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I am feeling like an accomplished grown-up today because I remembered to polish my silver the day before Thanksgiving. 😀 Also, “polish my silver” feels very grown-up to say. 😂 . . . I am blessed to have silver from both sides of my family. The set on the left is from my mom’s family. My Granny collected box tops for the set. The silver on the right comes from my dad’s family. The two little butter knives have the initials “M” for my paternal grandmother’s maiden name and “R”, for my paternal great-aunt‘s married name. She didn’t have any children and so my grandmother inherited her things when she died. My dad is an only child and so we ended up with a lot of silver. . . . This summer, while we were in Alaska for our family reunion, my dad asked us kids to each take silver with us. I am looking forward to using it on our Thanksgiving table tomorrow. 😍 (You can see some silver polishing process pictures in my stories right now. I just used my baking soda cleaning paste for polishing and it worked great.)Last Saturday night, I managed to whip together this little quilt (approx. 36” square). I already had the quilt top assembled so in under two hours, I was able to make the quilt sandwich, quilt it and sew the binding to the top. I did most of the hand sewing of the binding during our @baltimoremqg guild meeting last Sunday and, as was my goal, was able to hand it off to join the other baby quilts that our guild donates to a local charity. . . . Each of the blocks in the quilt top was sewn by a member of my guild. In 2017, I participated in the “quilt in a box” bee where I provided the fabric and each other bee member was free to sew whatever design she wanted to. Some of my most devoted readers may remember my posts from a couple years ago of blocks that I had sewn using other people’s fabric. 😍 . . And, if you swipe to the last picture, you will see the documentation of the other project I managed to get sewn over the past three months. There were six boy babies born in our church in 2019 (and no girls!). That combined with a couple other babies meant that I needed to sew eight boy flannel blankets. 🥰 . . . #salmonandsouvlakisews #charmcitysewcial #baltimoremqg #quiltinaboxDespite quite a few frustrating moments this fall, my fall garden harvest is coming along quite nicely! Those are Parisienne carrots, at close to full size and shape. So cute! 😍 The middle picture is today’s harvest, which includes fancy salad greens, red turnips, white turnips, carrots, and just a few sugar snap peas. The final picture is an aerial view from our upstairs window. Seeing it from above helps me look past all the bare patches to see that it’s pretty darn full of green and growing things. I’m sure there’s a life lesson in there somewhere. 😏 . . . All seeds from @bakercreekseeds. #salmonandsouvlakigardens #growwhatyoueat #organicgardening #parisiennecarrotIn a classic case of better late than never, this afternoon I sewed a couple #talltalesblock blocks to contribute to the @baltimoremqg group quilt, being organized by @lindaschiffer. It will be part of the group of prizes for next year’s bingo fundraiser. To me, the first block tells the story of three major projects that I sewed for Marko, all featuring these #edemberley giraffes. Swipe to see the second block, which speaks to me of an amazing classic novel, perhaps Jane Austen’s Persuasion? Thanks so much to @katebasti for allowing our guild to use this block to make this quilt. 😍 . . . #salmonandsouvlakisews #charmcitysewcial #baltimoremqg #baltimoremqgbingo Linda, I will put them in the mail to you tomorrow! Thanks for accepting them late. 🤣I was #missingbmqgretreat today also but we’ve had a wonderful time with my friend and her family up in New York as a fabulous consolation prize. 😀 My favorite non-sewing tools that I use are a small hammer for hammering seams as necessary, ultra fine tip sharpies for tracing things and a wooden chopstick for pushing out corners. @baltimoremqg - thanks for hosting this fun event for those of us who couldn’t make it to the retreat this weekend. For everyone who went, I hope you had an amazing time! #salmonandsouvlakisews (Swipe to see Marko demonstrating why the hammer needs to belong to him. 😂)Fall at Letchworth State Park is so gorgeous! The apple cider donuts from the Castile Cider Mill aren’t so bad themselves. 😍 Seriously, I’ve been waiting for 5 years to be back here in the fall so I could eat another one. 🍎 #salmonandsouvlakitravelsI’m still #missingbmqgretreat today! As you can see, the current state of my sewing room is that it’s not functioning as a sewing room. 🤪 It’s also the room in our house where we put everything we don’t know what to do with at the moment. 🤷♀️ I love how much light the room gets during the day and how much space I have but clearly, I need to get it cleared out so I can actually start sewing again. I sewed six quilts over the summer, which I haven’t even managed to share on Instagram yet. I finished them in the middle of July and haven’t sewn hardly at all since. Here’s hoping I will have something to show for show and share at a @baltimoremqg meeting soon! #baltimoremqg #salmonandsouvlakisews #honestsewingroom P.S. I love my kids with all my heart but I really despise dealing with the change of seasons and their clothing. 🙄 Anybody with me?Hi! I’m Laura and I’m #missingbmqgretreat this weekend. I started quilting almost 10 years ago because I got pregnant and wanted to make a quilt for my baby. ❤️ I love being in the @baltimoremqg because it means that I get to be with other people who are sewing nerds like me at least once a month. 😂 I have also learned so many new skills from and been so inspired by workshops and other members of the guild. . . . #salmonandsouvlakisews #baltimoremqg . . . (and yes, this is me taking a selfie in front of a glacial lake and Spencer Glacier in Alaska this past summer. We took an @alaskarailroad train into the wilderness of Chugach National Forest and then hiked out to get to it. 😍 I even walked barefoot in the water. It was COLD!!! #judgefest19)Ellie turns nine tomorrow! For her birthday, I made her this set of quilted letters to hang on the wall above her top bunk. I used my scraps and a gluestick to make block letters and then matchsticked quilted each one with four layers of @thewarmco warm and white batting. I have no idea how people do entire quilts worth of matchstick quilting because just these five letters took me over two hours. 😂 Actually, two hours of quilting and then using the pinking shears to cut through multiple layers of fabric plus four layers of batting, which wasn’t the funnest thing I’ve ever done in my life. 😉 I am really happy with how they turned out. Let’s hope she is too. 😀#salmonandsouvlakisews #baltimoremqg #charmcitysewcial #matchstickquilting #quiltedletterHeaded out for the official family reunion! #judgefest19 #alaskarailroad #chugachmountains #ilovealaskaSo good to be in Alaska with my family! (Especially my niece 😂) #judgefest19It’s peach season, especially at our house, and so it’s time for my obligatory annual post to remind you to make peach salsa! If you want a recipe, search my blog (link in profile) for “peach salsa”. If you already have a fresh salsa recipe that you like, leave out the cilantro, and add lots of chopped peaches, sliced basil, and olive oil. The flavor is amazing! 😍🍑 . . . Nik has been working really hard the past two weeks, picking the peaches from our tree. The second picture is the last major picking, which he did on Saturday. He picked about 150 peaches. 🙌🙌🙌. Last year‘s harvest was better, but we learned from our mistakes from this summer and we’re hoping next year will be even better. Fruit farming is its whole own knowledge base. We will probably end up with about 4 gallon bags of sliced peaches in our freezer for the winter. 😍 . . . If you have been following along in my stories over the past five weeks, you will know that we recently under took a total gut renovation of our kitchen. We are oh so close to being finished and the steel gray granite in the background of the first picture is our new countertop. I told Nik that now that I have such a dramatic background, I’m going to become a Instagram food influencer. 😂 Swipe past the peach picture to hear the first dishwasher load in our kitchen in over 2 1/2 years. It is so nice to have a working dishwasher again! . . . #salmonandsouvlakigardens #salmonandsouvlakicooks #peachsalsa #ediblelandscaping #growyourownfood #organicgardeningCategories
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Monthly Archives: November 2012
KIOS: On Hiatus for Now
This post is part of my series, “Kickin’ It Old Skool: Why and How We Are Old-Fashioned” or KIOS for short. If you’re new to the series, please read my disclaimer before continuing on. I’m keeping a table of contents … Continue reading
Posted in KIOS
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Sing, Sing a Song!
Ellie has recently begun singing independently and I love hearing her versions of the songs that we sing. “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” is a current favorite of hers. This is crazy to me because I hardly ever sing it to … Continue reading
Posted in Ellie, movie
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Ellie and Baby = The Same
Ellie’s Yiayia knitted her a new hat (which she wears almost constantly now, even inside) and also made a tiny hat and scarf for her baby doll. This has invited lots of fun conversations about how we all have hats, … Continue reading
Posted in Ellie
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A Little Joke for Your Monday Afternoon
Last night, we had dinner at the home of some friends. On the drive home, Ellie was asking to “go ‘ome” and it was so cute to hear her say that! When we got home, I said, “Ellie, are we … Continue reading
Posted in Ellie
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Allow Me To Brag for a Moment About My Amazing Husband and Our Incredibly Delicious Turkey and Thanksgiving Meal
Yesterday, Nik took charge of roasting our almost-19-pound turkey. He decided to use the braise/roast method (as illustrated here on Michael’s Ruhlman’s blog). It was, hands down, the most amazingly moist and delicious turkey we’ve ever had. We’ll probably never … Continue reading
Posted in cooking, love
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A Little Photo Shoot for Ellie’s Cousin Alex (the one in Alaska)
Ellie’s five-year-old cousin, Alex (the one in Alaska who’s a girl as opposed to the one in Virginia who’s a boy) gave Ellie this little skirt when we were there in April. It had been her favorite skirt that she … Continue reading
Posted in Ellie, family
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Happy Thanksgiving!
This year, we are so grateful for this little girl, who keeps us laughing every day. We are also grateful to Ed, Earl, Henry and so many others who worked hard to raise and grow the food which we will … Continue reading
Posted in Ellie, reflecting
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