Travel Day 1 and a giveaway win (picture heavy long post)

Hubby and I took a quick trip to Hyde Park in upstate New York last weekend. We planned to sightsee and have dinner at the Culinary Institute of America. 

We had tickets for the Vanderbilt mansion midday on Friday. It was mostly past leaf peeping season up there, but we did see a few pretty trees on the property.

This is a ginko tree that is famed at the mansion. Its unique fan shaped leaves were a beautiful bright yellow.

I did say that we visited the mansion. It is more than a little bit impressive.

The entrance hall has a gorgeous skylight up above.

Below is the room that would be a guest's first impression. Sadly the tapestry above the gorgeous mantle has faded due to the skylight. This mansion is exactly as it was when Frederick Vanderbilt died in 1938, twelve years after his wife Louise died. This was their summer estate. Frederick left the estate to his niece who wanted to sell it, but couldn't during the depression.  She was persuaded by Franklin Delano Roosevelt to leave it to the National Park Service as an example of the Gilded Age. It is the only Gilded Age property that is part of the National Park Service. All others are run by historical societies. 

Here is the ceiling on one of the parlor rooms just off of the entry way. 

Below is the room where Frederick and his male guests would retire to after dinner. Frederick was not a hunter, but hunting trophies such as the stag head were expected to impress your guests.

I have always been impressed and awed by beautiful coffered ceilings.

The dining table was being set for Thanksgiving dinner.

If you zoom in on that piano, you will see that there are portraits of famous people on it. Don't ask me who they are.

This bust is in an alcolve of the stairway to the second floor.

There is a tapestry and statue when you reach the top of the stairs.

I believe this was a guest bedroom.

This is Louise's bedroom. Wealthy couples didn't share a room in those days.

It certainly is quite grand.

 Notice the railing around the antique bed in the first photo. When the bed was made years before Louise acquired it, these railings were installed so that the necessary important people could watch and verify the birth of an heir. How horrifying. Maybe that is why Frederick and Louise had no children. Another view below.

I found the patterns on this balustrade that surrounded the second floor to be fascinating and beautiful.

You can get a perspective of the height of the mansion looking up from the bottom of the servant's staircase.

In the basement was a gathering room for the servants ala Downtown Abbey.

We walked around the grounds, but except for a few stray roses, the gardens were ready for winter.

There was a small sculpture exhibit.

One of the last of the roses.

Our next stop was the Deer Hill Farm Cross-stitch shop. I grabbed this photo from the internet.

This is a small shop run by a lady in her 80s who was away at the time. It is packed full of all things cross stitch in several tiny rooms. Hubby stayed in the car while I browsed. I could have spent hours.

Look at all those drawers full of floss.

There was another whole room of floss through that first doorway and off to the left was even more.

I was a little overwhelmed by all of it. I wasn't looking for anything in particular. I did buy two charts. I love Little House Needleworks and I haven't stitched many fall pieces. The Pumpkin House pillow caught my eye.  I am looking forward to stitching these.

I would have bought the fabrics for them, but they didn't have what was called for and I wasn't in the mood to make possibly expensive decisions. 

Since our mansion tour was around lunchtime and then we stopped at the LNS, we were hungry mid-afternoon. On our way to our hotel we found Nana's Ice Cream and Grill.

It is just a small roadside take-out place where you can get ice cream, burgers, franks, etc.

Hubby got a hot dog (his go-to quick lunch), but I just couldn't pass up the toasted coconut ice cream.

Oh this was delicious. The toasted coconut was covered in chocolate. It was heavenly.

After checking in to our hotel it was still late afternoon and we had nothing to do until our 7:15 dinner reservation so we decided to go to one of the local vineyards for a glass of wine. We found Nostrano Vineyards.

I must tell you that we were enjoying a beautiful, unseasonably warm day. It was in the 70s in upstate New York in November! We each enjoyed a glass of Reisling (mine was sweet, Hubby's was not) as we sat outside basking in the sun and the view of an apple orchard and grape vines.

Our final stop of the day was dinner at the American Bounty restaurant at the Culinary Institute of America. This was the catalyst of this two day trip. The restaurant was inside this beautiful campus building.

Inside there was a hallway dedicated to Anthony Bourdain and honoring other famous chefs.

There are lecture rooms all down this hall, some with working kitchens at the front of the room.

The displays were very interesting.

This is a nod to Harry Potter. It made us smile.

Of course I had to find a quilt in the hallway leading to our restaurant.

I didn't take photos of our meals. Hubby and I just wanted to enjoy the experience. We had a table near the glass enclosed kitchen where we could see the students working under the supervision of their teaching chefs. Also, all the servers and bussers are students at the CIA. They must work both in the kitchen and out front as part of their coursework. 

You can see the menu that we chose from here. The server brought to the table parsnip and truffle bruschetta. I ordered a French martini and Hubby had his usual vodka. We started with salads....Hubby had a Caesar salad and I had the Spinach Salad. A pan of 6 Parker House rolls was also brought to the table. Oh my, were they delightful. I ordered the Steak Frites for my entree and Hubby had the Cioppino. Both were quite delicious, though I was a little disappointed in the steak as it was a little tough. Usually, Hubby and I share a dessert, but not this night. You can see that menu here. Hubby had the Profiteroles and I had the S'mores Chocolate Tart. Both of these were heavenly. To say we were stuffed at the end of the meal is an understatement. We returned to our hotel room and soon went to sleep after a long day. Day 2 will be another post.

Now to finish this very long post, I want to show you the cookbook that I won from the Autumn Jublilee run by Carole at From My Carolina Home whose blog I frequent.

I enjoy watching the PBS Milkstreet television show and look forward to trying some of the recipes in this book.

Thanks for stopping by!

 

First HQAL update for November

Here is where I was on the last update. 

I had finished the inner border and was contemplating what to do for the outer border. 

I decided to go with my own ideas for the final border of the maroon baby quilt. I determined that I could go across both the short and long edges with 2 3/4" diamonds (4 inches from point to opposite point) and not have any odd shaped diamonds. This looked a little boring though so I added an oval shape in the center using a burger maker that I have and rarely use for burgers.

You can see the pattern I made in the upper left. I have been happily stitching on this when visiting my mom. I have completed two sides and am working on the third. Soon I will be working on the binding. 

Since the backing, which is the dark floral maroon fabric, is so much larger than the quilt, I decided that I will use it as self binding. The dark color will frame the quilt nicely. 

The HQAL is an opportunity for hand quilters to share and motivate each other. The talented quilters below post every three weeks to show our progress and encourage one another. Stop by their sites to see what they are working on. If you have a hand project and would like to join our group contact Kathy at the link below.

Kathy, Margaret, Deb, Nanette, Sharon, Karrin, Daisy, and Cathie 

Thanks for stopping by!

Stitch Along Update

 On the last update I was almost finished with the birth announcement. I just had to stitch my granddaughter's name and the necessary statistics. I showed the finished birth announcement here.

Now I can show it to you framed. There is a story behind this frame. I received a call from the framer telling me that her supplier called to tell her it was discontinued and could I come back to the store to pick another frame. I told her I would be in later in the week. About half an hour later she called again to tell me that she had just received a shipment from the same supplier and, low and behold, it included the wood for the frame that I had chosen. Yay!

The framer quickly completed the framing and here is the completed birth announcement. The frame is a little rustic to go with the Woodland Animals.

So what am I working on now? I started another Christmas stocking. This is for my daughter in law who is a veterinarian.

I am hoping that I can finish it for this Christmas, so it is pretty much the craft that I am devoting most of my time to. This is where I am so far. I can't get a photo that shows that the background fabric is a pale blue. Trust me, it is.

I have already made a trip to Joann's in order to find lining and backing fabrics.

 The snowflake fabric will be the lining and the snowman fabric will be the backing....I think. I often use felt for the backing, but I think this will be better as the cross-stitch fabric is 18 count Laguna and not as heavy as 14 count Aida cloth. By the way, don't you just love that black checkered Santa fabric. I am a sucker for jolly Santas. I just had to pick it up.

Thank you to Avis at Sewing Beside the Sea for hosting this Stitch Along every three weeks and sending us the needed posting reminders. 

Grab yourself a cup of coffee or tea and take some time to visit the other talented bloggers below who are part of this stitch-along. There is a wide variety of stitching projects. These talented stitchers are from all over the world so please allow for the time differences and check back for each post. 

Avis, Claire, Gun, Christina, Kathy, Margaret, 

Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Sharon, 

Daisy, AJ, Cathie, Linda, Helen, Connie, MaryMargaret

Thanks for stopping by! 

Lots of new crafts

For some reason, finishing the birth announcement triggered a desire to start something new. I didn't start just one new project. Oh no, that would be the most sensible. Nope, I started three new projects! REALLY?! What am I thinking?

Thankfully, one of the projects is already completed. What do you think this is?

Those are a whole lot of individual pieces that become a cute little dog. I have had the directions to make these dogs for many years. I used to sell them at craft fairs. They lured in the little children and then their mom or grandmother would often buy another of my crafts. I found this pattern years ago in a magazine. Don't ask me which one. I forgot how easy it was to crochet and assemble. 

Here is the finished pup just waiting to be adopted by my granddaughter.

So I finished the birth announcement which you can see here. Of course that means that I have to start another cross-stitch project even though I have 2 others already in progress. You may remember that I made my son-in-law a Christmas stocking. You can see that here. I had already chosen a pattern and bought the fabric for a stocking for my daughter-in-law. My son and daughter-in-law will be visiting for Christmas, so I decided that I would try to stitch her stocking to have it ready this year. She is a veterinarian, so this is the stocking I chose to make. It is from the Winter 2015 "Cross-stitch and Needlework" magazine.  

I will have to adjust it somewhat so that I can add her name at the top, but I have plenty of fabric to do so. Below is where I am so far. Trust me that the background fabric is the same light blue as in the photo above. It was dark out and I was using an overhead light when I took the photo.

I want to make a trip to Joann's soon to get backing and lining fabric as I want somethingt o complement the light blue. 

What else did I start you ask? I have been wanting to stitch up some Christmas fabric to make gifts for Christmas. I can't tell you what they will be, but this is where I have started.

Most of those strips of fabric are from a Moda Jelly Roll that my son got me as a gift last year. I had to supplement with a few stash fabrics. I am basically following a Thimbleberries pattern that I have used before, but I may leave out some of the appliqued elements. 

Here are a preliminary layout for the quilty gift.

I have since altered the initial layout to add more variety of fabrics.

I have also been busy baking. It is Autumn, so I had to bake something with pumpkin. I have been collecting recipe clippings for years and years, but I don't always get around to making many of them. I decided to try this one for Pumpkin Bread that came from September/October 1996 Country Woman magazine. Yes, I have been holding on to it for 26 years!

The recipe makes two loaves. I thought they were delicious. I gave one to my mother in law (who thought it was a little heavy), gave half to my mother and kept half for me.

My usual pumpkin bread recipe has raisins in it which I love, but this recipe was moist and delicious.....probably all the eggs and oil. This is not diet food. 

Well that is all for now. My daughter and granddaughter are visiting for the weekend so I have to go enjoy some snuggles. 

I will be joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching. 

Thanks for stopping by!