Yarn Tails: 2023

12.31.2023

Colorado Quilts

These are the last gifted quilts for the year. I finished them mid-December and Rachel’s family opened them just before Christmas while we FaceTimed.

54 x 73”

For her birthday-new-bedroom-celebration quilt Addy had requested sunflowers and royal blue, picking out both the sunflower and red suns fabric before we left for home after Thanksgiving (here).

The backing is an ombre mustard yellow, one of her fav colors, (I bought it on sale, on a whim, a week before our CO trip, figuring I’d find a use for it eventually…)

and the quilting is sunflowers, of course.

I think she likes it.

This one is my favorite. 50 x 63”

Several years ago, Rach gave me a couple of fabric panels and asked for quilts for John. They finally told me what they wanted to be, so John got an elk quilt

with blue backing

and snowflake quilting,

54 x 65”

along with a deer quilt,

with snow-capped mountains quilting

and a black and white, Tlingit-style, animal backing fabric that I’ve been saving for years just for Addy and Rachel.

So happy I finally got to use it!

12.30.2023

Gifted Cosmos

I spent Christmas Eve day putting the binding on this, my last quilty gift project for the year. (More info here.)

I think she liked it!

Cheyenne likes moons, astrology and the magical so this seemed like a perfect match,

Hard to tell from the picture but the red border matches one of the colors in the mandala.

along with the mandala for the back,

and moon and stars for the quilting.

This one finished at 48x63” and I only had bits of scraps left over. Love when a project uses all the fabric. It’s more luck than planning but I’ll take credit anyway. 💕

12.28.2023

First Concert

I *love* a cappella music so when Straight No Chaser announced in May that they were coming to Thousand Oaks in December, I grabbed our seats (they sold out last time they were here.)

The friends we were originally going with had to cancel, so this seemed the perfect time to take Jac to her first professional concert.

Leo has been to several events with us, so this was old hat to her.

And how did they like it?

Jac made it almost to intermission before announcing she was “bored.” But she sat fairly still and said she enjoyed it.

Our view of the show

Leo had listened to some SNC tunes on Spotify and wasn’t overly impressed (I think she was tired of Christmas music…) but she *loved* the first half of the show when SNC sang non-holiday songs. Win! They really are incredible musicians.

SNC’s view during the show. The blue arrow is Jaclyn, standing and cheering during the photo

Afterward, we took the girls on their first late night donut run to the locally famous Rolling Pin.

They weren’t crazy about the line or the wait (about 25 minutes, which isn’t bad),

but the huge donuts were a huge success.

12.27.2023

Slim, Slam, Slime

Jac has been asking to make slime for a few weeks,

so despite Pop’s reservations (“noooooooo, not slime!!”)

I ordered the Big Glue, contact solution and more(!) food coloring for an after Christmas surprise.

Jac’s not a fan of things that stick to her hands -

it took a couple of tries before we got the stretchy-but-not-sticky texture just right.

And then it was hours of fun. (We’ve agreed, for Pop’s sake, to only play with slime in my craft room. Something about leather furniture, dried slime, permanent stain, blah, blah . . . 😂)

Jac can’t wait for Donovan to get back from Memaw In The Mountain’s so he can make slime too!

Recipe: 8 oz (2 small bottles) washable school glue, 2-4 drops food coloring, 1t baking soda, 2-3 T contact/saline solution. Store in airtight container.