Carolina Christmas Part 1

Part 1 finished...working on part 2.
Now I understand the importance of using the triangle ruler...sigh.

Merry Christmas

We got this in the mail on Dec 21. Perfect timing for Christmas. Thank you Tanabes.

Wishing all of you a blessed Christmas. 

Carolina Christmas Step 1

I was thinking of using these colors for Carolina Christmas, but may change my mind and use the red instead of the blue because of the poinsettia blocks. Here is my part 1 of step 1. I found the rulers at Ben Franklin. I haven't used them yet.

 

 

 

Carolina Christmas and Sweet Potatoes

These are the sweet potatoes we harvested for Thanksgiving. We shared with our neighbors too.

I am doing a mystery quilt through the internet. It is called Carolina Christmas from Bonnie K. Hunter using scraps. I am still trying to choose my fabrics. I can't decide if I should use green/blue/yellow/neutral or red/green/yellow/neutral. Maybe you can help me decide I have my three choices pictured here. Can you let me know what you think?

Also, I am not sure how important it is to have a 2 yard piece tying the colors together. As you can see I only have one 2 yard piece, the rest are all scrappy. Does it matter?

Earth shoes and fabric

Happy Thanksgiving! 

This past week my Earth shoes arrived. I bought another pair of Earth shoes. I had to buy them through the internet since Birkenstock was not able to get them. I went to Birkenstock to try them on, but they didn't have my size in the color that I wanted, so they tried to place an order for them. The company didn't have any so I looked online and found them at Zappos. The best part was that they were on sale and there were no shipping fees. : )

I also went to a garage sale and bought some fabric. A woman who was a quilter had passed away and her sister was trying to get rid of her stash. They had a garage sale in June when they sold most of her fabrics. There were just about 8 bags left. They tried to group the fabrics by what they thought went together for a quilt. As you can see, they were $5, $10 and $5 a bag. Here is what was in the first bag.

Next is what was in the $10 bag.

The last picture is what was in the last bag ($5).


I had some nice sized pieces, but there were also some scrap pieces in the bags.

 

Denim pencil cases

DD2 needed combo birthday/Christmas presents for a few of her friends, so I experimented. The last time I made these pencil cases, I made them with quilted fabric. This time I didn't want to purchase anymore fabric so I tried some denim I had purchased a while ago. I didn't want it to be plain, so I appliqued a heart on the outside and lined the inside with the matching fabric. As you can see each one is a different color. It took some time to figure out how to do it, but it was worth it because I thought it turned out really cute. I hope her friends like it.

Sweet potatoes and patchwork coasters

We harvested more potatoes and gave some to my parents and our neighbor after we steamed them. Yum.

I experimented with making coasters and they turned out pretty good. At first I sewed together 5 strips, but they came out too big so I ended up taking off one row. Then I used denim for the back...I think I'll make some more when I have time. Maybe I'll experiment with a different design.

Gifts

My brother sent these gf goodies to us from New Zealand some time ago and I forgot all about them because we had company at the time. I haven't tried any of it yet, but plan to soon. When I do, I'll post about it. 

Shorts

I needed another pair of shorts to wear at home, so I looked through my stash and discovered that I had enough fabric left over from a long skirt I made for my voice recital last year! Imagine that, I bought the required amount needed for the skirt and had enough left over to squeeze out a pair of shorts! 

 

Orchids

I got this orchid plant more than a year ago and it finally bloomed! DH told me that orchid plants bloom about every 3 years!

GF Brownies and Fabric

I made these brownies for a potluck dinner following the instructions on the box. Mistake! It was so oily! Yuk! I didn't care for it being so greasy. I think I need to substitute something for the oil next time...applesauce maybe. I think I like Pamela's better.

I went to a garage sale and got these fabrics for $3. I just washed them and the purple one had about 1 1/2 - 2 yards in the bag! It was a great deal. The red one didn't have a price on it and it was about a yard. The blue one had about 1/4 yard and the colorful one had 6 " wide strips of fabric in it. I'd say that it was a good deal!

Octopus and Sand Crabs

I finally finished my portfolio for my class. Hurray! I made the deadline! Hopefully I will get the credits to move up the pay scale.

I've updated my blogger and haven't figured out how to adjust the picture size yet.


These pictures are from July also...I'm kinda behind. My DH took his cousin and his family diving for octopus. I've posted pictures of some of the octopus they caught.

These are some pictures of the place we went. I didn't go in the water, but I was amazed by the size of the sand crabs! They were huge!

No one disturbs them, so they come out during the day. I have posted a few pictures of them here. The mounds on the sand are from the crabs and holes they dig.


I also found a puka shell. It was a good size also. I took a picture of it and posted it here too.

Sweet Potatoes

I'm very behind in my postings. These pictures were taken in July. It is a picture of our sweet potato patch before we decimated it. The next picture is of me trying to dig out the potatoes. (ha,ha) DH had to come with a tool to come help me dig out all the potatoes. Then there is a picture of the area we dug up. I planted more slips...I must be crazy. (ha, ha) There is a picture of all the potatoes we dug up after they were washed. The potatoes on the plate are steamed and ready to be packed up for our potluck lunch at the Ukulele Festival.

A Guava Tree

There's a little guava tree growing near the driveway in front of our house. The birds planted it. There's just one thing, we have to dig it up and move it. It is too close to that other tree. I don't know when well be able to do that. We also have to decide where to put it. I hope we can move it soon before it gets too big. I also hope we don't kill it in the process of moving it.

I went to The Source and found all these gluten free things! They were having their anniversary sale so I got a really good price for all this. I think, hope I bought enough to last me at least 6 weeks. The loaf of bread you see there is made from the Gluten Free Pantry's Sandwich bread mix. It is one of the green striped boxes . It came out a bit darker than my other loaves...I wonder if I should change the setting to light instead of medium the next time I make it.

Giveaways

My cousin Kat of Our Adventures in Japan told me that Deb in Hawaii of Kahakai Kitchen is having a giveaway! She is giving away Betty Crocker's new gluten free dessert mixes. I have yet to see them in the stores here on Oahu. What a great giveaway! Thanks, Kat.

Later, I discovered that Linda of The Gluten-Free Homemaker is also giving away the same thing, so...go and enter these giveaways and good luck!

Church Picnic

On July 4th, we went to our church's annual picnic at Waimanalo Beach Park. It was a beautiful day for the beach, but the Portuguese Man O'War and jelly fish were washing up also. One of the church members (a former science teacher) picked up 30 jellies and man o'war! He took the picture of them in an aquarium that he brought.

After the picnic we met my parents and my brother and his wife at Genki Sushi, where I can eat the plain stuff like maguro, hamachi and cukecumber rolls. :) It was nice not to bring my own food.