Mountain Musings

Just Rowing Along ~ Fabrics

Looking on the bright side of things...cold weather = lots of inside sewing time!

A long-distance friend and I decided to start the Bee in My Bonnet Row-Along that was all the rage back in 2012 and 2013 in blogland. As usual, I'm a little behind the times.

This will be all the more fun because my friend and I are doing it together! We'll take two weeks to complete each row, and then we'll take pictures on our phones and email them to each other so we can see the other's progress. I'll be posting photos on the blog every second Friday as we complete each row assignment.

This week we gathered our fabrics, and here are the fabrics I'll be working with. I'm a little lacking in the orange, brown, and gray colorways: And here's my friend's stash of fabrics she emailed by phone that she will use:
The first week's instructions are to make a row of squares...not too hard. If you check out the flickr group, you'll see photos of some completed quilts. I'll post my finished photo of the squares row next Friday.

In other sewing news, this week I've made the top to a table runner for a gift for my sister that I'll post when completed.

Have a wonderful weekend!

~Deb

Lunch With a Lurker!

Hello on Friday, everyone! Have you all been keeping warm in this frigid weather?

Here's a scene showing our backyard around here this week...reminds me of being in Canada a few weeks ago! It was 1 degree this morning--cold for Virginia! Jonathan has been in Toronto on a work assignment, and it's bitterly cold there. We'll be glad to have him back home tomorrow!

Today was my first day out this week. Here's part of our steep driveway that I nervously traveled down this morning. Trees keep the snow from melting...and there's a steeper snow-covered hill further on that I needed to climb before I made it out to the main road--much prayer that I wouldn't have a problem. Thankfully, all was well, and I made it on my way! And where was I headed you ask?

Well, the story began last week when I received a phone call from a strange number, and a lady asked to speak to me.

Turns out that she reads the blog but has never commented. A true lurker! :)

Well...we chatted a bit, and she told me a few things about herself and mentioned some mutual acquaintances and then asked if I would be open to going out to lunch with her. 

Sure!

And today was the day! She picked Panera Bread and traveled there to meet me from over the mountain.What an enjoyable time we had talking and fellowshipping together. The meal was delicious, and the time spent was very encouraging. Thank you, Anonymous Lurker, for a fun adventure!

(Remember when I met a lurker a few years ago?)

Well, it's late and a good night to hang by the fire and relax. Company's coming for dinner tomorrow, so it will be a busy day preparing. Have a good weekend, everyone!

~Deb

10 Down, 2 to Go!

It's been awhile since I've written about the quilt blocks I'm working on for our local quilt shop's Block of the Month program, so I thought I'd show you the last two that have been completed.

One of these blocks (upper right) was January's block (quite a busy block and my least favorite; folks in class were saying the same thing), and the one on the left is for February (yes, that means that I've already done my homework for next month!!): Here are all ten blocks completed so far in the Saturday Sampler class: And...a different view of the ten red and white blocks:Most of the class participants have already been working on the sashing and all the connecting blocks that will be added to the twelve blocks to make a completed quilt. That's quite a bit of sewing to be done even when class is over!

I've sewn just the monthly blocks, nothing extra. So I'll be playing catch-up even after the twelfth block is done. This will make a beautiful quilt, don't you think? Hopefully, I will be encouraged to finish it this year!

~Deb

Happy 30th Birthday, Hannah!

Today we celebrated Hannah's 30th birthday with a surprise luncheon! Oh, what fun it was to plan a special time to honor her for all the hard work she consistently does around the house! And...I think we pulled it off! She was surprised!Sarah and I started early this morning getting the house and meal prepared for our guests. Hannah had been given specific instructions not to come downstairs for breakfast because Sarah wanted to get all the decorations and streamers up and the table settings in place for the eight guests that would be arriving.

To keep Hannah upstairs, we told her that we would bring breakfast up to her...pumpkin waffles! A great leftover to pull out of the freezer for a special birthday when time was tight with other cooking!

Sarah's theme was blue and white, snowmen, and snowflakes. Perfect for a January birthday! Here are a few photos of the table settings using the blue snowman plates, blue and white snowflakes hanging from the chandelier, snowflake place tags and snowflake napkin rings, and a fabric birthday banner: Sarah made the birthday banner from some old fabric and by tracing letters from the computer and attached it to the pie safe: Here are the decorations in the nook area adjacent to the kitchen. Sarah made the fleece snowman table runner, and the January plaque was made by a friend as a Christmas gift this year to our family. I'm looking forward to using all the different holiday plaques that she included. Thank you, Chris! Sarah's menu for the luncheon was: Panera Bread's Broccoli-Cheese Soup served in an Italian bread bowl, fruit, and parfaits (yogurt/fruit/granola) for dessert.

Has anyone tried making bread bowls and what's your secret? Sarah lamented that hers turned out looking more like bread plates rather than bowls: The bread in the center is pulled out to form a cavity, brushed with oil, and popped back into the oven to firm up a bit. All went well with that part of the recipe, but the "bowls" just didn't seem large enough to hold much soup.

While Sarah was busy in the kitchen, I was quietly greeting the girls who had tiptoed in the back door to surprise Hannah. Once everything was in place and all the guests had arrived, Sarah called Hannah down for lunch.

Here's Hannah just arriving downstairs and seeing all the pairs of eyes in the living room looking at her and hearing shouts of "Surprise!" and Happy Birthday being sung to her. She couldn't believe everyone was there because she hadn't heard a thing! Yes! Our plan worked! Everyone loved surprising her, and she went around hugging each guest and thanking them for coming: And more hugs: As the girls were going through the buffet filling their bread bowls with soup, Sarah was busy getting out real bowls so everyone could get a decent serving. In this photo you can also see the parfaits sitting on the counter: Sitting around the table on one side: And sitting around the table on the other side:Here's a final photo below of the group of girls who came for Hannah's birthday. Thank you everyone for making Hannah feel special today! While the girls were having fun at our house, I was just down the road having lunch and fellowship with a couple of the other moms who had daughters attending. So I think all of us enjoyed a special day out!

Once everyone left for home, Sarah and I started making the main meal for Hannah's birthday dinner. But who wanted to think about more food??

Hannah's birthday selections this year: Philly Cheese Steak Pizza with homemade Naan, Cumin Lime Chickpeas, and Chocolate Magic Custard Cake. Everything turned out delicious, and the day was a success!

Blowing out the candles on the big 3-0 cake: Happy Birthday, Hannah! We love watching how the Lord is making you daily more like Himself!

~Deb

Blowing the Cobwebs Off the Ol' Blog!

Hello, hello! Welcome back! Our blog break has been good and a much needed one!

We hope 2014 has been treating you well and that you've kept warm in this cold winter weather! We've been thanking the Lord each evening in our family devotions for the provision of warm clothes and a warm home...and the togetherness of family snuggled inside!

Since we last wrote in December, we've celebrated Christmas with Granny here and then traveled to very cold Canada and back where we celebrated New Year's Eve with friends! You didn't even know we were gone to the northern-lands for a few days, did you?

Before I write a post about Canada, I must post a picture of Granny since many of you have asked us about her and how she's doing down in South Carolina. She and my sister spent Christmas week here in Virginia, and we thoroughly enjoyed having them with us: And here are a couple of pictures of our annual family Christmas Eve program; we always look forward to hearing the musical selections the kids pick. Here are Hannah and Sarah playing In Dulci Jubilo: And Jonathan chimed in on his wooden flute with the song Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day (words can be found here if you're unfamiliar with this carol):Hannah read a selected portion of Scripture for part of the program: We enjoyed many delicious cookies that Hannah and Sarah made this year including Peppermint Meltaways, Gingerbread Trees, Cherry Chocolate Kisses, Chocolate Turtles, Peppermint Bark, Chewy Coconut Oatmeal (my favorite), and Crispy Almond Thins: Hannah was a good chocolate drizzler on the Crispy Almond Thins! Here's a link to another cookie post from five years ago with some recipes we tried that year: And it looks like Granny kept busy making baskets in South Carolina. This year she surprised Jonathan and gave him his first basket ever...a Jeremiah basket! Here he is inspecting the bottom to make sure she wrote her initials and the date on it so he'd always have a reminder of a basket she made:  As you can see, we had a very enjoyable time together! Three days after Christmas...Granny was headed back to my sister's home for another three months, and we were headed the opposite direction to Canada! It's probably a good thing Granny was headed south!

The below shot was taken through our friends' house window, but it gives you some idea of one of the grey, cold, and snowy days when we visited our friends near Ottawa: Stay tuned for that post soon!

~Deb

Hello, 2014!

A great scripture verse for the new year! It's found at one of my favorite wall art sites--Red Letter Words. What new things are you looking forward to that the Lord might do in your life this year?

Happy New Year to your family from all of us here at Mountain Musings!