Craftsy Class Review: Pictures to Pixel Quilts with Caro Sheridan

Online Fabric Patterning with Wax Resist Class

And yes, that's not a typo--her name is Caro, not Carol.

Pictures to Pixel Quilts with Caro Sheridan is a free class that I picked up a long time ago. At the time, I was fascinated by pixel quilts and really thought I would do one. Since then, I've come to the conclusion that I'm unlikely to do one any time soon. I still enjoy them when I see them done by other people, but at the moment it's not my vibe. At any moment, however, that could change, so I decided my best move at this stage would be to watch all the lessons in this class so I'd know what was involved and have it available as a concept in my mental filing cabinet. Or my mental pot-o-bubbling-ideas-brewing-on-the-back-burner. Whichever is a more apt description. 

Watching Craftsy on my iPad while out of town

Watching Craftsy on my iPad while out of town

And then I was out of town for a week with a room to myself, which almost NEVER happens when I'm out of town for work (not for a whole week, anyway). So I took advantage of the alone time and watched the lessons when I got back to my room at night. I even had decent hotel WiFi--which also almost never happens.  

A "pixel quilt" is definitely a child of the digital age. If you're unfamiliar with the lingo, a pixel is a single unit of information in a digital photo; pixels are the dots which, when combined, make up the image on your screen. Photos are often referred to by their pixel size. The more pixels, the more image information. When a photo goes too low resolution (low pixel count) to be recognizable as it's original image, it's said to be "pixellated." That's when you see all those squares show up instead of the picture. This background information is important when you get to choosing what image you want to do in this style of class.

But first, let's start by saying that Caro Sheridan is a very personable teacher, although pretty low-key, low-energy. She's definitely got more of a dry wit presentation than bubbly bestie or kindergarten teacher or maternal figure like other teacher personalities can be. I'd taken another class from her on Craftsy, Shoot It: A Product Photography Primer, and you can find my review of that class here. Interestingly, as I recall, I also watched that one mostly while on vacation. Caro seems to travel quite a bit with me. In any case, I still enjoyed her this time around.

For a free class, this one is certainly meaty! Carol describes her whole process for making pixel quilts in great detail. She gives good examples of what kinds of photos work best for pixellating--which is where that information about what pixels are and how they work becomes useful. You need to choose an image that, when pixellated to whatever degree you want to pixellate it, will still be at least recognizeable as what it's an image of--unless you want to go abstract, which is always an option. But Carol sticks to using images that you can still tell what the image is, even when pixellated. 

Caro also talked about how to go about pixellating an image, walking you through the process step-by-step using one photo-editing software but giving enough general information that you should be able to figure out how to do it in whatever software you choose to use.  

And then she gets into spreadsheets. Oh, this woman is a spreadsheet maven! She teaches how to set up the spreadsheet, how to use formulas to help you color the spreadsheet as per your pixellated image, how to use that spreadsheet to then figure out the number of squares you need of each color, and so forth. I found myself taking notes on the spreadsheet part to apply to spreadsheets I use in my job--no pixellated images involved!  (She demonstrates the spreadsheet portions using Google Docs spreadsheets, which is free for anyone to use. So you don't have to own any particular spreadsheet software to use this process.)

But for you old-schoolers, she does also show how to do it using a graph paper and pencil. In fact, even her spreadsheet method still involves a certain amount of pencil work, so Luddites will be happy.  

Finally, she walks through calculations needed, organizational tips, and sewing units together. She doesn't get into quilting designs or finishing--you're on your own there. But for a free class, one can forgive this especially due to the amount of information provided for creating the quilt itself.

If you're into the idea of making a pixel quilt, I highly recommend watching this class all the way through before you start. I think knowing what's coming next will really help you make better decisions at the outset. It's a straightforward process, but not an altogether simple one. But you do get very cool results.

The Basics

  • It's free!
  • 6 lessons. Lesson 1 is just Craftsy's little sales pitch of less than one minute. Lessons 2-6 are the class itself.
  • Lesson 2 is 4 minutes long and introduces Caro and the concept of pixellated quilts.
  • Lessons 3-6 describe the process in detail: lessons range from 19 1/2 minutes to nearly 40 minutes long.
  • Lesson 3 gives fantastic help for what kind of photo will work well, and how to create your pattern from the photo. Lessons 4 and 5 are all about the spreadsheet and calculations. Lesson 6 is about fabric selection, organization, and assembly.
  • She talks at the beginning (maybe in lesson 2, but I can't remember for sure now) about her recommended number of colors to use and so forth, as well as in lesson 6, so fabric selection is touched on a couple of times. She's a big fan of Kona solids, but you can use whatever fabrics you choose. This type of quilt, though, is most effective when using solids. Even "read as solids" may be a hair too distracting to allow the pixellated image to read true.

I enjoyed watching Pictures to Pixel Quilts with Caro Sheridan, even if watching it mostly convinced me this isn't something I'm going to choose to do at the moment.

 

My 3rd Quarter Resolution Check-in & September Craftsy Class Update

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I suppose it's only fitting that, since I did the August update in the beginning of September, I should do the September update in the beginning of October. At some point I'll get myself back on track!

We just completed the third quarter check-in on the 2014 Quilty Resolutions. My three "monkeys" were (1) Craftsy classes, (2) using my stash whenever possible, and (3) machine quilting. I've done great on #2, using my stash--I've bought very little fabric this year except borders, backing, and binding, and half the time I was even able to get that out of my stash as well. (No, I don't count buying PFD fabric since that's a supply for my hand-dyeing--it's in a different mental category for me.) Monkey #3 is related to monkey #1 since many of my Craftsy classes are on machine quilting. So my progress on #1 has a positive impact on achieving #3--and I've been going great guns on #1! I've had a bit of a slow-down in completions this summer but progress is still steady.

New Completions

(+ 3)

Classes in Progress

(2)

Classes added this month

(0--woo!)

Classes To Be Completed

Current count:  16 (-3 from last month)

Completed Classes (all topics)

Current count: 36 (+3)

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Craftsy Class Review: Designing Modern Quilts with Weeks Ringle

Online Quilting Class

I feel like I'm a little behind in my Craftsy class reporting--I know I missed doing my update at the end of September. I'll catch up with that this week. 

Meanwhile, in the midst of all the cooking classes I've been having a ball with, I have done another quilt class. This one was a theory class rather than a project class, so I mostly watched the lessons and took notes. But more about that below.

Here's my review of Designing Modern Quilts with Weeks Ringle. 

The main thing to understand with this class is that although the phrase "modern quilts" is in the title, the information in the lessons applies across the board, regardless of the type of quilting you're doing. Weeks does give some definitions of modern quilts and modern design in lesson 2, and there are some design ideas towards the end that are related to modern quilt sensibilities more than traditional. Of course, all the quilts she uses as examples are modern quilts as well. Still n' all, even if you have no interest whatsoever in modern quilting, you'd learn quite a bit from this class and be able to apply it to your traditional or art quilts easily. (Lesson 9 is probably the most "modern-quilt specific" as it deals with deconstructed traditional blocks and moving beyond blocks altogether, which are definitely modern quilt material.)

Exploration on color inspiration from "Old Masters" paintings

Exploration on color inspiration from "Old Masters" paintings

There's no class project but she does include "explorations" in the material--exercises meant to help you practice the ideas from the lesson. Although I chose not to do most of the explorations myself because they were things I was already quite comfortable with or was already practicing in other ways, I enjoyed the fact that she incorporated a review of the explorations in the classes themselves, using other student samples from past classes. It's a helpful way for you to do your own practice and then compare it with what she describes from others' work, to get a feel for what you did well and where you may still need expanding.

I enjoyed Weeks Ringle's presence. I've been familiar with her and her husband Bill's work for years, and I have a slight recollection of having seen a lecture by the two of them some time ago at one of the Houston festivals I attended, but I definitely enjoyed the opportunity to experience her as a teacher. I'd love to be in an in-person class with her--I suspect she'd challenge you gently, if you will. In other words, she'd make you want to reach further than you're comfortable, but you'd feel like she was doing it with kid gloves. 

I can't say I had any earth-shattering insights from this class but I've been studying design pretty intensely for the last couple of years so Weeks was going over familiar ground for me. It does always help to see different types of examples of the same principles, though, just to broaden my vision of how things can play out. It's always worth getting the same information in a variety of ways to  help you understand it more deeply, so although all of this was known territory for me, I still think it was worth my time to go through her lessons to get a different perspective.

As stated above, this isn't a project class and there's really not much in the way of specific class projects even in the explorations. The explorations are meant to be done as tests, not completed quilts. The class materials include one pattern for a quilt if you're looking for something like that.

I'd definitely recommend this class if you're new to studying design principles. It's one of the few true design classes on Craftsy, so take advantage of it! I'd also recommend it even if you've done some studying of design and want to look at it from a different angle. 

And, if nothing else, there's tons of eye candy with her quilts!

The Basics

  • 10 lessons, ranging from 11 to nearly 40 minutes in length.
  • The introduction is a serious introduction. Weeks spends a little time telling you about herself, of course, but most of it is about the importance of studying design and how to lay your groundwork for the rest of the class. It's a 33 minute lesson, so you jump into the learning fast!
  • Lesson 2 is where she talks about what makes modern modern, and what is available to us today that wasn't available in generations past.
  • Lessons 3 and 4 address color theory, and although she covers the basics here (color wheel, color schemes and so forth), she does also talk about the messages that color sends, which is a nice touch.
  • Lesson 5 addresses using prints, which gives good information about benefits and challenges; lesson 6, on the flip side, is all about using solids.
  • Lessons 7 and 8 talk about composition and execution. I enjoyed the lesson on composition (over 40 minutes!) because, again, she talks about some basic information you've likely seen in other places but takes it in slightly different directions; lesson 8 also has a very helpful section on avoiding design pitfalls.
  • Lesson 9, as stated above, is one of the few that's probably more closely related to modern quilting than other lesson topics, because it's all about messing with tradition or going in completely new directions. 
  • Lesson 10 talks about quilting and finishing, but to be clear, you'll get a lot more information about quilting from classes devoted to that part of the process. That being said, in many of her examples throughout the whole class she also talks about the quilting motifs and why certain ones were chosen, so you get a lot of inspiration here.

And so, my final review of Designing Modern Quilts with Weeks Ringle: I'd give this class two thumbs up!

(Usual transparency statement: Using the Craftsy links in this post helps support this podcast and blog. Thanks!)

 

 

Craftsy Class Review: Cooking Essentials: All About Chicken, with Marge Perry

Two reviews in one week! Bonus! Actually, I completed both of these classes some time ago and just haven't had the time to post reviews of them until now.

Here's another basic technique class, but this time it's all focused on one particular meat that I use a lot in my house: chicken. I actually like chicken quite a bit and don't get bored with it the way a lot of folks do, but even so, it's always worth picking up a few new recipes and tricks to keep things interesting.

Earlier this summer I picked up Marge Perry's Cooking Essentials: All About Chicken when it was on sale. I watched all the lessons during a period of time when I actually didn't have much time to cook (or quilt, or anything else for that matter). The lessons were a good length to watch on my iPad while I was eating breakfast or lunch, making mental note of things I wanted to try out later once my schedule eased up a bit. 

Roast chicken using Perry's methods--and a variation on her recipe with a mix of lemons, garlic, and fresh rosemary under the skin with salt and pepper on top. Some of the lemons snuck out from under the skin and charred just a bit on the top, but e…

Roast chicken using Perry's methods--and a variation on her recipe with a mix of lemons, garlic, and fresh rosemary under the skin with salt and pepper on top. Some of the lemons snuck out from under the skin and charred just a bit on the top, but everything else was perfect--the skin was crispy and the chicken moist. Yum.

Finally, I had a Saturday free--and it was a cooler day so I was ready to turn my oven on. Roast chicken seemed just the ticket, so I took advantage of the opportunity to put one of Perry's lessons from the class to work.

I've been roasting chicken for pretty much my entire cooking career, since both my husband and I really like it. (He's also an old hand at roasting chicken and will often make one for himself if I'm out of town.) If I recall, one of the very first dinners we made after we got back from our honeymoon was a roast chicken. In more recent years I've been playing around with different seasoning rubs, stuffing various things under the skin, and so forth. I didn't think Marge Perry would have much to teach me about a roast chicken. But oh, I was wrong. One simple change made a world of difference. Thanks, Marge! I'll be doing it like that from now on!

Each lesson focuses on a particular part of the chicken or taking the chicken as a whole. Each lesson also has a recipe it uses for that part and she walks you through many of the steps for that recipe. If you're looking for techniques and recipes, this is a great class. For myself, I would've liked a little more information on what other types of preparations work well for that particular part of the chicken; for example, qualities of that part that make it work better with certain types of preparations than others, or certain flavor profiles than others, that kind of thing. I am at a stage of cooking in which I far prefer to build my own recipes and want more information that will help me do that, rather than how to follow someone else's recipes.

Still, I did pick up a few good tricks on cooking with chicken in general from this class and, now that we've officially entered fall and cooler weather and more kitchen-based-cooking, I'm looking forward to testing out more of her techniques in the weeks to come.

After all, I just can't resist doing something named "spatchcocking." Don't know what that is? There's a whole lesson on it in the class!

Because this is a technique class, they've created it so you can dive in for one lesson and get everything you need to know for that technique without having had to watch any of the others. That means that there's some foundational information that gets repeated every time. After watching two or three of the lessons, I was quoting along with her how to measure the temperature of the chicken for doneness. But, still, that's not a bad thing to have drilled into my head.

On a scale of 1-10, I think I'd rate this class around a 7, maybe a 7 1/2 for me. But that's just because I want more cooking freedom, as it were. From the perspective of someone who's just starting out, or hasn't done much with chicken, or enjoys learning new recipes, this would probably be more like an 8 1/2 or a 9. She is a very good teacher, very polished but accessible, and the recipes do all sound quite tasty to me, even if I'm unlikely to use them as-is myself.

The Basics

  • 9 lessons. The first lesson is about a minute and a half of introduction. Lessons 2 through 9 range from 4 minutes to about 12 1/2 minutes.
  • The lessons cover boneless breasts, bone-in breasts, wings, thighs, drumsticks, spatchcocking, the whole bird, and how to cut up a bird--and that last lesson ends with best practices for hand-washing.
  • Each lesson is built around a particular recipe for that part, so there's a lemon butter sauce, a stuffing recipe, a sauce for wings, and so forth. 
  • The class materials include 7 recipes--all of which are covered in the class, if I recall, though there may be a throw-in that's not in a lesson. 

Cooking Essentials: All about Chicken with Marge Perry: again, somewhere between a 7-8 for me, but likely an 8-9 for others who are looking for more specific direction. In either case, definitely worth checking out!

(Using Craftsy links in this post helps support this blog and podcast--thank you!)

Craftsy Class Review: 20 Essential Cooking Techniques with Brendan McDermott

As I'd mentioned in a blog post awhile back, I had submitted a request to Craftsy some time ago to do some basic cooking technique classes aimed at new cooks--thinking especially of my kids and nieces and nephews who all are a lot more interested in food and cooking than I was at their age. Some of them have done in-person cooking classes with me but because of random work schedules, college, and little bitty babies in their respective lives, they don't always have time to haul themselves to a cooking school. Video lessons are the perfect answer. I was thrilled to get an email from Craftsy saying that my request had now been answered. Enter Brendan McDermott--one of my fave Craftsy teachers to date--and 20 Essential Cooking Techniques with Brendan McDermott. Since I'd helped make it happen, I figured I had to buy it myself.

And I'm glad I did!

Hardboiled eggs done perfectly--not over or under done. These turned into egg salad.

Hardboiled eggs done perfectly--not over or under done. These turned into egg salad.

Even a woman who's been scrambling eggs for [ahem] years can learn a few new tricks.

My recent dental issues meant I was having to restrict myself for days on end to soft, mushy foods. I had plenty of opportunities to use skills I'd learned from the class on homemade pasta I'd taken a few weeks ago, but I needed to keep protein in my diet so I started eating a lot more eggs than usual. This class has two entire lessons on eggs and walks through hard-boiled, poached, fried, scrambled, and omelettes. 've done most of those things...a lot...for a lot of years. The only two I hadn't done successfully were poached and omelettes--my poached ended up stringy and my omelettes ended up scrambled. But I always liked my scrambled eggs.

 

Poached eggs--yums.

Poached eggs--yums.

Still, boredom with soft foods made me willing to try new techniques just to do something different. And this old dog learned a few new tricks! Following his methods, my hard-boiled egg was perfectly done, my poached egg was beautiful, my scrambled eggs were extra fluffy, and my omelette stayed omelette-y!  

Brendan McDermott is fun to listen to, although his humor isn't quite as evident in this class as it was in his free knife skills class. (See my review of that one here.) His teaching style is relaxed, and he explains the whys behind the hows. I feel like I understand why certain techniques work better now than I did before, even where they were techniques I was already using.

​The lessons are each meant to be stand-alone--in other words, their working assumption in the class is that someone should be able to dip in, watch one lesson, and get all the information they need for that one technique without having missed anything from a previous lesson. This means that if, instead, you watch all or many of the lessons in a row, you will hear certain foundational information over and over. I can pretty much quote Brendan's instructions about heating oil verbatim now. But it's good information, so it's not bad to have it drilled into my head. 

Steak and shredded cheddar omelette, with the steak diced very, very small as I was testing whether I could handle chewables yet.

Steak and shredded cheddar omelette, with the steak diced very, very small as I was testing whether I could handle chewables yet.

I've watched most of the lessons at this point and plan on using his techniques for making clarified butter (something I've never done), and I'll be making fish for dinner tonight based on his lesson on working with fish and shellfish. 

Can you tell that I really enjoy Craftsy's cooking classes--perhaps even more than the quilting ones? I know, that's nearly blasphemy to admit on a quilting blog. But there you go. 

This is not a recipe-oriented class like other technique classes are. He does give some very simple, quick instructions for pan sauces and the like as he's talking through the techniques. The class materials, however, do include 6 recipes, only a few of which I remember him mentioning in the class itself. This truly is a technique class. I didn't miss the recipes at all, though I will be using one of the quick pan sauces he does with my fish tonight--it's a way to make something just a little more special and flavorful without taking any more time or dirtying any other dishes. FTW.

I recommend this class particularly for newbie or less confident cooks, of course. But I also recommend it for anyone who is interested in tweaking their techniques after a lot of years of cooking. There's a lot of good information packed into each lesson. And, again, Brendan McDermott is a really good teacher--easy to listen to, explains everything well, and with a deadpan humor that I enjoy.

The Basics

  • 9 lessons; the first lesson is just an introductory piece about a minute long. The other 8 lessons range from 9 1/2 minutes to nearly 40 minutes.
  • Lesson 2 lays the foundation with "Enhancing Flavors," explaining how to toast various spices and nuts, clarifying butter, and making infused butters. Lessons 3 and 4 are about eggs--hard-boiling, poaching, frying (sunny-side up and over-easy), scrambling, and omelette, plus tips on how to tell if an egg is fresh and so forth. Lesson 5 covers blanching and shocking vegetables, lesson 6 is working with chicken, lesson 7 is making stock, lesson 8 is fish and shellfish, and lesson 9 is pork tenderloin.

So, my final verdict on 20 Essential Cooking Techniques with Brendan McDermott: Two thumbs up!

(Note: Using the Craftsy and Amazon links on this post help support this podcast and blog. Thanks so much!)

Craftsy Class Review: Homemade Italian Pasta with Giuliano Hazan

So you may recall my recent birthday celebration held at the New York Wine and Culinary Institute in the Finger Lakes of New York State. 

And how I learned how to make pasta.

And how I fell in love with making pasta.

And how my husband bought me a pasta machine, and I've been off and running. (Amazingly, even with all this homemade pasta in the house, I've still managed to lose weight the last couple of weeks. Must be all the calories I'm burning cranking the rollers on the machine.)

Well, finally--as promised awhile back--here's my review of the very tasty and very helpful Craftsy class: Homemade Italian Pasta with Giuliano Hazan. 

My first pasta made at home.

My first pasta made at home.

I. Loved. This. Class.

Giuliano Hazan is the son of the woman who has been credited for bringing Italian food into American (and British) home kitchens, Marcella Hazan. I'm not familiar with Marcella's work as I don't own any of her cookbooks. But I can say that Giuliano is a wonderful teacher in his own right. I found his lessons very easy to follow. In fact, the first couple of times I went through the process of making pasta with my new pasta machine, I did it side by side with him, having the videos running while I was doing the steps. Remarkably easy to follow, in fact, as I didn't have to keep jabbing at my iPad screen with pasta-covered fingertips to go forward or back. Smooth sailing.

The very first time you use a new pasta machine you have to make a batch of "waste dough," so to speak, because sending the dough through the rollers cleans any manufacturing or shipping dirt off the rollers and prepares it for service. This gave me the perfect opportunity to make my first batch of dough using his techniques because I had nothing to lose.

First taste--noodles with butter and poppyseeds--the way Mom made then when I was little.

First taste--noodles with butter and poppyseeds--the way Mom made then when I was little.

Admittedly, though, I didn't see much stuff coming off on the pasta as I rolled it through, so I tossed the earlier bits more likely to have invisible gook and still cooked up the later bits so I could see how everything was going. Since I'm still with us to write this blog post, I must not have ingested anything too suspect. 

I've been playing with different flours, which I will say comes more from the Artisan Pasta cookbook I bought than it does from Giuliano's class. He does talk about flours at the beginning and helped me understand why there were so many different ways to approach making pasta (in short: it's a regional thing) as well as a little more about the different types of flours you might use, but Artisan Pasta goes a bit more in-depth on the subject. I've been going back and forth between using an unbleached white flour and a pasta flour (which has semolina and durum in it). I also bought a whole wheat flour but haven't had a chance to test that one yet--that's next week's batch, I think. Giuliano also talks about making "green pasta" (with spinach mixed into the dough) and explains how to adapt it to "red pasta," (with tomato mixed in), but I haven't tried either of those yet either. Artisan Pasta also has a ton of recipes for flavored pasta doughs that I haven't gotten to yet.

So much pasta, so little time.

Ah, but back to the class. 

My most recent batch of pasta.

My most recent batch of pasta.

Giuliano is very easy to listen to, tells little stories here and there through the class so you get a real sense of how pasta and Italian food is such a part of who he is, and does a great job at filling in "dead air time" (while he's kneading or rolling or whatever) with extra information, substitutions, and great tips and tricks. He took all the concern out of trying to use a pasta machine myself, without a partner, by explaining some extremely easy fixes. Doh. Of course. 

He also explains how pasta is rolled out without machines, and gives information for using electric machines such as the type that attaches to a KitchenAid mixer. Because the electric ones are noisier, though, he mostly uses a hand-crank machine in the videos so as not to interfere with the sound.

Again, I really, thoroughly enjoyed taking this class. I'm looking forward to mixing his techniques with recipes from Artisan Pasta, as well as learning how to adapt the techniques to different ingredients. It's a matter of getting a feel for the proportions needed of liquid to flour depending on the density of the flour you're using, as well as how thick a pasta you need for the shape you're making. So far, I've been keeping it simple, but oh, I can see the possibilities.

Noodles in soup

Noodles in soup

Since I'm also one-tooth-short-of-a-full-mouth these days (and no, that's not a euphemism), I've been finding that pasta is a very easy-to-gum meal. So last night I combined a Parmesan broth recipe from Peter Berley's Building Flavorful Soup class (see my review of that one here), with homemade noodles from this class, threw in some diced tomatoes, crumbled chicken sausage (Wegmans Fire Roasted Tomato & Basil--my all time fave), and some fresh basil from my garden, and yum yum. I almost didn't mind having a sore tooth for a few minutes, there.

I highly, highly recommend this class. Everyone should be making their own pasta, in my opinion.

The Basics

  • 7 lessons ranging from 10 to 25 minutes
  • The class begins with a brief introduction to Giuliano but dives almost immediately into making the dough. The first lesson includes the instructions for making spinach pasta with a mention of how to adapt those instructions for making tomato pasta, and concludes with information about how to use and store the dough.
  • The next lesson covers how to roll out and make basic cut pastas. The rolling technique in this class is where he varied most from what I learned from the chef in the culinary center on my birthday--I've been using Giuliano's technique and it works great, so I'm sticking with it. 
  • Lessons 3 through 6 are how to make a variety of shaped and filled pastas, and each includes a recipe for that particular pasta. I liked that he talks about what kinds of dishes each pasta works best in, and sometimes how they're used traditionally in Italy as well as more modern uses. 
  • The final lesson talks about how to cook and sauce pasta. It may seem straightforward, but I found that lesson gave me, if you'll pardon the pun, food for thought. 

Even if you don't plan on learning to make your own pasta (but why wouldn't you?) I think you could still get something out of this class, just in knowing what the shapes of pasta are and how to use them most effectively, plus a lot of great recipes.

I do have to also mention that Hazan has two other Craftsy classes. I don't own either of these yet but I imagine I can see them ending up in my shopping basket in the not-too-distant future:

Classic Italian Pasta Sauces: Meat & Tomato with Giuliano Hazan

Classic Italian Pasta Sauces: Seafood and Vegetable with Giuliano Hazan

Review complete. Two thumbs up!

(Transparency statement: Using the Craftsy and Amazon links in this post help support this blog and podcast. Thank you!)

August Craftsy Class Update (oops--just realized it's September!)

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Summer's nearly over, and my fall's pretty busy so I'm hoping I can continue to make at least some progress on Craftsy classes. My goal is to whittle my "still to be completed" list to a single digit by Dec 31. Since I'm at the 3/4 mark for the year, I went back to my original post on this last year in December to see where I stood. At that point, I had 24 uncompleted classes. I now have 20. That wouldn't seem like I'd made a lot of progress, except...last December, I had completed 14 classes. This month, I have 33 completed classes. So I've definitely been completing far more than I've been adding. Yippee!

New Completions

(+ 4)

Classes in Progress

(2)

  • Cooking Essentials: All About Chicken with Marge Perry (see "Classes added this month"--and, actually, this one's just about done too. Will probably have it done this coming week.)
  • Designing Modern Quilts with Weeks Ringle. Confessional: I'd actually watched all the lessons in this one a long time ago, when I first bought this class. However, I was sewing at the same time and don't feel I paid close enough attention. So now I'm re-watching the lessons again. Not sure if I'll do any projects based on it, but Il will stay focused and take video notes and such to be sure I've actually learned from the class and haven't just had it on as background entertainment. 

Classes added this month

(+5) (Ahem.)

This one has been in my wishlist for a long time. I picked it up on sale earlier this month:

During a weekend away with my husband, we were once again talking about our mutual desire to be healthier and how we could help one another towards those goals. The fact of the matter is, most of the cooking now falls to me only because of our schedules. My husband enjoys cooking and cooks quite well, but as I work from home that means that during the average week it's just easier for me to do it. The other reality is, we eat a whole lot of chicken. We both like chicken and we like all our usual ways of doing it, but there's always room for improvement and new ideas. Therefore, during a huge Craftsy sale mid-month, I picked up these two additional classes:

And you've hopefully already read my blog post about this one:

And, finally, for my birthday (see my blog post about this too):

Classes To Be Completed

Current count:  20 (+3 from last month...oops; lost a little ground, there.)

Completed Classes (all topics)

Current count: 33 (+4)

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Craftsy Class Review: Building Flavorful Soups with Peter Berley

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And now, it's time for my review of Building Flavorful Soups with Peter Berley.

As summer winds its way down towards fall, I start thinking of chilly nights with the smells of something tasty cooking on the stove. I've been wanting to focus some energies around learning how to build my own soups for awhile. The fact of the matter is, I only have one soup I make regularly that I use a recipe for (Pumpkin Bisque with Smoked Gouda--amazing); the rest I make up on my own anyway. But I wanted a few more ideas, better techniques, things that could send me off and running in any number of directions. 

Parmesan broth with toast, a poached egg, shredded Gruyere, and chives. 

Parmesan broth with toast, a poached egg, shredded Gruyere, and chives. 

And so, I bought this class. Peter Berley provides techniques and recipes for several types of broth that can be used as the base for a variety of soups. He starts out pretty simple, with a very basic tomato broth and a Parmesan broth, both of which I was immediately ready to try out myself. It uses Parmesan rinds and since I've gotten in the habit in recent years of buying good Parmesan and grinding it in my food processor, now I know what to do with all those rinds I slice off first!

I made the Parmesan broth and dressed it up exactly the way he suggested in the class--not too bad. I'd never poached an egg before without using my egg cooker--it didn't turn out pretty, but it worked.* And I was surprised that I actually enjoyed a poached egg floating around in a soup! Still n' all, I'll want to do some more doctoring to that one. I can imagine using the Parmesan broth with tortellini, diced tomatoes, and fresh basil, for example, or as a cooking liquid for any sort of pasta or rice. Yum.

I've bought a bunch of tomatoes to try out his method of making tomato broth, but our family plans changed on Sunday so I haven't had a chance to make it yet. I'm hoping to get to that sometime later this week, and turn the broth into tomato rice soup, a family fave.

I'm also looking forward to following his instructions for making chicken broth. It's similar to what I've seen before but has some differences to it, so I'm anxious to try it out. However, that will probably wait until a rainy weekend as it has more kitchen prep time involved.

Peter Berley has a very relaxed delivery. Indeed, sometimes I felt it was a little too relaxed. I've grown accustomed to food instructors who use cooking time as a chance to give more information, some chemistry background to what's happening on the stove or in the oven, suggest substitutions, and so forth. With Peter Berley, there is occasionally "dead air," and it feels a hair awkward at times. Still, he's easy to listen to when he is talking, and I did learn a fair amount more about making broths as bases for soups.

That being said, I do wish there had been something along the lines of the chart that Molly Stevens provides in her Secrets to Slow Cooking: Mastering the Braise class (see my review here), to give me more ideas about how to combine different ingredients within flavor profiles. He mentions variations in passing, but having an actual chart in the class materials would've been very helpful so I wouldn't have to keep running back to the different lessons to remind myself of the possibilities.

However, one soup helps keep away vampires and ghosts. So that's a win.

While this wasn't my favorite of the Craftsy cooking classes, I did still learn a lot from it and will be continuing to play around with his recipes and suggestions. The printed materials will stay in my kitchen recipe binder for reference. If you're a fan of soups, I do think this one is worth adding to your queue.

The Basics:

  • 6 lessons, ranging from about 24 minutes to about 37 minutes (absent the first lesson which is his three minute introduction)
  • Lessons cover vegetable and herb broths and soups, Japanese Dashi variations and Asian soups, using shellfish, meat, and poultry in broths, soups, and stews, and pureed soups.
  • Many of the broths he covers are either vegetarian-friendly or could be easily made so. I was specifically watching for this as my daughter's a vegetarian. 
  • He briefly touches on refrigerating or freezing the broths, although he doesn't spend a long time on that. 

So, for Building Flavorful Soups with Peter Berley, I think I'd give this class one thumbs-up, one thumb in the middle. Again, not my most favoritist of the cooking classes I've taken on Craftsy, but I definitely learned quite a bit and have some good ideas for moving forward. My second thumb would be fully up if there'd been a chart as I'd suggested above, or if Peter Berley had filled some of the dead air with more information about flavor profiles and other ingredients that play well together in soups with certain bases, that kind of thing.

*For instructions on poaching eggs, I did a quick refresh-my-memory check and used Alton Brown's method. Peter Berley doesn't cover that in the class.

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A Finish and a Craftsy Class Review: Thread Art with Lola Jenkins

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Let me just start by saying, I had a ball with this!

The Craftsy class at hand is Thread Art with Lola Jenkins. My project ended up varying greatly from what she did in the class--so what you see here is inspired by, but not an exact replica of, the techniques she teaches in the class.

I'm hoping you'll see what fun I had with this and want to hightail it right over to Craftsy to sign up for her class!

Hawaiian flower, my own photo taken in 2010

Hawaiian flower, my own photo taken in 2010

The foundation of the class project is using a copyright-free image to base your artwork upon. She gives a lot of ideas about where to get your copyright-free images, and provides one in the class materials (The Girl with the Pearl Earring); it was one I do really like and debated doing myself. But I generally don't want to do what I know a bunch of other people are doing, and it wasn't a portrait I had ever wanted hanging in my house. I went back to one of my own photos (taken in Hawaii in 2010)--one I've always intended to translate into fiber in some way or another.

Photoshopped outline of flower

Photoshopped outline of flower

I'm not particularly good at drawing realistic things freehand, so I used PhotoShop to get an outlined version--more or less. There was at least enough outline for me to follow and trace the main parts. 

I stuck to the outline of the flower and each petal, plus the center stamen. I knew I'd be doing later quilting to give it more dimension.

I chose to do it on a white background so that the oranges and yellows of the flower would really show up well. I used one of my PFD fabrics as I had nothing else white in my stash that didn't have any print to it.

Windowpane light box

Windowpane light box

Then I used my trusty built-in lightbox (!) to do the tracing. Someday I'll have neighbors in that currently-empty-lot and and they'll wonder why the crazy lady next door keeps taping things in the window. I should come up with  messages to write on the back of the images I'm tracing. "Call the Mothership." "The Bear Flies at Midnight." "Send brownies." Messing with the neighbors' minds: always a good time.

Lola Jenkins makes several suggestions in the class (for which you're going to need to buy the class to find out!) about other things to do to your design, but none of them were speaking to me for this particular image. I finally landed on what I think was probably my most brilliant idea of the whole process. I pulled out my Hawaiian quilt block book, chose a block design that had a great outside edge to it, and used only that part of the block to create a frame for the project from one of my hand-dyes. Love it. May have to do that more often! I also free-hand drew leaves around the outside of the flower to help balance the entire thing. I drew the leaf I'm most comfortable free-handing. @Nonnie_p pointed out that it looked suspiciously philodendron-esque. Hey, when you find what works, stick with it. 

I knew I'd be able to shade the leaves fairly well--I've done that before. The flower was a bit intimidating, though, with all the ruffley bits. I kept going back over and over again with slightly different colors or adding in a line here or there, and I'm fairly pleased with the way it turned out. 

Dimension in the petals

Dimension in the petals

I debated for awhile what color thread to use in the petals to make the dimension even more obvious. Black would be too heavy. But invisible thread may not be interesting enough. I had finally settled on red thread until I actually sat down to do the stitching...the red wasn't jazzing me as I pooled it on the petals to test it out. Then I realized--wait! I had all those Superior "Try Me" special variegated threads I'd been picking up lately. Bingo! One in orange, yellow, and red variegation. FTW.

I had a lot more fun stitching the petals than I thought I would--I was a bit nervous about this part, as I knew it could go from helpful-dimension to way-wrong-angles in the blink of an eye. But, again, I was pretty happy with the way it turned out. And that thread really is pretty. I also did some thread painting in the black center, and you can nearly see a corner of the stamen. I'd used a yellow thread to do circles in the stamen area, but the circles are so dinky and I could see what I was doing so poorly that it ended up being more of a scribbly-fill. But it worked, so I moved on.

I stuck to the theme of Hawaiian quilting and echo-quilted both the flower and the border, and I went with a simple fused binding with one of my black hand-dyes--nothing fancy.

And so, my finished class project!

And the back looks pretty spiffy too! (Used another of my hand-dyes)

And the back looks pretty spiffy too! (Used another of my hand-dyes)

And so, for my review of the class itself:

1. I had a ball doing this. It was a fun combination of quilting with my old fave hobby, coloring. (Coloring in geometric design coloring books was my main form of stress relief in college, in my pre-quilting days.)

2. I learned a new technique that can be applied in many ways in future art quilts.

3. I got more comfortable with free-form thread sketching, contouring, and so forth.

4. I realized I'm actually not too bad at shading and drawing. Still no Van Gogh, but hey, good enough for horseshoes!

5. Lola Jenkins is a very artistic person and I enjoyed hearing her tips and suggestions for tools, techniques, and different ways to achieve results. Please note that the description of my approach above is inspired by her class but doesn't follow it exactly. You really should check out her class to see how she does things. I have a few take-away ideas that I can easily see myself putting into practice in other projects even if I didn't use them here.

The Basics:

  • 11 lessons, ranging from about 6 minutes to 35 minutes
  • She addresses choosing materials, supplies and resources, how to set up your sewing machine, etc, and then has one full lesson on finding copyright-free art with some very helpful ideas.
  • The next lessons are about turning a photo or image into something you can trace on fabric, adding other elements to the design, transferring the designs onto fabric, creating your quilt sandwich, stitching it out, coloring (over two lessons, with specific tips about eyes, lips, and shading), and final steps to set the color. The last lesson is a gallery of her own work which gives plenty of inspiration!

I really enjoyed this class. Two thumbs up! 

One more time, that's Thread Art with Lola Jenkins. Get out your colored pencils and get ready to have fun!

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Craftsy Class Review: Fire up the Fish with David Bonom (and a recipe!)

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I'm ready to review my next class! Welcome to Fire up the Fish with David Bonom.

I'm trying to overcome a lifetime aversion to seafood. I grew up eating fresh perch (and sunnies and croppies) out of Lake Ontario, filleted and fried in cornmeal. Other than that, I've really not been a fan of anything coming out of the water. Over the last 10 years I've been trying a lot more varieties of fish, and have begun to nearly like some of them. I'm still not a fan of shellfish of any kind--and believe me, I've tried most of them. Shrimp--well, that's just nasty. (And yes, I've tasted a few preparations. Couldn't get through any of them.) My husband's family is big into clambakes. Can't do it. The only way I'll eat a clam is if it's heavily battered and fried--basically once it's a vehicle for the batter, I can live with it. My theory is that I have a sister who's deathly allergic to shellfish so my DNA has a genetic aversion. That's my story and sticking to it.

So determined to try one of Bonom's recipes, I thumbed my nose at the rain and grilled anyway.

So determined to try one of Bonom's recipes, I thumbed my nose at the rain and grilled anyway.

David Bonom, however, made me want to start throwing all sorts of fish on the grill. He still couldn't make shrimp look good to me but to those of you who like shrimp already, you'd probably be into what he does with those. The same goes for his lesson on lobster tails--not my thing, but for those of you who already like lobster, your mouths would probably be watering.

Mind you, this is a technique class, not so much a recipe class. He does give the recipes for every preparation he uses, but he only briefly talks about possible variations or how to create your own recipes, which I'd hoped would be more prevalent. But I got so much inspiration it ultimately doesn't matter.

The class was tremendously inspirational for me. We hadn't ever tried to grill a fish at our house but after watching the lessons all the way through, I was chomping at the bit.

Swordfish on the grill, just starting out.

Swordfish on the grill, just starting out.

And, most notably, I was ready to try a fish I'd never been brave enough to order in a restaurant before: swordfish. He made it look so good in the class, I had to give it a go!

Armed with what he'd said to look for in a good, fresh, piece of swordfish, I took a quick jaunt out to my grocery store and found two smaller swordfish fillets that had all the qualities he said to look for and none of the ones he said to avoid.

I also got all fancy on its butt. Although I stuck to his recipe for the dry rub, I decided it called for a little fruit salsa, so I was making up a recipe as I wandered through the produce section. I'll post my recipe at the end--it turned out very tasty.

The fish was really quite simple. I've done enough grilling, and enough dry rubs, to be confident on both counts. I had picked up some useful tips from his classes, though, and had absolutely no problem with my swordfish steaks sticking at all.

I even followed his suggestions for how to get the best grill marks. Mighty pretty, if I do say so myself.

This being my first time out of the gate with (1) grilling fish and (2) working with swordfish, I overcooked it just a hair. I should've pulled it off the grill maybe just one or two minutes sooner. It tasted fine, but it was a little on the dry side. Not too much of a problem, though, since I had my fruit salsa nicely freshening things up. And the end result is that I really, really liked it. I'll definitely be doing this one again.

Pretty grill marks! Or, grill hashtags, for you #twilters out there.

Pretty grill marks! Or, grill hashtags, for you #twilters out there.

Back to the class. David Bonom was very easy to watch. It is important to remember, as I said before, that it's primarily a technique class. Although he does give plenty of recipes and talks a little here and there about possible variations and substitutions, he spends most of his time talking about the actual grilling--starting with a little discussion of the difference between charcoal and gas grills and setting up for the right temperature, he moves into how to prep the fish, how to prep the grill, what to watch for in terms of doneness, different tools and equipment (baskets, foil, etc.), how to check for temperature, and troubleshooting. The class goes from different types of fillets to whole fish to shellfish, and also includes fish cakes.

Not only do I feel a lot more confident about grilling fish, I feel a lot more confident about cooking fish in general and will more easily be able to tackle it in my kitchen when grill season is over.

The Basics:

  • 10 lessons. Absent the first that's just a brief intro of about 1 minute, the rest range from about 3 1/2 minutes to 12 1/2 minutes. Short as they are, though, they're packed with good information.
  • Lessons include: Setting up the Grill; Fish Steaks & Firm Fillets; Tender Fillets; Whole Sides; Whole Fish; Shellfish without the Shell; Shellfish in the Shell; Fish Cakes; Troubleshooting.
  • Included in those lessons are discussions of dry rubs; marinades; stuffing; using baskets, skewers, and foil packets; how to test for doneness; and what to do if your fish cake falls apart on the grill. (!)

I enjoyed this class a whole lot more than I thought I would. Although I'm posting this review after only doing one type of fish, I already have plans for a couple more from the class. I'm ready!

Again, that's Fire up the Fish with David Bonom. Two thumbs way up!

Finished product--grilled swordfish with mango peach salsa (and roasted baby potatoes)

Finished product--grilled swordfish with mango peach salsa (and roasted baby potatoes)

Addendum:

Sandy's Mango Peach Salsa

(Amounts for two or three people)

Ingredients:

  • 1 T butter
  • Half a Mayan sweet onion (or any sweeter onion), diced
  • 1 clove garlic
  • Half a mango, peeled and diced
  • One peach, peeled and diced
  • a few tablespoons of balsamic vinegar--tropical flavor if possible*
  • Dash of salt

Directions: Saute the onion in butter until starting to caramelize. Add garlic and saute for about 30 seconds (don't burn the garlic). Add in the mango and peach and saute with other ingredients just to incorporate. Add balsamic vinegar, stir through, then turn heat to low and reduce the vinegar by about half or to taste, stirring occasionally. Add a little salt to taste. Serve over fish. Leftovers could be chilled and used for other things--like maybe over vanilla ice cream for dessert...nummy.

*I used one named Sunny Pineapple Balsamic Vinegar that was quite tasty. If you don't have a flavored vinegar, use a good balsamic--preferably white balsamic so the fruit doesn't look dirty--and then consider squeezing fresh lime or fresh lemon juice into the mix.

Need help knowing how to deal with a mango? Check this video out.

July Craftsy Class Update

I'm writing this early and scheduling it to post since I'll be out of town for the last week of July, when I'd normally be posting this. So it's possible I'm under-reporting my completions, but I doubt it. My last couple of weeks in town before my travel are jam-packed so progress on Craftsy stuff will be limited.

Just as a note: This month I found myself consulting the Peter Reinhart classes (Artisan Breadmaking and Perfect Pizza at Home) several times for reference. The focaccia I've made for a couple of events, based on the recipe and techniques he covers in both of those classes has become an oft-requested item in my husband's family! But it just proved to me how much I love the fact that there's no time limit on these classes. Once you've got 'em, you've got 'em!

New Completions

(+3)

Classes in Progress

(2)

My thread art class project in progress

My thread art class project in progress

  • Thread Art with Lola Jenkins. Very close to done--and having an absolute ball with it! Can't wait to get home and have the time to finish this project.
  • Building Flavorful Soups with Peter Berley (see "Classes added..." below).

Classes added this month

(+4--with only a little twinge of guilt because most of them were on big sale, and I've already finished one and am working on the other.)

It's been in my wish list for a long time, and came on sale at the same time as I was feeling pretty good about having finished so many classes...and so, now I own

  • Building Flavorful Soups with Peter Berley. I've started watching this one but may not get around to trying any of the techniques or recipes until later in August when I'm looking forward to the crisper evenings of fall and pots of soup simmering on the stove. I do, however, have some Parmesan rinds set aside for a very tasty-sounding broth he covers early on in the class.

Another that's been on my wish list for awhile and came on sale mid-month at 50% off (so how could I resist?):

Okay, so this one was brand new to me, but I've been talking with my husband that I feel like we should be including more fish in our diets and that I'd like to take a class in cooking fish just to see if I couldn't expand my repertoire a bit. When this class came on sale--and I was feeling particularly over-tired and self-indulgent--I bit. (Pun intended, ar ar ar.)

  • Fire up the Fish with David Bonom. We'll see if he can convince me I like more types of fish than I think I do. This is definitely a summer class for me, though, since it's about grilling. Our grill season is pretty limited here in Western NY. I'm sure I'll be able to adapt some of the concepts to my its-too-dang-snowy-to-fire-up-the-grill rest of the year indoor cooking.

And another photography class and another 50% off sale. This class doesn't depend on having a DSLR--it's all about composition and telling stories. Since I was two days away from leaving for a work event at which I knew I'd be primarily responsible for taking photos we'd use in future publicity, I went ahead and bought it, started watching the lessons the same day, and finished it before I left. Again, here's the link for my full review.

Classes To Be Completed

Current count:  17 (+1. This month was tough to keep track of because I had a couple that were sort of "in and out" classes.)

Completed Classes (all topics)

Current count: 29 (+3) (And I've alphabetized them!)

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Craftsy Class Review: Creative Photography with George Lange

Welcome to Creative Photography: Capture Life Differently, with George Lange.

This one was a quick finish for me--I allowed myself to simply watch all the lessons to absorb what tips and tricks I could before heading out to my summer work events this weekend--events at which I tend to end up being the de facto "official photographer."

I had to think through how I was going to review this class. For me, I didn't actually get a whole lot of new information out of it. Most of it turned out to be things I already knew--which I suppose makes me feel better about what I apparently already do pretty well. I've been working on my composition and ability to tell a story through photos for a long time, and taking this class really just confirmed for me that I've learned a lot over the years!

But for someone who is just getting into photography or who would like to step it up in terms of composition and telling stories with photos, this would be an excellent class.

One of my all-time fave pics I took of DD when she was about 8. This photo exemplifies things Lange talks about in the class.

One of my all-time fave pics I took of DD when she was about 8. This photo exemplifies things Lange talks about in the class.

First off: This is a composition class, not a settings class. In other words, the techniques you learn are related to how to set up a shot, how to use ambient (natural) lighting, how to create a scene, how to capture a moment/mood/feeling, and so forth. It's not about which f-stop or shutter speed to use. In fact, he really only loosely references settings in a backhand way once in awhile. (For that kind of information, check out my review of Basics of Digital Photography with Rick Allred.) The point of this class is all about capturing the subject matter most effectively, and conveying a mood.

The good news is, that means you can get a lot out of this class even if you're taking pictures on your cell phone. The principles are the same regardless of how you're capturing your shot. (He even starts right out in the first lesson saying that!)

The second thing I appreciated about this class is that he discusses in one lesson issues around sharing photos on social media. He makes some very good points that I think it would behoove all of us to pay attention to. I've not seen that covered in other photography classes yet, and I liked the fact that he addressed it.

He does also have good examples of lighting and action shots, and talks about "between moments" (in other words, take lots of pictures without worrying yet about which one is the "hero shot," as he calls it). I'll probably be using my "sports" setting a lot more at my events next week, which makes my camera take several quick photos in succession when I click the shutter. What you think might be the best shot when you're taking them may change when you see all your pictures later.

DS when he was 3.  Another photo that exemplifies things Lange discusses in the Craftsy class. (Can you see the Easter egg?)

DS when he was 3.  Another photo that exemplifies things Lange discusses in the Craftsy class. (Can you see the Easter egg?)

I think what I found lacking in terms of my needs and what I was hoping to get out of this class was that most of his examples seemed to be based on things he could control: He set up shots, he put people in positions where the lighting would be best, he asked them to get into certain poses or do certain kinds of actions, and so forth. For me, I'm shooting completely candid shots in the middle of events where lighting is often quite iffy (I hate hotel conference centers!), I have no control over where people are sitting or standing, and I'm trying to be as unobtrusive (invisible) as possible. I was hoping he might address how to work in those situations a little more. Still, I have some new ideas about angles I might use or situations I might take better advantage of, and certainly many of his set-up shots are meant to mimic candids so I had some take-aways from that as well.

Again, I clearly walked into this class with a pretty solid foundation on composition, so there were only moments of newness for me. But for someone who hasn't spent as much time working on her photography as I have, there may well be a lot of new and useful information here.

Lange clearly loves his work and finds creative ways to make his points--certain phrases will definitely stick in my head. And I did love seeing his photos--great stuff. If you would like to see your photos more creatively composed, I do recommend this class.

The Basics:

  • 7 lessons, ranging from six minutes (intro lesson) to 25 minutes. Most are in the 10-15 minute range.
  • Lessons include "Do the Unexpected," "Create a Stage," "Be in the Moment," "Beyond Good Enough," "Capture All of Life," and "Social Sensitivity."
  • You do not need any particularly kind of camera to take this class. Again, it's all about composition, not settings or lenses or anything technical.
  • He spends a fair amount of time on photos of children, so those of you with kids, take heed!

Again, that's Creative Photography: Capture Life Differently with George Lange. (As of this posting, it's still 50% off!)

(Usual transparency statement: clicking on Craftsy links in this post helps support this blog and podcast. Thanks!)

Craftsy Class Review: Finishing School--Edges and Bindings with Mimi Dietrich

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Here's another class review with no pictures...I really hate doing that. But once again, this is a class for techniques with no specific project. I picked up information for techniques I've been wanting to try, but don't yet have a project at the finishing stage where I can put any of this into practice in order get pretty pictures for you!

Now reviewing...Mimi Dietrich's Finishing School: Edges and Bindings. I watched this class over one weekend because it was clearly going to be reference material for me--things to keep in mind later in the summer when I get projects to finishing stages. (Nothing being finished this week, that's for sure!)

The first lesson in the class is pretty much how to make a (straight-grain) binding. I sped through this because I've done enough bindings in enough ways over the years that there didn't happen to be new information for me in this particular lesson. However, if you're a new quilter, or have only ever made bindings in one way, it would definitely be worth watching. If I hadn't had my Mom at my side teaching me how to do bindings, this class would've been a great way to learn!

Lessons 3, 4, and 5 demonstrate several fancier borders--adding corded piping, flat piping, rick-rack, round corners and scalloped edges (and shows how to make bias binding), Prairie Points, and ruffles. I've marked each of these for future reference when I decide to use any  of these techniques. I've especially been wanting to do something with piping or using one of my funky ribbons in a binding for awhile, so I'll definitely come back to this class when I find the right project. By the way, for those of you who are fans of Prairie Points, she demonstrates three different types of them--so it's a pretty thorough treatment of this technique.

Lesson 6 goes back to the basics: different types of sleeves and making a label.

The one downside to this class is that class materials are patterns for quilts, not information about supplies or instructions for any of the steps. If you take good notes during the class and read all the questions, you get the information about the supplies. However, she tends to keep referring people to her book, which is unusual for Craftsy teachers. She references in one response to someone's complaint about the lack of materials that it would've been hard for her to create materials for this class without infringing the copyright of the book itself. (The book was originally published in the late 80s but it's been redone in 2013--available on Amazon in paperback or Kindle.) So that's a bit of a lack--but the class is still great for talking you through what it looks like to do all of these things.

In terms of her teaching style, I kept feeling like she sounded like one of my elementary school teachers--and sure enough, she used to be an early education teacher. That does make her teaching style very easy to follow!

The Basics:

  • 6 lessons, ranging from 26 minutes to 53 minutes
  • She starts with the basics, goes into some fun variations, and goes back to basics again.

This class would be great for beginners and for people who haven't ventured into the world of binding variations and fancy furbelows before!

Again, that's Mimi Dietrich's Finishing School--Edges and Bindings.

(Wait for it.....Usual transparency statement: Clicking on links in this blog post help support this podcast and blog. Thanks!)

Craftsy Class Review: Basics of Digital Photography with Rick Allred

We're heading off down a different Craftsy path today. I've reviewed a whole lotta quilting classes and a few foodie classes, but only one photography class so far. 

But, oh, I've been hankering to do more photography classes on Craftsy. They have a lot of really good ones, but (1) they tend to be more expensive than the quilting classes and (2) I don't have a digital SLR (DSLR) camera, which is listed as required equipment for most classes. I do, however, have a camera that's basically only one step below the DSLR. I can't change out my lenses, but I can do most other things that DSLRs can do. So when Craftsy introduced a new photography class that lays the foundation, I bit: Basics of Digital Photography, with Rick Allred. (There was only one lesson specific to DSLRs, really, and that was a discussion of lenses. Otherwise I could do everything in all the lessons with my camera.)

Lesson on lighting--working with backlighting here

Lesson on lighting--working with backlighting here

I wanted to brush up on what I'd learned in my high school photography class (using a darkroom n' all). I used to have an SLR camera in college and a few years beyond, and knew all that about f-stops and shutter speeds and the whole kettle of fish, but in the years since, when it got faster and easier to just whip out a point-and-shoot, and then (who'd have imagined?) my cell phone, I got lazy about it. With a big trip overseas on the horizon, it was time to re-learn what it means to do real photography. 

Practicing shutter speed and aperture together

Practicing shutter speed and aperture together

He starts out talking about your settings. Yes, it's necessary to have your users manual open at your side, unless you really know all those ins-and-outs of your camera. I've owned mine for a couple of years and have spent time with my manual, and still learned a ton about what my camera could do during that first lesson. 

The next several lessons address the "exposure triangle"--ISO, aperture (f-stop), and shutter speed. His explanations are very easy to understand, and he has plenty of photographic examples to help you see the difference between settings. He gives homework suggestions in each lesson to give you some guidance about how to practice the techniques. 

Working on panning. They were moving faster than I could, but this is an entertaining "mistake" picture. 

Working on panning. They were moving faster than I could, but this is an entertaining "mistake" picture. 

After a lesson specific to lenses and filters (which I watched, even though it doesn't have immediate application--I hope to get a DSLR in the near future!), there are a couple of additional lessons, one on composition/creativity, that included some more settings to play with, and a final lesson on "putting it all together" which includes how to organize your photos, backing up, memory cards, comparing shots, and so forth. 

I really enjoyed this class. Rick Allred is a good teacher--he uses great metaphors to explain fairly technical things. Again, I knew most of this back in the day but it's been (ahem) awhile, so though I wasn't quite coming at it cold, it was pretty chilly. I'm back to feeling like I actually know photography again!

Lesson on aperture and depth of field

Lesson on aperture and depth of field

This class wouldn't be particularly useful if you have no ability to change settings on your camera. Although he does talk about composition, most of the lessons do require the ability to have manual control to a degree. However, you may want to pull out your camera manual--you may have more control than you think you do! If you're able to set your aperture (f-stops) and shutter speeds at all, you'd get something out of this class. If you have a camera with more settings, you'd definitely learn a lot, and if you have a DSLR and are still figuring it out, I'd highly recommend this class. 

Working with exposure compensation settings. And check out those quilts!

Working with exposure compensation settings. And check out those quilts!

The Basics:

  • 9 lessons, ranging from about 9 minutes to about 20 minutes
  • Lessons include: "Get to Know Your Camera," Light and exposure, shutter speed, aperature, ISO, shooting modes, lenses, composition and creativity, and the final lesson named "putting it all together." 
  • Downloadable materials provide very helpful quick-reference materials. I've checked them a few times when it wasn't convenient to boot up the Craftsy class again. 

Again, that's Basics of Digital Photography, with Rick Allred. Recommended!

(Transparency statement: Using the Craftsy links on this blog help support this blog and podcast. Thanks!)

Gift Project Complete

A friend commissioned me to make a gift for her daughter who graduated from high school a few weeks ago. Yes, "graduate-d." I missed the deadline a bit. But still, she hasn't started college yet so it's still good. Isn't that in the etiquette books somewhere?

In any case, it took me a long time to decide what to do. When I'd asked my friend whether she wanted me to hand-dye something or quilt something, she said, "Whatever you want to do!" So, as it turned out, I did both. This projects is done on my hand-dyed fabrics, and its quilted. To within an inch of its life, actually.

I decided to do a word quilt. I chose a Scripture that felt to me like it fit her daughter, who is a tremendous vocalist, planning on continuing music in college, and whose faith is very central to her life. Since I didn't have it in me to do a lot of words, I just cited the verse. I thought it might be a little intuitive, anyway, since it'll make people have to go look it up. I'm a teacher at heart, I guess. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I started out by using a new product: Sticky Fabri-Solvy.

I. Love. This. Stuff.

This photo is from my test sample--I kicked up the contrast in the photo so you could see it well enough. You can run Sticky Fabri-Solvy right through your printer. So after I designed my lettering in some software or another, I just printed it right off on the stabilizer. I didn't have to reverse it or anything, because it has a paper backing that I peeled off and it adhered to the right side of my fabric. I then stitched around the design, and soaked  the stabilizer off the fabric. Easy Peasy.

I decided to do it that way after my chalk-stencil method was a big fat fail (the chalk wouldn't stay in place long enough for serious stitching); and this was just so much faster. And, to be honest, I wanted to play with the stabilizer to see how it worked. The test sample worked beautifully, so I went right to work on the real thing. After I soaked the stabilizer off, I put my quilt sandwich together and then just outline-stitched the lettering again. That also gave the letters two thicknesses of thread/outline, which helped set it off even more.

I did have a bit of a glitch at that point.

I'd practiced on a test sandwich to set my tension and everything--it was all working beautifully.

I started stitching away on the real thing and it all felt like it was going swimmingly. I'd flipped up the back and checked after the first half inch of stitches or so, and it looked fine.

I should've paid more attention to how the bobbin was sounding. Something got unhooked somewhere and chaos was breaking loose on the back. I didn't see it until I came to the end of the word. Out came my new electric seam ripper. And then the Havel. And then my traditional seam ripper. Eventually, between the three of them, I did get it all undone. (Each seam ripper has its special gifts!)

That being said, that was really the only major snafu in the whole project. Everything else went pretty well, given how many new-to-me techniques I was throwing in this thing.

Free-motion feathers, using techniques I learned from Ann Petersen.

Background quilting circles and straight lines--the straight lines particularly being a design thought I got from Cindy Needham.

Shiva Paint stick highlights--it's been awhile since I got to play with my paint sticks and I haven't used them on a quilt like this ever.

Metallic thread--which I haven't used in probably over 10 years.

And bling. I've never blinged before. What a hoot.

And so...the end result. (Drum roll please.....)

Psalm 98 quilt complete. Approx 14'x16".

Psalm 98 quilt complete. Approx 14'x16".

And, because it's hard to see the sparkle in that lighting...

(Actually, the picture above is also the result of what I've been learning in my Craftsy photography class. To try to get the sparkle to show, I worked with some settings I recently learned that I have on this camera. But more about that class in a different blog post.)

Can you see the metallic thread outlining the feathers in this picture?

It's subtle, but it's there.

I'll probably talk more about this in my podcast episode this week (which, as of this writing, hasn't been recorded yet). I'll talk about using that metallic thread, especially, and some other slight hiccups along the way, and what I did about them.

So, there it is. Of course, as I look at it, I see all the things I'd have liked to have done better. But it's done, and it's not bad, and I think both the mom and daughter will enjoy it. And I had fun doing new stuff. Though, admittedly, it'll be awhile before I'm ready to sit down and stitch little bitty circles and very-close-together lines again.

 

June Craftsy Class Update

If you're looking for the 2014 Quilty Resolutions Second Quarter Giveaway, click here.

Meanwhile...back to our regularly scheduled programming...

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I finally have a completion...or more...to report! Sheesh. It's been awhile.

 

New Completions

(+4--woo!)

(I actually finished a fifth class this month, but I'm holding off on doing the review of it for a little bit so I'll list it as a July finish instead...)

Classes in Progress

Current count: 2

  • Thread Art with Lola Jenkins. I may move this one back a couple of months--it'll be hard for me to focus on completing a project until sometime in August, I think. But I'm keeping it on this list because it really will be my next major class to work on.
  • Finishing School: Edges and Bindings with Mimi Dietrich--the one I'll be reviewing next month.

Classes added this month

Well, ahem {shuffling feet}.... (+1) But there were good reasons!

I've been looking at the photography classes for awhile thinking that I really needed to brush up on my skills. (Took photography in HS, used to be pretty good when I had a film SLR in college, have gotten lazy with digital point-and-shoots ever since.) Since I've got some pretty significant travel coming up, and since Craftsy had a great sale at the beginning of the month, I bit. I now own:

Classes To Be Completed

Current count: 16 (-4, even though I added a class. I'm finishing more than I'm adding--Woo!)

Completed Classes (all topics)

Current count: 26 (+4 from last month. Again with the woo!)

(Usual transparency statement: This post contains affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links. Thanks for supporting this podcast and blog!

Craftsy Class Review: Design It, Quilt It, with Cindy Needham

I wish I could figure out a way to do otherwise, but I have no pictures to go with this review. I used things I learned from this class on a project that is not able to be revealed yet. So you'll just have to wait!

NOTE: Perfectly timed! This class is on sale this weekend on Craftsy! Links below...

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Design It, Quilt It with Cindy Needham felt like, as it turned out, the logical next step to the machine quilting classes I've been taking this year. Wendy Butler Berns was very much a "Hey, rank beginners can do this with no sweat!"-type class; Ann Petersen's class took things a step further in terms of complexity, and Cindy Needham ties things up into a neat little bow. To a degree, I feel like I could just take these three classes and move myself light-years further in my machine quilting. That being said, I have a boatload of machine quilting classes left in my queue to work through so we'll see where I'm at next year!

Design It, Quilt It doesn't have a specific class project--it's all about choosing quilt designs, making stencils your own, and all sorts of helpful other things to know as you get further into machine quilting. She does start from the basics so if you've never machine quilted before, I do think you could start with this one. Just know that there may be some easier classes to start with!

In lesson two she describes her method for pin basting, which is pretty similar to mine, but I still picked up some good tips. Even if you are generally happy with your way of doing something there's always value in watching someone else's method--you may see a new tool or tweak to the process that you find helpful. And yes, I bought the basting clamps she mentioned in the materials. I talked about that in a recent podcast episode so I won't go into it here.

Lesson three is all about threads. Given that she's a national teacher for Superior Threads, you would expect that she'd have a lot of really great information here! And, although she does mention some specific Superior Threads and doesn't mention any other threads by name, you don't get the sense that you're just watching a Superior Threads commercial. It's just very helpful, general information that applies across the board. She also has a really helpful demonstration of tension that uses visual aids. If you're still a little confused about thread tension, this is definitely worth your attention!

Lesson four has some really helpful information about how to position your hands and arms (and fingertips) for quilting designs with various levels of detail. Different arm/hand positions allow for different level of detail. That's not something any other machine quilting teachers have dealt with so clearly--I really appreciated her discussion of that and found myself adjusting how I was positioning myself the next time I sat down to machine quilt.

She has a little different approach (more meticulous) to stabilizing than I've seen before, but she has good examples of why she prefers her method. There was some conversation on Twitter amongst several of us who had taken her class about how we felt about her approach. I think we came down on the side of most of us feeling like she was probably right, but most of us were unlikely to take the time to do it!

The remainder of the lessons go through a variety of ways to choose quilting designs, tools to use to create your designs, design principles, and some basic quilt designs themselves. I found that this class had a lot more really useful information about marking than other classes (in a variety of methods using a variety of tools)--most of the other machine quilting classes I've been taking have emphasized non-marking methods. I do like non-marked methods, of course, but every now and then you may want to do something a little more exact or complex that will require a little pre-planning and yes, even marking. I've marked quilts and used stencils in the past but I've always kept it fairly simple--this one gives me a little more confidence to try more complex things in the future.

I found her conversation about design particularly useful. One of my issues has always been trying to decide how to quilt something to the best effect. She walks through four main elements of design in terms of designing your quilting designs; her examples and descriptions really helped me think through some UFOs that are on deck. I'll definitely be going back and reviewing this information each time I pull one off the shelf to quilt.

She does, of course, talk about feathers. What's a quilting class without teaching a way to do feathers? Her method is a hair different in the particulars than Ann Petersen's. I really enjoy seeing how everyone approaches the same thing, so I can pick and choose what would work best for me. She also has some great background "filler" designs--some I've seen before, some I hadn't picked up on. I'll definitely be putting those into play.

And, finally, the last lesson is all about how to make borders fit. Some great information there!

This is a fantastic class to have for reference. I'd especially recommend watching this if you think you might want to use stencils in your quilt design--she's a big fan of stencils (she used to design them herself) and has great ideas for how to use them in creative ways. I'd recently taken all my stencils out of my sewing room and down to the dye studio to use for resists and the like instead--I had so rarely used them in my sewing it didn't seem worth the space. Now I'm thinking I might go rescue some of them and see what I can do!

So, another class highly recommended. Again, if you've never machine quilted before, you could probably still go ahead and start with this one. But I find myself wanting to suggest you start with a different one first and then come to this one when you're ready for more complexity.

To recap: That's Design It, Quilt It, with Cindy Needham--and it's on sale this weekend!

The basics:

  • 11 lessons, ranging from 10 minutes to 47 minutes long, most in the 20-30 minute range (you really get a lot of bang for your buck on this one!)
  • Lesson 1 is the usual introduction, though it's interesting to hear her backstory
  • Lesson 2: Pin Basting (with some information about batting); Lesson 3: Threads & Tension (loved this lesson!); Lesson 4: Techniques & Tools: Lesson 5: Stencils (she talks about stencils throughout, but this one really gets down to nitty gritty); Lesson 6: Medallions; Lesson 7: Design Basics; Lesson 8: The Basic Three (quilt designs that can be modified in a variety of ways); Lesson 9: Feathers; Lesson 10: Backgrounds (fillers--with great examples of the effects of each); Lesson 11: Making Borders Fit.

I took a ton of notes, but my favorite quote from the class was: "If you have an awkward moment, fill it with a distraction." LOL--but it's true! Had occasion to try it on my next project and it worked beautifully!

I highly recommend this class!

(Transparency statement: Clicking on links in this blog helps support this blog and podcast. Thanks!)

 

Craftsy Class Review: Perfect Pizza at Home with Peter Reinhart

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Yes, I got another class completed this month! I introduce you to... Perfect Pizza at Home with Peter Reinhart.

(Before you gluten-free folks out there think, "Pizza? I can't eat that, I'll stop reading this post right now...." Stick it out. You'll get rewarded at the end!)

This is a quick little freebie class--one of the freebies that Craftsy offers to rope you in...I mean, to introduce you to the Craftsy platform. I chose it because we're big fans of pizza in our house, especially grilled pizza, and because I really like Peter Reinhart as a teacher. (Click here to see my review of his Artisan Bread Making class.) He's really good at what he does! It's been waiting for me on my list of classes for a long time, only because making pizza from scratch takes time I don't often have these days. But I found myself with a little time available this past weekend so bumped it up to the head of the pack.

Fri PM pizza--using Reinhart's sauce recipe with my own dough recipe (for speed). Standard toppings: tomato sauce, sliced Roma tomatoes, fresh basil from my garden, shredded mozzarella.

Fri PM pizza--using Reinhart's sauce recipe with my own dough recipe (for speed). Standard toppings: tomato sauce, sliced Roma tomatoes, fresh basil from my garden, shredded mozzarella.

The lesson on pizza dough felt pretty familiar to me, having already done his bread class. Other than the process of making dough, however, he goes through four different recipes for dough, depending on what style of pizza you want, and talks about the slight difference in baking and results given the different doughs.

The catch here: These dough recipes all require refrigerating overnight, which I hadn't realized when I set out Friday afternoon to make pizza for Friday night dinner. So I stuck that dough in the fridge and then went back to my usual pizza dough recipe that only needs to rise about an hour or so. But I did use his sauce recipe for the Friday night version. The sauce recipe is very simple, requires no cooking, and was exactly the kind of sauce we like! Definitely a keeper.

After doughs, he talks about sauces and toppings--pesto, tomato sauce, herb oils, and then options for what goes on top of the sauce. Again, recipes are included in the class materials, and he does a nice job talking through considerations for ingredients, possible substitutions, and what each ingredient brings to the table. By the way, if you're a fan of cheese--he spends several minutes talking about different cheeses, fat contents, moisture contents, and flavor profiles, including a couple of cheeses I'd never even heard of!

Saturday Lunch pizza--his dough, his stretching method. It looks more pale in this picture than it was. I always brush olive oil with herbs and garlic on the crust right before and immediately following baking, so that's what you're seeing on the cr…

Saturday Lunch pizza--his dough, his stretching method. It looks more pale in this picture than it was. I always brush olive oil with herbs and garlic on the crust right before and immediately following baking, so that's what you're seeing on the crust. This version: Parmesan cream sauce, caramelized onions, spinach, and goat cheese. Yum!

The lesson on making and baking pizzas includes a demonstration of how to stretch the dough with your hands--not the tossing-in-the-air-and-spinning technique (and he explains why that wouldn't work with these dough recipes), but a gentle turning around your fists to make it stretch evenly and in a neat circle. I tried it for the first time making both pizzas and it worked well, but I had problems getting them round. Fortunately, geometry has no impact on flavor.

Finally, he walks through the making and baking process for each style of pizza, offering lots of great tips and what to watch for along the way. When the demo pizzas come out of the oven, he then discusses several options for finishing touches and presentation.

Focaccia prepared for second rise, doused in herb oil. I used an Italian seasoning blend with garlic powder and a little salt for the two that are green; the third is the same blend with some paprika added just for fun.

Focaccia prepared for second rise, doused in herb oil. I used an Italian seasoning blend with garlic powder and a little salt for the two that are green; the third is the same blend with some paprika added just for fun.

One of the pizza dough recipes is a focaccia recipe, so when my MIL asked me to bring an appetizer for Father's Day dinner at her house, I jumped at the chance to make that one too. You refrigerate it overnight in the cake pans, so on baking day you just add your herb oil, do another "dimpling" with your fingers, give it a second rise (1-3 hours depending on a lot of factors) and bake. It seems like an impressive dish to other people but the dough is super-simple and does most of the work itself while you're off doing other things. Note here: I had to go back to the Artisan Bread class for more complete information about making focaccia; in the pizza class he uses the focaccia dough for making pizza and gives only cursory information about the baking.

Focaccia complete. And very yummy, too.

Focaccia complete. And very yummy, too.

The catch with the freebie classes is the course instructors don't necessarily participate in the conversations the way they do on their for-sale classes, but there's always an active conversation among students. So you should still feel free to ask questions--surely someone will answer! It's also worthwhile to read through others' questions and the responses to see what tips you might pick up.

One thing I've learned from doing a few cooking classes on Craftsy--print off all the materials first and have them at your side as you're watching the lessons. Often the course instructor gives extra information or clarification in the video lessons that's not on the materials. Yes, I take video notes, but I often prefer to have the printed version at my side while I'm actually cooking, so it's helpful to write the info from the video lessons on the print materials for reference later. (For example, in the pizza class, you won't find the information about baking in the print materials--that's in the video lessons.)

Is it the perfect pizza? Depends on your definition of perfect but I have to say, it's pretty dang good. Being able to do a nearly side-by-side comparison between his dough recipe and method and my usual one: his had a nicer texture, I think. Flavor-wise, hard to tell as I added herbs to my usual recipe and didn't when I did his recipe--I probably will do that in the future; I love herbs baked right into my crust. The pizza dough recipe made enough that my daughter and I each had a "personal sized" pizza for lunch, and I froze five more personal-sized balls of dough for later. (I didn't cut them completely evenly--probably could've gotten six if I'd weighed them out.) The focaccia recipe makes three pans full, if you're using round cake pans or, in my case, two cake pans and a deep dish pie plate.

The Basics:

  • It's free!
  • 6 lessons, ranging in time from about 5 minutes to nearly 40 minutes
  • The first lesson is the usual less-than-one-minute introduction to Craftsy. if you're an old hand like me, you can just skip that one. Lesson 2 starts the class proper with a discussion of the class and then a little more about the Craftsy platform.
  • Lesson three is about dough, lesson four about sauce and cheese, lesson five about making and baking the different styles of pizza. And then some of you will be thrilled to see lesson six: Gluten-Free Pizza. Yep, there it is, gluten-free folks--your reward! I didn't test that recipe out so I can't speak to it. But I trust Peter Reinhart!

I highly recommend this class. Why? First of all--ummm...it's free? Why not? Second, I'm a fan of Peter Reinhart, as I said before. You can tell he's been teaching for awhile--very smooth, easy to watch and easy to follow, knows how to fill time with more great information while waiting for things to bake, and shows his enthusiasm for his topic. Plus, even though I've been making homemade pizza for awhile, using a few different methods, I still learned a lot from this class!

Again, that's Perfect Pizza at Home with Peter Reinhart, and it's free!

(Usual transparency statement: Clicking on Craftsy links in the blog help support this blog and podcast. Thanks!)

Craftsy Class Review: Homestyle Pan Sauces with Martha Holmberg

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Yum.

Somewhere along the way, from some Food Network cooking show or another, I picked up the little tidbit that a simple sauce can go a long way towards making a basic piece of meat seem just that much fancier. I've mostly only waded in the gravy pond when it comes to sauces, but have always wanted to learn more. This class is definitely the way to go!

I actually started this class late last fall and did several of her recipes back then. A couple of days ago when I was tooling through my class list trying to decide what to do next, I looked at this one and realized how close I was to finishing it. Apparently I'd gotten distracted by the holidays. So, now...done!

Homestyle Pan Sauces with Martha Holmberg walks you through the steps of making several sauces, from simple to slightly more complex, though all of them are things you can do pretty easily on a weeknight. As usual in Craftsy food classes, there are several recipes available but each recipe is used as a way to teach different techniques that you can apply across the board.

The class begins with some basic information about pans, tools, and supplies, then the best techniques for seasoning and browning meat. I've been browning meat for years, and still picked up some good information. After laying this foundation, the rest of the lessons work through various types of sauces and techniques that you need to know in order to pull them off with success.

Again, none of it's complicated!

Blue Cheese-Stuffed Strawberries with Balsamic Reduction

Blue Cheese-Stuffed Strawberries with Balsamic Reduction

The first sauce she teaches is a balsamic reduction. I'd done reductions once or twice before, and rarely with confidence that I was doing it right. But after watching her do it, I created a balsamic reduction that weekend to use in an appetizer for a party I was hosting--and it turned out beautifully! (Have you ever had Blue Cheese-Stuffed Strawberries? Yum. I used what I'd learned about balsamic reductions in this class to make the strawberries and it was beautiful.)

Lesson two works with additional kinds of reductions, as well as doing some teaching around aromatics. (She spent a lot of time talking about chopping and sauteing garlic--again, something I've been doing for awhile but still learned something.) As she talks about the reductions, she explains different types of liquids you can use, things to be aware of with each, and what you're trying to accomplish in the cooking process. I loved the amount of information she gives behind each step. She also gets into using cream and cheeses in sauces.

The rest of the lessons are different types of sauces, gravies, and jus, each again teaching several techniques within the lessons. Even if you're not interested in the recipe or type of sauce she's talking about in that lesson, it's worth watching anyway just to see what other techniques and information you might pick up. I'd also made her recipe for Chicken with Meyer Lemons and Capers last fall (never took a picture--sorry!)--it all went fine as per her technique, but we only very rarely see Meyer lemons in these parts, and using regular lemons instead made the sauce too sour for our tastes, even though she said you'd use the same amount either way. I'd still make the recipe again, I'd just cut way back on the amount of lemon I use. In another lesson she has a Lemony Cream sauce for pasta with vegetables--I made that recipe too (again, no pictures--sorry!) and liked it quite a bit.

Martha Holmberg is, as I've said about so many other Craftsy teachers, very good at what she does. You can tell she's got a lot of experience teaching. She's very easy to follow, easy to watch, and she occasionally throws in a little humor--nothing rip-roaring, but enough to make me chuckle.

And she has a way of talking about food that can turn one's head. No one in my family likes caramel sauce but I still sat and watched her bonus lesson on salted caramel sauce and found myself thinking, "Hmmm. Maybe I would like it if I made hers!" Probably no time soon. We really don't like caramel here. But still, she's that good.

The Basics:

  • 7 Lessons ranging in time from about 15 minutes to around 40 minutes.
  • The sauces start right out in the very first lesson--she takes just a few minutes to introduce herself and the course, and then gets right down to business. The lessons include  working with multiple reductions, butter, cream and parmesan, vegetables and herbs; reduction sauces--base liquids, spices and herbs, more about aromatics, a lemon cream sauce, using sauces on pasta and vegetables; gravy; jus; and the aforementioned salted caramel sauce.

I did like her recipes--or will, once I adjust for missing ingredients--but even beyond that, I learned quite a bit from watching the lessons even if I hadn't made those specific recipes.

So I highly recommend this class. A quick sauce can make the difference between the same-old-same-old on a weeknight, and something that feels just a bit more special!

That's Homestyle Pan Sauces with Martha Holmberg. Yummy stuff.

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Craftsy Class Review--Beyond Basic Machine Quilting with Ann Petersen

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...And so, I've decided I'm done. I didn't finish off the details of the class project, but I've done about 80% of it at this stage and have tried out every stitch design she demonstrates. Since I've got a multitude of other machine quilting classes in my queue, I decided it was time to move on.

I really liked this class quite a bit. This is the second machine quilting class I've completed on Craftsy. (Click here for my review of the Wendy Butler Berns Machine Quilting class.) WBB's class is a little more free-wheeling, "whimsical," which is a great way to get yourself started. Beyond Basic does get a little more complex, but I'd rate it, as they say, Confident Beginner. Or Rank Beginner if you're just a little adventuresome. I think she assumes you've already done some machine quilting and doesn't spend a whole lot of time talking about setting yourself up for quilting, although she does some--and talks about threads. Although she also does get into more complex designs than I recall in WBB's class, Petersen works you up to them by starting at an easier level and getting progressively more complex.

Through the course of the first several lessons, Petersen demonstrates a few ways of creating quilt designs, including no-mark methods. She starts by teaching you how to create a stencil by sewing (without thread) through the quilt design on paper. I've done this technique a few times before so I did well at this step. The difficulty I had was keeping my stitch length long enough that I wasn't just slicing the paper on the lines. Just have to keep my hands moving faster!

 

 

After you perforate the paper with the needle, you then rub some pounce powder or chalk dust through the holes of the paper to mark your quilt. She  gives a different technique for how to apply the pounce powder so I was able to try that out. Because I'd over-perforated some areas, I got a few globs of powder that obscured the line a bit. Plus, I was using white powder on a very light blue background, so I did have problems seeing where I was going. I do have blue powder but was a little concerned about how easily it would come off. Not sure why I was concerned with that small detail when I knew for darn-tootin' this wasn't going to be a show quilt anyway. Apparently sometimes I do sweat the small stuff. Go figure.

 


And so, my first flower looks a bit like a 3rd grader drew it. Actually, lots of 3rd graders would've done better. That being said, I think I started with the hardest one.

 

They got better as I went along...

One of the main things I learned in this class is that the first lines you quilt are not always the most important. Although none of these flowers are even close to being what I'd want to have showing up on a quilt for public use, those first wavery lines tended to fade into the background as I added more layers to the quilting later.

 

And then we move onto feathers and feather variations. The variations include whether you're marking them first and, if so, how you're marking them (she demonstrates a couple of different methods), as well as different shapes and sizes of plumes, and also adding some funky extra touches here and there. She also has you go through straight feathers and curved feathers, and later you go back and embellish the feathers with different kinds of veins. I did okay on the feathers after the first few plumes; at least, I got more confident about just diving in. Still need lots of practice. This picture is one of my better ones.

I'm right-handed, but I was far better at the plumes on the left side. Does that make sense or is it bass-ackwards?

 

And then there's the dragonfly. He's cute. Apparently mine got into a bar-room brawl at some point and broke his tail and it never healed correctly. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

(That's a different feather in the background. I had been dissatisfied with my first take on the plumes on this one so, knowing that sometimes the best thing to do when something is off is to just keep doing it over and over until it looks intentional, I went back over all the plumes a couple more times. It actually worked! Definitely improved.)

She also has you embellish all the flowers and leaves with various designs as well. I'd never given a whole lot of thought about the order in which you quilt your designs--I always just work center out. She has a different approach that makes a whole lot of sense. But you'll need to take her class to find out. I'm not giving away the farm, here.

 

And then there were the cornerstones and borders. I'd bagged adding cornerstones when I was putting together my project so I just drew them in and pretended they were there for quilting purposes--which worked just fine. Let's just say that I stink at pumpkin seeds. Yep, definitely lots more practice needed there. I also discovered the downside to using variegated thread on pumpkin seeds: You completely lose the design. Which was fine in my case since I'd lost the design several times along the way anyway. (Working backwards that small? Yikes!) My borders were a hot mess but her design options here aren't really my style, so nothing I'd likely use anytime soon. So I did it as-is in one border using one of her design options, then just used the rest of the borders to practice more feather plumes, echo stitching, and the like.

 

I did decently well on the echo quilting and practiced some of the background filler as well, but used a thread that blends. So it looks good, but who knows? You can't actually really see it that well--bonus!

To completely finish this, I'd have had to spend a lot more time on the borders and filler background--and I've just got too many other projects I need to get cranking on! Therefore, I decided I'd learned what I needed to learn and it was time to move on.

 

Therefore, now you've seen all the bits and pieces, here's the as-finished-as-it'll-ever-be class project.

In summary: Even though I didn't finish the project, I did get a whole lot more comfortable with machine quilting during this class. I got some good ideas for how to fill things in, and picked up a few new tricks along the way.

Ann Petersen is a very good teacher. She's calm, doesn't have any annoying mannerisms or habits; she's not a laugh-a-minute but feels like someone you could sit and have coffee with. I enjoyed her presence. I would definitely recommend this class if you're just starting out or looking for a few more designs to practice.

The basics:

  • 13 lessons, ranging from about 13 minutes to close to an hour in length. (You really get your money's worth in this one--lots of content!)
  • Lessons include supplies, basting and marking, starting to stitch, three lessons on feathers of various types, embellishing your designs (with stitching, not with beading or anything), the dragonfly, border treatments, quilted "lace" design, echoing and background stitches, and the final lesson is on blocking your quilt and dealing with ruffly edges.
  • You don't need to do the class project, of course, but it is kind of a fun one; although, as I said earlier, to finish it will take time. I have another project I'm working on for which some of these designs and techniques directly translate so I'm definitely getting the bang for my buck!

Again, that's Ann Petersen's Beyond Basic Machine Quilting, definitely recommended! And now, on to my next class!

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