Merry Christmas!

Good morning, my friends. I hope you're ready for Christmas, because time's up! I still have one more baking project to do this morning, but that will be the end of my baking extravaganza for the year. The only other thing I need to make between now and the time we leave is some egg salad for sandwiches. I'll hold off on that for another day or two.

With a big windstorm headed our way, I went straight to work on my baking yesterday. I wanted to make sure it was all done in case we lost power. So I got busy baking some cookies. These are Chocolate-Chunk Oatmeal Cookies with Pecans and Dried Cherries. At the link I've given you, I used dried cranberries for the holiday season. You can also substitute white chocolate for the bittersweet.

These will be for snacking on our drive. I've been able to scale this recipe down to make it a cookies for two recipe. So, I made cookies for two to last us four days.

While those were baking, I went to work trying this new recipe for a no-bake Cranberry-Cookie Butter Cheesecake. Mine was scaled down by half to make it a cheesecake for two (or six). It wasn't hard to make, but it took a while to work through the steps. 

A crust is made from the ground up cookies, some melted butter, and some other seasonings. When the crust is formed into the pan, it goes into the freezer for at least an hour. Then the filling is made by first creating a sort of cranberry jelly. Some whipping cream was whipped into stiff peaks. Then, I made the cream cheese filling by mixing the cream cheese with some sugar and orange zest. The cream cheese mixture is divided in half. Half is mixed with the cookie paste, and half is mixed with the cranberry jelly. Then, the whipped cream is divided in half and added to the two cream cheese mixtures. Then, it's spooned into the frozen crust in two layers with the cranberry layer on top. Then...back into the refrigerator for a minimum of four hours. 

It looks pretty, and everything behaved as expected. I ended up with only half as much of the cranberry jelly that the recipe suggested, but I doubt it makes any difference. We won't eat this until New Year's Day. I'll freeze it between now and then. Of course, I'll report back and let you know how we liked it.

And then, after all that, I sat down to look at email and found this headline from our local newspaper.

So, the big scary windstorm we were promised never materialized. It was supposed to move through coming from the south to the north. I read a little later that high wind advisories had been canceled in Washington too. So...the storm that wasn't. I want my money back.

Okay, so I hadn't done any slow stitching yet, and it was lunch time. Smitty helped me finish off the last Tiny Treasure for this go-round.

I'm not exactly sure what this one is supposed to be. I'm going with Frankenfruit. This is Tiny Treasure #36. It has stem fill, satin stitch, and lazy daisy stitches.

These are the 12 just completed. I'm halfway through the group. 

Here are all the Tiny Treasures I have so far. (The one in the upper right is turned 90 degrees.)

The bird feeders were empty, and there was a break in the rain. I headed out to fill the bird feeders and found these daffodils popping up along the way. There was another grouping a little farther on.

It's always such a hopeful sign when the daffodils reappear. I have some new ones to enjoy this spring. Hopefully, they'll hold off blooming until we're home.

So, okay! Merry Christmas to all who celebrate!

We'll be heading off to Erik and Mae's this afternoon for our annual family feast. I'm looking forward to seeing everybody. The next two days will be the final push to get out the door and on our way south. I'll be back tomorrow with my "Best of 2025" post. Until then, have a wonderful day. I hope Santa is good to you this year.

Merry Christmas Eve!

Good morning, my friends. We're expecting high winds today. The weatherman is predicting downed trees and power outages. All is calm right now, but we're bracing. I have some baking to do, and so I need the power to stay on. Erik called yesterday with concerns about the weather. After talking it over, we agreed to stay on the side of safety and postponed our family dinner until tomorrow, on Christmas Day. 

Yesterday started with the usual slow stitching. This is Tiny Treasure #35. It has a chain fill, a stem fill, stem stitch, and fly stitch.

There's just one more of these to stitch this morning. I've already decided to start on the nativity stitchery next.

From there, I got busy with my baking. Starting with two loaves of this Cranberry-Orange Bread with Grand Marnier Glaze. (Don't tell anyone, but I substitute triple sec for the Grand Marnier.)

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I've been making this for more decades than I care to think about. It's a family favorite. It can also be made using dried cherries in place of the dried cranberries. In that case, amaretto is substituted for the Grand Marnier. 

While that baked, I went to work making the gods' own Christmas candy, Divinity. My mother made divinity, and I have loved it my entire life. I wish I had her recipe, but I found one online that I like. This is Mrs. Floyd's Divinity. I have no idea who Mrs. Floyd is, but I'm sure I would like her if we met.

Oh, and did I say I didn't know who Mrs. Floyd is? Well...The Google to the rescue. According to AI, Mrs. Floyd is a quintessential Southern grandma figure, not a specific famous person, whose simple, perfect recipe for fluffy, pecan-filled divinity candy became a staple in Southern kitchens and magazines. So there you go.

Okay, and I thought I might bake some cookies, but I'd already dirtied every bowl and measuring device in the kitchen by then, and so I called it a baking day. Instead, I decided to pack up my sewing supplies. Smitty helped me as I sorted through things.

And that's one packing category checked off the list. There's no food to eat, and there are no clothes to wear yet, but by gum and by golly, the sewing supplies are on board. We have our purriorities.

With our schedule changed, I've rearranged my to-do's a little bit. Today I'll bake some cookies, and I'm trying out a new cheesecake recipe. We have a small ham to take along with us and enjoy on New Year's Day. I'll make some baked beans in the slow cooker, and we'll bake up some Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Hot Honey Browned Butter. I've scaled the cheesecake recipe to make it a cheesecake for two (or probably more like six). It's a no-bake cheesecake, but I'll still make it in a 4-inch springform pan. I've read that cheesecake freezes beautifully, and I happen to know that even the Cheesecake Factory cheesecakes are "deeply chilled" on their journey to your plate. I figure this will work out fine. 

It's made with a couple of new-to-me ingredients. First, these Lotus Biscoff cookies. I'd never heard of these before, and I despaired about finding them in the grocery store. They were plainly visible in the bakery section of our store. These will be used to make the crust.

The cheesecake filling uses this related product. It too was plainly visible right next to the cookies. There's also a "crunchy" version, but "creamy" seemed right for a cheesecake.

I'll use the whole of the cookie package (mine is the smaller 4.4 oz. size), but I'll only use about half of the cookie butter. Apparently it's also good as a spread or a dip. I can imagine it might be good spread on slices of apple...like peanut butter, only not.

Also, I'm doing laundry today, and I'll probably start the odious job of cleaning out the refrigerator. I need to sort through what we'll take along and what we'll discard. If I'm feeling really energetic, I might actually clean the refrigerator while I'm at it.

So that's a full day right there. Time to get moving. Stay safe and warm my friends. There's stormy weather in our future. I'm wishing you a day of less-threatening weather.

Shorty

Good morning, my friends. This will be a quick post today since yesterday's comings and goings were pretty dull. Of course, I did my morning's slow stitching. This is Tiny Treasure #34. It has French knots, stem stitch, straight stitch, and lazy daisies.

And that was all the sewing I did yesterday. The rest of the day was spent putting sheets on the bed in the RV, doing a little laundry, finishing up one last housekeeping chore, and making a beef stew. When all that was finished, I took some time to write my "Best of" post for the "Best of 2025" linky party coming up on Friday. Originally, I'd planned to do that today, but now it's ready to go. It means I'll have more time for other things today.

On today's list of to-do's, I'm going to do a little cooking and baking. I'll be making Divinity...aptly named, in my opinion. It's one of my favorite Christmas candies. Also, I'm going to bake some Cranberry-orange Bread With Grand Marnier Glaze. The recipe originally appeared in Sunset magazine more years ago than I care to think about. I tried doing a search to find when it was first published in the magazine. The earliest date I could find said 2011, but I know I've been making it for decades longer than that. Anyway...that's what's on today's list. I expect I'll finish both by early afternoon, which will leave me some time in the day for something else. I might pack up my sewing stuff today. We'll see how much energy I have left after I finish in the kitchen.

Okay, so that's all I have for you today. How are your holiday preparations going?

Last Gasp Sewing

Good morning, my friends. We're in the waning days of the year with Christmas just around the corner. Today I'll need to get serious about preparing for our trip. Yesterday, I spent some time checking the lists I'd made to see what's already packed and what still needs packing. (Some things live in the RV full time, but I sometimes need refills or updates.) Today I'll start doing some of the cook-ahead items, starting with the Frozen Breakfast Burritos. They're good any time, but they're especially nice when we're driving from one destination to another. No cooking, and no dirty dishes. There are a couple of other things on my list, but that's my biggest focus for the day.

Of course, I have another Tiny Treasure to show you today. This is Tiny Treasure #33. And since it rained the whole day yesterday, it seems completely appropriate. This one has stem stitch, running stitch, straight stitch, and lazy daisy.

There was one housekeeping chore to do. Happily, as I check off my housekeeping chores this week, the list of things I'll do before we leave gets shorter and shorter until we're down to almost nothing but packing. Don't be fooled, though. There's a big job ahead of me.

So Sadie and I decided to spend what will probably be our last day of sewing for the year together. We discussed which fabrics I should use to finish off My Embroidered Garden. Sadie takes this decision-making very seriously.

We liked that fancy swirly fabric, and it had the right colors. In the end, we decided it was too modern and busy for this rather delicate embroidered piece. We decided to stick with my first choice. So, I added a pale green stop border.

And then I used a narrow cut-off strip of the outer border fabric to finish it off. As it turns out, I have quite a bit of that fabric left over from when I quilted My Whimsical Quilt Garden. I kept the largest pieces together. They can be used in another quilt at some point. I was able to use a long and narrow strip for this border.

Then I went in search of fabrics for the back and binding. I selected the ones below with the green for the binding.

Then I quilted just inside the heart-shape of embroidery stitches, and I quilted a straight line around the outer border. On the embroidery background, I stitched a row of these little flowers. It's stitch #152 on my Bernina 750QE.

When the quilting was finished, it looked like this:

The only thing left to do was to sew on the binding. When I finished sewing the machine portion, I tidied everything up and said good-bye to the sewing room.

Taking it upstairs to where I could sit comfortably, I hand-stitched the binding in about half an hour, and I had a finished quilt. It ends up at 11 x 13 inches.

Here's how it looks from the back.

Since I can't do any quilting on big quilts until Eliza returns from her va-cay, I'm down to just three projects I could work on right now. I could sew the Kittens in Cups into a finished quilt top, 

and I could sew the blocks together for Land & Sea.

The only other quilt I have for quilting is the Fantastic Felines. It's not one of my favorite quilts, but it's growing on me.

There are still some WIPs blocks I can make, but probably I'm finished for the year. The next sewing I'll do will be on the projects I've kitted-up to take along.

Okay so we're coming down the home stretch of 2025. I'll keep doing my embroidery each morning...that part is non-negotiable. For the next several days, I'll be in full trip-prepping mode. It's one of those times when there's no whining and no moaning. It's just one foot in front of the other until it's finished. It's a big job that I dread, but it's nice when we can get a good distance south where the weather is warmer and drier, and we can see some of our life-long friends. 

In preparation for this trip, I've found a few new destinations to see along the way. For one thing, we'll be visiting Mike's birthplace in Taft, California. His family left Taft when he was just two, and so he has no memory of the place. We've often talked abut spending a night there, just to have a look, but this will be our first time doing it. We'll also be seeing the Danish community of Solvang, California. This was on our itinerary last time we traveled south, but we had to cut it when one of the leaf springs on the RV broke. We ended up spending an extra day in Petaluma while Mike made the repairs.

Although Mike grew up in the area we're traveling to (and I lived there from the age of 12 through 21), I've found a lot of sight-seeing destinations neither of us has ever seen. We're both looking forward to seeing friends and acting like tourists in our old stomping grounds. Even though we'll be parking the RV and staying put in most places, there will still be plenty to see and explore. If you're going with us, it's not too early to start preparing now. Be sure to bring clothes for warm weather.

So, that's it from me today. Embroidery awaits, and then I'll get busy with the day's to-do's.

Winter Begins!

Good morning, my friends. We're counting down the days until D-Day, one week from today. This coming week is going to be very busy. Happily, we'll get a break when we join the rest of the family for Christmas Eve dinner at Erik and Mae's house. I offered to bring something, but I'm told they have it handled. There's still a little bit of Christmas baking on my list. Aside from that, my holiday cooking responsibilities are complete. 

My yesterday started with Tiny Treasure #32. This one has stem stitch and straight stitch.

Next on my sewing to-do list was to sew the binding on "S" is for Sew. Sadie helped with the machine sewing. She really likes this quilt.

With her help, that was a pretty quick job.

When I took it upstairs, I found Smitty guarding the territory, watching for any invading forces.

Eventually, he decided the coast was clear, and so he took a more paws-on approach to helping me with the quilt binding.

Of course, any job worth doing when you're on a purrtection detail is best done undercover.

With him ensuring my safe sewing experience, I was able to finish all four corners of that binding in record time.

Then I had myself a finished quilt. It finishes up at 27 inches square.

Here's how it looks from the back.

With one week left at home, I can probably finish one more little quilt. I took a look at My Embroidered Garden. It needs to be finished off, and then I can probably quilt and bind it before we leave. So I gazed around my sewing room and first laid eyes on this colorful piece cut from the edges of My Whimsical Quilt Garden. There is plenty of fabric for a border and a back for this piece. I could add a narrow stop border.

Also, I found a leftover end of a binding strip that might be long enough to finish this off.

I went pawing through my fat quarter bin to see if I had any more fabric in that same color, and I noticed this fabric. This is kind of fun. I could do a narrow border, then a solid in some coordinating color, and then finish it using this fabric as a binding. That could be kind of fun. 

I'm leaning toward the first choice, but I haven't made up my mind yet.

So, as I mentioned in yesterday's post, I'm ticking off tasks I need to complete to be ready to go on D-Day. Yesterday I made up a bunch of lists: one for clothing, one for food, one for sewing stuff, and one for general stuff. I'll probably take my lists out to the RV this morning and figure out what's there and what still needs to be packed. Except for that, there are no trip preparation tasks on today's list, but I do have one housekeeping chore to do. At some point, I'm going to need to do laundry. I'm trying to put that off until the last minute, so I don't have to do it again before we go.

When I go downstairs, I expect to find this:

With the rainy weather, the kitties aren't getting a lot of outside time these days. They spend their time gazing out the window at the falling rain and puddles. And let me just ask you, is there anything worse than wet paws? If there is, I don't know what it is. Smitty complains loudly about the inconvenient environment in which he finds himself.

So I guess I'll go see if I can open any doors for anyone, and I'll get busy with the newest Tiny Treasure. There are just a few more to finish up this go-round for the Tiny Treasures. When they're finished, I'll start on one of the take-along projects I have packed up. There are several on my list. I might have to ask Mr. Random to help me decide.

Oh yes, and it's the Winter Solstice today! As I write this, the north pole has crossed then line over its maximum tilt away from the Sun. It's officially Winter, my friends. It's the shortest day of the year for us in the northern hemisphere. The days will get longer from here, and that's something worth celebrating.

"S" is for Sew Close to a Finish

Good morning, my friends. Mike announced this morning that we'd only received three hundredths of an inch of rain yesterday. Add that to the full three inches received in the 12 hours previous, and you can see that conditions are dire. At three hundredths of an inch, how can anyone argue that we're not in a drought? We're expecting a similar day of weather today. It'll make the birds happy because I only fill their bird feeders if I can venture out without donning my storm gear.

It was a productive day yesterday. If you've read yesterday's post, then you already know we were home and had the groceries put away before lunch time. I'm hopeful we won't need to go again before we leave, but it's probably unrealistic to think so. It seems there's always something missing. A lot of the food we'll eat on travel days will be made ahead. I'll say more about that as I go along with my travel preparations.

As for yesterday's sewing, my first stop when the groceries were taken care of was to stitch Tiny Treasure #31. This one contains satin stitch, stem stitch, and chain stitch.

From there, I was ready to do some quilting. I sandwiched "S" is for Sew, and went to work.

As usual, my quilting fairy godmother, Ila, provided me with the perfect thread color. (Thank you, Ila.) I had a spool and a partially wound bobbin of this brown.

It's a 40 weight King Tut thread.

Before I could start, Sadie posted for her picture on this quilt since it blends with her beautiful furs so purrfectly.

And then I went to work. I hadn't given this a lot of thought, and so I just put my needle down and started sewing, letting my hands decide what we'd do with it. In the sashings, I stitched some criss-cross applesauce straight lines. I did the same thing in the horizontal sashings, but I stitched-in-the ditch when I came to the space between blocks. It was easier than cutting threads there.

When that was finished it looked like this:

It's a little hard to see in the image above, but it makes a sort of star pattern at the intersections of the blocks. Here's how it looks from the back.

In the outer border, I first used my chalk pencil to outline a square. This was to help me keep the the same size from corner to corner. And then I fit a quilted spool of thread within the boundaries of the square.

From there, I quilted a looping meander to the opposite corner, ending with a threaded needle.

When all four corners were finished, it looked like this:

When I was squared up, I was happy to see I'd successfully positioned the sewing machines on the back so that they were left complete.

The binding strips are cut, but I stopped for the day there.

Today I'll sew the strips together and then sew them to the quilt. Probably I'll spend the rest of my day hand-sewing the binding. It'll be nice to get in one more finish before we leave. 

If I play my cards right, I might be able to finish one more tiny quilt. Next up on my list will be My Embroidered Garden stitched in November.

So today starts a list of tasks on my calendar's to-do list. And "Lists" seems like a good place to start on any list, right? Sometimes I just write "Make a list" at the top of the list so that when the list is complete, I can cross something off right away. Actually, I have lists created from many, many trips like this. I just need to update them each time. As it stands, I've tried to remember every single thing I need to do, and I've written it on the calendar so that it all gets done without overloading myself on any given today. Today...lists. Tomorrow...the world. And with that send off, I think I'll get on with it. Busy days are ahead. Rest up, my friends.