Our Quilting/Sewing Night Dinner - and Snow!

When the weather outside is frightful and inside home is so delightful - and it is only November 17, a warm dinner with friends and bringing out the sewing and quilting projects is just the answer!

It was a winter wonderland of snow covered tree limbs and fence posts .... but bitterly and unseasonably cold.  The wind was sharp and whistled down my coat collar and bit at my cheeks .... way too early - the 17th of November for goodness sake.  We are all trying not to imagine what may lie ahead for us in the winter months to come ... particularly after the winter we just experienced.  But, oh my, the snow was beautiful!  A glimpse in my yard.....

It was Monday - my favorite day of the week - the night my dear friends gather at my house for dinner and to tackle our craft and sewing projects.  We drag out the cutting mats, scissors and needles and pins after clearing the dishes, cut and sew and share our thoughts and our dreams - and solve all the ills of the world around us.  We had Spinach Chicken Delight, a fresh cranberry salad, and topped it off with pumpkin bars.

Miss Exactly Perfect was finishing up a project to redo portions of a twenty-six year old stocking that she had made for her daughter and that now needed to be repaired and freshened from all those years of holding Christmas goodies and being stored away.  She is a perfectionist and was painstakingly and extremely patiently cutting out and resewing portions of the stocking - to look like this!!!!

I will close with some additions to the mantel fall decorations.  Grandma and Grandpa Holton did not have much education beyond eighth grade, but they were self taught and extremely talented and creative. Grandpa made furniture and cabins and added on porches to our houses - hunted and did all kinds of magical things, while Grandma could look at a style in the store windows, come home, cut a pattern from newsprint and create the latest fashions on her sewing machine.  They nourished my mother (one of their daughters) mind with good books and exposed her to good music and experiences to expand her mind.  Mom loved her books .... and Grandma and Grandpa Holton made sure she had a good supply of well written novels and books of all kinds.  Mom cherished those childhood books - they are well worn with the binding ripped in places and the pages worn.  I have kept some of them that I was privileged to be given and keep them in a glass fronted bookcase.  Some of them were taken out of the bookcase to decorate the mantel with the fall colors .... what do you think?

A lovely welcome gift from the neighbors across the street was this exquisite cut glass hand crafted by my new friend!  Isn't this a precious gift to welcome me to the neighborhood?  It begged to be placed on the opposite side of the mantel from Mom's books - an addition to the fall decor.

It's a busy time of year.  Thanksgiving next week!  Enjoy the moments - time with family - all the blessings we so richly enjoy in this country of ours.

Blessings,

Janet