My Guy's Birthday

We just celebrated Randy's birthday here in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia--I believe the 7th that we've celebrated somewhere in Asia.   --Don't miss the truly Asian sentiment on the gift bag :D

Anyway, his birthday wish was for a nice, quiet day.  So, in honor of that wish, he got a birthday breakfast complete with real breakfast sausages!  They're produced here in UB as a joint venture with New Zealand and are free of MSG and a whole bunch of other stuff.  They tasted great  (they ought to for what we paid for them; hence saved for a birthday breakfast!)--not as fatty as US sausage.  ...hmm...amazing the things one gets excited about in a developing country... I had brought back this great Turkish robe from Land's End; perfect fit!  So will monogram it soon.  Let's see, we enjoyed a yummy lunch at a newer Thai restaurant, then home for his annual cheesecake.  This year is the traditional New York recipe with a crust made from a cookie-dough batter--a recipe that originated with my dear Aunt Hare, who sadly is no longer with us.  I've made pumpkin/ginger ones a few time that are really yummy, too.

According to Randy, this was a perfect birthday.  Glad to oblige, glad for another year to celebrate, Dear!

Bloggers' Quilt Festival!

I'm so tickled to be a part of this year's Bloggers' Quilt Festival!  My entry was done in Outer Mongolia (literally!  --read on).  This quilt is one of my favorite recent projects that I named "Renegade Geisha's" --renegade because two of the geisha's don't conform to the rest (mainly because I ran out of coordinating fabrics!).  Can you find the two renegades?  ;)  The quilt incorporates fabric origami and the quilt itself is from  Fantastic Fabric Folding  --many projects from this book were a big hit with the Mongolian class pictured below.

Due to my husband's work, we live in Mongolia; and I was privileged to teach classes at a local quilting studio.  I've included a picture of the class where we were working on the geisha blocks.  The students spoke almost no English and I speak what I call Monglish--a lot of English sprinkled with Mongolian.  Regardless, we all had a blast!  ...and, I'm very pleased with this quilt of mine!