Busy, Busy, Busy.....

Good Morning!

This Autumn I've been using a doll quilt that I made my daughter for Christmas 2002.  I made it for her Kaya doll, an American Girl doll.  I really like the scrappiness combined with the solid background.  This is one of those doll quilts that would make a nice full sized quilt too.

Back

Hooray, I finished my first mini-auction quilt.  I quilted it with silk thread.

The back.  Aren't these dancers joyful?

On Saturday, my guild had a member sew day.  It was great.  Susan made homemade pralines and we had salad and pizza and my chocolate cherry cake.  I spent about an hour on non-raffle quilt work to set a few of the 9-patches from Julie's recent swap.  I am going to use 3 different setting square fabrics.  This will eventually by our new "king sized" bed quilt; my first king.  Did I say eventually?

Raffle update.  Can you believe all the blocks are here and accounted for?  In only 1 month.  What a wonderful and speedy job these women did - bravo!   (This is not the final arrangement, just added them as I received them for counting purposes.)

These are the borders I designed.  Thanks to Susan, Pauline and Elizabeth we have them ready to add to the body of the quilt.

I need about one hundred 4 patches for the second border.  Thanks to the sew day, they are done.  Now to string them together.....

And finally, a little coco.  She is exhausted.  She has decided that dog beds, which I've purchased 2 of are not necessary when there are couches around.

In an effort to avoid the paparazzi she has turned away from me.  What a stinker!

Whew!  I've been busy.  And so have all my blog friends, I'm still catching up on my reading!

Back to the Muggle World

We aparated back to the Muggle world after a wonderful time at the Harry Potter theme park at Universal Studios.

I thought I'd take this opportunity to share the HP quilt that I made Hanna a few years ago.  It was not easy to find HP fabric at the time, but between ebay and a few friends, I managed to get enough for a quilt and two pillow cases.  It was a real trick of magic to keep this a secret for her Birthday.

I pieced it together out of many of the HP fabrics, and used the lightening streak (Harry's scar) as borders.

There is a panel on the front and back, thanks to ebay.

The pillow cases have only a little official HP fabric on the side, but the batik stars worked well here, I think.

Here are a few photos from our wonderful trip.  Does this young lady look happy and excited, or what?

The architecture of the buildings and castle and plantings were really well done!

I even managed to find sewing in the wizarding world at the robe shop.  The tape measure moved up and down at different lengths by magic*

Hagrids hut, very cool.

The buildings of Hogsmeade were snow topped, just as in the movie. 

Everything we had heard about the Butter Beer was true; it was delicious!  I sampled the special Hog Heads Beer, which is only available here in Hogsmeade, it was quite satisfying with my shepherds pie.

And now back to the Muggle world.  I sure wish I could wave a wand and finish all my housework so I can back to quilting!

Día de los Muertos

Greetings!

This is a small quilt that I made to celebrate the "Day of the Dead". While it is not for everyone, I love the idea of celebrating the Day of the Dead. Many of the dearest people in my life have "passed over" and I think a day to celebrate them with flowers, food and music is terrific.

I titled it "I See Dead People -  Ode' to Frida Khalo"

 

I used variegated thread and did a liberated cross-hatch (very liberated)

The back shows a larger piece of the fabric I used.

Here are some miniature pieces of art that I have collected.  This is a rock band that I found for my son.

My favorite Mexican artists, Diego Rivera and Frida Khalo

I love this one, it's a banquet with Frida's portrait on the back - so cool!

A view through the top

 

This photo will give you a better idea of the small scale of these pieces.




Here is a piece of "sugar head' mexican candy fabric that I love.  It's hard to see but there is a lot of colorful sparkly parts on it.  I think it would be a great backing from something someday.

Here in NJ the school kids have a few days off, so my daughter and I are off to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter for a few days.

Have a great week and remember to Celebrate today!

Fall Quilt Festival 2010

Hi -
I'm a little late pulling this together, but here is my entry for Amy's Fall Quilt Festival.

Whooville is a quilt that I finished earlier this year.  It is one of my selvage quilt projects inspired by Karen Griska.  I used the selvage dots this time to represent Christmas lights on the houses.


 
My favorite part of the quilt is the big tree, I wish I had Whoos singing around it!

a little pink house

The Bakers' house -

 

Enjoy the rest of the festival!

The Ghost and Mrs. Vaughan

Mary came to town!

She was here primarily to visit her mom and we were able to get the Cupcakers together for an afternoon of fun, food and crafting.

We started right in crafting, so our ghosts would dry to transport home.  We used these instructions right here, but there are many basic ways to make them and you can find them on-line.

Here is the cheesecloth, soaked in fabric stiffener and draped on the armature we made.  This one is Jills.

Here they are dried and lifted off there armature and making a little quartet.  From the left is mine, Susan's, Jill's and Marys.  Aren't they fun? They are held up by the pool of draped cloth around the bottom.

We painted our ghosts with some glow in the dark paint - here is a long exposure spooky photo of how it looks in the dark.

And now we've earned our lunch!  We were celebrating Mary's and Susan's October Birthdays, so of course we had to have cupcakes.  Dark lavender was about as close as I could get to purple on the frosting.

For lunch we had New England Squash Soup (recipe at the end of post).  My other good friend named Susan made this for me and Pauline a couple of weeks ago and was it delicious!  I also made the first pop-overs of the season.

I was lucky - again! and won the Halloween fabrics we used for our game of LCR - sorry girls!

This is the view out of my computer room window on the second floor.  I have a love hate relationship with this huge Maple tree.  Today I really love it :)

It was great seeing you Mary!  Come over and play any time!

New England Squash Soup

1 cup diced onions

1 celery stalk, chopped

1 garlic clove, minced

1 cup unsweetened apple juice

1 butternut squash (about 1 pound) peeled, seeded and cubed

1 potato diced (we used yukon gold)

3 cuts water or chicken or veg. stock (I used half water half chicken)

1 bay leaf

1/2 tsp dried thyme

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp nutmeg

2/3 cup evaporated skim milk

salt and pepper to taste

(we also add crushed red pepper or cayenne pepper for some heat)

----

2 cups sliced mushroom (6-8 oz)

3 Tbsp dry sherry

1 Tbsp soy sauce

pinch of dried marjoram

Combine the onions, celery, garlic and apple juice in a large soup pot.  Cover and simmer about 10 minutes, until the vegetables are softened.  Add the squash, potato, water or stock, bay leaf, thyme, salt and nutmeg (and red pepper if using).  Bring to a boil, cover and lower the heat.  Simmer until the vegetables are very soft, about 20 to 25 minutes.

While the soup simmers, saute' the mushrooms in an uncovered skillet with the sherry, soy sauce and marjoram until the mushrooms are tender and most of the liquid has evaporated, about 10 minutes.  Set aside.

When the squash and potatoes are very soft, remove the soup pot from the heat.  Remove the bay leaf and working in batches, puree the soup with the evap milk in a blender or food processor.

reheat gently.  Add salt and pepper.

Serve topped with the sauteed mushrooms.

Enjoy and thanks for the recipe Susan H.