Cynthia's Creating Ark: November 2020

Monday, November 30, 2020

Virtual Cookie Exchange 2020

Every year I look forward to this Blog hop. The Virtual Cookie Exchange has provide us with many tasty treats to share with our family and friends. A big thank you to Carol from Just Let Me Quilt for hosting us and rounding us up to put on this event.

This is Day 1 so you are in for a treat, just visit everyone to collect their recipes abd your kitchen will smell just as delicious as our own kitchen, It is especially nice at this time of the year to have those wonderful Christmas baking scent floating through the house. Sometimes I wish they would create that scent for the air freshers.

December 1

Creatin' in the Sticks

Doreen – Just Let Me Quilt Guest

Life in the Scrapatch

Ms P Designs USA

Just Sew Quilter

Cathie's Craftworks

Cynthia's Creating Ark - You are Here-

December 2

Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life

December 3

For The Love Of Geese

December 4

Happy Cottage Quilter

Pumpkin Patch Patterns & Quilting

The Darling Dogwood

Kathleen McMusing

Scrapdash

This year I have been treating my family and friends with this recipe. Let's just say we have tested this recipe a number of times leading up to this event.

Ice Box Cookies

Ingredients

1 cup Butter, softened

1 cup Icing Sugar, sifted

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

2 1/2 cups plain flour, sifted

1/2 tsp salt.

Nuts/ chocolate to top cookies (optional)

Method:

In a mixing bowl cream butter and both sugars. Add egg and vanilla and mix together. Add flour and salt and mix together. Split the mixture into half and roll each half in to a log and wrap in cling film. Repeat with the other half.

Chill logs for at least 2 hours but you can make the dough the day before and chill overnight.

Preheat your oven to 170 degrees C (350 degrees F) while you prepare the cookies.

Remove logs from the fridge and slice in to disks ( about 5mm / 1/8") It's is up to you . Just remind if you cut them thicker they will need a little longer in the oven. Arrange on baking trays leaving space around them. They spread a little bit but not too much.

Once they are on the trays you can top each cookie with nuts or chocolate for a bit of Christmas Bling or leave them plain. Bake for 10- 12 minutes or until lightly brown around the edges. Keep an eye on them as I found the 2-3 batches many only need 8- 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool on the trays. Store in an airtight container if they last that long. Makes 30 cookies approx.

They will make great gifts wrapped sipmply in cellophane with a nice ribbon or a nice container. A tin filled with a cookie selection wrapped in a Christmas tea towel, would be a lovely gift idea.

Make sure you visit everyone on the list collect their recipes, don't forget to leave a little love in their comments boxes.

Here is the printer Friendly version

Until Next Time

Keep Baking

Cynthia

350 Block Report - November's Report

We are coming to the end of this year. This month's total is 30 blocks.

What have I been sewing this month. I have made 2 Pscyadelia blocks

5 to my total for putting my Wedding Star Table topper together,

Remaining 12 blocks completed for my Clockworx quilt Then pieced the 7 sashing strips and joining the blocks together with borders for a total of 20.

One block that I turned into a basket. I can see me doing more of these.

This month's total is 28.

This year's total is 418.

Until Next Time

Keep Stitching

Cynthia

Friday, November 27, 2020

One Monthly Goal - November's Project

How did I do this month? It is the big question on the month. I am working on my Wedding Star Tble Topper with the aim to get it to quilt top stage. See my original post here

The plan to get this one together was suppose to be an easy finish and a quick finish. With so much on my plate currently, failure to complete was high on the list. Fortunately I was able to complete this one to quilt top in the the first 10 days of the month.

I even played around with making a single ring as I have papers left to do it. When I get some free time I may make a small table toper to match.

This led me to picking up last month's project that I didn't manage to complete and do some extra work on that one.

Bonus that I got last month project up to borders.

I have linked my post with Elm Street Quilts finishing post, so pop over and check out the wide variety of projects that have been worked on this month. You may want to join us next month.

Until Next Time

Keep Stitching

Cynhia

Monday, November 23, 2020

Under the Pressure Foot 2020- 5

I have been struggling to find good stuff to blog about. There is so much bad stuff happening everywhere, that I am finding myself trying to shut it out.

Looking for inspiration I even went back to my Project Uninterrupted list I shared in January 2020 to see how I was doing with finishing those projects.See my original post here if you are gain. I was surprised how few I had tackled, but I was suprised by the ones I have completed. Only 6 projects completed out of 24. That is a quarter. There were projects I have forgetten about over the course of the year. So I hope by the end of the year, next year list will look a bit different. I still have time to complete more, maybe!

I know there will be a lot of Quiltworx projects in line for quilting and binding to be added to next year's list, as I have been working my way to becoming a Quiltworx certified shop. No doubt there will be more Quiltworx projects next year.

Three of my Quiltworx projects that will need quilting next year.

Even in 2020 when things have been far tougher than they should have been, I have learnt a lot, been outside my comfort zone more time than I would have liked. Felt like colapsing in a heap on more than one occasiion, that doesn't include the times I have felt like throwing myself on the floor and refusing to move like a child or the times I have wished to bang some peoples head together when I have had to settle squabbles.

Who knows what 2021 will bring us but at the moment I will be happy to say I survived 2020 and in 2021 I am a better person for it. Life is always going to be challenging and things will not always go the way we want them to, we just need to embrace it and enjoy the journey down a different path. Who know where we will end up.

This is one of the projects that will not appear on next year's unfinished list. It is currently with Valarie (House of Valarie) being quilted,

Until Next Time

Keep Stitching

Cynthia

Thursday, November 19, 2020

Shutted Down!

Here in South Australia we have been sent in to a 6 day lockdown due to a Covid -19 outbreak. We have been told to stay at home unless you have been deemed an essential worker. This means I have had to close the shop and cancelled this week's classes. Fingers crossed this will be enough to stop the spread. We have been lucky so far, though we lost classes earlier this year for a couple of months I could still open by appointment. Not this time, even my husband is off work, where last time his job was deemed essential.

So we will see what happens. I have received 4 orders just in time, so I will have some orders to fill and new stock to find a home for in the shop. I can asuure you I will not be sitting around. I have 4 Quiltworx projects to tackle at different stages, So sewing will be high on my To Do List.

I have arranged a Project Uninterrupted Zoom session for the Project Uninterrupted group. At least we can get together and sew to help us stay connected.

This is the first project I am working on, my Clockworx project.

This is where I am at, sewing the block parts together.

I nearly got all the blocks together before dinner. Four blocks left to do but I had to stop to cook dinner.

These are all the blocks I have completed. Hopefully after some shop stuff Friday morning I will be back on this project. Though I will miss the Friday girls in the classroom.

Until Next Time

Keep Calm and Keep Stitching

Cynthia

Sunday, November 1, 2020

One Monthly Goal- November's Goal

We are here at the beginning of November. Time to set November goal. Last month was a bust I didn't get close to completing it. I did make progress, if that counts.

So this month I promise to do better. I am going to work on a smaller project. This way if I can get it finished to quilt top stage I will get back to last month's project. I am going to work on my /wedding /star /table /topper. I am at this stage of the project, I think I can make it.

I need to make a couple of melons, then I can do the four patches, cut the corner pieces to square it up and join it all together..

A close uo of the centre. Here goes, let's see if I can do it. I have linked my post with Elm Street Quilts Goal setting post, so pop over and check out what everyone is working on/.

Until Next Time

Keep Stitching

Cynthia