A Reason to Celebrate

What a wonderful week it has been around our house!!  We have been blessed once more with a beautiful little grandson.  All are doing well and he was welcomed home today by his big brother and sister.  The week can't be much better than that.

It also started off in a fabulous manner.  For Christmas our children gifted us a dinner prepared by a chef (and friend of our SIL) for all of us at our home.  The menu was amazing and consisted of seven courses.  We had so much fun and it was such a thrill to watch all of this happening in our kitchen.  Sadly, we were missing one DIL who was ill and one son who was away skiing.  Guess that just meant more food for all of us.  ;-)

A few of the courses.....

Seared Nantucket Scallops with avocado risotto,  mango lime coulis, chipolte oil and crispy plantains.

Merlot poached pears stuffed with gorgonzola dolce and served with peppered balsamic syrup, arugula sprouts and honey port aioli.

Mascarpone and apricot Napoleon - pistachio and thyme twill, Mascarpone Mouse, Muscatel soaked apricots and basil honey.

Does anyone know how to deal with Blogger's problems in commenting?  Several of the blogs I follow are not allowing the page for comments.  Instead it simply comes up as a blank page.  I have read where others are having the same issues, but have not heard how to resolve them yet.

The sewing studio has been a little quiet as we have been busy with little ones and houseguests, but I did have to finish up a quilt for the newest baby.  Our children absolutely loved the book Goodnight Moon.  I was so thrilled to see the line of fabrics with the same title.  In wanting to highlight the fabric prints, I chose the wave pattern.  I also put Minky fabric on the back of it so it is super soft.  I was a bit apprehensive about the stretch of the backing, but it quilted BEAUTIFULLY.  If you haven't tried it on the back of a quilt, I highly recommend giving it a go.  I'll be linking this quilt up as a January finish with A Stitch in Time.

I also decided to join in the It Takes 2 quilt along.  You can check out the link on my sidebar.  Instead of the red and white, I have chosen a chocolate brown and a light aqua.  The first blocks are done and the patterns are now out for the second series. 

There seem to be many Dresden Plate quilt designs showing up on blogs this year.  I am thinking that one may be in my future as I have always loved them.  I may have to use the line of fabric,  Montecito,  from Connecting Threads that I won a few weeks ago from Stephanie's giveaway.    Stephanie always has such an inspiring blog and I love the wonderful, bright colors that she uses.  If you are not familiar with her, please be sure to check her out her blog, Loft Creations.

We are waiting for the arrival of our first storm of the new year.  I doubt that it will give us much rain, but we are hoping for at least some snow in the mountains.  Our winter has been so warm lately that my sweet peas have started to bloom already.  They smell as heavenly as they look.

I think that areas like Portland and Seattle should run a nice pipeline down our way and give us all of their excess.  Wouldn't it be wonderful if there was a way to do that?  Anyway....I am hoping to get into some good sewing projects while I watch the rain come down this weekend.  I hope it is a great weekend for all of you too.