Today, I picked Milo up from pre-school and delivered the quilt for the silent auction this week-end. Tomorrow night, we will have a family dinner out and then go to the opening reception for the art show and sale. If you are in Portland and want to drop by, e-mail me and I will send you the location of the gallery. The reception is 7 – 10 pm, tomorrow night and the show continues on Saturday, 11am – 2 pm. Here is the finished quilt:

Here is a closeup of some of the art work which was scanned and printed on fabric. The second one is Milo’s. The theme of the drawings was Your Favorite Season. Miles says his drawing is of himself dressed like a viking playing in the sun.

Here is the back – which is a cozy green flannel.

I also finished knitting Milo’s sweater. It seems that cold weather is conducive to curling up with your knitting.

BRRRRRR! It is very cold here in the Northwest. I mean freezing cold. I am getting good use of the hat, gloves and scarves I received for my birthday. We have been getting out for our walks every day, but it means bundling up in layers. We are due for some snow and freezing rain overnight and then, it should warm up in to the 40’s. Whoopee!

It does make it hard to get out of bed in the morning. I bought the wake-up light which starts getting light at 6:30 and by 7 am, it is at full brightness. Problem is, I pretty much ignore it. It goes off at 7:30 and then I finally get up. I love sitting by my happy light every morning. I think it really helps.

I have been fascinated with the changing light. It is pretty neat that the trees lose all their leaves just when it is nice to have more light in the house. Also, as the sun is lower in the sky, because of the location of our house, we get more sunlight in the afternoon. (That is, when the sun is shining!) It is interesting that we get more light in our house in the winter afternoon than we did in Santa Rosa because out house was in the shadow of Sonoma Mountain. We lost light at 3 pm in the afternoon. In our Portland neighborhood, I can go out for a walk in the afternoon and look across to the west and see the sun setting behind the west hills. It is quite beautiful.

3-D Creativity – I think I have mentioned the Wednesday night program at Trinity Cathedral. We have a nice meal followed by classes. Tonight, I started my 4-week Advent clay class. We are making Nativity figures. I had so much fun! My classmates thought I was nuts when I whipped out my camera to take photos. Here is what I have done so far.

Here is the raw material:

Here is a close-up of my Mary:

Here she is with Joseph:

I am trying to work abstractly without facial expressions. I want to have some fun with the glazing. Next week I will move on to the Christ Child and some critters. I might do an angel. This was very therapeutic for me. Robin, the instructor, is teaching a Raku class next summer and I am there!!

My Mary is reminding me of the Gingerbread Babes that I used to make. I would give them little boobs and frost them to look as if they were wearing bikinis.

A couple of times today, snow fell in big fat wet flakes. The first time, it melted before it hit the ground. The second time, it stayed around long enough to get these photos.

I spent most of the day working on the Puddletown Quilt – adding borders, piecing the back and then I sandwiched it with fusable batting. Tomorrow, I will finally get it quilted.

Cranberries cooking on the stove.

Freshly pressed linens.

Dining room bathed in sunlight today.

Grandchildren and Maggie waiting to walk to the Rhodie Gardens.

M & M feeding the ducks.

Getting your ducks in a row.

Having hot cocoa in my kitchen.

It has been a week-end of mixed blessings. Steph was ill on Thursday and so we had to end the turkey dinner early. Yesterday, our friends, Pete and Diane from the Sacramento area, came by and we went out to lunch at Papa Haydn, renowned for their desserts. Pete worked for GE, and they lived in Wilmington, NC at the same time we were there. I hadn’t seen them in ages, since I started quilting. Diane was blown away by my quilts. I enjoyed seeing my work through someone else’s eyes.

I have finished piecing and sashing the auction quilt. Tomorrow, I will assemble the blocks and add the borders. Do you think I am capable of matching the seams?

Where have I been? Monday, we had a family celebration for Milo’s fifth birthday. We had sushi at Mio Sushi and then watched him open all of his fantastic gifts from family members. He was all smiles. I also began a major clean up and put away in the studio. I have been coming and going and working on various projects and there were piles and messes everywhere. I finished cleaning yesterday and got to work on the auction quilt for Milo’s pre-school art show.

Here is my progress so far:

The two blank spaces will have pieced blocks because I have 26 blocks and decided a 4 X 7 worked best. Here is a close-up of some of the art work which I scanned and printed on fabric.

The theme is “My favorite season.” These are 3-5 year olds so most of the work consists of some scribbles. Milo drew a knight holding a shield with the sun shining – all in yellow!

Today, I went to my favorite market, Zupan’s, to pick up my turkey and shop for the ingredients for a great Thanksgiving Day meal. The turkey is soaking in brine overnight and will get smoked on the weber tomorrow. I did make these two important menu items today:

Pumpkin and pecan – yummmm!

This is for Lisa, Mark and Jayme. It is the cuteness of Maggie letting you know how much she will miss you tomorrow:

Wishing all my readers a happy and calorie laden Thanksgiving Day. I am counting my many blessings and looking forward to January with a sense of hope for our country. Hopefully, we have turned a corner and are headed in a better direction.