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Turkey Tracks: Alewives Quilt Shop Low-volume Fat Quarter Club

November 5, 2016

Alewives Quilt Shop Low-Volume Fat Quarter Club

Each month I get a bundle of ten, low-volume fat quarters from Alewives Quilts in Damariscotta Mills, Maine.

Low-volume fabrics are those that do not have a lot of dye in them–so they are mostly neutrals.

The club lasts twelve months, so there are more bundles to come.

But here’s what was in my mailbox today:

My goodness, aren’t they pretty?

Each month has had a color theme–this one is clearly an aqua blue.

Yummy!

Buying fat quarters in bundles is a great way to get a wide fabric selection, especially if you are working with small pieces and English Paper Piecing.

Turkey Tracks: Lavender Orpington Hens and a Blue Wheaten Rooster

November 5, 2016

Lavender Orpington Hens and a Blue Wheaten Rooster

A friend has some lavender Orpington hens just coming into laying age.

Rose Lowell gave her one of the Blue Wheaten Roosters for her flock.

We are all wondering how gorgeous the babies from this mix will be.

Here’s a little video:

Turkey Tracks: Black Gold From Vermiculture Worms

Turkey Tracks: November 4, 2016

Black Gold From Vermiculture Worms

I have almost finished winterizing outside–thanks to Mat Jandreau.

Yesterday we emptied the worm bin into the cold frame outside. It was really heavy for both of us to carry. (Note to self: do this task earlier in the fall.)

Penny was very interested. She really tries to help as much as she can.

I washed out the bin and picked out worms to go back inside, covered them with shredded paper, and will feed them as soon as I have kitchen compost again.

I moved the cold frame this year to a new spot. The frame is kind of deep, so I used the soil from all the container pots to build it up again. Then I added what compost I had ready. I layered the bin with newspapers, to hold the worms in place until I could get some of them back, and we dumped the worms.

We are getting rain, so I’ve left the frame open so the rain can further wash the nutrients from this “black gold” all through the cold frame.

After the rain, I’ll seed with some lettuce and button it all up for the cold months. Last year some delicious romaine lettuce sprouted up in the cold frame. Let’s see what happens with intentional seeding.

Here’s a little video:

Turkey Tracks: The Last Tomato of 2016

Turkey Tracks: November 3, 2016

The Last Tomato of 2016

And, it was delicious!

Of course it had to go into a BLT sandwich–made with real mayo.

(I used avocado oil this time and I’m not a fan. Back to a mild olive oil I think.)

OK, here’s the real truth:

I love potato chips, and Lays has come out recently with this colorful mixture.

And the grapes this year…well these are organic at least! And they are delicious!

Turkey Tracks: “En Provence,” The 2016 Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt

Turkey Tracks: November 3, 2016

“En Provence,”

The 2016 Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt

I picked up the paint chips today.

Of course, Bonnie uses a wide variety of fabrics in each of these colors–which makes for a quilt with lots of hues. Nothing is flat about Bonnie’s quilts.

In addition, there are about 3 yards of neutrals.

You can get to this posting, which just came out, on Bonnie Hunter’s Quiltville.com. Go to the blog, look at the upper listing of sub-sites on the blog, for the mystery quilt, “En Provence.”

If you have any idea that you might want to make this quilt some day, which will start the day after Thanksgiving, print out the instructions each week.

Turkey Tracks: October Farmer’s Wife Blocks

November 3, 2016

October Farmer’s Wife Blocks

These blocks have been done since mid-October, but I have been…busy, busy.

No. 75, Nan

Cotton+Steel fabrics

No. 76 Nancy

Cotton+Steel fabrics

No 77, Nellie

Cotton+ Steel fabrics, but this one needed higher contrast in the pink fabric, which has some navy in it. The center dark angles are not showing up properly.

No 78. Old Maid

Tula Pink ladybugs and Cotton+Steel plaid

No 79 Patience

Cotton+Steel

No 80 Patricia

Cotton+Steel. This one is subtle and probably could have used more contrast, but I like it. I LOVED to play jacks when I was a girl.

No 81 Peony

Cotton+ Steel

I was sailing along and then hit this block. The hand piecing version in the book made much more sense. In the foundation piecing organization, everything swirls around that tiny central square. It was a nightmare to sew. Half seams, y seams, odd angles, and so on. I really think whoever did the foundation piecing for this book did not do a great job. There are tons of needless difficulties and seams that do not abut, which makes the blocks too bulky in places. I had to go back and toy with seams or clip into them over and over.

No 82 Pharlemia

Here’s another very difficult block–needlessly made more so by the foundation piecing pattern. I threw out the directions, but the way the pieces are combined in the foundation pattern is just plain ruthlessly difficult.

Friend Becca Babb-Brott (Sew Me A Song Etsy store) threw her Farmer’s Wives blocks up on a design wall at the October retreat (more on the retreat later) to check out color choices. These blocks just went up randomly to try to get some visual notion of what is going on with color choices. She does not have them all “up” here, but aren’t they wonderful? The grey background looks flat in this photo, but it is shimmery and lively in person and is wonderful with the blocks. This quilt is AMAZING.

Turkey Tracks: Creating Winter Culinary Assets

Turkey Tracks: October 31, 2016

Creating Winter Culinary Assets

My kitchen smells like garlic, shallot, parsley, and lime juice.

It’s making me hungry!

It’s that time again–the time to clean out the garden and to do something with the last of the food crops.

The cherry tomatoes were so bountiful this year–Sun Golds. I was able to pick all the green tomatoes as I worked.

I had a huge bin of them, but I somehow did not take a picture. With one thing and another, I did not get to lacto-fermenting them right away, and they starting to ripen on me. I wound up having to pull out the dehydrator again to dry them as I cannot eat all of these before they start to go bad.

Here are the green ones, all jarred up and, hopefully, lacto-fermenting in their garlicky, herbed brine.

Look what I found in the zucchini plants! I checked them all the time, but missed these two. Into the dehydrator they went–cut into bite-size pieces that will be used in soups/stews over the winter. The green squash next to the napkins is a Buttercup–it is dense and sweet. I plan to roast the flesh with cut-up large green tomatoes, onion, garlic, little potatoes, rosemary, and olive oil.

I love our winter squashes–but we did not get so many this year due to the drought.

The striped ones are Delicatas–which are candy sweet. The tan ones are Butternuts and are mild. They are happy in the warm kitchen. The Delicatas won’t store as long as the Butternuts.

I processed the cabbage I bought for winter sauerkraut–which I use instead of lettuce sent in here from California, 18 days old and gassed and tasteless.

You’ve seen other posts on lacto-fermented sauerkraut if you’ve followed this blog at all. If not, you can search on sauerkraut to see the lovely ruby red color this mixture will turn. I will probably make some carrot/turnip kraut before I am done. It is delicious and turns a bright orange.

Here is a little video of what I am looking for to see if the mixtures are “booking”–my slang for fermenting properly.

Now, here’s the really fun thing that has upped ante on my lacto-fermenting goodies:

What a great book!

I am still reading it, but have already tried some of the herb recipes.

I cut the parsley in the garden–the curly one yesterday, the Italian today–and used the interesting parsley recipe in the book, sans the hot pepper as I am allergic.

I took off the leaves from the stems and discarded those. I don’t wash any of these items–I just brush away any debris–as I want the organisms to stay put as they are part of the lacto-fermenting wild process.

Here’s yesterday’s haul. I have two more from today. The plastic bags contain water and will form a seal over the top of the mixtures, but will allow me to get to them to push them down and let the liquid rise to the top.

There is a recipe for processing basil with this method–and it will keep for six months or more.

What about sage? Rosemary? Chives? Tarragon? MINT?

I may try mint tomorrow as I have a lot of it.

If this method works, I’ll try more herbs next fall.

For those of you who don’t know, lacto-fermented veggies are chock full of really good probiotics and are more powerful than the veggie/herb by itself.

Turkey Tracks: Quilt-let Blocks Done!

Turkey Tracks: October 30, 2016

Quilt-let Blocks Done!

Here are the last quilt-lets. I am sewing the individual pieces together now.

At the end of this post you can see all the blocks in the final layout.

(Yes, I apparently liked this green Cotton+Steel print so much I used it twice! It’s easy to get confused when setting up blocks.

There are two Cotton+Steel cat blocks too.

Turkey Tracks: The Coastal Quilters’ October Retreat

Turkey Tracks: October 22, 2016

The Coastal Quilters’ October Retreat

We had a great time!

As happened in May, we want to go back soon, soon, soon…

And we will in May and October 2017. AND we will add a day for those of us who want a bit longer time sewing at the Franciscan Guest House in Kennebunk, Maine. (This forty acre property sits walking distance to the town or the beach and the grounds themselves are lovely.) We checked in Monday at 1 p.m. and left Wednesday around noon, but could have stayed until 1 p.m.

This time, we were in the gym. Look at this awesome set-up:

(That is Vicki Fletcher at the cutting table. See her quilt below.)

We had lots and lots of ironing boards and design walls and a table full of snacks we had brought with us and coffee, tea, and water supplied. We have breakfast every day, lunch on the full day, and dinner on the two nights we are there.

Here is Vicki’s quilt–which is made from a four-patch of five-inch blocks that get sliced and resewn.

Sharon Flanagan and Margaret-Elaine Jinno. Margaret-Elaine had pre-cut Farmer’s Wife blocks and she made SIXTEEN of them over the two days.

Sharon worked on hemming some curtains for her brother and left Saturday afternoon for a special high tea at MIT, returning early evening. She and Margaret Elaine stayed up late, and when the rest of us came down in the morning, we found this quilt on the design wall. It’s an “amazing” quilt. Do you see why?

Lisa Niles brought her friend Sandy Pushaw.

Here’s Lisa’s quilt:

Here’s Sandy:

And here’s Sandy’s quilt developing: a trip around the world.

Nancy Saulnier, or Mac, is Jan Kelsey’s friend. She came last May and is coming again, with or without Jan.

A Christmas beauty:

Tori Manzi was with us for the first time:

Tori did a retreat with Pink Castle quilts (a good site to follow) up in Michigan. The medallion and each of the borders were designed by different designers. We had such a good time watching Tori make these borders. There are more borders to follow I think.

Here’s another project Tori is working on–a “sampler” type quilt of these big, intricate blocks. This one is foundation pieced.

Jan Kelsey worked on a number of projects. There was a quilt with half-square triangles that disappeared from the design board before I got a picture of it. Here Jan is working on one of the grocery bags made from feed sacks.

Look at this cute feed sack!

My friend Penny Rogers Camm came over from Burlington, Vermont, to join us. You can see her FIRST QUILT in an earlier blog post. Here she is with Becca Babb-Brott (check out Becca’s Sew Me A Song Etsy store).

Penny fell in love with Amy Friend’s “Tell Me A Story” quilt and here are her first blocks for that quilt, which is FOUNDATION PIECED. She is doing fine with that method.

She went home with this many blocks made. I am very proud of my student!

Lots of sharing went on among everyone. We really loved this unified setting we had–no middle aisle to separate us.

Becca worked on the Jen Kingwell project she has undertaken–a fusion of three Kingwell quilts, using all Kingwell blocks. Becca is creating a geographical “scene” in this quilt.

See the sky, the town buildings, etc.

Mary Sue Bishop finished her sweatshirt jacket. Behind her is the beginning of her trip around the world quilt.

Here’s the back of Mary’s jacket:

Linda Satkowski worked on several projects during the retreat.

Linda sashed blocks from the Bonnie Hunter 2015 mystery quilt, “Allietore.” Isn’t this gorgeous? She will add another row maybe and, definitely, a border.

Becca wanted to see what kinds of colors she had in the Farmer’s Wife blocks, so she just randomly put blocks on a design wall. The camera is making her grey background look flat, but that grey is all shimmery and glowy in real life. This quilt will be so much fun.

As I said, as we were driving away, we wanted to return.

Turkey Tracks: Fall Color Finally Came

Turkey Tracks: October 21, 2016

Fall Color Finally Came

I had despaired, with the terrible drought we have, of having our usual gorgeous fall color. Many early-turning trees, like the ashes, just let their leaves turn brown and dropped them.

But somehow over the past few days, everything turned gold, orange, and red. The oaks are now turning a deep mahogany–they are like the bass notes in a song.

Yesterday it was 90 degrees in New York City, 80 in Boston, and in the 70s here. And it’s mid-October. There has been no frost on the pumpkins yet on my hill.

Yesterday I picked about 20 Sun Gold cherry tomatoes and harvested what will be the last zucchini. I have been waiting for a freeze to clean up the garden and plant the garlic and other bulbs. (I add daffodils and Siberian scilla every year.)

Now I have a lot to do to clean up and to winterize outside. Or it seems like a lot right now.

Last year was not a good hydrangea year. So I didn’t have any to cut for the house. This year the hydrangeas are glorious.

I cut some of the Annabelle’s, which are white and turn lime green, early on. They are on the left. The outside Annabelle’s have gone brown now.

Yesterday I went out and cut the others until I filled all the vases. I just pull of all leaves and put the stems into a dry vase. Most dry just fine, especially with this dry weather.

Here are some Pee Gees.

And lots of the blue variety:

Some years I’ve used these dried hydrangeas in my Christmas wreath.

I keep saying that I’m cutting “the last flowers in the garden,” but I really do think these Cosmos will be the last to come inside.

I found a few strays for the kitchen window:

That stone in the window is from the Bryan family mill back in the Reynolds, Georgia, area. My beloved uncle, Sydney Hoke Bryan, gave it to me when I was in my early twenties and visiting Reynolds. John and I had started a family and had two little boys 14 months apart. I don’t think I realized then how deep my rural roots were, and I am so grateful to have this time of my life where I am back among farms and farm people.

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