My mom has been working on a Welcome to the North Pole quilt for a little more than a year. She finished the blocks about a week ago. I had promised to set them together for her, which I was able to do last weekend.

It's pretty great, don't you think!

When she started this quilt, I would do my 'applique teacher' thing and make suggestions about how to do one thing or another. Sometimes she took my suggestions and other times, not so much. She made a lot of stuff up on her own—and it works!

I had gone through my fabric and taken her a variety of choices that I thought would work in her quilt. Darned if she didn't make it work. 

Mom thought about using felt for the reindeer and the antlers and that worked well. She went to JoAnn's and got some fuzzy stuff (minky?) for beards. It's cute! She'll do more embellishing after I get it quilted. That will be in the spring, after I get the color book finished. This year she's going to hang the top as it is now. 

Now she's ready for a new project. I've drawn a pattern for her from an antique butterfly pattern. Eventually that will go up on the website because if mom likes it as much as she does, I'll bet some of you all will too :-).

Have a great weekend!

Lori F. won the copy of Quilt Essential and I have sent her an email. Lori, all we need is your address and the book will be on its way to you. Congratulations and happy reading (and sewing!)

Suzanne won the copy of Making Quilts. I can hear sighs from those who are not Suzanne, so how about another give-away!

My publisher sent me a copy of Quilt Essential which is a very nice book ideed! The quilts have a modern/contemporary flavor but even if you prefer traditional quilts, there is a lot of good information to be found between the covers of this happy book. I have enjoyed flipping through it—very gently—now it's your turn!

Leave a comment below to enter the drawing. I'll have my random number generator choose a number on Friday. Good luck!

I subscribe to Chuck Green's Ideabook newsletter. While always interesting, every now and then he links to something that really resonates with me. Yesterday he linked to a post from wait but why about procrastination. It's a quick read that you may enjoy as much as I did.

I have to admit that I am not as good at staying on task as I imagine myself to be. Now I can picture the invisible but energetic instant gratification monkey that lives with me and who is often hard to ignore. But I'm going to try to put him on a leash today! 

The blog, wait but why, posts once a week on Tuesdays. Because I am not going to spend the day procrastinating, I won't look at past posts until later. Maybe much later :-). So I've added a link to wait but why in the list of my favorite blogs at right. That way we can all find it when we time to kill spend.

PS—if you haven't entered the give away from my last post, you have until Sunday, 11/3 to enter. Leave a comment on that post, not this one, to enter. Have a nice weekend!

In celebration of the day, how about a give away? I wrote about Kathy Doughty's wonderful new book earlier this month… would you like to win a copy? If so, leave a comment on the blog and on Sunday I'll choose a winner at random. If you leave a comment, be sure tocheck back Sunday afternoon or Monday morning to see if you won. Sometimes there's an email link to you in your comment, and sometimes there isn't. If I don't know where to send the book, you might miss out.

And because it's Halloween and because Steve and I did dress up on Saturday (with friends) to attend a Halloween wine stroll in downtown Sherman, I thought I'd share a photo. The six of us were mad scientists. Steve stuck to type and went as a mad bug scientist. I channeled Marie Curie and was radioactive-ish. I added glow-in-the-dark necklaces and bracelets after this photo. Our group won the adult costume category!

I recently decided that I wanted to find a tasty, alcohol-free, evening beverage. I love a good mai tai and I wondered if I couldn't alter my favorite mai tai recipe. What makes this mai tai so good is the ginger liquer, but I didn't want the alcohol so I made ginger syrup. 

Ginger Syrup

I made this recipe up—feel free to play with the amounts. Combine the following ingredients in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, simmer for about 20 minutes. Cool. Strain. Put in a bottle or jar. Refrigerate.

• 1/2 cup of sugar
• 1 cup water with approximately (I'm going to try this with honey next time)
• 1 tablespoon of thinly sliced ginger.

(FYI- this is really good stuff. I think it would be a nice flavoring for tea, or even water.)

Here's the drink I came up with. I'm calling it…

Gingerfire OJ

• Orange juice (I prefer a brand with no added sugar)
• 1-2 tablespoons of ginger syrup (recipe above)
• Optional: a splash of grenadine
• A straw dipped in hot sauce (I like Frostbite).

To make a Gingerfire OJ, add 1-2 tablespoons of ginger syrup to a glass. Fill the glass 2/3 full with orange juice, stir. Add ice. (I use ice from Sonic. Crushed ice would be good, or just regular ice if that suits you.)

The fire comes from the hot sauce. Dip a straw into the bottle of hot sauce to coat the inside and outside of the bottom 1/3 of the straw. Unless you want lots of fire, do not put your finger over the end of the straw! Stir the drink with the hot straw. Garnish with fruit, or not.