Merry Thanks New Year

Title of this post compliments of my son, Matthew. We had such a lovely afternoon and evening yesterday. The kids arrived early because Erik wanted to watch the Rose Bowl game without having to interrupt to drive to our house. That was just perfect for me because I've really been missing the kids this past fall. It was so nice to get to spend the whole afternoon and evening with them.

Matthew and I aren't too much into football, and so we went out for a walk late in the day. Along the way, we passed by our neighbor's friendly mule.

Sharing his pasture is a horse, and these two are good buddies. We're told the horse gets very upset when the mule is taken off as a pack animal on hunting trips. Now they take the horse along too although she isn't a very good pack animal. She looks as if she's been rolling in the mud in this picture.

They have another pasture near our mailboxes. I carry a bag of horsey treats in my car, and I often give them treats when I stop to pick up the mail. Because of that, they always come up to the fence when they see me. I was sorry I didn't have any treats for them yesterday.

Also, we saw a few other little things along the way. Pine cones.

Holly berries.

We were on our way to this spot where paragliders like to play on warmer days. They jump off the cliff here and sail around. It was getting late when I took this picture and the light was a little strange, but it was a nice view standing there.

Zooming in, I like this little farm and its red barns.

Also, we passed by this rusted out old tractor.

When we got back home, dinner was just about an hour away. Mike was experimenting with smoking a turkey in his Traeger smoker/barbecue. It was first brined for 24 hours in a brine made from salts, herbs and a cup of bourbon. Then it had a rub applied that included herbs, butter, and Grand Marnier. (Yeah, you read that right. I'd have used triple sec, but it was only a small amount.) Then it was smoked over some special wood pellets...I forget the make-up of the pellets, but rosemary was included. After it smoked for a couple of hours, it was simply roasted for another couple of hours, and voila!

And that was such a flavorful and moist turkey. Mike hasn't taken much interest in cooking before the Traeger came into our lives, but somehow the smoker/barbecue has ignited his interest (pun totally intended) . Fine by me. I've loved everything he's done with his new toy. You can read the recipe for the turkey in detail right here.

We've learned in the process of getting familiar with the Traeger that things sometimes take longer than we expected. With practice, it's become less of a problem. Still, with that in mind, we had a Flame Craft ham from our local grocery store in case the turkey was going to take all night. Not a problem to have both since we enjoyed all of it immensely. Nobody went home hungry last night, and that's for sure and certain.

Sides included Dill Potato Salad, 7-Layer Salad, some leftover wild rice stuffing, and Maple Baked Beans. The beans are one of Ina Garten's recipes. They're supposed to be slow-roasted in a 225°F oven for most of the day. I decided to do them in my slow cooker on high heat, and that worked out great.

Pile it all on your plate, and you've got one tasty meal to celebrate the first day of 2019.

There was apple crisp for dessert, and then we sat at the table throbbing and considering who could get to the phone to call Food 911 for a rescue.

Food and family weren't the only things I did yesterday. Also, I finished up the last of the quilt shop names and places for the Shop Hop quilt. I'll be finishing up these blocks and sewing them into a flimsy before month's end...at least, that's the plan.

And then I got busy tracing out Dress #10 of 12 for the Sundress quilt.

Looking at the picture of this dress, do you see what I see at the bottom of the dress? It's the dreaded bullion stitch.

I've given up and stitched something else for all the other blocks, but no excuses this time. I learned how to do this from Meg Hawkey a couple of months ago, so I'm going to give it another try this time around.

Also, I spent some time considering the quilts I want to start for this year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I'm really committed to paring down a lot of my scraps this year, and so I'm making two quilts for the Rainbow challenge. First, this one called Charm Stars...

from this book.

This month's color is red. I note that this quilt has 20 blocks, and so I'll endeavor to do two blocks per month to keep up through the year.

The second one I want to do is this one called Pinwheel Pizzazz...

from this book.

The quilt has 42 blocks. If I add one more row on the left side of that picture, I can bring it up to 48 blocks. That will mean 6 blocks per month to take me through the end of the year. They don't look too difficult, and so I'll give it a try. I can always change my mind later.

Finally, it's time to choose a January OMG. I mentioned in an earlier post that I'd created two lists for myself using the form from All People Quilt. In their challenge, they choose a number from the list each month, and I'm not really doing that. I just want to try to get through all of them, but not in any particular order. Nevertheless, I looked at my lists for this month's #3. On the list of quilts for quilting is Flamingles...or Fanciful Flamingos...I haven't decided what its name is yet. Anyway...I have my eye on some other quilts from that list, so never mind.

But when I look at #3 on the piecing list, It's Raining Cats and Dogs comes up. I was going to make the last block for that quilt as my next project, so what the heck?

Here's what the finished quilt will look like:

I have just the block in the lower right-hand corner left to do, and so my January OMG will be to finish the last block and sew it into a flimsy. That is next on my list, and I'm going to link up over at Elm Street Quilts with this brand new shiny goal for a whole new year of quilting.

Today I'm getting my monthly pedicure, but otherwise, I'm free and clear to have an NBS kind of day. My year is off to a good start. How's your year going so far?