Yarn Tails

11.22.2019

Camp Christmas

We saw Frozen II this evening and it was good! I think I like the first one better, but maybe I just need to see this one a few ~~hundred~~ more times for an accurate comparison.

This morning we headed to Denver and Camp Christmas.

Sponsored by the Denver Performing Arts Center, and designed by one artist,

The originating artist, making tiny spun sugar trees to fill the giant white tree frame on the right

it’s described as "an over-the-top holiday extravaganza as big as the season it celebrates."

“Over the top” is an understatement.

It was big, bright, bold, colorful and fantastic.

Baroque Christmas

Closeup of the woman in the sleigh. There’s a tree in her hair!

There was something for everyone -

Mid-Century Pink was a bit much

historical perspective,

holiday factoids,

faux sleigh rides,

holiday stories

Story by Louisa May Alcott
and sooooooo

The Victorians loved their Egyptian decorations

much more.

Even a demon bronco that Addy refused to go anywhere near.

My favorite part, hands down, were the pun trees.

You may need to enlarge the pics to get these.

So bad. So funny.

So well done.

Definitely worth the hour drive, just for the puns. PLUS, we got holiday hats. Doesn’t get much better.

11.21.2019

Birthday Addy

Woke up to a white world this morning -

can you tell we aren’t in California??

It was so chilly last night that Addy, who is almost never cold, was happy to model the Can-a-DEE-a hat we bought her on our last trip.

Silly ~~girl~~ teenager

Since she’s now 13, Addy is allowed to wear "a little" makeup to school.

So today’s first stop was for a mini-facial and makeup lesson at a local store.

Addy wasn’t thrilled with how the eyeshadow was done, so she came home and redid it. Much nicer!

We finished the day with dinner at Red Robin (Addy’s choice),

"Look Grandma, I’m queen of the rock!”

a quick walk (it was 19 degrees!!) through a local sculpture garden’s Christmas lights display

and home again for presents

and birthday "pizza" from Baskin-Robbins. Soooooooooo good!

Happy birthday, sweet Addison!

11.19.2019

Bags!

The latest batch of Pop Open Pouch bags is done and (mostly) gifted.

This one went to my quilting pal, for her birthday.

I forgot to take beauty shots, so I’m making do with my crummy ironing board as the background. Which is a shame; I think this is my favorite bag of all. So far, anyway.

This one is on its way to a friend. It’s similar to the one I made Wenona, but with a different lining. Hope she likes it!

Addy turns 13(!) on Thursday and will be allowed to wear makeup, for reals rather than just for play. Isn’t this fabric perfect for a cosmetics bag?

And I couldn’t resist this lining for our newly minted teenager. 😜

Last but not least - Mary and I took a Bento bag class. Mary’s has brown dragons and mine is a favorite Laurel Burch print.

The class was sew fun. And a great warmup for the Redwood Tote class we are doing in December. One can never have too many bags, right??

11.18.2019

One of the things I miss most, from when my mom cooked holiday dinners, is yeast rolls. She’d have cookie sheets on radiators all over the house, trying to ensure the rolls rose on cold Tennessee (then Georgia and not so cold California) days. Such a great smell and so yummy when they were fresh from the oven.

I’ve tried making rolls off and on over the years, without much success. But this year, I was determined to have yeast rolls on turkey day. So I found a few recipes to try beforehand . . . and had success on my first batch! Pretty sure it was the accompanying video that got me through.

Fresh, hot roll, avocado and feta cheese. Yummmmm

Winner, winner, bread for dinner! (Still planning to try a few more recipes . . . )

11.15.2019

Next Phase

Finished hand piecing my Tula Nova before we left for Quebec but I’m just now getting it pin basted to the backing.

I thought it was going to be a big hassle . . . but it was relatively quick and easy, especially with Jac entertaining me as I worked.

Can’t say it was painless though - I stabbed myself several times paying more attention to Jac than the pins.

Ping pong table, aka my favorite basting spot

After reading up on appliqué methods, I decided to leave the last round of EPP papers in place, which has made stitching this down much faster than I expected. Three hours in and I’m just 2” shy of the halfway point. Yay! Guess I better start ~~worrying~~ thinking about what comes next.