Pure, unadulterated, abundant, bountiful JOY! That was what the whole day was! We met at Kathy’s house, ate, talked, exchanged gifts, talked, enjoyed our wonderful homey colorful surroundings, enjoyed the snow outside the window (which was melting…sigh, it is that change-able time of year in maine), ate, talked…oh, and did I mention talked? Including…hooray… long distance with Deborah in Texas!

The drive up (and dang! I wished I had pulled over, backed up and taken that picture of Lake George State Park…a large lake to the south side of Route 3, island in the middle, quintessential Maine-view of pines and water, dusting of snow visible on the ground and on the trees, mist rising from the lake and through the trees to a high gray sky—glorious!) was uneventful, and when I arrived at Kathy’s charming home there was a tree with bare branches and bazillions of berries in the front yard with Chickadee happily hopping from branch to branch.

Kate had a brilliant gift-bagging idea: cut off tops of boxes (triscuits, cereal, whatever), spraypaint white, add decorative yarn handles, tissue paper! How perfect is that? You could make paper snowflakes and spray over them as stencils, or glue them on, or all sorts of fun ideas….GREAT idea!

Then we exchanged gifts! A couple of us had mailed ours to Deborah in Texas so she could open with us, and she had mailed all of ours to Kathy. Kathy made the cutest little suitcases for us…she started with something else, then painted and embellished and decorated to perfectly match our personalities. It was a hoot…each of us had done something similar, and and we ALL picked the same colors for each –Kathy and I got aquas and blues, Kate got leaf-green, and Hannah got warm reds and pinks! Deborah made each of us ornaments, and I got “Blossom” which she showed in progress on her blog!

Here are the ornaments Kate made….with a tag that says “Peas on Earth, Good Wool to All”–she even sacrificed her favorite green sweater for felting to make the pea pods (and yes, it was the perfect color!). Here’s a photo of my 2006 new ornaments on our tree. From left to right: “Joy” on a Blossom by Deborah, Kate’s Peapod, and our blown glass fox (a set of eight critters like chipmunk, squirrel, snowhare, owl…) that they had in the LL Bean store…I love woodland critters and birds on my tree!

We had orange-cranberry scones in the morning (I made them last time, too…this batch was a lot better! the first batch was too sweet / cakelike!), and goodies.

Kathy had on the most wonderful necklace she made of beads she felted, and Kate LOVED it. Well, Inside our suitcases from Kathy were Artgirlz felted wool beads, so Kate promptly started making one.

Kathy got out her beads and sequins trays:

And here is the bracelet Kate had by the end of our visit:

Before that, though….we did our group photo, with everyone wearing the “art aprons” I made with goodies tucked into the pockets, and we held our goodies from one and all:

And Deborah had her 4-year old photographer take a picture of her in Texas doing the same…yeah!

We had a wonderful lunch, and for once I remembered to stand in for Deborah (who always remembered to take lunch pics). Here we are at the dining table (ready to tuck in!):

And here is the wonderful vegetable stew Kathy made (recipe in the original Moosewood cookbook…you can tell from the rippled page how often Kath has made it!):

And you can always tell how much fun we have had by the state of the table (notice the Christmas mug, our gifts from Deborah last year! and of course the current issue of Quilting Arts which we are IN! We were all still giddy with joy):

As I drove home, I realized I was smiling and happy all the way. Yes, pure, undiluted, bountiful JOY…just like my ornament from Deborah said!

We had a fun day last Thursday…I taught the totebag pattern I made for Janome America (as part of their artists’ loan program, I get to use a Janome 6600 which I LOVE LOVE LOVE!). I finally got to see a copy of the magazine, the International Janome Digest, with my pattern (my copies are still on the way to me…perhaps via Antarctica!)–well Blogger didn’t turn the picture, so please tilt head to the left LOL!:

If you’d like to order a copy of this issue (which happens to be a particularly good one….many of the projects could be made on any machine, and are really clever and useful!) click here. This is what the pattern pages look like:

and:

And the long “pocket options” section can be found on-line by clicking here and clicking on the link next to the picture of *my* (!!!!) totebags (on the official website!!!! wow!)

I’m not sure how well you’ll be able to read it, but here is the table of contents…the pillow project looks way cool (again…sigh…please tip head to left!):

It was a small class but a good one: Maine-ly Sewing shopowner (the best in the state!) Marjorie and her friend Carol. Marjorie is making gifts for her three daughters (shhh…don’t tell them!) and Carol is going to use hers for going to classes. Here’s a picture of the two of them working hard… Carol at the ironing board, and Marge (cool red sweater) at the machine. Marge’s tote (the outside) is on the table to the right of the machine…if she had had any more of that lime green paisley I would have bought some (as it was, I spent almost all my earnings before I left the shop…fun!).

Carol had some wonderful loon fabric, and we found the perfect black accent from the strips…it looked like it was taken from a loon’s feathering.

I’m so psyched at how these turned out. They both learned my trickyj “invisible” outside pocket (yes, there is one facing you in that picture of the loon totebag), and were almost finished with the entire tote (and Marge ended up tending shop for a couple of hours during the class!). Well done!

Tomorrow or Wednesday, what the Frayed Edges do when we get together at Christmas-time!

Notebook Cover, 5×8 Notepads

By Sarah Ann Smith © 2006

This cover will fit “mini” legal pad sized notebooks which are approximately 5 by 8 inches.

Supplies Required:

¨ Sewing Machine

¨ ¼” Seam foot (optional)

¨ Free-motion quilting foot (optional, if project will be quilted)

¨ Rotary cutting supplies

¨ The U.S.S.— the Usual Sewing Supplies: scissors, thread, pins, marking tools, etc.

Fabric and notions needed:

Because I like to mix and match my fabrics for this project, I have given finished dimensions for your total cover. You may wish to use three fabrics, one, or many….let your imagination run wild! If you want to, you could even piece blocks, strips or squares of fabric to make a decorative front panel.

¨ Batting: optional, only if quilting. 6 ½ x 17 inches.

¨ Sewing and quilting threads.

¨ Embellishments (optional): embroidery floss, beads, paint, sequins, you name it!

¨ 5×8 piece of posterboard, cereal boxes or something stiff to give body to the inside front cover

Measurements:

The image above is clickable to make it larger (and more easily read….blogger wouldn’t upload the graphics from the word document). If you have trouble seeing what’s on here and want the pattern, just e-mail me and please include your e-mail address in the text of the message—the new blogger stuff is making replying to posts almost impossible. I’ll send you the pattern in an attached word document file by e-mail.

Assemble your outside cover. As you can see from the three examples given, you can:

¨ piece mini-blocks set on point (the loon block from my Loon-y About Maine pattern),

¨ appliqué (the free-motion embroidered nautilus which was done on painted fabric, set on point onto frayed-edge accent square, set onto the center panel

¨ embroider a piece of art cloth with variegated embroidery floss and add beads (Deborah’s cover)

¨

and a zillion more ideas.

Keep in mind the 17 inch area which will be your cover when piecing or decorating your cover so that you don’t end up with a special part inadvertently rolling to the inside or over the top (unless, of course, that is where you want the special bit to be!).

Press ½” of each end to the wrong side and stitch.

IF Quilting: layer your 6 ½ x 17 inch piece of batting under the front and back outside portion. You do not need to have a backing fabric unless you want one, because this area will eventually be inside the book cover. However, if you don’t use a backing fabric (I didn’t) you may end up with a bit more lint inside your bobbin area which will need cleaning.

Quilt as desired…in my case, that always means a lot of quilting !

Or not…Deborah’s notebook cover is wonderful, and has only a little bit of batting inside the front cover to stabilize and pad the embroidery.

Fold the cover right sides together as follows. You may wish to wrap the cover around your notebook (right side out) and determine exactly where you want the three fold points to be: front bottom, top / spine, and back bottom folds.

Sew your side seams. Start with a ¼” seam allowance. Turn right side out and test the fit of the notebook cover. If this is too roomy, make the seam allowances wider and, if necessary, trim.

Turn right side out and press edges for a crisp finish. Use a blunt knitting needle or point turner to tease out the corner points.

Slide a piece of something stiff inside the front cover to make it easy to flip open and not-floppy. I used two pieces of cereal box carton, but posterboard or the back of a used-up notepad work well.

Slide your notebook into the back cover and use with pleasure! Celebrate with just a smidgen of chocolate!

This pattern will become part of a for-sale pattern sometime next year (I hope), so it will remain up on the blog until Epiphany, January 6th, at which point it will vanish. You are free to download a copy for your personal use at any time it is on the blog. Thanks for respecting my copyright and feeble attempts to earn a bit of a living from quilting…what a wonderful thing to be able to do!

Well bummers! Today is my local guild chapter meeting, and the fun holiday potluck too and instead I’m home getting over a bout of the stomach flu. Eli came down sick at 5 a.m. Wednesday. He stayed home all day and the next. The next night, Thursday, at 11:30 or so, Joshua came down sick. I got up with him every hour or so until about 3 a.m…. he kept getting sick but by then I was too and couldn’t make it downstairs. So I basically spent from 10 pm Thursday until 9 am Saturday in bed. YUCK. Bed is boring.

I’ll be back soon, and hope to have that tutorial on making a notebook cover. I just have to feel like sitting up long enough to write it!

Oh…and I switched the blog over to the “new” allegedly improved Blogger version. Well, now, I can’t reply to folks whom I have been able to answer previously like Sioux and Elle. When I replied to their e-mails, it would go to them directly. Now, it goes to “no reply at Blogger.” Sigh. So I’m not being anti-social folks, I just don’t have you in my personal address book, and now Blogger won’t let me answer you.

Maybe in late spring I’m going to re-vamp my website a bit, and will migrate the blog to my website. THEN, I won’t allow anonymous comments and I should be able to be courteous and respond to all of you. Back soon (I hope!).

Well we had fun and work over the weekend, and at last things have let up a little (I’ve been making Christmas gifties) and I can post about our first EVER Gingerbread House …. that’s maybe not so surprising for Eli (8) and JOshua (13), but I’m nearly 50 and it’s my first, too!

What I learned is that it takes a LOT of time, and not as much candy (phew!) as I thought. On Saturday we made the gingerbread from a recipe in Joy of Cooking Christmas Cookies (hotlink is to the book on Amazon), and decided to make life easy and use their pattern for my first house instead of making up a design from scratch (what a concept!).

I loved the way the batter looked so glossy and swirly when I mixed the molasses into the mixture:

Then, the batter had to “rest” in a cool spot (our garage) for 2+ hours. It ended up being more like 6, which was fine according to the recipe. Rolling it out and cutting the pieces took a lot longer than I expected…about an hour!

It definitely helped to roll it out, as suggested, on parchment paper that you can cut and just slide the piece onto the cookie sheet….that batter gets really sticky, even the “construction” grade (versus cookie / eating mixture, which has less flour).

I used (of course I did…I’m a quilter!) my 9 1/2 inch squzre Creative Grids Rotary cutting ruler to measure out the pieces! I just dusted a little flour on top of the gingerbread before placing the ruler, scored the lines to match the pattern, and then sliced away.

Here are the pieces having just come out of the oven:

I tried to make trees and an outhouse out of the leftovers. So-so for an effort. Then on Sunday (the next day) we had to “glue” the house together with frosting and wait at least an hour for it to “set up” and be solid. THEN we finally got to decorate.

At the grocery, when I returned several bags of not-needed candies, the manager had a great idea which I wished I had known: cut your pieces the size of a pint container and “glue” them with frosting to the container…helps support the gingerbread from the inside. Even making a cardboard “house” frame first, and taping it together, would really have made things a lot easier. Save that idea for next year. Anyway, I ended up making two trees, and got too tired and just pitched the outhouse parts.

I made the house with front and back doors (or two front doors, if you prefer) so that each of the boys had their own end to do, but Joshua decided to be a teen and “IM” with friends and play Runescape instead. Bummers. He didn’t even eat the candies! Eli, however, joined in and had the great ideas to use the candycanes on the ends of the eaves over the doorways.

Now…what do I put on the cookie sheet so it looks nicer?

Another lesson learned…using cheap-o store brand sandwich baggies as a frosting tube (clipping a tiny bit of a corner off) instead of a proper pastry tube is a recipe for a mess…the bag split any number of ways, including in the middle of the bag. So our “piped” edges and drips are more like messy blobs. Oh well….we’ll call it wet snow which is clumpy!

And….wonder why you can’t just glue it up using hot glue instead of frosting….the house isn’t going to get eaten (the dough recipe has double the flour to make it sturdy), so why not???? Anyone have any ideas?

Oh, and I really like the candy-coated “Kissables” (think chocolate chips meet M&Ms) which I used all along the roof, and the Necco dots on the foundation of the house.

PS–that black and orange thing on the lazy susan is an adorable Halloween spider from the boys’ devoted Aunt Joyce!