A Fabric Experiment

I don't know what I'd do without my design wall. I really enjoy "playing" around with and auditioning different fabrics for quilts, and without the wall, I'm sure I'd no sooner lay something out on the bed or the floor than Spike would be rolling around all over it.

Yesterday I showed you this small topper:

I mentioned I'd be making a second one and I wasn't sure if it would be the same or not. Well, it's not. Here's the second one:

Of course, both quilts have the same center blocks but just a different border treatment. I'm always fascinated by the different "feel" that results from using different fabrics! I'm curious to know which one appeals to you most?

Then, here's mine. I showed my class this setting as an option if anyone wanted to make just five hearts instead of the 13 in the center of the class sample.

This one will be a tabletopper for my table. My kitchen has a lot of blue, so I pulled the blue from the Mary Engelbreit border fabric to use as cornerstones and an inner border. Again, a very different look from the setting in the smaller quilts.

Here you can compare the three versions a little better on the Wall O'Hearts:

I have one little heart block left, and I want to make a small wallhanging for my desk. I'm not sure how I'll set that one or what fabrics I'll use, but I'm sure I'll have fun finding something I like!

We were talking in class the other day about whether we buy fabric with a specific project in mind or whether we buy fabric just because we like it. I'm definitely in the second group of quilters who buy fabric they like and figure out how to use it later. Some years back, a friend asked the same sort of question and I told her I see my array of fabrics as an artist would see an array of paint colors. It's what I use to create. How about you? What kind of fabric "collector" are you?

So, I Was Thinking . . .

I was thinking about the class yesterday and the whole teaching thing--actually, Greenmare said something about patting myself on the back and making myself an apple (for the teacher) quilt, so I figured I'd show you that's already been considered and taken care of quite well.

One of my students--a very thoughtful quilting friend--brought me a little gift of some new red and white towels for Valentine's. She and I seem to think alike quite often and have the same tastes, so of course I love these! That's the apple for the teacher part!

Then the patting myself on the back part? Yeah, I did a little shopping when class was over. You can't see them too well, but there are two fat quarters in the back that are black with gold stars, a fat quarter in a lovely shade of blue, a wool candlemat pattern--hearts for Valentine's Day, and a wool heart ornament kit. I'm usually pretty nice to myself!

And if any of my students are reading this--and I did give them all my blog address, so it's possible!--here's another setting idea:

See, this is another of those thinking moments I had today. This upcoming Sunday is the Open House/Meet the Teachers at Bearpaws & Hollyhocks, and of course I'll be there, talking the ear off of anyone who wants to listen or is too slow to get away from me--telling them all about my classes. So I was thinking that to reward those poor souls for having to be polite to me, it might be fun to make a small tabletopper out of some of my class example blocks and have a drawing for it. The shop owner is out of town until the end of the week, but assuming she has no objection and assuming I get it quilted in time, I think that's what I'll do.

I was also thinking that I'll probably announce the winner here on my blog next Monday.

And then I was also, also thinking that maybe I'll make another little quilt out of more of my class example blocks and have a corresponding giveaway for those of you out in Blogland who are too far away to make it to the Open House on Sunday.

So, yeah, I think that's the plan unless the quilt shop objects to my Open House giveaway or you all object to my Blogland giveaway. Any objections? I should have a second quilt top made up pretty quickly--I'm not sure if it will look the same or if it will be different, but I'll be sure to post a photo and let you know when you can enter the giveaway. After all, you've all been quite supportive and encouraging in my teaching endeavor, so I think you deserve a pat on the back too!

Still Breathing

Goodness I'm exhausted! Those "kids" in my class wore me out today!

Okay, so I didn't stop breathing and die. Imelda was there to administer CPR just in case, and I told her if it became necessary, I'd reimburse her the class fee. Luckily it didn't happen.

The only photo I took in class is the one you see above of the Valentine tree, "lip" sugar cookies, and a couple wrapped door prizes.

I think it went okay for the most part. One of my students didn't have much quilting experience and I didn't seem to be able to explain the basics to her in a way she'd understand, but one of the other "students" teaches kids to quilt and was able to help out. There were a couple glitches with equipment in the class, but nothing major. And I got some experience on timing, organization, explaining / demonstrating steps, etc., that I think I'll be able to put to use with the next classes.

I think everyone enjoyed themselves, as far as I could tell. Of course, I bribed them, so what's not to like?!

Everyone got a little bag with the pattern, a couple stickers, a pencil, a chocolate heart, and--

As far as I can tell, Brad Pitt and George Clooney aren't doing Valentine's cards this year, but I think Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom aren't too hard to look at either, AND--did you notice?--these Valentine's cards came with tattoos! After all, what quilter doesn't appreciate a nice tattoo? I also baked and decorated a plate full of lips.

And the Valentine tree? Everyone got to take home a Pennie Pocket and Happy Zombie's blog address so they can make more themselves.

Were you wondering what was IN the Pennie Pockets that's poking out the top? These:

White chocolate dipped and sprinkled pretzel sticks. Yum!

In class, in addition to talking about the quilt, I talked about crafting and thrifting and celebrating the seasons and holidays. Appropriately--but a bit quirky, I'll admit--was my selection of two door prizes--a chocolate lover's cookbook and a Mary Engelbreit Valentine tin--both thrift store finds! LOL!

And remember that sweater I showed you earlier in the week? This one:

Here's what it looks like now:

I brought it to class to talk about what you can find in thrift stores and what you can do with your finds. I'll show you how I made it in another post--I have a couple thrift store finds to show you.

Before the class ended, I was able to show the quilters a couple different setting variations for the heart blocks using a different number of blocks--I hope they went home with some new ideas and are inspired by the possible different settings to finish making their blocks into a quilt they can use to celebrate Valentine's Day this year. But, if not, at least they have a new tattoo!

I've Been Doing Stuff

Here it is, the day I teach my first class--although I still have to sleep first. Still, in about 10 hours I have to pack up my stuff and head to the quilt shop. Am I nervous? Not really. At least not so far--tomorrow may be another story! Thank you for your supportive comments on last night's post!

I've realized that I really haven't been telling you or showing you what I've been up to this week. Some of it's still a secret because it's for the class. Some of it I just haven't gotten around to talking about. Tonight, though, I'll show you some of the cooking I've been doing today.

A couple of you asked for the recipe for the chicken enchiladas I made for our guests last weekend. Since I didn't have any photos to share, I thought maybe I should make another batch of enchiladas. I sure make a lot of sacrifices for the sake of the blog, don't I?!

Here's what you'll need:

12 corn tortillas

salad oil

2/3 cup whipping cream

2 cups shredded jack cheese

2 large onions, thinly sliced

2 tablespoons butter or margarine

2 cups cooked and diced or shredded chicken (I prefer breasts)

1/2 cup canned roasted sweet red pepper or pimento, chopped

8 ounces of cream cheese cut into small cubes

Salt

Here's what you'll do with that stuff:

Fry tortillas in oil on both sides until soft but not crisp. Drain by layering tortillas between paper towels.

Cook onions in a skillet, in butter, over medium heat, stirring often, for about 20 minutes until limp and just starting to brown a bit.

Remove the onions from the heat and mix in chicken and red peppers.

Add cubed cream cheese and mix to blend. Season with salt to taste.

Spoon about 1/3 cup of chicken mixture down the center of each tortilla and roll. Place enchiladas in 9" x 13" baking dish, seam side down. Moisten tops with whipping cream.

Sprinkle shredded cheese evenly over enchiladas and bake, uncovered, at 375 degrees for 20 minutes or until heated through.

Now, you're going to need a vegetable to go with that. I made Mexican Vegetable Casserole when our guests came and it was so good, I made it again tonight.

Yum!

When I served dinner, I topped the enchiladas with green chile sauce and guacamole. Now go have yourself a fiesta! Ole!

Hocus Pocus?

What do you think about horoscopes? Mostly, I don't think a whole lot about them--in other words, I don't think about checking my horoscope very often. That's not to say that I don't believe in astrology exactly, although I kinda don't. Then again, I'm pretty open minded and I'm willing to believe that there may well be more things out there than we can understand. So, I guess you could say I'm a little wishy-washy when it comes to horoscopes. Maybe yes, maybe no.

I think you know that I'll be teaching my first quilt class on Sunday, right? I'm a little nervous, but I think it will be fun. When I woke up this morning, just for a second, I remembered the class was coming up this weekend and I had a brief shot of adrenaline and nerves--just for a second. On Saturday, that shot of adrenaline may last a minute. And it may come along a couple times during the day. And I figure on Sunday? Yeah, I probably won't even need any coffee--I'll be wound up and adrenalined-out all morning until the class starts.

I was checking emails tonight and noticed Yahoo had a story about the largest full moon of the year occurring on Saturday night. Do you know how crazy people get when there's a full moon? So what will happen the day after THE LARGEST FREAKING FULL MOON OF 2009?! Yes, as a matter of fact, I WAS thinking a little about the class.

And since I was already kind of thinking along the lines of hocus pocus, voodoo magic, superstition, and unproven wives' tales, I wondered about my horoscope for Sunday. I checked Yahoo horoscopes and here's what it says:

"Have some ice-breaking comments ready to go today, because you are likely to be thrust into groups of people you need to get to know. In order to initiate some good conversation with these people, be cheerful. Avoid touchy topics like politics, religion, or money. It's much wiser to stick to safe topics like television shows, sporting events, and gossip about celebrities. Shallow topics might not lead to deep connections, but at least they won't lead to arguments, either!"

Weird, huh?! Kinda makes it sound like I might be teaching a quilt class or something, doesn't it? Yikes! Maybe there's something to that astrology after all! Although I would have felt better if it had said, "Relax. Your quilt class will go well. Your students will have a great time, and you'll have no problem speaking and breathing simultaneously."

Now, let's talk about numerology. What do you think? Anything to it? 'Cause I just realized that 01/11/2009--the date of the class--will give you some seemingly meaningful numbers depending on how you add them. Not that I know what they mean or anything. Not really. But let's just say they mean "Relax. Your quilt class will go well. Your students will have a great time, and you'll have no problem speaking and breathing simultaneously." Yep, let's just say that. Okay?

Seven Pounds

Are you wondering whether this post is about the new Will Smith movie?

Nope! It's pretty much about the fact that I overestimated the amount of butter I needed for all those Grandma's Applesauce Cakes I made as holiday gifts. Silly me! For some reason, I doubled what I needed and sent Hubby off to Costco to fill his basket with butter.

Seven pounds. That's how much I still have left. Plus a partial cube.

Now I gotta figure out what to do with it. I know that many of you are on diets, given that it's the start of a new year and that's kinda what people are expected to do in January, right? (Unless you're an attorney I used to know--he'd diet and give up alcohol every February because it was the shortest month of the year!)

You're probably cringing at the thought of what SEVEN POUNDS of BUTTER could do to a diet, right? But I have a new diet secret. Well, really it's an OLD diet secret. Butter? No problemo!

Just goes to show: Grandma knew about more than just aprons!

And that seven pounds of butter? Well, I guess it's nothing that can't be resolved with one or two Paula Deen recipes.

About Aprons

One of the women in my online Thimbleberries group passed this story on to us the other day and I wanted to share. I've tried to find the originator to attribute it to, but although I've found various versions here and there on the internet, I haven't come across the author, so if you have any information about that, please leave a comment--whoever wrote it deserves all the credit!

THE HISTORY OF APRONS

I don't think our kids know what an apron is.

The principal use of Grandma's apron was to protect the dress underneath because she only had a few. It was easier to wash aprons than dresses and they used less material, but along with that, it served as a potholder for removing hot pans from the oven.

It was wonderful for drying children's tears, and on occasion was even used for cleaning out dirty ears. From the chicken coop, the apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven.

When company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids. And when the weather was cold, grandma wrapped it around her arms. Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron. Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow, bent over the hot wood stove.

From the garden, it carried all sorts of vegetables. After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls. In the fall, the apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from the trees.

When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds. When dinner was ready, Grandma walked out onto the porch, waved her apron, and the men knew it was time to come in from the fields to dinner.

It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that ' old-time apron' that served so many purposes. People would go crazy now trying to figure out how many germs were on that apron. But you know what? I don't think I ever caught anything from an apron . . . but Love!!

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And do you know about National Tie One on Day? The idea is lovely, even if you don't wait until November 25, 2009, to do it!

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The apron in the above photos is a late Christmas gift from my dear friend Eileen. Won't this be fun to wear for Spring?! My favorite part? See those buttons? Vintage! Even Hubby noticed them and commented! Thank you again, Eileen!

And thank YOU for stopping in to visit! Do you have memories of your mother or grandmother wearing an apron when she tended to the household chores?

To Sleep, Perchance to (NOT!) Dream

Some kind of disease was affecting scores of people, and unless a cure was found, they would all die. Somehow I had contracted it.

Medical advances are amazing. Just as the future was looking bleak, a group of doctors devised a life-saving treatment involving the removal and replacement of the affected individuals' heads. The new heads looked remarkably like artists' clay and were molded similarly. Time was running out. Did I want to undergo the procedure? Or die? The decision felt paralyzing. And just as I was leaning toward having my head removed, word came that the results of the surgeries performed so far were not quite what the doctors had hoped. Many of the patients failed to recover anything approaching normal brain function. Now what?

I struggled awake and looked at the clock. 4 a.m. I felt hot. Was I sick? My stomach felt a little queasy. Eventually I got back to sleep and woke up this morning feeling fine--more or less--except for the effects of a less than restful night's sleep.

Why did I have such a weird dream? Coincidentally, Yahoo featured a story today about dreams. If you're interested, click HERE. The story listed six reasons people have bad dreams: (1) anxiety/stress; (2) eating spicy foods; (3) eating high fat foods; (4) alcohol intake; (5) drug/medication intake; and (6) illness.

Hummm. Anxiety/stress. Well, I DID go back to work yesterday after a relaxing time off, and I AM teaching my first quilting class next Sunday, but I'm not feeling particularly stressed. On the way home from work last night when I stopped at the quilt shop, I had a nice little visit with a couple of quilting friends, and then I had a relaxing evening quilting and thinking up a new project idea. So, no, I don't really FEEL stressed, but I suppose I may be--it could be expected, I suppose.

The rest of the stuff on the list? Nope! I can rule all those out easily.

Did I watch a scary movie or read a murder mystery before bed? I have to answer "yes" as to the murder mystery, but it's not one that can be confused with real crime drama--it's written to be amusing, and it is. Nothing graphic.

So, I don't know why I had the weird dream, but it's awfully vivid still. I hope I sleep better tonight. I took a couple Tylenol PMs to help ensure a better night's sleep. Of course, that was before I read the part of the article about drugs/medication causing bad dreams. But at least if I have another bad dream tonight, I'll know what to blame it on!

Time, now, to go take my bath before the Tylenol kicks in and I drown in the bathtub. If that should happen, I'd like to go on record here saying that if I'm found alive but gorked out and unable to make decisions for myself, I DO NOT want my head replaced with a clay one. Okay?

I hope all your dreams are pleasant ones! Thanks for visiting!

Odds and Ends

I don't have a major theme going on here tonight, but I had some odds and ends to chat about.

A couple of you asked about the pattern for the quilt I'm making my brother and his wife--the one I was pinning yesterday. It's an older Swatches pattern:

If you're interested in the pattern, go to Quiltshops.com, type in the search box "Swatches Renewal" (without the quotation marks), and then click on the Thumbnails box, and you'll find a couple shops that carry the pattern. I modified my version of the quilt a bit by eliminating those small pinwheel blocks that go all around the outside border--although I think they're a really nice touch, I just wasn't into spending all the time it would have taken to make those scrappy half square triangles, and I had already used up most of my scraps of Kansas Troubles fabric in the larger blocks.

At work this morning, I noticed that over the holiday weekend, a ton of mushrooms had sprouted up all around this tree. Since I had my camera with me, I thought I'd take a quick photo of the fungus. Weird, huh?! It amazes me how quickly they grow!

Okay, here's a little bit of a teaser. I haven't talked much lately about thrifting--mostly because I haven't gone thrifting for awhile. I need to go again soon, though, that's for sure--I'm starting to get that itch that only a visit to a thrift store will scratch! In the meantime, I pulled out this sweater from a prior thrifting excursion.

Sometime this week, I'm hoping to make something with it. Hummmmm . . . now what could Kim be thinking about doing?!

Since the quilt for my brother doesn't have a big time deadline, I'm going to take my time quilting it and avoid the shoulder and neck pain that comes from sitting for hours in front of the sewing machine, pushing a bunch of fabric around. I think that quilting for one or two hours a night will probably be my maximum, so I want to have a couple other projects to work on, and that sweater is one of them. If you're curious, stay tuned to see what happens!

Chilled But Happy

On Sunday morning, I got up, knowing my house was clean and there were leftovers in the refrigerator for dinner. With the whole day ahead with very few obligations, I prepared a quilt back and eventually headed out to the patio to pin a quilt.

About a year ago, I pieced the blocks for this quilt but got sidetracked by other projects. Over this holiday weekend, I pulled the blocks out and got the quilt top put together.

I'm making this quilt for my brother and his wife--their house is decorated "cabin style" and I think the scrappy Kansas Troubles fabric will go well.

The weather was beautiful out this morning, for a winter day. The skies were clear and the sun was shining, although there was a light breeze and the temps were in the 40s. By the time I finished, my feet, clad only in slippers, were popsicles, but I solved that with a nice, long soak in a hot bathtub.

The rest of the day was a lazy one. I read a bit, I napped a bit, I quilted a bit, I ate a bit, and I did a couple things in preparation for the quilt class I'll be teaching next weekend. It's back to work for me in the morning, but this last day off has been a relaxed one. I can't say I'm anxious to go back, but at least my house is in order and I'm rested.

I hope you've had an enjoyable weekend too. Thanks for stopping in to visit!