Tales from the Kitchen and Beyond

I love the rituals of baking a traditional Thanksgiving meal. The smells remind me of family far away. We have so many things to be grateful for this year. All we love are healthy and have a warm home.

There are so many friendships in my life that lift me up and inspire me. Thank you for your kind words and encouragement this year.

I finished my Christmas ornaments and hung them in the kitchen window to enjoy on Thanksgiving day. They looked so nice there that my husband asked me to leave some hanging in the window year round.

Here are some of my wares in progress. I finished my work late (as always) Friday night and packed for the craft fair. I was not sure what to expect as I am new to the craft show scene. We were in a small town and I had a reasonably good day despite the fact.

I am happy to say the mad rush is behind me. Next weekend will be spent at Patsy's Homestead Cabin Retreat. If you would like to join us, there are still four openings left for this discounted weekend. I am leaving my sewing machine at home and taking a tumbling blocks quilt that I have been hand piecing as well as a hand quilting project. I can't wait!

My Son Josh

That little French lesson was from Josh. He spent 2 years in the province of Quebec, CANADA and even joined a quilt guild for a bit while he was there. So he learned quite a bit about quilting. Actually more than my daughters! LOL. I know I've been negligent about keeping up with my blog, but I hope to get back on it as soon as Thanksgiving has blown over.

francais

I love quilts! I will now teach you how to say quilt in french. Courtepoint! Now how to say I love Quilting! J'aime faire du courtepoint! Now how to say I love quilting while listening to good music and sometimes friends and thinking about all of my blessings! J'aime faire du courtepoint en ecoutant de la bonne music et parfois avec mes amis. je pense a toutes mes benedictions!

Getting Ready for Thanksgiving with More Vintage Cookbook Illustrations!

Run Turkey! Run!


Here are some more vintage cookbook illustrations, (again, from the oh, so talented Kay Lovelace) to help get you in the Thanksgiving spirit! To see more of Kay Lovelace's illustrations go here.
















Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and make sure to take a little time to put your feet up and relax a bit, you deserve it!

Apple Picking With the Twins

We have spent the summer watching this doe raise her two fawns. A few months ago I found them in the apple orchard early one morning. The fawns were very young and still had their spots. They were racing around chasing each other. They are so much fun to watch. The deer are very possessive of the apple trees. They will snort and stamp at us trying to chase us away so they can come down and eat.

Winter is here. I'm not sure I am ready for it.

In Search of Warmth

One kind word can warm three winter months.
~Japanese Proverb


The weather has turned wintery and blustery. We've even had a bit of snow over the last few days. Just like every year when the winter starts creeping in, my mind becomes consumed with how I can stay warm. This usually manifests in a compulsion to make scarves.

Years ago I use to weave them. (My beautiful floor loom sits lonely and unused these days in my basement, someday I will get back to her.) As the kids were growing up I use to crochet them, (the scarves, not the kids.) A few times I tried my hand at knitting them, but it always made me tense and I would start looking at the knitting needles more as torture devices then creative tools.


This year it occurred to me to try quilting some, (duh... seems obvious, with me being a quilter but the thought never occurred to me before.)


Here's my first one. I was very happy with how it came out, and decided to put it in my shop here. I am working on several more, and will eventually pick one to wrap around my own neck!

So Little Time to Write Lately

A few weeks ago I received this from Lynn andLinda:

Thank you Ladies! I've recently gotten to know them. They both have beautiful art quilts on their blogs and are both members of Around the World In 20 Quilts. I can't wait until December to see your "Stellar Progress" completed.

I have homework to do. I hope you don't mind if I wait to name some of my blogging friends in another week once my Christmas items are all assembled and the next craft show is over. I will be vending this coming Saturday at the Elroy Quilt Show and Christmas Craft Fair at the Royall High School in Elroy, WI. Stop by and say hello if you are in the area. I'll post some photos of my last few weeks of stained glass work in a few more days.

I leave you with a photo of part of my first quilt. It is a king size quilt. I read the advice "start small". I'm not so good at following advice. I wanted to make this quilt for our guest bedroom. I figured if I didn't like quilting at least this quilt would be finished. It took me a couple of months to piece the blocks and then I hand quilted it. The project took me 11 months. Most of the quilting was completed in the last two months. I quit smoking during that time. Whenever I felt like smoking I hand quilted instead. Now I'm addicted to hand quilting.

I need a day like this. . . .

I was just checking out Bonnie's site and decided I need a day like this! I need a week like this!!!! Hope someone out there somewhere is having a great Quilty Day!!

Every Blade of Grass

Every blade of grass has its Angel that bends over it and whispers, "Grow, grow."
~ The Talmud

Mmmm Pancakes for Breakfast

My family, with the exception of my husband, loves Pancakes for breakfast. That's probably because I love pancakes for breakfast. That was until I found out that I shouldn't eat carbs!! Then the pancakes kind of tanked for a while. Then I started making Whole Wheat pancakes and my kids weren't too thrilled about that. In fact, my oldest son still has to bring up how I faked him out and told him the pancakes weren't whole wheat and he ate them and thought they were good until he found out "I LIED!" and they WERE! Oh the Horror!

A while back Lara blogged about her perfect muffins and they looked so Yummy! I've known for sometime that sourdough is better for you than using yeast, but I just didn't have the time/patience to figure out how to get a starter going etc. . . . Then I mentioned I needed a starter and wouldn't you know it? Lara was in the area and brought me a start. No More excuses. I tried the Pumpkin muffins! YUMMY! My family likes them too. I've been stressing about keeping the starter alive and buggin Lara with emails etc. . . But some searching online and I found answers. YIPPEEE! Not that Lara didn't answer my questions, I just had too many and felt bad bugging her too much!

From 11-19

So to the point! We had pancakes for breakfast this morning. YUM! I found the recipe here for Rich Sourdough Pancakes. I have a whole wheat starter, but I halved the recipe and used all purpose flour. And yes, I know the pancakes would be healthier without chocolate chips, but you can't do it all at once!! They are semi-sweet! The 3 year old is sharing with you how much he likes them! Pretty appetizing!

From 11-19

OW.

Sunday was my first practice after our long off-season (plus being sick for a week), and I had a blast. It felt so weird to be one of the strong skaters for once (since it was a newbie practice) and that's still messing with my head... I can't shake the mental image of being physically larger than the new skaters... Not in a fat-ass way, but in a "little kid drawing with the adults being HUGE" way. Was this how last-year's vets felt?

I think a sad, broken little piece of me is falling away like old skin. Well, at least I hope so. I dragged myself through the year and, from an emotional standpoint, finished the season running on fumes. By getting teamed right at the very end, I didn't have time to adjust to the status of being a teamed skater, and I was still carrying around the "I'm unteamed and everyone is better than I am" mentality. That definitely left scars, but being in the "giving advice" role was extremely healing for me. 

I hope that continues, because it feels so good.


-- Post From My iPhone

In Search of Simplicity

"Think simple" as my old master used to say - meaning reduce the whole of its parts into the simplest terms, getting back to first principles.”
~ Frank Lloyd Wright



I am in search of simplicity.

Simplicity in design. Simplicity in form. Simplicity in function.

This new functional art quilt is back to the basics, with simply block piecing and straight rows of quilting. I hope that the simplicity of the design, coupled with my best craftsmanship and fabric selection, translates into a touch of eclectic elegance in which ever way it is used...



“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” ~ Leonardo da Vinci


"Simplicity, carried to an an extreme, becomes elegance." ~ Jon Franklin


“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” ~ Albert Einstein

Note: One thing that is not simple is getting the colors to show true in each picture. Something I was not able to achieve here due to fluctuating lighting as I took the pictures, as well as the various places the photos are loaded on. Blogger, Etsy, and Flicker all show the colors differently. Drives me crazy! I would say, at least as far as my monitor is concerned, that the 1st and 3rd pictures shown here, are most accurate in representing the quilts true colors.

Sneak Peek

Here's a little sneak peak at what I am working on. The quilting is all done, but I still need to attach the binding and machine wash it. I like machine washing these functional art quilts as a final step in their creation. I like how washing changes the hand of it, making it softer and bringing out the natural puckering and texture that makes quilts so appealing.


For this quilt I decided to just do closely spaced rows of vertical stitching. I love how the lines of stitching look, but I still am not achieving the varied colored overlay stripped look that I am going for with the stitching. Here, I alternated grouped rows of yellow thread with grouped rows of pink thread, but they wound up blending in a bit more then I had hoped, (although I still think it looks good.) I think I either need to use thread colors that contrast very strongly with the fabric color, or use a heavier thread. Sulky makes a really lovely heavy machine quilt thread, but at about $5.50 a spool... caa-ching, caa-ching!... that really adds up! I'll be posting pics of the whole quilt once I get her finished.

Also, continued thanks for all of the good wishes for Mo. I am so happy and grateful to say that she has been having some really good days, and has even started playing with her toys again. I think all of the extra love and attention she is receiving, plus the kind wishes sent her way, is doing her wonders, and I am so thankful for each good day that she has.

Oooohhhhh Nooo!

My friend Lara was blogging a while back about her new Palm Centro. She's gone paperless in her organizing and is loving it. I've been paperless for a long time. My DH is into electronic gadgets and we've had Palm Pilots for quite a few years. Then almost a year ago I went to the Sprint store with DH. I decided I would just sit in the car and wait and probably peruse a quilt magazine while he took care of business. But No! He convinced me to come in. BIG mistake! Not really it was a great thing. I started looking at phones while he did his business and I got HOOKED on a Palm Treo. Yep, BIG bucks! Well, for us. But who cares about that when it will solve all your phone carrying problems. I always have my phone with me in my back pocket, but my Palm would get left behind all the time. One looks like such a dork with both back pockets filled. So here was the answer! A phone and organizer in ONE! I LOVE it! It goes everywhere with me. I make notes, and keep my to do list, I can check my email, text message and BUG my kids. It makes a mom's life complete.

What was the big Oh No! Well, yesterday I was taking a bath. Everyone was gone except for the 3 year old. I put a DVD on for him, got him his goldfish crackers, a drink and he was set to let me have a quick bath. Everything was going great, then he decided to come in and have a conversatin with me. Totally fine. I was almost done. I put shampoo in my hair and laid back into the water to rinse out the shampoo. Well, my phone must have rung because as I was coming up out of the water, dear 3 year old was trying to hand me my phone! Yep, it slipped and fell into the tub! You know how it is when you can actually feel that everything is going to go wrong and you feel it happening before it happens. That's how it was with the phone. I knew it was going to hit the water before it did. So I was able to swoop the phone out of the water almost as it went in. I took it apart and dried it all off. No I didn't kill the kid and I didn't even yell at him. He was just trying to be a big helper. I did almost start crying because this was a brand new phone. I had just gotten my old one replaced because the "I" key wasn't working any more. (We pay the $7 a month insurance for things like this. We're not dummies we know we have a 3 year old!) So I guess it's not as big a tragedy as I was first fretting, but I really didn't want to walk into the Sprint store and say, "You know that phone I just got as a replacement, well it's dead now and I'd like a replacement for it!"

So what happened? Well, I got out and dressed and went right to my computer and searched for, "What do I do if my Palm Treo got wet?" There were quite a few answers out there. Many of them got fried and were useless. But several were able to dry out the phone and get it working again. Thankfully that's what happened to my phone too. I was able to put it in front of a blow dryer on low and let it sit for a while, placed it over the heat vent and let it get blown on that way. And voila! This morning it works! YEA! Next week it might decide to die, but today it works! Let me tell you it was VERY difficult going without a phone for 8 hours! But I survived, BARELY!

From To File

104

"Red Sails at Sunset"

These are two of my favorite paintings. They were painted by my Grandmother. I have always admired her sense of color. She spent so much of her younger days exploring nature that I think her eye easily captured the essence of a landscape.
"Home from Market" was painted from memories of a trip to the market in Octavolo, Ecuador. Grandma traveled the world on a retired teacher's salary. She had so many stories to tell.

Grandma gets a visitor.
My father took these photos earlier this summer.



My Grandmother is 104 years old. I had a chance to visit her recently. She was having a good day (her memory is not very sharp these days) and we had a lovely time together. When we were leaving I ran into a friend of my grandmother's. She described my grandmother as one of the most elegant women she had ever known. I had to smile because she had come up with really appropriate description.

Another Quilt on!

I was able to get the next quilt on the machine last week, but no quilting was accomplished. Here's crossing the fingers and toes that I get this one quilted and off by the end of the week. It's a Re-do! Well, it's like the worst episode in my quilting career so far. I used the blue water soluble pen for the first time on the original quilt. It is a toally white quilt and I thought I'd be good like all the other good quilters out there and use a light box and put on the quilt motifs with the blue water soluble pen. When the quilt was done, I spritzed it down with water to get the blue out and it came out and looked fabulous. However, by the time I shipped it to Nevada to the customer, there were brown spots on the top in several places!! I don't know if I'll ever use blue pen on anything again. So I'm Re-doing the Re-do top for the customer. Yep, she made one exactly like her original as it's a gift for her brother.

I was planning on telling the whole story, but there it is and I'm anxious to get this quilt done, and the whole episode behind me~!

From Drop Box

On November 4th I let you vote via comments for which border I should use on the doggie quilts. The Results!! If you didn't go back to the comments and count them yourself, are . . . . .

15 - for the Blue Border
14 - for the Yellow Border
1 - for the Orange Border

Since my in my quilt world I am the DICTATOR!! I'm going with the yellow, cuz I decided I liked it best. If I ever get the borders on, I will post a picture. Then a couple of years later when I finally get the quilt quilted, I might just post another picture of it! LOL!

Color and Simplicity

I think over the last 3 days, the sun only came out for approximately 20 minutes. The rest of the time was cold dark and gray, with lots of rain. This, coupled with recent life events, left me craving two things... color and simplicity.


As I considered how to channel this craving into some new stitched work, my mind kept wandering back to a recent visit to a Free People clothing store. The clothes there are great, although out of my humble price range. But the thing that always catches my eye in this particular store, even more so then the clothing, is the beautiful stitched Indian patchwork which is used as upholstery on the chairs and couches as well as for the curtains on the dressing rooms. Bright patches of fabric with colorful, alternating rows of hand embroidery. The stitching creates a secondary woven-like overlay pattern on top of the richly patterned patchwork. Below is an example of a similar piece of upholstered furniture, an adario patchwork ottoman from Arhaus...


Inspired, I decided to start exploring some simple constructed patchwork, in brightly colored patterned fabrics. However, having done lots, and lots of hand embroidered art quilts this past year, I decided to take a break on the hand stitching, and subsitute machine stitching.



I quilted the entire surface in horizontal and vertical rows of stiching spaced just a smidge over 1/8" apart.

The colors cheered me, and the piecing and stitching soothed me.


I'm happy with how this first piece came out, and am now working on my next piece. This time I am paying a bit more attention to stitching more deliberate and defined rows of alternating colored threads. My goal is to create a more definite overlay pattern, not as random as in this first piece. (I'll post the results as soon as I finish.)

Also, I was tagged by the lovely Victoria, (hey, there's a nice name!) from A Mile A Minute. Thanks Victoria! Now, as soon as I can think of 7 semi interesting things about myself to share I will play along, but right now I feel about as interesting as a slice of melba toast!

Serious Stash Enhancement and the Winners Are...

Thank you so much for all of your comments on my 100th post. It was really helpful to hear your favorites. I won't keep you in suspense. The winners are....

Quilt Crazy Gal Jenna who has a wonderful blog showcasing all sorts of quilting techniques and

Jackie's Stitches, a knitter and a new quilter. She has some lovely pictures of a recent trip along the Appalachian Trail. I've always wanted to make that trip.

A big thank you to everyone that turned out for the Fabric Sale yesterday.

Here are my purchases, made in the afternoon after most people had come and gone. There are 4 sets of purchases in the photo above. The assortment of oriental prints fanned out in the front is the most expensive group on the table. The other 3 groups were bags of 2-3 lbs each (or 8-12 yards each) purchased for $5.00 a piece. On the left is a group of silks that include a Frank Lloyd Wright inspired fabric. The bag in the center holds strips sets of light and dark hues of brown. (I always need more of these in my stash.) The last on the right are generous scraps of different African prints. I've always wanted to add these to my collection.

This sale is on two levels of the home. I worked in Jeanne's quilting studio where all the fancy fabric are located. Oh... there is still so much left to choose from. I don't think it will matter what day you come to shop. You will not go away unhappy.

There still many large pieces of African print. Some are mud cloth, some with shells and still others are appliqued. There are a couple of bins full of hand dyed cotton sateens, print cloth and hand painted fabrics. Other items on this level include fancy garment fabrics, wool, overdyed wool, fleece, oriental fabrics (both silk and cotton prints), velvets and upscale batiks.

I came home with yards of Laura Wasilowski's cotton sateens, lovely hand dyed flannels and some of Wendy Richardson's overdyed velvets. Scrumptious!!!

The upper level of the home houses the traditional fabrics. There are cottons, flannels and even courduroy fabrics to choose from.

There are three more days left to this sale. Look for details in the upper right hand corner of my blog. I borrowed some of these pictures from Patsy's blog. You can see more photos here.

Leonids meteor showers peak tomorrow night November 17th in the late evening. I hope your skies are clear.