Adventures in Gingerbread Land

Hi! Nope, sorry, not a fun Kringle Market post [maybe later in the week]---but instead a tale about my gingerbread house experience. Ho ho ho. [sorry.]
For many years my children and I made a gingerbread house together. Over the years we made little cottages, surf shacks, ski lodges, and a lighthouse. We had windows made of candy glass, with lights inside. But in recent years, as my kids got older, their Decembers were too busy, usually filled with exciting ski weekends and other projects. And no gingerbread house. I admit I was very sad about that.
So this year when I saw the kits at Michael's Crafts, I decided I would make my own gingerbread house.

"It will be wonderful," I told myself. "No childish teasing and bickering. No little sticky hands in  the royal icing, no garish gumdrops and candy canes!" My gingerbread house would be a work of art, all brown crispy cooky walls and white spun sugar icing. My house would be in the Swedish style, sophisticated yet adorable. Neutral, natural. I had stars in my eyes, Christmas glow in my heart.

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Last week I opened the box.
I carefully drew my design on each section.

I fired up the hot glue gun and stuck the little house together.

And in the box I found a big tube of white royal icing. Yes I used it, despite years of perfecting my own recipe that has 100% success rate.
Omigosh, what a mistake! The store-bought icing was too thick to nicely flow from the pastry tip, too dry to stick on the walls---but too wet not to sag and droop.

I was out of coarse decorating sugar so I ''covered'' my flaws with white Martha Stewart glitter! Glitter fixes everything. Right? And if Martha made it...well.

Probably you can tell from the hot glue gun part that this is not an edible gingerbread house. Really, no one wants to actually eat a stale confection that has been sitting on the table for a month, gathering pug fur and dust. So glitter and hot glue are fine. (If you have your heart set on gingerbread, make a batch of little Gingerbread Boys to actually eat.)

I almost tossed it out. Then I dressed it up with  pine twigs. Is it a FAIL? I haven't decided yet. My audience here has been politely very silent.

I did find an interesting tutorial, from the White House pastry chef, of all people. Seems I should have decorated the walls and roof flat [no dripping!], waited a day for the icing to dry firm, and then put it together. Huh. Never tried that. Next time!

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And here's a link to a beautiful blog, where the designer creates her own perfect village. HERE
Someday I'm going to make a gingerbread Noah's Ark. But next year I think I'll just try another little cottage.

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Do you have  special family tradition for the holidays? Something you do or did with the kids or grandkids? My favorite--not a craft--was taking the kids ice skating at Rockefeller Center on the day their school let out/ half day---for the hols. Magic. Once it even snowed.

love

lizzy

gone to the beach...

note: all the pretty houses and Rockefeller Center are from Pinterest and/ or Google images.

A Red and Dill Pickle Green Quilt for Christmas

Merry Christmas, everyone! I'm still baking cookies, lol, this last batch was a flop. Lucky for me my mom's snowballs came out great, so we won't starve.

A few days ago on the Humble Quilts FB page, Lori asked if we decorated with quilts for the holidays. I don't display many quilts in my home, despite having a collection that numbers in the hundreds, antique and vintage / not made by me. The rooms are too small, the atmosphere too beachy, my kids don't much like floofy country stuff, and so on. One quilt on my bed sometimes and one or two folded over the arms of the sofas. This year I got out this beautiful red and green quilt. It is a pattern called Chimney Sweep or sometimes Album, I believe.

I'm guessing it dates between 1880 and 1920?

It was a rescue quilt from the old now defunct Thursday pickers market. I bought two quilts and a top for 30.oo. The second finished quilt was also red and green, a similar patch to this but the red squares formed an X. I sold it to a woman who needed a ''red cross'' quilt for a fundraiser auction, and she couldn't find a traditional red and white version.

Anyway these quilts were so damaged by cigar fumes that when I dug them out from under the dealer's table, they simply looked icky brown. The pink and brown Churn Dash top from the same estate sale must have been stored carefully as it was in lovely clean condition.

I was glad it was a cold autumn day and I was wearing gloves because the two quilts were untouchable. We put them in a black garbage bag and I brought them home.

Now what? I finally soaked each quilt in the bathtub until the rinse water ran fairly clean. Then I washed them and dried them. And their antique charm and beauty was once again revealed. [yes, I scrubbed the bathtub afterwards, eeeeew.]

I knew the nasty brown tint was nicotine because the quilts I inherited from my aunt were similarly stained---and scented. She was lifelong smoker. My mom showed me how to remove the grime of years...and the icky smell.

I love this quilt for its fabrics. There are at least six different reds and six or more ''dill pickle greens''. What a fabulous repro quilt fabric line this would make!

Some damage where the prints have cracked, this stripe being the worst.

I'm always collecting repro and vintage fabrics in hopes of repairing it someday.

Muslin back, fine utility quilting, simple cables on the sashing and borders. Handpieced.

Unfortunately the exposed stuffing attracted Mo's interest and the quilt again went into the storage armoire for its own protection. Maybe someday...

***

On a looking forward to the New Year note, I am in love with this quilt on the cover of the current Simply Moderne.

I'd love to make it in all red and white, a holiday topper for my all white bed? I'd do shades of red for the wool work tree and red cottons for the borders. I'm torn...should I start gathering fabrics or send it to its turn in the project queue?

I think it would have such a lovely Scandinavian look in red and creamy white....

See you soon! I still have presents to wrap! How about you? And what are you cooking? Do you celebrate on both Christmas Eve and Day?

love

lizzy

gone to the beach.....

dense fog advisory today:

Mo had his Christmas bath. But Santa is gonna bring him COAL because he ran away the other night. Bad dog! I looked up why dogs run away and it said it's because they aren't happy at home! Isn't that awful, we love Mo and try to make him happy. I think he just has the car-chaser gene, though.

Christmas Cookies

Hi! Do you bake holiday cookies? Do you have a special, much loved, tried and true recipe you use year after year?

I know I do...or did....

I've been making classic decorated cutout sugar cookies since I was a tiny girl. I took over family cookie production when I was about 8 or 9.

 The previous year,  Christmas cookies had caused a huge parental blow up. My mother fell into that "start baking right after Thanksgiving " trap. She wasn't one to make fussy cut out cookies---instead she had spent days filling every horizontal surface with  snowballs, Bourbon balls, almond crescents, those lacy things you dip in chocolate?..and those things you roll up while hot, roll 'em right around the wooden spoon handle.

And the cookies were very tempting, but we were all forbidden to touch even one! My dad didn't---couldn't?---resist and when he snitched one cookie too many, my mom went ballistic---and hurled all the cookies on the floor, screaming  Never again! And she never did bake another Christmas cookie.

I learned two lessons that day: 1-don't make the cookies until the day before Christmas. and 2-always make a batch of 'family' cookies for immediate eating; I usually make chocolate chip, an easy crowd pleaser.]

But back to my childhood story...you know, I was like eight? So the next year it got to be Christmas and I decided I'd make my own cutout cookies. How hard could it be? My dad said he'd help, since mom was on permanent hiatus in the cookie department.

We got a recipe from a friend's wife, made the dough....

and no cookie cutters! When asked, my mother looked up from her Vogue and shrugged; she said she sold all the vintage aluminum cookie cutters---you know, the kind with the red or green painted wooden knobs? ---and the antique rolling pin! to her friend Bernice the Antiques Dealer.

 All that remained was one stray squashed doggy cutter!

Man, I loved them! I cried! How could she!?

My dad made me a 5 pointed star that night, from aluminum gutter flashing---a cutter I use to this day.

Fast forward many years. I've perfected my style! I have a method, a technique. And probably 300 cookie cutters including a big selection of 19th century hand-forged tin folkart shapes. (scissors! a flag, a swan, tulips, birds of all sorts, hearts and stars and peasant ladies....); an extensive group of animals for a someday Noah's Ark gingerbread....

So imagine my dismay when I went up to Cape Cod one late January a few years ago and found all the fancy cookies I'd sent languishing in a tin in the pantry. Still in their bubble wrap. Untouched. Forlorn. [rock hard, lol.]

My parents no longer ate sweets. Or sugar.

I was hurt. Sad. Confused. [Could just a few precious cookies really kill them? Destroy their hearts and health? Who knew! ? ]

Then soon after, some of the young guys who had loved my cookies began refusing them, patting their washboard tummies and citing healthy eating regimens.

My kids won't touch sugar or carbs...my mother-in-law will maybe nibble one or two on Christmas Day. I've been thinking, Why bother?

Then my daughter asked me to  make these...from Shape magazine.

 I've been baking all week! And not to hurt anyone's feelings...or heaven forbid contribute to childhood obesity!---I'll just say this: One cannot bake palatable cookies with whole wheat flour, a banana, and 2 teaspoons of olive oil.

These cookies taste like BAD whole wheat bread.

I bet the gulls won't even eat them!

I hope my rum cake in my Dala horse mold from IKEA ---rum! white flour! white sugar! More rum! some Amaretto! ---is more successful.

Or maybe I can just serve after dinner liqueurs. Like my mom did?
Should I frantically whip up a batch of classic cookies?
Or just hope for the best....

love

          lizzy 

 gone to the beach.....

[yes, these were taken today!]

ps vintage aluminum cookie cutters pictureCd are from current eBay listings[not mine]...just in case your mom threw out your cooky cutters too!