February 14th already?

I can't believe it's Valentine's Day already!  It seems like New Year's was just last week. 

A quick recap of what I've been up to since my last post:

We had some work done on the house in the time leading up to the holidays, and I had to pack up my sewing room for a bit.

Christmas came and went with all the flurry of celebration and preparation.  We played host for our family gathering this year, and had a grand time.

In January, my father took a fall and fractured a rib and 4 vertebrae, so much of my time lately has been spent in hospital rooms and then at the rehab hospital.  Fortunately, Dad is on the mend and will be back home soon.





One crafty project that I finished is a crocheted doily that I had been working on for a while.

The pattern was a freebie called "pinwheel doily" that I found here.   Although it called for white crochet cotton, but the pinwheel center reminded me of a poinsettia so I decided to make it in red and use it for Christmas.  Of course, being red, it doubles as a Valentine's decoration too.

I don't actually decorate too much for Valentine's day because I like to keep around some of the Christmas decor even after Christmas. For example, this pitcher and flowers and the little snowman are still on my mantle:

  This looks like "winter" to me, not just "Christmas" and I like to think the red can cover for Valentine's Day too.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Post Christmas wrap-up, no gift wrap required.

We had a joyful Christmas celebration with the family.  It was Toby's first Christmas and by the end of the night,he was totally wiped out!

He found this spot himself.

I was finally able to give the Rings Around quilt to it's intended recipient.  I wish I had taken a picture, but I can tell you he really seemed to appreciate it.

Our family decided a few years ago to exchange a small gift with each branch of the family.  This year, our gift was  "soup in a jar".  We started out with these ingredients:

Then measured and layered them in the jars, until we had these:

Which eventually looked like this:

All you have to do is add water, and it makes a wonderful pot of  "Pasta e Fagioli",  aka  "pasta with beans".    One of the layers is sun dried tomatoes, which really infuses  it with flavor.  How do I know? I made a test batch the week before Christmas, and it was really good, so one of the jars managed to stay home with us.

Preparing for puppy's first Christmas

Over the years, I have collected a few of the Village houses that are sold at JoAnn's.  For a while, I would get a new one every year, usually in the after Christmas markdown sale.   I tried to buy houses that reflected something going on in our lives.  Of course, this is the one that started it all:

Look!  The door is open.  Wouldn't you like to go inside?

The next year, I got the little Stone Church.  I love how it has a little manger scene out on the front of the building. 

At some point, they issued a second Quilt Shop, so, of course I chose that one to add.

I love the little quilts draped over the porch railings.  Wouldn't you like to live in this village that has TWO quilt shops?

I haven't added any new houses in the past couple of years, because I ran out of room on the table to display them.  But, this year, I just HAD to add one more. Can you guess which one?  Here it is:

This was my nod to the new addition in our family this past year. 

Toby is actually being pretty good about leaving the trees alone, now that he has grown accustomed to them.  When we first put up the big tree, I started by laying down the tree skirt, and in 2 seconds flat, Toby had settled right in on it.

Notice the ever present tennis ball!

We made a few changes, like putting the Nativity scene up on the mantel rather than on a low table, but so far it's been easier than I thought.  We'll see how he handles all the paper and bows on Christmas morning!