Come One, Come All

 

Happy Thanksgiving! Here's hoping that you're happy, well-fed, warm, and well today. Here's an illustration of how I'm getting to my family's celebration. And if you need some reading today, Atlas Obscura has seven Thanksgiving stories that are pretty entertaining.

I always love looking at historical illustrations of the various holidays we celebrate, this one from famous political cartoonist, Thomas Nast for Harper's Weekly in 1869. It shows what would be a very lively Thanksgiving dinner table. The words "Come One, Come All" and "Free and Equal" are written in the corners. And right in the center of the table is "Universal Suffrage" And "Self Governance". Sounds like a darned good feast to me.

Thankful Day

 

Today's the day for us to think about what we have to be thankful for in the midst of Thanksgiving celebrations and all the hustle and bustle that it entails. I'm thankful for everything that's been growing and is now ready to harvest and enjoy.

I'm thankful for the ingenuity of our fellow humans to make bridges and freeways and cars so that we can easily get from here to there and back home again, even in a big wind and rainstorm. And for all the people who work in our various government agencies that regulate all of those enterprises so that our travels are as safe as possible. 

I'm thankful for clever people who come up with new ways to make us laugh in unexpected places, especially when we really need that laugh.

I'm thankful for artists and musicians who continue to thrive and prove that they can still make magic even into their late 70's (the bassist on the right is 78! The other guys are all in their sixties)

I'm thankful for the people who get things done even when it's raining or more than a hundred degrees when I can't really function and help out much. In this picture that would be DH and his big front yard project, ongoing, but nearing completion.

I'm thankful to have the privilege of still being in the place where I had the foresight to have planted a tree years ago and then for the joy it brings us when it finally comes into its own and wows us every fall.

I'm thankful for the bluest blue open sunny skies above, and snakes guarding our oldest dashboards.

I'm thankful the trees have finally turned and the tunnel of green has become the tunnel of yellow and to have the luck and privilege to get to live in such a beautiful forest.

I'm thankful for you reading and I hope you have a great Thanksgiving or a terrific Thursday.

Thanksgiving Report

 

The Thanksgiving Table before picture. We pulled out the extra leaf to make it longer, polished it up, got out the decorations and china.

I spent so much time ironing the napkins and table cloth. Regretting the choice of 100% cotton the whole time but still loving how it tuns out on the table. Next time I'm putting it in the dryer on the steam setting first. 

DS and Korben greeting my parents as they arrived. They hadn't been over since before Covid so it was a big deal.

Here's the three of us, picture credit to mom. My mom gave us these Thanksgiving aprons from a charity that she reports, one a year until we had three. She was pretty thrilled that we were wearing them. The blue thing on the wall is a NanoLeaf which responds to noise/music/etc.

This was the one and only food picture I took unfortunately, but that turkey was awesome. Diestel Farms never fails us.

My SIL's family joined us too and brought their dog, Ginger along. She had a good time running around with Meg chasing the cats. 

The End

Hope your day was great too!

Thankful So Thankful

 

Full of thankfulness today. And soon we will be full of turkey and all the trimmings too of course. 

I'm thankful for so many things, and I was going to do a big long list, but instead I'm going to say:

 I'm Thankful For All Of It

The good, the bad, and the ugly. The sublime, the heartbreak and all the in-between.

Hope that you have a good day whether celebrating Thanksgiving or not. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Happiest of Thanksgiving Days to you if you celebrate. Otherwise, I hope you have a very happy Thursday!

We are having a hybrid all over the place Thanksgiving at local relative's houses on different days. Today we head to my SIL's, she's doing the turkey, we're bringing the sides and my daughter is bringing pie and cocktails. It's going to be great to all get together.

Our sides that we've just finished making are Whiskey Drunk Sweet Potatoes, Artichoke Parmesan Sourdough Stuffing, and Cranberry Wine Orange Spice Sauce.

Then on Saturday, we'll make all the same sides, as well as a turkey and bring it over to my parent's house to celebrate. And in between, on Friday it's my DH's birthday. So, a lot of to-ing and fro-ing for all the very best reasons. There is so much to be thankful this year, and I am counting all those blessings.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thankful Post

 Looking back at November, there's a whole lot that I'm thankful for.

 Spike absolutely loves the new dog bed. As our resident cat-dog, his word is respected by the dog-cat who could have cared less about it.

 Some early winter figs still ripening on my tree.

 Downtown Santa Cruz, at the MAH for Radical Craft Night working the FabMo table. Super fun, and absolutely mobbed.

 Rainy windshield + Neon

 My turkey turned out pretty damn great this year.

 We finally carved our pumpkins, just in time for my husband's late November birthday. A new tradition is born??

 The reason I insisted on at least cutting into the pumpkins, (which I am no longer authorized to do given past events, sigh.) Roasted pumpkin seeds. We made about 6 cups of these, which lasted a few days. nom nom nom.

Our Japanese Maple finally began turning color.

What a difference a week makes!

 The angel's trumpet is still growing and blooming, no hard frost yet. It's almost visible from the second story window.

Harvested my first (and only ever) pomegranate!

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!
I am thankful that we have other ways to get to our Turkey-Day festivities these days.

If you appreciate Salvador Dali, go check out the Surrealist Thanksgiving, with recipes from his cookbook (which is now on my list of cookbooks I might just need at some point.)

All of a sudden it's time for Thanksgiving!  Can you believe it?  Are you ready?

And all of a sudden we're hosting the family, and some friends, all together 14 people if everyone comes.  Which is awesome, and I can't even express how much I'm looking forward to it, but it is going to take some doing to pull off.  Good thing my son Zach is coming home from college for the first time on Wednesday, (yay!), another set of hands that like cooking will be helpful.  

I've dug out my recipes, made my list, now to steel myself for a trip to the store tomorrow.

Here's some of what I'm making, I recommend  all these recipes, I've used them before in case you're looking for something yummy to try this year:

Artichoke Parmesan Sourdough Stuffing

Cranberry Orange Port Compote

Green Beans With Almonds and Shallots

One new thing I'm trying is Thanksgiving Star Cider, I have a feeling I'll be needing it...

We're also having plumbing issues (of course), and I have a big hole in the kitchen ceiling, lovely, so very very appetizing. 

 Hopefully this will go off better than the first time we ever hosted Thanksgiving when our stove element decided to go out in the middle of cooking the turkey.  Yes, we finished the whole thing by turning the broiler on and off every ten minutes for hours.  It actually turned out pretty well considering.  

In case you're looking for music for the holiday, you gotta check out the NPR All Songs Considered

  Songs for Stuffing Thanksgiving Mix.  It's awesome, and includes Alice's Restaurant naturally...

Hope if you're celebrating Thanksgiving this week it is filled with peace, joy and fabulous food.

Thanks Letters

Here are some closeups of the letters from the Thankful Banner from yesterday.

A Banner Of Thanks

 After a year of looking at a stack of large triangles I cut out last year (right before I had hand surgery) for this banner, it was time to actually make the Thankful Banner. 
The size of the triangles I cut out was 10.25" at the base and 13.75" tall.
Since this is to be a double-sided banner, I cut out the number of triangles I needed to spell out GIVE THANKS twice, including one for the space inbetween the two words, which worked out to 22.
Each triangle was cut from a different fall fabric, leaves, greens, browns, corn, trees, pumpkins, etc. 
I had to choose some fabrics to use for the letters.  I decided to go with oranges and yellows so they would show up against the fall colors

 I chose a font that I really liked  the look of (Lucida Handwriting) and printed the letters out in a huge size (350pt).  About two letter per page printed out.  I wanted lots of room around the letter on each triangle.  For this type of project you want a fairly simple letter shape that isn't going to kill you cutting it out and sewing it down. 

 Whoops, I should have printed them out reversed since I was doing the fusible tracing thing. 

 So instead of wasting paper,  I quickly traced around the back of each letter in sharpie pen, so that I could then do the next step.  Learn from my mistake if you do this *print in reverse*.

Traced the (now backwards) letters onto fusible web (Steam a Seam 2). 

 Rough cut out the fusible letters, then fused them to the back of the letter fabrics. 

 Cut alllll those letters out of the now-fused fabric.

Next step was to fuse the letters down onto each triangle.  I decided I wanted them to be in roughly the same spot on each triangle so some measuring was required. Take into account seam allowances and the top inch which will be folding over the ribbon or cord.  Also be sure that the letter fabric shows up well enough from your background fabric. I had a few that I had to switch around to make it work well.

I used a tearaway iron-on stabilizer (Tearaway Magic) which I ironed to the back of each triangle covering the area where the letter was to be sewn down.

Stitched in a zig-zag around each letter.  I was going to do a satin stitch but decided I liked how this looked, and the banner won't be something that I'm washing all the time, so the edges should hold up pretty well.

Here's how the back of the triangle looks after I've sewn down the letter S.

After all the letters were sewn down I matched each triangle up with their mates.  This part can be tricky if you want your banner to be spelled correctly on both sides. So check your work several times. 

Sew the two triangles together right sides together starting about an inch down from the top edge. 

Cut the tips seam allowances down like the picture above.  

Turn the piece right-side out, use a chopstick to poke out the pointy tip and smooth out the seams, press. 

Press in the seam allowance on the remaining 1" up the top edge. 

Fold in about 1/2" and press the two top edges,  to make a casing.

Sew across the top edge and also about 1" down from the top edge.

Do a final press, string onto cord or ribbon. And There it is! Done and hanging in our house!

Too many banners? Yep, adding one to the usual two that are hung in our house did muddy the waters a bit.  Maybe next year I'll just have one up there at a time.