In a Sea of Purple

I had some unexpected free time on Saturday afternoon.  It was snowing out and I spent the day doing a few chores (house cleaning - ugh!) and having some quilt fun.  I sat at my sewing machine on my brand new sewing chair (a Christmas gift) and sewed together more of those 1" squares that will the the checkerboard sashing for the Florabunda blocks.

I had taped a ruler to the machine bed to make sure that I had consistent 1/4" seams.  When your blocks are 1" finished, being a little off will show, so I'm trying to be as consistent as possible.  But, with the ruler taped to the machine, I was having a hard time getting to the bobbin case.  This wasn't a terrible hardship, just a bit of a pain.  So, I went on-line looking for accessories to my machine that I could attach to the throat plate with a screw that had an adjustable barrier to make consistent seam lines.  When I couldn't find anything suitable, I decided that my old treadle machine came with every attachment available at the time.

So, I looked in the drawer and found just what I was looking for.  I also found a "Quilt Wizard" foot that I had received as a Christmas gift a few years ago.  This foot has a little guide that gives you a consistent scant 1/4" seam.  It works wonderfully and I had forgotten all about it.  My only complaint is that I cannot engage the walking foot when using this.  I may have to perform some surgery on this foot to allow the walking foot to work, too.  But, I'm happy that the purple sections are coming together.  I may get to hand quilt this top yet!.

Two Socks!

The socks are completed!

They were fun and pretty quick to do.  I've been working on so many large, long term quilts lately, that I've really enjoyed the couple of small, quick projects I've completed.  The details of the socks:  Deborah Norville Serenity Sock Weight yarn, super fine of 50% wool, 25% bamboo and 25% nylon in Aquamarine color.  This was the least expensive sock weight yarn that JoAnn's had to offer.  I didn't want to sink a lot of cash into something I wasn't sure I was going to enjoy or use.  I am quickly finding out that you can spend LOTS of money on yarn.

One funny thing I found this week was a posting from Judy Laquidara on her blog (http://www.patchworktimes.com/) telling about some completed socks using this exact yarn and at least one more reader of her blog commented that she just finished a pair, too.  So I guess we're all in the New Aquamarine Sock club.

I'm trying hard not to go overboard, but I did go back to JoAnn's and get two more sets of double pointed needles, a cable needle and two more skeins of yarn.   I'm getting bold because this is a little thicker yarn.  I'm planning to try another pattern that I saw that has a simple cable running up the front.    I haven't started yet.  I'll keep you posted.

Socks and Other Projects

Just a little update on what I've been up to lately (but not necessarily in chronological order)...


First, I finished the sock and started on its partner.  What's even more exciting is that it fits!  What I'm a little afraid of, however, is that I won't like the feel on my feet.  It is definitely different from the mostly cotton socks I usually wear.  I'm reserving judgement until I get both of them done and wear them for more than the few seconds when I tried the first one on.

This is a thread catcher that I made some time before Christmas.  I was having thread catcher envy from all the ladies who I went on the last quilting retreat with.  They all had these beautiful thread catchers made with fun, brightly colored fabrics.  I decided I wanted one made from Laurel Burch cat fabric.  No, I don't own any of that fabric, but that doesn't stop us, right?  You may have noticed that this particular thread catcher has no visible cats on it.  I went looking for the fabric of my dreams, and came up short.  The fabric I had in mind is no longer in print.  And, when I went searching for it on the internet, I found it was more expensive than gold.  So, I raided my stash and cut into some of that sacred fabric I had bought many, many, many years ago with no project in mind and was afraid to cut into.  Irises are my favorite flower.  This was a good project for the fabric because I'll get to see it often.  And, frankly, I don't LOVE the fabric nearly as much as I did 20 years ago.

Another true confession... I am obsessed with boxes, bags and other storage things.  I could spend obscene amounts of money at the Container Store.  They don't have to have anything in them, but for some reason I like containers.  

When I saw this at the Quilter's Gathering in November, I bought the pattern knowing I had to make one or more of these cute little bags.  Here she is.  Now I have no idea of what to do with it.  It's a bit on the small size (about 9" from tip to tip and 5" tall) and because of the shape and stiff interfacing (Timtex) doesn't want to stay open.  Currently I'm using it to hold my sock knitting, but it's a bit small for that because the needles stick out.  Maybe with a floppier interfacing, it would be easier to stay open.  Any ideas on a good use for a small bag?

Socks!

I've seen a few of my friends at quilt guild meetings knitting socks and I became intrigued.  I've been reading a few blogs where the author has knit socks and I became obsessed.  I've put off doing anything about knitting socks because it's been 23 years since I've knit anything.  (I knitted a sweater for myself when I was expecting my daughter.  That's why I know precisely how old that sweater is.)  I don't have any knitting supplies (I gave them all to afore mentioned daughter when she dabbled in knitting a few years ago), and socks look reasonably complicated.

But I keep thinking about knitting socks (I'm obsessing, remember?).  So I asked for some supplies for Christmas and my darling daughter complied.  She got me a book and a gift certificate for supplies.  I picked up needles and yarn before New Year's Eve and got started.

Here's a few shots of my progress:

Working on the heel flap.

 Forming a heel.

Working down to the toe.

I'm really enjoying this, even though I've had to do quite a bit of ripping to get the pattern correct.  But, I'm having fun!

More Red, White and Block Blocks

Since I've run out of hand applique, I'm back to working on red,white and black round blocks as my hand work.  I started these probably a year or so ago when I started to get interested in hand piecing.  Most of my interest in hand piecing can be directly contributed to the handpeicingandapplique Yahoo group that I joined.  They are a very talented, helpful and encouraging group of folks who are all doing incredibly beautiful hand work.  At one point, one of the members (Becky, I think) was drafting and publishing these wonderful round pieced blocks.  I started collecting them and making them out of a pallet of red white and black.  Someday they will go together in one quilt.  I have 10 blocks completed and two more that I'm working on.  When I find a round block that strikes my fancy, I save the pattern.   I've got a bag of fabrics that I use for this project and when I need more hand work, I drag out a new pattern and go through the fabric.  These are the three latest blocks that I completed.

I think the top block is 12" and the other two are 8".

A Quilters' Gathering

I live a few towns away from Nashua, NH where "A Quilters' Gathering", an annual quilt show with classes and vendors is celebrated every year.  I spent a few hours there on Saturday looking at all the beautiful quilts, getting inspiration and spending money on some fabric and a pattern.  I didn't take many photos of quilts, but here are the few that I really thought were interesting.

A nice applique quilt with a beautiful edge treatment.

And a close up of the flowers.  The largest flower is about 10" across.

A wonderful arrangement of grandmother's flower blocks.

And some beautiful quilting on this quilt.

There are only 6 different blocks in this quilt.  Each row is a single block pattern done in different fabrics and  values in the design to show how different an individual block can look using different color placements.

A beautiful scrappy quilt.  What a great way to use up colorful scraps.

A gorgeous wedding ring quilt.  A wedding ring is on my list of quilts to do in the near(ish) future.

Gayle's beautiful Star Berries quilt.  I hadn't noticed the scalloped edges on the top right and lower left before.  Pictures don't do this quilt justice.

Congratulations, Gayle.

Irises are my favorite flower.  I really like the quilting on the background of this.

Well, there you have it.  This is certainly not all of the quilts, but some that I particularly liked.

Kousa Dogwood Fruit Jelly

I'm not a cook.  Sure, I can cook edible, sometime even delicious food.  But, I don't love to cook.

OK, that being said, I made jelly this weekend.  Well, I made very sweet syrup that was supposed to be jelly but didn't jell into jelly.  And I don't know what I'm doing wrong.  This is my second attempt at jelly.  Have I tried something with a definite recipe?  No, that wouldn't been nearly challenging enough.  My first attempt was hot pepper jelly.  I think I mostly had a recipe for that.  It looks wonderful, has a great flavor, but didn't jell.  My next attempt was to make jelly from the fruit from our Kousa dogwood. What is that, you ask?

Well, this is what the tree looks like loaded with berries.  The berries have a leathery, bumpy red exterior with a pumpkin colored sort of fibrous interior.  I tried the berries and they are OK, but it's something you'd want to pick and pop into your mouth like cherries.  But, we've got this abundance of fruit, so we (DH and I -- mostly DH) thought we should do something with them.  We've heard that you can make wine, but I haven't done that for years, and that takes some time.  So, jelly seemed like a better solution.  After failing at jelly once, I couldn't possibly fail again, right?

This is what we picked for the jelly.  This is a small fraction of what is on the tree.  But, having never done anything with this fruit, I didn't want a whole lot more in case this turned out inedible.  This is nearly 4 pounds.

Upon the advise of a friend, I rinsed the fruit, boiled it with about a cup of water and mashed the fruit with a potato masher to break it up.  I then put it into a metal sieve and mashed it with the bottom of a ladle.  At that point it looked mostly orange and cloudy.  I took that pulp and juice and put it into cheesecloth, secured it closed with a rubber band, hung the rubber band over the cabinet handle and let it drip into this pot.  I came up with about 3 1/2 cups of liquid.

I added some more water to bring the juice to 3 3/4 cups and put that in a sauce pan with 7 cups of sugar and 1/3 cup of lemon juice, brought it to a boil and added two packets of liquid pectin per the recipe.  I used the recipe for strawberries from the pectin packet.  Then I boiled the pectin and juice for another minute and got ready to can.  I got these seven jars of jelly, another 8 ounce jar and a partial bowl that I refrigerated.  I let it cool and waited.

I got wonderfully clear syrup.   It did not jell.  Again.

Off to the internet to look for suggestions.  I saw a number of people suggesting what the Certo pamphlet suggested - to reboil the syrup with additional sugar and lemon juice.  I also saw a suggestion to put a plate in the freezer and drop a bit of the boiled liquid onto it to see if it jells before taking it off the heat.  So, the next day I took the syrup that I had put in the jar and bowl and stored in the fridge and reboiled it with a few more tablespoons of sugar and another tablespoon of lemon juice.  The few drops of liquid on the cold plate looked like it was jelled harder than the original syrup, but I couldn't tell for sure.  Poured it back into the cleaned jar and bowl, sealed them up and put in the fridge again.  The next morning ... JELLY!  I'm not a total jelly novice any more.

The jelly tastes somewhat like plums.  It's pretty good on toast.  I'll probably make more next year if we have an abundance of fruit again.