Tree traditions

Hi everyone, and welcome to my stop on the Holiday Tales and Traditions blog hop! Bernie at Needle and Foot organized this hop to spread a little holiday cheer. I know this holiday is different from all the others, and at least some of us are having a bit of a time this season. It's been a hard year, so let's pull up a chair, grab a cup of whatever you like, and share some happy stories of our holiday traditions. At the end of my post today, there is a small giveaway just to spread a little more cheer, and also a fun holiday recipe that we have enjoyed for years and years. (And it can be made gluten-free, too!) Read on and enjoy, then share your own story in the comments! Off we go. . .

 

My holiday traditions story will be quite familiar to people in the Upper Midwest, where Christmas-- and sometimes Thanksgiving or even Halloween-- are usually marked by lots of snow and cold. We always had a "real" Christmas tree, and as soon as our kids were old enough to walk a bit in the woods, we started going to cut-your-own lots, where you can cut down your own tree. We did this until our kids left home, and we have some of the best memories from those times.

My very first Christmas ornament, bought for my first "adult" tree almost 40 years ago.

We usually had a great time getting a tree, walking through the whole lot to get the best one. Then of course the kids each had to take a few swipes with the saw, which really did not make any progress in cutting down the tree, but it felt good to them. One year we picked a tree that came with pinecones already attached, and I saved them and still have them.

Non-digital photo that survived from the 1990s.

My favorite year was the year that it was 5 degrees below zero and very snowy. You would think that we would have just forgone the tradition that year, but nope-- traditions do not die that easily! And we were pretty hardy folks, you know, so we bundled up the kids and went out and found a tree. It was probably the longest time we spent in a tree lot, and it was hard walking through the snow, but it turned out to be one of the best times ever. And no frostbite, either! We all still talk about the "freezing year." 

Christmas trees meant for eating!

Of course, after all that activity, we needed hot chocolate and cookies! While the tree thawed out (and dripped) in the garage, we had as many cookies and as much hot chocolate as we could hold. It ruined everyone's lunch, but who cares? They got plenty of vegetables at dinner, I promise. Then, of course, we got to decorate and enjoy our prize tree, which somehow always ended up being way too tall for our room. They look much smaller outside!

Ah, memories! I might be tearing up a bit. I know the picture of those cookies up there is making your mouth water, so now I have two small gifts for you. First, at the bottom of this post is our family Christmas cookie recipe, which makes a *lot* of cut out sugar cookies. Also, I am offering a small giveaway so that you can create something fun in the new year. I have this to share with you:

 

This is a small package of Christmas-tree-colored Aurifil threads in different weights and types. There is some floss, and a spool of regular 50 weight, and some 12 weight thread, too, I think. I didn't want to open the package, so I'm not super-sure, but I know that someone who enjoys experimenting with these things will have a great time with these threads. To enter the giveaway, just share a happy holiday memory in the comments! If you don't celebrate Christmas, that's okay, too! I'm happy to hear any of your happy family stories. I will choose a winner using a random number generator on Sunday evening, December 20. 

This giveaway is now closed! Thanks for sharing your stories!

Be sure to visit everyone else on this hop for some more holiday stories, too:

Sew Preeti Quilts

Quilting Jetgirl

Confessions of a Fabric Addict

From My Carolina Home

MMM! Quilts

Pieceful Thoughts

Devoted Quilter

Me and My Quilts

Kathleen McMusing

Sarah Goer Quilts

Needle and Foot

 

----------------------------------------

 And, as promised, here is the cookie recipe:

Note: This recipe makes a LOT of cookies-- between 10 and 12 dozen. Hey, I come from a big family! The dough can be divided and frozen, and it will keep a good six months in the freezer if well wrapped. I have made cookies at Easter from dough that I froze at Christmas, so don't be afraid to make the whole batch and have cookies for months.

2 cups butter, softened

2 cups granulated sugar

3 eggs

5 tablespoons milk

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

6-1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

In a large bowl, add the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt and whisk to combine.

 

In a very large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar, beating for at least one minute until well combined and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Beat in the milk and vanilla and scrape the bowl to be sure everything is well combined.

Gradually add the flour mixture to the butter mixture, making sure all of the flour is incorporated after each addition. Dough will graually become stiffer and the last of the flour mixture may need to be added with your hands. When well combined, smooth the dough and shape into a rough loaf shape. Wrap tightly and refrigerate overnight (at least 12 hours). Dough can also be divided and frozen at this point.

To bake, preheat oven to 350. Roll out dough to about 1/4 inch thickness a small portion at a time on a lightly floured surface. Dough will be stiff but will soften as you work with it. Cut with cookie cutters in any shape you desire. Place cookies about an inch apart on greased cookie sheets. (Cookies do not spread a lot.) Bake until lightly browned, about 8-10 minutes. Cool completely on wire racks, frost or decorate, and enjoy!

To make these cookies gluten-free: I am gluten-free and I have successfully made these cookies using Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free 1-to-1 Baking Flour. I find it helps to let the dough sit on the counter for about an hour before refrigerating it when using this flour blend. Then refrigerate and bake as described above. Yum!

---------------------------

I hope this was a cheerful post for you, and I'm really looking forward to reading your stories. I have some tea and some cookies, so I'm ready! Share your stories below, and pass on some Christmas cheer!

Strung from the trees

 Hi everyone, and happy after-Thanksgiving! I hope you are having a really restful weekend following what was, for us, a very strange holiday. It was just us here, which was very, very different from what we usually have. I actually did my first 5K the first thing in the morning (see sweaty picture at the bottom of this post), then relaxed and cooked a small dinner for the two of us.We had turkey thighs (which are incredibly inexpensive), potatoes, gravy, and Zoomed with the family, and somehow we polished off a whole pie. I have no idea how that happened. 

I've been going through some of my old, unfinished RSC projects and finding ways to repurpose them or combine them or something because I've finally admitted that they're not going to get finished in their present state. That's the first step, isn't it? Last year I was making these strings:

 

I had planned to turn these into another Scrap Happy Rails quilt like the one I made for my niece, but it just didn't happen because . . .life, I guess. We're not here to judge, we're here to make progress, right? I looked for a project to repurpose these for a while, then I came upon Bonnie Hunter's pattern called Pine Tree Point, which you can get HERE. One thing led to another, and so. . .

Turns out these are the perfect size to repurpose into some cute pine trees. Yahoo! I was even able to use the background fabric that I had already cut to use in the planned quilt as a nice background for the trees. It works, doesn't it?

But wait, there's more!

 

Well, I didn't just make green strings, after all! I had made several months worth of RSC projects, then I think I got distracted packing and moving. (I knew that moving thing would mess me up!) I have tons of strings, but somehow I never went back to these. But now they are made up into some fun trees, and that's going to use up all the string pieces I have. Plus the quilt itself turns out really cute, I think, and the multicolor trees will be quite festive, though not exactly Christmassy. 

Miraculously, I have enough strings done for eight and a half trees, so I only have about 5 inches of strings left to piece together to finish that last tree. That sounds like a good project for today, I think, and I might have to make another pie. Oh, and here's that sweaty picture from the Turkey Trot Thanksgiving morning: 

 

Did not know I had it in me, but it felt good! (Ignore the fact that I could really use a hair coloring appointment, please.) It was all virtual, of course, but there were several of my neighbors doing it, too. I gather that it is a big deal in Baltimore every year, so this could become a tradition. I guess we'll see when there's a bigger turkey to cook!

Enjoy the weekend, everyone!

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC2020

A forest of comfort

Hi all, and welcome to another spring weekend.  We have reached the point in the season where I wake up every morning with my eyes glued shut because there is pollen covering literally every surface in the whole world.  Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration of how much pollen there is currently floating around, but definitely not an exaggeration of my reaction to it.  I think all the rain we had last year has kicked all the plants into overdrive on the pollen front.

So, I kind of have an allergy fog right now, so much so that I forgot today was Friday.  Sigh.  Thankfully, I do have a completed project to show, and I even braved the outdoors to get some fun pictures of it:

Oh, yay! This happy forest is the last top I'm making this year for the Hands to Help challenge at Confessions of a Fabric Addict. I did not make the blocks in this top. Those were adopted from Jennifer and I got them through Cynthia's quilty adoption event.  I received a bunch of blocks and chose 20 for this top.

The trees are made of colorful, happy fabrics, and I tied them all together with a gray-green sashing.  The dark green stop border is a piece I've had for a while, and the outer border is a green print that has a 2012 date on the selvage.  Time to use it! It does pretty well tie the colors of the trees together, while the sashing gives it just enough calmness.

This little top went together really quickly. Since I didn't have to make blocks, I had a serious head start! The top finished at just about 48 by 65, which will be a decent lap quilt size.  I'm thinking that this one should go to Happy Chemo, but I'm going to wait until everything is quilted to decide for sure.

Since this is all about trees, I want to show a happy tree picture from our property:

This is a little cherry tree that we planted last fall.  We got it on clearance for $5! This spring it is blooming beautifully and is about 5 feet tall.  That's a pretty great return on our $5, I think!

I hope everyone has a good weekend.  I'm going to try to stay inside and out of the allergens, and maybe--maybe-- start work on those quilts I have basted.  I have to wait for my head to clear a bit, though, because right now I don't think I can be trusted near a sewing machine. I did forget that it's Friday, after all!

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Finished or Not Friday, and Oh, Scrap!