Saturday Progress--Organizing and Dreaming

Here's the latest version of the potential layout for my 9-Patch Pizzazz:
I think this is probably going to be the one. I posted it to Twitter and Threadbias to get opinions and people seemed to pretty much all agree it works. It's tough on this one to balance those two big blue blocks. My other 9-Patch Pizzazz had so little contrast it really didn't matter how I laid it out. This one has been trickier.

While I was waiting for responses from my online quilty consultants, I did some cleaning and organizing. I'd posted my niece's quilt on Threadbias and was remembering that the pattern was fairly easy and thought, "Gee, I could use up some fabrics from my stash pretty easily if I made another of these." So I pulled the pattern out and dug through my stash.

The pattern is on the right; the fabrics I'll be using are on the left. The red is really jumping out in this picture--it's really not quite that brilliant in real life. Bright, but not eye-dazzlingly so.

That's now in a bin ready to go with me to my guild sew day next weekend--I finally get to go to one! The pattern is easy enough I should be able to get it mostly pieced in one day.

(I love those fabrics--that'll be a keeper for me. Woot!)

Then I started thinking about potential Christmas gifts. May not actually get it done but thought it might be worth a shot. We have a couple of family friend-kids that should get quilts from "Aunt" Sandy, so if I can pull it off, hey, it would be nice. If not, no sweat--they'll get birthday gifts sometime in 2013.

One is a teenage girl. I've queried what her fave colors are. Meanwhile I'm contemplating a stack n' slash using these fat quarters:
 
And I also pulled out one of my favorite table runner patterns that uses charm packs. Yep, had a Christmas charm pack. I could use some more Christmas table runners.
 
So now I've got my collection to go to my sew day next week.


Hmmm. One would think I'm excited to finally be home for several weeks on end. Think my eyes are bigger than my sewing machine, so to speak?

Total Color Tuesday Returns! Woot! One Color and 3 Opposites

After something like a five or six month hiatus, Total Color Tuesday is back! We're getting close to the end of the book so I really wanted to finish this project. Since it's been so long, you might want to review past Total Color Tuesday posts.

This time we're looking at one color with three opposite colors.


So, for this one, you choose what your main fabric color is going to be. This might be your focus fabric, or just the color you start with. "I want to make a blue quilt," you might say, "But I want it to have some zip!"

Zip there is when you go directly across the color wheel to find its complement. (Remember that term from a few months back?) In this case, the complement to blue, using our traditional 12-point color wheel, is orange.

For this scheme, then, you also pull in the two colors on either side of that complementary color. In our example, you'd also be including yellow-orange and red-orange.



I dug into my stash. We've already established in previous Total Color Tuesday posts that I'm lacking in the orange department of my stash. That hasn't improved over the last several months that TCT has been on hiatus. However, I do have a fabric that's got both orange and yellow-orange in it, and then another that's got orange and red-orange in it. So in my example, I decided to use three fabrics to cover four colors. Probably not quite kosher, but it works for me. I could see doing a funky star quilt with this combo.




Again, if you recall, part of my challenge to myself on the TCT posts is also to look at the Joen Wolfrom 24-point CMYK color wheel to see if it would be different.

In this case, it didn't feel very different.





So now it's your play time! 

Put your linky here with a blog post of your own playing with color!

Found Time--and Some Quilt Progress (WIP)

So my eponymous (sigh) hurricane downed our offices server-wise (we're based in Valley Forge, PA), so I ended up with today off. I could've spent the day working on another closet, but I'm a firm believer in "Found Time." When you end up with time you didn't expect to have, you should enjoy it! Thus, off to my sewing machine I went.

If you've been able to listen to the podcast episode I posted right before the storm hit on Monday evening, you'll know I'm working on a challenge project for my guild. If you haven't been able to listen to it yet, you might need to wait a bit. The podcast host servers also seem to be down now so if you didn't download it the night I posted it, you might not be able to for a few days. Sorry about that!

So, to recap for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about--this is the Untouchables Challenge, in which the challenge is to use that fabric that's been on your shelf for a long time and you (1) haven't wanted to cut into it because it's too pretty and you're sure you'll ruin it; (2) it's a tricky fabric and you're just not entirely sure how to use it; or, (3) it's butt-ugly and you can't imagine what you were thinking when you bought it.

Fortunately, my fabric for the challenge falls into categories (1) and (2). It's a McKenna Ryan collection. In my podcast episode, I talk about how I ended up landing on the technique I'm using so I won't go into that here. The nutshell version: It's the 9-Patch Pizzazz technique by Judy Sisneros.

Right now the blocks are all just hanging out on my design wall--I haven't actually figured out my final layout yet. This layout was simply me seeing whether I had enough blocks to work with.

I'll eventually have it in a layout that helps your eye travel more and blends better. It's very low contrast intentionally--sort of a spa feel. I may do something with the border to give it more definition. Or not. Haven't decided yet. I need to let it brew for a bit.

I think the colors blend in person better than they seem to in this picture. Lighting issues.

I made a 9-Patch Pizzazz a few years back. This one is named "Roman Pizzazz." It hangs in my dining room most of the year until I switch it out with a flag quilt that hangs from Memorial Day to Labor Day (or, like this year, until tonight when I realized, "Yeesh--the flag is still up!").

It's named "Roman" because the focus fabric felt very romanesque to me. Other than the border quilting which you can see pretty clearly in this picture, I quilted the rest of it with climbing leaf vines to give it an ancient ruins-kind-of-feel.

Whenever you do listen to my episode, you can probably see what I mean when I referred to some of the fabrics blending *too* well in this quilt--you can't even tell that most of those blocks are 9-patches. But still, I like the colors!

Boy, does it feel good to be making progress on projects again!

Alice the Spider (Banned Book Challenge)


Alice the Spider
Originally uploaded by sandyquiltz
The only quilt project I can lay claim to for the last two-plus months, sigh.

This is my project for the Banned Book Challenge that Tanesha of CraftyGardenMom and I are co-hosting this month. I decided to do something that would do double-duty: It's both inspired by a banned book and it's a Hallowe'en decoration! (The yo-yos from a previous post are the head and body--I wanted my spider to be a little dimensional and appliqueing yo-yos upside down seemed a heck of a lot faster than messing with trapunto.)

My inspiration book is Go Ask Alice by Anonymous (edited by Beatrice Sparks). This book is a diary-style story of a teenage girl who, after being given a drink laced with LCD at a party, descends into addiction and eventually (spoiler alert) dies of an overdose. It was put forth as a real diary but has since been pretty much debunked in that regard. But still, I was the target audience at the time I read it and it certainly worked on me.  Although it's somewhat unlikely I'd have ever tried drugs anyway, I read this book when I was 12 or 13 (it was in my school library--thank God they didn't believe in banning books!), and I still give it partial credit to this day for the fact that I never even experimented. There are a few scenes from this book that stick with me--one in which she was hallucinating about spiders crawling all over her. So here it is, my spider, in honor of Go Ask Alice.

I imagine it's on the banned book list because I recall it being fairly graphic. It's hard to imagine it's been about 35 years since I read the book. If I read it again today, I'd probably think, "Yeesh. This impressed me THAT much?" Funny, since I was about the same age that I tackled The Hobbit. I pretty much read anything and everything that I could find.

So, have you done your Banned Book Challenge yet? You've got a few days left!

Banned Book Challenge Giveaway

Woohoo! Another giveaway! Tanesha of CraftyGardenMom podcast and I are co-hosting a challenge in October, inspired by Banned Book Week. Tanesha's living is based on books, and I'm just a book-a-phile in general, so neither of us is particularly keen on the whole idea of banning books. I fully support your right to read what you want and to make decisions for your own children, but in return I'd like to make decisions for myself and my kids. (Or, at least, I did when they were still young enough that my opinion mattered!)

So Tanesha and I have created a challenge for you. Create a quilty project of any type that's inspired by a book that you've read and loved that appears on the list of banned books. Haven't checked out the list? You may be surprised by some of the books that appear on it! This is the list for banned books in the last decade; this one is the list of classics that have been banned. Thanks to Tanesha for providing those links.

Your project can be big or small--it can be a wallhanging, a totebag, a mugrug...whatever you're inspired to do. The only guideline is that it needs to be "quilty" and be inspired by a book on the banned book list.

When you've done your project, post a picture of it in the Flickr group that Tanesha created just for this challenge.

On November 1st, Tanesha and I will go into the group and each draw one winner from the people who have posted pictures there. Tanesha has already announced what her giveaway will be. I'm still trying to figure mine out. (Give me another few days...I'll post an update here.)




I'm already working on my Banned Book Project. Go ahead--just try to guess what it is and what book it's based on. Go ahead. Dare ya.

Upcoming Quilt Show for Your Calendars

Just a quick note to let you know...if you live within driving distance of Rochester, New York, be sure to put the quilt show of the Genesee Valley Quilt Club on your calendars. It's a great one!

The 2013 show theme is "Magical Threads--Inspired Stitches," and it's May 31-June 2, 2013, at the Gordon Field House of Rochester Institute of Technology. Beautiful quilts, vendors, the works!

For more information, visit http://www.geneseequiltfest.com/.


Food Friday--CSA-I-Have-No-Idea-What-Week-It-Is

This week's pick-up. We're getting smaller as we reach the end of our growing season around here, but we're also getting into some of my favorite fruits and vegetables. Still going strong on bell peppers and getting into winter squash. Yum.

  • 3 large tomatoes
  • 3 small tomatoes
  • 3 bell peppers (1 red, 1 orange, and 1 different type of red I've never had before. Unfortunately the orange had an issue when I cut into it so it got tossed--and that's the beauty of real farm food--but the other red that was unfamiliar to me actually almost tasted like an apple--that one and the other red pepper, which had a really wonderfully intense red bell pepper flavor, were fantastic!)
  • 3 leeks
  • 1 eggplant
  • A few eating apples, and a few baking apples
  • 1 acorn squash
  • 1 baking pumpkin

I immediately used the bell peppers, leeks, and two of the tomatoes for dinner by sauteeing those altogether in my Wild Mushroom and Sage-flavored oil with some garlic, salt, pepper, thyme, and tarragon. I added in some diced cooked chicken, and just a dash of my Lemon Bouquet Balsamic Vinegar right at the end to brighten it up a bit. I ate it over whole wheat pasta. Very, very tasty! Leftovers for lunch tomorrow--woot.

I wasn't able to use much of the CSA for the last few weeks because I was gone on weekends which is when I do most of my prep work with the fresh produce. I gave a lot to my MIL, but some just went bad before I could use it, unfortunately. I didn't even have time to freeze or do any other storage techniques, either. I'm actually relieved to be getting less every week now--it's much easier to use up while it's fresh.

Here are some other pictures I took along the way of what I was able to make over the last few weeks.

Apple crisp. Not bad, but I'm still looking for a better recipe. And, since I'm trying to eat a lot healthier these days, I'm not sure I should actually find a better recipe.












Corn chowder with fresh corn on the cob. This was my favorite new recipe of the season. My daughter and I are huge fans now. Yes, I can make it with frozen corn any time of the year but the corn I was getting through the CSA was the absolute best I've ever had, so frozen store corn just won't quite hack it.





And this is just a really pretty purple pepper we got a few weeks ago. It tasted like a normal bell pepper, but isn't it gorgeous? I love the green inside next to the purple outside. Beautiful.





At some point I'll do a summary of what I feel about CSAs now that I've done it for the first time. I've really enjoyed it, but there are certain things from the experience that surprised me. I'm still pondering a bit. Hopefully I'll be able to put up a few blog posts for next week that are back to quilty matters. Meanwhile, have a great weekend!

Maine, Meetings, and Merchandise, O My




I was here last weekend...














...and sometimes it looked like this.


Other times it looked more like this.




And during some particularly stunning moments it looked like this.


Lots of people walked all over this beach and created great designs in the sand. 


At one point, we went to visit this.


And I sat here for awhile.



And then we ate dinner here. With this view. As the tide came in.





I had to say goodbye when it looked like this.


So yes, I was at meetings all weekend.
But I was in meetings on the coast of Maine.
I can handle that.





I did get out quickly one afternoon for a fast trip to an area quilt shop. Normally I don't have or take time to do that when I'm on a working weekend, but it was the best thank-you gift we could think of for the woman who had volunteered to do all our airport pick-ups and drop-offs. She's a quilter. Great excuse.





I thoroughly enjoyed the shop. Lots of options, rooms full of fabric that kept appearing as if by magic as I turned corners. Nice batik selection. I got our volunteer four fat quarters.

And two for me. Just doing my part to support a local business.






And then, on the way home, I decided to detour through New Hampshire to visit the quilter's pilgrimage destination.

Keepsake Quilting.

Lovely shop. I had to laugh at myself because I inhaled deeply as I walked in the front door. You can smell the pretty, pretty fabrics. Mmmmm.

Unfortunately, it ended up adding three hours to my already 8-plus-hour drive home. I'm still working out the kinks.





But I bought these.



And these. (They had samples of the Gloves in a Bottle in their bathroom. I tried it, and was absolutely sold. I also bought a small bottle to keep in my purse. Soft hands, no grease or detectable smell. FTW.)





And these.

Four of these are for a thank-you gift I'd like to make one of the other volunteers who provided a ton of food and the world's best homemade chicken pot pie for our team's dinner one night. I'm thinking I'll do some more of those candle mats, maybe.

Not that I needed half a yard of each to make a candle mat. Gee, dang. I think I'll have leftovers.



I'm home for all of three days this week. Bully. Might not get much blogging done. However, I'm going to be posting a podcast episode tonight, so get ready. Jaye's back!

Another finish (and it took long enough!)


It took stinking long enough but I finally have my pieces of my team's donation basket for a silent auction to raise funds for a local hospice house. My team's theme was "spa," and I volunteered to make candle mats and a lavender sachet, using lavender harvested from my garden last summer.

I didn't want to mess with making a circle something-or-other, so I chose three blocks that had sort of round feels to them and made them 6 1/2" (after getting a pillar candle from my own meager candle collection to see about what size would work best). @ddrquilter suggested quilting it in circles--a great idea!--which gave me a chance to play with the circular sewing attachment for my Janome. The attachment mostly worked--I'll probably talk about that on a future podcast episode.

Then I got to the binding. The poor block in the center got bound three different times, using two different methods, none of which worked. Rip rip rip. And rip some more. And run out of the original binding fabric, which was the rest of that wonderful pink that appears in two of the blocks. Finally, after several hours of nonsense spread over two nights, I had a "doh" moment. Use a method I hadn't used in years. Once I did, and once I found another fat quarter that coordinated, bang. All three bindings done in about half an hour. Jiminy Crickets, but I can be my own worst enemy.

And here they are, all ready to go with the pillar candles I bought to go with them. My basket offering...done!

We'll be putting together all five baskets at tomorrow night's guild meeting. The other themes were "tailgating/picnic," "baby shower," "holiday," and "kitchen." Pictures will be on our guild's blog at http://canalcq.wordpress.com within a few days, probably. I can't wait to see what everyone else has come up with!

(Sorry, my plan had been to get a Total Color Tuesday post done tonight to appear tomorrow but I spent all night working on the donation blocks instead. Dang, but I'm glad those things are done! It's always the simple projects that trip you up, right?)

Finally--a Finish!

I finally finished my project from the Craftsy class "Stitch and Slash," taught by Carol Ann Waugh. Woot! Had a grand ol' time with this; it's a very fun and pretty easy technique. I'll be podcasting this week about the class with my special guest, AJ of The Quilting Pot, as we talk about our experiences taking this class. I'll post more detail, including "in process" pictures, tomorrow when I've got a little more time. Just had to celebrate having my first finish in awhile!

(Front)

(Back)

(And yes, currently unnamed. Any suggestions?)

100th Episode Giveaway! Come Celebrate with Me!

This giveaway is now closed. Thanks for playing along! Listen to episode 100 of Quilting...for the Rest of Us to hear the winners!

I'm almost to my 100th episode--can you believe it? I want to celebrate with a big giveaway. Three winners will get stuff from me! Woot woot! Right now I'm on vacation and can't post pictures, but I'll update this post next week when I'm home again. Meanwhile, listen to episode 98.2 for a little more background information, and leave your comments here.

Here's the question:
I have 100 episodes under my belt. What would you like to have 100 of in your life? Anything goes--it doesn't have to be quilty related unless you want it to be!

Leave your comment here by Sunday, August 26th, for your chance to be one of the three (count 'em: 3!) winners. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with!

Food Friday--Report on CSA Week 8 and Pick-up Week 9 (and a brief moment of quilty)

If you're not a foodie and just want some fabric-quilty-stuff, here's a quick pic of one ongoing project I'm working on...

Now, back to food!

Oh, we have reached the bounty of summer!

Remember last week's haul? I've done pretty well at using it all this week, with the exception of one zucchini that's carrying over into this week's dinner explorations. (I might be resorting to zucchini bread.)

Fortunately, we had family over for dinner on Friday night so I used up quite a bit of the produce right away. We did a marinated flank steak--or three, since we had a couple of young adult males in the mix--and bought a loaf of French bread because I ran out of time to make homemade. Other than that, Dinner Brought to You by McCracken Farms.

Two cucumbers were turned into a cucumber and tomato salad with Italian dressing for starters. I had to use some storebought tomatoes for the salad because I used all my CSA tomatoes on the next dish. Unfortunately, I didn't think to get a picture. (My daughter ate the other two cucumbers--one straight up, the other in some sort of rice curry thing she makes herself. I've never been positive what all is in it, but she likes it, so hey. I won't even ask.)

The huge yellow squash, the honkin' big zucchini, the tomatoes, and the pattypan squash were cut into 1" chunks (more or less), tossed with some olive oil, salt, garlic powder (I was out of fresh garlic), and thyme, and roasted in a 400 oven for about 40 minutes. It probably would've taken a lot less time except the squash and zucchini were (have I mentioned?) freaking huge so the veggie mix took up two jelly roll pans that I rotated between two racks. Again, unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of that one either. Too busy trying to get everything on the table! It was yummy, though.

The corn on the cob was done straight up, and boy, was it amazing! Believe it or not, it was my first sweet corn of the season, and we all were raving about it--it was really, really good.

I had forgotten to include the watermelon in the original picture of last week's pick-up, so I snapped a pic as I cut into it a couple of days later. Yes, it is just that sweet and juicy!









Here it is as a salad before dinner one night--a little feta, a little fresh mint from the garden. (This has more feta on it than I'd normally do--the container got away from me. But that's okay, I like feta and watermelon. Nice combination.)







I made Italian sausage and peppers for dinner a night or two later again to use the green peppers. No pictures of that since I just blogged about it awhile back. Looked about the same, although I did better keeping the green pepper actually green. Tasty, tasty, tasty. Next time I'll use chicken sausage, to make the meat match the health factor of the rest of the dish.

The peaches disappeared pretty quickly, just eating out of hand. Very sweet.

The head of broccoli was simply microwaved and used as a side dish with chicken breasts one evening. I'm a bit of a purist where broccoli is concerned--I don't really like it covered in sauces or anything. Just steam it a little bit, add some salt, and I'm good to go.

Sunday morning I was in the mood for a big breakfast and, since I had a lot of those roasted vegetables to use up, I made myself an omelette. Or, at least, what's supposed to be an omelette. I can never get it to flip right. A couple of eggs, the roasted vegetables, a little goat cheese...nummy.






And, the next day, since I still had roasted vegetables left, I picked up some naan from the grocery store, heated it up in the oven for a bit brushed with a wonderful basting oil from Wegmans (love that stuff, use it on a ton of things), then spread some hummus on top, piled the roasted veggies on, shredded some chicken, and topped it with, you guessed it, goat cheese. I drizzled just a touch more basting oil on it, popped it back in the oven for a couple of minutes to heat the veggies back up again, and it was a very tasty lunch.

So that took care of everything, except the watermelon. Somehow I ended up being the only one in the house eating most of that watermelon. It's taking me awhile.

Tonight, I treated myself to a watermelon cocktail.

Don't notice me spitting out the seeds on the patio.







And now, we're up to Week 9! Another bounty!

 

  • 12 ears of corn this time! Woot!
  • 4 cucumbers
  • 1 zucchini (I dug through the pile to find a smaller one this time)
  • 1 yellow squash (same strategy)
  • 1 patty pan squash (I got a slightly larger one this time because I decided I like it)
  • 2 green peppers
  • tomatoes (maybe 10, still small, but smell amazing)
  • 6 Jersey Mac apples
  • 4 peaches--larger this time, I hope they're still as sweet!
  • 1 red onion
  • 1 yellow onion
  • about 7 or 8 jalapeno peppers
  • 1 eggplant
I've never been a big fan of eggplant. It's a texture thing, really. Eggplant parmesan just makes me gag. Too slippery. But I'm willing to give eggplant in another form a shot. I've seen a recipe for breading and frying slices of it that looks like it might work for me.

I'm not a huge heat person either so I'm going to gift the jalapenos to a family I'll be visiting tomorrow night. They're originally from Burma, so they're all about the hot peppers. They'll love them.

Probably a good thing there's no watermelon this week since I'm still working on last week's. Time for another cocktail.








Photos to go with episode 98

 Here are the photos of fabrics I talked about in episode 98 In Which I'm Alive, posted Saturday, August 4, 2012.

(I already posted the pictures of fabrics from The Fat Quarter Shop here.)


One set of eight 10" squares of South African fabric. 


Second set of eight 10" squares of South African fabric.


Third set of eight 10" squares of South African fabric. 











Fourth set of eight 10" squares of South African fabric.











Fifth set of eight 10" squares of South African fabric. (Which means yes, there are forty squares altogether.)

Notice how the last square is folded--it's distinctly two-sided! Although others in this set could also be used right or wrong side, this is the only one that actually looks like two completely different fabrics. Pretty dang cool.




Thanks to Vickie, my friend that gave me these. They're definitely the best quilty toys ever!




Some wonderful inspiration

A few months back I had the opportunity to visit a friend's church on a Sunday morning. As I walked into the sanctuary, I was struck by several absolutely beautiful quilted wallhangings throughout the worship space.

As we took our seats, I tugged at my friends' sleeve. "I need to meet whoever made those, if that person is here this morning."

My friend pointed a thumb over her shoulder. "She's sitting right behind us."

There was a church luncheon following worship but I immediately tackled the creator of the wallhangings and she took me on a tour of her quilts, telling me the stories behind each one. We barely made it to the luncheon while food was still available.

I asked her permission to share images of the quilts with you. I'm not going to share the stories--too much complex church history and particular individual's stories for the space that a blog allows. I'll let the quilts speak for themselves.





The quilts' creator, Carol Fielding of Austin, Texas.

Food Friday--CSA Pick-up Week 8

I think it's week 8, anyway. I missed two weeks while out of town; I think they'd have been weeks 6 and 7. Let's just call it week 8 and leave it at that.

Bounty!





This week's pick-up includes:
  • 6 small tomatoes that smell heavenly
  • 5 peaches--and since I ate one as soon as I took this picture I can attest that they're wonderful too
  • 2 green peppers
  • 4 cucumbers
  • 2 zucchini (one of which is HUGE)
  • 1 summer or yellow squash (equally HUGE)
  • 1 patty pan squash--my first time for that, but it's supposedly just like summer squash so I'm not concerned
  • 1 head broccoli
  • 8 ears of corn
  • 1 watermelon (that I forget to put in the picture--oops!)

My son is coming home for dinner tonight, so we've also invited my nephew and my in-laws as well, since no one has seen much of the kid this summer. We'll be doing marinated flank steak on the grill, and I'm planning on making homemade bread--either French bread or dinner rolls, haven't decided yet as of this writing. I'll be using up a lot of the CSA produce for the rest of the meal. Definitely corn on the cob, then I may roast up some of the zucchini, patty pan, summer squash, and tomatoes (maybe with some roasted garlic as well, maybe with some onion); I can't decide if I'd rather put the tomatoes in with the roasted veggies or do a cucumber and tomato salad to start. I'll see what strikes me when I start getting everything together.

I may or may not do something with the watermelon as an appetizer. We won't actually have a lot of time for dinner so I don't know that I'll bother with appetizers at all. And my MIL is bringing dessert. So if we don't end up using it tomorrow, we'll eat it Saturday.

The green peppers will go into dinner Saturday night--I've had a hankering for that sausage and peppers dinner I made a few weeks ago. I'll probably use the broccoli with some fish on Sunday night; it'll just be my husband and I home for dinner so it's a good night to go super-light and healthy!

So that's the plan. We'll see what actually happens!



Honey, I'm home!

Got back from my work trip a few days ago and am mostly recovered. Still a little nonverbal. It takes us introverts awhile to recover from having to pretend to be extraverts for a couple of weeks running. So I'm slowly getting myself into the swing of things. I sent out a few tweets this week, now I'm writing a blog post...eventually I'll work my way back up to recording a podcast episode.

Meanwhile, here's the project I'll be working on this month.

Pretty, ain't it?

This is the last of the Momufos. What's a Momufo?

Check here.

And here.

And maybe here too, if you're really into it.

There may have been others, but that's all I am awake enough to dig up in past blog posts. I consider this project the last of the Momufos because it's the last of her work-in-progress projects that I decided I'd finish myself. I have clear memories of talking about this project with her, and I had even given her some fabric out of my own stash to use with it if she wanted--that fabric is still in her project bag with everything else for the quilt. It's one she designed herself in EQ, and I know what she intended to do with it when she was done. So it was the last project of hers that I really felt I needed/wanted to finish on her behalf.

It'll take some doing. Unlike all the other projects of hers that I mostly needed to just bind, or quilt and then bind, this one hasn't been fully pieced yet. It's a combo platter of paper piecing and standard pieced blocks. There are 8 blocks left to finish, and unfortunately, she didn't seem to have gotten to the point of printing off all the paper piecing foundations for those blocks. There's one block from that set done, and one printed paper pieced pattern. Unfortunately, the two aren't the same size. Go figure. I need to do some math to figure out how much to blow up the printed pattern to get it the same size as the one finished block, and then try to print off additional foundations on my own printer and hope the size differential isn't too substantial. (Each printer prints a little differently, so there will always be some variance.)

Then I get to put all the blocks together and hope they all play nice in the sandbox!

It's a design and colorway that I appreciate but wouldn't necessarily do myself at the moment--not my current idiom. Which makes it almost more fun to do, I think. It's a little hard to tell right now, but I think it could be stunning when it's finished. (Beautiful design, Mom. Nice job.) I have a vacation coming up the middle of this month and this will be my primary vacation project--if the whole "resizing the foundation" thing goes well, I should easily be able to get the top pieced by the end of that week. Famous last words, of course.

I do have one other set of random blocks from Mom but that one isn't clearly a UFO to me. It could have easily been a class project that she never intended to finish, but stored the blocks away anyway. Those blocks weren't kept with all her other ongoing projects, so I don't think they were on her own UFO list. I love the blocks, though, so eventually I'll do something with them. They were too cute to toss. Through this process of finishing Mom's UFOs, by the way, I've found that I have a very clear definition of what a UFO is. In my mind, a UFO is a partially-done project that you actually intended to finish. Mull that one over for a bit.

Time for bed. The Olympics have been keeping me up far too late this week.







Ricky Tims Super Seminar Report

I just posted a podcast episode with my reflections on the Ricky Tims Super Seminar that I attended this past weekend, so here are just a few pics to go with. (Sorry about the low quality--I was taking them on my phone from a fair distance in weird lighting!)









Ricky Tims














Alex Anderson
















Libby Lehman



















Libby Lehman, Ricky Tims, Alex Anderson















Ricky's Kaleidoscope technique sample (on screen)
















Ricky Tims concert Friday evening--included music and storytelling
















Exhibit of presenters' quilts as well as some made by others that are in Ricky's personal collection














Ricky Tims quilt made using Caveman technique

















Libby Lehman "Windfall" quilt



















"Windfall" detail











Ricky Tims' new quilt "Heartlines" (I think--didn't write down name of quilt when he mentioned it and couldn't get close enough to label in the show to see it)



















"Heartlines" detail














Detail of another Ricky Tims quilt--I took this one because I liked the way the metallic thread (I think it's Razzle Dazzle) was used along edge of applique. Didn't take picture of whole quilt.















Ricky Tims--one of the Rhapsody quilts (quilt is bed-sized--hard to tell size from this picture)










My purchases. Ricky Tims hand-dyed fabrics: 1 yard of multi-colored on far left, half yards of all the others. Another multicolored in brights is on the far right--sorry it got cut off in this picture. Three variegated Superior threads, one water-soluble thread, Ricky Tims Stable Stuff stabilizer, Libby Lehman "A Day of Thread Play" DVD. (The Fat Quarter Shop label you may notice way at the top is the rest of the backing fabric I'd ordered to finish my baby quilt--so that gives you a peek at the backing!)














Food Friday--CSA Week 4 Report and Week 5 Pick-Up

Beet & Goat Cheese Pizza
I used up most of week 3 and 4's CSA beets and beet greens on a Roasted Beet and Goat Cheese Pizza. Although I used the recipe at the link for a little guidance, it's very straightforward. You roast the beets with a little salt and pepper, then peel and slice them. Meanwhile, sauté the beet greens with some onion until they wilt down. Then you simply brush the dough with olive oil, and spread the wilted greens and beets on it. Finally, put the goat cheese on top. Bake it at about 400 or a little higher for about 10-15 minutes, depending on how thick your crust is, and you're good to go.

I used goat cheese crumbles available at my grocery store because I have those on hand for salads. But a really nice goat cheese would work better--the crumbles got a little dry. I made homemade pizza dough (did the breadmaker recipe without a breadmaker) and rolled it out really thin so I'd get a nice, crispy crust. The texture on the dough was a perfect complement to the soft beet topping.

I already love beets and goat cheese. Putting it on a pizza crust is a plus! I did decide, however, that I'm not overly keen on beet greens. If I get beets again next week, I may try the greens again with a different preparation, but I'd have preferred this pizza without the greens. Maybe some orange slices or an orange sauce or something.





Remember the one CSA green pepper? (It's the one on the right--uniquely shaped but still tasty!)





We had some leftover Italian sausages from the 4th of July so I supplemented that one green pepper with a second from the store, a clove of garlic, an onion, a can of diced tomatoes, a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste, and some Italian seasoning. Very tasty sausage and peppers for dinner on Saturday night. Add in some of the dinner rolls I'd made last week and it was a pretty simple, mostly fast dinner. That was the last night for the rolls, though--they were somewhat dried out.

Other than that, this was a pretty light CSA week for me. I've been eating the CSA green beans raw (my fave preparation), and I have to confess the dogs got a couple of the CSA carrots because they looked ever-so-appealingly at me when I opened the vegetable crisper drawer. Plus, either my husband and I were out for dinner or I was home alone and didn't cook. So, admittedly, some produce ended up getting tossed because it turned before I could get to it, for which I feel forever guilty.

I did make some blueberry muffins, however, with fresh blueberries from a U-Pick farm I visited last weekend. Not CSA, but still supporting local agriculture! I used a recipe from my Betty Crocker cookbook. Not my favorite--a little on the bland side despite the crumble topping--so if I get out picking again, I'll be checking out different recipes.

Week 5 Pick-Up

My daughter did me the huge favor of doing our CSA pick-up this week since I was (ahem) otherwise occupied at the Ricky Tims Super Seminar during our pick-up time. (I'll be talking about that experience at a different time!)

Week 5:

1 head broccoli (I think maybe it was supposed to be purple broccoli but ours wasn't very purple)

4 cucumbers

2 zucchini

1 yellow squash

4 beets (yay)

purple beans

I've seen these in magazines but haven't ever had them--they're just green beans of a different color, of course. But how pretty! Check out that closeup!

I may not have time to post much about this week's CSA produce since I'll be leaving town in a few days. I'll be making zucchini bread, that much I can guarantee you. (Still have zucchini left from last week.) And those beets? Roasting 'em. Maybe pizza again. The cucumbers are mostly getting eaten raw--DD and I are both big cucumber fans, although the farm provided a recipe for cucumber soup that's intriguing my daughter so we may end up making that over the weekend. And several of those beans didn't even make it into the fridge since I was gnawing them raw while I was prepping everything else.

The next two weeks I won't be around much, so my daughter has instructions to pick up the CSA deliveries and head them straight over to my mother-in-law's house. Unfortunately, I won't be able to get pictures of what my MIL does with them, so no CSA reports for a few weeks until I'm home again!