Happy Thanksgiving ~ Home and Away

Happy Thanksgiving, dear friends!

This year we are invited to our friends' home for Thanksgiving! I am very excited, if a bit sad my beloved Turkey plates will not be used this year.
[Do they notice? Or do they slumber on, uncaring?].
Last month someone asked me if I keep my bright orange, yellow, and cheddar quilts out all Fall, til Christmas, and the answer is a resounding No. Much as I love those colors I don't like to live with them too long. November 1st, the jackolanterns are put away, as are the brilliant orange quilts and the bright cobalt pitchers.

This year I kept my blue and white color scheme and added grey linen throw pillows; and quilts in faded tones of rose and brown and beige.

I keep my mercury glass pumpkins in the silver only,

and I add mercury glass Mason jars,

 and  a turkey here and there.

Crocks are filled with the last of summer's hydrangeas, now dried to rose, tan, and olive, no longer brilliant sky blue.

Things look a bit spare maybe. Knowing I would not be entertaining for the Big Day, I kept my decorating to a minimum, going for November colors, serene blue, grey, brown.

Just a few pops of autumn leaves peek out,

and a beloved English pitcher filled with bittersweet.

I love bittersweet and hate to discard it when December arrives.

The other pitchers are mostly white ironstone or soft autumn shades, many stained tobacco brown.

Wasting time a bit, I painted my tiny pumpkins with chalk paint. Harder than it sounded--and not at all chalky!?. I am hoping they might be sealed by the paint and last til next year! We'll see.

Mo watches, and waits...poor Mo, no turkey this year

....
My friend and I have been planning the meal. I dug out tablecloths to audition, lent vintage water goblets and my mom's silver gravy ladle. We had fun grocery shopping. Look at these weird Brussels sprouts.

And cute curly butternut squash.

My assignment--my contribution to the dinner Thursday --will be homemade Cape Cod / orange cranberry sauce.

Oh my this is delicious. So sweet. My taste buds swooned, I realized how rarely we eat anything made with real cane sugar. Yum.

And I made creamed onions today; tomorrow I'll make the stuffing. We all prefer our turkey unstuffed, so I bake the stuffing in a big pan: cornbread cubes, seasoning, chestnuts, bacon, apple diced, onion diced, sauteed, cranberries. Fresh sage and thyme. All held together with broth and butter. My house will smell like Thanksgiving even if the day is not celebrated here.

Maybe I'll have pictures to share, we'll see.

Remember my mom's words of wisdom."Put the turkey in the oven, and have a couple beers!" She meant relax and enjoy! So I wish that for each of you and your families too,

love

lizzy

gone to the beach...

PS If you're out and about: garden center, grocery store...now is the last time to stock up on paperwhite narcissus bulbs for January blooms. I had to order mine on Amazon.

A Quiet Sunday ~ Westering Women Update

Hello, good afternoon! It's a grey and windy day here at the beach. Now, in mid-November, there is suddenly a nip in the air. I am sipping my hot Earl Grey tea with my snack of a ''golden something '' apple and a sliver of Vermont cheddar goat cheese.The tea's fragrant steam mixes with the sweet scent of my London Candle. It too is flavored with bergamot and and black tea. The brown bowl in front of me is filled with cinnamon sticks and pine cones, a hint of the holidays to come.
Saturday it was 65*, today 30s-ish.

Mo had to wear his sweater.

I worked on etsy listings all day. It's a tedious task that takes time away from my sewing on my quilt projects. [Even after all these years of selling on etsy, its categories and info are a mystery to me. And one is often lost in the search engine's crowd.]

I haven't touched P2 in weeks. I know I am very behind, too bad. And this week the November Westering Women block will be posted. Ten blocks done and two to go. I did catch up on this project, making both September and October blocks  this past week.

Here is September: Sage Buds.

I must say the train ladies must have had a lot of time on their hands, if indeed they sewed such complex blocks. Look at all these set in seams, lah di dah. I bet the wagon train women were thrilled if they got a simple nine-patch together.*

The stop on our wagon train is Fort Laramie in what is now Wyoming. The diaries of the time mention the lovely scent and color of the sagebrush there. And yet---Wyoming?---seems to me the pioneers better get moving, they have a long ways to go yet.

The block represents the blue or purple sage flowers that bloom on the brush out west. I sat on the deck and sewed, and in my head I kept hearing,"Roll on, lonesome  cowboy! Rose of Cimarron. Dusty days are gone now, Rose of Cimarron." Yes I too think Cimarron is in Texas, and the band was Poco, not New Riders of the Purple Sage. Music blips heard decades ago, long forgotten, that come into one's head are so weird, aren't they.

Here is the October block. The train has left Fort Laramie and is facing the Rocky Mountains ahead. This block is called Rocky Mountain Chain.

If our wagon train takes what was called the Southern  Route, it seems it will be an easy trip over the Rockies. Something I didn't know. Makes me wonder why folks struggled through the Donner pass over the northern Rockies instead. Out train will travel over the Continental Divide, on to the Promised Land!
I sure wish I had more of the robin's egg blue seaweed print, it's a Shelbourne Museum repro. I had a tiny roll, not even a fat eighth, from the Cape Cod quilt shop.

By this time I was ready to see how the blocks look laid out. Ugh. I was going for scrappy, not mish-mash.

Here they are laid out on an antique quilt that has very wide cheddar sashing. I don't want to use cheddar but I can see why so many traditional quilters used it. Its happy brightness somehow unifies all.

I had originally intended to have 3 or 4 '' blue sashing with red cornerstone stars.

Somehow on the journey I forgot that idea and stupidly used blue patches in my block corners quite often. I am thinking a tan calico [not this coral double pink!] and red stars with a narrow blue border, right now.

And inaccurate as heck but I gotta have this wagon train print for the backing....



I hope you have a fun Thanksgiving week, and can spend the holiday with family and friends. If only in your imaginations.

(Remembering long ago and far away, good times.)

love

lizzy

gone to the beach.....

Westering Women is a SAL on Barbara Brackman's blog, see link in side bar. *Brackman does NOT say the blocks are necessarily block patterns that date from the mid-1800s. The blocks are chosen to represent the stops along the wagon train route, and may be anachronistic. At least that is my read on the project, and not Brackman's own words.*

Herb Harvest

Hi everyone! It's still warm and sunny here at the beach. One dry day last week my friend and I harvested herbs in her garden. [My friends with tropical garden and sunflowers.] She mostly grows her herbs in pots, but she had a nicely producing lavender patch also this year.
We cut lavender, mint, and citronella.

We decided to transplant the rosemary and try to winter it over indoors; we did not cut any of it.

Citronella is a new idea. I am thinking to mix it with rosemary for closet sachets, to repel any creepies that might wish to sneak in this winter. I'll have to do some research to see if it repels moths too.

I also cut the pods off the canna plants for my dried arrangements . I love their purple-red woolly look.

Back home I made bunches of the scented herbs and hung them to dry.

They'll be ready to use soon,

in sachets like these toile hearts, for my etsy shop.

This batch of hearts is a French text toile, linen and cotton. Not scented so far. They can be used on a little tree, or in a bowl with pine branches, or folks can add their own perfume and use them as sachets. I also offer the option of having the hearts scented by me with essential oils, in bergamot or lavender.

Target had very cute trims! The hearts will get a tape bow, and a fleur de lys charm or an antique button. Their cellophane gift bags will be tied with the sweet little green paper Trees, if purchased for the winter holiday season.

I'm planning other sweet little things, including sachets made from this gorgeous vintage purple toile.

And sewing emeries, and a doll quilt!

I

love

lizzy

gone to the beach...