Christmas Eve Dinner

A small group this year as the boys are already in the Northeast preparing for Felix's wedding. We sat down with the grandparents for Christmas Eve dinner.

***

Tasting menu of assorted sausages

Mushrooms stuffed with crab and cream cheese

Smoked oysters on crackers

Grapefruit, avocado, and romaine salad

Cheese tortellini 

Dark roasted asparagus

Cheese log, grapes

Waldorf salad

Fog and Coziness

A day of rain and fog, food shopping, gingerbread cookie baking, list-making, dish-washing, and general coziness.

Clara Presses Forward on Her Bridesmaid's Dress

Closing in on the end of the bridesmaid's dress--just the charmeuse sash and the hem are left, and the hook and eye.

I Had a Minute to Sew

I had a minute to sew! And was determined to use up some of my stack of wools. I made four bags assembly-line style, and this pair of blankets for the car. I like to have something to cover up with if I'm traveling in cold weather.

They're available in my etsy shop and all the sale proceeds will go to a young family hit with unexpected medical expenses due to a premature birth and complications. 

A Wedding Cake for Felix

Felix asked if we could provide his wedding cake--and I agreed, flattered that he apparently thinks I can do anything. Clara and I started baking the layers up to freeze. There are nine.

 She went to the kitchen and produced a test cake last week.

"This looks great!" I said. "Where did you get the recipe?"

"Cupboard door," she replied.

It's our beloved gingerbread, which will be trimmed, stacked, frosted, and decked out for the celebration.

Almost Too Good

Almost too good to be true. This life is filled with wonder!

Oil Painting: Box of Chocolates

Not a quilt, but the same appealing (to me) array of squares you can mess around with.

Felties

Felt ornaments are my very favorites.

Daisy Hosts a Party

Daisy put together her own Christmas party for five friends. I made the food up for her, but she had it all planned out, including the games she got from her American Girls Handy Book (or something). They ate a lot of little sausages and drank a lot of cocoa, and then there was a LOT of running in the house. So glad she joined 4H and tapped into the motherlode of little girls who love rabbits and chickens just like she does.

Log Cabin Quilt: A Garden for Molly

A wedding gift for Felix and Molly: this log cabin quilt. I designed an entire house around it!

It's going on the master bed in the stone house.

It has extensive embroidery around three sides, several verses from the last chapter of Hosea, mostly about beautiful gardens.

Those who live in His shadow will again raise grain.

Felix's Desk, Twenty-Three Days Before His Wedding

He's home for just a handful of days more, and then we'll meet up with him again for his wedding. After that, he'll be half of a new family*. Wow.

*But still sort of ours too. I don't think Molly will mind.

Short Hike, by the Lake

A short hike after church on Sunday is all we had time for.

Also, it was all we needed. Water, woods, rocks, moss.

Of course Felix climbed a tree.

Bonus: pelicans.

Our Home-Grown Onion

Periodically Daisy puts out an issue of our home newspaper called the Animal Times. Today Clara, in a masterful stroke of procrastination, instituted a home-grown version of the satirical Onion. 

* * * 

"Student Turns in Handmade Pants in Lieu of Final Paper"

Student Clara P. shook the academic community this week when she turned in a pair of pants that she had made, instead of the final paper, in Dr. Janet Willoughby-Esperanza's "Introduction to Graduate Study," a seminar-style English class focusing on the films of 1964, primarily from the perspective of gender studies and psychoanalytic film theory. Willoughby-Esperanza described the wide-leg velveteen pants as "a brilliant, radical commentary on the interplay of masculinity and femininity in the oeuvres of these filmmakers."

Clara P. was distressed by Willoughby-Esperanza's interpretation of her pants, stating in an interview with the Pleasant View Pigeon that she had not intended to make any such statement by submitting the pants: "I just didn't want to write the essay. I kept putting it off until there wasn't time to finish the pants and the paper, so I decided to just hem the pants and turn them in instead of the paper." In an email addressing Clara P's objection, Willoughby-Esperanza explained that much of current literary critical theory rejects the idea that the meaning of a work is determined by the author or creator's intention, and stood by her original analysis of the pants' implications.

The Kitchen Counter Cooking School

"I could not have predicted the residue and damage that a lack of cooking skills had on people's daily lives. Among the boxes and cans, I found a larger story of perceived failure that left them struggling with guilt, frustration, and a stinging lack of confidence. . . ."

--Kathleen Flinn, The Kitchen Counter Cooking School

This fascinating book follows the author's work with nine ordinary people who don't know how to live with real food or how to function in their own kitchens. By the end of the book, Flinn's compassionate, enthusiastic coaching has transformed them.

Cook your own food, and teach your children how.

Scissors on the Windowsill

The windowsill by the woodstove becomes my temporary sewing table.

Molly's Roses

Molly flew home today, and left her roses behind. I took them to the studio to paint.

A Weekend Like I Never Had Before

My head is still spinning a little from this weekend. First, Thanksgiving dinner for thirty-one. Then houseguests started to roll into town, I don't even know how many people I was cooking for, and then we hosted a giant party on Saturday night in honor of Giles and Tia and Felix and Molly. That was dinner for a hundred (I picked the meat up from the barbecue joint).

A dozen or so of the young adults spent the night and had breakfast and sat in with their instruments for our church worship service, and then slow drains at the stone house meant I had to rearrange everyone's sleeping plans and wash countless sheets yesterday and today. Oh my.

Giles and Tia and her parents (they are so, so dear! the best!) headed home today. We get Molly for one more day, although we haven't seen her in hours, she and Felix are out shopping for a wedding band . . . .

And I didn't even take a picture.

Thanksgiving

Welcome to the Farm.

Tia's parents joined us for Thanksgiving this year.

Meeting Daisy's goats.

Waiting:

The schoolhouse was full – almost 30 people joined us for dinner.

"Rejoice always!

Pray constantly.

Give thanks in everything,

for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus." [emphasis added]

– 1 Thess. 5:16-18 HCSB

Happy Thanksgiving!

Coffee in the New Almost Kitchen

Clara and I spent much of the day on our hands and knees scrubbing the stone house floors--a sign that most of the major renovating work is done and it's just about time for some furniture.

That's some hard work. 

We took a coffee break in the kitchen which is poised for cabinetry first thing Monday morning. Wednesday it fills up with guests. 

Cashmere Capelet

Most of this super-soft sweater has gone for other projects--but the top of it makes the coziest, most beautifully shaped little capelet. All I did was cut it off right above the underarm seam, leaving the top of the sleeve intact, then finish the raw edge with a zigzag stitch.

And then sew on some bugle beads, of course. That was the best part.

November Sunshine

A Line in the Sand

Clara and I have managed to reupholster the couch to this point--it's only lacking the bottom fabric and the fronts of the arms. Meanwhile, I've been making the cover for the seat cushion, but today the sewing machine drew a line in the sand. Stopped me in my tracks. Said it simply wasn't capable of sewing through six layers of upholstery velvet where the piping has a seam and is being sewn to two panels.

I was almost immediately okay with that, and found a shop in town that will finish my cushion cover at a very reasonable price. I got it over there today with a huge feeling of relief. No more green velvet to sew for the forseeable future.

An Out-of-Season Sprig

Honeysuckle in November, who knew?

Hey, A Kitchen Floor!

Remember back in August when we had to take the kitchen floors in the stone house all the way back to the joists?

They stayed like that forever while the invisible but important work of plumbing, wiring, and ductwork went on.

Finally we got to close up the space, and the Composer and Nick, our darling carpenter, threw those subfloors down this weekend. Hurray!

Then the tile crew came in this morning and did all this: wow. 

Tomorrow the same thing happens in the two bathrooms!

Alabama Chanin: Beaded Magdalena Corset

This is made from two layers of medium-weight jersey, stenciled with the Alabama Chanin "Magdalena" stencil, and then each shape was stitched around with bugle beads.

It is such pleasant work.

Woodpile, Still Waiting

We have a large and lovely woodpile all ready to go . . . and we're still running the air-conditioner.