All Hallows’ Eve

I must admit, Halloween is not my favorite holiday, but it sure is a good excuse to be silly and have fun with friends. It’s a holiday made for friends.

My favorite thing about Halloween has been the fun tradition that Pete and I have slowly made with our friends, Lee and Jenn. This year was the third year in a row that we carved pumpkins together and, admittedly, was a bit odd, since this year we made them together over Skype instead of in person at a house (you might remember that they are in Ottawa).

It is a tradition I definitely want to keep. I only say that it was odd because I found it quite difficult to be motivated to carve my pumpkin quickly. I think it was because of the time difference. We started at about 5pm (Edmonton time), Jenn and Lee were two hours ahead of us and already gutting their pumpkins when we got online, while Pete and I were trying to scarf down a quick grilled cheese sandwich since we had only just gotten home from work. It was still a lot of fun, especially since pumpkin carving is largely just an excuse to get together and hang out and chat. So Jenn made a fantastic tree in her pumpkin (depicting the Whomping Willow from the Harry Potter series – very bad-ass) and Lee made an awesome Cylon from Battlestar Galactica. I wish I had pictures of theirs; they were so cool!

Unfortunately, Pete and I had little success. I made an awesome snake and carved in funky letters “Slytherin” above it (again from the HP series). Pete gutted his pumpkin, resolved to carve it the next day because his hands were cold, and he really just liked hanging out and chatting. The lack of success comes from the fact that we negligently left our pumpkins sitting on our kitchen table with the blinds open. Over the next day the sun beat mercilessly through the windows and dried and shriveled our pumpkins out completely. So we don’t have a single picture of them even with the candles lit inside. They didn’t make it to Halloween.

Next, my mom and I spent an evening baking cupcakes in prep for mine and Pete’s Harry Potter themed Halloween party. The next day I made chocolate frogs.

The day after that was the day of the party. I decorated those cupcakes like no one’s business (and found that my decorating handicap, as mentioned previously, shows in the Gryffindor House Cupcakes). I made two different dips, Guacamole and Lemon Dilly Dip, both from Epicure, and set up our kitchen table as the “treats” table.

There were house-cupcakes, Bertie Bott’s Every Flavoured Beans, Gillyweed, Chocolate Frogs, and Butterbeer:

There was even a terrifying Basilisk:

Overall, it was a fantastic party. The only thing missing was a few friends who couldn’t make it.

You can check more pictures out here if you like.

Cheers, and Happy Halloween!

Tess.

P.S. A special thank you to Rebecca C., who always inspires me with beautiful children’s parties, delicious baking (of which I have had the immense pleasure of tasting), and super rad ideas. I continue to aspire to achieve her level of fantastic. She doesn’t have her own website yet, but hopefully one is coming soon. You can check out her son’s party that has been featured on other websites: here and here. I hope to someday throw as pretty-looking parties as she does.

Creative Quilting: Never Following A Pattern

I really love to quilt. It’s hard work, sometimes tedious, but overall awesome. The longest part of making my quilts are the many many hours it takes to hand-bind the entire thing. I never learned how to do it by machine, so it all gets done by hand!

There are a few awesome things about quilting.

The first? NEVER following a pattern! I have a few quilting books, tons of magazines, and I have only ever followed a pattern once, and it was for quilted placemats:

Don’t get me wrong, they looked awesome, but there’s just something about finding some cool quilt patterns, and mixing them with your own cool ideas to create something new. I like not following a specific measurement, and having to sit for a few hours figuring out all of the measurements myself. What size is the quilt? What size does each separate piece of fabric need to be (finished), which then means calculating what size I need to cut the fabric at to have enough for a 1/4 inch edge on every side?

I made this one in 2008 for my nephew Jacob (it was my first Quilt!):

I love choosing all sorts of awesome fabrics, mixing colours, shapes, and sizes, and then having to sit down and exercise those math skills I learned all those years ago. My only issue with designing the quilts myself? Buying fabric and realizing once all the pieces are cut and realizing I’m short fabric because I messed up my math and having to figure out a creative solution. But that’s kinda fun sometimes too (unless I mess up REALLY badly).

I made this one in 2009 for a friend of my Mom’s. My sister actually did the center spiral part, and I did all of the bordering, backing, and binding. I was given the center sewn together, and my sister didn’t know how I was going to finish it:

So, I guess I’m not an expert. Definitely not. I screw up a lot and have to restart some quilts from scratch, which not only takes a lot of time, but also costs a lot of money. My average quilt can cost a good $200 to about $350. You can imagine why screwing up badly isn’t the ideal thing. I suppose I just provided an argument as to why I SHOULD follow a pattern, but I still think it’s way more fun designing it myself. That way it’s not only hand-made, but also uniquely designed.

This one was made recently for my Grandmother. I started it two years ago, but because of how busy I was, and also neglected quilting a lot, I only finished it this year:

So, what am I working on now? Three quilts, with two awesome on the way to start one I finish the first three. Two are for family, one is for a friend, and the two ideas are for secret people.

Here’s a preview of some fabric I’m using for a couple of them:

You can check out more photos on my flickr.

Cheers,

T.

A Deliciously Hot Vacation

This was a much needed and long overdue vacation. It was also mine and Pete’s FIRST vacation EVER together. It’s actually a bit strange. Pete and I are two days away from our six-year anniversary (which is, ironically, also the Star Wars anniversary). And Cuba was our first ever vacation. We have never even gone on a weekend trip to Jasper or Banff together.

There was a brief period where I thought our vacation was going to be miserable, because one of our pieces of luggage was lost, but after three long hours in a non-airconditioned, hot (36 degrees), dusty, stuffy, and muggy airport, we finally retrieved our luggage, got ripped off by a cabbie taking us to our resort (which was a thirty minute drive), and then got settled in. After the stress of thinking our luggage was gone and we were finally at the resort, we started to relax. The airport heat acclimatized us so well that we hardly found the week in Cuba hot, even though it was over thirty degrees every day that we were there.

So alas, here we are:

There were only two kinds of beer, Bucanero and Cristal. Cristal was the better one, and tasted a little bit like Stella Artois. All of the slushy drinks and mixed drinks were way too sweet, until I asked for a Lemon Daiquiri. The lemon was sour enough that it took away from the overly sweetness of the actual daiquiri mix.

We swam in the ocean every single day, snorkeled for at least a couple of hours in the ocean every day, went for long walks along the beach in the evenings, laid in the sun with books (we read a lot), drank a few drinks, ate a lot of tasty food (the fish and shrimp were incredible), and just generally relaxed. After how much eating there was, Pete and I were both surprised that he actually lost three or four pounds and I only gained a half a pound.

I would definitely do another all-inclusive trip, but I would likely want to do one with a few extra people, either a group of friends or with another couple. In Cuba, the sunset was at 7:30 every evening at was done by about 7:40. After that, Pete and I found we got a bit tired of doing nothing in the evenings. Which is why if we went with some more people it would probably have been a bit more lively. Especially because the entertainment at the resort was so incredibly cheesy. I’m hoping to convince my mom and my sister-in-law that the three of us should do an all-inclusive trip together maybe next year. I’m also hoping to convince a couple of mine and Pete’s friends that we should all plan a trip together sometime in the future.

If you want an amusing story, ask Pete about the dead lizard. I won’t tell you about it, but he will.

If you want to check out more pictures from our trip, click here.

Here’s to a great start to a (hopefully) warm and fun summer!

Cheers,

Tess(a)