Beginning a Round Robin, Ending the Harvest

Without putting too fine a point on it, Autumn always seems to be a time of endings (nice weather, long sunny days, fresh veggies and fruits) and beginnings (school, new projects, new clothes).

Our little personal garden went out with a bang this year. A colorful ending to a educational (for the grandkids) and delicious year.

These were the pumpkins we picked last week - the last of them. That was after sharing with the grandkids and the neighbors. We thought we only had a “few” left. HA!  I’ve been giving them to passers-by and used a few to decorate my house inside and on the front porch area (see below).

I’ve also tied some of the dried cornstalks to the front pillars (not pictured).  The red and green grapes have made great snacks for the last month or more, and these were the last of the large bunches. The rest I left on the vines for the bees (gone now since the frost) and the birds. The purple Concord grapes in the yellow colander is another batch that I picked on that morning. Later they were juiced into about 4 quarts of grape juice and bottled.  Yum!!  We got almost 12 quarts off the one bush this year.

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My latest “beginning” is a round robin for Crazy Quilting International.  This one is called “I Love Paris”.  Sound familiar?  It was my idea because I wanted MORE after doing my Paris purse a couple years ago.  (see posts here).

Among those posts is one that explains how I do my piecing. This one was more complicated than my purse, and I had to add that central lavender piece (vertical, curvy, to the right of the toile) because I didn’t leave large enough selvages on my pieces.  But it finally came together with some hand stitching and adding trim to cover some raw edges. Luckily, the many imperfections will be covered up by the embellishments!

This is in the mail to Theresa, and I look forward to stitching on their blocks! 

Until next time,

A London Halloween

London celebrated her second Halloween this weekend.  (Last year she was a 2-month old Ballerina and didn’t know what was going on).  THIS year, as an Indian Princess, she was very aware and really got into the celebration!

No, that candy never touched her lips!  She much preferred her orange “purse”!!

Carving pumpkins with her mommy’s family

I would love to know what was going through her head...

Can I eat it now?

  These aren’t REAL jewels!!

Enjoying the autumn leaves with Mommy 

  

Tomorrow I’ll have CQ pictures.  Really.   Today just got away from me - I even ended up having to go in to work for a couple hours.  ARRRGGGHH!

Random Things

It’s been a mostly rainy day here in the Salt Lake Valley, but it did hold off until I was done working outdoors this morning.  It was finally time to bring in the patio furniture, deadhead the roses one last time, put the garden decorations away until spring, and bring in the hoses.  Among countless other chores that pop up as you begin.

But look at that bouquet of roses (and a single delphinium.... what’s up with that?) that I gleaned from the bushes in the yard.   My garden’s “Last Hurrah” of the year.

I didn’t even put the flowers into a vase, instead preferring to just keep them in the bucket.  

Bruce and I ran a few errands today.  We had a blast at Toys R Us looking through all the toys, LOL.  We decided it was time to update our own toybox for the grandkids.  Winter is coming, so they will be indoors when they come to visit.  Since they’re all over age 1 now, it was time to get some building blocks, plastic animals (good sized ones, not tiny) like farm animals, jungle animals, etc.   We like to play and teach simultaneously.

And then a quick stop at the grocery store to pick up some canned pumpkin so I could make pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.  And it’s a good thing I did, because we ran out of Halloween candy tonight.  The kids witches, princesses, vampires, etc, were out in force tonight.  I ended up giving cookies (after getting permission from the parents who accompanied the kids).  We still eventually had to turn out the lights and retreat downstairs when we ran out of cookies.

I’ll give you that great AND EASY cookie recipe later in the post.

Check out what I bought on Ebay this week.  These vintage rocking chair pin cushions have been all the rage at Crazy Quilting International for the last year or so.

I finally got one on Ebay... $2 is all I paid for it (which is great since the postage was almost $8!!)  It will be really easy to re-cover the chair upholstery with CQ.  I have several finished blocks and pieces to choose from.  Perhaps I’ll save that for a fun little project over the Christmas Holidays...

Let’s see ... so much to share ... DH bought me a new Epson printer this week.  It does a great job on paper, but the “acid test” is when I print on fabric, but the printer has great reviews, so my hopes are high.

I just added a PAGE on the Crazy Quilting International Blog (see link in sidebar) that gives information for 2011 quilting contests and shows.  The reason I mention it is because Blogger’s formatting issues are so prevalent, that it is nearly impossible to get the information to look decent.  GRRRRRR.  It’s hard enough getting a regular blog post to format the way you want.  Eventually you learn the quirks and get it mastered.  HA!  Everything goes out the window on a subsequent page.  All I can say is that it’s a good thing it doesn’t cost anything, because it’s certainly worth what we paid for it.

If anyone is interested, I have several bolts of ruffled lace (yes, the poly stuff. Think 1980’s or dolls or girls clothes).  There are three styles of mint green, some dusty pink and some white.  Full bolts, probably 20+ yards on each.  I really don’t want to unwind them to measure them (to list on Ebay), so if you know anyone who would like to buy these for cheap, please contact me.

And finally - here is that recipe for the pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.  Sorry I don’t have a picture.





PUMPKIN CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

1  15 oz. can of pumpkin
1  Spice cake mix
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

Mix pumpkin and chips into dry cake mix.   Drop by teaspoonfuls onto cookie sheet.  Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes (for soft, cake-like cookies) or 15 minutes (for more conventional texture).  Makes 48 cookies.   (Or you can make 24 larger ones).  If you’re on Weight Watchers, each small cookie is only 1 point.

I’ll have some pictures tomorrow of my Tea Time wall hanging, and some Autumn CQ blocks.  Happy Halloween!