Tag Archives: anniversary

Day 27: Magic Dishes

There’s a special dish that’s part of every holiday meal. You can see it in the food photo from our Christmas meal on the left and Thanksgiving on the right.

 

christmasdinnerjoethanks15

Here’s what it looks like empty. What is it? It’s a large platter that I decorated and had guests sign on our wedding day. I have the guest book from my parents’ wedding. It’s pretty and interesting and…. sits inside a box. Our dish gets used 3-4 times every year and is on display the rest of the time.

weddingguestbook

Why is it magic? Because of all the love that went into making it. I started at one of those stores where you can paint ceramics. They’ll fire them in the kiln and you come back to a finished glazed piece. This time I wanted it sign-able so I did most of the decorating in-store. Then I borrowed a black glaze pen and had wedding guests sign with it at our reception. Returned the platter to the store and picked up our finished piece post-honeymoon. Cool, huh?

 

Advertisement

Day 14: Three Years Ago Today

The shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in my hometown happened three years ago today. I’ve written and rewritten this post several times. I have so much to say and yet nothing seems right. I could tell you guys about my experiences making friends in Newtown that I treasure still in adulthood. I guess I could try to share how much this community’s support meant to my family when my mom died in 1998. I could speak to the heroics of teachers and the legacies of children.

Maybe what’s most appropriate is a moment of silence for the ones who died and those left behind. Silence for our terrible world with some good people in it.

newtown

Sneaky Peeks

Here are a few of the treasures I’ve been working on. The first is a wedding quilt for a dear friend. Spoiler alert! It’s green.

Green Bag

I wasn’t able to go out and get this tracing for a portrait quilt of a dog enlarged today. So I pulled some fabrics for it instead! Here’s my method of keeping everything straight once I’ve made the decisions. FYI: I’ve put 90 minutes into this quilt already and haven’t yet started putting it together. That’s why I charge $25 per subject as a design fee!

prep for dog quilt I finished this quilt. Woo! It feel so good to have a project done done done. This is a signature quilt and is for sale in my etsy shop. You can sign this quilt in the beige fabric spots… which, as you can see, make up most of the quilt. It’s great for weddings, anniversaries, birthdays, and other celebrations. Super-durable, it’ll hold up to washings. Just make sure to follow the directions on whatever fabric marker you buy. Some of them need to be set with a hot iron.

signature quilt 1I’ve also been working on this week’s Project Quilting Challenge, which is up-cycling.

I pulled some fabric for my new guild’s round robin. I’ll be adding a border and some embroidery. Unfortunately, this is all supposed to be secret until the big reveal in a few months so I cannot share photos of it until then.

What are you working on?