made this a tradition, we will be doing it again next year God willing.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving celebration with loved ones, we did even though youngest son and his family were missing, visiting DIL's family in Yuma.
Last Christmas the monkey bread sort of got out of control dripping over the edge of the Bundt pan all the way down to the counter so I reduced the amount of dough this time and it looked much more manageable! The addition of crushed garlic and fresh herbs from my herb plot mixed into the butter definitely enhanced the flavor.

Delish!

This was one of several bottles of wine we have saved from wine tastings, it was really good, as good as we remembered so I might look for more! A lovely day at oldest son and DIL's beautiful home followed by a brief stop to see #2 son and his family.

After we came home I finished the scrappy binding on this quilt, I am very happy with it.

Tomorrow the first clue for Bonnie Hunter's Winter Mystery Allietare will be be released so I can get the cutting done to begin sewing Saturday.

 These are the colors I have chosen, replacing Bonnie's black fabric with the dark blue and her grey with the lighter blue with stars.

This is the long promised quilt for my nephew Wesley- he lives DownUnder- Wes is a bull rider!

This is Wes's picture from his FB page, he really does ride those rank bulls - and has the scars to prove it!

This was last year's event and six of us showing off our 2013 mystery quilt Celtic Solstice.

This will be the third year our Phoenix BH fans will meet to kick off the new mystery and you can be sure I will report on that over the weekend. Many of us will be bringing along our 2014 mystery Grand Illusion to share our successes.

The funky pieced backing on mine!

The Rose Parade Quilt

All done except for the binding which I plan to get to work on shortly but I couldn't wait to show the quilting, and I have a lot of pics to post. The fabrics were from an online drawing at Fort Worth Fabric Studio and I was the very fortunate recipient of a half yard bundle, here is the result!

 From a distance the quilting doesn't show well but sitting here at my desk and looking at it from the side it shows beautifully.

 I chose a handfull of quilt designs and repeated them throughout the quilt, taking my cue from a similar quilt by Angela Walters.

 I really enjoyed quilting it once I had decided what to do, it still took quite a few hours.

 I took a few close up pics………….

and varied the angles, with and without the flash…………... 

from above and then this last one from the side.

And the back!

Quilter's Dream 70/30 batting and a white 50wt. thread on top, Bottom Line in the bobbin. I am looking forward to trying more of these modern quilting ideas, it's a lot of fun!