It's beginning to look a little like Christmas here

Fresh green wreath made by my brother,  I think this is the 4th year he has made a Christmas one for me.  He has also made Thanksgiving and Easter wreaths.   

close up of a little bird on the wreath

green tree with lots of birds and mostly red ornaments

and a white tree - it looks better in person

Nativity set

the butler gets a Santa hat this time of year.
Theo is usually a good sport but he draws the line at wearing hats or sweaters for that matter

the cutest Christmas decoration at our house is Gavin, he is holding a Santa doll my mom made about 50 years ago. 

Save your fork, there's pie

We do like pie at this house. but even we did not eat both of these pies on the same day.  I made a cherry pie for Thanksgiving and the Pilgrim Pie the next week.    Both of these pies are so good  so I want to share them with you all. 

To make a cherry pie in the fall in Oklahoma, you need a frozen bag of tart cherries.  They sell sweet cherries too but they won't give your pie that tangy sweet and sour taste.   I found mine at IGA for $3.65 for a 20 ounce bag.

Aren't the frozen cherries pretty?  So nice and red!

In a saucepan, combine a bag of  cherries, 1 cup sugar and 3 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch. Let sit for about 10 minutes.

Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring almost constantly.

Lower the heat and simmer for 5 minutes or until the juices thicken and become translucent.

 Remove from heat and stir in the 1 tablespoon butter and 1/2 teaspoon almond extract.

Mix thoroughly and let cool.   Then pour into unbaked pie shell.  Top with a top crust. 

Bake in the preheated 375 oven for 45 to 55 minutes, or until crust is golden brown.  It will bubble alot so you might want to put something under the pie to catch any drips.

This  is Pilgrim Pie. I first made this easy and low-cost pie when we had 4 hungry children to feed.  It is kind of like pecan pie but with coconut and oatmeal instead of the nuts. 

If you click on the recipe, it will enlarge it.  You can see where I penciled in the increased amounts needed to make 3 and 4 pies from this recipe - I don't remember why I made so many but back then,  I seemed to always be cooking for a group at church or teenagers. 

It really is a good pie  and very easy.  I prefer to eat whole oats and you can use them in this recipe, but I think quick oats are the best to use for this recipe. 

Sewing for Baby Elizabeth

Above are 3 little outfits for Elizabeth.  2 pair of the pants are made from flannel scraps, the last pair started out as a pair of sleep pants that were too small for Nina.  

 Little baby pants sew up very quickly and use very little fabric.

The tops are just a pack of $6 onesies.  I decorated all 3 with rick rack, and used some of the pants scraps on 2 of them. 

Of course Elizabeth needed some Thanksgiving outfits.
I decorated this little onesie with a turkey made from some fall themed fabric scraps.  I sort of copied a design from another blog, then used HeatNBond to iron the pieces to the shirt, then machine stitched around them for a little more stability. 

Nina did this shirt.  She used brown Rit dye to change the white onesie.  She made the slice of pie from my scraps.  The "cutie pie" embroidery was done by some home-ec students practicing with a sewing machine that does monograming. 

Bobby's altered hoodie

This is my son, Bobby, the very helpful floor tiler.  He will try to do just about anything.  Right now, his wife is the singer for a hard rock band and they are doing lots of concerts and shows, not my first choice but their dream is to  make it big some day and maybe they will.....

Anyway, he grew up watching me sew and trying to do just about anything.  He showed me some very expensive rock-type clothing made by a company called Road Bone - I tried to link to them but their sites seem to be for friends only. They sell alter jeans, jackets and hoodies for $200+ 

Their clothes are regular clothing items that they just alter, by dying, adding patches from old jeans or leather clothing or fabric,  some ripping and fraying. 
I showed Bobby and Bridgette how it seemed to be made. They got a few fabric scraps and rubber stamps from me. 

Here is Bobby modeling his first original jacket, it started out as a plain black sweatshirt hoodie. 



a sleeve - he made the sleeve more fitted by taking in the inside seam, cutting off the knit cuff.  The design is made using a star stencil and spray bleach.



back of hoodie
he sewed stars and strips fabric inside the hood

front side - he added some brocade fabric and pockets from old jeans. 
very simple sewing - see the frayed edges?  that is how the expensive items at Road Bone are done too.



this is the bottom front. Bobby sewed on a jeans pocket but he left the top part unsewn so it still works like a pocket. 



If you have some young adults needing gifts,  you might want to be like Bobby and try making some altered clothing. 

One way to spend a weekend....

Friday evening,  move all the furniture out of living room.  Then rip up the "white" carpet, tack strip and pads.  

Buy a big pile of supplies - many boxes of tiles, a saw. things to measure with, buckets, rags. sponges. grout, mortar, spacers, gloves, knee pads -



take all your furniture and smush it into other rooms -

more displaced furniture...

Be very happy and thankful that your hardworking son comes to help -I think "help" does not even describe how much work he did, he was so willing and did everything he could

We started just before 8 a.m. Saturday morning,  this end of the room has straight sides and it went pretty fast.

That end of the room has several angles and nooks and took lots more measuring and cutting.

The last tile was laid in place just about 3 Saturday  afternoon. 


The mortar dried overnight.
Then today,  we grouted it and cleaned the grout.  Later this evening,  we moved some the furniture back in.

Sorry, there are not "after" pictures.  We've put some things back but this house is no way ready for pictures.

Tiling is hard and messy,  not difficult though and no prior experience is really necessary.  However, we are sore and tired after completing this job.  Having the house in disarray is uncomfortable too
But we all feel really satisfied we accomplished this.

and NO MORE big jobs that involve any major effort will be going on at this house for quite some time.