Kitchen Sink Soup

I love making soups. You know how cold it gets here in sunny Florida, so when it does turn a little brisk, I get on a soup making binge. Oh, who am I kidding, I make soups all year long. Turn the a/c on and have a bowl! It really was cold here last week, so I whipped up what I'm calling "Kitchen Sink" soup. I threw it all together and it was really good. Even better the next day!

Kitchen Sink Soup

Salt pork, Bacon or Ham

Onion

Celery

Carrot

Garlic

2 cans low-sodium chicken broth

1 can diced tomatoes (again, no salt)

V-8 Juice (I used low-sodium)

1 can dark red kidney beans, rinsed and drained (or any kind of bean)

Italian parsley

Seasoned salt

Pepper

Chili powder

Quick cooking barley

Frozen chopped collard greens (spinach would be good too)

Render or brown a small amount of salt pork or bacon on medium low heat to release the fat. If you're using ham, you might need some olive oil to brown it slightly. Ditch some of the fat if it seems excessive. Dice onion, celery, carrot and garlic and saute in same pan/pot. Add two cans of chicken broth, one can of diced tomatoes, lots of V-8 juice and water to cover everything. Then toss in some kidney beans and fresh Italian parsley. I added seasoned salt, freshly ground pepper and chili powder too. I think that's it. Cumin would be good, and/or turmeric. Whatever dry spices you love. If you're not on a salt hiatus like me, use normal canned stuff and go easy on the seasoned salt. All that canned stuff can get salty. Let this mixture simmer covered for at least 45 minutes. Add more water if it seems too thick. It should be between soup and chili in consistency.

After the initial simmering time, add in the barley and cook for 30 minutes to get the barley done. The last 10 minutes I threw in the frozen greens. I served the soup with crusty bread, and a parsley garnish. I might add a dollop of chevre or sour cream as a garnish next time. I can see this soup going vegetarian as well. Kill the pork (that's not very nice vegetarian talk!), and use vegetable stock. Maybe double up on the beans for protein.

Some other good recipes I tried this weekend: Jan's Dilly Bread and 5-Layer Greek Dip. I made the Greek dip twice this weekend. I brought a batch to Sew Day and then my daughter wanted her "hummus needs" met.

The Label

I finished my January doll quilt with the "Show Us Where You Live" theme. I'm really bad about making labels for my quilts, but I always make them for these doll quilts. I need to remind myself that they're not that hard. Fun, even.

And speaking of sunny Florida, here's the view outside today. It's 57 degrees, but raining sideways. Lots of lightening and thunder too. Yay! Now if I can figure out how to stay inside and sew all day...

Love Those Quilters!

My mail has been so fun lately! I sure do miss all those political flyers. NOT!

My friend Yumi in Japan is an accomplished modern quilter. She made me this gorgeous miniature quilt in my favorite colors. I'm seriously thinking of decorating a room around it. Her hand quilting is what really makes it special. I'm honored to have several "Yumi Creations."

I love this calico print zipper! Yumi knows what I like. She also sends fun Japanese snacks. I forgot to get a picture of those. The college kid opened every package and sampled everything the day they came! We especially loved the plum gummy candies and chocolate? pop rocks.

These buttons are so clever! I love black and white fabric with type on it. These buttons are perfect! A fellow quilter swap buddy sent me these. I love the way they're displayed too. I may just frame the whole card!

Another swap buddy sent me a mess o' selvages and three of her beautiful postcards. She collects selvages too, so it was so sweet of her to share with me. I really enjoy seeing other quilter's creations. Ya'll are a talented bunch. And speaking of talent, tomorrow is our guild's Sew Day. As usual, I have no idea what I'll bring to work on, but I'll be there with bells on!

Think Tropical

Oh boy, it's been cold. Sweater and coat weather in Florida. Shoes, even. From what I've heard, Florida is the only state in the US without snow on the ground. Not fair. If it's going to be cold, give us some of that pretty white stuff. And ski slopes! Instead of freezing today, I thought about the tropics. Umbrella drinks, hot sand, warm surf, and pineapples.

I was reading blogs this morning and stumbled upon a little project I could fit in today. Karen at the Selvage Blog made a gigantic pineapple block on her Snow Day. She linked a great tutorial, so I gave it a try. I don't think I've made a pineapple block before. It was really fun and this technique was easy.

This potholder was supposed to be winter themed. I went with a wonky log cabin with Elvis on the back side. My partner collects Elvis memorabilia. I used both cotton batting and Insul-brite, which I've decided is too much bulk. The Insul-brite is so thin, so I thought adding cotton batting would help, but it made it too bulky and hard to machine quilt. Maybe a layer of cotton flannel next time?

Stay warm everyone. Enjoy those snow days. Mother Nature is giving everyone a workout this week.

It's Raining!

Sorry, central Florida. I wanted to grill tonight, so I brought on the rain. Nice though, isn't it? We've been dry. I love rain and storms. Tropical storms are my favorite, and we're kind of tropical here. And you can bet I'll be out there grilling in the downpour. I'll try to dodge the lightening.

I put a palm border on my little Florida mini quilt. Time to quilt it now. Saturday is Sew Day for the Orlando Modern Quilt Guild, so I'm gathering projects to work on.

The talented Sarah from House of Krom is having a Free Piecing Study. The first block was this fun Mondo Bird. I didn't quite get the beak pointy enough or get the proportions correct, but it is free piecing, right? I sure enjoyed the process and seeing all the other Mondo bird interpretations. My block measures about 8" x 12". I might try a flock of mini blocks using this technique. Next up is a log cabin house, which is right up my house alley! I love blogland.

I watched "Inception" this weekend and got this 1930s repro quilt bound. When the sun comes back out and it dries up, I'll get a full shot. I made this top in 2008, but it hung around in my tub o' tops until late last year. Eagle Mountain Quilting did the lovely quilting.

Apparently I was going to use it as a tablecloth. I forgot all about that. It fits my kitchen table perfectly. Oh well, it's a quilt now. I love looking at all the cute prints on those 1930s reproduction fabrics. I think we quilters should get food manufacturers back to using feed sacks. Free fabric with bags of flour, sugar, grits, pet food, etc. Wouldn't that be fun? I could just see all of us sorting through the merchandise looking for the prints we liked! Maybe that's why they stopped selling food in fabric bags.

Look at this NYC selvage quilt. My selvage buddy, Dotty has spoiled me again. She's so creative with these selvages. A true artiste. Speaking of being spoiled, my friend Yumi from Japan sent me a lovely package. More on that later.

A Pressing Situation

A dependable iron is a must-have for anyone who sews or quilts. I guess some people actually iron clothes too, but that's just silly. I've been through my share of irons since I started quilting. And a love of vintage linens before that required that I have a hot, working iron as well as a can of starch ready for ironing marathons.

Enter the "pressing situation." My ironing board is avocado green and I believe was my husband's. It creeks and groans, but works perfectly well. When we combined households, my harvest gold ironing board went to the poor kids (aka Goodwill). As you can tell by the retro colors, our ironing boards have been around a while, but I don't like to be wasteful if I can help it. I can't remember what iron I had back then, but I can tell you it's not around. You see, I am an iron killer.

This oldie, but goodie is the exact same type of iron my mom had when I was growing up. Our maid ironed bed linens with the thing. Really. She watched soap operas while she ironed and my mom let me stay home with her if I was sick, so she was a babysitter too. I hope my mother gave her extra for that little "task." This GE iron is a workhorse, but it started boiling water, making weird buzzing noises and sputtering. I haven't tossed it yet, but its days are numbered. I guess I'm waiting for it to shock me or set my laundry room on fire or something. What I love about this iron is the heft and the fact that there is no mamby pamby safety feature like auto shut-off.

This sleek and modern beauty was a free gift with vacuum cleaner purchase. My mom's husband loves to vacuum (crazy, I know) and bought an Oreck. I got the old vacuum cleaner and this brand new iron. It's pretty fancy and worked like a charm...for a while. It's not heating up like it used to and the Teflon coating on the sole plate is wearing.

Now look at this little cutie. Since my ironing board is in the laundry room, I thought I'd buy a little mini iron and ironing board so I could save myself all those trips (exercise, really) from the machine to the iron. I use it sometimes, but it doesn't hold much water and weighs about as much as a cotton ball. It's cute and all but truthfully, I could use the back and forth walk from my sewing machine to the iron.

Not pictured is a newer iron that I tossed in the trash last week. I couldn't get it to heat up at all and it weighed about as much as a Twinkie. It was my spare to the heir and when King Oreck of Sleekdom started failing I drug it out. Into the trash it went. It wasn't like I didn't have three other irons.

But you know, three half-working irons (and a fourth in the trash) aren't enough for a quilter. I purchased this retro throwback Black & Decker from Amazon and it came Monday. It worked great the first day. The second day it wouldn't get very hot. UGH! I had to run and get the box out of the trash before the trash dudes came in case I needed to return it.

But then something magical happened. I tripped the ground fault breaker for the umpteenth time. It's on the same electrical circuit as the outlet I plug my iron into. To reset the breaker, I have to go into the garage, climb into the boat to get to the other side of the garage, climb out of the boat and use the jet ski as a ladder to get to the ground. Then I unplug all the crap Inspector Gadget has plugged into the outlet and reset the breaker. Then I climb back the way I came. Now that's exercise!

Being the daughter of an electrical engineer, I have zero knowledge of electricity, but this ground fault breaker thingy made a weird noise all of a sudden. Like it's faulty or something. Of course it didn't buzz when my husband reset it. Same as my car headlight working when hubby is around. I have of course decided the problem is not with faulty irons, it's with the stupid outlet. Oh, and did I mention Inspector Gadget has about a zillion things plugged into this particular circuit out in the garage?

So until he replaces that breaker, I'm ironing in my studio. And guess what? All the irons are working. Somewhere in a landfill, there's probably a working iron that I tossed. If you made it through this tome, I applaud you. It was nice to blow off steam, excuse the pun. I'd send you an iron, but I think I'm a collector now.

Fun in Florida

January's Doll Quilt Swap has a theme to show where you live. Since I've always lived in Florida, a Florida quilt was a no-brainer. I've been collecting five-inch charm for an I Spy quilt, so I dug into those for inspiration. Oranges, bananas, strawberries, beach scenes, sand pails, flip flops, golf balls, blue crabs, bugs, Mickey Mouse and fish. All the things I love about Florida. Except the bugs. And oh yeah, the snakes.

January 2010 Florida Quilt

I had a great time last year creating the "Tacky Tourist." And I'm only teasing about our tourists being tacky. We love our tourists and appreciate not having to pay a state tax. Both kids work part time jobs at the theme parks so they get to enjoy the tourists even more. My son can say "fasten your seat belts" in seven different languages.

And here's I Spy Florida Mosaic ready for quilting! I may put a green palm frond border on it first. I got the idea for the mosaic from this cool Mod Mosaic Pillow tutorial from one of my very favorite quilters, Elizabeth Hartman.

I completed one of the blocks for the Roll, Roll, Cotton Boll mystery. I like it. Unfortunately, those little 2.5" half square red and tan triangles will be the death of this quilt. 600 of those boring suckers are needed. Ick. Yuck. Poo. I'm thinking of downsizing to lap quilt size and I'll have bonus extra pieces that I've already constructed. I suspect the pieced border is going to be over my head as well. Oh well, I tried and it was fun for a while. One day I'll have a better attention span!

Happy New Year!

It's a new year! As much as I try to get away from paper calendars and organizers, I'm still buying one each year. And I'm already missing my wall calendar. : ( This year I bought this hilarious Anne Taintor desk calendar. At least I graduated from corporate Daytimers. Or became less mature, which is most likely the case. Love the graphics for the first two weeks in this goofy calendar.

Goodness! Is this how the year is going to start?! Ha ha!

Check out my Swanky Bookkeeper from this tutorial. I'll be ready for a Kindle if I ever get one. Yeah right, I can't even handle electronic calendars. So much for technology around here.