2015 Taber Stake Dinner Dance - March 6th - Evening in Paris

The theme for this year's dinner dance is Evening in Paris. It takes a lot of people to pull something like this off!!! There is decorating, band practices, program practicing, photos to find, and food to prepare not to mention the clean up after. Cassandra Valgardson was in charge of the evening and getting everyone lined up to help in different ways. She did a great job!!!

Our Evening in Paris featured typical french items and missionaries who had been to France. To Start of the Gym was elegantly decorated for the dinner and had a French street backdrop at one end with a Patisserie, Flower shop and Boucherie shops. It was a well done backdrop by Shirley Francis.

They printed the menu on a bag and put a small baguette inside. The food was a nice menu featuring Marinated Pork tenderloin.

Dessert was crepes. David Torrie was incharge of making about 700 crepes.  Ruthanne and Ken helped prepare the crepes with strawberries, nutella and whipping cream.

There was a program arranged by Sarah Lee of musical solos with photos of France on the screen as they sang.

The band, Plum Crazy, with lead singer Marnie Brown, lead guitar Craig Jensen, Rythmn guitar Mike Saunders, Keyboards Amanda Jensen, Keyboards Don McCrae, Drummer Dave Dube started to play. They were great and kept the dance hopping all night. They had help from sound man Sean Harpell.

After about an hour the Patisserie shop was opened. Angela Gardner was in charge of this venture and it was a huge success. Assisting in the pastry baking was April Saunders. Wendy Engleson, Jessie Ellingson and Donna Hamilton made the confections. We had other help from Jill Livingstone, Alisha Shimbashi and Victoria Kapcsos, Josh and Murray Gardner to name a few. Thanks to all the many helping hands we were able to have a successful event.

We put the finishing touches on before the dinner began in our prep room.

Our signature cake is ready.

We had 16 items. Below are a few.

Petit Pain au Chocolat

Almond Palmiers

Profiterols Paris-Brest

These are filled with a Praline Mousseline

Of course - Eclairs

Petit Lemon Curd Tarts

garnished with whipping cream and candied lemon rind

Petit Pot de Chocolat Tarts

garnished with a whipping cream and a chocolate flourish

Petit Pot de Chocolat Tarts and Caramels

Profiteroles Paris-Brest

Strawberry Macarons and
Pistachio Macarons

Coconut Cream Madeleines, Mendiants
 and Mini Lemon Madeleines

Mille Feuilles

Our most popular item filled with

Coconut Swiss Meringue Buttercream and 

Passionfruit Pastry Cream

Spiced Nuts
with a hint of heat

Orange Cardamon Shortbread and

Lavendar Shortbread

Petit Pain au Chocolat, Signature Cake and Almond Palmiers

Our Patisserie space

The shop was decorated by Angela Gardner, Lindsay Coon and Wendy Engleson
with items from Cynthia Steed and others

Nicely done everyone!!!

Batman's Quilt for Jameson Saunders

My grandson, Jameson Saunders, calls himself Batman all the time. He is obsessed with Batman. With this in mind Scott helped me find some fabrics in Great Falls and then Victoria helped me find some more to match in Lethbridge. We created this one this September (2014).

This still needs to be quilted but my friends helped me pick out a beautiful blue minkie for the back. Then Thalia played with it . . . so much fun.

Victoria is so excited to see Jameson's face when it is finished that we decided we should take a video. I will update this later.

Jameson loved it. He was so excited that he rolled on it and was very happy.

Modern Baby Quilt

Texas in November of 2013 was filled with projects. Plus when there is such a good sale on at Jean's you have plenty to be creative with. Deb found a pattern called Modern Baby. Of course I had to adapt it . . . crazy brain and choice of fabrics makes these things interesting.

Here is the pattern called Modern Baby

And here is my adaptation because I had a border print to work with.

Waiting to be quilted this month!

It finished off at 42" x 49 1/2"

Update: It was finally quilted and bound by July 18, 2014.

2014 1016 - The Christmas Quilt - featuring Laurel Burch fabrics Quilt for Mike

A few years ago Deb was making a tree skirt with cute fabric designed by Laurel Burch. The designer died and I couldn't find her fabrics. However, Jean is closing down her store and having a sale. She didn't have the cute border print that Deb used for the tree skirt but she had some other ones from that line.

Our quilt challenge for this trip from Deb was to do a quilt each with a pattern called French Vanilla. You can see where it got it's name. I am sure everyone's quilt will look different.

I can't do anything normal but this time I did with only varying the colors and feel greatly with this layout. So here is what I have started doing with them.

Finally I finished deciding and sewing being very careful not to include too many of Laurel's signature cats. There are a couple but since we are an "Allergic to Cats" family I had to take artistic liberties.

Just awaiting the actual quilting process a year later . . . no speed here.

 

I finally finished in in 2016.

 

Blessing Dress for Vivian

Another girl grandchild has entered the family! Vivian Rose Saunders was born on May 6th, 2014. She won't be blessed right away but here is her dress.

When Natalie came in August she helped me make this dress for Vivian.

We made a headband to match with the same flower as her dress.

The day finally arrived!  August 24th 2014

It wore her out so we took some detailed photos while she slept.

Chellsea Jensen made the little bracelet for Vivian. Natalie added the little flowers and pearls.

Such a sweet angel.

Here are the men in her life!!! Lucky girl.

The creators of her dress.

Dinosaur Quilt for Takuma Komiya Saunders

Once again I have been inspired by Deb Hardin. We are expecting two grand children this year, a girl and then a boy, so I was looking for a cute baby quilt idea. Deb was doing this pattern her new grandson and so I tried it in girl fabric and boy fabric. Natalie helped me find some fabrics for both when I was in Texas in February of 2014. The Dino fabric on the bottom is the main fabric for the boy baby but that is the only one that is original to our choices as shown in the fabric photo. However, this fabric reminded me of Brad's interest in Dinosaurs when he was little so I just had to make it for his little boy. I finally found the right fabrics so here we go.

I had to do some looking for things that would match the dinosaurs as well as the pattern. This is the pattern called Chirp Chirp (from Quilts and More Spring 2010 magazine.) Some how that name doesn't fit the dinosaur theme . . . Maybe it should be called Dino the Dinosaur . . . just a thought.

 
I actually found a remnant of blue pokadot minkie for the back . .  YEAH!

The most challenging part of this quilt was designing the big dinosaur! The orange fabric also says Dinosaurs all over it.

I had fun quilting this one to look dinosaurish . . .

I finally finished the binding in Vancouver hotel room after Takuma was born.

 Takuma Komiya Saunders was born on July 14, 2014. The quilt is 40.5" x 52.5"

Dragonfly Quilt for Vivian Rose Saunders

Here is the girl version of the Chirp Chirp pattern I was talking about.

The hard part of this one is finding the right color for the back . . . the search is on!

The finished quilt is 40.5" x 52.5".

This was given to Vivian on the 9th of November 2014. The same time that Jameson got his