Tea Time for Advent 2017 - Episode 4!

Wow, that went fast! It's our final episode for Advent 2017!

Today I gab about the missing 4th Sunday of Advent :0, how it's suddenly a dance gig bonanza for New Year's Eve, and of course the conclusion of our Advent 2017 Book Club!



**To subscribe to the audio version of Tea Time with Tiffany, just search for it in iTunes or use this link to subscribe via Feedburner in your podcatcher of choice. Intro music is "Feelin' Good" from http://www.purple-planet.com

Items mentioned in this episode: 

• Author's web page with the chronology of the Elm Creek Quilts series.
• The New Year's Quilt

What are you thoughts on Chapters 4 and 5?! What would you like to see in 2018 on the blog and on the podcast?

Tea Time for Advent 2017 - Episode 3!

We're getting closer to Gaudete/rose candle Sunday! It's our third installment in our weekly series for Advent:

Today I gab about how our Advent is going, Christmas baking and traditions, and of course lots of book club talk. Join me!





**To subscribe to the audio version of Tea Time with Tiffany, just search for it in iTunes or use this link to subscribe via Feedburner in your podcatcher of choice. Intro music is "Feelin' Good" from http://www.purple-planet.com

Items mentioned in this episode: 

• The Christmas Quilt, our Advent choice for book club.
• The first book in the Elm Creek Quilts series is The Quilter's Apprentice, and here is a search for the series in Amazon so that you can purchase others if you'd like to read more! 
• From the author's website, here is some fantastic information about the order of books in the series:
  The Elm Creek Quilts novels are a series of books written by Jennifer Chiaverini. The series includes twenty novels, one short story available as a e-book, and a reader's guide:
  

  • The Quilter's Apprentice (1999)
  • Round Robin (2000)
  • The Cross-Country Quilters (2001)
  • The Runaway Quilt (2002)
  • The Quilter's Legacy (2003)
  • The Master Quilter (2004)
  • The Sugar Camp Quilt (2005)
  • The Christmas Quilt (2005)
  • Circle of Quilters (2006)
  • The Quilter's Homecoming (2007)
  • The New Year's Quilt (2007)
  • The Winding Ways Quilt (2008)
  • The Quilter's Kitchen (2008)
  • The Lost Quilter (2009)
  • A Quilter's Holiday (2009)
  • The Aloha Quilt (2010)
  • The Union Quilters (Feb 2011)
  • The Wedding Quilt (Nov 2011)
  • Sonoma Rose (Feb 2012)
  • The Giving Quilt (Oct 2012)
  • An Elm Creek Quilts Companion (Oct 2013)
  • The Quilter's Ghost: An eShort Story (Oct 2015)

  In most of the books, the main character is a master quilter named Sylvia Bergstrom Compson. She and her young friend Sarah McClure open a quilters' retreat at Sylvia's family estate, Elm Creek Manor. Sarah and Sylvia run the "quilt camp" with the help of their friends, the Elm Creek Quilters. Other books are historical, featuring Sylvia's ancestors and earlier residents of the Elm Creek Valley.
  
  

  If you want to read the books in the order I wrote them, read them in the order listed above. However, since I wasn't planning to write a series, I have written each book so that it stands alone. On my book tour, I often hear longtime fans tell new readers that the books should be read in the order I wrote them, but other readers have told me that they have read the books out of order and were able to follow everything just fine. Ultimately it's up to the individual reader. Please note, however, that later books inevitably give away events that occurred in previous books. If you would like to read the books in something approximating chronological order, please note the following:
  

  • The Christmas Quilt takes place in the interim between The Quilter's Apprentice and Round Robin.
  • The Sugar Camp Quilt is set in 1849-1850, so it takes place before the events chronicled in Gerda's memoir in The Runaway Quilt.
  • The Quilter's Homecoming is set mainly in 1925, but it branches off from a storyline introduced in The Christmas Quilt.
  • The New Year's Quilt immediately follows The Quilter's Legacy.
  • The Lost Quilter begins in 1859 immediately following the events chronicled in Gerda's memoir in The Runaway Quilt.
  • A Quilter's Holiday takes place while Bonnie is in Hawaii in The Aloha Quilt.
  • The Union Quilters begins in 1861 and runs mostly concurrently with The Lost Quilter.
  • The Wedding Quilt takes place after A Quilter's Holiday and The Aloha Quilt, with flash forwards to the year 2028.
  • Sonoma Rose is set in the Prohibition era immediately following the events of The Quilter's Homecoming.
  • The Giving Quilt takes place when Sarah McClure's twins are four and a half years old.

Whoa. Now I *really* want to go back and read the entire series! Next week we finish up and read Chapters 4 and 5! Let me know your thoughts on Chapter 3 below, or over in the thread on our Facebook group!

Tea Time for Advent 2017 - Episode 2!

Virtual high five everybody! I'm back for a second week in our Advent Tea Time series!

Today in What's Happening, I talk about Christmas gift buying progress (*snort* it's not going all that well), and lots of dance news. We review the Blessed is She Advent Journal, before moving into our book club chat for chapter 2 of The Christmas Quilt! I thought this chapter was much more emotional than chapter 1.





**To subscribe to the audio version of Tea Time with Tiffany, just search for it in iTunes or use this link to subscribe via Feedburner in your podcatcher of choice. Intro music is "Feelin' Good" from http://www.purple-planet.com

Items mentioned in this episode:

• Blessed is She Advent Journal (in digital download form).
• The Christmas Quilt (our Advent 2017 book club selection).
• Book Club schedule (next week we are reading Chapter 3, which is a bit longer than the previous chapters).
• The Quilter's Homecoming (Elm Creek Quilts Book 10, this is the installment with Elizabeth's story after she moves to California with her new husband).

Anne at The Nutcracker: 

How is your Advent going, dear ones?! Christmas shopping? Please do share thoughts on Chapter 2 of The Christmas Quilt, and I'll have the post up in the Facebook group as well momentarily!

Tea Time for Advent 2017 - episode 1!

Well HELLO there! I feel like it's been awhile, though it's not like I've been away from the blog for any length of time. :0 But Tea Time is back in it's seasonal format, and here we are at episode 1 for Advent 2015!

*streamers*

Today we talk about the format for Tea Time going forward and the seasonal way it will be produced for the foreseeable future (lots of catching up and what's happening, a Catholic tidbit, and then seasonal specials), before moving into our Advent Book Club! Horray! There will be a new Tea Time each week for the next 4 weeks.





CAVEAT: The audio quality this week is very poor, I'm so sorry about that! Being out of practice, I did not properly record the audio while I recorded live, and thus had to go back and capture it from the video, which leads to ca ca in terms of audio. It's something at least for those of you who prefer to listen rather than watch the video. There are also a couple of wonky spots where I had to edit out notification noises that I did not anticipate. *collapses* Next week, I will be back in the groove, I promise!

**To subscribe to the audio version of Tea Time with Tiffany, just search for it in iTunes or use this link to subscribe via Feedburner in your podcatcher of choice. Intro music is "Feelin' Good" from http://www.purple-planet.com


Items mentioned in this episode:

• Pray More Novenas - Immaculate Conception Novena
• The Christmas Quilt, by Jennifer Chiaverini
• Schedule for our Advent Book Club

OK, let me hear from you! Are you praying the Immaculate Conception novena? Book Clubbers, what did you think of chapter 1?!

Crafty things

So. Coming off a long weekend, most people would be glowing about all of their social plans. Me, on the other hand, am glowing about my blanket projects. I've always enjoyed crocheting, and over the summer picked it back up again on a regular basis. I'm realizing this is going to be a long post, about crocheting, knitting, quilting and books, so take your tea and settle in.

About 6 months ago, when cleaning out our storage area, I happened upon my yarn basket. It reignited my love of crochet, and I decided to pick it back up. Well, as is typical of me, my yarn basket was full of half completed projects that had been abandoned after I had lost steam for one reason or the other. Well, more specifically, because I had made mistakes and they bothered me so much I didn't want to finish. (Type A personality...) They were a pathetic-looking lot, all uneven rows and bad color transitions. So, I determined that if I was serious about crocheting again, I would finish some of those projects before starting a new one. It's easy to get stimulated in JoAnn Fabrics from all of the pretty yarn and new patterns and want to begin something new, but true commitment comes from sticking it out with a scratchy old fragment that has holes in all the wrong places.

So, I pulled down my half finished Christmas afghan. That baby took me *forever* to finish, but I did, and I'm very proud of it:

I had repressed all of the other things lurking in the yarn basket, and was optimistically thinking that I could start something new after Project Christmas Afghan was finally over. Alas. I uncovered the baby blanket that I had started when I was pregnant with Henry. 4 years ago. So, I picked that up, thinking I could finish it in a few short weeks. Well...it took longer then that :) But last night, I finished it. *angels sing*

And with the addition of Henry, eating a banana:

I was pregnant in 2005, and I remember working on that afghan when our beloved Pope John Paul II died. This blanket has a lot of history :)

Thus, finally, I could start a new project. *again with the angels* I have a harvest afghan kit on order from Herrschners that I'm excited about, and will match in our guest room (once I paint it). I also ordered a small pattern book for knitting socks. I've never ventured beyond afghans and scarfs, and I'm determined to make working socks. I'm praying that we don't end up with little balls of unraveled yarn in our dryer after washing them, but we'll have to wait and see. My neighbor is expecting a baby at the end of October, so I'd like to make her a few pairs of baby socks. And yesterday, armed with a 10% off coupon from JoAnn Fabrics, I went and bought some bright multi-colored yarn for a baby blanket. Very excited. I started it last night. It's a very simple pattern of single crochet mixed with some puff stitches. Since I need to get it done in a month and a half, I need simple.

So, in other craft news, I've gotten into the idea of quilting lately. I'm reading an excellent fiction book featuring quilters called The Quilter's Apprentice, and I'm totally digging it. I found out that the author, Jennifer Chiaverini has a whole series of books featuring aforementioned quilters; I'm certain you are unsurprised to learn that the public library can be expecting me to invade the instant I get out of work to fetch the next couple in the series. Check out her web site (linked above) if you're interested; she's a good writer and the stories are wholesome and fun.

I've been toying with taking a beginners' quilting class, but my schedule just doesn't permit it right now. Bellydance is in full swing for our fall hafla, and I don't want to be out of the house for another evening each week; I need to be home with my boys. But perhaps over the winter, I may skip a bellydance session so that I can learn to quilt. I can't thread a needle, so this should be interesting...

Any quilters out there? Do you love it?