Stepping out of that comfort zone

It is a new decade so time for some changes to this blog. Over the last year the New to Me posts were, for me, less about the link party and more about a nudge to post at least once a month. So I am still going to write posts about anything I have tried out because you know I love to experiment, but won't be hosting the link party as well. I rarely link up to parties these days so it is not very fair to expect other bloggers to do something I am not doing myself!


I have as the post title tells you tried something very New to Me this month and I may live to regret it:) At our weekly quilting group recently we have been encouraged/cajoled/exhorted to enter a quilt in the upcoming Scottish Quilters Show. The deadline for entry was originally January 24th, but was then extended to January 31st to give those of us who were procrastinating less excuse to chicken out, I suspect!

Well, as you can see I finally took the plunge and put in an entry.

I entered the only quilt that I have that has a hanging sleeve, my BOM quilt from Quiet Play's And Sew On BOM back in 2013! I have no great expectations of the quilt as far as the competition goes, as I used the blocks for FMQ practise and I am fairly sure that my paper-piecing was less than stellar in places :) However, I thought it would be a fun entry to the competition in general.

There are several categories for entries and I wasn't sure whether this was Contemporary
(Quilts based on the traditions of quilt making, but have an original approach. Makers may use non-traditional fabrics, fabric painting, printing, dying and embellishments. These quilts should have an original design and can be hand or machine pieced, or a combination of both) or Modern
(Quilts with a modern design, can be based on traditional design with a modern twist. Quilts may include the presence of the following features: minimal and simple good design with bold graphic colours and high contrast; varying sized blocks, exaggerated scale, asymmetry and simple graphic quilting).  In the end after some discussion with fellow quilters and show veterans I went for Contemporary. 

I opted not to have the Judge's comments sent to me as I have also volunteered to steward at the Show so will see the harsh truth soon enough :)

Would love to hear if you have used the advent of a new decade to accompany me in that strange place outside the comfort zone!



 

Competitive Cakes

Since our boys were little it has been a tradition in our family that they decorate the Christmas cake on Christmas Eve.  Even when they moved away from home, first to University and then to employment, cake decorating on Christmas Eve was still mandatory :)

The cakes started out with traditional themes like polar bears and Santa's but in recent years they have gone a bit "off-piste" with the Elvis year being a particularly memorable cake!

This year, with the three of them living away from home and two of them now married there were some changes afoot in the tradition.

So, during December I made them each a plain Christmas Cake and delivered them complete with packets of coloured icing and left them to their own devices.

Here's what happened next!

Middle Son and his wife went for a Cool Runnings theme for their cake

So we have Santa careering down a Bobsleigh run jettisoning presents right, left and centre! (If you haven't seen it, Cool Runnings is a brilliant film about the Jamaican Olympic Bobsleigh team)

Youngest Son went for a completely different tack altogether and opted for a Game of Thrones-themed cake!

Naturally, being a Northerner, it is a House Stark cake because Christmas is Coming. (For those of you not acquainted with Game of Thrones, the motto of House Stark, who rule over the lands in the North, is Winter is Coming)

Finally, our Eldest Son and his wife got their act together and decorated their cake. Being big Game of Thrones fans too, they went for a similar theme. Living and working in the South now, our Eldest chose to ignore his Northern heritage and opted instead to represent a Southern power, House Baratheon! Their motto "Ours is the Fury" needed a bit of tweaking though, so it became "Ours is the Christmas" which suits that stag much better I think.

So, it looks like we have a new family tradition in the making :)

Needless to say, being boys, there was an element of competitiveness in the unveiling, so I promised them all that I would post the photos on my blog and ask readers to vote for their favourite. Naturally I couldn't choose between them :)