Post Thanksgiving Post

Ugh.  We did Thanksgiving on Friday this year, as my sister (ER nurse) had to work on the day itself.  Fortunately her shift was light on anything resembling carving knife accidents!  But I feel that, having cooked a complete Thanksgiving dinner all by myself, I finally get an Adulting Award.

(A 16-lb turkey, giblet gravy, garlic mashed potatoes, stuffing, succotash, jazzed-up cornbread, homemade cranberry sauce, glazed carrots, apple pie, pumpkin pie, homemade whipped cream.  And jello because I knew the three kidlets would not eat pie.  And ALL the leftovers are in my fridge because she wouldn't take any.  Also I steamed 18 eggs because my boys love them as snacks.)

Today, I am determined, I shall sew.  My project started as this:

Nineteen white and cream fabrics, and fifty-two purple/blue/gray/black ones.  No reason for the numbers, that just happens to be what I pulled from the easily accessible tubs in the garage.  Oh, and that stack pictured is what was LEFT after cutting.  Argh!  But I took a 4.5" strip from each, which got cut into these:

And then sewn together:

I've got the small triangles sewn to the large to make squares.  (I ended up overcutting on the small triangles.  Must think of something to do with them... later.)  Next I start assembling the blocks.  I'm working from a pattern in the March 1994 issue of Traditional Quilter, but I'm adding more blocks so it'll be slightly bigger.  I love some of the older quilting magazines.  They have patterns and attitudes that just aren't the same as what comes out in the modern magazines.

Recovered!

Thanksgiving happened, it was awesome, nothing went wrong except the whipped cream half deflating at the end.  Que sera sera.  This year was a rather small crowd - myself, Wonderful Husband, Squiddle, Jazzy, my parents, my two cousins on my mom's side, and one cousin's boyfriend.  We put the leaf in the dining table, hauled in the long wood card table, tableclothed 'em both, set them slanty and put all the food on the kitchen counters buffet style.

There was turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, succotash, green beans, carrots, corn bread, both chunky and smooth cranberry sauces, mahi mahi for the ovo-pescatarian cousin (and vegetarian versions of the stuffing, succotash, and gravy for her as well), and pumpkin and apple pies for dessert with whipped cream and ice cream to go with.

I almost needed bigger counters.

But that utterly wiped me out.  It took a day to recover - a day during which I donated blood, and picked up fabric for Squiddle's Christmas present quilt.  And today I took advantage of continuing post-Thanksgiving sales and picked up a 20 yard roll of batting, which I will need to make any of the Christmas quilts!

Also today, I cut out the pieces for Jazzy's Christmas quilt:

And I maaaaay have also started cutting the pieces (not pictured above) for Wonderful Husband's Christmas quilt while he was out.  Shhhh!  Top secret!

(Egads, four quilts to do in four weeks.  Better get cracking!  At least Niecelet's quilt top is done.)

This evening, whilst Wonderful Husband entertained the boys by playing a bit of Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, I made registration marks and finished the last bit of quilting on the Autumn Colors quilt, and sewed the binding on.  And found out I'd mismeasured the (fortunately scrappy) binding by a whole side.  I went out to the garage, dug out the bag of bindings, found two pieces that were in the right colorway, stitched them on, and had like two inches left over.  Score!

And I did a tiny bit of holiday decorating.  I hung my Christmas Landing quilt just inside the front door:

Wonderful Husband was far more productive, and put up the outdoor lights as well as the string around the crown moulding in the boys' room.

T-Minus One Day

No sewing yesterday, but a bit of Thanksgiving prep cooking.  First up, my chunky cranberry sauce, which is from a recipe I cut out of a magazine years ago - cranberries, orange juice, water, orange zest, sugar, and minced ginger.  I bought two 12-ounce bags of cranberries, and by the time I was done culling out all the bad ones, I had slightly less than the 16 ounces the recipe calls for.  Argh!  Whatever, it was enough.

Next up was an apple pie, for those who might not care for pumpkin.  This one's easy - Apple Pie II from The Joy of Cooking.  I usually make the crust with part white whole wheat flour, but this time I couldn't be bothered to dig out the second container of flour.  So the crust was a very soft one, but it browned nicely.  My artistic skills on the apple are... lacking.  Alas.

Also prepped ahead of time: whipping up a few cups of heavy cream with a touch of sugar and vanilla extract.  But a white container of white cream isn't particularly photogenic.

An Unphotographed Life

I've made a bit more progress on the Autumn Colors quilt... just two sections and one line of quilting left.  And then putting the binding and a label on.  But still, progress!

Yesterday we went to Savers with my mother and they had a few things I would have liked to have gotten - some fabric, and a new old Golden Book.  But Jazzy (having taken off one shoe and sock back in the toy department) started having a fit by the end, and I just could not cope with being in the queue with a screaming toddler, so back the stuff went and out the door we went.

I really should have made the chunky cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving last night, but... I didn't have enough energy left.  It's bad when I retreat into quilting to get away from being stressed and tired, isn't it?  So hopefully I'll have the spoons to cook that and an apple pie today, and figure out what else I can get prepped and streamlined for tomorrow.