Books I Read in January

 Last year I met my reading goal of 110 books. So of course, this year I decided to up the number to 120!  Once an overachiever, always an overachiever 😛

I'm able to reach a goal like this because I read everyday, especially before I go to bed and I also love to listen to audiobooks.  Everytime I drive my car, I'm listening to a book.  So much so that I didn't know how to pull up the radio station my husband wanted to listen to!

I really got into listening to audiobooks when I was driving back and forth to my Dad's house in North Carolina.  It was a 3 hour drive each way and I found that the time went a lot faster when I was listening to a good book.  My public library has Hoopla and Cloud Library, so there is always a great selection of books to download.

I like to read a variety of genres but have an affinity for historical fiction; especially around World War II.  I am not a huge fan of fantasy but will dabble with books that I would describe as "realistic fantasy". I don't know if that is a real label, but it makes sense in my mind!!

The ironic thing is that the book I gave 5 stars in January was fantasy based.  

This book was like a warm hug that you just didn't want to end.  This is the first book that I read by this author.  I have already added her other books to my TBR list.

None of the books I read in January were duds, which is great because I have a really hard time DNFing a book.  Most of these books were recommendations of readers I follow on social media.

I am currently reading Buckeye by Patrick Ryan - it's a thick one!  Toodles until next time.....

Snowy Quilt Photo Shoot

 

So what do you do when you're bored, just finished a quilt and tired of being stuck inside?  You put on your hubby's snow gear, brave the elements and do a quick quilt photo shoot.

My sweet hubby set up this clothesline for me in trees in our backyard when we first moved here.  It's a great spot to take photos of my finished projects - you can't beat natural light for these photos.

Several quilters that I follow online live in colder climates and take the most beautiful photos of their finished projects outside in the snow.  I live in South Carolina, so I really didn't think this would be something I might get the opportunity to copy.  Welp, Mother Nature said "Hold my beer" and voila, we have a snowy backdrop!

 

I made this quilt for a dear friend from her father's work shirts.  While it was time consuming to cut up all of the shirts, I am very pleased with how this turned out.  I used a pineapple foundation paper piecing pattern.  This is the biggest project where I have used FPP, I will admit there was quite a bit of "colorful language" and seam ripping for the first few blocks and then the process clicked for me.

Pulling out all the paper backgrounds was rather theraputic and a great excuse to watch some trashy TV on my IPad while I worked!

I went with a simple stipple design for the quilting.  I wanted to compliment the paper piecing design but not overwhelm it with anything too complicated.  I'm also a big fan of the binding on this quilt.  I used extra strips to make a scrappy binding.

My sweet hubby thought it would be funny to record my attempts to get the quilt hung ready for the photo shoot.  I'm just including a couple of still shots because the videos have quite a bit of "colorful languge" in them.  Of course, he thought this would be hilarious to send to our family group text.   I'm so glad that I was able to make everyone have a good giggle!

What are you getting up to in the snow?

Stay warm and toodle until next time.....

 

Mum's Table Runner

I made the quilt pictured below for my Mum's 70th birthday, however, she didn't receive it until her 73rd birthday.  I was a bit of a procrastinator at the time!  She asked about it a couple of times and then the next time she asked me "Am I going to be buried in it?"  Oh yes, Joan was the queen of some not so suble Mummy guilt.  It had the desired effect and that got my butt in gear to get it finished!  Blue and yellow was her favorite color combination, with this in mind,  I bought a majority of this fabric on a trip to Alaska.  
 

After my Mum passed away, my Dad hung this quilt on the balcony in their living room.  This is a location I used to take a lot of photos of quilts I have made.  It was a lovely tribute to her and when my Daddy passed away, I added the quilt that I had made for him.  

Fast forward 18 months and I have been doing some serious inventory of my fabric and craft space in general.  I opened up a container of fabric that I had not gone through in a l-o-n-g time.  It was a lovely surprise when I discovered that I had some extra squares that I had saved from making her quilt.

Not only did I have those squares, I still had some of the green fabric that used for each of the squares and the quilt sashing!  A great way to justify holding onto fabric for as long as I do 😊. I also pulled this periwinkle blue fabric that I bought at Liberty of London.  I was originally thinking I would use it for the binding but changed my mind once I had the squares put together.

The finished product looks great sitting on my table.  In the background you see my hutch that holds my Delft Blue china collection.  My love for these pieces came from both of my parents.

I hand quilted the piece which is what I also did with my Mum's quilt.  A piece this small doesn't take very long and I love the texture that it gives the fabric.

I'm very happy with this and I'm so glad that I had held onto those squares.  It's a lovely, yet practical reminder of my Mum.

Toodles until next time....

Happy New Year! I'm back!

I know, I disappeared last month!  I felt like I was floating in tea!  I reached my threshold when it came to trying all these new flavors of tea, along with drinking my regular ones.  I said no more on the 20th when both teas were absolutely horrible - l mean, I literally spat both of them out!

I really don't know what I was thinking doing two advent calendars at the same time - I'm too much of an overachiever at times....

However, the rest of the holiday season was much better.  Even though we live in South Carolina, we are very close to both North Carolina and Georgia.  Helen, Georgia is a little over an hour from us and made for a very fun day trip.

We got there early afternoon, so we could see it in daylight, but also be there to see all the lights once it got dark.  One of the first things I noticed were the "love locks".  These reminded me of the ones we saw on the huge bridge in Cologne, Germany.

How cute is this gnome?

Tom was a big fan of all the Sasquatch items around town.  The large tree in the center of town was beautifully decorated.

The horse had a red nose and there was the cutest little dog that rode up front with the driver.  Oh yes, we went in this store and didn't leave empty handed!

The town had quite a bit of charm once the sun went down and the lights came on.  We can check this off our list but I don't think we'll be going back anytime soon.  It was cute but a little on the tacky side of the spectrum.  Most of the gift shops sold the same items and I don't need anymore t-shirts!  I did get a very sweet ornament for our travel Christmas tree and also found a Sasquatch ornament that was Tom approved.

Now that I had had a break from all that tea tasting it was time for....

This truly lovely event is put together by the Oconee Farm Collective, which is a wonderful organization that shows all that our county has to offer.  I had bought the tickets to this event several months ago when I first saw it advertised.  I thought it would be a fun thing for us to do and also support local businesses.

The event was hosted at Misty Valley Farm which was a short drive from our house.  The venue was beautifully decorated for the season. 

The food was provided by several local bakeries and businesses.  Everything was delicious and they served Earl Grey which is one of my favorite teas.  Look at those teapot shaped sugar cubes - such attention to detail.  This farm is also home to a very talented artist and we got to see her studio and gallery.

Such a picture perfect and peaceful location.  One of the many jewels we have found where we live.  The swinging gnome just cracked me up.

Happy New Year and Toodles Until Next Time....

 

Day 16 - Another Breakfast of Champions

So this time last year we went from England to The Netherlands on the train through the Chunnel and it was time to move onto my next breakfast of champions - Hagelslag!  Heck, I could eat this for breakfast, lunch and dinner!  I remember eating this every single time we went to visit my Dad's family in Holland.

I literally squealed when we went to breakfast at the hotel in Amsterdam and I saw the little boxes of chocolate flakes.  In my opinion, the flakes are far superior to the chocolate sprinkles.

I thought the little boxes were so cute, that I saved one of them to bring home.  I decided to turn it into an ornament for our travel tree.  My daughter and I will be going back to Holland this spring, and I can guarantee I'll be eating this every morning for breakfast and bringing home as many boxes as I can fit in my suitcase.

A good cup of tea pairs beautifully with this breakfast.

My first tea today was the Chocolate Caramel Black Tea.  I had high expectations for this one after how yummy the chocolate one was.  Welp, they should stick to one flavor at a time because this one was meh at best.  You really couldn't taste the chocolate or the caramel.

I give it a rating of:

My second tea of the day was Winterapeel, which translates to Winter Apple.  This is a winter seasonal tea with apple, cinammon and hibiscus has made another appearance.  This was a cozy flavored tea with a subtle taste.  It was nice but nothing to write home about.  I give this tea a rating of:

Toodles until tomorrow....

 

Brrrrr...Day 15 was perfect tea weather

A very chilly start this morning!  My friend and I normally walk first thing in the morning but not today - it was 18 degrees when I woke up this morning.  I decided that today would be a great day to hibernate and bake cookies.  A poundcake and 5 dozen gingerbread moose cookies later, I would say that plan was a success.

A perfect time for a good cup of tea.  I started the day with the Earl Grey Honey Black tea.  I'm a big fan of Earl Grey tea - I always thought this was a very bougee tea when I was a little girl.  To me, this was the kind of tea you had when you went to Harrods or Fortnum & Mason for afternoon tea.

This tea was delicious and I googled to see where I could buy this flavor of tea.  I give this tea a rating of:

After all my baking was finished, I tried the Lavender & Verbenen Tee.  This translates to Lavendar and Verbena tea.  This was a very floral tea with a light and refreshing taste.  I liked it but I wouldn't say I was blown away by the taste.  I give it a rating of:

Toodles until tomorrow....

 

Day 14 - this time last year

This time last year we were in England and my sweet hubby got to experience his very first Reading Football Club game.  My brother has been a life long fan and even pays to stream the games over here.  It was a great experience and brought back a lot of childhood memories for me.

In my hallway, I have a travel Christmas tree.  I love to buy ornaments when we travel and thought it would be good idea to put them all on one tree.  Once I got back from this trip, I realized that I hadn't bought a club ornament.  No to worry, I came up with another idea.

Do you recognize the scarf on the tree? - made a great and interesting ornament!

Now onto to today's teas.  Well I can now say that I'm becoming quite a fan of hot green tea.  Today's flavor was mulled apple.  It had a strong and tart apple flavor that really hit the spot this morning!

I give this tea a rating of:

My afternoon pick me up tea was the Chai Tee Schoko from my German advent calendar.  This translates to chocolate chai tea.  Yes please!  While I'm a HUGE lover of both tea and chocolate, putting those two flavors together doesn't always work.  I've tried some teas that were just plain nasty 😑. They got the combination just right with this tea - the chocolate flavor was spot on and the chai flavoring just made it even better.  I would definitely buy this tea if it was available.  I give it a rating of:

 

Day 13- counting down the days in style

It's lucky day 13!  I've never quite understood the whole legend about the number 13 being an unlucky number.  The 5th grade math teacher in me thinks of it as odd and prime!  The house I grew up in England was #13 and I never thought anything of it.  Talking of houses, I wanted to show you the advent calendar that I am using to hold all of my extra teabags.  The Aldi tea advent calendar actually comes with two teabags of the same flavor each day.

I feel in love with this advent calendar when I saw it in a quilt store in Koblenz, Germany.  Sadly, they were sold out of this design.  However, my crafty friends know that does not stop us from finding fabric when we have fallen in love with it!  Google image search and a third party seller to the rescue.

This calendar was fairly easy to put together. ironing all the fabric to put on top of the windows to make the pockets was probably the most time consuming part of the process.  I'm very pleased with how it turned out.  It's made by a German fabric company called Acutactum.  Their fabric is just gorgeous!

Now to today's teas.  I started the day with the Chocolate Covered Strawberry Roobios Red Tea.  I had liked the Roobios tea I had a couple of days ago but I am not a huge fan of strawberries - I know, I know another thing that picky eater Jakki doesn't like.  Actually, they and a lot of other fruit don't like me!  I have an "adverse reaction" and I am straight up allergic to most citric fruit.  Anywho, the show must go on.  I figured at this price point, it was artificial strawberry flavoring, so I would be fine.  I was and the tea wasn't bad, just not something I would be looking for to purchase again.  I give it a rating of:

My afternoon tea was Gruner tea.  This literally translate to green tea.  Yet again, something that I have not been a big fan of in the past.  Now I like it!  This blend also had some mint in it, which made it even tastier.  I nice refreshing pick me up and caffience free to boot!

I give this tea a rating of:

Tea you tomorrow!