quilting and reading and FABRIC!!

As usual, life didn't go quite as planned last week, but thankfully the curveballs were all good ones.  And really, is it real life if there aren't curveballs?

First up, the stuff I planned to work on - the wedding quilt blocks:

Three more sets of block parts.  Four more to go.  I had hoped to get more done, but in all honesty, even without the curveballs, I'm not sure I would have gotten much more done.  Maybe one set?

The first curveball was a call (well, text) from the cat rescue group asking if we could haul a pallet of bedding pellets - they use these for cat litter as they're cheaper.  We have a truck and muscles (though they ask for other volunteers to help unload the 50 bags that come on a pallet), so we looked at the schedule for the coming days and decided that Thursday midafternoon would be best.

That is not where the bulk of my lost time went that day.  Remember the cat toys that I was trying to finish in time for the fabric donation?  Well...since I was headed to the clinic the day after the text came through, I decided to spend the morning before the delivery finishing the toys.

I can to do this!

I did do it!

But I have no photographic proof.  Just imagine that box Salem was lounging in last week absolutely packed full.  (Remind me not to do that many at once again!)

Then off to deliver and a couple of folks met us there to make lighter work.  I hauled a few bags and then the gal who coordinates the sewing projects showed up.  Neither of us knew the other would be there, but there she was.  With 14 bolts of fabric.  She'd been to JoAnn's on their last day and snagged some good deals.

I wish I'd taken a photo of the before, but I was anxious to get them all washed and preshrunk, so this is the aftermath...curveball number two, but really just a project that I thought I had more time to contemplate.

Five loads of laundry and an estimated 120 yards of fabric and now they're all folded semi-neatly and stuffed onto the designated shelf in my sewing room...

There is still a lot of work to go on these, but I'll get there.  They are all larger pieces (6 to 10 yards), which makes for awkward pressing and folding, but hopefully the assembly line sewing I will perform after that will go faster.

I know they're in high demand because I saw the bin where they live at the clinic and it is completely empty!  I saw a few scattered around, next to kennels housing kitties, that were clearly mid-use and that makes me feel good.  Of course, I'd rather their roof hadn't been blown off, or that it was fixed already, but this is something I can do since fostering kitties is really not possible in this 6-cat household...

The other curveballs weren't as dramatic or interesting, so we'll just let them go.  Just normal life stuff.  Thankfully!

And finally, the reading.  There's been good progress this week...

This book was really good.  Like so good I'm keeping it.

It's the story of a young woman, aging out of foster care, trying to make her way in the world.  In her last foster home (she was in group homes after this), she learned the meaning of flowers and uses it to get a job with a florist when she is out on her own, fending for herself.

She tells, in alternating chapters, her childhood story and her current life story.  Both are messy and she is a chaotic character, but it all felt real.  When she made a bad choice, I cringed, but realized that it was a reasonable choice considering her past, and I liked that it wasn't cookie cutter perfect.

I felt like parts of the story are a bit blurry or muddy and that could have bothered me more, but in this book, it just seemed right.

And I liked that, through it all, the good things did outweigh the bad, which is what we all hope for in our own lives.

It did take me a few more days to finish that it could have, but sometimes I just needed to finish that chapter, put it aside and let it soak in.

And then the random book chooser gave me this:

This is the second in a trilogy and I have read the first.  I vaguely remembered the first and I think I enjoyed it, so I expected a fair amount from this one.  It wasn't quite as good as I had hoped, but it wasn't bad either.

The blurb says it's the story of a woman, but the first third does not even mention her.  It, however, does tell the story of her parents and a little of the story of her grandparents (her maternal grandparents are the subject of the first book).  While most of it wasn't essential to her story, it does give some interesting history of late 1800's Chinatown and Nob Hill in California.

Eventually her story does come to the front and it is a good story, but is interspersed with more history of Chile (where she moves at age 10 with her paternal grandmother and step grandfather) that is less interesting.  (Wars and such...no, wait...maybe that was the first third?)

Anyways, she is a shy but stubborn young woman who learns photography from a man in California before she is transplanted to Chile.  It becomes her lens to see the world, as she realizes she can see more from the still photos than her eyes in the moment.  Through her photography she learns a devastating truth that changes her adult life, but sends her on a path that is probably better for her.

(But really, this photography isn't much of a plot.  It's just something to move the plot along and you get a lot of history and family stories and such.)

Again, not bad, but not great.  I don't think I'll look for the third book.  I mean, if it happens in my path at a used book sale for a good price and I snag it, maybe, but I'm not going to put it on the want to read list anywhere!

Of course I've started another book and so far (about 50 pages in), I'm enjoying it.  More on that next week!

Now it's time to go water my garden and get ready for another shift at work today.  Hopefully it will go fast and people will be nice.

Happy quilting and reading and all the other things,

Katie

quilting!

I'm quilting again!

Well, piecing, but that counts, right?

One of my coworkers has been dating this guy for a few years and they've had some major ups and downs.  I fully expected their relationship to eventually crash and burn, but while I was away, working elsewhere, they got engaged!  I'm happy for them and hope it truly works out.

So you know what that means!

I had this long-hoarded fat quarter bundle (okay, maybe only a few years, but still) that just screamed Tara...

Clearly the Goblin had been after something inside it on one of her naughty closet adventures, but it's all good, just wrinkled.  I untied the ribbon and dug in.  This gal is special enough to earn this fabric.

But...there were two blacks and three very light off-whites in there and, if you look close, you can see my intended background fabric in the upper right of the photo above.  Lights are not good.  And I'm making the Goldie Quilt, which needs black in the cornerstones and centers, so no blacks...

To the local quilt shop!  (She doesn't usually carry Ruby Star Society, but I'll find something.)

I think I did pretty well!  The fat quarters are on the left, the additions are set diagonally on the right.

Tara was there, arrived just seconds before to give me my lunch break, when Lily turned up at work needing a home.  She saw me swoop her into my arms and rush off to lunch - now a trip home instead of a quick meal in the back room - so I suppose it's only appropriate that Lily helps with this quilt.  (That orange does look quite good with her pretty furs.)

The fat quarters don't leave much room for error, but I checked and double checked my sizes with each cut (I did cut 3-4 layers at a time) and pretty soon I had stack of pieces.  Some rearrangement to make block sets and I was ready to sew.  (Sorry, no photos of cutting or rearranging...I got on a roll!)

Yesterday I had a whole day off and dug into sewing...

Since my mixing and matching didn't include the inner block sashing, this is where this block stopped.

And then later, after I thought we were going to hang out with family, but the plans fell through, I did a second set!

They take a bit longer than you'd think, but trimming all those half square triangles to make sure they line up nicely takes a bit of time.  Totally worth it, though.

I'm making the throw size, which takes 9 blocks, so this is a fair start for just one day of sewing.

I can't remember when she said the wedding is, but I think I've got a little time?

And of course, now that I have an actual project to work on, the cat rescue group contacted me, asking for more carrier covers.  Since they're still dealing with a roof-less clinic/shelter, surgeries continue to require transport, which means the covers are seeing a lot of use.  I'm in!  (When it's for the kitties, I'm pretty much always in.)  They've put out a call for fabrics, so I suppose I have a week or two before the real work begins.

In the meantime, probably I should finish up those cat toys that have been languishing in my sewing room for way too long?

Salem jumped right into the box and made herself comfortable.  I'm trying to do a batch every time I head into the sewing room, but it's still a little overwhelming.  (Remind me not to cut so many at once ever again!)

I promised an update on the frozen English muffin bread when I thawed it - last night I took it out of the freezer, moved it from the plastic freezer bag into the cloth bread bag and left it on the counter to thaw.  Delicious this morning!  I might go have another piece?

And lastly, the one book I finished this week:

This was one that someone somewhere recommended or talked about or something and I thought it would be good and interesting.  

It wasn't bad.

I guess I never thought about the fact that our first president had slaves.  So did his wife and upon marrying her, he got more.

Ona Judge was one of her slaves.  She was her personal slave and acted like a ladies maid if I understand correctly.  Her life wasn't as brutal as one who worked in the fields all day, but she had different challenges (attention of household men for one) and was still a slave.

The book tells both her story (though mostly through speculations that we are continually reminded are just that) and the Washington's story of how they moved her around to keep her from earning the freedom she might have been awarded if she lived in Pennsylvania for long enough.

So she ran away.

She was found, but the people where she was living weren't particularly interested in continuing slavery, so she was never arrested or caught.  Though I imagine the continuous worry about it was horrible.

The book was interesting and I learned a fair amount, but the continued reminders that we could never know what her life was like, but this is probably how it was, got to be annoying.  And I never really felt like I got to know who she was, despite the claim (and photographic proof at the end) that she published her story in a couple of newspapers at the end of her life.  (My eyes are too bad to even try to read what was there, if it was even readable!)

More of Washington's story was available because his documents were all preserved - I'm sure partly because of his position in our country, but also because he was a white man.

In all, not bad, but not as good as I had hoped.

The next book I'm taking my time with, but really enjoying.  More on that one next week!

Happy quilting!

Katie

a little

I need to stop apologizing for not getting much done other than work.  Going somewhere, doing a job and getting paid for it is a valid excuse for not sewing as much, right?

But I do like to have things done to share in addition to earning money, so...

I did spend a little time on the tiny landscape...

Surprisingly, Lily didn't bother me with the thread, but when I tried to set it down for a photo...

Maybe I shouldn't have tried to use her as a backdrop?

Yep, definitely should have chosen another backdrop.  She doesn't look too happy here.  But this is the best you get because I didn't take any other photos.

I might do another.  I'm thinking maybe a waterscape?

Probably do that before I pick this up...

Freddie's new favorite place to snooze - my bin of scraps that I don't know what else to do with.  (Usually the bin is in the closet that Lily in enamored with.)  I came home the other day and found him here.  He got up before I got a photo of him loafed in the bin.  He didn't get out, he just gave me the stink eye.  (Seems I'm getting a lot of that lately!)

I also did some work outside, now that it's safe to plant...

Not the best photo and you can see my shadow self standing there, but you CAN see I planted a garden.  (And I highlighted my rock pile - those came out THIS year.  There was no pile when we started - neighbors and friends took all last years rocks.)

I have six tomato plants - two varieties, one bell pepper, a basil, a rosemary and a dill plant.  Two rows of beans and one hill of cucumbers that I hope will not take over the entire space.  The tomatoes have cages already and I'm contemplating what to do to maybe help keep the cucumbers under control.  The fence is up - a new kind this year, so we'll see how it goes.  It's taller, so I can't weed over it and I'm not sure I like that.  Once these plants get bigger, getting between them is going to be harder.

I plan to can tomatoes this year, so I'm hoping these six plants will produce a good amount.  And I'm still debating about getting a dehydrator, even just if it is for the herbs.  (From what I've read, they do a better job than the oven.)

I also finished just one book.  It was pretty good, but my head just wasn't in the reading this week...

While one might believe the story is about the miniaturist, it is not.  That character plays a part in the story, but it is more the story of a household in the late 1600's in Amsterdam.  I didn't realize it was a mystery, though about halfway through it became clear that it was.  Not a whodunnit type, but definitely some strange things afoot that come to light as the story progresses.

Some of the mysterious happenings are explained, but in general I felt like I was overhearing a conversation and only understanding parts of it through much of the book.  Perhaps that was intended, perhaps I just am unaware of the history of this place and time enough that I missed things.

Overall it was a good book and I enjoyed it.  It was a fast read despite my taking a week to get through it.

The next one...well...someone somewhere recommended it, and it sounds interesting, but it's non-fiction, so it could go either way.  I haven't started it yet, but today for sure.

Now it's time to get my bathroom rug out of the dryer (a furball present this morning led to an unexpected load of laundry) and get myself cleaned up to face the day.  

Happy quilting and reading and gardening!

Katie

recipe reviews, a little sewing and one book

Last week I teased you with a bunch of new recipes (new to me) in my kitchen and promised some reviews this week, so here we go!

First up, we have the dandelion jelly.  It was a little more work, what with having to separate the petals from the flower heads, but it was worth it.  It tastes a lot like honey, but very sweet and a tiny floral flavor, but nothing offensive or overpowering.

I will 100% make this again when I run out.

Then there's the violet jelly.  (The link goes to a video on facebook with a recipe at the end to screenshot, but you could probably ask the google also.)  This one is also delicious.  Very sweet and a little like a less strongly flavored grape jelly, but also with a little floral flavor, but again, not overpowering.  (The smell as I was making it was definitely more floral than the finished product.)

I will very likely make this one again as well.

They're all labelled and packed away in my canning pantry!

I also mentioned some English muffin bread I was going to try.  I looked at a number of recipes, but settled on this one because it was no-knead.  I had a little mishap in making it - I had only a few drops of milk.  I buy half-gallons of milk and often end up throwing some out because it goes sour before we use it.  So I never thought to check that ingredient.  So, as my yeast was over-proofing, waiting for the hubby to return with more milk, I worried that the loaves might not rise as much as they should.  They did rise and the bread looked good.  It tasted wonderful, just like the muffins, but I will need to make it again to make sure I like the way it rises.  These loaves were a little dense for my liking (I want all those nooks and crannies to hold my delicious jelly!), but I think that may have been my fault.

It made two loaves - smaller loaves - so one is in the freezer for now.  Every recipe says it freezes well, so we'll also find that out in time.  

Even if this isn't THE recipe for me in the long run, I enjoyed it and it's a little easier than trying to split those muffins!  (Also nice that in about an hour, I can have a loaf of this using ingredients I (usually) have on hand.)

With the fresh loaves of bread running around, I thought I'd make up some cloth bread bags.  Some of the people I follow on the social medias are using them and saying they're better for bread than plastic and surely that's better for the environment, too.  So I pulled out some homespun fat quarters that I wasn't using anyways and some of the twill ribbons from fat quarter bundles that I'd squirrelled away for another day and...

I just folded them in half and did French seams (like the pillowcases get) and then made a casing at the top.  I'm sure you could ask the google and find multitudes of fancier methods, but this was a quick and dirty effort to see if I'd like it.

The bread didn't seem any worse for the efforts, though it spent the first three days in a plastic bag because I hadn't made these yet.  And then the last few slices went moldy, which they probably would have no matter what they were in.  (The hubby, despite telling me he'd help eat the bread, did not.)

I may swap out those twill ribbons for something that draws and releases easier.  Those seem to grab onto the fibers of the bag itself (makes sense) and makes the bag more difficult to get open than I'd like.  (It also needs to be easy for the hubby to even consider trying it...)

Not bad for a first try, winging it.

Some folks tell you to wax the bags, but others say no.  I don't have any wax, so unwaxed it is.  (Though that is also something I'm curious about.)

Once this was done, I decided to finally try a tiny landscape applique embroidery thing.  After seeing some beautiful projects from Carinne Meyerink on instagram, I decided to give it a try.  She shows a lot of videos of her process and she has a lot more bits and bobs to flesh out her creations, but why not just give it a try?

You can see the size of my project and some of the disaster I made creating it.  (The goblin cat also helped by pulling a whole stack of blue fabrics out of the closet into a messy heap into the (very furry) cat bad just below it as she tried to spider-climb the shelves when I opened the door...and then had the audacity to yell at me when I got her down...)

Everything is just placed here, but I did use a little glue to baste things before I started sewing.

About an hour of stitching and I had this...

There's still a bit more to do and there are some things I wish I had done differently, but this is a learning curve and I did have fun.  I'll finish it, but I'm not sure what I'll do with it then.  Probably I'll make more.

And lastly, a single book.

As a whole, not great.

(Also, thanks internet for making it blurry.)

The blurb said it was the story of a family living in Berlin at the start of Hitler's rule.  That is true.  An academic, William Dodd is appointed (it seems, after every other option is exhausted) to the position of US Ambassador and sent to live with his family (wife and two 20-something children) to live in Berlin.

Where I expected a fair amount about the changes Hitler implemented and how their lives changed, I got seeming criticisms of his daughter who ran around with the "cool kids" in a seemingly loose fashion for the times and for his reluctance to live the posh lifestyle that was often embraced by the wealthy men who preceded him, despite his lack of wealth.  (He also didn't want to live that way.)

There were some stories of the different policing groups misbehaving, but not as much as any other book I've read that was set during this time.  Perhaps being the ambassador sheltered he and his family from the worst of things, but it almost felt like the bad things that were coming weren't even on their radar most of the time.

It rang familiar, but I knew I hadn't read it before, so I went looking in my previously read books and came across "Resistance Women" by Jennifer Chiaverini, a book more centered around the daughter and a way more interesting, though perhaps more fictionalized, book.

For non-fiction, I guess this is about par for the course - dry and factual (about 100 pages of footnotes and references plus an index), but I still feel like I missed a lot.  The family returned home in 1938 or so, but the book focused almost entirely on 1933 and 1934.

I wanted to like this more.  I wanted to read this one and was excited when I randomly found it in the giant used book sale.  Now I'm sad.

The next book looks good, but due to life, I haven't done much sewing or reading or anything fun for me in the last few days.  I'm hoping that will change soon, but today I think I need a nap before work...an old back injury has reared it's ugly head, making sleep not as easy (though it feels much better today compared to yesterday) and work has been kinda extra crazy with the weather getting nicer.  I'm not complaining about being busy at work - shifts go by in a flash and the better the company does, the bigger my monthly bonus!

Time to go see what the hubby is up to.  He's working second shift this week, so he's home, making all the noises this morning...

Happy quilting and canning and baking and reading!

Katie