Turkey Tracks: My Life in Maine – Page 76

Turkey Tracks: Tami’s Table Runner

Turkey Tracks: March 21, 2016

Tami’s Table Runner

DIL Tami came for my birthday this past weekend.

What a terrific gift.

It was a win-win as her birthday is in mid-February, so I helped with her trip up, and she came for my birthday.

We went flat out for four days–and, of course, had non-stop talking and catching up.

We never get this kind of time together in any large measure–and Tami has such a rigorous schedule with four kiddos and lots of school drop off/pick up, that the break away was good for her.

We went to Alewives–Tami loves Alewives–and I do too. We came home with fabrics for a table runner for her looooonnnng farm-style dining table.

We copied Rhea Butler’s idea of combining light and dark 3 1/2-inch light/dark squares into blocks. Rhea used 5 blocks, which works better in a quilt. We used 7 to get the width Tami needs for the table runner.

Here are some of the other fabrics we chose:

The next day we spent about 5 hours sewing and cutting and organizing a long, thin batting, and the time flew by.

Tami got all the blocks cut and into baggies, so she just has to sew the blocks together into the big blocks when she gets home.

She left with the math done for the backing and binding and what threads she will need.

I am going to Charleston next week, so we’ll finish it up then.

We could not get everything into her suitcase, so the package is going into the top of a box of two quilts that I am mailing to two of my son Bryan’s daughters. I was to mail that package today, but will when the hill I live on gets plowed. I’ll post pics on those quilts when the girls and parents have seen them.

Turkey Tracks: Kathy Dietz Pesce’s French Braid Quilts

Turkey Tracks: March 21, 2016

Kathy Dietz Pesce’s

French Braid Quilts

Today is the first day of spring AND we are having a snow storm here in Maine.

(That’s not unusual. And I probably caused it because I switched out my winter cords/sweaters/wool socks/mittens/hats for spring clothes. I had to retrieve some of my winter gear.)

Anyway…

This morning was lazy–a catch-up day after a terrific weekend with DIL Tami, where we went flat out for 4 days. Along the way this morning, Kathy Pesce and I traded some FB messages, and she sent me her “snow day” and weekend quilting, a beautiful little French Braid quilt in shades of rose/pink/garnet. That led to more sharing, and I thought you might like to share her beautiful quilts with me too.

Here’s the rose/pink one:

The border fabric is Japanese–up close it has the most wonderful texture.

Kathy is trying to use up her stash, like me, and loves small pieces of fabric, like me. And, like me, she’s found Bonnie Hunter’s stash management system and scrappy quilt projects. She’s made more of Bonnie’s mystery quilts than I have. The florals in her quilts are an effort to use up stash. And, like me, these days she is more drawn to the brighter and low-volume fabrics, but has a lot of fabric from earlier quilting eras.

Here’s another French Braid that is using florals:

Gorgeous!! I did not ask her if she does her own quilting…

Love the quilt admirer on this quilt too.

Here’s a French Braid where Kathy has really gone scrappy:

This one has set my brain into project planning!!!

Thanks so much Kathy, for the connection, the sharing this morning, and these beautiful quilts.

Turkey Tracks: Happy Birthday Miss Reynolds Georgia

Turkey Tracks: March 15, 2016

Happy Birthday Miss Reynolds Georgia

Fourteen years ago, I brought home Miss Reynolds Georgia, aka “The Beauty Queen.”

(She’s always “the queen” with regard to usurper No No Penny, who steals her beds, her place at my side, and tries to steal her food from time to time.”)

She’s a rat terrier, but one who is the product of being bred back to Chihuahuas to make them smaller. It has also made them “trickier” in terms of health and temperament.

Rey Rey was so so tiny. She could fit into my two palms.

She came home in my lap, under a towel, on the long ride from the Virginia countryside to Falls Church.

For the past fourteen years, she has followed my every step, my every move from room to room, my sleeping and waking, my car trips. (She rides shot gun on the front seat and loves to drive.)

She grieves when I leave her and settles down to wait out the separation.

It’s hard to get a picture of her as she does not like the camera and looks away.

But, here she is today.

She has a huge place in my heart.

She looks great for fourteen, doesn’t she?

(That quilt was made by Gail Galloway Nicholson and quilted by Joan Herrick and gets used every night while we watch television.)

Turkey Tracks: “Crayon Crumbs Box” Quilt

Turkey Tracks: March 16, 2016

Crayon Crumbs Box Quilt

I have been obsessed for much of the winter with making use of the small leftover pieces from my quilt projects. These pieces are too small, for the most part, to cut into a 1 1/2-inch strip or a 2-inch block. so, I started making 2 1/2 inch wide strips with the “crumbs” (as Bonnie Hunter calls them). I use a flip and sew method–and trim from the back when I am done.

I used these strips as sashing for the cheddar version of Bonnie Hunter’s 2015 American Patchwork and Quilting Magazine‘s four-patch challenge.

My four-patch blocks came from my “parts department”–so named by Freddy Moran and Gwen Marston in their excellent book COLLABORATIVE QUILTING. Remember that I spent a lot of time last summer making four-patches from my two-inch bin of squares–cut from leftovers from finished quilts. I love this idea of having a “parts department.” Bonnie Hunter also amasses and uses blocks from her quilt projects–like the small triangles one can salvage from making half-square triangles by laying a square over the corner of a rectangle or larger square (as with a snowball block), sewing from corner to corner, and trimming. Bonnie Hunter uses a template to also mark a sewing line for this smaller triangle. For more info, see her quiltville.com web site and click on tips/etc. at the top of the page. Right now I’m getting about 400 2-inch half-square triangles from a snowball block project–using Bonnie’s method. (They’re going into a border on that quilt.)

So, here is the finished quilt:

Red-orange (or cheddar in quilting terms), teal blue/green, and violet magenta form a triad on the color wheel.

The backing and binding bring in the violet purple/magenta:

You can see the quilting–an soft rose colored thread from Signature–on the border:

The rose color “knocked back” the brightness just a bit. I like it.

The pantograph is “Whirlwind” by Patricia Ritter.

Here are some pics of the quilt top–so you can see the way this block and the sashings work together.

And one showing a secondary pattern:

I have loved every minute of this project!!!

Turkey Tracks: Making Applesauce Is Dead Easy

Turkey Tracks: March 9, 2016

Making Applesauce is Dead Easy

I’ve had a bag of juicing apples bought in the fall and hanging around the refrigerator all winter.

Time to do something with them as they are starting to go bad.

Making applesauce is dead easy.

Dump the chunked apples, peel and all, into a heavy pot.

Add some water so the apples don’t burn.

You could cover the apples and let them render out slowly, but I was in a hurry.

I cooked them down pretty fast, and when they were soft, added a splash of maple syrup and a splash of some Fiore chocolate/cherry balsamic vinegar to the pot. The vinegar, I hoped, would add an interesting layer of flavor. It did.

When the apples are soft, drag out your “boat motor” emulsifier and run it through them. Or use a food processor or a blender.

The good thing here is that all the fiber of the peels stays in this mix, but you don’t taste the peel.

Here’s the applesauce and my boat motor.

I’ve been using it as a topping for the gorgeous raw milk yogurt we get here in Maine. My favorite comes from THE MILK HOUSE, a local business. I top it with a tablespoon of fresh maple syrup and a handful of nuts that I’ve soaked in salt water and dried. BEYOND YUMMY–and healthy!

Turkey Tracks: March Quilty Update

Turkey Tracks: March 7, 2016

March Quilty Update

Well!

I’ve been distracted with all the political hoopla of late and suspect some of you have as well.

But the distraction has not prevented me from quilting.

The “mother ship” is coming along. Since this picture I’ve filled that hole on the left and am almost done with the right side piece that will fill below the red and purple flowers.

This quilt is from Edyta Sitar’s Handfulls of Scraps.

“Crayon Box Crumbs” is on Lucy the long arm. I’ll likely finish her up today.

I’m liking the teal border a lot and will go out to a violet/purple binding. Teal, violet/purple, and red orange are a “triad” on the color wheel. (Thanks Janet K. for seeing I needed a border on this quilt.)

And now there are FOUR of Bonnie Hunter’s Wild and Goosey blocks.

Friend Becca Babb-Brott, who has an Etsy store, Sing Me A Song, helped me find a background fabric for these blocks–which will be set with a 3 1/2 inch wide sashing and as-yet -undetermined cornerstones. Maybe the Wild and Goosey corner block or maybe a small nine-patch. The sashing fabric is a pale grey tiny polka dot–which we think is in keeping with the black and white narrow sashing in these blocks.

What to do with more of the crumb bag–which seens to be breeding in the night?

These blocks, which have 4-inch crumb centers:

It’s easy to cut the surrounding “square” with the Companion Angle ruler. Use the Easy Angle ruler for the half triangles. Quick and easy and no loss of fabric or fiddling with tiny triangles with the flip and sew and trim method.

Becca and I chose a modern, mottled blue kind of fabric for the narrow sashings see in this block. These blocks are inspired by a Bonnie Hunter quilt, “Nine in the Middle,” as seen in her book Adventures with Leaders and Enders. Bonnie used a nine-patch where I am using the string/crumb center.

At some point about two weeks ago, I realized I would need at least 7 1/2 yards of fabric for the outer triangles for the Farmer’s Wives blocks and that the cream I was using wouldn’t be large enough.

Again, Becca helped me choose a new fabric–and I really love it. The soft aqua/teal is just making ALL the blocks sing. Having to take the triangles off of the 16 completed blocks went faster than I would have thought and was well worth the effort. (Still struggling over how to set these blocks.)

I’ve been working on the March allotment of 8 Farmer’s Wife blocks–we are trying for 9 a month to complete the 99 blocks. Here are the ones I’ve completed so far:

Bride:

Carol–the darks are a dark, soft charcoal grey:

Carolina:

And, two of Caroline as I did not like the first one so much–not enough contrast between two of the fabrids:

Granddaughter Mina’s quilt is taking place on the design wall. Pics when more blocks are done. AND I’ve got all the units done for a blue/neutral Jacob’s ladder quilt made from the blue/neutral four-patch project of last summer.

Turkey Tracks: Carroll Rhodes Risk’s English Paper Piecing Project

Turkey Tracks: February 25, 2016

Carroll Rhodes Risk’s English Paper Piecing Project

Carroll Rhodes Risk is a Bellevue High School, Bellevue, Nebraska, classmate.

She’s a quilter too!

She saw my blog posts on various English Paper Piecing projects–especially the exciting millefiori projects.

She’s working on tiny circles–and has promised to send along pics of her progress.

Here’s what she has now:

Aren’t these FUN!!!

(Thanks Carroll, for staying connected and for being a quilter.)

Turkey Tracks: Snow Day Quilting

Turkey Tracks: February 24, 2016

Snow Day Quilting

It’s a kind of a snow day.

We had wet, slick snow early, followed by ice, followed now by rain–and temps are rising.

The Coastal Quilters Sit and Sew cancelled for this morning, wisely. People come from far away here in rural Maine, and the early roads were not good.

I did get out for my haircut, but am now hunkered down with the pleasure of sewing to my heart’s content.

These 30 quilt blocks are ready to sew together:

Is this wild or what?

Here’s a close-up:

I have not decided about a small border yet. It seems wild enough. What do you think???

I have a great backing fabric for this quilt.

These are Bonnie Hunter’s block from the 2015 “American Patchwork and Quilting Magazine” four-patch challenge.

This is my second quilt using this block. This one is set in cheddar fabric and surrounded by sashings made from my “crumb” bag.

(I don’t think the crumb bag is going down in size; I’m pretty sure those crumbs are breeding during the dark of night. But I adore sewing them into something fun.)

I had to make fourteen more sashings, so I found my self organizing the crumbs into piles that stopped all the mindless pawing through off of them.)

I pulled off fabrics that I thought would work in Bonnie’s Wild and Goosey block:

I now have TWO of these. And I’m thinking they will make a third “bright” quilt for Bryan and Corinne’s youngest. I’ll put up pics of the first two “brights” after they have been gifted.

I’ll use sashings to surround each block–maybe a bit wider than the cross sashing in the block’s middle. It will be one fabric, not scrappy. That will make these little blocks pop out nicely.

I AM PUTTING THE BINDING ON “ALLIETORE,” and it’s glorious. Bonnie hit this one right out of the ball park.

Turkey Tracks: It Feels Like Spring: February 2016

Turkey Tracks: February 22, 2016

It Feels Like Spring: February 2016

Temps have soared up here in Maine. In places over this week, some temps will be close to 60 degrees.

I have daffodils coming up through snow patches.

We are to get two days of rain again this week.

Is winter over?

Hard to tell. We usually get some spring snows, even into April. But it has just not been a cold, snowy winter this year.

I have been hard at work on so many quilt projects–each and every one a joy to produce. And more on that later.

Yesterday I took down the Christmas wreath and installed this lovely thing:

How fun is that???

I have another bare branch wreath that I also love. It lives in the garage in the winter. I’ll find another spot for it for right now. Or, rotate it “in” later in the year.

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