Sunday Quilt Inspiration: favorites

https://fleurdelisquilts.blogspot.com/2014/02/
sunday-quilt-inspiration-traditions.html?spref=pi

I thought I'd share our favorite quilts from the last few weeks. These, according to Pinterest, would be the most repinned pins (did I just coin a word?) from my "heart, quilts" board and blog posts. Should the photo be of particular interest to you, there are links in the captions which brings you back to the original blog post. 
Without further adieu: Your Favorites

https://fleurdelisquilts.blogspot.com/2014/03/pin-it-wednesday-58.html

https://fleurdelisquilts.blogspot.com/2018/12/sunday-quilt-inspiration-houston-iqs.html

https://fleurdelisquilts.blogspot.com/2015/08/sunday-quilt-inspiration-doors-and.html?m=1

Not quilts, but certainly inspiring!

Best wishes for a happy and prosperous 2019!

Christmas with this family

Christmas is always, always an important day in our family because it's all about the birth of Christ. But if you're a Christian, you get that. Hopefully you also spent part of your day acknowledging His birth. We do so by first attending mass in our Church of the Little Flower then turning our attention to our family. Usually that means gift-giving and dinner on Christmas night, to give the kids an opportunity to spend time with the other side of their families--their in-laws.

But time changes things, and this year the kids decided that lunch would be a better time to come home for our family gathering. That meant Richard and I needed to attend an earlier mass and chose an 8 a.m. service nearby. 

Once we returned home, the race was on. Except I was smart and outsourced some of the cooking. Will and his family were responsible for cooking the turkey and brisket. Whew! That was easy. That left us the sides and the rest of the party. Also easy. We're used to this pack of loonies! So we just had fun and kept everything casual.

Rich's parents came for lunch but left immediately after. They always go home for naps. He has reached 80, so they deserve to come and go as they choose. Besides, this crew is pretty rowdy and even I say goodbye with a tired smile.

At some point the kids began testing each other with "magic tricks." The idea was to show your best trick and then let the others try to figure out how it's done. Cameron won this game hands down. Some of the boys never did figure out how to tie a knot in a string but never letting go either end of the string. The trick, is to keep everyone from seeing how you let go. 

A "Bubba" cup for Lane since his sisters call him Bubby.
Bubba is a brand that's a knockoff from Yeti.

Ice tea dispenser for Will because he complains that his
family drinks all of the tea he makes but doesn't make any. 

Of course, we exchanged gifts, but everyone was surprise to find out that their gifts from us were on the tree, not under it. We decided that instead of trying to figure out what everyone "needs," we'd give each one a gift that would be meaningful and a gift card for a favorite store or restaurant. To avoid misplacing a gift box--those card boxes are small--we punched a hole in each one and tied a string on. Then we used the string to attach them to the tree like ornaments. Then we made a game of finding the right box. I wish I'd taken a picture before the gift giving. 

The presents are all gone. Now what?

Uhm, what is this?

The Queen recovers herself
for a photo opportunity.

With one exception, everyone loved their gifts. Jolie, Queen Drama of the South, was not very impressed with the throw we gave her. The look on her face as she opened the gift says so much! Priceless.

Otherwise, it was a wonderful Christmas time. Do your celebrate Christmas or another holiday at this time of year? What were the special moments for you?

Now it's on to 

Happy New Year!

A Christmas Wedding

My niece and her fiance were married on Sunday in a small town south of Houston. It's the one that I wrote about when I altered her wedding dress only two weeks before. We decided to drive in early to lend a hand where needed, and then to drive home after the reception. It made for a long day as Alvin is almost five hours' drive, but it gave us a chance to chat without interruption. Always a good thing! 

On the way to Alvin, we stopped in Lake Charles to attend Mass at St. Margaret of Ireland Catholic Church. It's easy to get to and the church is beautiful. 

Check out that organ! The organist knows her instrument and the choir knows how to sing together. They were flawless to my ears. It was a bit difficult paying attention to mass when there were so many distractions. 

Those stained glass windows, for example, are stunning. The glow on the top of the windows? Oh, that's the noonday sun shining through. Yes, they are that brilliant! There was also the multilevel altar. I've never seen one, so I was curious how things were done. I kept my eyes on every movement of the altar servers and eucharistic ministers and, of course, the priest and deacon.

Amanda and James

But the stop in Lake Charles was part of a bigger event: my niece's wedding. It was beautifully decorated in wine and white with touches of gold and many Christmas lights in the park were the venue is. The venue itself is an old train depot that's been transformed into a visitor's center and small wedding venue.

One thing is certain, my family knows how to do weddings. Even a small one (45ish people) is a big family thing. This is the bride whose dress I altered a couple of weeks ago. She was beautiful and poised and comfortable enough to close the evening still in the dress and heels. 

a toast to the bride and groom

Doug and Lee (mother of the bride)

Like all weddings in our family it was a family affair. Four of us eight girls were present and each of us had a chore. Angie served as official and as general mistress of ceremonies. Lee is the mother of the bride, so she was in everything. Laura is an accomplished photographer. 

Half of the sisters: Angie, Lee, Laura and moi

I was kitchen help, sort of. I just hung around the venue letting people in, putting out food, and whatever needed doing. I have experience with several weddings and proms and anniversary parties, so I know what needs doing. (Besides I do like to be bossy.) And there you go. 

Pin It Weekly #262

https://www.pinterest.com/mary_marcotte/heart-quilts/

I hope you had a wonderful, joyous Christmas! Here the family, gift-giving, games, food--all of it!--was a blessing. We were able to gather all of the immediate family, children, grandchildren,great-grands, and Richard's parents, to the fold. We're getting to be quite a large number, so the house was full. Everyone pitched in and we managed a family event without even a slight hiccup. 

https://www.pinterest.com/mary_marcotte/heart-quilts/

Of course, with all the cooking and cleaning and planning plus a wedding in the days before Santa arrived, I did nothing in the way of blogging, pinning or writing. I did sneak in a few stitches, however. All that said, I'll have to get creative to share a Pin It Weekly. 


So creative I've gotten--I thought I'd share some of the pins that Pinterest thinks I should like! You know, algorithms and all that math stuff has the Pinterest powers feeding me what they think I like, hence the term home feed. Here are some quilts (excluding the ads that are quite prominent) that are populating my Pinterest home.

https://www.pinterest.com/mary_marcotte/forsaken-heritage/

https://www.pinterest.com/mary_marcotte/barn-shed-corncrib/

https://www.pinterest.com/mary_marcotte/heart-quilts/

https://www.pinterest.com/mary_marcotte/sew-quilt-paint-bead/

https://www.pinterest.com/mary_marcotte/forsaken-heritage/

https://www.pinterest.com/mary_marcotte/heart-quilts/

https://www.pinterest.com/mary_marcotte/bunting-string-flag/

https://www.pinterest.com/mary_marcotte/heart-quilts/

https://www.pinterest.com/mary_marcotte/sew-quilt-paint-bead/

https://www.pinterest.com/mary_marcotte/table-runners-covers-cloths/

Sunday Quilt Inspiration: neutrals

I've been working on a couple of projects. All of them use neutrals so I've been had neutrals on my mind for the past week. Well, neutrals and Christmas--there's a conflicting proposition. I suppose one sort of offset the other because I wasn't all antsy and worried about getting everything ready. In fact, we have a wedding in Houston tomorrow and other than to clean house, shop, and finish up gift wrapping, I haven't been worried at all.

Neutral quilts

There was another SQI on neutrals back in 2014. I hope you enjoy!

More on those neutral projects after the gift-giving on Christmas. Shhh, don't say a word.