Decorating with Christmas Quilts

Happy Friday! The holiday is fast approaching. Today was my day to deep clean my house, but the weather is so dark, so grey and foggy that [maybe this is a good thing?] I can't see the dirt. 
This is also the winter equinox and the celebration of Yule, plus there's a Full Moon and a comet in the heavens, so wonderful. Too bad about that fog. Have you noticed that the days are already noticeably longer in the evenings? Yes today is the shortest day, as sunrise comes at the latest time, but the earliest sunsets oddly are at the beginning of December, not now. Even 5 minutes cheers me up.

Usually I am very very sparing about displaying quilts in my home, especially small ditsy quilts that my family find unattractive, even annoying. But at Christmas, for these few short weeks, I love getting out all my special holiday quilts. I put them everywhere!  Merry Christmas, indeed!

Come see? [no nothing new, Kel! Same old, playing with my new camera phone!]

I did make new Christmassy pillow cases! I kinda love them, garish though they are.

Gifted border print fabric cases on the right.

 Mo had a groomer appointment yesterday, so he is all fluffy and creamy white for his Christmas pictures. Shelly the Groomer gave him three jerky treats! Mo heaven.

Everyone asked: The cookies tasted okay, good even. Coat almost anything in powdered sugar, and the taste is not bad! But the texture is mealy and the cookies disintegrate when touched. But I plan to use them, just for my family dinner on Christmas Eve.

How are things at your house? I still have a gift or two to buy tomorrow, if the fog lifts...

love

lizzy

gone to the beach............

So thrilling  when a box full of gifts arrives from far away. I remember our excitement when the box would come from my grandparents. My grandma traveled a lot and always brought us exotic presents, a Swedish Dala horse, a Swiss chalet music box, a German cut glass slipper holding two tiny perfume bottles, a china ladybug or an edelweiss under glass. A tin treasure chest with a tiny brass key, a leopard print child size umbrella from Paris, a set of impossibly delicate, wildly inappropriate hand blown Venetian glass cocktail stirrers! They had perfect tiny glass animals on the tops. "I knew you'd love them," she whispered on the phone. I still have the seal and the giraffe somewhere.

Christmas Cooky Day Fail

Hello! Happy Christmas week, dear friends. Today was cooky day at the beach...omg, another disaster. It's my own fault, I had forgotten the ghastly gluten free snowflake sugar cookies from last year. "He who fails to remember the past is destined to repeat his errors.". Um, yeah, so not laughing.

It started out so well, a chilly grey day, a gale blowing. Perfect for baking. I am not crazy about cooking but I love to bake.

I decided this year I'd make my mother's Snowball cookies. In my mind I was thinking, Fast, easy, smallish recipe. Always come out great, last a long time.

I've been making this recipe since I was ten years old.

Here's where things went wrong. Due to current dietary fads the cookies needed to be gluten free,  lactose free, soy free. Possibly Paleo, Keto, and Vegan. Mediterranean! A challenge! I found lovely pecan bits and, most important, almond flour [gluten-free] , at Trader Joe's.

Instead of butter I used a vegan butter substitute spread, along the lines of margarine, but fancied up for the current food correct posse. [It has soy! But I was told it is okay. Well. Okay, then.]

Coconut sugar in the dough. Only 4 Tablespoons so it wasn't too important that coconut sugar is not sweet.

Mo and I sat and rolled up a couple dozen little bite sized balls.

We sat at the table, watching the flock of little sparrows devour the seed I give them, enjoying the big winter waves, the low dark clouds.

It didn't take long. Two big cooky sheets. Pop in the oven.

Uh oh. Now the thing is, baking is a form of chemistry. You have to measure, you cannot estimate, guess or sub. And the word GLUTEN must hark back to the word GLUE, because without wheat flour containing gluten, recipes that normally bake up holding shape and form slowly ooooooze into formless flat blobs. We watched in dismay.

I went ahead and did the two layers of powdered sugar. I used pure cane sugar, there is just no reasonable sub, once a year, for real confectioners sugar. Even on crumbly blobs.

Maybe I'll experiment with a cake baked in my Swedish Dala horse mold [red, below]? I'm imagining the batter flowing over the sides of the mold, like lava. The mold, from IKEA, has no instructions or volume info. LOL.

I hope the market has nice mini cannolis


love

lizzy

gone to the beach....

PS Mo is on the naughty list! He was briefly unsupervised and he went in the kitchen, got the trash cabinet door [bungeed shut] off its hinges! He couldn't get the trash bin out, so he reached in and got all the garbage, spread it ALL OVER the entire kitchen floor. Thankfully nothing harmful was there for him to eat! This is new, he is hungry because he's on a diet? or bored?

Out and About ~ Christmas Shopping

Hi! It's warm today [50*, no wind], though grey and gloomy---autumnal, for these final autumn days. Mo and I saw people in shorts and light hoodies this morning, imagine that! Brrrr.

The brief warming spell is a nice change from frigid past six weeks. Despite the cold days my friend L and I have been out shopping and enjoying the holiday airs.
"Window" shopping is fun and easy on your budget! First we went to the ''over the bridge'' garden center.

It is always fun and festive, though quite subdued this year, we thought. Very traditional. (And expensive).

This would look so lovely with the candles lit!

Gorgeous shade of red! Like velveteen on a little girl's party dress.

I love the pine gnomes! I so wanted to bring one home...but then his friends started grumbling and pouting, lol.

More gnomes! We called them tomtes when I was a child, Swedish gnomes. ["tom teees'']

I'd like a bucket like this.

And a cranberry mercury jar.

Eeeew.

Only a few coastal or beachy ornaments.

Then back to Pier One. Somehow I lost/ mislaid all the gift ornaments I'd bought. So upsetting, wherever could they be? Loved this glass dome vignette.

And we are so thrilled because a new Old Navy opened nearby. Used to be one of those long hard drives I whine about, to get to the nearest Old Navy. As I said to L as we left, "My kind of store. Fun and cheap."
I can't show the gifts I found but let me whisper the hint, Seven dollar flannel pj pants!
And I treated myself to pompom slippers.

Mo finds them interesting, yet puzzling.

A final stop at Trader Joe's for greens.(look, Mel, I finally found some real holly!)

and  antipasto makings and cooks' stocking stuffers.

They had beautiful flowers and a well priced selection of very fresh greens.

I am pretty organized by now.  Sewed or handmade gifts are done, cards are mailed, faraway gifts have been sent. This week all that's left is the wine shop and a grocery run .Fingers crossed I can find nice eggplants in December, for EP parm. And I am baking cookies tomorrow, I think.., just simple snowballs. Yay! How about you guys?

love

 lizzy 

gone to the beach...............

ps off topic, here is my collection of  beaded Christmas bracelets. I love the detailed handblown lampwork beads. Yes, I know, they are tacky.

I made this one myself, about ten years ago now. Silver flea market charms.

Elf boots and Santa hats!

Maybe I can't wear all three at once?'

And a beautiful Angel who looks out at the beach, from my neighbors' deck.

Merry Christmas! Blessed Yule! Happy Holidays to all.