MWS 2019

Midwinter Stitchathon! W-hoo! One of my favorite days of the year! I am shocked to look back at past posts and find out that this was the NINTH time we had this wonderful day. (and now that we know that next year will have to be extra spectacular.) I think my description from the MWS 2013 still holds true: ” That’s a fancy title for what is a nice afternoon in the middle of the winter with my friends sitting on the couch by the fire, working on stitching projects, eating snacks, and watching junky tv.”

In fact, this time we all sat around the table because Liz’s project (needlefelting!) was better at a table. In fact, it was absolutely delightful for us to sit around the table together-we didn’t even have junky tv on in the background! Melissa joined us and she is a card maker, so she was working on inking some very cool backgrounds.

As usual there were snacks and seasonal candies galore, including party nuts, carrot dip, and Prosecco (I believe that is the holy trinity of snacks.) For some fun baking I tried a recipe I’ve been wanting to make for months: Bake From Scratch’s Rainbow Sprinkle Bread. Oh. My. Goodness.  I’m so glad I made this. First of all, check out the heavenly crumb topping. Interestingly, the recipe calls for only putting half of it on your batter. What to do with the other half? I put it on some foil and baked it and then we all just gobbled it up straight. I’d call this a pound cake, rather than a bread, and it is quite dense. I baked it an hour and ten minutes and the center wasn’t done (oops, ate it anyway. But next time I’ll do an hour and fifteen.) This was really delicious with a great crust, not too sweet, and very festive. I did not, as the recipe suggests, use clear vanilla. I wasn’t concerned about achieving a white batter and with 5 egg yolks from my girls in it this batter was always going to already be somewhat yellow.

As for myself I worked on completing my second pattern from @cozyblue.  This one is a girl’s face and she has crazy botanicals coming out of her head. I am absolutely thrilled with the way this came out. I added my own filler stitches and a couple more leaves and I really like how this looks. Even more so when I see it next to the first one I made a few years ago. The plan is to do the third pattern and frame them all in these beautiful Auburn Hoops.

All in all it was a wonderful way to spend a weekend afternoon. 

Sometimes Sewing

As I’ve mentioned, I’m really enjoying my weekends since last semester ended. I’d love to say I’m sewing all the time, but I’m not. But I could be. And I have been getting back into a quilt I started. It’s all triangles making blocks, and I am somewhat randomly making the blocks. The centers are all the beige-y coral/orange- pairs with exterior corners being of blue-greenish pieces. Any square can go next to any other square and look pretty good. I’ll arrange it so that there aren’t two identical triangles next to each other. I’m having a lot of fun with this. I’ve got many more triangles cut out and many more blocks to make. Right now I’ve got 30, which includes the original 9 that started this project. Those 9 were sewn together eons ago and all additional blocks have been made out of new coordinating fabrics. I’m either going to make that 9 patch be the center or….pick apart the seams and distribute those 9 blocks (which do look a little different) throughout the others. If you look at this picture you can see at the very top those 9 blocks.

I really need to get a big embroidery project started (starting is the hardest part for me) so that I have something to pick up. In the meantime at this year’s Midwinter Stitchathon I enjoyed whipping up this little Valentine’s Day decor. (In the post before this I made one of these that I gave away.)

And yes, there was an annual Midwinter Stitchathon, which was delightful. There was, of course, seasonal candy and other delicious treats, loads of Olympics to watch, and later in the day a lovely snowfall. Somehow Tabby is participating in this now, though she is not much of a stitcher. Our rule is that if she is going to be with the ladies she has to be doing some kind of handicraft. She chose to continue some knitting my mom taught her and did quite well with it. It was actually quite the girls’ weekend as Paul and Clark were on a winter camping trip. We had a wonderful time with the stitchathon, movies, and enough snow that on Sunday morning we had a great time making the most of our small but potentially treacherous (because of stopping when you hit trees or thorn bushes) hill.

Spring Celebrations

This weekend we had two special events-my mom’s birthday and Clark’s Arrow of Light ceremony from Cub Scouts.  The latter was a pretty big deal-he started Cub Scouts in 1st grade. He’s continued on and is now moving on to Boy Scouts.//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.jsWe’ve had a lot of fun with other families in the pack, camping and other crazy events, and Paul enjoyed being the Cubmaster for the past 2 years. Lots of great memories were made, so this farewell was bittersweet. It was quite a ceremony and as the boys walked over the bridge they were welcomed by their new Boy Scout troop. Clark is quite excited to join his new troop and looking forward to good times and making new friends.

My mom’s birthday was also this weekend and I always see it as a sign of spring and enjoy coming up with a good menu for a special birthday dinner. I made cherry chicken spirals (chicken with cherries and some other stuff, rolled up), rice pilaf, asparagus, and a delicious salad of Boston lettuce, red onion, and avocado. Of course it’s really the cake we were all looking forward to. Happily my mom likes coconut, so things for her are always a good opportunity to make coconut things.  I made the Tropical Carrot & Coconut Cake from Baking by Flavor. //embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js I had not made this before and it’s definitely a keeper. Super delicious. The cake had shredded carrots, coconut, and crushed pineapple in it. //embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.jsEven better it had lots of fresh nutmeg, allspice, cloves, and cinnamon it. So much that those flavors really came through. There was even a tiny bit of freshly grated nutmeg in the cream cheese frosting. The frosting was delicious, though there was a lot of it. Actually I thought this cake would be fine with just a little powdered sugar on top. Happy Birthday, Mom! //embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

The final spring celebration was the now annual Midwinter Stitchathon with Liz and Eleanor. This lovely event is an afternoon spent stitching, watching tv, and eating special snacks and seasonal candy together. //embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.jsThe menu this year was tea brack (an Irish tea cake with lots of dried fruit and demands to be eaten with butter), apricot turkey pinwheels (forever known now as “Yoshi Wellingtons”), cherry cola cake, and, as always, carrot dip and prosecco (not mixed together. Carrot dip eaten up with pretzels, prosecco guzzled down.)
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My stitching project is an embroidery pattern I’ve had a couple of years and have decided would be just the thing for when I have a little time to want to do something stitchy. I actually went and bought all the suggested color flosses for this. //embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.jsIt was a grand time! And, oops! This is indeed quite a catchup. I’ll also mention another special event-the Father Daughter Dance for Girl Scouts. Tabby was so excited, felt so glamorous and excited to be going with Paul to this dance. It was a lovely event for them. So many special events!

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