Friday, November 9, 2007

Bee Buzz

We had a great time last night at the Whacky Ladies bee meeting! Pretty good turnout, although two members were out of town. Mother-of-the -bride Marilyn brought pictures of her daughter's wedding last Saturday. Also an autumn quilt which someone gave as a gift at the wedding, along with a journal to record wishes for the bride and groom. Each guest was also supposed to tie a knot in the quilt, but that did not work out too well, so Mom will do that for the wedding couple.

Carolyn brought us prints from her Hudson River cruise in October, which she had made into greeting cards. We each got to select a card. Mine is awesome- Tres Monet! I have never personally seen anything like this along the Hudson River.

Janice is already partly prepared for Christmas. She made up calendars with pictures of her two adorable little boys and scrapbook-type layouts. She also had a very cool Christmas wreath quilt for her mom (who is also very cool- an Irish lady who visited our bee once when she was in town.)

Cathie Recca is turning into a fabulous fiber and multi-media artist. She brought us some new books on landscape quilts and embellishments, and also her fabulous Autumn Leaf Challenge. That squirrel is her first-ever attempt at thread painting. We refrained from slapping her!

The leaves are dryer sheets painted with Lumiere and stitched down on top of artificial leaves. What a great idea!

I showed off my assorted gifts from Violette's blogiversary prize- and this is so funny. Remember the "Gratitude" altered CD case? One of the girls actually opened the case last night- and inside was a DVD with lots of Violette's videos, including her TV appearance on Weird Homes! I never even thought to look inside. There are over sixty minutes of videos! Fun!

Speaking of videos, I showed my Slideshow Movie of my recent trip to New York. I love making these. I used Windows Movie Maker, which comes with Windows XP. You can add songs and make the lyrics fit certain pictures by moving the photos around. I used this software to create Dave and Emily's rehearsal dinner show. My daughter-in-law Miranda showed me how to use this software. It is a lot more entertaining to look at photos with a music soundtrack!

Then Carolyn showed us a DVD she had purchased on how to do applique. Our resident Applique Queen, Jean Houghtby, was vacationing in Florida, but we all had comments about the techniques in this video. The results were perfection, but the preparation looked like torture to me. I don't like to have to work with so much precision and so many pre-sewing steps.

Finally- what you have been waiting for. The Food! I decided to make "That Pumpkin Stuff That Dorothy Makes" from The Sweet Potato Queens Big-Ass Cookbook. Nobody gnawed their neighbor's arm off to get to it, but it was a fine fattening dessert. You can feel your arteries clogging just reading the ingredients. I also made Armadillo Dip, which actually uses ground beef, not armadillo meat, which is a good thing since it is difficult to find armadillos around here. This was very spicy and salty and definitely would go well with frozen margaritas. By the way, I have an excellent recipe for these which made me world famous at all the public schools in which I taught. (At teacher get-togethers, not actually in school.) I will share that one in a future post if my adoring public demands.

Charlie has just left for the mountain cabin Without Me. It is time for serious deer hunting, and is getting frigidly cold up there. Time for me to quit painting bathrooms and get back to some serious quilting.

6 comments:

Flassie's Fil'a said...

Amazing Quilter! You have a lot of Talent! Finding the Violette's CD would be a lovely added surprize!
You might want to edit your post at
Violettes. You need to take out the r in blogsport and make it blogspot for people to be able to come here. The link doesn't work otherwise. I just took out the r and was able to come to your site.

Have a Blessed Month!

violette said...

That's too funny! I wondered why you didn't mention the DVD at all.........and then i began to wonder if in my infinite menopausal wisdom i had forgotten to insert it! Ha!
Actually i received a fun CD case from a friend of our recent Saltspring trip.....there was supposed to be a DVD in it of the photos put to music. I wrote to me friend and said "thanks for the nice cd case. Was it supposed to be empty?" She said it wasn't...she simply forgot! Ha!

Your group sounds like such fun!
Love, Violette

Michelle said...

world famous frozen margaritas??? Oh, do tell! I could really use one of those right now. Hmmm...might have to go make myself a Mojito. Cheers!

Cathie said...

We did indeed have a delightful evening, and thank you Jeanne for your wonderful hospitality. However, after sampling the calorie dense goodness of the "pumpkin stuff" first hand, I am now left to ponder if Sweet Potato meant to title her book, Sweet Potato Queen's "Big Ass Cook Book" or, "Big Ass" Cook Book! Hmmmmmm.

Jeanne Turner McBrayer said...

Thank you Flassie Fil'a, I caught your comment on Violette's message board and edited the URL. Thanks for the compliment and for looking at my blog.

Ah, Violette, the joys of menopause. I have also reached that milestone. Can it be a scapegoat for our Duh-huh moments? I seem to be having a lot of those lately! (Anyone seen my cell phone?)

Michelle, I don't know what a Mojito is, but I do have lots of leftover Armadillo dip that could go well with a frozen Margarita tonight. Perhaps we should exchange recipes!

Cathie, maybe we will rethink our refreshments for our bee meetings if we don't have to drive all over the county at night. Maybe a sleepover quilting retreat?

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