I have been thinking of all of you and keep thinking I should sit down and write a post. However, this week was spent entirely on making custom orders I received over the Thanksgiving weekend. This time of year always means lots of orders for Chemex and French Press cozies. I don’t mind making them but it certainly takes away from any time to quilt or make other fun items. Over the holiday weekend I had eight orders for these sorts of items and I finished up the last two yesterday. That means this weekend I get to work on other projects!
The other project I am currently working on is a Christmas gift and I don’t want to post it just in case the recipient should see the post (though the person is not a regular reader of my always-exciting blog posts!) Anyway, since I don’t have sewing to share, let’s just chat!
A big group but certainly not everyone.
How was Thanksgiving (for my US readers anyway)? Ours was pretty nice. Each year we alternate between what our family calls “Big Thanksgiving” and “Little Thanksgiving”. On the big years, my sisters and their children and grandchildren all come up here to have Thanksgiving at my parent’s house. The alternating years are quiet and each family celebrates at their own house with a smaller group. This year there were 38 people at mom and dad’s house. For us, that is a relatively ‘small’ crowd for Big Thanksgiving. The picture above was taken Friday morning with the people who came for breakfast. My parents are in the front row. Isn’t this a great picture – four generations amongst the people in the picture! I wasn’t there but it looks like it was a fun morning.
Me and my favorite guy.
As luck would have it, I was dealing with lots of migraine activity that weekend so I didn’t participate nearly as much as I would have liked. Ray and I made a second turkey at our house because my mother was nervous one turkey wouldn’t be enough. So we had a quiet afternoon and then met everyone up at Mom’s house for dinner, bringing the second turkey, stuffing and gravy. It was sort of an eat and run thing for us. When all those kids are there, it gets loud and I wasn’t really up for a lot of noise. Food was great and Mom needn’t have worried because there was enough for everyone and tons of leftovers!
Playing Sequence with Ian, Shar and Julia. Do you play that game??
My son and his new wife were at our house for the whole weekend which was so nice.
This guy can bake!
There were lazy mornings, lots of coffee and cinnamon rolls courtesy of my husband! They were so good and it was no time before they were all gone. I love this recipe from Lovely Little Kitchen because you make the rolls, refrigerate overnight and take them out for an hour in the morning before baking. Easy and so yummy.
His happy place.
My husband spent much of the weekend in his shop. He was on a tear, making rolling pins. Last year he made them for our kids and his mom for Christmas gifts. This year he made them because I asked him to! I had a lot of really nice comments on them last year when I posted about them. I thought it would be fun if he made a few pretty ones and we made them available for purchase as holiday gifts! So, he made four and they are stunning.
He collects wood like I stash fabric.
Ray has enough wood to make nine billion rolling pins but who am I to say anything? I could probably make as many quilts with what I have in my sewing room. So let’s just not go there, ok?
Rectangles of oak and walnut laminated and ready for the lathe.
Sort of like strip piecing, Ray glues strips of wood together in various widths and clamps it tight. Once it is dry, he puts it on the lathe and starts carving it. Chips fly and it is noisy but when all that is going on, my husband is one happy guy.
The very beginning, it is just starting to round.
It takes quite a bit of time to shape it, sand it and finish it. But the results are lovely. Take a look.
So smooth and glossy.
They look similar to each other but the subtle differences are there. Each one is solid, no bearings in the handles (meaning the handles don’t turn or swivel).
One of my favorites because of the light and dark contrast.
This one has some maple in it which gives great contrast with the walnut. Each one has a ‘work space’ of about ten inches.
Love the ovals of color on the handles.
Pretty stripes!
So pretty! What do you think?
This morning I am posting these on Instagram for sale. If you are interested, hop over there and grab one. There are just the four. I think they make a lovely and unique homemade gift. Pricing is $75 plus shipping. Feel free to leave any questions in the comments.
Hopefully next week I will have a sewing project or two to share. Well, actually I am to entirely sure – it depends on if I am working on secret gift sewing or other projects. Hope you all have a fantastic weekend. We plan to get our tree and hope to get the lights up outside. This is such a fun time of year.
those rolling pins are gorgeous….i collect them when i can find them. can i purchase #3 if you still have it. thanks. if they are all sold….will he make me one?
Number three is yours! I will invoice you on PayPal. I hope you love it. (And I know you will!)
Oh those rolling pins are wonderful! I am also maried to a lover of hardwoods!!! Now if only he baked cinnamon rolls!!! (Number 2 is my fave, too! )
Thanks Sarah. I guess you will have to do the baking!! This recipe is delicious!
Lovely chat, Bernie! I’ve been riding that migraine train, too. Hope yours has settled down. Man, I can’t even imagine belonging to a family that big! I only have one sibling, and between us we only have 3 kids and 2 grandkids. Folks have passed. Glad this was a big year and you were all able to get together. Those rolling pins are gorgeous! I’m sure they won’t last long!
Dang these migraines. It is incredibly frustrating and annoying but at least I know you are in my corner, you get it. (sorry to say….) Today is pretty good. Yesterday was decent but a niggling headache all day – the one that makes you think, oh no, here it comes. I got lucky though and it didn’t materialize. Hurray for that. 😉
My family is enormous – five sisters, between us we have 21 children. Those children have had 12 babies so far and two are due in 2019. It is truly wonderful. I am blessed.
Take care Karen. Hope today is a reasonable day for you. 🙂
Beautiful rolling pins!
Lovely family. I always enjoy your newsletter.
Thanks for sharing. Looking forward to seeing your secret project!
Merry Christmas Season!
Ah, thank you Katherine. I love writing the posts so it makes me happy to hear you enjoy them. Merry Christmas season to you as well!! Hurray for December.
And I thought I had a large family! We are up to 29 that have come to my house, “Aunt Heidi’s,” for 20+ years. The fact that the family keeps growing and my house stays the same size, my husband and I just couldn’t do it this year. So we had a “little” Thanksgiving this year. I LOVE your idea of Big & Little get togethers. I’ll be talking about it with everyone this Christmas (where we all meet for 3 days before Christmas at a HUGE lodge at Zephyr Point at Lake Tahoe. Thanks Bernie for your fun and informative posts. It was nice to meet your husband and family. Your husband does some beautiful woodwork!
Heidi
Ah, so you know how great a large family is!! My family is enormous – five sisters, between us we have 21 children. Those children have had 12 babies so far and two are due in 2019. It is truly wonderful. I am blessed. It was great to see you this week Heidi! Take care and enjoy the weekend.
I hope that you are able to stay migraine free this weekend and have a lovely relaxing time. Thanksgiving was a quiet affair for us this year and involved homemade cinnamon rolls as well! The rolling pins are beautiful and I am sure they will be quickly snatched up. 🙂
Thanks Yvonne. Today seems to be migraine free – at the moment anyway. Homemade cinnamon rolls. soooo decadent. We are eating lighter this weekend tho – knowing what always happens in December, it seems wise to watch it when we can. Tonight I am making this soup with kale, tomato, canellini (large white) beans and smoked sausage. Yum. I love soups of all kinds. Have a lovely day.
Cinnamon rolls and rolling pins? What a keeper! So glad you had a wonderful, family-filled Thanksgiving.
Hey there Kirsty! Nice to have you pop in here. It was a wonderful weekend. And yes, Ray is definitely a keeper! Hope you get some sewing time today. Your most recent newsletter is in my in-box and I look forward to reading it this morning. 🙂
How lucky you are to have such a big family that can all get together. You may have had migraine issues, but that is a wonderful picture of you and your husband – you guys are very attractive!
My husband and I scrolled through the photos of your husband’s wood and lathe and pins – he doesn’t have a lathe but he sure admires that kind of work. His shop is his happy place also. 😉
Linda, coming across that lathe was a crazy thing. One of Ray’s employees volunteers time as a pick up guy, takes a truck and picks up the remainders of items at estate sales for a thrift store benefitting our local no-kill shelter (long story right?) Anyway – he was picking up a lot of items one day and there was a Shopsmith – which as your husband probably knows is an old-school multi-function tool which includes a lathe. He immediately let Ray know it was available for $100 but needed some work. Ray reworked it and he just loves it! He had wanted a lathe for a long while and this is how he managed to pick one up. Crazy, right? He uses it all the time. Maybe your husband can keep an eye out at estate sales and such. Ray has picked up some really nice tools this way. Have a lovely day Linda!
I’m sorry to hear that migraines impacted your Thanksgiving. It looks like you were still able to enjoy time with your family. And your husband BAKES — AND he makes those gorgeous rolling pins?! You are one lucky lady!
Thank you Rebecca. Migraines impact my daily life all. the. time. ☹️. But gotta keep things in perspective and yes, I am a very lucky lady. He’s a keeper! Hope all is well with you! College apps all completed??
I especially love the pic of you and your hubby!! And his rolling pin are beautiful! How are you liking your long hair???