Monday Meanderings 3 - 18 - 2024

We celebrated St. Patrick's Day in style. Did you?  See below for pictures of the high tea for the ladies upstairs and other food for the men in the basement rec room hosted by Rochelle and Darren. But first let's look at goals.

3/10/2024

✅Knit socks -- the first sock is done.     

✅Finish last border of Malted Mystery -- Malted Mystery is a finished top!

✅✅Load and quilt two of my quilts -- two done! 

✅Start cleaning off cutting area 2 -- a large group of fabric was put away and my sewing buddy could even tell the difference! 

Yep, it was definitely a good week for me. 

First sock with wool from Germany is finished. The label is Superba Bamboo Superwash. It 50% virgin wool, 25% polyamide, and 25% viscose.  I had to do a little research to find out polyamide refers to several different forms of fibers made from strings of polyamide monomers, in other words a fiber made with petroleum. Most of us know of it through nylon.  In yarn it provides elasticity and silkiness. (If you have yoga pants they probably have polyamide in them.) The vicose in this yarn is bamboo based. (Or that is my conjecture.) Viscose is made from the cellulose material of bamboo. This material is dissolved in a chemical solution to produce a pulpy viscous substance, which is then spun into fibres that can then be made into threads. (This info came from https://goodonyou.eco/category/made-from/. It  promotes choosing fashions that are sustainable.)  OKAY! Way more than you wanted to know but it is pretty interesting.  On to the picture!

I love the color and the softness.  The design of the sock is tolerated. Who really wants to reknit the whole foot of the sock? Not me. So I'll make a note on the pattern to not use it again. That is unless the second sock comes out looking better, I might have made some mistakes... I'll keep you posted. 

Here's my finished Malted Mystery top. 

The very dark borders is purple. It has a small design in it but you sure can't see it in these purples.  I really like my finish since that dark purple doesn't look as intense in person. It has been hung in the to-be-quilted closet. 

First top quilted this week: 16 patch with stars.  The 16 patches came from the FCQ Equilters years ago. (This may be the second top I made from them...) Quilting design is Fanfare. I "think" this is a navy or red So Fine. 

I'm calling this one Old Zigzag.  I do not remember when I made it. I know it is at least 8 years old because I didn't make it since we've lived here. The HSTs are 2" finished. (I think I might have been a bit crazy when I made this. Or I had a really big leader ender project going on.) Quilting design is Random Clams. This thread is a grey Omni. 

I should have taken a before and after picture of cutting area 2. The left side of the table top is clear to the cutting mat! I still need to do something with the stuff all over the rest of the mat.  I'll try working on it again this week. 

Here's what I've got planned for this week. 

3/18/2024

Finish another loom hat

Bind Spider Web quilt

Bind 16 patch r,w,b quilt

Bind Zigzag quilt

Work on needlepoint scissors case

So, back to high tea... Rochelle, our pianist for the Spotsylanians community chorus, invites the whole chorus to come to high tea at her house on St. Patrick's Day. She goes all out to feed and entertain us. I didn't get pictures before the tea began but here are a few pictures from the during the event. 

She has a collection of different tea pots, plates, cups and saucers.  She has a multitude of tiered serving dishes to put sandwiches, scones and cookies on. And all sorts of additional dishes for serving clotted cream, jam, an sugar and cream.  It was a beautiful with 3 separate tables available.  I have had high tea at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC and several times on cruise ships. Rochelle's was as wonderful.  The company was fun (especially since we don't have a lot of chatting time during rehearsals.) 

Lemon balls and fresh strawberries.

And, honestly, this group will sing anywhere. So here some of us are singing Irish songs. (I was taking the pictures so I'm not shown.) 

People were definitely wearing the green....

The men are invited to spend time in the basement recreation room and their spread included chicken wings and brownies.  Probably more food but I didn't notice as I only went down after the party had been over for at least an hour.  Usually there is cigar smoking for those who enjoy it but they are invited outdoors.  I don't know if there was whisky this year or not. 

I volunteered to help clean up and started in washing all the tea cups, silverware and some of the smaller glass containers for the Vanilla Bean Yogurt/Lemon Lime Curd/Blueberries. Maddie was drying and continued washing when it was time for us to leave. I'd say we all had a great time. I'm hoping she continues this tradition.  

It was another great stitching week. Everyday I spent at least 15 minutes in my studio, many days it was much longer.  My success rate is increasing.... will it creep up to, say, 99% this week? 

• 15 minute days/week = 7/7 days
     
• 15 minute days/March = 17/17 days 
• 15 minute days/2024 = 76/77days
• Success rate = 98.7%

I'm ready to call it a night. so Please take a look at these Linky parties. 

Oh Scrap

Stitching Stuff

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musing

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

High Tea - A Total Success

Wednesday the alarm went off early.  It was High Tea day.  I had a list.  In order.  Lots of things still to do.  And, amazingly I got all of them done and then sat down for about 35 minutes to relax before my friends came to High Tea. 

The table was set and decorated in festive Christmas style. 

I pulled out my grandmother's Spode and my silver flatware. We even used tea cups with saucers.  Normally we just use mugs at our teas.  

I don't use my grandmother's china very often and I can't recall ever using these square luncheon plates.  This was the perfect time.  I bought new red place mats to set them off.  I made the hurricane glass decoration with red and silver balls.  Heck I even pulled out one of my other grandmother's Belleek tea pots and some other pieces. (See the heart shape dish the nuts are in?) I never use those pieces.  

At dessert I changed to my snowman plates. 

These plates are so cute.  I only have 8 in 4 different designs.  And, guess what.  They were from JoAnns several years ago.  (yep, that means inexpensive or downright cheap.)

These are mini chocolate cupcakes with buttercream frosting sprinkled with peppermint candy canes.  

The Menu: 

Cucumber Sandwiches

Chicken Salad Sandwiches

Black Forest Ham Pinwheels

Cream Cheese Loaf with Clotted Cream

Fresh Fruit Salad

Assorted Nuts

Assorted Finger Desserts Including:

Chocolate Mini Cup Cakes 

White Chocolate Chip and Cranberry Cookies

Almond Tea Spritz Cookies 

We ate and talked for several hours.  We started at 2, a bit early for a tea with savories being served.  It was dark before we got up from the table.  I sent the gals home with husband plates of desserts.

This was so much fun to do.  But, I won't be doing another one anytime soon.  It is also a lot of work.  I hand wash all the Spode because I don't want the decorations to bleach out with the modern dishwashing detergent.  I'll be pulling it out again for Christmas.  

I was tickled with how well my tea cozy kept the tea pot warm.  I will definitely be making a few more of these to go with my other tea pots.  And, I am planning on using the Belleek tea pot more. (Belleek is Irish china that generally has little green shamrocks on it. I have some pieces with the shamrocks and some without such as the one above on the left.)  I have 3 tea pots that I use regularly depending on how much tea I want.  I'm adding the two Irish china pots to the rotation.  Why have pretties if you don't use them? 

Today is a scheduled shopping day. No not food, other miscellaneous stuff.  So, it's time for me to get going on that.  I hope to get a little sewing time in during the afternoon.  

Happy Quilting!