My Two New Waldorf Style Girl Dolls

Here are two Waldorf type dolls I made recently.  I drew my own pattern for these dolls.  They are 14.5 inches tall and a bit on the lean side, but by no means skinny!

Their cute tights are a pattern from The Etsy Shop reggiesdolls.  They make me smile.  Neither of the knit fabrics I used for the tights had any lycra so the tights are a wee bit baggy. Just like tights get on real toddlers!

I made these two dolls for a charity event benefitting the Children's Hospital, Boston, which will be held next year. They will be for sale April 2016.  I'll repost in the Spring when I have the details.

August! Time for a Vacation?

It's August, the best month of Boston's summer, in my opinion.  It starts July hot but by the end of the month there's a hint that the cooler days of September are on their way.  I love those last 2 weeks of August when the temperature and humidity typically drop. 

Because I've always worked in the medical world, having a long summer vacation has never been an option. With only 8 weeks of summer here, and everyone wanting warm weather time off, sharing the wealth was the expectation--and the rule!

This year, no longer subject to the rules of nursing, I'm going to try ratchet down my level of productivity--both quilting and blogging--and enjoy August.    

I've been posting on Mondays and Thursdays each week, but this month, posting on my blog will be on the whim. For my faithful subscribers and readers, don't be alarmed when if you don't get those regular 5 PM notices from MailChimp!  The silence is all good!

I expect I will post occasionally during the month.  It may be craft related, or perhaps you'll see a bit of the dogs from time to time!  

I hope you have had some summer time to rest and relax, or have some coming up soon!  Enjoy!

Knitting: My Sky Scarf

Have you heard about Leafcutter Designs' Sky Scarf conceptual knitting project?  The concept, and the knitting, on this project are straightforward.  Each day you look at the sky and pick 2 colors from your small collection of yarn that best represent the sky you see that day.  Then you knit 2 rows using those colors.  In twelve months you have a nice scarf AND a weather report for the year!

This sounded like too much fun to miss. Leafcutter Designs has a lovely kit with yarns which you may purchase at the link above. I picked out my yarns at JP Knit & Stitch, my local quilt/yarn shop. I decided to add a bit more color so I chose a couple of balls of yarn to use on days with stunning sunsets. 

It's really interesting.  I'm purposely looking at the sky everyday now, really appreciating UP and feeling more connected to God's creation.  

The most difficult part of knitting this scarf is picking the colors for the day.  On the days when it rains all day or the sky is bluest of blues, it's easy.  But you know that adage about Boston weather:  "If you don't like the weather here, wait a minute"?   It is so true!!  I'll think I know what my yarns for the day will be and then an hour later the sky is completely different!  It can be a real challenge!

The little bit of knitting every evening is really nice, a quieting calm space in each day. 

Here's my first month of knitting:  June 27 to July 28, 2015.  

Weather report: July 2015 in Boston, Massachusetts

The first row with red is July 4th.  The red and white rows symbolize the fireworks over Boston's Esplanade.  I didn't see them, not even on television. In an effort to keep my noise-sensitive English Springer Spaniel calm and quiet, I was watching a show about the British monarchy with a narrator who has a very calming voice!  (The show, and a lot of training for the past year, really helped Tipper a lot)!

The brighter rows up near the needles are a recent sunset.  In July I had expected a lot of deep blue rows.  But it turns out we have a lot of blue days with clouds.  So, lots of bright blue and light blue and white.

My yarn is a mix of fibers. It's from Denmark. I can't read the label but I think it is wool and cotton. I love the colors and it has a nice feel knitted up.

If you want to see other folk's Sky Scarf projects, check out #skyscarf on Instagram.  And join the party if you knit!

Pillow Cover with Envelope back and Binding Edge

My sofa has been in need of a new look.  I made a pillow cover as a project for Proper Bostonian Quilters and a couple Quilt-As-You-Go Blocks for a Boston Modern Quilt Guild charity quilt. I realized that a Quilting As You Go Block would make a lovely pillow cover but you could just as well use an orphan block or piece a block by a different method to make a pillow cover this way.  

I had a bit of whale fabric from the back of my "Bjorn & Bjorn" Viking quilt, a couple of fussy cut Vikings left over from that quilt, and lots of batting scraps so this pillow cover is a total scrap bag project!  Here's how I made my pillow cover.

Notes:

1. This post isn't a Quilt-As-You-Go tutorial.  If you would like more information about the Quilt-As-You-Go technique, the new book, Quilt-As-You-Go Made Modern by Jera Brandvig is a great resource.  Jera has a chapter in the book on making pillow shams using a different final assembly method.
2. If you don't know how to bind a quilt, here's a great binding tutorial from Connecting Threads. 

Making a Pillow Cover with an Envelope Back and Binding Edge:

1. From left over quilt batting, I cut a piece of batting 1 inch larger on all sides than the pillow form. I used a 14" purchased pillow form so I cut a 15 x 15 inch piece of batting. 

        2.  I cut a piece of scrap fabric the same size as the batting.  This fabric is inside the pillow, never to be seen. It would be a great way to use up a bit of ugly fabric!

        3.  A Quilting As You Go Block is built a bit like a Log Cabin block. Each new piece attached has to match the length of the previous piece. I sewed each new section on using a 1/4 inch seam with a walking foot and pressed each piece away from the previous section.

    5.  Because each new bit of fabric is sewn onto the block through the batting and backing, the completed block already quilted on the back side.   I added some straight stitches and some serpentine quilting to the front side of my block to make it more interesting and to give it some extra texture.  Here are photos of the back, the block prior to doing any quilting on the front of the block and the front of the block with added quilting.

    6.  Once it was quilted, I trimmed the block. It ended up a tad smaller than 15 x 15 inches.  That's fine because I cut the batting 1 inch larger than the pillow form.  Because the pillow cover has a binding my block had to be at least 14 1/2 x 14 1/2 inches which it was.

    7.  Next I made the envelope back for the pillow cover.  I cut 2 pieces of fabric the same width as the Quilting As You Go block and  3/4 of the height of my finished block.  For my pillow cover, the back pieces are 15 inches wide and 12 inches high.

    8.  On each of the 2 back pieces I hemmed the width of one horizontal side.  I turned the edge under 1/4 inch and pressed. Then I turned the pressed edge under 1 inch and pressed again.  Finally I sewed the edge down, stitching 1/8 inch from the edge of the fold.

    9. To attached the envelope back I put quilted block right side facing DOWN. With RIGHT side up, I put the lower half of the envelop back on top of the quilted block. Then I put the upper half of the back on top of the lower half. It over-laps the lower half by several inches. The back pieces need to be adjusted so they exactly cover the pieced block.  I pinned all the pieces in place so they wouldn't shift.

   10.  Then I tacked down the over-lapping sections of the 2 envelope pieces sewing a very scant 1/4 inch along the edge of the block so that this basting line would hidden inside the binding. 

   11.  With so many layers of fabric using a binding is a perfect way to finish this pillow cover.  I made a scrappy binding out of left over bits of bindings from other projects. I sewed on my binding entirely by machine, but any binding application method will work.

Completed Pillow Cover without the pillow form

    12.  A photo of the finished quilt is at the top of the post.  Here's the back of the pillow cover. 

My sofa has a great new look!  I think this is absolutely (maybe!) the last post with the Vikings!

Vintage Quilt Revival Sampler is Done!

After a year and a half, my Vintage Quilt Revival quilt is...DONE!  As I mentioned in my last post I made the blocks working along with other folks in the Vintage Quilt Revival Block Along.  All the block patterns came from the great book, Vintage Quilt Revival. 

The beautiful floral and bird fabrics are from the Andover Fabrics line Modern Victorian.  This fabric line was designed by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr. These amazing designs really make this quilt sparkle! 

I posted the details of several blocks in my last post. Here are 3 more. 

I never thought I'd make a sampler quilt.  I like to figure out how to piece a block and then rapidly make up a quilt. This was an entirely different process!  It helped to be sewing a block a week with a group of other people. Here's a link to the Vintage Quilt Block Along Flickr Group. Check out the quilts and blocks made by others in this Block Along!

Thanks Sukie for running a great Block Along!  I love my quilt!

Quilting the Vintage Quilt Revival Sampler Quilt

During the winter of 2014 I participated in a the Vintage Quilt Revival Block Along making all the quilt blocks in the book, Vintage Quilt Revival.  

Piecing the 22 blocks in the quilt was a great adventure.  Some of the blocks were fairly easy while others were complex and challenging. I learned some new piecing techniques and really improved my foundation piecing skills.  It was great to be working with a group of people--it kept me working steadily. 

I finished up the blocks during March 2014. Here's a my blog post about the completed blocks.  So that was 16 months ago!  Where's the quilt?

It turned out that quilting this sampler quilt was more challenging than piecing the blocks!  I didn't start the quilting until this past winter.  I decided to quilt the white negative space in each block first.  It is the one unifying element in all the blocks.   

With flowers in the focus fabrics in the quilt, I chose to quilt flowers into the white spaces. There are lots of stylized roses, a chrysanthemum, generic flowers and some leaf patterns.  All that detailed quilting took a lot of time.  One day, when my bobbin ran out of thread I put it away-- two and a half blocks from finishing the floral quilting. 

I also had no idea how I was going to finish quilting these blocks.  Because it is a sampler quilt, no two blocks are the same.  Each block needed to have a unique quilting design.  It felt daunting, so I left the quilt and worked on other projects.

Then I found the resource I needed to get me back to the sewing machine: Angela Waters book, Shape by Shape Free-Motion Quilting with Angela Walters.  Angela suggests designs to fill in squares, circles, triangles and diamonds. I got some great ideas from the blocks in the book. Angela's quilting designs typically are much more dense than my quilting style so I none of my blocks look like hers.  But seeing what she did was really helpful.

These photos are three of my completed blocks.  The quilt should be done soon!  Finally!!

Vikings Modern Improv Quilt Completed: "Bjorn & Bjorn"

My Modern Improv Viking Quilt is done!  I love it!  Both the piecing and the quilting are improvisational. This quilt is based on Score #10 in Sherri Lynn Wood's book, The Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters.  I made this quilt during a Quilt Along Event sponsored by JP Knit & Stitch in Jamaica Plain, MA  earlier this month.  A total of 7 of us quilters all had a great time at the shop learning to make improv quilts using the Scores in Sherri Lynn's book as guidelines. 

I had so much fun doing the quilting on this piece.  Most of the quilting is free-motion, but a little bit was quilted with a walking foot.

Here's the sun detail. I love this!

The waves in the ocean are totally unrealistic--they roll from right to left in some places and left to right in others.  In the sky there is a eddy in the breeze that echoes the waves in the ocean.

The castle walls are primarily quilted with interlocking squares and rectangles. However there is  wood grain over the castle gate and some timber in the castle wall. 

If I had to do anything over, I would have marked the sky before I quilted it. I thought I was quilting in reasonably straight lines across the sky...but apparently  not!  Clearly with improv piecing, it would be prudent to assume that is a pieced seam is unlikely to be straight!

The breeze was so crooked that I did something I rarely do with my quilting...I ripped it out and redid some of it.  Here's the before (left) and after (right).  The re-do still has some elements of the original tilted sky, but it's no longer jarring.

View fullsize

View fullsize

The quilt's name is a bit of an insider joke.  I've always liked the Scandinavian boy's name Bjorn (pronounced Bee-yorn). Bjorn is also the word for Bear. Both man and bear are rightfully Bjorn!  

When I saw the fabric was printed with a Viking meeting the Bear, I knew  "Bjorn & Bjorn" was a great name for my quilt!   Don't you just wonder what they are talking about in those deep, dark woods??

Every Dog Deserves a Good Fence Quilt

Here is the completed Fence Quilt with the neighbor's hydrangea, peaking over and through the fence! 

Quilting the wood grain in the fence came out well.  I'm also really happy with a tiny meandering quilting over each cluster of hydragea blossoms. 

Here's the plant, the fence and the quilt.  The quilt is based on a view from inside the yard rather than looking over the front gate as in the photo.  Fun!

Quilting: Walking Foot vs. Free motion to create a wood grain effect

The quilt I've been working on this week has 9 fence posts in the design.  I've done wood grain before with a round knot.  But I saw a different intrepretation of wood grain in a quilting design in the book, Free-Motion Quilting for Beginners, and those who think they can't, by Molly Hanson.  So I decided to try her more oblong and pointy type of design.  

Wood grain quilting with a walking foot

I used the walking foot to quilt the first fence post of the day.  I figured that would work well with the long, slightly wavy lines of the wood grain.  With knot is so linear and pointed that looked feasible too.  It did work, but I had to stop and rotate the quilt around a number of times to create the knot effect.

Quilting a wood grain pattern with free-motion quilting

I realized that if I switched over to free-motion quilting, I could change the direction of my stitching, rather than rotating the whole quilt when I needed to fill in a tight space. This a fence post quilted with free-motion quilting. 

It was a lot easier to create the knots in the wood using free-motion quilting.  The free-motion knots are less pointy, a product of my brain and gross motor muscle memory, but I think I like them more.

I did rotate the quilt at either end of the fence posts when I was stitching the long wavy lines of wood grain. 

Both methods definitely work.  The the free-motion design which I stitched more spontanoesly was much easier and more fun to do.  

The bottom line: use the technique that works best for you and your skill level and that's the most fun!

Thousand Pyramids Quilt "Shades of Spring" completed

Here's my completed Thousand Pyramids "Shades of Spring" quilt.  There is a row of Big Stitch Quilting along the diagonal of each row of block in a variety of matching colored cotton threads.  Then there are two to four rows of white machine stitches, ranging from 1/2 to 1/4 inch apart.

The back is pieced. I like it as much as the front! 

Back of "Shades of Spring"

Charity Quilt Ideas and other Worth Clicking Sites

If there is one thing that quilters do brilliantly, it's making quilts to give away.  Sometimes the quilt is for family or a special friend.  But often the quilt is sent off to a complete stranger--a person who needs the hug of a special quilt or someone who needs to know other people are thinking about them.

This year the Boston Modern Quilt Guild has been making quilts for Project Linus.  We made slab quilts this spring (more about slabs below) and this fall we are making Quilt-as-you-go-blocks. The beauty of Quilt-as-you-go-blocks is that they are already quilted. No one needs to sandwich a top or spend time at a long-arm or quilting at home.  The blocks do need to be assembled, but that should be fairly straight forward.  Before I put my Viking fabrics back in the stash, I made my block for the BMQG (above).

ConnectingThreads.com has a great video tutorial for making Quilt-as-you-go projects. 

Check out the amazing gallery of slab quilts made for flood victims on Cheryl Arkison's blog, "Dining Room Empire". She asked for slab blocks for folks flooded out of their homes in Canada two years ago and ended up with enough quilts to help other folks in a Texas flood!  Awesome!

Other sites to click on, not related to charity quilts.

The Seattle Modern Quilt Guild is making a Medallion Quilt as a Block of the Month.  This is the link to the June Block.  Folks are posting their progress on Instagram #SeaMQGbom.  Check it out! They are making some great quilts.  Their center medallions are all different and so are their color-ways.  Cool stuff!

And, it is Fourth of July this weekend!  Here's a link to the Polkadot Chair Blog's Fourth of July Pocket T-shirt.  It takes about 20 minutes to make.  How fun is this?  Here's mine.  Of course it has a dog!!

Have a Happy, and safe, Fourth of July!  Remember, fireworks should only be used by professionals!  And even then they are potentially very dangerous!  

Have a great day and enjoy those hot dogs and burgers!!

Modern Improv Quilting: Project 3, The Vikings--Top Completed

Here's my completed Vikings Modern Improv Pieced Quilt top.  It is based on Score #10 in Sherri Lynn Wood's book, The Handbook for Modern Improv Quilters.

I decided to trim it down to get it a bit more symmetrical since it was obviously wider at the top than the bottom-- a 1.5 inch difference.  It's still not exactly true, but at least no longer obviously asymmetric!

Using a Design Wall to Build a Modern Improv Quilt

Some of you must wonder about how a collection of fabrics become a finished quilt, especially if the quilt is improvisational and no pattern is used.   Here are a progression of photos of my design wall (the fuzzy back of a picnic table cloth hanging over 2 closet doors).  Most of the pictures were taken indoors without a flash.  I took the last photo outside, flat on the front walk, so you could see the real colors in the quilt.  

My post a week ago show the beginnings of this Viking quilt, based on Score #10 in Sherri Lynn Wood's Book, The Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters. 

While the construction of this quilt is done using Modern Improv guidelines, the fact that the Viking fabric was fussy cut and the quilt is going together like a storybook, makes it unusual in the Modern quilt genre. 

Here's what has happened with the quilt so far this week. 

The windsock on the left is new, and the pennant flags have been attached to the right upper part of the castle. Work begins on the top story of the castle. Also thinking about how to build out the meadow/wood section. The boats await the rest of the fleet.

Sections of sky, some of the castle turrets, a bit of castle wall have been sewn together.  No changes in meadow/wood or ocean yet.

The sun and more sky has been added. The top story of the castle is complete. Work begins on the ground level of the castle. the castle lawn and walkway. The meadow, woods section is complete. The ships are at a stand still!

The castle is completely done the 3 sections of sky and castle have been sewn together. The lawn and walk are finished and have been attached to the meadow/woods.  The meadow and woods are the widest section in the quilt. I need to add more sky to the right side of the quilt to make it the same width.

Still nothing happening at sea!

And finally, a rocky Scandinavian beach has been added and the Viking Fleet is about set sail!

What's left?  Adding sky to the top section so it's the same width as the rest of the quilt.  

This is really akin to a assembling a jig saw puzzle.  Except the pieces are cut to order!

Big Stitch Quilting for Modern Quilts

Since using Big Stitch Quilting on my "Spinning J" quilt I've been thinking about big stitch quilting a lot.  It's a fun change from using a walking foot or doing free motion quilting. And it's portable, especially if the quilt isn't too big. 

I've looked at supplies on-line but here's what I've been able to find locally. From Joann's DMC® 5 perle cotton in a variety of great colors and DMC® 8 perle cotton just in white. I asked one of my local quilt shops if they had perle cotton.  They didn't, but suggested 12 wt Sulky ® cotton thread. 

Here's a photo of 4 threads--top to bottom:  5 Perle DMC® cotton,  8 Perle DMC® cotton, 12 wt Sulky ® cotton  and traditional cotton hand quilting thread. 

I found both the Clover Chenille needles and the Fons & Porter ™ Utility Needles at Joann's. 

I used the 5 Perle cotton and a Clover Chenille needle for the quilting on my "Spinning J quilt".  It had a wool batting and I had no trouble doing the quilting with the thick thread.  But I thought it was going to be a struggle to use a thread that thick on a quilt with cotton batting. 

So on my Thousand Pyramids Quilt, I'm using white DMC® 8 Perle cotton and a variety of #12 wt Sulky (R) colored cotton thread. 

Here they are side by side.  DMC® 8 Perle cotton on the left and #12 wt Sulky® cotton on the rig

I used a Fons and Porter™ Utility Quilting needle with both threads.  The hand quilting is easy with both threads.  I was able to get 4 running stitches with the Sulky® thread though only 3 running stitches with the 8 Perle cotton. 

I learned traditional hand quilting from my college roommate's grandmother in their farm house in South Dakota. You can't get a better teacher than that!   So I can do small even quilting stitches. But I like the organic feel of this big stitch hand quilting.  It isn't perfect, but I like it like that!

Give it a try if you've never done any hand quilting. It's fast, fun and it adds another dimension to your quilt. 

Modern Improv Quilting, Project 3 -- The Vikings

I've started to work on my third quilt using Sherri Lynn Wood's book, The Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters--A Guide to Creating, Quilting and Living Courageously.  This quilt is based on Score # 10 from the book--"Showing Up".   It an amalgam of several of the Scores in the book--it's up to each quilter to choose which Scores to use together. 

With the crenelated turrets above and the blocks comprising the castle wall shown below, I've done a riff on Score #5 "Rhythmic Grid."

The pennant flags are an element found in Score #4, "Patchwork Doodle." 

The patchwork sky blocks are based on Score #1 "Floating Squares".

And finally the Viking Ships at Sea are based on Score #7 "Layered Curve."

I found the great Viking fabric at JP Knit & Stitch. It's a Alexander Henry Fabric from the De Leon Design Group and is called The Vikings.  It's so much fun to work with!

I still don't know what the final quilt will look like, but I have some ideas!  I'll keep you posted on my progress!

Tutorial: Doll clothes--briefs (undies) for a boy doll

I've made 4 Waldorf type dolls so far.  Two of them have been boys.  One was 10" and the second was 13".  I didn't find many patterns for dolls those sizes and even less for boy dolls.  So I drafted clothes for both boy dolls.

This tutorial of for Boy Doll Undies.

My 13" tall doll has a 10" waist.  He is a bit short-waisted.  You will need to adjust this pattern to fit your doll. 

I used a lightweight jersey with Lycra but interlock knits will work too. 

Supplies:

• Knit fabric, jersey or interlock, 1/4 yd (or scraps if you have some).
• Fold-over elastic

Pattern:

• Cut 2 slightly trapazoidlal pieces of knit fabric, 4 1/2 inches by 3 inches at the front seam sloping up slightly to 3 1/4 inches at the back seam. The sloping edge will be at the waist.  The bottom edge of the pieces should be straight.
• One 1 piece 1 1/2" x 4".  This will be the center piece of the undies.  If you have stripes, cut this piece across the width of the fabric to create a contrasting piece.  Or you could this piece from a different color fabric.
• Cut 1 piece of fold-over elastic, 1/2 smaller than the circumference of you doll's waist. You want the briefs to be a bit tight at the waist so they don't fall down!
• TIP:  If you are using jersey, it rolls up easily.  Put a heavy book on top of your cut pieces until you are ready to use them.  That helps to keep them flat.  Ironing with spray starch will also help some if the pieces do roll up.

Construction:  Here are photos of each step. The pin with the red head is in the slightly shorter front edge of the undies. I put them all together to make it more print friendly.

1. Make a small dart in the upper (narrow edge) of the 1 1/2 x 4 inch center piece.  My dart is 1/4" wide x 1 inch long.  It's not critical how big it is.  My boy dolls are not anatomically correct but the dart in the undies creates the illusion that they might be!
2. Fold over and iron a 1/4 inch hem at the lower edge of both large pieces.  Hem with a stretch stitch, zig-zag or overlock stitch. 
3. Now fold each of these hemmed pieces in half the long way, right sides together.  From the LOWER edge sew a 1/2" inch seam to make the leg of the undies. 
4. The center band is going to extend from the waistband in front, through the crotch and up the back of the undies.  Attach it by sewing it, with a stretch stitch, starting at the front upper edge of the large pieces, starting with the end of the center piece which has the dart. 
5. Sew down the front center seam on one side, pivot at the leg seam, and sew up the back center seam.  Your center piece will probably be 1/2 too long.  That can be trimmed so it is the same height the waist band once you have one side attached.  
6. Now sew the other side of the center piece to the other half of the undies.  Pivot at the leg seam, sew another inch and STOP!
7. Attach the fold over elastic.  Pin in about 4-6 places to the waistband of the undies. You will need to pull on the elastic so it will fit the waist of the undies which is long. This will create a slight gather along the waist of the undies. 
8. Once the fold over elastic is attached, sew up the remainder of the back seam.  This is a good time to adjust the fit to the doll. 
9. That's it!  Boy Briefs!

Book Review: The Farmer's Wife 1930's Sampler Quilt

Laurie Aaron Hird's new book,  The Farmer's Wife 1930's Sampler Quilt, is a real gem on a number of levels. 

The book has patterns for 99 quilt blocks!  They range from easy to challenging.  But good news! The book comes with a CD which includes rotary cutting instructions, paper piecing foundation patterns and templates which you can cut if you prefer to do that. All the information on the CD is in PDF form which is great.  The CD will work on a Mac as well as a PC.  All you need to retrieve the information is Adobe Reader, a free app which can be downloaded for PC or Mac. (See the right sidebar in the link above if you need to download it). 

Maybe even better than the quilt blocks and patterns are the letters re-published from the "The Farmer's Wife" magazine which were written to the editor in the 1930's.  It was the Great Depression.  But the letters are so up beat.  They are reflections of what the women were coping with and reading them, you can see how they were able to cope.  They did better than "making do."  They enjoyed what they had and were so grateful for the world around them on their farms.

Many of these women had a great faith in God. I've thought several times that this book could well be used as a devotional, in addition to a reference for quilt blocks.

Even if you never make a block from the book, though I expect you will, you will enjoy getting a glimpse into the lives of farmer's wives during the Great Depression.  They say that the men who fought during World War II were the "Greatest Generation."  You'll know why that was true when you read these letters written by many of their mothers!

Do pick up a copy.  I think you'll be glad you did!

7th Grade Home Ec and Cherry Pie

Middle School (we called in Junior High)--a time of discovering a new, older self and learning new skills.   I learned to sew with a sewing machine in 7th grade Home Ec but that's a story for another day. Today I want to talk baking!  Before we started to sew, we spent the first part of the school year in Home Ec learning to cook and bake. 

In our first class we learned to use measuring cups--carefully measuring out breakfast cereal into bowls. I remember thinking "How crazy is this??  Who is ever going to measure their breakfast cereal?"  Turns out the joke's on me!  Now that I have to be more careful about my carbs I measure my cereal every day!

By the end of the unit we'd progressed to the point that we were making pie!  Pie!!  In 7th grade!! I still have the recipe for the cherry pie we made in 1962, clipped from a printed handout and stored in my overstuffed recipe box! I have no idea what the source was, but it calls for Minute Tapioca so I'm guessing that company may have written the recipe. I found similar recipes when I Googled Minute Tapioca and Kraft, it's parent company, but none of those I found were exactly the same recipe.

Here's my variation of the original recipe but with less sugar, no food coloring, and no added butter.

Seventh Grade Cherry Pie

• 4 Cups of drained water packed sour cherries.  (They used to come in cans or frozen but these days I find them in jars).
• 1 1/4 Cup of sugar.  ( I use 1 Cup of white sugar and 1/4 Cup of Turbinado Sugar).
• 3 Tablespoons of Minute Tapioca
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1/4 teaspoon of almond extract
• sparkling sugar for decoration (may be purchased from King Arthur Flour)
• pastry for 2 nine inch crusts

Heat the oven to 400 degrees F.

1. Drain all the water off the cherries--you'll have pie soup if you don't!  
2. Mix the cherries with all the ingredients in a large bowl. 
3. Line pie pan with one of the crusts.   I use cookie cutters to cut shapes to use in place of a lattice for the top crust.  Cut out the shapes or cut strips to make a woven pastry lattice.
4. Pour cherry mixture into the pie shell.
5. Cover the top with cut out pastry or a pastry lattice.
6. Sprinkle with Sparkling White  Sugar as desired
7. Bake for 30 minutes at 400 degrees F.  (Put a half sheet pan under the pie pan to catch any filling that bubbles out of the pie pan).  
8. After 30 minutes put a collar of aluminum foil around the outer edge of the crust so it doesn't get too brown.
9. Bake another 20-25 minutes, until the pie filling is bubbling and the crust is a golden brown.
10. Cool!
11. Enjoy with vanilla ice cream and some good friends!

Yeah for 7th grade Home Ec! I think it was school time very well spent!!  I mean, unless you are a rocket scientist, when was the last time you used any calculus?

Modern Improv Quilting, "Spinning J"

Here's my Modern Improv Quilt, "Spinning J" based on "Score #9" in Sherri Lynn Wood's book, The Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters.

It was a real challenge to get it from pieced arcs to a rectangular quilt!  But the puzzle pieces did all fall into place one by one! It's now actually a fairly true rectangle but it sure doesn't look like it!  

I used DMC Perle Cotton embroidery thread for the Big Stitch Quilting.  It has a wool batt so the quilt is light and lofty.  I picked the wool batt because I thought it would best accommodate the irregular piecing in the quilt.  And that's why I did the hand quilting too. 

I had completed the quilting before I knew the technique had a name!  I just heard Carolyn Friedlander use the term on her recent Modern Quilt Guild member's webinar,  "Handwork is Fun." 

Here's more information about Big Stitch Quilting on a Craftsy.com blog post written by Diane Knott last year.  I really like the look of the Big Stitch Quilting with the wool batt. 

Even the label for this quilt has improv piecing!  

This quilt is totally fun!  I really learned a lot in the process of making it.

If you're interested in making an improv quilt, I recommend that you pick up a copy of Sherri Lynn Wood's book. I will really help you with the various improv piecing processes. 

Modern Improv Quilting, project #2

I've been working on my second modern Improv quilt using Sherri Lynn Wood's book, The Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters--A Guide for Creating, Quilting and Living Courageously. 

This quilt is based on Score #9 in the book.  Working on a quilt based on Score #9 is "living courageously!"  Especially when I went from making "Woodland Friends" based on "Score 1" to this one!  These curves definitely require advancing piecing skills!  But Sherri has great "how to" advice in the Techniques section in the book which is really helpful.

Cutting and sewing the wedges was really fun. The challenges began when it was time to sew the curved wedges together.  I initially decided to hand appliqué the curved sections to a  whole cloth background. In fact, I did appliqué the whole long outer curve.  Here's a pre-applique snap of my initial layout plan.  Sorry, it's a bit out of focus...

But then I went back and looked at the book.  While Sherri states that it is fine to appliqué the curved sections, the examples of "Score #9" quilts in her book are all pieced. The pieced quilts are beautiful. So I decided I was going to rise to the challenge!  I ripped out all my hand sewing and started piecing.

The photo at the top shows the quilt in a fairly early stage of piecing.  The process of turning this from a collection of curved wedges into a rectangular quilt was much like working on a jig saw puzzle. Every evening I would look at the quilt, audition another color. cut one new piece and then sew on to the quilt.  It was mentally challenging. One new piece an evening was about all I could manage!   I was working on my "Dog Pals" quilt at the same time--doing those fast, raw edge appliqués provided the comic relief I needed to stick with all this complicated curved piecing!

Sherri writes in her book that as you start to piece these curved wedges together, the quilt form changes. So true!  You can see how different my final layout is from the one I started to appliqué. 

Here's it is sandwiched, ready for quilting.  The quilt is an approximation of a rectangle! That's improvII  A slightly lop-sided "organic look" is just fine! 

This was a great learning experience.  Now that I've pieced this quilt and understand the mechanics better, I think I'd like to try it again...but probably not this week!