We have some celebrating to do.

And a makeover, for four, wouldn’t be out of the question….

From the beginning I knew it was for you, great-niece. I thought of you with every stitch that went in to holding it together. How we are all linked as family even though we are so far apart. We’re all connected. I thought about how you’d do tummy time on it, how you would drag it everywhere you went, dissolving it into just threads as your uncles did, with theirs, not so long ago…

Lilie~ what a pretty name for a pretty girl. And to share the name with your ggg~grandmother Lillie Myrtle Tite Wooley is pretty special, too.

Happy Birth Day baby Lilie! I can’t wait to meet you in person ❤

Remember the Anthropology bathrobe I was copying a couple of weeks ago? Well, it is finished and being put to good use.

TaDa!

I just love it! I found the perfect ribbon for the tie and backed it in one of the fabrics to give it more body. I am also loving Amy Butler‘s Soul Blossoms series in this Bliss palette. It’s just a tad bit heavier than most quilting fabrics. Two layers of the softest, snuggliest fabric, with no filler was perfect. It matches last years Christmas pajamas, too. Bonus!

Enough sitting around, petting myself, there are scraps to be used. Sew Serendipity Bags by Kat Whitt has been calling my name since Christmas.

Now I have scraps of some of my favorite fabrics to put to use in a more public way.

I love to make bags and purses and it’s time for a new spring one. I chose to start with the book cover bag, the Ruffled Hobo. I then set about cutting strips to sew back together then cut that piece of fabric into bias strips, to ruffle, for the bag exterior.

I bought the Acufeed ruffler foot for my Janome for this project. And have put it to use. Look at all the lint built up on it, and my machine, already. That is a complicated gadget with not one good video on how to use it. Several for their regular ruffler but not many for the one that fits the Acufeed system. I should have had the dealer help me with in when I bought it. It would have saved so more time, in the long run and needles, too…

I wish I had had this little puppy when my girls were small and I made them all kinds of frilly clothes. Once you get the hang of it, it is scary fast at ruffling or pleating your fabric. No more double rows of basting to pull and gather into ruffles like Mrs. Summitt taught us in Jr. High Home Ec. This bag has so many ruffles that if you had to pull threads for gathering them all you’d probably want to zigzag over a cord, to pull, instead of just pulling the threads. Otherwise you can cut yourself while pulling and pulling and pulling those sharp little threads. Right across your pinky finger. Soft, tender, bloody skin… Remember that your own saliva cleans blood off fabric. Just so you know.

All in all it was a pretty easy bag to put together and it is huge. It will not only coordinate with most of my closet, it could hold a large part of it, too.

Hey, have you seen the current (March/April) Fons & Porter’s Love of Quilting magazine? The quilt I made and gifted over Christmas is one of the features this month. Not my personal quilt, mind you, but a pattern, for free!

Just another example of being ahead of the game though….

It’s the Brigitte Heitland Zen Chic White Labyrinth. Check it out.

And check out what everyone else is working on over at Freshly Pieced.

When you say Swoon, in the quilting world, anyway, you’ll be overrun with thoughts of all the beautiful swoon-along quilt blocks that everyone is making. They are everywhere and so pretty with all the modern, well planned color schemes. Perfectly machine quilted…  Perfect in many ways. I kept looking at and drooling over them and thinking how familiar they all are. I need to make one, I have the perfect place. So old-fashioned with repeated blocks. It’s been a long time since I made a quilt of blocks. My early quilts were all block quilts. That’s all I knew at the time. That’s what the books had, that’s what Grandma made. And her grandma, I’m sure.

So pretty, I kept thinking, but haven’t I done one?

It is a new pattern and while I know I have memory issues surely my memory is not *that* short?!!  It must have been in a past life…..

So while digging through photos I came across it. I did make it.  In the year 2000.

It’s a completed scrappy queen size quilt with a mauvy pink theme to it. Some of that fabric I am still trying to use up!

I believe this was the first year myself and 5 siblings decided that our Christmas gifts would be handmade. Sister Kim set up an Excel spreadsheet that had everyone’s name and the next 6 years on it. We could plan ahead. I drew my Kim that first year, hmm…., and this is what she got. Hand quilted and made from my stash fabric.

Well, this is what started the tradition that continues with just a couple of us. I vote for store-bought, starting here and now! (Wait. Who has me this year??!!)

Does anyone know the real name to this old fashioned quilt???

Obviously I wasn’t into photographing quilts at the time….. Can we get a re-do???

And all these years later, she and her husband still sleep under. Even if it is mauve…

Coconut, banana smoothie

1/2 c your choice of milk, I prefer Silk original coconut milk
1 banana, frozen. When bananas get speckled, I chunk them up and toss them into a bag in the freezer. In our freezer, 9 chunks equals 1 small banana.
2 TBS Peanut Wonder, our new favorite Peanut Butter, or use whatever you prefer
2 large leaves of kale, roughly torn or chopped. Two large handfuls of spinach works, also.
2 TBS protein powder, optional
1 TBS unsweetened coconut
1 TBS Chia powder
1 TBS flax-seed
1 dash of coconut extract

Toss the flax into your blender and give it a quick spin to break the outer shell and release their nutrients. Too long will defeat the purpose, not buzzing them will prevent the release of nutrients though you’ll still get the fiber benefits. I love my Vitamix but I’m sure any blender will work, if your banana chunks are smaller and your kale is chopped. Add the milk next, then everything else and whirl away, until smooth. You may need to add a dash more milk, depending on how much or how frozen your bananas are.

You could always mix it up by adding 2 TBS cocoa powder and vanilla extract instead of coconut. Almond or soy milk instead of coconut. Almond butter instead of peanut butter. So many options. And as healthy as you want it to be.

With one taste, you’ll be wishing you had doubled the recipe!

I’ve got an online, Facebook, T-Tapping friend who is just a whiz at homemaking. She comes up with the best ideas. Sometimes we refer to her as the Gingerbread house lady. She makes incredible gingerbread houses. Beyond incredible, really. I want to be her when I grow up. The only problem is I’ll probably need to be reincarnated to make it happen. She is young enough, she could probably be my daughter….

So…. she recently posted the most beautifully lit photos of her completely, organized spices. They were just gorgeous pictures. All the yellows, oranges and smokey reds lined up on pretty little spice steps. All simply labelled and organized. Gorgeous. Made you want to get in the kitchen and create something that tasted as good as her photos looked.

Those photos inspired me big time. I basically copied everything she did…. Exactly. Except for the photos.  Mine, not so much. It may seem odd to spend so much time and energy on something behind closed doors, but boy is it refreshing to open that cabinet and be presented with such calm and order. Every time I open it I exhale softly, ahhh. And I’m not the only one. I can’t thank Melynda enough for her inspiring photos.

It took me a few weeks before I got Peter fired up to help out. He’s the woodworker I needed to make the risers that were a critical part to the plan. Otherwise I was going to dig out the ole Kindergarten blocks and see if I could make a go of it. Redneck, I know…. Thank goodness I didn’t have to go there. He stepped up and built exactly what I drew, but much neater. He did a beautiful job with scrap cherry. Bonus ~ they match the cabinets!

This is the before.
Not a true before picture because my kitchen does not usually look like my cabinets puked all over the counter tops as our daughter so lovingly put it.

And with the risers in place. They fit beautifully. He did a magnificent job. Horrid photos, right? I know…

And the after. Yeah there are a lot, up top, that didn’t get transferred into new bottles because 1) I didn’t have riser space 2) I didn’t imagine I would need more bottles than I originally ordered  3) many are in unique bottles that make them easier, for everyone, to find.

These are the bottles I used. They come with shaker fitments. I put them in some and not in others. You know the spices you shake on vs the ones you tend to use a measuring spoon with. It made me feel powerful not putting shakers on every single one.

I even cleaned up the most often used spices, in the drawer beside the stove. I’ll eventually figure out where everything is and goes but I didn’t want others to become frustrated, so we kept these in the same location as before.

Aren’t they pretty? It makes me so happy when I open this drawer or the cabinet. I just want to walk by and take a peek in to see if it is still all neat and tidy.

I’m pitiful.

I know.

Our youngest daughter received this beautiful Anthropology bathrobe for Christmas or maybe it was her birthday.

It is gorgeous and the snuggliest bathrobe ever. It is the lightest, sheerest voile, inside and out, then filled with a superfine filler that feels like a poly quilt batting but only fibers thick. I haven’t opened a seam to see what it is filled with, but boy was I tempted to. I then found myself in possession of a fat quarter bundle of Amy Butler‘s Soul Blossoms series in the Bliss palette. This colorway has been calling to me since it came out. I love the softness of the Periwinkle. It reminds me of the color of opals. And I love opals. Of all the stones out there, I love opals best.

I decided to make myself an *Anthro* styled robe. Anyone who has been around during coffee hour at our house, over the last 10 years, knows that the Jedi robe has needed to be replaced for over 7. It served me well, but it’s time to pack it away.

So….. Let the frustration begin!

I had a robe pattern that came along with the Christmas pajama pants pattern. The pattern paper made the perfect material to use to cut my own pattern. The one in the package was HUGE in a size XS…. Pattern making is not my favorite way to start a project but sometimes it is the only way to get what you want. Same thing happened with the Christmas pajamas….

I first created a patchwork fabric, hand quilted it with an embroidery thread, then made it into a robe. That is the challenge, anyway. Never mind lining it with a thin batting like material and then serging all the seams and then deciding it felt like you were wearing a quilt and having to remove all the serging to remove the batting. Yeah, about 4 days of work, putting it together, then taking it apart, then putting it back together and re-embroidering it in a style I’m totally unaccustomed to. Big quilting stitches is not in my vocabulary…. It looks like I have lots of chances to practice, this week…

 Anyway, it will so be worth it because it will be made of the fabrics I love and I’ll wear it forever. If I ever get it finished. Stay tuned next week, I’m getting close!

This is what we came up with based on eating it at a couple of different restaurants over the years. The seasonings came out beautifully warm. It was wonderfully filling, very low in calories, and being high in iron was a huge bonus. We will definitely be making this again soon. Maybe even yet today…

I know, I know, it’s not the most appetizing looking dish you’ve ever seen. Even possible the least appetizing one. But the flavors makes up for it tenfold. Trust me.

Aloo Palak
(Potatoes and Gravy ~ Girl style)

10 oz spinach, we used two of those tubs of baby spinach

12 oz fingerling potatoes, cubed into bite size pieces

2 onions, diced

2 garlic, roughly chopped

1″ fresh ginger, roughly chopped

1 diced jalapeño, (I used 1/2 tsp dried jalapeño, found when reorganizing the spices)

2 tablespoons butter

1 tsp turmeric

1 tsp cumin seed

1 tsp garam masala

1/2 tsp ground coriander

1/2 tsp ground cumin

Greek yogurt

In a large skillet heat the butter until sizzling, add the garlic, ginger, onions and jalapeño and sauté for 5-10 minutes until the onions begin to brown.  Stir in the spinach, add 1/4 cup water, put a lid on it and let it cook for 5-10 minutes, long enough for the spinach to wilt but still be bright green.

Blend the spinach mixture in a food processor to a fine purée. That’s what we call gravy.

In the meantime, boil the potatoes with a sprinkling of salt until done, approximately 10 minutes, and drain.

Dry fry the turmeric, cumin seeds, garam masala, coriander and cumin for about 20 seconds or until fragrant.

Stir in the cooked potatoes and the pureed spinach gravy. Sprinkle with salt, a pretty good sprinkling, potatoes and spinach can handle it.

Simmer for few minutes until the potatoes absorb the flavor. You may need to add water or chicken stock if it’s too thick.

Top with a dollop of yogurt and enjoy!

Serves 2.

Let me know if you give it a go!

Exuberant Color was talking the other day about how so many people were working on using scraps up and she’s right. I recently read a study on how much people spend per week on fabric and it ranged from $0, for those up~cycling, to hundreds of dollars per week (sounds like collectors, to me!). With the majority saying times are tough, they spend as little as possible while using what I have and I can’t buy anymore fabric until I use what I have. I’ve been thinking I’m in the last category. I have enough fabric to last a life time. I either have to get cracking or give it away and be done with the guilt. I created this quilt from a bunch of 80′s era mauve~y pinks in the Jane Austin style.

This is how I put a quilt together. On the floor, in our lower level.

Usually I use painters tape all around the edges to pull the backing tight. Painters tape doesn’t have a lot of residue like masking tape does so it leaves less behind on your carpet. But in recent years they’ve gotten pretty fancy and the tapes have so little residue they aren’t holding the quilt back tight. Especially when it’s a large quilt and I’m crawling around on it to pin it…. If it’s not tight, while basting, you end up with all this extra fabric that creases over on itself on the back of the quilt. Not very attractive and I’m sure it doesn’t wear as well, either.

I’ve read where other quilters are using an aerosol spray adhesive, a basting method I’ve never tried, to bond the layers together, temporarily. I grabbed a can the last time I was at the quilt shop, brought it home and daughter said no. No, because if you don’t wear a fancy breathing mask that adhesive will end up in your lungs and you could die! Okay that may be a little strong, but you get the point. I watch what I put in and on my body so why should I want to inhale glue droplets?? Wow. Made sense. She learned all about the dangers of spray adhesives as an art major.

The more I thought about it the more I imagined droplets of adhesive everywhere. And wherever there is adhesive dust is attracted…. So back to the big ole drawing board….

I got to thinking and decided to give pinning it directly into the carpet a try. I put the pin in at an angle and it seemed to work!

I then stretched out the batting and did the same thing. I pinned it all the way around. The longer pins aren’t quite as study as the shorter ones so I ended up with a few bent pins. I won’t die from that…

Then added the quilt top. I did not need to pin it in place but I suppose I could have. It stuck pretty well to the cotton batting and I pinned every other pin in then went back and filled in to about every 6 inches, my standard.

In the beginning, I was so cringing at the thought of using all these fabrics together. Somewhere along the line I went from this being a practice machine quilting quilt to a quilt that I may just hand quilt after all. I love it! Even if it’s pink.

And the back. The nice tight back! Of course, it has loosened up, but in equal proportions to the other layers!

This quilt shares the same backing fabric as other quilts from long ago, I just don’t remember which ones….

I’m proud to say no materials were purchased for this quilt and it still came out nice.

Lesson learned: nice fabric never goes out of date, when used appropriately.

Check out what everyone one else is up to their elbows in over at Lee’s Freshly Pieced blog.

Always complaining her feet are cold, someone wanted slippers to go with their new work uniform. And it wasn’t me. Yes, she works from home now, she is on her computer all day and doesn’t move around much, thus the cold feet. With the thermostat set at 69 ° it is warm enough for the rest of us.

She also wanted to practice her sewing skills while there is someone to bounce ideas off of. She chose to use the leftover flannel from our Christmas pajamas.

Yes, you have to start by matching the plaid. If you picked a plaid, you match the plaid. I’m mean like that.This is the pattern we used, McCall’s 6449. It runs small. Or maybe it was all the extra padding we used. We lined all outer pieces with an iron on fleece and for the soles we lined them with headliner fabric along with two layers of polyester quilt batting per sole in addition to the fleece. Then the faux fur fabric lined everything. Fur fabric sounded a lot more fun than it actually was. It sticks to everything…. Your socks, the walls, your cheeks, even up your nose. Really.One pair completed. Just look at the way that plaid lines up!  For the first pair she used the flannel itself for the bottoms.And with the cuffs folded down. This is when she discovered they weren’t quite big enough for a size 9 1/2 foot. But size 7 1/2? Yeah, baby!Back at it again. She looks pretty behind a sewing machine, don’t you think???She opted for the taller style second go around.  Now she can work in style and stay warm, too! This pair she used a really heavy, wide wale corduroy for the sole. Do you know that anti skid gripper fabric only comes in white? Not sure that’s a good idea and it would have definitely ruined the look of these. But I might consider how I could use this stuff next time!And it wasn’t *really* slave labor. She did get to keep one pair for herself….

Now that my feet are all warmed up……… what shall I have her make me next???