Thanksgiving Weekend Wrap Up

 One last autumn photo before the Christmas onslaught!

Pumpkin Field, photo by Donald Jahadamy

It was a wonderful, crazy, packed and loud Thanksgiving feast.  We ended up feeding a total of 28 at dinnertime, and had an additional 13 people stop by (two more ate!).  It was too cold to eat on the patio so we all crammed into the house.  Thank goodness I took a day off work for clearing out my sewing room.  It was restaged with a table for 7, a seating area, all the dishware on my sewing desks, and the desserts on the pull out table of the Hoosier.  The remaining 21 were at three tables in the living room, including three visitors from Perth, Australia, a family friend and his two teen-aged boys. The boys are are experiencing their first visit to the US--I'm sure Thanksgiving was an experience they'll remember!  There was enough food, even though I later discovered I forgot to open the olive cans and the vegetables served were pretty light as only one bag of french beans got used.   I'm hoping we host a more reasonable 18-20 people next year:)

On Friday my sister Kathy and sister in law Laura invited me to join them for some shopping in the old downtown.  We had a lovely time poking through gift shops and antique malls and thrift stores.  I found a bunch of brand new boxes of Christmas cards for really cheap, which will be great for my husband to hand out to his customers.  Score of the day was a new old piece to add to my beloved Grandma's set of Franciscan Apple dishes that I use every Thanksgiving: 

It was grimy and has a small flaw in one of the sections (black dot), but the hand painting is gorgeous on this three section relish tray.  It is about 12-14 inches long in the middle section.  I also had fun combing through a rack of old postcards, and paid $2 for this Birthday Greeting: 

 The embossed and colored birds and garland, deer and stream were so sweet. 

It looks like this went to Mr. Newton B. Ward in West Lafayette, from Mrs. Nettie Peterson.  The postmark reads March 13, 1908 Millville, NJ, received in W Lafayette on March 14, 1908--only one day to travel that far in 1908!  I love that this dear little greeting has survived for 107 years.  My sister Kathy and I had a very memorable trip to Lafayette in 2006 when we attended a quilting workshop by Ricky Tims that was held at Purdue University.  We never traveled on Russell Street, that I recall, but the street still exists according to Google Maps, and is just west of Purdue.  Such fun to randomly find a connection to a place I've been to.

I spent some of yesterday repacking Grandma's Apple dishes and reassembling the sewing room. Then I did something entirely selfish.  I pinned a quilt for ME! 

This Christmas quilt has been folded on a hanger with the finished backing for over a year.  The blocks came from a long-ago swap when I belonged to an on-line group called Quiltbuddies. 

 

Can't wait to have this hanging on my railing for the season!