Long Day

I tried this Italian Lemon Roasted Chicken last night. This picture is before it went into the oven. I used Meyer lemons and fresh herbs. It was pretty good. I get so excited when they put those fancy little taters on BOGO at Publix. I got a bag of purple ones too.

The chicken I used was gigantic, so I used the leftover meat to make chicken salad this morning. Everything but the kitchen sink is in this stuff.

I've shown a quick glimpse of this old Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt before, but today I got it down to refold it and think about doing some repairs. It's a big quilt, 66" x 88" and is hand pieced and hand quilted. I cannot remember where I bought it, but I do remember it being a steal.

The fabrics are fun. Lots of bright florals.

Even several novelty prints. See the cowboy on his yellow horse? I imagine the fabric scraps were from discarded clothing.

A couple of places have been repaired or patched over. Or maybe the quilt maker didn't have enough blue border fabric and had to insert something similar. She (or he) sure was close if that was the case.

This is the damaged spot I'd like to repair. I think I can make a hexie that would cover the worn spot. Or maybe I should just slap a square patch on like the other repair.

The binding is a yellow and white striped seersucker. So sweet.

I found this very interesting: What A Week of Groceries Looks Like Around The World.

Junior

Looked who popped out to say hi. Can you see his head in the green bush? This is Junior. His big brother Fred hangs out in the front yard and suns himself on my long row of bushes. I peek to see if he's out there before I exit the front door. If he's there, I go out another way. Because you know that thing will lunge at me and attack. Well, you never know...

One of my guild buddies brought this vintage quilt top to show and tell. I recognized some of the prints from my oldies collection I've been working with recently. I love the blue sashing. Such a happy quilt. I sure hope she finishes this beauty. She is a talented quilter, so she could make it shine. I may have to copy this design with my oldies.

I unloaded donated my sampler blocks to another guild friend. She put them together and added borders to make a nice charity quilt. I remember falling in love with that fabric collection when I first started quilting. Blech, what was I thinking? I do love the Sunbonnet Sue carrying a load of fabric. Some of those blocks look complicated for a beginner. I bet they were a mess! I'm glad they found a home.

I remembered to fill (and bring) the raffle basket to the guild meeting. It was fun shopping my stash for goodies. Today I'm going to work on our block-of-the-month, which is this really cute Pippi Longstocking girly.

Gee, I've been in a beer theft kind of mood. I stole another beer to make this Easy Beer Mac and Cheese. The recipe only needed 8 oz. of the 12 oz. bottle, so there was a swig or two leftover for the cook. The dish was really good. And easy! And you use whole wheat noodles so they cancel out the cheese.

I served the mac and cheese with these Honey-Soy Chicken Thighs. I'm not a huge honey fan, so I only used 1/4 cup versus the full cup. The full cup of honey would have made them really sticky. Everyone loved these. The baking sauce is a winner. I put a squirt of yellow mustard in to thicken it up and used less soy sauce since I wasn't using the full amount of honey.

Here I go again, using a spool of thread to its ultimate death.

Thankfully, six new spools arrived yesterday. I bought that spool on the right last week to give the Aurifil brand a try. Everyone raves about it. My local quilt shop sells it for $9 a spool! Yikes! I hope I hate it. The other spools go on sale for $1.95 each at Connecting Threads and they're larger. My sewing machine purrs when I use it.

Let's Do This

I was thrilled to see this vintage bow tie quilt sold for a good price. As I studied the photographs more, I see that the bow tie blocks on the quilt are made in this manner with templates and inset seams. And given the blocks are only 2-3/4", probably hand pieced. And hand quilted. Color me impressed. Ain't nobody got time for that these days.

My free time this weekend was spent in my studio chopping fabric and making bow ties. I'm up to 70 blocks or so. I took the easy way out with no templates or inset seams. My blocks will finish at 3-1/2". I'm not sure how many of these I'll make, but playing with my old fabric stash has been a blast. I was able to reduce the bin by 2/3 too, so there's that. I'm only keeping the prints I love. Tonya reminded me to include cheddar as seen in the original. Wouldn't you know that my old stash has not one orange print? I'll have to sub in newer stuff, which should be easy since orange is my favorite color.

These Salted Pretzel Caramel Brownies are on my radar this week. I made the kiddos red velvet cupcakes yesterday, but Inspector Gadget is not a big fan, so I kind of owe him. Ha!

We love this roast sticky rotisserie-style chicken. Inspector Gadget buys the biggest chicken he can find when he hits Wally World each week. Since it cooks for five hours, I'd recommend doing two smaller birds. I remove all the meat and get the carcass going for stock while we eat and clean up. That's an onion falling out of the cavity. I propped the bird up on my beer can chicken stand.

My food styling skills stink, but this chorizo potato salad was a big hit. Easy, too. I love buying those fancy new potatoes. These were a combination of red potatoes and fingerlings. We had a full house for dinner, so I threw everything together buffet style. I might have to eat leftover grilled jalapeno poppers for breakfast. There are worse things. Happy Monday.

Linking up with Made by You Monday. RIP Google Reader. Feedly is way better anyway. So there. :p

Stinkers

I drug out my fragrant tub of vintage fabrics after work Friday. The fabrics are not really that stinky, but they do smell a bit old. Like great grandma's house. This tub weighs a ton and I know I'm going to have fun going through it. Crazy me collected vintage fabrics before I sewed. I knew I would use them one day. I found them here and there at estate and garage sales, thrift shops, church tag sales, and eBay. Some were inherited from other quilters.

This is the beautiful antique quilt that inspired me. The bow tie blocks are 2-3/4" square. That's so teeny! The quilt maker whipped up a mere 929 blocks to create this quilt. I hope the quilt sold to someone who can restore it if possible.

Here's a closeup of some of the blocks. Aren't the fabrics sweet? I'm crossing my fingers I can find some gingham or funky novelty in my stinky stash to replicate this look.

I ended up with 4" blocks that will finish at 3-1/2". Six down, 923 to go. Ha! We'll see how long it takes before I get bored.

Bones would love a shark pillow to burrow in.

The Inspector made me accompany him to Wally World last Sunday. I really don't care for shopping there, but I did make him buy me these Fred Flintstone beef ribs. I had to use my restaurant pan to get them into the oven. I wanted to throw them on the grill at the end, but the weather wasn't cooperating. I'll grill in the rain, but not if there's lightning. They don't call us the Lightning Capital of the World for nothing.

To go with the ribs, I made sun-dried tomato risotto and salad. College Boy and Inspector Gadget ate every last one of those ribs. They were fall-off-the-bone tender and very flavorful. I put barbecue sauce on them during the last 20 minutes or so of baking. Yabba dabba do!

Great Grandma's NRA Quilt

MARTIN, ELLA. NRA QUILT. 1933. From West Virginia Department of Archives and History, West Virginia 

How fun it was to see my great grandmother's NRA quilt, A Cover for the Nation in color on The Quilt Index. I've known about this quilt for a while, but was unable to attend the museum dedication in the 1980s. I have a photocopy of a Goldenseal article that published in 1988, but have never seen the quilt in person or in color.

This quilt resides in the West Virginia Cultural Center. In 1933, my great grandmother presented it to president Franklin D. Roosevelt as a gift from the people of West Virginia. It was "rescued" from a consignment shop by a quilt collector in 1976. Thankfully, my great grandmother had embroidered her name and date on the back side and the quilt was researched and documented.

I had my sewing machine, Red serviced while I was at QuiltCon. What a difference it sounds when sewing. I don't remember it ever sewing this quietly. What did I do to the poor thing?! I have to keep checking to see if it's actually sewing. The service provider timed the needle bar, and reset the bobbin case and hook clearance. He said he could tell I sewed a lot. Maybe I won't wait four years to get it serviced next time.

I chose this Shoofly block for our guild's BOM. It's also a great reminder that I have a Shoofly WIP quilt to work on. My works in progress are completely out of hand.

I finished the Madrona Road challenge. We only had fat eighths to work with and I hacked at them with abandon to attempt this curved piecing. After seeing all the negative space quilts at QuiltCon, I decided to go that route versus buying more of the fun prints to make something big enough for an actual quilt. The top finished at 42" x 44" and will make a modern baby quilt for some modern baby.

Butterflying

A couple of years ago, I got involved in the online quilting community's butterfly craze. All the cool kids were making these striking butterfly quilts. I made blocks here and there and the flimsy still resides in my box o' quilt tops. I really should quilt it or get it quilted. It will make a bright and happy quilt for someone. I love how it turned out. Scrappy and fun.

That summer, I also showed off my vintage butterfly quilt I picked up somewhere. I fell in love with this quilt the minute I saw it. It's hand quilted with big clunky stitches, but the blocks are interesting and colorful. It almost has a modern feel to it with the white sashing.

The nice folks at Quilt Inspiration noticed my vintage butterfly quilt and kindly asked me if they could feature it. The best part is that they also drafted a pattern in two sizes and included a handy layout in case you wanted to make one for yourself. You can download the patterns right here.

Over the weekend I made a few blocks stealing their neato color palette and assembled them into the larger block. Four of these with sashing would make a good sized baby quilt. Now I want to make the smaller blocks and do a scrappy version. Thanks so much to Quilt Inspiration for taking the guess work out of making these fun blocks and showcasing some amazing butterfly creations. The online quilting community is always inspiring.

The bonus trimmed triangles were used for a little mini. More on that later.

My breakfast. Smushed avocado on marble rye toast with a poached egg and cherry tomato garnish. It was delicious. The "lite" avocados aren't nearly as rich as Haas avocados, but they're what I grew up eating. I believe they are mostly grown in Florida. I had a neighbor that had a gigantic avocado tree and they all ripen at the same time. You're eating avocados until they come out of your ears. Unfortunately, the tree succumbed to a freeze one year. Luckily, avocados are easy to find year round. I really love them.

Red & White Quilt Show

Feast your eyes on these beauties.

Red and White Quilt Love

I may have mentioned the "Infinite Variety: Three Centuries of Red and White Quilts" quilt show being held at the American Folk Art Museum in New York City once or twice. Red and white quilts are among my favorites. I can never get enough of them. Obviously, I'm not the only one. Taryn at Repro Quilt Lover is hosting an online red and white quilt show on her blog. If you have a red and white quilt, I know a lot of us would love to see it! Go to Taryn's blog and link it up.

One of the very first quilts I made was this Irish Chain. I had just discovered batiks and found two red prints to mix with my solid white. I found the pattern free online. It was a great pattern for a new quilter, and seemed way easier than the king-size Burgoyne Surrounded pattern I originally had my eyes on. I'm still a little skeered of that one.

The 54" x 66" Irish Chain was comprised of nine patches and solid squares, which are pretty easy for beginners. I was thrilled at how it all came together very effortlessly.

The quilting was done by a quilter who had just started quilting for others. I've never been to Vegas, but my Irish Chain took the trip. Jackie was very helpful in suggesting quilting motifs and did a beautiful job quilting. In normal fashion, it probably took me two or three years to bind the quilt and I bet there's still no label, but it's kind of finished and I love how it turned out. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone's red and white quilts. And for those of you in NYC, take pictures of the show for us.

I Drank the Kool-Aid

Butterfly Blocks (is that caption thing new?!)

It was bound to happen. I couldn't resist all the darling butterfly blocks floating around in blogland. They're just too cute! I know I'll probably miss someone, but I first saw them saw on Brown Dirt Cottage who saw them on Cactus Needles who saw them on Mrs. Schmenkman Quilts . The Mrs. saw them on Choccy Bangles' blog . Phew! How's that for a blogland project family tree?! Mrs. Schmenkman's blog has a wonderful tutorial. Thank you for the inspiration ladies!

I only have six blocks made, but I'm getting into a better rhythm with them. Each block has seven pieces, and needs to be trimmed 12 times (gulp), but thankfully the backgrounds can be wonky. I like wonky.

Antique Butterfly Quilt

This is one of my cherished antique quilts I've had for years and years. I got it somewhere in my travels. There's probably a good story behind it, but dang if I can remember. It's in excellent condition and beautifully made. Note the little butterfly blocks. I tried to figure out this pattern when I first started quilting and could never get it right. Now I laugh that I couldn't figure it out. Duh! I mean, wow, I've learned a lot in three years. That math stuff still makes me sweat, but it has become easier.

Here's a shot of the entire quilt. Aren't the fabrics fun? Anyone know a circa? I use this one on the bed when it gets cold in Florida, so it's not used very often. I'll have to drag it out and study it some more. It's funny how much I notice and admire now that I quilt.

And just to stay out of trouble, I cut some wedges from a Chocolate Lollipop jelly roll. I'll slow you where I'm going with these soon. I fell in love with this fabric collection during the pink and brown craze. What can I say, I'm easily influenced.

I hope you are finding time to create and have some fun. Be good.

My Great Grandmothers' Quilts

My father's maternal grandmother gave my parents this quilt when they married. It is gorgeous! Velvets, wools, and other luscious fabrics. The backing is satin. I wish you could see the hand embroidery on this quilt. Very pretty. The crazy quilt is treasured for its beauty, but the story behind it is interesting too. My mom sewed her own clothing or would buy scraps of velvet when she was dating my dad. Mom worked at the five and dime and spent most of her salary on fabric and makeup! Great grandma saved these scraps and made them this quilt when they married. It's in pristine condition and has never been used. I take it out of storage every now and then and admire it.

 

This same great grandmother, Ella Martin, was an accomplished seamstress. She also published a hymn. She lived during the depression in West Virginia. In 1933, she made a quilt for President Roosevelt. I have a wonderful magazine article about that quilt and her life. The quilt now belongs to the state of West Virginia and resides in a museum.

Grandma Martin was very special to me and I have many fond memories of spending time with her. I don't remember her sewing in my presence, but there were handmade items all around to admire. My parents and I visited her almost every weekend when she lived in St. Petersburg, Florida. She was making doll clothes by that time and my dad has one of her dolls. I have fond memories of her and was lucky to know her.

My dad's paternal grandmother gave this quilt to my parents when they married. I suspect it is quite old and was possibly an heirloom when they received it. It was the first quilt I ever saw or touched and has always been my favorite. I used it all the time as a teenager. My mother gave it to me for my home when I got married.

I love how it is made with scraps of clothing. The simplicity gives it charm. This great grandmother also lived in West Virginia during the depression. She died of lung cancer before I was born. Never smoked a day in her life. A very religious, thrifty woman and a wonderful cook.

It's interesting how the quilting bug came full circle. I think both of my great grandmother's would have been happy to see the tradition and hobby continued.