The Home Stretch

What a few weeks it's been! This will be a mish mash of things that hopefully will make some sense.

Two weeks ago was Rebekah's bridal shower. It was lovely and she had such a good time. My wallflower is embracing her day and enjoying all the festivities surrounding it. I pulled out my veil to see if she'd wear it and she quite willing did.

We played a few games, had appetizers and cake, and of course, opened gifts. On the left in the picture below is Rachel, who kept track of the gifts for Thank You notes, and on the right is a good friend of both of theirs (and she's Rachel's boyfriend's sister), she made a bouquet from all the ribbons and bows. Ruthie joined us and was very quiet, though didn't hide her face at all. She sat my feet most of the time and started getting comfortable about the time it all was winding down.

I was able to finish her quilt for the shower, finishing the binding about 1/2 hour before it began. I can't believe it, though, I didn't even get a picture! I'll have to take one or have her take one for me.

With that big event out of the way, I was knee deep in the rest of the preparations. In the last two weeks I spent a few days making cakes (pictures of which are in my previous post) and have a total of 12 dozen individual sized cakes. There should be plenty of cake left as we'll have 144 cakes and only 65 guests! My family will be glad to have the extra treats floating around, between squeezing all the wedding paraphernalia into the budget and my lack of time, they've been missing some of the homemade treats that are often around.

I also made bows....lots of bows. They are hanging on my design board, pinned to my quilt hanging on the wall and even pinned to my dining room curtains. These will decorate the walls and corners of the windows of the hall.

I also made ribbon bows. The picture doesn't do these justice. Hopefully the day of the wedding I'll be able to get a better one. For now, the bows reside on my sewing room valance. There were a lot of little jobs to be done, too. Rachel's dress needed a seam repaired, Rebekah's veil needed to be secured more firmly to the barrette, and I decorated some flip flops for Ruthie to wear. She LOVES these and every so often will take them and wear them a bit. After the wedding she'll be free to wear them whenever she wants, for now, I want them kept clean and neat.

Her toenails will be painted red to match the girls' dresses and her hair will be curled and put up with a pretty silver clip.

While all of this wedding craziness was going on, we had other big things happening as well. The company my husband works his second job for got outbid for the custodial contract and he was laid off for the first time ever in his life. We need that job, it carries our insurance and provides the extra income we need to make ends meet. It was not clear if the old staff would be hired on by the new company or not, and for four weeks we've been hanging, wondering, and I've been searching out jobs for him to apply for. Online applications take about an hour and he's not really computer literate so the bulk of that fell to me. The last couple I found I let him sit and fill out, he has a new appreciation for the time it takes!

As of mid week we heard that a new company was hired (one was, but reneged when they realized they had way underbid) but they were mostly bringing in their own people. I've been feeling a bit resentful that all this has to happen during what should be a really fun and special time. Thankfully, just today he got a call that he is being rehired, starting Monday, as the lead person, which means a little more money than the other crew members, though it's still a pay cut. At this point, we're thrilled to have it and it's a BIG load off of our minds.

Of course, we cannot have one good thing happen without something bad happening the same day (quite literally, unfortunately) and within an hour of that phone call my son got home from work and his truck broke down in the driveway. I feel so badly for him, but at least there will be vehicles available next week with the honeymooners gone and that gives him time to take care of business with his.

Tomorrow night is a pizza party at our house after the rehearsal and then as soon as everyone leaves I'll be starting to gather up all that needs to be taken to the hall on Sunday.

Also since the last update, Lucas had a birthday. He and Ruthie have been champs about keeping busy with all that has been going on. Lucas chose s'mores and rootbeer floats as his dessert this year. Bless his heart, he doesn't realize how much easier that made things for me!

We spent an enjoyable evening outside, the firepit going, with Lucas and Ruthie running around and playing. Every so often, Lucas would lay down in the grass, and Ruthie would lay down beside him. I could hear them laughing from across the yard, they have such a good time out there. Ruthie loves to be outside and runs out whenever anyone else goes out. If the screen door closes too quickly, she'll go out the back slider and run around to the front.

Ruthie has also really enjoyed her Daddy being home evenings for the last month. She's got him wrapped around her little finger. She brings him books to read and they sit/lay on this little couch while they read, play, or just chatter.

I think that's everything! I have a busy couple of days, but after that I'm on "vacation" for a few days, hoping there is enough food left that I don't have to cook, and not too much post wedding clean up to deal with. In any case, I can take my time and with my husband back to work as of Monday evening, a big burden has been lifted.

Hopefully I'll be back Monday with a big wedding update and lots of pictures!

Sue

Testing, Testing...

We've had a busy few days. While thinking about wedding favors (not wanting to spend too much, nor wanting to buy something for each place setting that would be of little use and tossed before long anyway) I had kicked around the idea of mini banana breads at each place setting. They would be wrapped in tulle (over the cellophane) tied with a ribbon, which would also hold the place card.

I found bananas half price early last week because they were quickly ripening. I had planned to just make some banana bread for here at the house, but once I saw the HUGE bowl full of batter those bananas made, I decided to see just how far it would go. If she decided that she didn't want to use them, they freeze well and would make a nice little snack or quick breakfast for some time to come.

My big bowl o' batter made 32 mini loaves of banana bread, almost exactly half of what I'd need if everyone comes who we've invited. I wrapped them well and put them in the freezer to be brought out the day before for wrapping. In the next week or so I'll buy the rest of the needed bananas and make the rest of these little loaves.

The last couple of days have been test days. Rebekah decided to do the trial run of how she wants to wear her hair on her wedding day. It came out beautifully, though she did decide she'd like it to sit a bit higher on her head. She's glad she took the time to try it out!

She beaded her veil, my part of the job being attaching it to the barrette. We were thrilled with how it came out.

Here is a closer view of her hair and the veil. The beads are in a zig zag design all the way around, the gathering made a beautiful little sparkly bunch right under her curls.

Since we are making all of the cake, and are using recipes unfamiliar to us, we decided we needed to do a trial run of those as well. Friday I made this chocolate cake with chocolate ganache. The sides will be a little less rough when we make them for the wedding, I started out not having the baking spray so improvised. The roughness sure didn't mar the taste, these are a little square of chocolate heaven.

Once I did those on Friday, I started really wanting to work on the others. I had most of the ingredients but was short a few things to make all of the different cakes. While running other wedding related errands, we picked up the additional groceries and I started baking.

These are chocolate cupcakes with white icing. I tried a new icing recipe that was supposed to be a stable whipped cream icing, but it didn't work. It never did get stiff enough, then turned to butter. Thank goodness we decided to try it out early! As I was making it, I realized that it was quite close to the icing recipe I use for pumpkin bars, so I made that one instead.

It went without a hitch and I piped it onto the cupcakes.

Next up was strawberry shortcake. The cake is angel food cake and we made homemade strawberry sauce. I used the same icing, took some out of the bowl and added a bit of lemon extract. These only have a bit of icing, we wanted something that would appeal to those who don't like their cake bathed in icing.

Finally, the tiramisu. This is a sponge cake recipe. I cut them in half and "painted" both cut edges with coffee. I added some coffee flavor (instant coffee with just enough water for it to dissolve into a thick liquid) to the remaining icing and piped it between the cake layers and added a little dollop on top. Then I sprinkled a mixture of cocoa, sugar, and cinnamon on top.

Our table was full of these little cakes, and my family has quite enjoyed testing them all out. I know that I've been walking 5 days a week and really trying to watch what I eat in hopes of my dress looking as good as possible....hopefully all this taste testing won't thwart my efforts! I sent a plate with a couple of each with Rebekah when she went to see Brian, so they could taste test them together.

I also put a plate full of the tiramisu in the freezer, hoping they would freeze and thaw well so I could take them to a friend's house on Wednesday. That gave me the idea to try freezing one of each so we can test them all. Anything that freezes (and thaws) well can be made earlier in the wedding week, those that did better waiting will have to be baked on Thursday and Friday.

In the midst of it all, Ruthie is coming out of her shell more and more. We're hoping this bodes well for the wedding and she will really enjoy herself. There will be a few other small kids, which will also help, I'm sure. We hope that she loses sight of the fact that people will probably be watching her and just has fun. I tried to get this picture without her knowing, but she knows when the camera is around. I had to tell her to look at the TV to get it.

The work of the day is done now. I'm going to spend the rest of my day working on the wedding quilt. I hope to get it done by the bridal shower in two weeks so I can give it to her there.

Tomorrow we head to Joann Fabrics to look for fabric for tablecloths. We're going to use quilting cotton so I can save them for later use. What Rebekah doesn't know is that I plan to make her a quilt from them for her next birthday (there should be plenty of fabric so I may be able to make one for me, too!)

For now I'd better go, that quilt won't quilt itself!

Stay tuned!

Sue

Mostly Wedding Chatter

We are in a very strange mode right now. The weeks themselves seem to go quite slowly, but each Sunday as we tick off another week before the wedding, I wonder where the time has gone.

All the "big" things have been cared for. The reception venue is chosen, reserved and paid for, the beach has been reserved for the ceremony itself. The invitations came this week and were in the mail the next day, and the shower invitations haven been sent as well.

The menu is planned (with much of the food being made by us, only the main dishes are being catered), decorations are planned and we've begun to purchase what we need, and except for some final tweaking as the RSVPs come back, the seating arrangements have been figured out.

A BIG stress was the dresses. Rebekah has had hers for several months, and went in for a fitting on the morning of the day she got engaged (that being the actual engagement day was unbeknownst to her) and we're just waiting on the call saying it's ready.

We are making her veil, she has finished the beading and all that is left is for me to attach it to a barrette that will be clipped underneath her updo.

That left, me, Ruthie, and the bridesmaids needing dresses. With the time available, we knew we'd have to find something off the rack or that had really quick delivery. My three girls and I headed out dress shopping a couple of Saturdays ago, with a date set for the following Saturday for the bridesmaids to shop. While shopping for dresses for Ruthie and me, we stumbled across the bridesmaids dresses. Rachel tried it on and liked it and knew one of the other girls was her size so we asked that they hold those dresses and they called around to find out that they had the other girl's size in another store but would not hold it for them.

The next day, the bride and her bridesmaids took off right after church to pick up all of the dresses. They got to the store with the single dress and it not only fit, but they had two dresses in the other girls' sizes as well. They all donned their dresses and looked them over...only to find that each dress had minor flaws....snags in the fabric, seams coming apart, etc. With two the correct size already on hold at the other store, the sales girl checks her computer and finds another of the size they need....at the store with the other two dresses!

So they head to that store, deciding on the way those are meant to be the dresses since two stores each had 3 dresses in the exact sizes they needed. They arrived at the other store to find the clerks there knew nothing of dresses on hold, they had been placed back in the racks, but were easily found, tried on and looked over. Since the dresses were on clearance, and they had a special coupon offer that day, the $159 dresses cost $52.50!
I was very concerned about finding a dress that I liked, that looked good on me, and fell within my price range. I was not wanting a frumpy dress, and really afraid I'd be settling for something because I needed something quickly.

The first store we entered had a formal wear section and we began scouring the sale racks. We came up with 3 dresses that seemed to fit the bill, were in my price range, and had my size. Of the three, one I didn't like at all, but the other two would each fit the bill. We hid them behind some other dresses and headed out into the mall. The shopping trip became much more fun when I knew I had a dress I liked waiting and I was just out there to see if I could top it. Nothing came close, and I can hardly wait to wear this dress.
We also had in mind to keep an eye out for a flower girl dress for Ruthie. While we're not really expecting that she will actually walk the aisle, she was still in need of a pretty dress. We found a children's formal wear shop and Miss Ruthie was thrilled with her turn in the dressing room trying on pretty dresses. Rather than buy her fancy white shoes which she doesn't really have much other need for, we decided on white flip flops (it IS a beach wedding after all) that I will decorate with ribbon and or tulle. We'll paint her toenails red to match the girls' dresses. She has been quite excited to show off her new dress.
Things are really falling into place and we're a bit awed by the fact that we ended up with the first dress tried on for all of us. My sewing room is an array of dress bags and spaces are filling up with all of the things we're collecting for use in just a few weeks.

That last week will be quite busy, making tulle bows (60 at last count!), baking and decorating about 80 individual sized little cakes, making the cutting cake, readying appetizers, and getting everything organized in hopes of the big day running smoothly. I have a notebook with quite a few pages of notes and reminders, and at the end is a page for each day of that last week where we can start listing what happens on which day.

Through it all, Ruthie seems to be coming out of her shy shell more and more. She still has her moments, but more and more people are getting to see the real her. She still loves the camera and we're hoping that works in our favor on the wedding day!
I'm well on my way quilting the wedding quilt, but am about to run out of the navy blue thread I'm using. I ordered some today from a place that usual gets orders to me in a couple of days. I'm hoping to have the quilt done for the shower two weeks from Sunday, so time is of the essence!

I'm hiding in my air conditioned house to escape the heat and humidity, working on the quilt and baking mini banana breads that may serve as the place card holders (wrapped in tulle, with a name card attached with a red ribbon.) From the looks of it, this big batch of batter should make about half of the needed goodies. Also on the agenda in the next few days is trying out a couple of the other cake recipes for the dessert cakes. More on those to come!

Happy Quilting, and keep cool!

Sue

Challenge Change, More Wedding, and Birthday Fun

Most of my quilting has been put aside for the wedding quilt. I knew when I set the challenge that it would pretty difficult to actually get all of that done and started to think of it more as a priority list or working list...meaning those quilts that I want "in my face" so they get finished.

The wedding plans are ramping up, which is good because it is coming up fast. Sunday, August 15th....6 1/2 weeks away. We're making lists like crazy and figuring out what we want to make and what we can/need to buy. It's so much fun, but rather all consuming! It's probably just as well they picked the date they did as I think if we had a few more weeks, we'd just be this busy/crazy for a few more weeks.

Rebekah's wedding quilt is in the hoop and underway...though with all of the other wedding planning it's been hard for me to really sit and focus on it. I hope to change that very soon. The plan is to have it done in time for the wedding, and I don't have that much time!

My birthday was yesterday and it was a lovely day. A bit cooler than it's been and not so humid, so I felt better than I have in a while. It was a quiet day overall, which was so nice. We went out for dinner to this nice little Italian place. We've lived here for 24 1/2 years and it's been here the whole time. We thought it was this little hole in the wall diner....boy were we wrong! We had a gift certificate to go there (Rachel's boyfriend gave us a bunch of different ones for Christmas that he got for really cheap off restaurants.com, thinking if we even used a couple he got more than his money's worth) and we are so glad we tried it. I had lobster ravioli and it was truly one of the best tasting things I'd ever eaten.

I had some birthday money to spend so we went shopping after dinner. I had been using an old keyboard because my cordless died (we've not had good luck at all with cordless keyboards) and I really wanted to replace it.

Much better! I'm still getting used to the slightly curved design, but it's quiet and wonderful to type on so I'm sure it will be old hat soon.

I also got a new pair of shoes for the wedding. Silver will go with any dress I choose and these are nice enough for the wedding but not so fancy they can't be used for other things.
Another thing I'd planned on getting for the wedding, but wanted also for myself to use here at home, is a nice water/drink dispenser. We were at a party last summer that had a water dispenser with fruit and herbs floating in the ice water. It was delicious and I would love to do that here occasionally. It will also be great for when we have friends over, just us and one other family can be quite a crowd so this 4 gallon container will allow me to make as much lemonade or punch as I think I need! The kids all pitched in and got this for me.
And Ruthie. She's in discovery mode...finding what things she fits in, how things work and what she is and isn't capable of doing. She's getting to be quite the chatterbox, though some of it is still hard to understand.
All that learning makes a girl tired! Her feet are 6 inches off the floor, how one sleeps in that position I'll never know!

So off I go, with errands to run and quilting to do, the day will be a busy one.

Happy Quilting!

Sue

A Busy Summer

Quilting...and other busy-ness

I've been really enjoying quilting on the Celtic and Posies. Two blocks are quilted and the sashing surrounding them is done as well. Block 3 is in the hoop and ready to go, possibly a few stitches will be taken yet tonight. I could have more done except there is A LOT going on here these days. One of the biggest things is the ramping up of the wedding plans for our oldest daughter. They aren't officially engaged, yet, but that is really just a formality. They are figuring out exactly what they want and the engagement will likely bring with it an announcement of the date, most likely some time this fall.

It will be very much a homemade wedding. After seeing veils at the bridal store we visited, we decided we certainly could make one. We bought a piece of tulle and some beads and we picked a zig zag formation for the beads and she's been practicing getting them on without pulling too tightly.

I'm sure there will be much more to tell as the weeks go on.
In the midst of it all, my husband is job hunting. The company he works for now has been underbid and it's likely the current employees will lose their jobs. We need that income, and our insurance is there, so we're in a bit of a mad scramble to find a way to replace that job. We're sure all will work out for the best in the end, but in the meantime, it's quite nerve wracking!

Thankfully we have our own personal hair stylist! Ruthie wants her hair cut whenever the haircutting supplies are out. Since Rebekah does hair out of our house, poor Ruthie would be bald if we obliged. She did need a trim, though, so she got that last week.

Here she is, discovering the wonders of Easter chocolate. She's not much of a candy eater, usually we give her a small toy and some snack crackers or something in her Christmas stocking and Easter Basket. She does enjoy an occasional piece of "chokuck" so had a few among her Easter goodies this year.

Lucas was practicing roller blading with a helmet and pads, so Ruthie had to have some, too. She wore these for quite a while and grinned the whole time.

The quilting updates will be slow in coming these days, all the projects are big and have a lot of handwork, though I will have a wedding quilt in the works before too long.

Hopefully we don't get too much terribly hot weather or it will be hard to keep a big quilt in the quilting process!

Keep cool and Happy Quilting!

Sue

Long Update

It's been a while! I'm still not used to being able to post more quickly and tend to put it off longer than I should. I'm hoping to change that with more frequent updates so they aren't as crazy long as this one is!

Rebekah came to me a couple of weeks before Mother's Day and asked what I wanted...though before I could answer said they had an idea. The "they" was she and her boyfriend and their plan was to replace my favorite tree, which was dying, with a new one. We planted this tree when it was barely more than a stick. It started out green in the spring, then was covered with beautiful white flowers (though they stunk!) and then the leaves turned purple for the remainder of the summer, new growth coming out green and then also turning purple.

It got a fungus several years ago and we didn't realize what it was until it was too late. My husband wanted to milk it along for a while, since the fungus wouldn't spread to other trees and the tree was still looking passable, but I thought he might go for this new plan. He did, and the next day the cutting began.

Here the main lower branches had already been cut off. Brian (Rebekah's boyfriend) enlisted the help of a couple of our boys to help him take down the tree.

Here more of the branches are down, they are nearing the end of what can be done with it still standing.

Lucas was thrilled to be included and spent his time taking any branches he could carry to the garden, where they stayed until Jonathan was able to move them to the woodpile up by the back of our house.

Brian and Rebekah got a dog last summer. She occasionally comes for a visit when they are here so they can stay longer. She loved the activity that day, watching all of the neighbor dogs and giving kisses to the kids when they would get close enough.

The trunk was cut into usable sized pieces and branches all hauled to the garden. Lucas continued to pick up smaller pieces so the mower wouldn't run them over.

He came back a couple of days later to work on getting the stump out and took me to pick out my new tree. They had picked out a few different ones, the final choice was mine. It's a flowering cherry and should have beautiful white flowers in the spring. I can hardly wait. It seems to have "taken" well and there is some new growth at the top. It's supposed to be a fast growing tree so hopefully it won't look so little and lost among the rest of the trees and shrubs!

Mother's Day was great. It doubled as Rachel's birthday dinner day. We made dinner together and afterward went to do her birthday shopping. She wanted me to be able to shop, too, so got everyone together to chip in instead of picking out gifts. Ruthie and Rebekah came along, too, and we had a wonderful time, ending our shopping trip with ice cream at Oberweis.

During the course of those few busy weeks, I finished up the border of the celtic and posies. This past Monday I got the muslin needed for backing and started basting that evening.

Here it is in the hoop. This one will take me a while, but that's ok, I'm really enjoying quilting on it, even the difficult middle section where there is so much quilt to move around.

Here it is during the basting process. Every so often I go on a baking binge. I love to keep baked goods around, which is no easy feat with my hungry group. Sometimes rather than baking every couple of days I bake several different things in a day.

This time is was a Swedish Flop. The cake is a rather stiff, yeast cake. The lemon filling is the same as that in lemon pie. The white layer is a cream filling. So good!

Even better are the Kringles. There is a bakery in Racine, Wisconsin that makes these and I found a recipe online. I was amazed at how close this recipe comes to the original and it has quickly become a family favorite.

They are oval shaped, the recipe makes two and I halved them to fit them on the platter. The filling is butter, brown sugar, and walnuts. I've also tried apple, peach, and chocolate chip and nut, but this one is far and away the favorite. The pastry is soft and light and the powdered sugar icing just finishes it off beautifully.

Ruthie continues to do wonderfully. She loves the camera and we've decided that she needs to have her own for her birthday (which isn't until November.) There are a couple of disposables floating around here and she seems to lose some of her shyness when she has one in her hand. This may be just the thing to bring her out of her shell some when other people are around.

In the meantime, she'll enjoy getting her picture taken. She can be in the worst of moods, but mention taking her picture and she's all smiles. Here she is sitting on the back of the little couch in my sewing area.

This one was taken with my phone camera, so the quality isn't really good. She asked to ride the horse at Meijer, which was a first and was thrilled to have her picture taken on it. They have it rigged so no money has to be put into it, but she didn't like when it moved so we won't be pushing that button again for a while.

She can still be found sleeping sometime in the afternoon or early evening a few days a week. She loves that little spongebob, I used a bit of my Mother's Day money to buy it, she entertained herself for quite a while with it in the store while Rachel tried on clothing, so I didn't have the heart to leave it there. Notice her painted toes, too. Rachel and I both bought new sandals on Mother's day, so we painted our toes that evening. Ruthie was not to be left out. She comments on her pretty toes daily.

So there it is, the very long update. I'm spending a lot of time sewing and quilting these days, but all of the projects are big so there really isn't that much to report. The warmer weather is slowly making it's way here and I've enjoyed the extended cooler spring weather that we've had.

All in all, it's been a good spring. I hope the same for all of you!

Happy Quilting!

Sue