Merry Christmas!

I inherited my grandmother's all-purpose cookbook. I can't tell what year this is, but I think every cook has a version of this type of cookbook in their library. I got Hollywood the red gingham version for Christmas.

My great, great grandmother's gullets recipe is in here. My Meme must have made these for her entire neighborhood. Five pounds of flour?! I just made a little batch. They were one of my favorite cookies growing up. Not too sweet, but buttery and light. They get better with age too.

I have the old original cast iron maker rusting away in a closet. I think my grandmother used it, but I can't figure out how she could have without a fireplace. She lived in a condo on the beach. I'll bet she would have loved the convenience of an electric pizzelle, gaulettes, gullets maker.

We boarded a festooned party boat last night to join in the boat parade. Our boat is getting a tuneup so our friends picked us up. We've lived in this community over 25 years and love boating, but this was the first time we had seen the boat parade. It was really a sight. Over 100 boats decorated with bright lights and decorations.

Snoopy as the Red Baron. This boat was huge.

Santa and his reindeers made an appearance.

Step five of the Easy Street mystery. Nice and easy. You can see everyone's progress right here.

Dare me to make something with the trimmings? 128 one inch triangle pairs.

The finished segment. I'm pretty proud I'm keeping up. My house is a wreck, but I'm going to remedy that today.

My shoe box is filling up.

Bones looks a little evil this Christmas Eve. Actually, he's patiently waiting to go outside. He'll give you this evil eye stare until you take him out. I've already caught him under the tree. Silly dachshund thinks the quilted tree skirt is a quilt to lay on.

Merry Christmas to you and yours! I hope your days are filled with fun, laughter, good food, friends, and family. It really is a magical time of year.

Linking up right here too.

600 Posts!

Squishy mail alert. Lucky, lucky me. I won four, count 'em, four giveaways for Sew Mama Sew's giveaway day. I've always thought this A Walk in the Woods fabric collection was really cute.

Another charm pack of adorable novelty prints. I think I have a project in mind for these. The wheels are a turning.

To celebrate 600 posts I'm showing you 600 of my Christmas ornaments. Just kidding, you have things to do. But here are some of my favorites.

Bones is not impressed with his Christmas Snuggie. Probably because it's 100 degrees.

Moving Forward

My Easy Street mystery quilt fabrics so far. I may throw a pink in there if the opportunity arises. I even found some batik orphan blocks for the back side. It looks like everyone is having fun with the mystery and Bonnie says we're only halfway through.

 I'm all caught up with step four.

 Even cut the green squares needed for a future step.

My shoe box o' everything. I was a little over zealous cutting triangles for the last step.

Speaking of being caught up, the Christmas tree is up. I almost skipped it this year, but apparently my children (and mom) will call you Scrooge if you don't drag all your crap decorations out of the attic. Doesn't it count that I have Christmas in my heart all year long? I do enjoy seeing all the fun ornaments we have collected over the years. Plus, I needed a little comfort after Friday morning's tragedy. I know those directly affected won't feel comfort for a long time, but I hope they know everyone is thinking of them.

Quilter's Corner in New Milford, Connecticut is collecting fun pillowcases to give to the children of Sandy Hook Elementary. I used Crafty Gemini's burrito, roll-up pillowcase tutorial which includes really easy French seams. I always thought French seams were fancy pants and out of my league, but they are quite easy and encase all the raw edges. Ooh la la.

I used a cute print from Little Golden books. These books and characters made me and my children smile, so hopefully they'll bring a smile to the recipient.

Sew Day Shenanigans

Our guild's monthly Sew Day happened Saturday. I kicked butt and got my pieces cut for step four of Easy Street so I could sew those up. Check out my new rolling trolley for Red, my machine. That little bag holds tools and accessories and there's a third bag for all your projects and other junk. Now I can travel in style versus lugging my heavy machine and toting my tacky cardboard box.

I also brought my 42 scrappy log cabin blocks so I could use the ample floor space as a design wall. The blocks were sewn into rows and I hope to get those rows put together today.

Look who I found in the Christmas decorations.

Here he is behaving himself at Sew Day. I wonder if he has decided to be good this Christmas?

Our fat eighths of Madrona Road are all folded and ready to be bagged for distribution. A huge thanks to Michael Miller Fabrics for letting all the Modern Quilt Guilds play with this fun bunch.

We only had five people for Sew Day, but we always have good things to eat. Brie en croute, crab dip, gourmet cheese, fancy pastries, and this Greek dip I made. I ran out of kalamata olives so I threw some green olives on top. There's homemade roasted red pepper hummus under the chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, scallions, olives, capers, and feta cheese.

Randomness

Bones all bundled up. It got a little cooler today. 61 degrees. And no sunshine. Brrr. I drove home from my dad's house last night in a terrible rainstorm and spotted a deer on the side of the highway. He looked like he was going to run toward the road. Then I started to panic about hitting a deer whilst traveling 70 MPH. I hate driving at night, in storms, and with possible wildlife jumping in your path.

I picked up this old wooden ski from my dad's house yesterday. It was my mom's slalom ski. I wonder if I should give it back to her for Christmas? I was going to hawk it on eBay until I found out it was my mom's. She was quite the water skier back in the day. She'll probably tell me to put it in the trash. It's really neat though.

Cold pizza for breakfast every day this week. That's what I get for ordering a large topped with spinach, bacon and tomatoes. No one else wanted any. I loved it. I want another.

Slug on the pool deck this morning. Yuck. He was a big one.

Used my Jo-Ann coupon to score one of these doughnut pans. I've been seeing a lot of baked doughnut recipes around blogland. These Apple Cider doughnuts especially caught my eye. And these pumpkin ones. Here they are glazed in chocolate. Or how about these doughnut muffins? I smell doughnuts in my near future.

Skipping Down Easy Street

Bonnie promised this mystery would be easy on us. So far, so good. Step three were these fun and easy split four patches. We only needed 64. Bonnie encouraged us to do a test block before we sewed them all together, so I whipped out six. Then I sewed 58 more and promptly forgot about those original six. When I went to trim the dog ears, I only counted out those 58. Back to the cutting board and the blocks halfway made before I saw the original six sitting right on my desk. So now I have 64 and six halves! Doh!

Did you know Bonnie has live Quilt Cam some days/nights? Some of my online quilting buddies and I watched pony cam back in the day. The breeders wanted us to call if we saw one of their miniature horses go into labor. It was exciting! Ha! Bonnie sews on one of her many machines and answers questions. It makes Inspector Gadget shake his head and make inappropriate comments. Then I run him out of my studio and turn "Snapped" back on.

This oven fried okra was pretty good. I think I'd thin out the buttermilk more and maybe use less breading. I've been in a Southern veggie mood.

I cooked some collard greens and jalapeno cheddar cornbread Sunday. Linking to Made by you Monday too.