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My mother and I have a holiday tradition of the last few years to attend a holiday tea. For the past two years we have gone to Shadelands Ranch Museum in Walnut Creek, California. This year we changed things up and attended a holiday tea much closer to home. Today we attended the Ainsley House 25th annual holiday tea in Campbell, CA.

The Ainsley House was build in 1925 during the Arts and Crafts movement in the style of an English Tudor Cotswald cottage. I love the roof!

The Ainsley House tea includes tea time (with champagne, sparkling cider, delicious house blend tea, mini sandwiches, and delicious sweet treats), a holiday boutique, and a tour of the historic home.

Here are a few pictures from the tour. All of the furniture is original to the house. Check out all the texture in the wood and wallpaper.

 

Local friends, it looks like there are tickets available for the teas in the next week.

I'm participating in the 31 Day Blog Writing Challenge with Cheryl of muppin.com.

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I sent this quilt block off today to be part of a collaboration quilt. We were asked to use only Kona Solids in bright rainbow colors. I had a great time selecting a bold rainbow of color. My solid stash isn't that diverse, but I had what I needed. (This evening I found more Kona that would have been helpful, but I hadn't put it away from a project last month. Oops!)

The block comes from the Strip Twist tutorial by Bonnie Hunter. Since I was only making one block, I selected 16 colors and cut my pieces 2 1/2" x 8 1/2". I wanted to be intentional about the placement of colors so that the rainbow would flow across the block. Here are what my initial strip sets look like.

The block went together magically from there. It has a strong visual impact, but is so quick and easy to make! And I appreciated how there were no seams to match up in the horizontal and vertical seams.

This block makes me itch to play with solids some more!

 

I'm participating in the 31 Day Blog Writing Challenge with Cheryl of muppin.com.

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I am notorious for starting a project when I have no business doing so. Literally dozens of quilts wait in the wings and I decided that it’s time to start making a dress for my one-year-old niece. Let’s not mention how she is still waiting for a quilt (in progress) or how I have another fabric gift I'm working on for her. But she's almost walking. She needs a dress from Auntie Sarah.

I decided to make her a Jewel's Stripwork Dress in the same style as my daughter's airplane dress from when she was two. For the scrappy version it requires nine different fabrics. I started looking at my stash and settled on the Tula Pink drawer to select from. My sister was visiting so she helped pick a focus fabric (those awesome raccoons) and the supporting fabrics. I originally purchased three yards of the raccoons to make my daughter a dress, but that never happened. I’ve used them in a couple other projects, like this mug rug and this swap mini. There are also bits of that print in my 100 day blocks. 

I’ve cut out all the pieces. If I remember correctly the dress goes together really quickly so I hope to have it done by their next visit on the 13th. Stay tuned!

 

I'm participating in the 31 Day Blog Writing Challenge with Cheryl of muppin.com.