Friday Food 11-03-23

 All of the quilt guilds I have belonged to have  refreshments of some kind.   I think the ladies of Surfside Quilters Guild outdo themselves, at every meeting there is a tempting spread of  both sweet and savory.  A member brings something and puts their name in a bowl for a drawing for the table decoration.  Members with birthdays in each month are encouraged to bring something for the refreshment table.  In September I always take See's chocolates - three pounds are gone by the end of the meeting.

Some offerings are homemade, but I think they are mostly store bought. 

One member consistantly brings English muffins  topped  with  egg salad and cut  into bite  sized  pieces.  Usually this  is  the first  plate that empties!

Some members  like to bring seasonal treats like  witches hats  and chocolate egg nests.  

A selection of savory .....

....and sweet.  At our present location there is no coffee - groan!

I think it would be impolite not to try a little something!!

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Halloween Ending 11-02-23

Our neighborhood has a parade on Halloween and on the 4th of July.   Sometimes KoKo and I sit on folding chairs in the  driveway and cheer them on.   But this year I just  went out  and took a  few pictures.  Didn't participate in Trick or Treat.  

But I could not resist taking pictures of the man riding a leopard!

He is standing straight up and his legs are the front legs of the tiger.

False legs with boots grasp the tiger and the back and  rear tiger legs are also false.  I wish I knew who the guy is so I could ask him some  questions.

This is not street regulation, but the family drives it around on  the  local streets quite a  bit.  They have decorated it  with  orange lights.   Run off  the  battery?

Here is a gutsy guy dressed as  a big  pink  bunny visiting my cross-the-street neighbor.  The arrangement  is becoming more common - place a  table loaded with candy and sit/stand  outside to monitor  the children's  intake.   Lots of  problems with just putting out a bowl or basket full and having some kid take the  whole  thing,  basket  or bowl included.  

Have no idea how  a firetruck  is arranged to drive in front  of the parade since  our neighbor fireman moved away.  It  is always there and even  gives a siren burst.  The pole is  located between our driveway and Mark-to-the-South's driveway.  

The  enormous   skeleton is out  for the season.  He'll stay up until the New Year with appropriate clothing. I suggested  putting him up for Easter  and I would  provide the bunny ears.   They  were  not interested!!

Here is his smaller friend  wearing one of the  bowties that  KoKo  gets at the groomer. There is  a baby skeleton hanging from the big guy's arm who has the bowtie from last year.

Same friend with a few skulls and a sign.  Add a little more each year!

Across the street they have three blowups and the lights that make floating ghosts and bats on the garage door.  We saw them last evening on our walk. 

But this morning about 8am they had been replaced by this blowup turkey.  The owner either came out in the night to change or got up very early before he went to work.   

So another whole year before we do this all over again.  Maybe we will do candy next year.  The mornings after the parades I take an extra plastic bag on our walk and pick up the candy wrappers and other trash.   This year there didn't seem to be as many.  However, in the parking strip beside the house that just went on the market for a million+250-dollars was a used disposable diaper.  The current state of our society is not great.  

 

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Flowers on our walk 10-30-23

Of course there are Halloween decorations, I'll show some tomorrow.  But in Southern California there is always something blooming.  I try to remember the names, but sometimes must look them up and the Internet makes that so easy.  This time it was Cassia, which I usually cannot  remember, evenbefore I got old and  addled!  

Little John Bottlebrush

It only grows to about two feet  high, but it has a spreading shape. 

Yellow Daylily - my favorite daylily color.

This one grows under the Plumeria I showed the other day.

Senna or Cassia  

In full bloom now and this yard has three very large, spreading bushes - like trees.

Of course, there are always roses. 

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Ruth McDowell quilt from Thomas Contemporary Quilt Collection 10-29-23

I am surprised that the last time I showed "Pumpkins" on this blog was November  2008!  It took me a long time to find it in the archives and I am showing it in full from that long ago post.

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I am an admirer of Ruth B. McDowell and the magical quilts she creates. There are quite a few of her works in the Collection. I feel this is one of her very best and it fits right into this season of autumn and Thanksgiving.

"Pumpkins" Ruth B. McDowell -  Massachusetts 1998 57"W x 44.5"L
Commercial cotton fabrics, cotton batting, cotton thread.
Machine pieced. Hand appliqué. Machine quilted.

Using her unique techniques of curved seam machine piecing for the pumpkins and straight seam machine piecing for the leaves, Ruth has created an elegant image of this common vegetable. Her whimsical choices for the background fabric include round orange flowers with green leaves which reflect the color and shape of the pumpkins, shibori, hand dyes, batiks and plaids. For the leaves there are many different fabrics in a variety of greens including a vintage piece with buttons that could represent bug holes, or raindrops. She has make a rather realistic stem by piecing striped fabric together. The only appliqué used is for the bottom circle on the foreground pumpkin. The integrated border implies a frame, but blends into background to avoid crowding the central image.

Ruth B. McDowell and Del Thomas w/Pumpkins quilt in background. Photo by Karen Stiehl Osborn.

Last February (2007} a selection of Ruth B. McDowell quilts from the TCQC hung for several months at the Pacific Grove shop Back Porch Fabrics. It was a great opportunity for those attending Asilomar to see the quilts up close and to read what Ruth had to say about them in her various books. Pumpkins appears in "A Fabric Journey: An Inside Look at the Quilts of Ruth B. McDowell" on pages 18 - 21

http://www.ruthbmcdowell.com/

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The are now more than 30 Ruth B. McDowell quilts in the Thomas Contemporary Quilt Collection.  The latest was  added last fall,  "Day Lilies by the Pond". Ruth has retired from teaching and now lives in Minnesota, but she still makes an occasional quilt.