Retreat Quilt and Weekly Ramblings

Whew!  I have been busy!  Since we got back to school from Thanksgiving we have been cooking up a storm at school and living through a couple of ice storms that have blown through here.  That first week back to school, we cooked for the restaurant and for our open house.  It's a good thing I had a premonition that we wouldn't have school on that Friday and made everyone work really hard and try to get the majority of the items made early.  Well, as it turned out, the ice came in early and I only had one class on Thursday.  The district deemed it not safe for the kids to travel to our building and kept them all on campus the rest of the day.  That meant I had to have restaurant for those that chose to get out and drive in the icy cold all by myself.  My principal said they would come and help me (when she told me I wasn't getting any more kids) but we sent her home early since she lives in Midland so I didn't have any extra helpers.  I ended up serving  it home style where everyone had to come into the kitchen and serve themselves.  Home style worked since everyone that came were mostly friends and "family".   There were a few with reservations that did not show up, a few teachers that had reservations that we sent home early, since they don't live in Odessa and the roads were getting bad and a lot of extra people/teachers that didn't sign up, but didn't want to leave the building for lunch and wanted food.  We had only made enough to serve about 28 since I knew it was a last minute restaurant and I was late in letting anyone know we were even having a restaurant that week.  However, everything went wonderfully and a good friend even helped me wash some of the dishes before she left.   So, it went very well.   I got to go home early (only about an hour earlier than normal) and we didn't have school on Friday - ice, ice and more ice. 

On Monday, we had to scratch a couple of things off the menu for open house due to time constraints and added an easy item that my first year students could easily make.  Then Tuesday was open house, we call it Merry Mingle.  We had lots of great food, drinks and wonderful decorations and even though I took my camera, had my tablet and my phone all there, I didn't get one picture!  I usually take at least one and sometimes have my students walk through and take some just to get their perspective. Unfortunately I didn't do any of that this year.  We had a great turnout.  Lots of our usual  people came by and mingled with us and we had a lot of new people.  Fun was had by all.  It's hard work, but a lot of fun.   We had a bit of leftovers so the kids were really happy and they dug in on Wednesday (after cleaning up a bit).  Thursday we set up for a surprise birthday party for our director.  My kids hung decorations, set up tables, decorated tables and made the punch for the party.  They didn't get to participate, but we did have punch leftover so they were happy.  Now, this next week they have to get down to business and prepare for the final (either on Thursday or Friday)  It has been a fast and furious first semester and we are already having requests for caterings for next semester!!  So, that is looking like it will be another full semester, also.  Which is good.  It keeps everyone on their toes and makes it more fun. 

So, needless to say, I have been really tired when I get home from school, so not much sewing has been going on.  Last night I did put two labels on some quilts and did the binding on a miniature.  That feels good to get those finished.  Now I need to make the binding for about 5 quilts and put them on.  Then labels, and then deliver - finally - to the people that the quilts were made for to begin with.  I need to get moving on that, but yet here I sit typing on the computer.  LOL  I did finish one quilt top that I don't think I posted so I will post that now.  thanks to my students that held it up so I could get a good picture. 

 



This is the quilt top I worked on over the Thanksgiving holidays and is the example for the retreat quilt I will be teaching in February at our retreat.  It is a simple pattern called Disappearing 4 patch and comes courtesy of Jenny Doan of the Missouri Star Quilt Company.  My mother had seen this pattern in a magazine and suggested it.  I had seen it on-line in a Youtube video from the Missouri Star and since I didn't have any other ideas and it is really simple so my newbies can do it AND since it can be done with charm packs (newbies don't have stashes) I decided that this would be the project.  I made mine a little different from the magazine/video.  I only had a bit of fabric that I was going to use for the background, so what I really needed to do was determine how many 5" squares I could get out of it and leave enough for a float border.  I decided to make 25 blocks (I could get 50 squares from the background fabric) so, I pulled 50 squares of prints from my box of pre-cut 5" squares.  It really comes in handy to have squares and strips already pre-cut when you are making scrappy quilts.  I think I have spoken before about my boxes I have put together full of my own stash pre-cuts.  After putting together my blocks and a float border I decided it need a really wide border (8 1/2") for some fun. Turns out, mine is 60" square while the original is only 52" X 60" with only a float border.  Hmmm. Not bad and I really like the red border.  I ordered some charm packs to make the original and will make up a few blocks from them and leave a few in progress so I can use them in the demonstration while teaching this quilt, but I really think I will order some yardage of that print fabric so I can put a border on it if I want.  Or I could order another set of charm packs (print/background) and make it much larger.  Hmmm.  Something to think about. 

I guess I should get going on something and quit typing around and playing games on here.  I plan on trying out a new recipe and need to make my cookies for our cookie exchange on Tuesday (might put it off and make them Monday night), but in order to do all of that I have to go to the grocery store.  I missed my usual time of 8:00 this morning.  I was up, but I was too busy snuggling with my dogs.    I don't really like to go when it is so busy, even though I see my friends there, so I am not sure if I will get out now and go.  However, this cake recipe (crème of coconut cake) that I got off the internet is calling my name.  I like to zoom in, zoom around the store and zoom out.  Not have to dodge carts that are being driven by children who don't have their cart licenses yet, by people that are texting and driving and by bored husbands that don't pay attention to where they are or think that we are all playing bumper carts.  Ugh I may have just talked myself into waiting until the morning to go shopping.  I think I will have some lunch and think about whether or not I want to bundle up and head out or take a nap and snuggle some more with my dogs. 

School Restaurant

Our restaurant at school has had a face lift.  Before our Thanksgiving buffet, the outside was painted, the old "awning" was painted and lights were attached and the pieces were hung on the wall.  Before Christmas, the sign back piece was cut out by our wood working class and painted pink and hung on the wall by our maintenance man.  Since we have been back from Christmas break, our Graphics Arts class assistant has printed, cut out and hung our logo - that she designed for me and the maintenance man has painted the door frame to finish off our look.  I sent a couple of my students to take a picture for a new recruiting poster and thought you all might like to see what it looks like now. 

You can see inside the blank wall that is just calling out for a painting or two or three.  I really need to work on that part of the restaurant, but am okay for now with the blank wall.  I haven't found the perfect pieces of art and had planned on painting something this summer, but never got around to it since I was such a big bum.   (I am not an artist, but may can do something abstract) I thought about having a couple of my students do something, but wasn't too impressed with their artwork when we were trying to decide how to paint the outside wall.  (the plan was to go with an orange brick color with some blues and greens swirling through, but that got shut down fast - not by me - I liked it).  Below is a close-up of the signage.  This is copyrighted so no stealing of the pictures or design!!!

The reason the frame is wavy like this is because inside the restaurant, there are two frames this same size and two skinnier ones that are vertically on the wall.  They are also this color pink and right now have a turquoise paper in the middle.  Someday soon I will find some cork to put in the middle turning them into a bulletin board.  I want the dark brown cork from the 70's but may have to get just generic cork and paint it dark brown.  I haven't done it yet because I really want that chunky dark brown cork.  Below is a picture of what the board looked like at Christmas covered with wrapping paper.  To the right are the three shelves with knick-knacks I picked out to decorate the shelves.  It's always fun to see the random things on the shelves from a wire pig to a green birdhouse to some over sized jacks.  You can also see a green stool on the table.  I have three of them, a dark green, a light green and a red, that I bought at Hobby Lobby a couple of years ago to help give some height when we do buffets.  They have really come in handy.  I even used them when we served at Merry Market.  (They were on clearance and were called garden stools.)  

The picture below is of the two skinny wall boards.  We were just putting out some of the food when this picture was taken.  Our fashion design teacher comes in and decorates the tables for us.  We have a different color theme each year - last year was peppermint or red and white.  This year was more nature inspired.  The Christmas trees (large and small) are mine, I just bring them and she puts them where she wants them and decorates them.  Unfortunately the big tree is not a lit one and we really didn't have the time to put lights on it (see the picture above) but since we weren't going to turn out the overhead lights, we really didn't worry about it, much.  (Also, nobody even mentioned the fact it didn't have lights - guess the table had enough lights)



Some of the food is out in the picture below and everyone is eating and visiting, listening to some Christmas music and having a Merry Mingle time!!  (The guy in the kilt is a teacher at NTO and his students were doing a project over Scotland so he and a couple of his students wore their kilts that day.)

Fun was had by all and it was all down and put away before we left for the day.  It sure comes down a lot faster than it goes up!  Our wooden dining table was out where the sign is now, covered with ornaments made by our fashion design classes and chocolate covered spoons made by our Lifetime Nutrition classes.  These were party favors for our guests to take home and enjoy.

I told our fashion design teacher that I had a little lime green tree and a larger pink tree if she wanted to use it next year - we will see.  LOL  (since then I have also picked up small turquoise, purple and silver trees!! can't wait to decorate next year)