At the Table :: 2025 Rainy Day Bites September to December

This September through December, our Rainy Day Bites Cookbook Club continued with a #budgetbakesandbites theme. Part of leaning into budget cooking was using resources we already had on hand. Our focus has also been on using cookbooks already in our library that we had never made a recipe from. I often choose a cookbook and made more than one recipe from it before moving on to another. Below are the tasty results.

September

Featured book: Colu Cooks Easy Fancy Food by Colu Henry @coluhenry

A Pot of Beans

Weekday Cassoulet

My Cec

Soupy Beans with 'Nduja and Torn Radicchio

Roasted Carrots & Fennel with Toasted Almonds, Olives, and Feta

Cauliflower with Anchovy Oil and Crispy Capers

October

Broccoli Rabe Toast with Melted Provolone from Colu Cooks Easy Fancy Food by Colu Henry @coluhenry

Sopa Campesina from The Bean Book by Steve Sando of @ranchogordo

Curried Butternut Squash and Pear Bisque from The Paley's Place Cookbook by Vitaly Paley @vit0bike and Kimberly Paley

Black Bean Soup with Lots of Fritos from I Dream of Dinner (so you don't have to) by Ali Slagle @itsalislagle

November

Squash with Herby Salsa Verde from To the Last Bite by Alexis deBoschnek @alexisdeboschnek

December

Herby Swiss Dutch Baby from Salty, Cheesy, Herby, Crispy Snackable Bakes: 100 Easy-Peasy, Savory Recipes for 24/7 Deliciousness by Jessie Sheehan

Straight-Up Gruyère Gougères also from Salty, Cheesy, Herby, Crispy Snackable Bakes: 100 Easy-Peasy, Savory Recipes for 24/7 Deliciousness by Jessie Sheehan

White Bean Soup with Fresh Sage from Pure Flavor: 125 Fresh All-American Recipes from the Pacific Northwest by Kurt Beecher Dammeier @beecherscheese and Laura Holmes Haddad

End-of-the-Month Baking Challenges:

September 9/30: Apple

Apple, Walnut, and Honey Upside-Down Cake by Lidey Heuck @lideylikes in Colu Cooks Easy Fancy Food by Colu Henry @coluhenry

October 10/31: Pumpkin

Pumpkin Muffins from Muffin Mania by Cathy Prange and Joan Pauli

November 11/30: Caramel

Caramel Slices from Scandinavian from Scratch by Nichole Accettola @nicholeate

December 12/31: Winter Spices

Gingerbread Crinkle Cookies from Sweet Tooth @bromabakery

Whew! It was great to crack open some of my never-used cookbooks and try some new recipes. Heading into the new year, our theme will be Deep Dive, with just one savory and one baking book for the first third of the year. Gotta say, I'm anxious to see what our first challenges are.

Black and White Framed

When I saw my friend Yvonne @quiltingjetgirl share about making Black and White Framed Charity Blocks for the Black & White Framed block drive hosted by Cynthia Brunz Designs @cynthiabrunzdesigns, I thought, "I could do that." Cynthia's blog is the home of Many Hands and Many Hearts, and for her charity, Cynthia runs quarterly block drives, and makes quilts with them to support multiple programs in Oregon.

The request this time was for blocks with frames using either black with a white print or white with a black print.

The centers were to be made up from warm or cool 2.5" squares made into a 4-patch. I was able to make 16 blocks, 8 each warm and cool; half with black with white frames, and half with white with black frames.

Honestly, these were a joy to make. I'll be watching for the next block drive due in March.

Best of 2025

One end-of-the-year tradition is participating in Cheryl/Meadow Mist Designs annual Best of 2025 linky party. It's been my habit to base my 'best' solely on reader views of blog posts, so I'll count up from #5 to the most viewed post of 2025.

#5. Surprisingly, my fabric bundle for the  #spookyseptembersewalong2025 was in the top 5!

I can't resist also sharing the quilt I made with the bundle - Bright Side Boo.

#4. My ABC Bloom Stitchalong Needle Roll wasn't even quilt-related, but the most-viewed of my embroidery projects. It was definitely a favorite of mine too.

#3. The blocks I made for my Bee Sewcial mate, Felicity @felicityquilts - Fantastical Flowers, which happened to be a an Echinacea and a hummingbird.

#2. Blocks for the Forbidden Words Quilt Project, a community effort led by Lorraine Woodruff-Long @quiltinginthefog and Patricia Hickey @trisha_quilts. I expect the resultant quilt to be shared in 2026.

#1. And the top-viewed blogpost of the year just happened to be Ode to Joy Finale, where I shared what I think was my favorite quilt-finish of the year. It's already in Austin, where it will join many others in being shared at QuiltCon 2026 in Raleigh NC. 

As a comparison, I thought I'd also share my Top Nine 2025 on Instagram. Interesting that's there's no overlap!

Top row (l-r): my husband @joejeske, the quilt-holder; @yomaryfons at QuiltCon 2025 leading a Special Exhibit Tour alongside a quilt by @tarafaughnan; my 16-patch quilt made during the Summer Scrap Bash hosted by @loandbeholdstitchery

Middle row (l-r): Erratic Connotation by @catlucia, hanging at QuiltCon 2025; my Side Chairs, hanging in my dining room; my improv plus quilt wip

Bottom row (l-r): Exist Out Loud by @exhaustedoctopus, hanging at QuiltCon 2025; cutting up my small Golden Honey quilt to make mini mini quilts for an art swap with @freelittleartgallery_arlington; me with my Merry Mix, started during a sewalong with @mellmeyer

Anyway, thanks so much for being here. That's a wrap on the Best of 2025, though I expect to have another post or two as I wrap up the year here at A Quilter's Table.

Linking up with Meadow Mist Designs' Best of 2025 Linky Party!

Celine Pouches

Needing a couple more stocking stuffers, I decided to try a pouch from Fun with Flex Frames by Cocotte & Co Creations @cocotteandcocreations. I tried Pouch B, which finished at 5.25” x 5.25”. I thought it would be a good shape, as I was going out on a limb and substituting fabric with leather. Obviously I needed to make a few adjustments: 

• omit interfacing/fusible fleece
• 100/16 (or larger) needle
• cut casing 1" shorter and leave raw edges on ends
• use 3.0 stitch length to stitch the leather; 3.5 for top-stitching

Oh! And I embossed the leather with the initials of the recipients using my alphabet leather stamps.

I made two - one for each of the guitar-players in the family, slipping some new guitar picks in for each of them.

Fortunately, I had the right size of flex frames on hand. It was fun to change things up a little by using the leather, and I loved the result. Hope the recipients do too!

Dropcloth Advent Calendar | Days 15 - 24

Well, my Advent Calendar from Dropcloth @dropcloth continued to bring a spot of anticipation to my mornings. After starting with a bee theme, we've since seen a dessert theme, a mushroom theme, and now a quilt theme - oh joy!

15- Quilt washi

16- Tiny dollhouse quilt by @dropcloth

17- ✂️ sticker by @sarahhearts

Day 18 was the beginning of a celestial theme....

18- 💫 bobbin by @velvetguillotinellc

19- Sparkle 🧵 by @valdani

20- 🌖 👁️ stick and stitch by @dropcloth

21- Moon rocks 🍬 by @maevechocolate

I'm not sure about the 'theme' for these last several items, but the Frixion pen was definitely in preparation for the last couple of days.

22- Heat erasable 🖊️ by @frixion_global

23- Stick and stick exquisite corpse trading cards by @dropcloth. 

Trade with friends! Add your own with your pen!!

24- Word of the year patch by @dropcloth

So that's a wrap! I think my very favorite items were the threads and the samplers; but I also really enjoyed new-to-me chocolates(!) and Day One's bee hive thread bobbin! All told, it was a fun and useful mix of items and definitely a treat for the season.

Merry Christmas!

 

Dear friends, thanks for being here all through the year.

Wishing you a cozy day with plenty of joy this Christmas, 

a pause for rest, and a heart full of hope.

2025 Lined Drawstring Bag Sew Along

By now you probably know.... it's tradition! I'm talking about the Lined Drawstring Bag Sew Along hosted by Jeni Baker @jenib320. I've been participating as long as it's been held - 2020 or 2021? - and making Jeni's bag pattern long before that. It all started when my daughter Rachel @snippetsofsweetness began making these reusable gift bags years ago, the family (and friends!) liked them and grew to expect them, so I joined in the effort and started making them too. After family Christmas, Rachel and I return all the bags to the appropriate maker, so we each have our own hand-made stash to start with the next year. For birthdays, though, we seem to assume the gift bag is part of the gift. Go figure!

At any rate, before joining Jeni's sew along this year, I got out my Christmas bag stash to see how many and what sizes I had. Nearly 40! And that probably would have been enough. BUT. There's always the random present that no bag will fit, or some new fabrics to add to the collection. There's a variety of reasons to need to make just a few more.

Since it's always hard to guess what sizes will be needed, I just started making. Happily, I found a few partially-constructed bags in my Christmas fabric stash, so that's where I started (above). Left to right, there's an Artist bag with mini accent, a two-fabric DVD bag, and a Snack-size with mini accent.

Then, wouldn't you know it, one of my friends who always loves my handmades, asked for a few bags in a variety of sizes as her gift this year. So for her, I made an Artist bag and a Project bag, both with a mini accent; and one of Jeni's new Scrappy Color Blocked Lined Drawstring Bags in the snack size.

Then there was another Snack size bag with a mini accents for another friend's gift.

AND I just really needed to make some new bags for Rachel in blue Christmas-y fabric. It's all Deco Frost by Giucy Giuce. I made a trio, all the Artist bag size, in a variety of the fabrics and bag designs - (right to left below) a mini accent, a traditional, and a two-fabric variation.

Another friend got an Artist bag using the Peek-A-Boo Lining variation....

And finally, I tried Jeni's Leftover Quilt Block bag, which is a new size - 12" wide x 16.5" tall - the same width, but just a few inches taller than The Project Bag. Actually, the block I used - from the Block Studies Collective Star Brite prompt - was just 11" square, but the tutorial is easily adaptable, which is great.

Well, I think I outdid myself this year! Twelve new bags in all. Honestly, it never gets old.