Feels Like Christmas!

People think it never gets cold in southern California, but I live in the High Desert at about 2700 foot elevation, where it can get below freezing most nights in the winter. So I braved the mall yesterday afternoon in search of glove and scarf sets for some of my friends who live locally and fling themselves out in the early morning hours to get a head start on that 10,000 steps we're all supposed to be taking every day to keep our hearts healthy.

It made my heart happy to see all the decorations and to see people shopping again! There were a lot of people in the mall, some with bags and some without, but it was comforting to see the crowds and listen to the excited talk as shoppers looked over the merchandise and made their decisions. The prices were also very good; lots of things on sale.

When I got home, I made a cup of tea and rummaged through my stack of quilts to find the Christmas quilt that I like to have on my bed during the holidays. It's always toward the bottom of the pile because it's too big to carry around with me on my travels. I usually take it if I am able to drive to a guild or shop, but it's way too heavy to ship.

Of course, it's pink! The first fabric chosen was the poinsettia print and then everything else was picked to go with it. My friend, Renee Artim, pieced this quilt and gave it to me as a holiday gift in 2000. Renee and I worked together for about 3 years; she did all of the pinning up of quilt tops that I quilted for customers. She would also do bindings, put on borders -- whatever our customers at Batts in the Attic needed that wasn't the actual quilting.

Here's a close-up of one of the snowball blocks; they are quilted identically with a poinsettia inside of a feathered wreath. Both were done using the trapunto by machine technique. The feather is sewn with a soft white rayon thread, the poinsettia with a pink rayon thread.

The border was also sewn with a pink rayon thread for both the trapunto feather work and the background stippling.

Hate to leave this a teaser, but the quilt is too big to open and get a full shot -- it is 90" x 104". Since we will be gone over the holidays, I'm debating whether to put it on the bed or to leave it where it is, draped over a stair rail so that we can see it from downstairs.

It's beginning to look like Christmas around here!

Updating the Workshop Page

Every so often, I need a kick in the butt -- meaning, that I start a project but get bogged down in the details and just don't get it finished. I started overhauling my website workshop page months ago. All that was on the page were the workshop titles and descriptions and some of the classes I teach weren't even on there, even though I teach them fairly frequently.

The incentive to get on this was an e-mail from Bonnie Browning asking me if I was available to teach in Knoxville in July. If my website workshop page had been complete, I could have just directed Bonnie to it so that she could see if there was anything that interested her. Just the kick in the butt that I needed!

My thoughts were that the workshops would be set up with the title and description on the workshop page. Then you could click on the title and a page would come up with a project picture and supply list. I got a couple done and sent them to my fabulous, dependable and just all-around GREAT web person, Kirsten.

She put them up right away, they look great -- only problem is, I only did a couple! So this morning, I sat down at the laptop and started seriously looking at the workshop page. Should I add some? Should I eliminate anything?

One of the workshops that I seriously considered eliminating was the "Winter Holiday Kaleidoscope". It's a piecing class and I don't teach those very often as most people want me to share quilting skills rather than piecing. However, I did do an episode on Simply Quilts featuring this wall hanging, so it's still probably on some quilters' radar as they see reruns of the show.

I went ahead and wrote it up and sent it off for Kirsten to post on the website when she gets a chance. Took a couple of pictures to illustrate the supply list -- here is the Christmas version. The pattern for this wall hanging is called "Christmas Kaleidoscope" and can be purchased here.

On Simply Quilts, we had three versions of this quilt: Christmas, Kwanzaa and Hanukkah. The Hanukkah one is hanging on the wall in one of my sewing rooms -- it's a little too high up for me to get a good picture.

So did I make the right decision -- should it stay on the workshop page or not? Let me know what you think....

Palestine, New Mexico

Dan and I went to the Mark Taper Forum in downtown Los Angeles last night to see a performance of "Palestine, New Mexico". We have season tickets to the Forum and enjoy the "dinner and a play" combo with our neighbors, John and Charlene.

First we ate dinner at Drago, an Italian restaurant a few blocks from the Music Center complex. I had cavatappi with venison to start and monkfish as my entree - the food was outstanding and well worth the not bargain price point.

We parked beneath the Forum building and then took the stairs up to the main area, which was dominated by the Christmas tree in front of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion -- it is HUGE and beautiful...

Dan remembered Culture Clash as being an 80s band, but over the last 20 years they have continued to bring out new work in the form of plays with heavy political content. "Water & Power" and "Chavez Ravine" are prior works of this group with Richard Montoya writing the screenplays.

Without giving away too much plot, "Palestine, New Mexico" chronicles the search of a female Army captain for the truth about the death of one of her soliders, Ray Birdsong. She goes to the reservation where Ray grew up to talk to his father, the tribal chief, and to deliver a letter that Ray had written. Of course, secrets are revealed and the captain gets what she came for....

This is a serious subject handled in a very humorous manner. There are a lot of funny lines and the play is very well acted. It runs 80 minutes without an intermission, but the time went very quickly and I didn't look at my watch once! If a drive to downtown LA is within your reach, it's definitely worth seeing....

Bread Baking at Its Best: Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day

I've always enjoyed the taste of artisan bread and baking it is my way of relaxing. My father had baked bread when my sister and I were growing up and it became a hobby of mine in my early 20's. Since then, I have pursued various methods, such as kneading by hand, bread machine and, now, the no-knead method recommended by authors Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois in their book:

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. I ordered the book as soon as I saw it in The Good Cook's advertisement to its cook book club members. The premise is by spending time in small increments you can have fresh bread pretty much whenever you want it.

First, you mix up a batch of dough -- I make enough for two loaves and have fiddled around with the author's basic recipe to make it just perfect for us. I like my loaves a little larger, so for two loaves I grab a 17 c. capacity Tupperware container and pour in 2 c. slightly warmed water. Then I add 1 T. yeast and 1 T. kosher salt (this is important: regular salt is denser and makes it way too salty, at least for our taste) and give it a stir. It doesn't matter if all the yeast doesn't dissolve. Then I dump in 1 c. all purpose flour and 3 c. bread flour, measured by the "sprinkling" method rather than the "dip and sweep" method and stir it until it is all combined. It will look kind of raggedy, like the picture above.

This is what it looks like after it sits out on the counter for about 3-5 hours, depending on the season of the year. Less time for summer; more for winter....

Once it is to this stage, the lid goes on (I leave a corner up so that the lid doesn't blow off because of accumulated fermentation) and the container goes in the refrigerator. It can stay there for as many as 14 days, adding a sourdough type of flavor as it ages.

Then a couple of hours before I want to bake, I take the dough out -- half if I'm baking one loaf, all of it if I'm baking both, like I am above. If just one loaf is needed, the container goes back in the refrigerator until I need it again. I form the loaves in my hands with lots of flour so that it doesn't stick to me and then put it on a silicone sheet on top of a wooden peel to rest.

If I have emptied it, I don't wash the container -- just start over with more ingredients. This incorporates the leftover bits of dough on the sides of the container and makes the next batch a little more sour. It also means that there is always dough on hand ready to be baked.

The dough doesn't rise much at this stage, but I leave it about two hours, starting my oven at the 1-1/2 hour mark. Giving the oven a 30 minute preheat at 425 F. thoroughly heats the large flat stoneware (I guess they are known as pizza stones? Mine is rectangular, not round) so that when I slide the loaves in, it's all ready to go. As the authors recommend for this method, I also put a broiler pan under the stone and that preheats as well.

For this particular batch, the loaves were floured and slashed before they went in the oven. Once I had the loaves, silicone sheet and all, in the oven, I add about a cup of water to the preheated broiler pan and shut the oven door. This creates the steam to make a really great crust.

These are the loaves as they came out of the oven. I made two sizes, one to serve for dinner and the other to keep for breakfast and lunch the next day.

I have made some alterations to their basic recipes, but I would most definitely recommend this book. There are about 100 recipes in it using this no-knead, refrigerated dough method. They have also come out with a second book, Healthy Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. I have purchased that book, but not baked from it yet.

Always willing to share my hobbies!

Remembered to Take Pictures -- Mostly

The gourmet dinner was great! Food turned out fine, even though I think I overcooked Dawna's chicken -- she didn't complain....Dawna eats fish and chicken, but that's pretty much it for protein, so if we choose to serve red meat, I make something else for her.

The recipes for the salad, pork and polenta were in a Sunday addition to our newspaper. It's called Relish and shows up periodically every couple of months.



Missed getting a picture of the salads just as they were served, but here are all the ingredients: The mustard, honey, grated rind from the lime, chives, champagne vinegar and olive oil all went into the vinaigrette. Butter lettuce was distributed among the plates, grapefruit, sliced avocado and toasted walnuts were sprinkled on the salad and then the vinaigrette drizzled over all.

The grape tomatoes were tossed with olive oil, minced garlic, salt and pepper before roasting in a hot oven for about 15 minutes. I sliced my beautiful homemade artisan bread (I really have to do a post just on that!), toasted it and ladled the tomatoes and juice over the bread slices. I remembered seeing a recipe for this, couldn't find it so just made it work...


Rosemary is easy to find around here -- just walk outside my back door and there's a great big old bush!



Rubbed olive oil on the pork tenderloins and then coated them with a mixture of rosemary, garlic, salt & pepper. Pan seared and then roasted in a hot oven for 15 minutes.

Apricot preserves, garlic and lemon juice -- not great for toast, but really good on pork tenderloin as a glaze!

Each plate had polenta prepared with milk and chicken broth with slices of the pork tenderloin and green beans sauteed with garlic, lemon rind and olive oil. Lots of garlic in this dinner! We've made comments before about how much butter is in most of these gourmet dinners, but there was hardly any butter in this one -- olive oil and garlic seemed to be the theme...

And, finally, dessert! Pears roasted with a bit of butter, brown sugar, cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg, then sprinkled with dried cranberries and toasted sliced almonds and drizzled with a white chocolate/cream sauce. This recipe came from a magazine advertisement for one of the spice companies, McCormick, I think...
November was Dawna's month, but we were all busy and/or out of town, so she is doing hers next week on Monday. I'll bring the camera!!

Getting Ready for Tonight's "Gourmet Dinner"

Once a month the owners of my local quilt shop Bolts in the Bathtub and my husband Dan and I get together for a gourmet dinner. We take turns hosting, so tonight I am cooking four courses, Dan is matching them with the appropriate wines and the other two couples are guests. Then for the next two months, we just show up ready to enjoy good food and wine at one of the other two houses.

It's a great opportunity to try out new recipes on people who will love you even if the food isn't perfect! Dan also uses these times to try out new wine pairings as the seasons turn and ingredients change. Living in Southern California, it is quite often possible to use local and organic produce, so we always have good fresh things to eat.

We decorated the table this morning -- since it's December, it was pretty easy to go with a Christmas theme. Each year, we move ahead a month, so in 2009, I got March, June, September and December; in 2010, I'll have January, April, July and October. Yikes! That means I'll have two months in a row! But as a HUGE consolation prize -- I get Halloween!! Hooray!!

Another picture of the table; that's a Longaberger basket with a wreath, a hurricane lamp and a candle in it. The crystal is Mikasa's Ribbon Holly Christmas pattern. There is a gold tablecloth underneath the whole thing and then a 2-yard piece of sheer gold holly print fabric on top of that.

The big wine glass is from Partylite candles and was a gift to me from Sheila Connolly, one of our super AAQ retreat people from session I -- thank you, Sheila! Doesn't it look fab? When I got home I immediately called my PartyLite lady to see if she had another one -- SCORE!

Closeup of the place setting, which is probably a good time to share the menu:

Salad Course: Ruby Grapefruit and Avocado Salad with Three Cheese Two Bite Souffles (served with Champagne)

First Course: Roasted Grape Tomatoes with Garlic Olive Oil on Toasted Artisan Bread (made by me and served with some sort of red wine Dan hasn't decided on yet)

Main Course: Rosemary Apricot Pork Tenderloin with Creamy Cheese Polenta and Sauteed Green Beans (Pinot Noir)

Dessert: Roasted Pears with Almonds, Cranberries and White Chocolate Drizzle (some sort of dessert wine that Dan hasn't decided on yet).

The champagne is in the fridge, but about a half hour before guests arrive, Dan will scrounge through his wine cellar and come up with some good stuff.

As for me, I have things well under control -- well, at least the bread dough is under control! Now back into the kitchen to get everything else prepped.....

Hopefully, this time I'll remember to take pictures of the food!

And to the Post Office

Happy that the quilting is done and just the way I want it, I'm ready to do the binding:

A lot of quilters remove the excess batting and backing fabric before binding, but I don't -- I use my long ruler to draw a line on all four sides of the quilt, making sure that the corners are 90" and that all border widths are even. I then sew on the binding, aligning the raw edges of the binding with my drawn line.

All done and ready to go....

Close-up so you can see the quilting....

Closer still.....

The back....

And a close-up of the back....

Now I'm ready to hit it with some packing tape to get off all the lint caused by the batting rubbing up against the quilt during the quilting process, get it into a box and off to the post office!

Sewing the Feathers in the Border

It wasn't easy, but after taking into consideration the density of the quilting that I had already done as well as how I thought each of the feather borders might look, I made my choice. The name of the manufacturing company is not on the sticker, just a description Big/Little Feather, SN22, 3".



Several factors went into the decision as to which marking tool to use, the primary consideration being that I was not going to wash this quilt before sending it to the Road to California office. That meant that water-soluble markers weren't suitable. Thought about the air soluble, but the fabric is fairly dark, so the purple may not have shown up well.



So I used the Ultimate Pounce Pad, which has white chalk particles that give a nice clear line, don't smear and irons off when you're done. After I finish the quilting, I usually give the marked areas a good brush and then iron off any remaining chalk.

I stitched the center line first because I think it's easier to stitch the feathers to meet the line than to try to connect sewn feathers with the line afterward.

Then the feathers are stitched to meet the center. Below is a shot of the back of the quilt so you can see the stitching without the chalk in the way.

A "boo-boo pin" marks my mistake so I can take it out later....

The second side is stitched....

And when I'm all done, the bat goes in the lower right hand corner somewhere -- sort of a signature thing.

Now all I have to do is bind it and put the sleeve on and it's ready to ship!

Decisions, Decisions....

The first thing I did was to thread my machine, top and bottom, with the gold rayon thread. I lowered the top tension to 3.25, my normal preferred tension for rayon on the Bernina machine that I am using.

I completed all of the feathers marked within the star and then stitched in the ditch around the outline of the star.

LOVE this stitching -- had to show you a closer view; you can still see quite a bit of the purple marker, but it will disappear by the end of the day.

Using the gold rayon on the back of the quilt makes the feathers really stand out...

I decided to stitch straight lines in a blue lighter than the fabric so that it would show up well. I will probably use the same thread for the feathers in the border. Sulky rayon, #1198 Dusty Navy is threaded in the top of the machine. I kept my tension set on 3.25 for this thread.

A Mettler Silk Finish 100% cotton thread is in the bobbin, color #885. It is a medium navy thread with a teal cast to it.

Now it's time to make the big decision -- this feather for the border?

Or this one?

I'll let you know what I decide!

Quilting Makes a Difference Exhibit at Road to California

There will be something new and fun at Road to California this year -- an exhibit entitled "Quilting Makes a Difference". I was asked to be part of this and don't know how many other people are participating. Each of the quilters was sent a 36" square pieced top along with fabric for backing and binding. We are to quilt it any way we want, bind it and send it in by December 1st (OOPS!) to the Road to California office.

The whole idea is to see how different the quilts look depending on how each of us has interpreted the top and designed and executed the quilting.

I'll walk you through my process, starting with getting it ready for quilting....

My backing should be at least 2" bigger all the way around than the top, so if the top is approximately 36" square, my backing should be about 40"x40". I use 2" binder clips (you can get these at Staples or any office supply store) to clamp down two sides of the quilt and, since it is too small to clamp all the way around, I use 2" painters tape to "stick down" the other two sides.

I've found that painters tape doesn't fray the fabric edges as much as masking tape does.

Here's a close-up of one corner -- I place the painters tape parallel to the edge so I get a bigger sticking surface.

Leaving the binder clips and tape underneath, I lay the batting on top and smooth it out. I also want the batting to be 2" bigger all the way around than the quilt top. When I'm figuring out how much backing fabric and batting I need, it's easiest to just add 4" each to the width and length....

....then all I need to do is center the quilt top. Allowing that extra width and length for the backing and the batting makes it easy, eliminating the exacting placement that would be necessary if everything were the same size.

This is the stencil that I have decided to use; it is by Barbara Chainey for StenSource Int'l, Inc., number BC1030, 14" Feather Block. It doesn't fit the star shape so I will need to do some adjusting and re-drawing to make it work.



Marking in air-soluble marker makes a nice purple line that goes away by itself without washing. The good news is it goes away by itself, but that is also the bad news -- once you mark it, you have to be prepared to sew it right away!

These are my current favorite pins -- they're called Basting Brights and you get blue, purple, red and green in the same package. They're colorful and easy to see; small enough to not leave holes in the quilt fabric, but large enough to manipulate easily.

This is the thread I have decided to use for the star quilting -- it's a Sulky rayon, color #1185, Golden Yellow. Now that I have the center marked, I'm ready to take it to the machine. I'll do the feather quilting in the star first, using my free motion foot, then put my walking foot on to do the straight stitching in the ditch to outline the star.

Haven't decided yet, but then maybe there should be some straight stitching in the blue and more feathers in the border. I'll keep you posted!