The History Quilter: Blockapalloza

Showing posts with label Blockapalloza. Show all posts

Saturday, June 18, 2011

projects to keep my mind occupied for a break...

Yesterday summer officially began in my household and by 11:00 in the morning my oldest called me (while I was on the Southern California Quilter's Run) to say "Mom, it is now eleven hours into my summer and I am officially bored." Cracked me up. So what did I do? Took him to yoga class with me in the afternoon. Yes, I took my fifteen year old teenage son to yoga class to not only give him something to do but to see if he would like it. Turns out he did like it and he thanked me on the ride home. Love that boy.

He likes yoga and can hold up the Torre Pendente di Pisa.

So with school out for my boys, a very easy but interesting summer class for me (1/2 way done already) and the routine of making breakfasts/lunches at 7am along with various carpool duties on hold until September...what will I work on to occupying my mind for this break? At least for this first week or so of summer I am creating a list of what will keep me busy as I transition into summer.

Cook/bake three new things this week. I'm going to try: Moussaka (a Greek style casserole), Creme Brulee and Brioche. A main course, a dessert and a sweet bread. I will not be trying these all in the same day.
Move through my current sewing projects. This afternoon I finished up the last block for the Block-A-Pallooza Quilt Along that I began in late January. This evening I squared them all up and began cutting the various sashing and cornerstone fabrics I will be using to piece this top together. I plan to have this quilt top pieced by next Friday.

Squaring up my blocks...I had a few wonky ones.

Read! I just spent time cleaning out my bookshelves and decided to donate some to my local library and happily rediscovered some books that I have not read for a very long time. I have a confession to make: I was a teenage vampire book lover. Not Twilight, but the original (at least for my generation) - Lestat. I have all eight books of The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice and decided to read through them all again and then donate them to my local library.

To finish for this evening/very early morning by the time I finally publish this post, I give you what I made for dinner: Steak I quickly cooked in my cast iron pan, cheese ravioli with tomato sauce from my garden, salad and focaccia.

Steak for the omnivore in the house.

No steak for me

Have a great Saturday!
Susan

Saturday, June 11, 2011

History Quilter Podcast Episode #9 Notes

Hi Everyone,

The History Quilter Podcast Episode #9 is now available via the link to the right, on Podbean at http://historyquilter.podbean.com/ or on iTunes (search for The History Quilter). In this week's episode I spoke about the history of hexagons, a few recipes I am working on to discuss in the next podcast and my thoughts of my first quilt guild meeting.

Here are the links:

Quilters by the Sea Quilt Guild. Check them out at www.quiltersbythesea.com. The lovely Marilyn Pond is the quilt guild president this year - please check out her blog at http://marilynpond.blogspot.com. Wonderful "rock star" moment when I met Beth of Love Laugh Quilt. Please check out her wonderful creations at http://lovelaughquilt.blogspot.com/ .

2011 Southern California Quilter's Run: Two weekends - June 16 -19, 2011 and June 23 - 26, 2011. www.quiltersrun.com.

The Jelly Roll 1,600 Quilt: Check out this funny YouTube video from Heirloom Creations, a quilt store in Sioux Falls, SD. What a great way to sew up a quilt top FAST with Jelly Rolls. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EomX7t7to_o&feature=player_embedded .

A short history of using hexagons in quilting can be read at www.womenfolk.com. Their Quilt Patterns Through Time section highlights hexagons. http://www.womenfolk.com/quilt_pattern_history/mosaic.htm

The Illinois State Museum has a website with a section dedicated to the arts which includes "Keeping us in Stitches: Quilts & Quilters".
http://www.museum.state.il.us/muslink/art/htmls/ks.html

In the pieced quilts section, hexagons are illustrated with four different quilts which show the evolution of the hexagon quilt from 1870 - 1945.
This gorgeous hexagon mosaic quilt caught my eye for it's modernity and symmetry. Make sure you check out the description of this quilt.

Albert Small, Ottawa, Illinois
Mosaic, 1941-44

I spoke about an Apricot Sauce or Salsa Di Albiocche that I made from The Silver Spoon, an English language translation of Il Cucchiaio d'argento, the Italian culinary "bible". I had eight ripe/almost too ripe apricots sitting on my counter and needed to use them up so I grabbed this cookbook, found Apricot Sauce in the index and went to work. The sauce is to die for.

Salsa Di Albicocche (Apricot Sauce)

adapted from The Silver Spoon cookbook

3/4 cup superfine or granulated sugar

about 8 apricots (pitted but not skinned, chopped fine)

In a small sauce-pot, put the sugar and a scant 1 cup water and bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring until the simple syrup thickens. Add the chopped apricots to the simple syrup and gently boil about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally (I did use a potato masher to crush the apricots down to my personal preference). Turn the heat off and let the sauce steep for as long as you like. I poured the sauce into a pint sized glass jar and can't wait to pour it over Vanilla ice cream tonight. The recipe says it would go well with chocolate desserts and cakes.

I did sew up Block 17 of the Block-A-Pallooza yesterday. I love pinwheels!

Block 17

Enjoy your Saturday!
Susan

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Wednesday WIP and a Backache

Looking at fabric, fun

Dreaming up what to do with fabric, fun

Cutting up fabric, also fun

Backache from cutting up fabric, not so fun!

But I muddle on determined to ignore the pain and continue on with my busy life.

First on my WIP list:

I am participating in the Sliced Coins Quilt Along hosted by Elizabeth D. of Don't Call Me Betsy. I decided to go outside of my creative and rather comfortable box and use solids in order make a decorative quilt for the end of my bed. I am using Kona Champagne, Basil, Curry, Honey and Butterscotch. Having a Kona card has been such a big help as I was able to sit on my bed and match Kona colors to the colors around my room. I look forward to the outcome.

Various Kona Solids for Sliced Coins Quilt Along

Second on my WIP List:

I also started cutting into the Sunkissed by Sweetwater fabric that I received last week to make the first block in the Block-a-pallooza. I wish the directions could be a little more clear on what fabrics we should or could use. I ordered the entire Fat Eighth as recommended and don't know if I want to use exactly the same combinations that the block host designers illustrate in the directions. I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

Sunkissed fabric for Block #1

Third on my WIP list:

Last week my quilt using the That Girl Quilt Along came back from the long arm quilter. I am still blown away with what a great job she did with the quilting. I shared with you all before that I had such a tough time myself when I tried to quilt it so sending it out seemed the right choice, and boy was I right.

I was right, don't you think? I just love how Maria from Nena's Quilt Shack did her magic on my quilt. I'm working on the binding at night and should have that done within the next few days.

My remaining WIP: school!

I'm back in school this week working on my Teaching Credential. TB test, Fingerprint Scan, sign up for the CBEST test are just a few of the tasks I need to complete this week. I was warned that the first class of the teaching credential was the paper-pushing class and they weren't kidding. My other class is ECON 300 - Econ for non-majors and as usual I was the oldest person in the classroom of 100. In the introduction class yesterday the teacher kept talking about some kind of disgusting frozen pizza (sorry - admitted food snob here) to illustrate the labor supply, so I substituted that example with a quilt. Made me smile and worked very well.

Go check out Lee from Freshly Pieced to see what other creative people are working on this week!