Virtual Cookie Exchange 2022

     My favourite hop of the year is the Christmas Cookie Exchange, Blog Hop, hosted by Carol at Just Let Me Quilt. I know there will be delicious cookie recipes shared and inspiring projects to be seen.

    The recipe I'm sharing this year is one for Snickerdoodles. Snickerdoodles are traditional Dutch-German cookie that are usually covered with cinnamon and sugar. My paternal grandfather was German and that may explain why I love these cookies.

yum

Snickerdoodle Cookies Small Batch

INGREDIENTS:

1 & 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup butter

2/3 cup sugar

1 egg 

1 teaspoon vanilla

Topping:

3 tablespoons sugar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375

1: Mix flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt together with a whisk.

2: Cream butter and sugar.

3: Add in egg and vanilla until mixed.

4: Add dry ingredients and mix until incorporated.

5: Using a small cookie dough scooper, make 12 cookie dough balls. I made 15. Roll them in the palm of your hand, then in the sugar/cinnamon mix.

6: Place cookies on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Leaving a couple inched between them.

7: Bake for 10 minutes. The cookies will be puffy and soft, they will continue baking as they cool down on the cookie sheet for 10 minutes then cool completely on a wire rack.

8: Enjoy

    My Christmas project this year are stockings. For every grandchild I make them a Christmas stocking the year they were born, my newest granddaughter was born in March of this year. The first stocking I made was for my oldest granddaughter, who is now 17. I have 6 granddaughters and 2 grandsons. I have made each one their own snowman stocking.

Erin and her juggling snowman stocking

    I used Swarovski hot-fix rhinestones, which I understand Swarovski is no longer making, to add a little bling around her name and also the juggling balls for the snowman. On the snowman, I hand-sewed the beads for the tummy, eyes, and mouth. 

    My daughter wanted a stocking for herself, making this a two stocking Christmas project year.

a little lace for a little more elegant look

    To make the berries show, I used my Inktense pencils to do a little shading and add some dimension. I also added some Swarovski hot-fix rhinestones around her name.

    Sit back relax with a cuppa of hot chocolate and enjoy more recipes and projects from my fellow bloggers.

December 5

Creatin' in the Sticks

DesertSky Quilting

Karrin’s Crazy World

Days Filled With Joy

Just Because Quilts

That Fabric Feeling

For The Love Of Geese

Words & Stitches

 

December 6

MooseStashQuilting

Just Sew Quilter

Ms P Designs USA

Beaquilter

Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life
Stitchin At Home

 

December 7

Inflorescence

Crazy'boutquilts

Patchouli Moon Studio

Texas Quilt Gal

Pinker n' Punkin Quilting & Stitching

Needled Mom

Quilted Delights

 

December 8

Just Let Me Quilt

Quiltscapes

Songbird Designs

Patchwork Breeze

Quilt Schmilt

Homespun Hannah's Blog

Happy Cottage Quilter

Charity Wheel-Chair Quilts

     My guild took on making wheel-chair quilts for one of the local Long Term Care Homes. We are a small guild with approx 30 members and this is a big undertaking for us. We need 136 quilts, they are approximately 30'' x 40''. They will be delivered in December to the home and hopefully depending on how bad Covid cases get, some of the guild members and Santa will be there. 

The idea is to provide something to the residents and hopefully make their Christmas a little brighter and also so they know someone is thinking about them. As some residents have no one to visit them.

Excuse the leaves it was quite windy yesterday and I haven't been out to rake yet today. I was more interested in taking photos for this blog post.

These two were made from scrap bags from my guild.

I made 14, and most were made using fabrics and scraps from our guild stash with a donation from my stash for backgrounds or to supplement the scraps. Some were made using orphan guild blocks.

Some orphan blocks, and more scraps

the purple/pink was a quilt someone had donated. The wonky star was a single orphan block

The purple and pink quilt required a little surgery and seam ripping, the floral was a part of the original quilt. 

Charm squares and sashing

a little bit of irish

The 4 patch units were not square, they were rectangular, but I think in this layout they worked darn good.

sometimes simple is best

these are browner than they appear

Even though I haven't been blogging much, which I need to get back into doing, I have been busy.

Some of the quilts took longer to come up with ideas than to actually make them. 

Where did the time go

 It's been so long since I've written a blog post, I'm not even sure how to begin. Yes, I have been quilting I have made 14 charity quilts, more about those in a future post.

Let's start off with what I've done most recently. I went on a bus tour to Missouri. This is the first bus trip I've been on, as a widow it's the only way I think I'll travel anymore. 

the lizard 

Edna's Travel arranged the bus tour, we had two buses from Ontario to Missouri. Edna and her husband accompanied the buses, looking after everything. What's better than a quilt tour! We had 8 days packed full of fun, from quilt shops to Branson Missouri shows.

We went on the Mark Twain riverboat cruise in Hannibal Missouri, then on to Hickory Stick Quilt Shop and Bits and Pieces, Vintage Sewing Notions and More. Then off to Hamilton, Missouri.

The next day we were off to Missouri Star Quilt

While there might as well meet and have a picture taken with Jenny Doan.

Jenny Doan, me, and cousin/friend Diane

We attended a special event, an Evening with the Doans.

the Doan family

Everyone at the show received a swag bag.

there were also 2 yards of cuddle fabric and a jelly roll which is the in photo below

a jelly roll, 2 charm packs, and a mini charm

Some more swag from the Birthday Bash.

Birthday Bash swag

The Missouri Quilt Museum is in Hamilton Missouri and is well worth visiting. They have everything from featherweight machines, to toy sewing machines, and miniature doll quilts to name a few.

featherweights

a small section of the toy machines

miniature doll quilts

and yes that says 1/16'' piece, they were small 

On our last day in Hamilton we attended the Birthday Bash Sewlebrity Sewoff, check out the youtube video.

After three days of events at the Birthday Bash in Hamilton, Missouri, we were off to Branson. On the first day in Branson, we enjoyed the New Jersey Nights, dinner out at Pasghetti's, and then on to the next show Clay Coopers Express. I thoroughly enjoyed his show!

Clay Cooper

The following day we went to Quilts & Quilts The Fabric Shop and the Quilted Cow we had dinner at the Keeter Center at Ozark College. The dinner was prepared by the culinary students and served by students. It was delicious, we had salad, turkey, cranberry chutney, buns, stuffing, and cheesecake for dessert.

Ozark College students

Then off to Dean Z The Ultimate Elvis.

Dean Z

What a wonderful getaway filled with laughter and the making of new friends. Of course, there was also some shopping involved but that's for another post. 

For more photos check out Edna's Facebook page. 

Wonderful World of Colour Blog Hop

 This hop is hosted by Joan at MooseStash Quilting, the challenge was to make something inspired by the world of colour. 

Scraps lend themselves to the use of many colours and when tamed into an eye-pleasing design they become the star of the quilt.

taming of the scraps into crumb blocks

I did a little sorting of some (there are too many to do them all) of my scraps. The job didn't get finished before, way before. Okay if I'm being honest I never did finish sorting them, the sewing machine was calling my name. And off I went full steam ahead just sewing scraps together into crumb blocks. This type of sewing is a no think just grab a scrap and sew it to the previous pieces. Sometimes all we need is mindless sewing. 

a few of the crumb blocks

I trimmed the crumb blocks into 6 1/2'' squares, added a neutral 6 1/2'' scrap, and made 5 1/2'' HST's. 

I used two crumbs blocks for each star

I debated with me, myself and I, we had quite the conversation, as to whether the centres of the friendship stars were going to be white or a solid colour. The white won out, this time. 

a pieced flimsy

The next decision border, yes or no. A pieced scrappy border, a solid border. Please let me know what you think.

Unfortunately, this is as far as I got, which is a first for me. I always have a finished project for these blog hops, but I ran out of time to complete it.  Oh and that border decision didn't help any.

Now let's see what wonderful colour projects my fellow blog members have come up with today.

Tuesday April 19

Just Let Me Quilt

BeaQuilter

Songbird Designs

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Purring Cottage 

Stitchin at Home

Time4Stitchn

Project Quilting 13.6

 A big thank you to Kim Lapacek at Persimon Dreams for hosting this challenge for us each year. I participated in each of the 6 challenges and loved each one.

We were to incorporate some pieced flying geese. At least five. I had a plan but due to an ongoing elderly family problem I ran out of time. I started this piece at 6 AM this morning.

flying geese check

Sorry not many photos, no time for them.

a finish

This piece is 9'' x 8''. I used Aurifil Thread for quilting the straight lines and |Hobbs Thermore Batting. 

Time in a bottle Blog Hop

 The "Time in a Bottle" challenge was to make something with an hourglass block in it. This blog hop is hosted by Carol of Just Let me Quilt.

I'm never sure what I'm going to make for these hops. Sometimes I go down the Pinterest rabbit hole, or I play around in EQ8 until something strikes my fancy. This time I took the EQ route and deleted more ideas than I kept. But I finally settled on something I thought would fit the parameters of the hop. 

one hourglass block... it's a start

I am still trying to use some older less loved fabrics in my stash. All the fabrics for my project are from Moda.

one block coming together

I think it may have been better if I had reversed the colours, however, I was limited by the amount of blue solid I had and I really wanted to use up that bubble fabric. 

the quilt top would have benefited from a inner blue border

I kept the quilting simple on this quilt. I did loops de loops in the background fabric. Some curves in the squares and triangles. Those triangles are busy enough without overdoing the quilting that wouldn't have shown up anyway.

a pieced backing to use up the leftover pieces

I am happy to say all I have left of the bubble fabric are a couple 3-inch squares, I call that a win.

This quilt will be donated to Ronald Macdonald House in London as part of Hands2Help. You can read more about that over at The Academic Quilter's blog. The quilt finished at 40'' x  40''.

Now let's see what the other bloggers of the hop are making today.

March 14

Creatin' in the Sticks

Vroomans Quilts

Patchouli Moon Studio

Samelia's Mum

Days Filled With Joy

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Stitchin At Home

Project Quilting 13.5

 Challenge 13.5 we were to play with repetition and the creation of rhythm. Something had to be intentionally repeated three times or more.  Project Quilting is hosted by Kim Lapacek of Persimon Dreams.

When coming up with an idea for this week's challenge I as I'm sure most of the world has been doing watched the travesty that Russia is doing to Ukraine. My heart is with all Ukrainians. So it's no wonder that this week's project has at the very least hearts.

This is where I was in my project on Friday

I couldn't work on my PQ project as I had a deadline for a secret project, it had to be finished first. I finally had time on Friday to design and start making my creation. Hearts check. With a deadline of Sunday, I knew I had to get cracking on my PQ project. No time for progress photos.

a table topper completed before the deadline

This 21'' x 21'' table topper or wall hanging I put hanging corners on the back, is made in the colours of Ukraine's flag. I fmqed feathers in all the hearts using a light yellow Aurifil #2105, the blue is #2770 and the white is #2021. 

the back shows the quilting

I used Hobbs Thermore batting my favourite batting for table toppers and wall hangings.

Project Quilting 13.4 Diamonds

 Project Quilting is hosted by Kim Lapacek of Persimon Dreams. In this week's challenge, we were to use Diamonds. We could combine triangles, or split rectangles. It didn't need to be literal, we just need to explain our use of diamonds.

I wasn't sure how I wanted to approach this challenge, I was limited by time constraints as it was a busy week dealing with a family member. All is well, just real-life stuff happening.

Feeling inspired I fired up EQ8 and started playing with triangles and squares, what evolved was a paper pieced pattern. Not the best idea when I didn't have a lot of time. But I like a challenge and this was a challenge.

two of the four blocks needed

Not looking much like diamonds, except the corners do have a diamond shape. Right? Loving the green, which may have something to do with it being my favourite colour.

ready to add a couple borders too

diamonds quilted in the centre pieces

I quilted diamonds in the centres, this is a take on an Angela Walters design. I also quilted diamond shapes in the four corners.

diamond corners with diamonds quilted in them 

Of course, when one is pressed for time, it seems everything that can go wrong does.

oops, ripping time here I come

And it didn't stop there. When trimming the sides after I was done free motion quilting it, my ruler slipped and I cut more off the sides than I really wanted to.

then there was a game of binding chicken, I won

Whew! I made it

I like the star in the design. I think I accomplished the challenge.

Tickled Pink Blog Hop

 Today is the final day of the Tickled Pink Blog Hop! It is being hosted by Carla of Creatin' in the Sticks.  

It seems I have been bringing up the rear lately on these hops, I think they are leaving the best to the last. At least that is my opinion!

We were to create something with pink in it, with five granddaughters I may have a fair amount of pink.

Bird in the Air blocks centre

I pulled a couple Bird in the Air blocks out of my orphan block draw, sewed them together, and added a fabric square to each side.

quilt as you go

I decided to do a quilt-as-you-go method for my project. 

A variety of pink strips for the top

The above piece is 15'' x 15''. Looks okay, but I think it could use a little something more.

that's better

A little applique and I think the front of my project is done. Now on to the back I pulled a piece of fabric from my stash, no idea how old it is. My guess would be early 90's?

simple diagonal line quilting

I made a quilt sandwich of batting and the fabric, both sides of the sandwich use the same print.

I made this piece 15'' x 17''.

the back in the freshly fallen snow

By now I'm sure you're wondering what did she make. 

Tada! A project bag

I made a fully lined zippered project bag. The bag finished at 14 1/2'' x 14 1/2''. Now the next question is what will I be putting in it, at this point no idea. Maybe I will list it in my Etsy Store, StitchinatHome.

Let's see what my fellow bloggers have made, today's list is below.

Thursday, February 17th

Creatin' in the Sticks

Beaquilter

Stitchin at Home that's me

Happy Cottage Quilter

Patchouli Moon Studio

Words & Stitches

Inflorescence

Quilted Delights