Cabbage and Sausage Soup

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Sewfrench

I don’t know about you and yours, but this has been a fall for soups around our house. Soups are often gluten-free which makes it something we can all share. Such an easy way to have a hot filling meal, full of nutrition, low in calories and on the cheap! Always a bonus as we settle into a slower paced season.

Does any one else have anxiety over an overstuffed refrigerator? I’m not talking like after a huge shopping trip, with more goodies than you can choose from, I’m talking condiments, little bits of this and that left over, slightly wilted veggies, nothing much to eat, but it’s still full? It makes some people, in our house, *crazy*! So looking to reduce inventory and lighten up the produce drawers, mainly a big fat head of cabbage, I decided to make a cabbage soup. Perfect for a windy, blustery day. No one was interested in it, but me…..  until they smelled it cooking.

“Please, sir, I want some more”, quoted from Oliver Twist, was heard more than once.  They aren’t laughing now….

Cabbage and Sausage Soup

1 T. Extra-virgin olive oil

8 oz Aidell’s chicken sausage, split lengthwise and cut into half-moon slices, this habanero green chili one was delicious, you could use kielbasa or the like, instead

1/4 t. crushed red pepper flakes

1/2 head cabbage, cut to preferred size

1 onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 stalks celery (including some celery leaves), sliced

2 carrots, peeled and diced

2 potatoes, cut into bite-sized cubes, I used a handful of fingerlings that aren’t enough for anything else

1 can tomatoes, with the liquid, 2 would be really nice, too

6 c. gluten-free chicken stock, or as much as needed for your preferred consistency

1 T. dill weed, fresh would have been better, but I didn’t think of that when I was at the store

1 tsp caraway seed

salt & pepper

garnish with whatever fresh herbs you have and need to use, today it was sage

Heat olive oil over medium-high heat in a large soup/stock pot. Add the sausage and crushed red pepper flakes and cook for 5 minutes.

Add the cabbage, onion, garlic, celery and carrots.

Cook the veggies for 10-15 minutes, until the onions are translucent. Add the tomatoes and chicken stock. Stir in the potatoes. Bring to a boil.

Reduce heat to a simmer, stir in dill and caraway, and let cook for as long as you want. The soup will be ready to eat as soon as the carrots and potatoes are tender but it tastes better the longer it simmers. Season with salt and pepper as needed.

If you have an army to feed, you could easily double this recipe and use your entire head of cabbage, but I don’t have that many to feed.  We all had our fill for Sunday lunch. I put a quart in the refrigerator for weekday lunches and a quart in the freezer to see how freezing works.  You could easily leave out the meat and use vegetable broth, or even just water, and make it vegan.  I could see adding some cannelloni beans or barley (if gluten isn’t an issue) to mix it up.  So many options for our predicted long and snowy winter….

Enjoy!

Posted in Cooking, Eating, Family, Gluten Free, Recipes, Soup, Uncategorized, Wellness | 4 Comments

Pinterest sucked me in again…

Posted on November 11, 2011 by Sewfrench

When I spotted this pincushion on Pinterest, I knew I had to make one.

The popular name for this quilt pattern, Dresden Plate, reflects the romance of the Victorian Era with it’s love of elaborate decoration on household items and décor. Dresden, Germany was a center of 19th century romanticism movement in art, one that included the fine decoration of porcelain. The plates were embellished with elaborate design using flowers, fruits and foliage. The beautiful plates would surely have been admired by women of the early 20th century.

I’m pretty sure my Grandma made a scrappy Dresdon Plate quilt, in yellow and white, and we used it until it’s last dying snuggle.

So when I saw a way to use a single Dresden Plate in a more modern, usable, don’t have to spend years appliquéing kind of way, I was ready to jump on it.

You see, I don’t think I’ve owned a traditional pin cushion since Mrs. Summitt’s Junior High Home Ec class.  You know the tomato with the dangling strawberry pincushion?

According to folklore, placing a tomato on the mantle of a new home guaranteed prosperity and repelled evil spirits. If tomatoes were out of season, families improvised by using a round ball of red fabric filled with sand or sawdust. The good-luck symbol also served a practical purpose—a place to store pins.  I’m just glad someone decided to improvise, otherwise, things would have started getting a little messy by now….

The strawberry is generally filled with some kind of abrasive to help keep pins sharp and burrs away.  When I started thinking seriously about replacing my purple magnetic pin catcher with a real life pincushion I knew I wanted it stuffed with emery sand. Dull, burred pins, bent and those missing the little balls on top make me crazy. Many days I am cursing myself for having tossed out so many pins.  Then I swipe my magnet pin catcher across the floor and gather more…  I digress….

Following my spotting this pincushion on Interest, I searched out Molly Flander’s Dresden tutorial and quickly realized, not only did I not have a Dresden ruler, but with all the quilting books I own I couldn’t find a paper pattern, either.  I tried, several times, printing Molly’s pattern and couldn’t get the size right, no matter my printer settings. My ignorance, not hers, obviously…  So on to winging it. I could tell from her pictures each fan piece was 2″ in length with the width tapering from  1.5″  to 1″.  Digging into the Kaffe Fassett scrap basket, from my Jane Austen quilt, I came up with all the fabrics for the fan-like pieces. I think mine took 19, as opposed to her 20, so I wasn’t off by much.

I then using this lollipop technique to add the circle to the top.  I always wanted to give that a try and it works.  Appliquéing it down was much easier when it was partially down with the iron on interfacing.  You should check it out!

I continued on and made a big fat yo~yo for the top.  I discovered this yo-yo maker when looking for fun crafty ideas for my granddaughter, last summer.  It’s so easy and fun to churn out yo-yos when you’re 12, 22 or even 30….

For me, it took a couple more tries.  I eventually got it, right side out and all! I then tacked down the interior valleys leaving the tips to hang dimensionally.

I added a textured button from my Grandma’s button jar, topped it off.

For the filling I made a pillow, the size of the top, maybe 6″ round, and filled it with the emery sand and then proceeded  to stuff it in.  Reminiscent of when we made meditation zafu cushions…  Trying to stuff a buckwheat filled liner into a cover where the hole is too small is not easy. Eventually it all filters in….

Same here, no pattern, we had nothing but a picture to go by.

I then added stuffing to fill the rest of the cushion, under the sand pillow, and stitched her shut. The sand really gives it a nice heft, no need for the cardboard liner.

Now to buy some new pins to replace all the bent and missing head ones that are constantly being confused for needles….

It sits on the sofa arm, just where I need it, beautifully.

I am in love!

What fun, thanks, Molly!

Now I need another for my studio.

I’m going to stretch it and link up with Pillow Talk over at Farbstoff. It’s a stretch because these people are making amazing pillows, and since Brigitte says a pincushion is a mini pillow….  I’m going for it! I so need to be the random winner of her amazing fabric! I’m working with the quilt weight of “Juggling Summer, Laces” from the Zen Chic line right now. My heart does an extra little pitter patter every time I sit down to quilt on it. I can’t wait to share what this fabric does to a project!

Hope you find time to do a little of something that makes your heart sing this weekend!

Make it a great one!

Posted in Crafting, fabric, Pinterest, Quilting, Sewing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Potato Leek Soup

Posted on November 10, 2011 by Sewfrench

This soup was so good, the three of us ate it up.  Well, almost….

There is one bowl left for us to fight over tomorrow.

On a cold, snowy, wind blowing 50 mph kind of night this soup couldn’t be more perfect. Pair it with a crusty bread or crackers and you are all set.  It is such a hearty soup it will stay hot in your bowl and will burn your mouth like cheese on a hot pizza, long after most soups have gone cold.  No need to preheat your bowls for this one!  And as a bonus, leeks give lots of iron-rich mineral nourishment, while garlic and onions add their immune-boosting and heart-healthy benefits.  This is a good for the body, and soul, kind of soup.

If you have never cooked with leeks, you should give this a try.  They taste like a cross between a garlic and an onion, as a shallot does.  Where a shallot looks more like a giant garlic clove, a leek looks more like a giant green onion.   They usually come in a bundle of three or four just like green onions.

The trickiest part is to make sure they are washed well.  They can be gritty and dirty which is not good in a soup….  No need for me to retype what is already all over the web….  Here’s a good explanation of leek cleaning.

Potato Leek Soup
my version very, very loosely based on Julia Child’s dairy laden and gluten version
printer friendly version

2 TBS butter

3 leeks, or one bundle, trimmed and rinsed and sliced

1 1/2 cups sliced onion

1 garlic clove, minced

2 bay leaves

6 cups gluten-free chicken broth, homemade or low sodium boxed broth

4 cups peeled, thinly sliced yellow potatoes

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

salt to taste

Heat the butter in the saucepan, stir in the leeks, onion and garlic and sauté for 5 minutes, over moderate heat to soften.

Add the potato chunks and bay leaves, and just enough of the chicken stock to cover all the vegetables. Season with the pepper and a sprinkling of salt. Bring the soup to a boil over high heat, partially cover the pan, and adjust the heat to maintain a gentle simmer. Cook for about 30 minutes or until the potatoes are tender.

Mash, blend or purée to your desired consistency and adjust the seasonings. Add additional stock if needed. At this point some people may add a cup of whole milk, cream, or half and half.  We don’t do milk products so our creaminess comes from pureeing half , mashing half with a potato masher and combining the two.  Still some texture and creaminess without needing to add dairy. Serve the soup right away or chill thoroughly and call it Vichyssoise.  Don’t you love that word?  Vichyssoise.  Beautiful.  Just like this soup whether hot or cold.

Sprinkle with chopped chives and enjoy!

Posted in Cooking, Eating, Gluten Free, Recipes, Soup | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

WIP Wednesday #15

Posted on November 9, 2011 by Sewfrench

I am so excited about my new fall tablecloth and napkins and how well they match our Benjamin Maier dishes.  It’s a Christopher Lowell Glimmer Stripe Outdoor, with saffron, that I picked up at JoAnn’s.  Along with Kona cotton in Gold, for the border and napkins, it looks like a decorator put it together!

Okay, it’s still just a pile of fabric, that I didn’t get to this week, but later this week, for sure!

I did make and finish a pair of potholders made strictly from scraps, including using up even the last 1/4″ of this age~old yellow, bias binding.  Not one speck left.  Not even enough to connect the ends using a bias seam.

Believe it or not it’s my first time putting a binding on by machine. I didn’t know that I’ll be doing it on a full size quilt, any time soon, but it’s cool to see how easy, and neatly, it can be done!  It sure makes for a quicker finish!

The potholder center scraps came from the apron I made for me!  It’s the Daily Spice Halter Apron by Heather Bailey. I made a couple of aprons similar to this without a pattern but it just seemed like it would be quicker with a pattern, since when I make things w/o a pattern there is still no pattern for the next one, LOL! I don’t believe I’ve ever owned an apron, though many have come out of my studio.  The fabric is Moda’s Rooftop Garden with their coordinating dot.  I am ready for Thanksgiving now.  The first thing I made in it was a gluten free pie crust.  It turned out great!

Things look so different around here when there is a photographer in the house….

I’m still plugging away at hand quilting two good sized quilts and need to get back to learning to embroider, for a third top that is put together but lacking the finishing touches and quilting…..  The circle quilt has not gotten any further by itself.  And there is a Jane Austen and yet another unnamed one languishing in my studio…..  For a total of 6 Works In Progress quilts.  Among these projects…. an under~wraps quilt with 14 of 36 heavily, hand quilted blocks finished.  This one I’m going to try tracking my weekly progress on.

Jane Austen quilt

My wall hanging quilt. I’ve figured out how to hand quilt it, just not how to find the time to quilt it…

Click below and pop on over to Lee’s blog and see what everyone else is doing, so many great things, more and more every week!

And since my potholders qualify as a mini quilt, I’ll link to the mini quilt challenge, this week, too.  Check it out!


Heres hoping your week is more productive than mine!

Posted in fabric, Sewing, WIP | Tagged , , , , , , | 41 Comments

Who needs gluten when you have a piecrust like this?!

Posted on November 8, 2011 by Sewfrench

Yes, we are practicing making pumpkin pie.

And practicing eating it.  We can always use more practice around here.  Getting all geared up for our first gluten-free, dairy free (we do use butter, don’t mean to mislead you) Thanksgiving, so we need to practice don’t you think??

For this first crust I strictly copied this one from one of my very favorite gluten-free chef/websites.

Gluten Free Pie Crust

1 cup white rice flour
1/2 cup sorghum flour
1/2 cup potato starch
3 tablespoons sweet rice flour
3 teaspoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 stick cold butter
1 large egg
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1/4 ice-cold water, or enough to make the dough stick together

Mix together all the dry ingredients, including the sugar and cinnamon. Cut the butter into small pieces, about 1/2-inch thick, and drop the pieces into the dry ingredients. Using a pastry cutter, meld the butter into the dry ingredients until the butter has crumbled into pea-sized pieces.

Make a well in the dry ingredients. Drop the egg and apple cider vinegar in, then stir them in, gently, with a fork, stirring from the center out. Once they are incorporated into the dry ingredients, slowly drizzle the ice-cold water into the mixture, a little at a time, then stirring to see if it has become dough yet. You do not want this dough to be too wet. Add water only until it all coheres together.

At this point, drop the ball of dough on a large piece of parchment paper. Place another piece of parchment paper, the same size, on top of the dough. Gently, smoosh the dough outward, until it is a thick, round disk of dough, about the size of a pie plate.

Refrigerate the flattened dough, for as long as you can stand. Ideally, you would prepare the dough in the evening and refrigerate overnight. Take the dough out of the refrigerator at least twenty minutes before you want to work with it.  Okay, for me, this was refrigerate one hour, working it after letting it sit on the wooden cutting board for, ummm, one minute.  Tops.

Leave the dough in the parchment-paper sandwich and roll it out. By rolling it, gently, between the pieces of parchment paper, you will not need to add more flour to the mix. Roll it out as thin as you can, for me this was at least 1/4″ thick, I just couldn’t get it any thinner, *this time*.  Maybe that’s where the overnight refrigeration and the 20 minute bringing up to room temp comes in to play…..  It cracked as I went, I’d peel the parchment off the top, smoosh the dough back together, put the parchment back on, flip it and repeat, until I got it the size I thought it should be.  Now, strip the top piece of parchment paper off the dough. Using your rolling-pin, lift the dough and lay it into your pie plate.   The dough should sag into the pie plate. Remove the other piece of parchment, if you haven’t already. You can crimp the edges at this point. If some of the dough falls off the sides, don’t worry. Simply re-attach the pieces to the crust-to-be by pressing in with your fingers.  Since it has no gluten, there is no worry about over working it.

Things look so different around here when there is a photographer in the house....

Pour your pumpkin filling directly in and bake immediately.

For the filling we mixed it up just a bit and does it ever smell wonderful!

Pumpkin Pie Filling

1 (9 inch) unbaked deep dish pie crust

1/2 c brown sugar

1/4 c white sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, my favorite is a Ceylon

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger, this is the best!

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

2 eggs

8 oz SO Delicious coconut milk, original

4 oz SO Delicious eggnog

1 15 ounce can 100% Pure Pumpkin, organic

Preheat oven to 425° F.

Combine sugars and spices in a small bowl. Beat eggs lightly in a large bowl. Stir in the pumpkin and sugar-spice mixture. Gradually stir in the milks. You could go for all coconut milk, but the eggnog is so thick it brings it more up to the texture of a can of evaporated milk, which you could also use, if you do dairy.  Pour into your pie shell.

Bake for 15 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350°.  Bake for an additional 40 to 50 minutes or until knife inserted near the center comes out clean and crust is golden. Cool on wire rack.  

A few things we noticed about this first try pie…

  • This crust tastes like a lot like shortbread.  It’s a bit denser than a traditional pie crust, some may think it was whole wheat flour.  Roll thinner, for sure.
  • The crust doesn’t get overly brown before the pie is set up, that’s a good thing!
  • If we didn’t use eggnog, I would add a TBS of vanilla, eggnog has plenty of vanilla flavor in it.
  • Everything was better after it was refrigerated, the pie, the crust the whole shabang.  And better, as in, it was great before, now it’s over the top!
  • Not sure that there is any reason to practice this pie crust again.  Except maybe to see how it will hold up to a pecan filling?  Hmmm….
  • And last, but not least, there is nothing wrong with having pumpkin pie, for lunch, on a random Tuesday.  Nothing.  At.  All.
Enjoy!
Posted in Cooking, Gluten Free, Recipes | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

Perfect Fall Soup ~ Perfected

Posted on November 7, 2011 by Sewfrench

High in nutrition and low in calories, this soup is sunshine in a bowl.  It will hit the spot on chilly, fall days. The taste of oranges with ginger and undertones of onion and garlic? Oh no, people, this is for real.  It is lick your bowl clean delicious!

We loosely based this version off of the vegan version from Color Me Vegan Cookbook by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau.

Butternut Squash Soup
printer friendly version

1 large butternut squash, peeled, cleaned out and rough chopped

1 piece of ginger that is at least as big as your thumb, chopped

zest and juice of 1-2 oranges

2 small/medium yellow onions, rough chop

4 garlic cloves, rough chop

2 small/medium yellow potatoes, cubed

3-4 cups vegetable or chicken stock, more for thinning, later

salt and pepper to taste

roasted, spiced, pumpkin seeds, for topping, recipe below

Heat a TBS or so of olive oil in a really big pot. Saute the garlic, onions and ginger. After 1-2 minutes add the orange juice, potatoes and squash cubes and heat for 2-3 minutes before adding in the broth and orange zest. Bring to a boil. Simmer for 20-25 minutes until your pumpkin and potatoes are tender. Use an immersion blender to purée the soup as chunky or smooth as you like.  We’ve been known to purée ours in a Vitamix for a super smooth soup.  Thin with additional broth if necessary, taste and adjust seasonings. Serve topped with toasted pumpkin seeds.

Roasted Spicy Pumpkin Seeds

1 c. green, hulled, pumpkin seeds

1 tsp ground cumin

3/4 tsp chili powder

1/4 tsp cayenne, if you are brave of heart

1/4 tsp salt

olive oil

Twirl a small amount of oil in a 10″, or larger, skillet.  When hot, toss the seeds in to coat with the oil, sprinkle in the spices and stir.  Continue stirring until they start popping, take on color, and look drier.

You could make these in a lesser quantity, but I know you’ll want plenty for snacking!

If you want to use the seeds from the squash, you can, if you plan ahead.  Rinse and clean the pulp from them and let them air dry overnight.  Then use them as in the above recipe. The shells are very tender and definitely edible.  Good fiber, too.  Note the seeds in the soup picture?  Different seeds, different days…..

Enjoy!

Posted in Cooking, Gluten Free, Health, Recipes | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Curried Chicken Salad

Posted on November 4, 2011 by Sewfrench

Youngest Daughter recently returned from a business trip bragging up the curried chicken salad she had had and insisted I read her mind and give it a whirl.

She knows what a sucker I am for curry.  Anything.  Curry. We’ve made this twice now and I would make it again tomorrow if I had the chicken…..

I give you my interpretation.

Curried Chicken Salad
(a twist off Ina’s)

2 chicken breasts, cooked and cut up into large bite sized pieces or an equal amount of leftover or rotisserie chicken

1/2 cups Hellman’s mayo

1/8 cup white wine or chicken stock

2 TBS Major Grey’s chutney, first time I subbed peach butter with a squirt of sriracha, it worked!

1 1/2 TBS curry powder

1/3 cup medium-diced celery

1 green onion white and green parts

1/4 cup dried cranberries, you could use dried cherries or raisins)

1/3 cup chopped pecans

a handful of quartered, red, seedless grapes

salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

Stir up to mayo, wine, chutney, curry powder.  Toss in the celery, onions, cranberries, pecans and grapes.  Add as much chicken meat as it will hold.  Make more sauce for the rest of the chicken because you now have more than you thought you did.  And you don’t want this dry.

Let it sit and mingle in the refrigerator, for a couple of hours, then dig in.  For the gluten-free among us, the biggest leaves of green leaf lettuce makes for awesome fold-ups. Otherwise there are a lot of fabulous gluten-free crackers out there or just a fork will do.

And yes, Lay’s potato chips are gluten-free.  I knew you would ask….

And yes, it’s Daughter approved, too.

Posted in Gluten Free, Recipes | Tagged , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Pinterest Addiction

Posted on November 3, 2011 by Sewfrench

Do you Pin?  Are you Pinterest~ing?  Are you a Pinterest~ista?

I was invited, by the team, back in the beginning, before I even knew what I was getting into.  I quickly realized I didn’t have the time to get involved then.  But I do now.  Sort of. I say sort of because once you get started there is never enough time for all the looking there is to do!

I’m sorry if you don’t know what I’m talking about….  It’s a really cool website with an easy way to keep your ideas, in scrapbook form, by pinning them on “boards” in themes that you create. If you visit a website and see something that you want to remember, just “pin it” on your board. All the proper credits and difficulties of uploading images are done by the Pinterest site. Oh my, I could brainstorm on this site for days…

I have seen a lot of these felted flower fall wreaths and seeing that I didn’t have one, I decided I needed one.  Like yesterday.

Maybe like this one?

Inspiration

Or this one??

Inspiration

Or a combination of the two?

If you do a Pinterest search and you’ll find all kinds of  really cool ones.  So off I go, with my coupons in hand, to my local craft store to pick up a grapevine wreath.  I went with the 18″.  I had a stack of wool felt, in fall colors, on hand, so then all I needed was a glue gun.  That worked….

My trusty Parker has finally decided to just eat the glue.  You put it in and it never comes out.  I know it was at least 14 years old because youngest daughter remembers burning her fingers, until she had blisters, using him when making a dimensional pyramid poster, in 4th grade.  I just learned that yesterday while mourning Parker.  Not sure where I was or where her trusty bowl of ice water was….  But I digress…  I guess Parker was hungry after all these years….  So now that he’s been retired and replaced I whipped this out just in time for the throngs of trick or treaters knocking on my door!

And my creation

Have you created anything you’ve seen on Pinterest??

Need a referral for a Pinterest account?  Leave me a message and I’ll send you an invite then I can follow you and see what you are into.

So many ideas, so little time……….  Check it out!

                        

Posted in Crafting, Pinterest | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments

WIP Wednesday #14

Posted on November 2, 2011 by Sewfrench

This has been an interesting week.  Our wireless internet has been down *all* week.  We have two hard-wired locations in our house.  One being at my husband’s desk and the other at my, work from home, daughter’s desk. This leaves me with a 100′ blue extension cable working anywhere within 100′ of where the cable comes in.  So the lower level it is. Needless to say, I’ve not been on the internet a lot this week.  Mr. UPS man tells me my new Apple Airport Express Base Station will be here today.  It should help to boost our signal, within our house, to override our new neighbor’s super strong signal.  Wonder if we can knock their wireless out???  Not that I intend to try…. I’m just wondering aloud.

I’m working on hand quilting, two quilts, now.  I tend to do this while cooking, doing laundry, whenever working on something else with down time or later in the evenings while watching television.  I did actually get in 4 hours of steady hand quilting, yesterday, while watching the History Channel.  Who knew Appalachia was pronounced that way? Certainly no one in this house.  Check it out.

Back to sewing… I was in need of daytime machine/studio work.  A trip to the local fabric store was in order to start something new.  So I got what I needed to start an apron, got the fixings for a fall tablecloth and I got this stack of luscious Robert Kaufman Kona Cotton solids.  Isn’t it dreamy?  Okay it’s blurry, we can pretend it’s just dreamy though, right?

Over the weekend, Graphic Designer daughter took a picture and turned it into a pattern for me.  Then proceeded to help me choose the colors, we envisioned, using a Kona Color card. She even colored it with colored pencils so that the overlapping lines wouldn’t confuse me when I cut it apart.  Now to have her color a second one so that I have a whole one for my design wall/floor as well as one I can cut up for its parts.

And a rough layout of our color palette…
Not sure if all the fabrics are exactly what we had in mind, based off the swatch card, but we can try and try again.  We have lots of options and playing to do.

That’s about it around here, besides taking in all the lovely quilts from The Bloggers’ Quilt Festival.  That’s definitely kept me busy.  I’ve picked a few as inspiration quilts and I keep checking as new ones keep coming in.  Up to 488 as I type this.  If you haven’t checked it out, please do.  Lots of pretty quilts and even more interesting stories.

And definitely pop in over at Lee’s to see what this creative bunch is working on.  Work in Progress Wednesday’s always keeps me on my toes!

Posted in fabric, Quilting, Sewing, WIP | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Comments

Three quilts ~ Three colorways ~Three Precious little ones

Posted on November 1, 2011 by Sewfrench

Quilts and their history ~ An ongoing series.

Too many babies, too little time!

I hate to admit that sometimes I make the same quilt for multiple people.  It’s always different in some way.  Whether it’s using the same fabrics in a different layout or the same layout in different colors, as in this case.  Barely.

When 3 close friends are expecting 3 precious little ones within 6 weeks this is when it happens.

I usually have a nice stash of Robert Kaufman’s Kona Cotton solids so when I spotted “Balanced Connections” from Amy’s Creative Side I knew I could do them quickly, even with all the other things I had going on.

So for my great-nephew Hunter, the only boy in the group~  soft fall *boy* colors.

He is so cute!  I’ve yet to meet him in person, but I know he’s a sweetheart.  His grandma told me so!

Then came Amayah~
The fall sun can really be harsh for photographing.  The quilts are actually all the same Kona Bone background color with Sable borders and bindings. These color blocks are from Kona’s dusty palette.  The girl colors obviously!

Isn’t she precious playing “possum” with her momma?!

Then comes Olivia~
The colors look similar to those in the previous picture, but they are less dusty with more color saturation.  All finished around 42″ square, machine pieced and hand quilted and bias bound.

So big.  And cute!

I try to photograph all my quilts before I gift them and most of the time that happens.  I *love* to see the recipient enjoying their quilt and that very rarely happens. Except, of course, when they open the gift, if I’m there, which most often is not the case.  It’s a rare occasion when I get a picture, in the mail, of a little one enjoying their quilt. Imagine my surprise when I receive three pictures from 3 moms and they all happened to be the same quilt.  And NO begging was done. Nor bribing. The stars must have been aligned just perfectly for that to happen!

I believe I need to retire this style for fear of ruining my record!

Posted in 2010 completes, fabric, Quilt stories, Quilting, Quilts and their History | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments