Fabrika

Santa came! Ha. This stack of beautiful fabrics are from Regina, who picked them up for me at Fabrika in Savannah, GA which looks like a most wonderful store. I love them! Also, I received two spoons as gifts.

Fabric, spoons, earrings, cash money and books. What more could a girl want? Thanks everyone!

Happy Happy Festivus

Growing up the big day for us was always Christmas Eve, complete with homemade soups, gourmet trimmings, fancy dessert, and opening presents. I would have spent the day making luminarias and maybe working on a jigsaw puzzle.

But without family in town, and without visitors here, it is much more low key. I am sewing on a few projects, and we even cleaned up the basement today.

We aren’t without socializing either, Jenn and Scotty had us over on Saturday night, and tomorrow (Christmas Day) we head to Bedford in the afternoon to meet up with that bunch.

Wherever you are, and however you celebrate, I wish everyone the best. Happy Festivus!

Twin No Peek

Yay! These quilts have been a long time in the making, and they headed off today to their final destination! What a good feeling. I had so much fun making the no peek nine patches in San Antonio and many of the fabrics are familiar from either my quilts or friends, so there are a lot of good memories wrapped up here too. May they bring sweet dreams.

More pictures are up on flickr (in some pretty bad lighting)!

Unwrapping

No, we weren’t waiting for the winter solstice, but decided to go ahead and open the majority of presents tonight. Tim is a sweet pea, and despite talking about not getting each other gifts, he plied me with many books. I shall never complain of not having anything to read.

Hopefully with all the cash received (thanks moms and dads!!), we will be heading to the big city to go shopping while Tim is still on break. Indy, here we come!

Prodigious Start

This is what Tim’s office looked like after he finished finals. There wasn’t an inch of space not covered by papers, wires, cups, papers, books, papers, blankets, and more papers. That path in the middle? Only there to be able to walk from the door to the computer. Today it is neat and tidy, and? Tim has heard back on his final projects and knows his overall grades. He did excellent! Yay! I knew he could do it.

Also?

Helper cat, helps. With the quilts. Binding is 5/8 done!

Wintry Mix

My back is sore, and my forearms and wrists hurt, but the quilting on twin sized quilt #2 is done. Today was cold and snowy, and really a perfect day to finish this up. Binding fabric has been chosen, and I should be able to finish sometime this week. Then these two quilts are off to Florida. Maybe in time, maybe not.

Barring a Christmas Miracle, quilt #3 probably won’t be making its way to Texas until next year. All that is left is to finish up one border, trim all 12 blocks to 16.5″, cut the sashing, figure out how to make 4.5″ square within a square cornerstones, then make said cornerstones (20 of them), piece the entire top, quilt, and bind. Mind you this is a queen sized quilt. So even the binding is a couple of hour job. I hope it will be worth the wait!

I hope there is more snow tomorrow…we finally got a shovel!

Semester No. 1

While I don’t know exactly where he is right now, Tim should officially be done with his first semester as a PhD student. If you get a chance, send him an email of congrats. It was mighty tight down the line, but I believe he pulled it off. Even though he had moments of doubt in himself, I knew he could do it. I am so proud.

Also? I love my neighborhood.

Poop Snow

Friday morning I woke up to a light dusting of SNOW! It was fun to crunch in the snow in my big ass boots, it makes things pretty and white, and after living in south Texas, still a novelty to me. Clearly some people don’t have the same excitement about snow as I do. They think it is, well, poopy.

I get on music kicks and can listen to a cd over and over and over and…well you get it. I present my current crush, The Fratellis.

App

Parmesan Sticks waiting to go into the oven. These are sort of a pain to make, but are so delicious and you can freeze them too. Just in case there are leftovers, which there won’t be. I think this is my mom’s recipe. YUM!

Parmesan Sticks
Makes 5-6 dozen

2 C freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Freshly ground black pepper
Cayenne pepper
2 C all-purpose flour
1 C butter
4 oz. cream cheese
1 egg
Paprika or poppy seeds

1. Stir Parmesan, a few grindings of pepper and a dash of cayenne into flour. Mix well.
2. Beat butter and cream cheese in mixer until smooth and creamy.
3. With fingers, work in flour mixture until you can round up dough in a ball. Wrap in saran wrap, flatten slightly and chill for a few hours or overnight.
4. Remove dough for 10-20 minutes before shaping.
5. Divide in ½ (keeping other ½ in fridge) and roll into oblong on a lightly floured counter until ¼ inch thick.
6. Cut into strips 1 inch wide and 3 inches long, using pastry wheel if you have one.
7. Place on ungreased cookie sheets and brush with slightly beaten egg. Sprinkle with paprika or poppy seeds (or ½ and ½ )
8. Refrigerate cut strips that have been brushed and sprinkled for 30 minutes. Remove.
9. Bake at 375 degrees until golden and slightly puffed, about 12 minutes. Cool on wire racks.