Mug Rug Exchange - Do it yourself style!

[Lois B.]

Rita and Maureen, Your Christmas work is very lovely. Rosemary you always manage to put a smile on my face. Merry Christmas one and all. I think I am ready. If I missed something we'll just to have Christmas anyway.

[E.M. T.]

Beautiful works Rita and Maureen ! Merry Christmas to all the MRs and LLs ! and CWs ! And to all the
rest in TQS land ! May the blessings of the holiday season abound in each of your lives and your familys' , too.
Sorry to hear of bad weather trials both here and in the UK ! Today is beautiful to start...skiff of snow and
sunny blue skies ! But the forecast is for an "inversion" to form and we will be cold and foggy smoggy all
week.....could do without that ! :roll: but still so much better than other places, that I feel bad just mentioning it !!
Again, Merry Christmas!

[Geneva C.]

Beautiful quilts Rita and Maureen. You've been busy!

Today it will be in the 60's (F) and sunny in Northern California. Really a pretty day. I hope all you storm catchers survive with no damage.

I made a quick baby quilt. So easy. It will go off in the mail Thursday. I backed it with flannel "urban chicks." It's cute!



Merry Christmas to all my TQS friends! Thank you for a fun year!

Geneva

[Charae H.]

Thinking of you, Maureen. Rita, gorgeous stars! Geneva, lucky baby!

[Renata L.]

Maureen, love your holiday quilt! So sorry you went through so much and will still have to wait for repairs. After three days of 70 degree weather, the winds have just picked up significantly and the temperature has dropped to 35, saw some snowflakes dashing across the hood of my car on the way home.

Rita, beautiful Christmas stars, your siblings and parents are going to love them, each one so different and so pretty--what a great idea, Carol Doak's printouts and RT paper.

Geneva--what a lovely baby blanket, will have to remember that pretty pattern when I need to make one.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all my TQS friends--it's been a wonderful 2013 with you and I look forward to hanging out with you again in 2014!

[Renata L.]

Rita, Maureen, and Geneva. Some really great work. Rita your family will love the lovely wall hangings.Maureen I love your Christmas Quilt. Geneva the baby quit is great, and looks easy to make.

[Renata L.]

Well we went from 40*F to 1*F in 24 hours. All snow is gone and it is just cold. We will be having our Christmas on Saturday.
Rita: what is trifle and I think I know what "licking the stone" means in the context of the sentence but where did the phrase come from? Lovely star blocks. Lucky family.
Maureen: beautiful quilt. Praying you stay safe.
Geneva: well done on your baby quilt.
Margarita: good to see you here.
To all my lounge lizard cronies--may God bless you abundantly this holiday season and through the new year. You are all precious to me so take care of yourselves.

[Lois B.]

Geneva the baby quilt is so nice. Merry Christmas everyone. We are having dropping temps, winds and flurries. Hope everyone stays safe and warm. I missed even seeing "licking the stone" comment so I'll be eager to know what it is. I have no idea. I like our language lessons.

[Norma H.]

It's Christmas Day here in Denmark now. I had a lovely evening with my family and the 1½ year old grandson and we got a new member in the family. My niece had a daughter yesterday. So life feels good.
Maureen I was thinking of you when that last storm came across. Nothing happened at my place but I heard that it was hard on Scotland. I sure hope you will keep the roof on this time.
You have all made such beautiful things for Christmas.
I wish everyone a very happy Christmas and a wonderful 2014. I love this community. As Ritzy wrote: you are all special to me. We have fun, we share ideas and sometimes it's very serious stuff coming up here.

[Norma H.]

i wrote some where else but i will write it again here:
merry christmas and happy new year to all of you my quilt family
may the light shine on your life, and you will get what ever you need.

from me becky, vlekje and mouse (my cats)

[Norma H.]

Woo Hoo! I got a super new camera, with over twice the mega pixels I had previously (from 7 to 16!) So here are a couple of mugrugs that I know that I haven't shown yet.

And here is my wall of muggies. This panel is placed in front of part of the window in the sewing room to block the sun from the computer screen.

Hope everyone had a great time yesterday, didn't eat too many sweeties or mince pies and got presents that they really wanted in amongst their swag.

[Rita C.]

Beautiful mug rugs Rosemary, fabulous work Geneva and Nancy. We had a great day yesterday and everybody went to bed tired but happy.

Ritzy the expression "she didn't lick it off the stones" is something my grandmother used to say. It means she didn't learn whatever she knows in a random way. Another form that means something similar is 'a chip off the old block', or 'an apple doesn't fall very far from the tree'. Of course any of these expressions can be used in a negative way too.

My daughter made me some lovely Christmas ornaments this year.


And these beautiful delicate ornaments for the tree. They were made with baking soda and cornflour.

She didn't lick it off the stones either! :lol:
Ritzy you also asked what 'Trifle' is - traditionally here in Ireland we have two desserts on Christmas day: Christmas pudding, which is a rich fruit pudding over which we pour alcohol and set it alight as it is brought to the table, and this is served with brandy butter; and the second pudding is Sherry Trifle. A Trifle is made up of sponge soaked with sherry, chopped fruit (usually tinned fruit coctail) on top of that, custard on top of that and cream on top of that with '100s and 1000s' (coloured sugar balls) sprinkled on the top. And this is what it looks like in our house:

(Not to be trifled with! It was delicious!

[Rita C.]

Other variations of trifle include - for kids - using fruit flavoured jelly (jello?) over the sponge & fruit, or - for adults only - use the contents of a rumtopf (soft fruit preserved in brandy). When I was small my mother used to use 'Instant Whip/Angel Delight' instead of custard - I loathed cold custard when I was small, but I was happy to eat this variation of trifle.

[Geneva C.]

Oh My! That trifle looks amazing!

I think I will use the "licking the stone" comment from now on. Everyone will think I have gone over the bend! :P

The baby quilt I made is way too easy. I drew a 2 1/2" grid on the white background. Backed 13, 5" squares with wonder under. Cut the squares apart into 2 1/2" squares, laid them on the grid until I liked the flow, pressed the squares to the background, then layered the top, batting, backing and sewed straight lines from top to bottom, side to side catching all the raw edges. It made a nice 1/8" sewn line around each square. (Thereby quilting it at the same time.) Squared up the whole thing, bound it, washed and dried it and viola! A quick easy baby quilt. Mine turned out 29" square.

Still sunny and dry here in Northern California!

Geneva

[Renata L.]

Love your collection of muggies, Rosemary!

Rita, your daughter made a wonderful collection of ornaments for you. She might not have licked the stones, but she certainly is a chip off the old block in a wonderful and craftsy way! I especially like the pom pom wreath, very, very pretty!!!

As for the trifle, looks divine, Rita. In Italy we have something similar for Christmas but call it Zuppa Inglese... or translated, English Soup. I'm sure we call it soup because each layer of sponge cake is soaked in liqueur or brandy, sometime both and is usually layered in a big see-through glass pedestal bowl. We used to soak the sponge cake in Alchermes, a liqueur made with sugar, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, coriander and vanilla. But I haven't seen a liqueur like this in the States--time to experiment! :lol:

Congratulations, dear Norma, on the birth of your niece's little daughter--what a beautiful addition to the family!