Hello and let me just wish you and yours a wonderful Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year! Welcome to my favourite blog hop of the year. This year it is being hosted by Carol from Just Let Me Quilt. 🤶🏻🎄🎅🏻
I was so excited when Joan, from Moosestash Quilting and Carol, from Just Let Me Quilt announced they were going to host hops in October and December. I just knew I had to jump in. I’ve missed seeing everyone and sharing our themed projects. So thank you Carol, Joan and all of the amazing creative souls that joined the Hop for our entertainment and inspiration.
I do have to share a photo of my winter wonderland “backyard”. We finally have the first snowfall of the year and I was outside yesterday listening to some children laughing as they were sledding down the hills on our golf course.
I will share with you a favourite recipe from years gone by. When my kids were young, we had a tradition of hosting an open house on Boxing Day for friends and family to stop by for a visit. I’d always enjoy starting my Christmas baking in October, freezing the goodies until we had company, or were having a game or movie night with the kids. More often than not, I would have to make shortbread several times because my children loved to eat it when frozen! They said it melted better in their mouths! 😋
I always enjoyed our open house and would set out platters of fruit, veggies, cheese, cold cuts, crackers, breads, and have several dips to enjoy I won’t be making my dishes until Friday so I’ve borrowed on line photos. Often I make several dips; spinach and artichoke, layered dips, onion dip and one of my favourites:
I no longer host an open house or have lots of decorations because my DH does not enjoy celebrating the holidays. That’s right, he’s a Grinch! Instead I make my favourite recipes when I need to take items for our Guild Potlucks. This year I was asked to make both a savoury and a sweet so I’m also sharing my DH’s favourite:
For several years I’ve been taking part in this hop and have shared that the focus of my projects has been the things I make to donate to the Christmas Party, hosted by the group that does our local Food Bank. They had an amazing idea to make Christmas special! When they have their Christmas dinner, they have a back room set up with all of the donated Handcrafted items by members of our community (knitted hats, mitts, scarves, quilts, bags, woven baskets, jewelry and anything else you can think of). The kids can go in the back room, pick out gifts for Mom and/or Dad. Then staff helps them wrap it so their special person(s) can have a gift to open. Here’s a look at past projects:
This year has been crazy for me so I’ll just say I wasn’t able to do as much as I’d wished for the party.
I had several pieces of flannel left over from other projects that I wanted to use up. I started with cutting 12 1/2” squares of the flannels, keeping them in pairs.
Those pieces were then sandwiched with 12” squares of batting.
Can you guess where this is going?
I had fun figuring out a layout with the number of blocks I was able to put together. Then I sewed the blocks from corner to corner using my walking foot. Next was laying it out on my bed so I wouldn’t make a mistake when stitching the blocks together with a 3/4” seam.
Once it was sewn together I spent an enjoyable evening with my DH. He actually turned the tv to a Christmas movie (he’s a Grinch and doesn’t like anything to do with Christmas normally). I sat with my lap filled with a cozy flannel quilt and snipped seams.
Here’s my finished raggy quilt, after putting it in the dryer to fluff the edges and remove some threads; ready to go to the Christmas party to hopefully make a special person feel a quilty hug when they use it:
Check out the lineup for the Virtual Christmas Cookie Exchange Blog Hop. I’m sure you’ll find a recipe or project that becomes your next must make project! 😉
DECEMBER 1st
DECEMBER 2nd
DECEMBER 3rd
DECEMBER 4TH
Don’t forget to show some love to the participants by commenting and liking their posts! Half of the fun for us is to read and reply to your comments.
Thank you for visiting and do enjoy your holidays! I’m hoping they are filled with family visits, plenty of laughter and a lot of great food. Merry Christmas, Joyeux Noël, Feliz Navidad, God Jul, Prettige Feestdagen and Happy Hanukkah. 🎄
🤶🏻Carol 🤗
Quilt Schmilt 
Such a fun quilt you made, and a fun post to read with lots of Christmassy stuff (despite a Grinch husband–mine is a bit of one too). The cozy quilt, watching a Christmas movie, laughter of kids tobogganing, the snow on the mountainside, the snacks–! Thanks for such an enjoyable read on the eve of the month of December!
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Thank you Sandra. Finally getting some snow has made life so much more enjoyable. I’m happy you enjoyed the read🤗
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What a fun rag quilt! I love plaids too! Thanks for sharing this and your recipe. It sounds really good!
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Thank you Brenda. Plaids and yummy food do make it seem Christmassy now that we have some snow! 🤗
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Your cosy quilt will be a wonderful gift for someone, I can already feel the warmth from it. sorry I couldn’t access the recipe for the cake, but I did fill in a blank asking for access, so perhaps later. Thanks for being a part of this fun event
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Thank you for your lovely comment. I’ve fixed the access so you can now view the recipe. I’m so happy you let me know there was a problem. 😉
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Your cosy quilt will be a wonderful gift for someone, I can already feel the warmth from it. sorry I couldn’t access the recipe for the cake, but I did fill in a blank asking for access, so perhaps later. Thanks for being a part of this fun event
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The gifts for the food bank kids are great–what a way to give to the community and let the kids have something for others! Your rag quilt will be a hit, I’m sure! Thanks for sharing about that and your goodies and traditions!
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Thank you Carol for your lovely comment. My community is pretty incredible and the staff at the Food Bank are amazing at trying to find ways to allow the community to keep giving and helping. I think I might volunteer to be part of the gift wrapping crew just to watch the littles have fun picking gifts. 😉
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Your winter wonderland back yard is glorious. The Christmas project with kids getting to pick out gifts for their parents and having help wrapping them is so sweet. I love the raggy quilt, so pretty and cozy looking! Nicely done Carol. 🙂
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Thank you so very much Linda. I love sharing the ways my community gives back. It’s pretty amazing. 🤗
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There is nothing better than snuggling up under a cozy flannel blanket on those cold winter nights. It’s also my favorite time to sew binding down on quilts too. Wishing you a wonderful holiday season. Grinch friendly of course. LOL!!
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I so agree about the coziness of flannel Joan. I often save a stack of quilts that need binding just so I can have a lap full of fabric when I’m listening to an audiobook while my Grinch flips channels non stop! 😉
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There is nothing more cozy than a rag quilt, love it! What a great way to spend your time clipping…watching a Christmas movie (Grinch included.) Your past projects are amazing and I’m sure were welcomed with great joy. Thank you, Carol, for sharing your sweet goodies with us! xo
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Thank you Carol for hosting my favourite hop again this year. For me it really is my Christmas joy. I was surprised when DH (Mr Grinch) put a Christmas movie on for me but I enjoyed every second of it. 😉
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Great Christmas projects and plaid quilt. The crab dip looks yummy. Thanks so much for sharing!
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Thank you Karrin. The dip is yummy and can be changed up to use what’s on hand. For us Christmas always includes some seafood since we live in landlocked areas but my parents were coastal people. 😆
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Your recipes look delicious, especially the German chocolate cake! Love your rag quilt. I love having a warm, snuggly blanket to cuddle under with my DH. He’s the opposite of the Grinch though. He likes every speck of the house decorated for the holidays with all the goodies included! Thanks so much for sharing. I hope you have a wonderful holiday.
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Thank you for your sweet comment Charlene. Your DH sounds like so much fun! I did enjoy making the quilt and the cake is my DH’s favourite desert. Happy Holidays to you and yours 🤶🏻🎄
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What a wonderful group you belong to. Such a wonderful group of giving people. You made great use of your flannel left overs. I haven’t made one of those quilts in ages. Need to rethink my larger scrap pieces.
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Thank you Selina. I do think the people here in our community are amazing and so generous with both time and skills. The gifts include jewelry, knitted or crocheted items, handmade baskets, lovely bags, quilts and too much more to list. Very talented people here.
You have larger flannel scraps? I can feel another snuggly quilt being born. Merry Christmas to you 😆
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My husband is like yours, not much into celebrating/decorating but thankfully he enjoys my family at Christmas. Not sure if I will decorate this year, as our son won’t make it up at all during the season. Love your rag quilt – a perfect gift someone to give their loved one. Love this idea of sharing and making….so perfect for this season.
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Hi Kathleen. It’s been fun hearing if other husbands being Grinchy. It makes me feel so much more of being in our own community! I’m sure others have ornament like my Samantha and my wooden tree that bring me that bit of connection to my past decorating days. Glad you liked the quilt! Merry Christmas to you and your Grinch 🎄🤶🏻
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I love spinach and artichoke dip! Your German Chocolate Cake look delicious. It was wonderful seeing all your past projects and your raggedy quilt is sweet too.
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Thank you so much for your lovely comment. 🎄
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The flannel quilt looks SO cozy; someone will love it! Merry Christmas to you!
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Thank you and Merry Christmas to both of you and your families 🎄
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I love your rag quilt. I always have trouble signing in to leave a comment so if you get multiple from me on this post just choose 1.
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Thank you Denise. I’m sorry to hear you have signin issues. I thought I was the only one that does that! 😉 Merry Christmas to you and yours. 🎄🎅🏻
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Oh, so many lovely gift ideas!!! And what wonderful thing for the food bank to do.. I should suggest it to ours for next year! Thanks for sharing xx
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Thank you Joy. The gift away for the littles is one of the most creative ideas for our food bank staff to come up with, and the items our community members make and donate are incredible. Wishing you and yours a wonderful holiday season filled with family fun and much laughter 🤗
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What a fun gift for a child to find for a parent. You picked some fun flannels for the project. Hope you get to enjoy some holiday parties so you can enjoy your favorites.
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Thanks Kate. I’m actually off to my Guild for our annual Christmas get together right now. Hope you have a wonderful holiday season and get to spend time with GG. 🤗
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