veggies and fruits!

While we all waste away in the sweltering heat, the vegetables continue to thrive.  I snapped a few shots from the garden yesterday.

The first guy is a purple kohlrabi plant.  My dad grew kohlrabi when I was a kid, and this is the first time I’m trying it.  Happy to say the kohlrabi is thriving, a nice tribute to my father’s green thumb which he was happy to pass on to me.  The second is a cucumber vine tendril, followed by a young brandywine tomato that looks like it has a squinty face.  Finally, my largest tomato yet.  I believe it’s a Celebrity.  Can’t wait for it to ripen!

 

Also, the temperatures finally started to decline a bit this weekend, so I did my annual fruit run to the farmer’s market, where I purchased some peaches and blueberries, supplemented by some store-bought strawberries and raspberries, and made some jam.

I was happy this year to have the help of my good pal Sarah and her son Sam, who is a little over a year old.  They kept such good jam-making company and didn’t mind that I made their kitchen hot!  The first kind we made was a peach strawberry freezer jam.

The second was a mixed berry, which we cooked and canned.

Also, for each batch we split them in half and did half with classic pectin and half with low-sugar pectin to compare taste.  Don’t get me wrong, I love super-sweet jam, but I also enjoy variety.  I’m excited to do the taste test and see which I prefer.

 

Last but not least, I’ve almost finished a baby quilt for the little-over-a-week-old Peter, my good friend Alison’s baby.  For Alison and I, Halloween is an every day of the year celebration, so I was excited to make Peter a Halloween quilt, even though it is July.  I used some fabrics from Tula Pink’s Nightshade line, and some of my beloved Ghastlies fabrics, filled out with Kona cottons in greys, purples, and aquas.  Here is the stack of rectangles getting ready to become a zig zag quilt.  Just have to quilt and put on a binding, and this quilt will be ready to put in the mail!

some baking, some knitting, and some quilting

I know, I know.  I took all last week off, so the last thing I should be doing right now is taking a break from dissertation writing in order to write a new blog post.  But well, it’s summer, and I have some new photos, and dissertation writing can be such a drag.  So I’ll keep it short, and then get back to the grind.

Last week I had the pleasure of traveling with my family to Topsail Island, NC.  A few of us make this pilgrimage every year and enjoy a week of laying on the beach, working puzzles, and cooking delicious food.  This year, I owed my mom a Mother’s Day dessert since I wasn’t able to go home on the big day.  Her request: pie in a cake.  I tackled this confection twice before thanks to the lovely recipes over here, and was very excited to see the recently added recipe for blueberry pie cupcakes with lemon curd frosting.

Since I got a bit of a sunburn the first day at the beach thanks to aged sunscreen, I didn’t mind spending the day in the kitchen.  So with the help of my niece and mom, I started by making mini blueberry pies from scratch.  I combined a few recipes and used my old standby, the Epicurious best pie crust ever recipe, for the crust.

My mom and I had purchased the perfect summery cupcake wrappers before the trip.  

    

I made the vanilla cake batter and filled each cup with a heaping tablespoon of batter, and then dropped in the pies.  Cover the top with more batter, and voila!

We served them up with lemon curd the first day.  I used Martha Stewart’s lemon curd recipe.  I’m always amazed how quick and easy it is to make lemon curd because it issome of the tastiest stuff on earth.

We had a great week at the beach, and when we returned, I was happy I had a chance to block a sweater I made for my mom this spring, the Sea and Surf Sweater (pattern by Nicole LaRoche in Debbie Stoller’s Stitch n Bitch Superstar Knitting book).  My mom and I were leafing through the book in a local craft store, and both loved the sweater.

The color and yarn were so perfect in the original pattern (Blue Sky Organic cotton in Azul) that we decided to stick with it.  Here is the sweater being blocked just before I left WV to head back to Michigan.  I can’t wait to post a photo of my mom modeling it!

I love the wave pattern!

Finally, I just finished a quilt last night for my cousin Katrina’s new baby, Gideon.  I haven’t washed it yet, so it’s a little wrinkly.  But I thought I’d post up a few shots anyway.

I used some leftover Castle Peeps fabric because I love it so much, and finally made my first zig zag quilt! Here are some close-ups.

I can’t wait to meet Gideon and give him his quilt.

 

Oh, one more thing. Some shots from the garden.  When I left for North Carolina, the tomato plants had beautiful flowers on them.  Have you ever looked at a tomato flower up close?

And when I returned, there were a ton of young, green tomatoes!

 

Okay, back to work.  I leave you with a preview of quilts to come…the first two fabrics selected for the Pirate’s Daughter Quilt.  Hope everyone has a great week!

The Pirate’s Daughter quilt

My mom bought this beautiful print to hang in the room of her house that my 7-yr-old niece, Amelia, and I share when we visit.

It’s called “The Pirate’s Daughter”, by Maia Larkin.  Mom shared the image with me and asked me if I would be interested in making a quilt for our room inspired by the painting.  This is a quilter’s dream!  I’m so excited to get started.

As I have a list of other quilts I want to make for friends who are having babies, I won’t be working on this one right away, but I have (of course) already started daydreaming about patterns and fabrics.  I’m thinking about using the washed out grey tone as the dominant color, and incorporating an array of vivid shades from the rainbow to reflect the pop of color in the painting.  Here are some of the colorful fabrics I’ve been thinking about.

And perhaps I will finally tackle Denyse Schmidt’s Single Girl quilt pattern for this quilt?

Here it is in a grey with bright, bold colors and beautiful hand stitching (by see lori sew).

I also like this quit with a simple triangle design of grey and bright colors by Red Pepper Quilts.

Also, what about this cute fabric for the backing?

And I don’t want to get too literal, maybe black and white striped binding to match the little lady’s socks?

Let me know if you have any thoughts/ideas!

 

P.S.  Can you tell I’m not very focused on my dissertation writing today?  Got back late last night from an awesome roller derby tournament with my league’s B-level travel team, The Motor City Disassembly Line.  Feeling pretty tired and beat up…will be more diligent tomorrow!!!

New fabric and book!

As you might have suspected, things haven’t been all cupcakes and roses here.  The grieving process is certainly rocky and unpredictable.  But I have been keeping my head up as much as possible, and unexpected acts of kindness and reaching out from friends and family has sustained me.

Just last week, in fact, I received the most thoughtful series of packages from my Aunt Judy!  Judy is, as I have mentioned before, one of my sewing and quilting mentors.  She is so talented and generous, and I have gained so much from her.  The packages arrived last week and I knew from the weight and feel of them that there was fabric inside.  I was so excited to rip into them and discover a layer cake and several larger pieces of Kate Spain’s Good Fortune line.

Such a vibrant and exciting collection!!!  I am so happy to have these fabrics in my stash to draw from for a future quilt.  Judy knows I love the color orange, and the color is generously sprinkled throughout this collection.  I can’t wait to figure out what kind of pattern will best display these fabrics.

And the new book that Judy sent me, The Modern Quilting Bee Block Party, will help me decide!!!

There are such beautiful designs in here, like Sarah’s Book Quilt:

and Jacquie’s quilt “Profit Margins” (you know how I love Dresdens):

I cannot wait to try some of these.  Thank you so much, Aunt Judy, for brightening my week!

The new fabrics cheered my up so much that I finally bit the bullet and purchased a fat quarter bundle of Tula Pink’s new line “Nightshade”, which I sort of feel was created just for me.

I mean, just look at those apothecary jars!

The 3 colorways are called Vapor, Evening, and Absinthe!  Yeah, simply perfect.  I can’t wait until they arrive, at which point I will squirrel them away and fret about how to use them.  I keep hoping I will win the lottery so I can buy at least another half yard of each print so I can keep sewing with them for years to come!  Now I just need to save up for fabrics from Alexander Henry’s Ghastlies collection, and I will have the perfect Halloween quilt!

It’s funny how new fabric can lift your spirits.

A Warmish Breeze

I finished a quilt for a new baby recently, but it’s been so rainy here that I haven’t had a chance to post photos of it yet.  The sun was out a bit today and there was a warmish breeze, so I figured it was time to get out for a quilt photo shoot.

A while back, I saw the Sparkle Quilt Along on In Color Order.  I usually do simple, modern quilts that don’t require a ton of piecing, but I was instantly in love with this design.  And I thought it would give me the perfect opportunity to work with some of Lizzy House’s fabrics.  I knew the perfect baby to receive such a quilt, the newly born Holden.  This is my dear friend Heather’s second child, and he is the cutest little buddy.  I’ve only seen him in photos and can’t wait to meet him this summer.

I don’t usually do monochromatic quilts for babies, especially ones in colorways more traditionally appropriate for the baby’s gender, but Heather is a girly girl through and through, and I made a pink quilt for her little gal, so I thought Holden’s should be blue.

The fabric was so much fun to work with because the prints are so playful.  And I know it’s getting a little warm for blankets, but I’m hoping Holden can stretch out on it this summer as he begins to grow and take in the world around him.

And speaking of the warmth, my little seedlings are starting to mature!  And the spinach and oregano are in full effect!

Happy to see the sun coming out.

That Yearning

My world has significantly changed since my last post.  Christmas was difficult, being the first Christmas Eve I’ve ever had without my Granny Hatcher.  Her presence and her home defined that holiday for all of my cousins and me, so it was hard to celebrate without her.  Shortly after a mournful holiday, I returned to Michigan, ready to turn over a new leaf in the new year, but it wasn’t long before I was called back home for another painful turn of events.  My father had fallen ill.  He was diagnosed with lung cancer, and it was only a matter of weeks before he passed away.

It’s difficult to write that.  I still haven’t fully processed the fact that he is gone, and seeing it in writing adds weight to it, makes it more real.  The grieving process is a strange one, with many twists and turns.  You do all of the things everyone tells you to do in order to cope with loss– counseling, time with family, time off from work as needed, crying, looking through old photographs– but what you realize is that while the pain of loss becomes less frequent, it is still so sharp and searing when it comes over you.

The thing that has made the loss of my father the most manageable for me is preserving a living memory of him.  One of my favorite memories of my dad is the time we spent in the garden together, and I still attribute my love of digging in the dirt to him.  I recently prepared my garden bed by fortifying the soil with compost, and I sowed some of my early crops, spinach and carrots.  It was meditative to move the soil around, and has been hopeful to see the seeds sprouting.

 

A couple of Christmases ago, I made a quilt for my dad from the old suits and ties he wore at the beginning of his career as an attorney.  My mom thought I should have it, so I brought it back and put it in my trunk full of quilts.

I’ve been taking it out every now and then, thinking about the people he advocated for while wearing those suits.  When I made the quilt, I thought it would be neat to keep some of the pockets in tact just to provide visual interest to the quilt.  Those are my favorite parts now, because they remind me they were real garments with a real person behind them instead of just squares of fabric.

 

I had hoped some day I would inherit the quilt back from my dad, I just never thought it would be this soon.

 

This post is a tribute to my dad.  I shared this poem with him the day after my grandmother (his mother) passed in October, and he said that the poem, in his opinion was about “the absolute importance of appreciating life while it is lived.”  He went on, expressing his sadness about my grandfather and grandmother’s passing:  “The poem calls it ‘that yearing.’  Oh, how I do miss him and will her.  They were my lifeline and what life was all about.  Take from it nothing more than that, embrace each moment, and pay it forward.  Let your mind paint her nails this Xmas and comb her hair and then if you feel it, cry from the memory.  That is the grieving process and how we heal.”  Today I am feeling that yearning.

 

 

 

 

In the works

Thanks to my wonderful grandmother, I was able to stop by one of my favorite fabric stores (Sew to Speak in Columbus, OH) on the way back to Michigan after the holidays and invest in some fabric and a pattern for a new dress.  I’ve been quilting so much that I haven’t made a garment in quite a while, and it was so nice to have holiday money to buy some things I wouldn’t normally buy for myself!

The pattern is Amy Butler’s Anna Tunic, and I’m going with the longer dress option (hits at the calf).  

 

And I’m making the dress out of Sparkle in Pitch from Amy B’s new line “Lark”.

 

 

I haven’t been as into Amy Butler’s last few collections of fabrics because they’re pretty busy for my taste, but the Sparkle print is just simple and retro enough with a little bit of flare (notice the DFunk lime green in there) to be a great print for this dress.  Now if I can just get to the laundromat to prewash my fabric…

Quilts for Twins!

A couple of months ago, my wonderful friend Melissa gave birth to not one but two beautiful babies!  Melissa and her husband Danny are two of my favorite people.  Melissa and I went to law school together and spent many fall Saturdays together, sitting on top of law school hill devising a plan for how to stay sane during law school while the Mountaineers scored touchdowns in the background.  Melissa and I and some of our fellow WVU Law alum (and spouses) get together each summer for a reunion, and the adults are slowly becoming outnumbered by babies and children!

Melissa and Danny’s first daughter, Georgia, is the loveliest little gal, and the recipient of the first quilt that I ever made.  For her new brother and sister, I wanted to keep the designs simple and the colors refreshing.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The quilts are unified with a light blue (Lake) Kona cotton background, but then go off on their own colorway tangents.  One features dinosaurs and the other cats (and as a good Women’s Studies instructor I reminded Melissa and Danny that both Ivy and Cody can enjoy both quilts–neither is gender-specific despite the presence of dinosaurs and kitties!), the colors from those prints inspire the coordinating fabrics.

 

 

I wanted both quilts to have a little something special, so I backed them with a yellow gingham fabric that used to hang as curtains in my bedroom when I was a little gal!  

 

 

I can’t wait to meet Ivy and Cody.  I hope their quilts help them keep warm this cold, snowy winter! 

a difficult autumn

I was just looking back through all of my blog posts from the summer.  Wow I posted a lot!  Summer was a gentler time.  The sun was out, I took weekends off, the garden was in full bloom.  Speaking of the garden, I grew a couple of cauliflowers this year!  Cauliflower is one of those vegetables that you only imagine purchasing at a grocery store.  You don’t think you can put a cauliflower seed in the garden and some day actually expect to see this:

But while the summer was gentle, the fall has been tough this year.  My grandmother passed away on Halloween, and I’m still missing her every day.  I stayed with my Granny and Pappaw every day after school and every day in the summer until I was a teenager, so they were like second parents to me.  It’s hard to imagine a world without Granny in it.  (My grandmother was such an awesome lady- here she is with me, my niece, and my cousin letting us put Christmas temporary tattoos on her, a tradition that developed over the last few years.)

On top of that, I’m on the academic job market this year.  Let’s just say, it’s a process that robs you of joy.  But, I’ve finally submitted the majority of my applications, and now there is a bit of a calm before the storm while I wait to hear if I have secured an interview with of any of the schools that I have applied to.  Please keep your fingers crossed for me!

So, what have I been doing to stay sane amidst all of this chaos?  Baking.  Mostly cookies.  But the day I came home from West Virginia after my grandmother’s funeral, I needed to make something comforting…something that would make the whole house feel warm.  Applesauce.  I arrived back to Michigan and found a package from my sweet cousin, Cori, who also loves to bake.  She sent me an apple pealer, corer, and slicer (!!!!) and I put it to work on a couple of bags of delicious Michigan apples.

I even used a recipe that Cori sent to me last year for a delicious brown sugar, vanilla bean applesauce that really makes your house smell wonderful for days.  Here is the before and after.

I froze a few jars just so I could try to make it last throughout the winter, but I have to admit, I’ve already gone through two of them.

Thanks so much, Cori!  On a night when I was feeling melancholy and listless, this was a great way to put my mind to work.  Here’s to hoping the winter will be mild.

Parisville pillows and a pie

It’s sort of embarrassing that my mom’s birthday was in March and I just gave her this present a week ago!  To be fair, I did give her a little gift back in March, but this was the real deal.  When I first saw Tula Pink’s fabric line Parisville, I knew I had to purchase some and make something for my mom.  We have both talked about traveling to Paris together for years and I hope some day soon I can get over my fear of flying enough to make the trip.  In the meantime, I wanted my mom to have a little taste of Paris in her very own home with these Parisville pillows.

I saw a similar pillow displayed at Tula’s booth from one of last year’s quilt shows.  I used a dresden pattern to create a similar look and made porthole centers to display my favorite print from the line.  I’ve never done anything quite like this before and was really happy with the result!

I also added piping to the top edge, another newly learned skill!

I backed the pillows with solid prints so she could flip them for a different look.

This was a ridiculously fun project because of the challenge.  And working with these fabrics was the most fun.  I never thought of myself as very interested in making pillows, but I may have turned over a new leaf.

 

Two other quick tidbits…I visited my friends in North Carolina last week, and couldn’t resist when I saw the peaches at the Farmer’s Market.  First peach pie of the year!

My friends had a little party so we could meet all of their local pals, and I think they all wanted me to stick around for the rest of the summer so I could make more pies.  Mission accomplished.

Finally, I returned home to some of my first yields from the garden.  I have tried to grow beets and cucumbers every summer since I moved to Ann Arbor, MI about 5 years ago.  I’ve never had luck…until now!

And there are many more to come!  Gonna go roast up some beets for dinner!