Holiday Homemades

Now that the Christmas gifting is over with, I will share a few of the homemade gifts I made this season.

First of all, a NYC-themed pillow for my brother...

My brother is crazy about NYC, having made literally hundreds of trips there over the years. Often he just goes for a day, sometimes for a particular event, but often just to walk miles and miles and take in whatever is happening on the street. If you want to know where to find great pizza, deli food, architectural details, or even the best nearest public restroom in NYC, he's the man to ask. So when I got to visit The City Quilter and saw their exclusive NYC prints, I just had to buy a few and reproduce a pillow I saw there. This one covers a 14 inch pillow form. Here's the back:

I guess this was the year for pillows, because I made this one for my friend, Barb:

I saw the pattern in the Connecting Threads catalog done in redwork. Barb loves snow and snowmen and her favorite color is blue, so I bought the pattern and gathered my supplies to do it up in blue. It's been a while since I did so much embroidery, but it was a good project to work on in front of the TV for many nights and I was pleased with how it came out. Here is the corner detail:

Finally, I made some gift card holders, thanks to a pattern from my friend Alice. They were a surprise hit with my kids who enjoyed pulling the "string" so that an iTunes gift card popped up!

It's always fun to make a few things to "gift" during the holiday season!

I made a man-bib!

A couple years ago I made some adult bibs for the Asheville Quilt Guild. As part of the "community quilts" outreach, they were given to elderly people in our area. About that same time I made some adult bibs for my mother. Her failing eyesight made spilled food nearly an every meal occurrence and she has been a regular bib user since then.
My sister-in-law, familiar with my mother's bibs, asked if I could make a more manly bib for her elderly father, "maybe with a neck tie," she said, somewhat tongue-in-cheek. So here is my man-bib:
And here is a little closer look:I hope Carl likes it!

Gingerbread Houses?

Yesterday Russ and I headed to the Grove Park Inn for lunch and to view the entries from their annual gingerbread house competition. We started out with lunch on the Sunset Terrace which is the large open back porch area off the grand lobby. It was a somewhat cloudy day but the air temperature was close to 70, so it was actually very pleasant to be eating outside. The terrace overlooks the Grove Park Inn Spa and golf course and then in the distance you can see the Asheville skyline and the backdrop of the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains beyond that. So even on a grey November day, the view is quite spectacular. If you go for lunch (the food is pretty darn good, too), I would recommend that you treat yourself to a Bloody Mary!

The gingerbread competition was judged on Monday and included a lot of traditional houses, most decked out for the holiday season. Lots had amazing details, like decorated rooms visible through faux windows, landscaping, lawn decorations, animals and people... it's really quite amazing! The grand prize winner was this shoe:

The stern looking woman you can see in the mirror was a guard that would not really let me, or anybody, close enough to get a detailed photo. She was placed there to protect the work until they could install a plexiglass box around it.

Since the winner was a non-traditional house, I thought I'd share a few of the other non-traditional gingerbread houses we saw.

Of course, I couldn't resist taking a picture of this sewing machine. Notice the basket with spools of thread, the scissors, and buttons. That is all 100% edible!
How about a Native American gingerbread house?
And this carousel horse:
The next two are from the teen or youth division:
Look at this chest full of edible Christmas ornaments!

MINI Cooper Quilts

In September, we brought my MINI Cooper to our dealer, Century MINI in Greenville, for servicing.

While waiting for the courtesy car to take us to the mall, I had a conversation with the manager about the art that was on display in the show room. He was very proud of the fact that the artwork, which were framed watercolors of MINIs and artful photos of MINI features, were done by customers. When I told him that I made quilts, he said that he would be interested in buying a small wall quilt to add to the collection.

I always like a challenge, so I told him I would see what I could come up with.

Here are my efforts:

The hexagon is called "MINI-go-round." I was able to find custom printed MINI Cooper fabric on-line which allowed me to use these nice fabric images in a creative way. Lots of the MINI Cooper literature makes use of the black and white racing flag motif. It measures about 14x16 inches.

This 12 inch square is called "MINI-malism," and was inspired by an illustration in one of the sales booklets. Again, I have used the racing flag motif. The image of the car is actually painted on the fabric. I think it gives a nice illusion.

I emailed these pictures to the manager and he will buy both of them!

He said they will have them framed, which I think is the proper way to display them in a public place.

How cool is that?!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Yesterday was the open house at the poinsettia nursery in Mills River.

Going to see the plants in flower before they are sent off to be sold for the season has been our start of the holiday season ritual for the last few years. There are acres of greenhouses and a vast variety of poinsettias, the colors forming a patchwork as they are arranged on the floor by the thousands. It's quite a sight to see.

So here are a few pictures for you to enjoy:

To NYC for the Marathon!

Last weekend we were in NYC, cheering Russ along as he ran the NYC Marathon!

We arrived a few days early, to enjoy the city with our family. On Thursday, Maggie, Dave, Nora, Russ and I went to the taping of the Friday night "Late Show with David Letterman." Here are Maggie and Nora in front of the Ed Sullivan theater where the program is taped.

Earlier in the day, Russ and I had gone to the Javitt's Center to the Marathon Expo to pick up his shirt and number. Here he is!

The race day, Sunday, was sunny and pleasant. We were able to see Russ run by at the 13.1 mile mark (half way there) and then again just before the finish. I got this picture of him as he went by at mile 25. He looks pretty darn good!

After the race, we all enjoyed some "lunch" at Lenny's. Here's Russ with his finisher's medal and Nora.

And then some pictures of Nora with Ari and Maggie with Dave.

Some Fall Color

Last Sunday afternoon we did a 10 K walk with the Asheville Amblers at Montreat. Montreat is a Presbyterian retreat and private college located near Black Mountain. The weather was ideal for our walk. When the sun was out it was about 70 degrees, but there was some cloud cover, keeping it cool enough for the brisk walk that included quite a few prolonged uphills. The colors would have looked more brilliant in full sun, but it was still a very pretty fall walk.

Lake Susan is a small lake on the campus and it reflected some of the pretty color. Also visible are some of the historic stone buildings that are on the property. It's a pretty spot.

Big 3-0 in the Big Apple!

Last weekend Russ and I were on our way to NYC to surprise Nora for her 30th birthday! Maggie and Dave also arrived from Maine, so it was a real treat for us, as both our girls had birthdays the previous week. Nora turned 30 on the 26th and Maggie turned 36 on the 28th of September. Here are the birthday girls!

And here they are with Ari and Dave:

I don't show up in many of my photos... funny thing about that. But here's a shot at Heartland Brewery, just to prove I was there, too!

To commemorate Nora's landmark birthday, her boyfriend Ari arranged for a very special weekend. Not only did we arrive without her knowledge, but he had arranged for a Saturday night surprise party at a nice wine/tapas restaurant. She was overwhelmed! I don't think she had a clue... when we arrived at the restaurant she thought the six of us were having dinner there. She opened the door and about 40 people were there ready to yell, "SURPRISE!" It was a fun time!

And then on Sunday he took us all on a schooner cruise of the NYC harbor on the "Adirondack." It was a beautiful day and such a treat to all be together.

Here is a picture of the new building that is rising on the site of the Twin Towers. It's a beautiful addition to the skyline!

Some little quilts

Here are three little quilts I've been working on. Each of them is 12 inches square.
The first two I made from scraps, mostly batiks, that I had left over from a project several years ago. I always like the idea of using up scraps in a creative way. I used my Pro Chem metallic paints in gold, bronze and brass shades to stencil the figures and leaves and I'm pretty darn happy with the results. Here's a closer look at each of them:

And finally, this is a miniature replica of the quilt that Alice and I made for the Folk Heritage Committee to raffle off during this year's series of "Shindig on the Green" concerts. Alice paper-pieced the little log cabin blocks for me out of scraps from the big quilt. I put them together, quilted and bound the block. It is a nice memento of our collaborative project. It makes me smile!

Three generations!

Earlier this month, my daughter Nora and I spent a few days with my mother, Dorothy. I thought it might be nice to share a couple of pictures of us together. Here we are!While we were there, we also got to go out to dinner with Uncle Ed and Aunt Carol, and cousins John, Pam, Tom and Barb. I wish we would have thought to take some pictures then.

The long drink!

The hummingbirds seem to be less plentiful this week, but I did refill both feeders, probably for the last time this season. In an attempt to get a bit clearer video of my window feeder, I set up an elaborate "tripod" next to the window. It is made up of a dining room chair, topped with a tv tray, a large cardboard box and then the family bible to anchor my iPad at the correct tilt.

I have also learned to "trim" my videos, so during the 5 or so minutes I had my camera on this morning, I had only one visitor. But he/she took a very long drink. This video clip is just under a half minute and I hope it is a bit clearer than my earlier attempt.

Woo Hoo!

The video did work!
However, I do have to apologise for the quality.
If you make it full screen, it gets blurry, but you can see how many birds we had flying around!
It's too smudgy, though, for you to see the hummingbird perched on the crook of the hook of the larger feeder suspended over the deck railing. He was guarding that feeder while most of the action was going on around the window feeder. What fun!
If you have your volume turned up, you can also hear Russ' soup spoon hitting the side of the bowl. Ha! We really were having lunch while I was doing this.
Thanks for your patience!

Lunch with the hummingbirds!

My friend Chris gave me this window hummingbird feeder last Christmas. There is another feeder in the background over the deck railing.

Today at lunch we had so much hummingbird activity. I decided to video it so I could try putting it on the blog. One thing I learned was that I should have oriented my iPad horizontally to capture the images better, but I'm hoping you can see all those little bodies. This is a learning experience for me... I can only improve!

PS - Okay, so I just looked at the "preview" and it didn't seem to work. But I think I am going to post this blog anyway, just in case the actual posting does work. Meanwhile, if it doesn't, I will keep on trying.

Mexico

We are just back from a week in Mexico, so I thought I would share a few interesting images with you.

The area right next to the resort we stayed at is a little patch of jungle. There is some building going on there, but like many Mexican building projects, they have not made much progress over the years. It's supposed to be a museum, we were told, but right now it's just a happy place for iguanas to live. Here's a nice specimen who wandered through the chain link fence to bask in the sun and pose for pictures.

This colorful character is a Mayan (I think). He visited the welcome party to invite everyone to go to a special dinner at one of the resort restaurants that included a show about Mexican history.

The sunset is usually quite magnificent over the lagoon. So it became an almost daily challenge to try to capture it. Here are a few versions. Often "sunset" was accompanied by margarita's at the lagoon-side bar, "Poncho and Willy's." (By the way, Poncho and Willy are two of the salt water crocodiles that visit the restaurant there nightly.)

One day we rented a car and traveled south along the Mayan Riviera. We spent the day at a sister resort close to Playa del Carmen and on the way back we stopped at a quieter fishing village that has so far escaped overdevelopment. The town is Porto Morelos and a popular photo spot is this leaning lighthouse that was tilted by a hurricane in the 1980's.

This was also taken at Porto Morelos. The white speck on the horizon is a cruise ship traveling north from Cozumel. The ocean along the Mayan Riviera is very calm because there is a reef that acts as a natural breakwater.