I wiped away the weeds & foam. / I fetched my sea-born treasures home... Ralph Waldo Emerson







Saturday, February 6, 2016

just a little change


Hi everyone! I just put a meatloaf in the oven, and oh does it ever smell delicious! There's a reason we call this comfort food.  I made a giant double recipe. This coming week we are expecting snow snow and more snow---so leftover meatloaf is a good thing to have on hand. Tonight we'll have it with baked sweet potatoes and tiny green peas.
Thursday when I went to bed the weather forecast was ''sleet, no accumulation"; I woke up Friday to 12-14" of wet heavy snow, school closings and  snow shovelling. What a shock!










Mo got out before the drifts got too deep.



Overnight we went from this:



to this...


And it seems it didn't snow much in the city so the weather guys kinda pretended it never snowed. So weird, one time a huge fuss, the next, so blase'. Huh. This time I  did not have precooked meals on hand and worried all day as power flickered on and off.
Of course snow days are lovely sewing sewing days.



I got this doll quilt layered up and ready for hand quilting. Its been waiting for me to quilt it for almost a year. I was tired of seeing the backing on my sewing desk. Now it's all set, just in case.



For Pokeberry, I did a bit of the embroidery, whiskers on Kitty, legs on the poor robin.




Because I made the design without contrasting backgrounds on the blocks, I am ending up with some big black bald spots. Oh no! I added a bird here, a few berries there, and in this giant empty area I added a traditional Heart in Hand. Why? I guess because it;'s February and Valentine's Day is soon, I love hearts, and it just appealed to me.


I'm making great progress on PB but at times it gets a little tedious,



...so I treated myself to an hour or so of sorting my Civil War repro fabrics and sewing the first block of BB new quiltalong.


I think this will be interesting and doable with one block a month, I could not begin to make two or three or more Stars in a Time Warp every week, nor do I have a huge stash to make them. [loved the series and learned so much, however]. The new series will be about the pioneers who traveled in their covered wagons, looking for land and fortune in the West.You can read Barbara Brackman's first blog post: here

I find social history, the history of lives and people, especially of women, fascinating. I'm not one to study politics and battlefields but the lives and diaries of real Americans--that touches a chord in me.
Brackman says women did not sew on their quilts as they traveled. I believe many of the pioneers walked all that way! And if they rode in their wagons it was a very rough ride. By the time they walked all day,  pitched camp , cooked and fed everyone, most women probably fell asleep in exhaustion. No sewing! The idea of a lovely summer wagon ride, a prairie dress-ed and sunbonnet-ed young woman on the buckboard, stitching her heirloom quilt is, I suppose, a fantasy worthy of a Disney film.
We'll find out, as Brackman educates us during the coming year.
I decided my blocks will be very scrappy. My pioneer woman has brought her scrap bag and will use every tiny bit, once she settles in her [damp, musty, frigid, buggy]  one room sod house in the middle of nowhere, USA.


Block 1: Independence Square. [Missouri]. The wagon trains began their journeys there.


And I've been studying this Jan Patek booklet I got on eBay a few weeks ago. [yes, I know it's very old, c.1993, but it's new to me]---I love this design, originally named When the Wild Geese Fly. I love this quilt, though I was a bit upset that it is in fact a memorial quilt for a boy who died, so shocking and so sad. I plan to fill the empty square with a pumpkin and give it back its original Wild Geese name.

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I plan to use blue shirtings and homespuns, not brown plaids. Autumn here is very bright blue! With orange wool pumpkins. It will be a low key, low pressure project to pick up when I need a little change of pace. If I get bored with it or can't bear to make 150 Wild Geese blocks, I can always turn the pumpkins into candle mats or a runner. The pumpkins will be machine  stitched, with the wools leftover from It's a Crock; and the blues will mostly be my friend's shirts he shares with me.

What a great sunflower! The shirts are from my friend who grows the gorgeous giant Russian sunflowers, you may recall from last summer.



Fun funny pumpkins.


Love the houses.

                                            

And I didn't take its picture but the turkey is just so cute, see him on the cover, lower left.
You know how I am about finishing! And not having a bunch of random projects floating around. Just the idea makes me anxious. But this is supposed to be a little side project, very casual. It will never become a UFO because it has no finish by date. We'll see how I do with that notion, can I mellow out and relax as I am sometimes urged , annoyingly, to do?

Must go put in the sweeties, I forgot! I wish you could smell the fragrance of my famous Mary Giordano's Special Italian meatloaf, taught to me by a samplemaker/ friend when I first moved to NYC. My mom, bless her heart, was famous for making awful meatloaf---Mary's recipe was a revelation. LOL
What are you cooking tonight?
Have a good weekend!

love

lizzy

gone to the beach...



So pretty. Like whipped cream!





9 comments:

  1. Hi Liz! I am not cooking tonight but your idea of meat loaf has me in heaven. I love meat loaf! We are having Asian food, Shrimp Fried Rice from our best eatery in town. I spent the day cleaning, so I need a reward....LOL Love your heart and hand and Mo's face as he sits under the table...LOL Have the best evening! Kit

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  2. I've downloaded this month's pattern from BB but haven't got around to sewing it yet. I'm trying to quilt my Sue Spargo BOM, big stitch quilting with perle thread and trying hard not to start my new pattern until I'm done. I ordered another new pattern last week and was planning to do it with my Taupes but when it arrived I realised it was made with wool- [brights]. Now I can't make up my mind about what fabric to do it in. My kids used to lie along the chairs like MO. and hide.

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  3. We got big snow here too - an unexpected and welcome snow day! Your new Jan Patek venture looks awesome. It's nice to have a side project going. I haven't started my BB block yet but will soon. Mo is just about the cutest dog ever!

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  4. Funny about waking up to so much snow! I love the jan patek project and like the idea of a slow assembly- no need to rush.
    I also like the addition of the hand on your Pokeberry. Mo is a hoot in that chair!!

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  5. The snow sure is pretty to LOOK at, I hope it's not causing too many problems. I hate when the power blinks! Your meatloaf sounds yummy, I haven't made that in ages either. LOL I noticed at the grocery store that Hamburger Helper now makes a Meatloaf mix! How strange.

    I like the BB(?) block, the Missouri one. The new quilt is interesting, too, but making that many 'geese' would drive ME batty! If you like it, though, I really enjoy seeing you make these quilts and change it a bit to make it your own! That one 'house' looks kind of like an old factory to me with all those windows and end chimneys. I do love Pokeberry! You're getting pretty close to done now! I like the additions you've made, and that robin is SO cute!

    I love Mo 'hiding' under the table, taking up two chairs. I have days I'd like to do that...

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  6. Mo on those chairs made me laugh! Wow! That's a lot of snow. We didn't get any thank goodness. I love your new Jan Patek project. I wish I could adopt your philosophy about one or two projects at a time. I have so many and you're right...it often is stressful!! I also wanted to start the Westering Women blocks. The history is so interesting. We'll see if I get around to it. Have you seen the new reproduction quilt from Sentimental Stitches? The 1857 Album Quilt? That one is a must do since I love applique! Check it out if you haven't already. Patterns are free!

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  7. The snow looks so pretty. Frusrating that the news just passes it by. Relief that you your power did not go out. The meat loaf sounds PERFECT! I think I made shimp salad sandwiches that night, a favorite of mine :)

    What a great shot of Mo! Such a character.

    Have a great week!

    Kel

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    1. Hi Kel! LOL We ll be eating that meatloaf for awhile! More snow tonight and tomorrow, winter is really really here.

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  8. I love how you see the lives of people who made the quilts ... what they went through when they did or didn't work on them.

    How much life has changed for us all!

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