Goodbye "Fun" and Fair

Jarod and Cheryl serving rice dressing and roast beef.

Last weekend was our annual church fair. Richard and I keep busy helping out where necessary on Saturday night. For him that meant working at the Coke booth. For me, it meant collecting money and calling numbers at the Bingo table. 

Mrs. Anna serving rolls and
Richard closing and bagging plates.

On Sunday we helped serve lunch. Nine hundred plates of rice dressing, roast beef, sweet potatoes, cold slaw, and rolls. It takes a small army, but we had a great crew this year. Two plates are served at about the same time. Richard, whose job was to close the plates and move them to another area, stayed especially busy. 

Another way that we pitched in was to head the Silent Auction. That was really my job and I set everything up early Saturday. 

These items were donated for the auction. Add to these the cross that Richard made and the quilt I made, See Such Fun. Every item was made by a local but well-known artisan. Well-known except for Richard and me, of course. 

Though I don't know how much money the fair raised, I can say that I'm happy with the auction. The items would usually sell for much more, but the auction wasn't advertised as it was added only a week or so before the fair. One artist donated her work and suggested the auction, and in only a few days we had items from several people. I'm excited to find out how well the fair fared. 

See Such Fun (62" x 62")

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!

St. Therese of Lisieux

Know what I've been up to? Babysitting for the summer, quilting (yeah!), and a few projects for our church. This year marks the 90th Anniversary for the Church of the Little Flower. The Little Flower refers to St. Therese of Lisieux, who wrote about and practiced what she called "the little way."

She believed strongly that not everyone could become a great saint, one whose name will forever be remembered.


She practiced and wrote about how the small, everyday duties of life could be one way to achieve heaven. Rather than just wash dishes because the dishes are dirty, wash them because doing so is a way to serve the others in the family. Take on chores that no one wants to do, so that your love for others is manifested in your duties to them. By loving the ones around you, you are loving Christ Himself.

Many of our parishioners have spent the year learning about and trying to take on some of the teachings of St. Therese. Some of the ways we have done this include: 

• reading her autobiography
• studying and discussing her teachings
• reviewing her quotes, which are published in the weekly bulletin
• discussions of her life and the lives of her family
• giving her a more prominent role in the life of our church

So far it has made a difference in our lives here at the Marcotte lot. Richard and I have found opportunities to share St. Therese's life with our children and grandchildren. 

We've also found that by being mindful of the little ways we can show love to each other has allowed us to be less critical and disagreeable with each other. Hopefully our behavior will influence others in our lives who watch us. 

I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from St. Therese:

"Love proves itself by deeds....The only way I can prove my love is by scattering flowers and these flowers are every little sacrifice, every glance and word, and the doing of the least actions for love."

What people say...

doesn't always translate into what, exactly, they mean. Ha! What do people mean when they say, "We can make a quilt for so and so's birthday!" Ahh, does that mean you'll make the blocks and I'll do the quilting? No? Oh, would you prefer to do the quilting? No? Hmm, who do you mean by we?

Mostly they mean me. Me. The person frantically typing on this laptop because it's quite late. And it's quite late because we have been making blocks. Alone. 

Yes, I fell into that pit knowing it was there. I may have even thrown my clumsy self into the pit. Funny how I can't miss even the huge gaping holes that I see are ahead. I just walk up to the edge, look down and think I'm done. Then nosedive. Right in. 

Are you wondering how this happened? Fast. I attended a meeting for our church's 90th anniversary celebration, which will occur in the fall, about a month after our church fair. 

Someone mentioned that our priest will celebrate his 50th birthday right after the celebration. So we have three important events tied to our church that happen about a month apart from each other. Boom, boom, boom. Three big events. 

Father's birthday, we all nodded in agreement, needed to be extra nice. 50 years, after all. In two shakes of lamb's tail, I was making a quilt. That easy. That fast. 

The good news is that when people say, "But I don't know anything about quilting," it translates into "you make the decisions as well as the quilt." At least that's how I translated it. 

And that means I can make all design decisions. Ha! There's the silver lining. I'd be making all the decisions. Boom. 

I asked Father what his favorite liturgical season is--so I could choose colors. Since he quickly answered Easter and those times of the year when we anticipate the coming of Christ, I decided that white and red would be great colors. It turns out that he loves the color red. What is better than a red/white quilt?

I worked up a quick quilt in EQ8 and finally decided to create something of this order. The white will be used for signatures, and the red will be frames. There are no other options: this is what I'm willing to do. 

I pulled almost every red from my stash and started cutting 2½ x 8½" strips of red and 4½ x 8½" strips of white. Sew. Sew. Sew. Boom, tonight 132 blocks are ready to be signed and sewn. That will give us a 88" X 96" queen-size quilt. Two weeks later, we're here. All the blocks sewn and ready for the next step. 

I'm not sure that this quilt really fits into the improvisational definition, but since I pulled fabrics to cut as I went along, and I still don't know how this is going to work with what others have in mind, I'll say it's iffy enough to go into Kaja and Ann's AHIQ #32. The first link goes to Kaja's blog, this one goes to Ann's. (You really should visit both.)

When have you heard those words, "Let's make a quilt." If you have a way of avoiding those "requests" please share: I have nothing but a deep pit. 

More Link Up Love!

Crazy Mom Quilts (Finish It Up Friday)

Busy Hands Quilts (Finished or Not Friday)
Confessions of a Fabric Addict (Can I get a Whoop! Whoop!) 

Flowers, etc. finished!

I've been very busy recently, but not really telling you what I've been up to. I haven't any idea what I've been posting, but it's time to show you two little projects.

The first is a set of flowers that I've recycled for our church. When our youngest son and his wife got married, I bought and arranged flowers to put on the tables during the rehearsal supper. At the time I had four containers of these beautiful deep purple peonies with some greenery. Both the eggplant and greenery were wedding colors.

The wedding was several years ago--Rory and Meggan now have two girls, 6 and 7. My parents died not long after the girls were born, so I thought I'd use the flowers in arrangements on their graves. I have seven sisters, many of whom put flowers on the graves, so the opportunity never presented itself. However, it's time to make some decisions about the extra things in my studio. Use it or toss it, but no more hoarding it.  

The flowers are too pretty to toss, and they are in beautiful condition, so I decided to re-arrange the flowers and give them to our church. One of the smaller vases was cracked, so I removed the flowers, shared them among the other three vases and tossed out the broken vase. I brought the flowers to church this afternoon and put them in church. The larger vase, meant for the head table at the rehearsal dinner, is now on the floor in front of the main altar, and the two smaller vases are on either side of the back altar. 

The other small project is a group of small, round purses. They are just the right size to hold a set of earbuds and cellphone charging wire. I'm hoping that the colors will be appealing to teens and pre-teens. These will go in my booth at the craft fair in a few weeks. I'm no longer concerned about having enough items. 

Anything that I add to my inventory from now will be beyond what I was planning for. If I do have time, I may make a few more of these little purses and a few more rectangular bags to use as pencil cases or makeup bags so that I can have a larger variety of lower price point inventory, but it's not going to be a huge disapointment if I can't get to it.

I've finally gotten the printer working so I can print some price tags and business cards. I've checked on bags and have enough left over from a previous fair, so that's taken care of. 

Hopefully I can get to a practice run on how my booth will look. I plan to set up the canopy, hang quilts, set up tables and two shelves with small items, and figure out where I'll have a "checkout" area.

Several years ago I had a booth at a festival. It was awfully cold, so I was dressed for the weather, not the occasion. I had not really thought so much about how my booth would look, and though I did a dry run, when I looked at the photos later, I was shocked and saddened to discover my booth looked more like a flea market than a micro-store that I'd like for my brand. 

This time around I want to do it right. Whether there are many sales or I barely make enough to cover my costs, I want people to walk away remembering my booth. Of course, I want their memories to be positive.

But just as much I want my booth to have a clean, modern look. I'll post pictures of the booth after I practice. I think taking pictures and looking at them as I add/subtract ideas and things will help me to see the booth the way other people see it. 

If you have suggestions of other things I can do, I'd really appreciate your input, both now and when I post pictures in a few days. By the same token, if you know of interesting posts or articles that might help me, please send the links either to my email (mary.marcotte@gmail.com) or in the comments below. I need and want your opinions and input.

Because it's already Saturday night--we've been working at our annual church fair--so I'm late to all of the linkup parties. Only a few linkups left open, so I'm extra grateful to them.

Loving these Linkups

Crazy Mom Quilts (Finish It Up Friday)

Busy Hands Quilts (Finished or Not Friday)

Confessions of a Fabric Addict (Can I get a Whoop! Whoop!)

Scraptastic Tuesday (She Can Quilt)

Working Weekend

Even the kids get involved.

A couple of weekends we worked at the annual church fair. One popular activity at our fair is bingo because we have such good prizes. The local business are very supportive and some of the church members pitch in with additional prizes. Finally, the couple in charge of running the bingo table donate many prizes that Angela purchases throughout the year. 

Prizes run the gamut from week killer to oil to home decor to kitchen appliances and anything else that comes along. . This year I donated a white wall hanging with three fleur de lis designs in navy.

One table of sisters and family playing for prizes.

A few of my sisters showed up to visit, eat and play bingo. There was jambalaya, hamburgers, hot dogs, cracklins, and pulled pork sandwiches along with every type of cake, cup cake and home baked goods that you can imagine. Angie, my older sister generously donated fancy cup cakes and her daughter Stacey brought white chocolate bread pudding. 

After our visit and suppers, they sat at a table to play and I got back to work collecting money, cleaning tables, and calling games. When it was time to play for the wall hanging that I'd donated, my sisters had great fun teasing me about getting one of my quilts for the low price of one dollar. 

Angie and her grandsons showing off their winnings.

 I answered back (on the mic) that "you can pay, you can play, but you can't win." Well, I was wrong when Angie called bingo. She and another lady were in a tie and force to pull a number to determine who would get the quilt. Angie pulled the high number and won the small quilt. She quickly noted that she won it twice.  

Pin It Weekly #131

While my sisters and I were together last weekend, we talked about replacing the flowers on our parents' grave.  That got me thinking about what we might do.  

It turns out that my oldest sister has a Christmas arrangement, so we're good for now, but I'm still thinking and decided to look for more ideas on Pinterest.  I've added a few ideas to my very pretty board that is just for this purpose.

The next arrangement is one that I made for my parents' grave. Daddy put the vase at the foot of the crypt before his death and my sister and I keep it filled with silk flowers.  We replace the flowers every couple of months so I get many opportunities to arrange flowers, which is why I started my "flower, arrangement" board.  

These last two are also a couple of my arrangements.  The red, white, and blue one is for our church.  I wanted to display an arrangement especially for July 4th and other days like it.  The one below was for mom and dad's grave during the summer.  How about those orange poppies!

For more of my arrangements and many others, visit my "flower, arrangement" board on Pinterest.