18 hours ago4 min read

SHQ Show & Tell, Chef cooked Christmas Present

Thursday (1/9) was sunny, so of course the babies were in the front hall:

My honey packed up the car and I headed out to quilting….Diane taught a flip and sew class....here are some of her students with their compled show and tell:

-Susie - Denise was sorry you weren't there as her machine didn't work when she plugged it in.....so this is ALL hand stitched!

We all had a good time and there was more show and tell as well:

-isn't this stunning?

-and look at that quilting on the back

-of course I ADORE this

I got home around 2 PM and read my book for a portion of the afternoon before getting all gussied up for one of my Christmas presents! Michael hired a chef:

-Chef Sally

to come to the house to cook us a 4 course meal….and it was romantic and FABULOUS:

Here's the menu:

Louisiana Crab Cakes with Smokey Remoulade

Shaved Brussel Salad - Crispy Almonds, Soft Egg, Citrus Vinaigrette

Seared Ribeye Steak, Crispy Herbed Potatoes, Baby Broccoli, Green Peppercorn Sauce

Dark Chocolate and Orange Pots de Creme with Vanilla Scented Whipped Cream (Michael and I had Pots de Creme as our lunch every single day we were on the Tahiti cruise!)

Double Lemon Chantilly Cake with Fresh Berries

-we ended up with 2 desserts as she was auditioning this one for a future dinner. She asked what we thought and when I made a suggestion, she said she thought that was a great idea!

She totally cleaned up the kitchen and washed all of the dishes before she left.

It was a truly incredible gift and an amazingly wonderful meal....my honey is just THE BEST!!!

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I ran a quick errand Friday morning (1/10), but made sure I was home before any sort of precipitation started. Most things that can close…are closed today and tomorrow, due to the incoming storm….we’ll see what we end up getting. Michael ended up making French Toast for his breakfast out of the cinnamon bread:

and he said it was the best French Toast he had ever eaten :~)!! I just wish I knew how to make cinnamon bread without getting the ''gaps'' where I put the filling

:~(.

I spent the day happily working on a GINORMOUS customer quilt:

That took all day and I was not even halfway done by the time I stopped stitching.

I also started to put the binding on another quilt:

Although this quilt caused a bit of panic for about 25 minutes or so. My longarm was chugging away and I got all set up to start the binding…re-threaded my machine, got the binding affixed to my thread spindle on top, set up the appropriate stitch lengths and widths, then I went to get the quilt…it was nowhere to be found!!! I looked in both closets downstairs, picked up everything on my sewing table to make sure I wasn’t missing it….even looked in the guest bedroom….no dice! I was mystified as I knew it had been in the blue IKEA bag with the purple quilt…and obviously I found the purple quilt as it had already been bound and given away. I asked Michael to check around upstairs….NOTHING! He suggested the car…and I knew it wasn’t in the way, way back as I had put the Scrap Happy trash in there on Thursday and I knew I didn’t see anything else…but I thought maybe the back seat. He went out to check….again nothing! He came downstairs to help me look again….and as I was walking towards to the closet….I turned back to talk to him and saw it! Look again at the current customer quilt picture above….it is so long that I can’t see anything from the front…..the blue bag is behind it…..I finally saw it (barely) when I looked back to talk to him:

-see the tiny corner of blue behind the 2 plastic bins:

I’m telling you…looking for it made me CRAZY because I KNEW it had to be in the house!!! Anyway, I got the binding applied on 2 sides of the back before heading upstairs for the leftovers from our chef cooked dinner…..still incredibly AWESOME!

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I headed to the studio early Saturday morning (1/11) hoping to complete the quilting on my customer quilt:

And I found the picture of her backing....it's a whole 'nother quilt:

Michael had breakfast and took Freya for a walk before joining me to complete the 2024 yearly missive…..YAY!!! We might just get our Christmas cards out by the end of January after all!

I worked on the customer quilt all day, and by 7 PM I quit….with 3 rows to go. I also finished the binding on the wrong side of my quilt and got it ironed out: