A Wonderful Week of Parties and Fun

This past week was really wonderful.  First on Saturday Night, we hosted the Pre-Chanukah Chanukah Party for our Chavurah.  It was a Pot Luck and I made Latkes from scratch.  I decided I didn't need the electric fry pan and returned it before the party.  I sort of followed the recipe from the Shiska in the Kitchen blog Yukon-gold-latkes/but I used regular Russet potatoes and added some additional spices.  There was not one Latke left.  We got a nice bottle of wine from the Gift Exchange.
On Sunday, I attended the Houston Chapter of the American Sewing Guild Annual Meeting.  It was a Mad Hatter Tea Party.  The hats that people wore were absolutely wonderful.  There was a $1000 challenge where the members were to find an item advertised for at least $1000 and try to recreate it.  The winner was a facinator hat and the runner up was a tote bag.  There were fur jackets, purses, and other terrific items.  There were about 100 people who came which was wonderful because the weather was very threatening. At the meeting I was elected Secretary of the Chapter Advisory Board.
On Monday, I attended the holiday party and gift exchange for the ASG Wearables Neighborhood Group in Webster.  For the gift exchange I received a little kit of embroidery tools from Sulky which I had almost purchased at the Quilt Festival.  You can see it here:
Sulky Embroidery Toolkit.
On Wednesday I had lunch with friends at Berryhill in Sugarland.  Then I went to JoAnn's to buy fabric for the back of my quilt top and batting. In the evening, the Warwick Towers had its annual party.  There were three open units to tour.  In the penthouse unit there was a centuries old Royal Chinese Robe displayed in a plexiglass case.  The owner told us that they knew it was a Royal Robe because the dragon that was embroidered on the robe had five fingers.  If it was only nobility owned and not royal it would have had four fingers.  The wall with the robe encased slid open and inside was a wide screen TV.  At one of the other units that was open, I discovered that the woman who lived in it was a quilter!  She had a whole room set up as quilting room with a design wall and a peg board for her tools.  The closet was filled with sliding baskets that held her fabric stash.  The buffet dinner had 10 appetizers,  5 main dishes, about 20 different desserts, wine, coffee with liqueurs, and each bite was absolutely delicious.  It was almost impossible to even take just one bite of everything.
On Thursday I made two Chanukah Pillowcases to be presents for the grand kids to use when they are here and then they can take them home with them.
On Friday evening we went to the Family Bingo Center with a group of friends.  It was a lot of fun, but no one in our group won anything.
On Saturday morning, we had the annual pot luck and gift exchange for the Inside the Loop Group neighborhood  group of ASG.  For my gift I received Fabric Organizers that can help me clean up my stash of Fabric.  You can see them here:Fabric Organizers.Then we went out to dinner with good friends for wonderful TexMex food at Pappasitos.  The food is always delicious but the restaurants are always very noisy. 
Today, Sunday, we went to a local Veteran's Center with people from our Synagogue and played bingo with the Vets.  I convinced Dave to donate two bags of books to the vets so we now have more room for his ever-growing book collection. Thus it was a busy and wonderful week.