Needle and Spatula

Bento Bikes Baby Quilt

2012-02-26T22:58:00.000-08:00

Good friends of ours are having a baby at any moment, and I had been holding on to this fabric to make them a baby quilt for a while, and got it done just in time. Now that they have recieved the quilt I can share it with you!

Here's a photo of the whole quilt, post washing. They are both avid bicyclists, so when the Avalon fabric line from Birch fabrics came out, I knew it would be perfect for them! I used a number of fabrics from the line and then supplemented with other grey, green, and teal fabrics from my stash.

To make this bento box design, I made nine log cabin/square within square blocks and then cut them into quarters. Each of the larger blocks was 13.5" square before I cut them up, which was kind of a pain of a size to make, but was the right size to get the final quilt size I wanted (since I had a yard and 1/4 of backing fabric - so my final quilt was something like 39" square). I used different size center squares to start and different width strips, so that the blocks would each be different. I tried to keep in mind how the blocks would look when cut into quarters as I pieced them, so that each quarter would look good on its own. I almost chickened out and left them as whole squares, but I went ahead and cut them up.

I also considered this layout which I like too, but I ended up deciding that I liked a regular bento box layout better.

I couldn't find the little quilting table extension thing for my machine when I went to free-motion quilt this, so the quilting was a bit frustrating (and far from perfect) but it all looked fine after a good wash and dry. And the soon to be parents loved it, which is the most important thing!

I'll be linking up to Sew Modern Monday on Canoe Ridge Creations - click over to check out other modern sewing finishes!

Bee blocks and 1/4" seams

2012-02-21T22:56:00.000-08:00

After a much needed month-off (and a reprieve to turn in my December blocks late), I finished my February bee blocks for the do.good stitches love circle this past weekend. Ara Jane picked the fun Retro Flowers pattern (which Christina kindly donated for us to use for this quilt). Ara Jane asked for bright blocks in warm colors, hopefully these fit the bill! I wasn't too intimidated by the curves in this block after sewing two drunkard's path quilts, but actually matching the seams correctly was somehow tricker than I expected (and I didn't get it perfect, as you can see on my first block below). I still enjoyed the block and am happy with how they turned out, though!

One thing that I have definitely been working on with my quilting over the past year has been getting a more reliable 1/4" seam, which if you make precisely quilted blocks you will know is the key to getting things to match up well and turn out the right size. I definitely still have room for improvement but I thought that I would share a few tips including one issue that came up specifically with this block.

Earlier this year I bought this quarter inch foot (above) for my brother sewing machine. It was really cheap and definitely helped make it easier to line up the quarter inch seam with the side, but I found that it wasn't as precise as I had hoped... and it drives me kind of crazy that you have to use the center needle setting or your needle will hit the foot, and the default for my machine is a different position, so if I leave this foot on my machine, I will inevitable forget to change the stitch setting when I turn the machine on and mess up my needle. One thing that I have found that I really like to use this foot for is sewing curves. I think mostly because it helps me keep close to a 1/4" seam, but doesn't have too large a foot area and create puckers or anything.

I know that lots of folks have a 1/4" foot with a metal guard on the side to make it more exact where the fabric is supposed to line up, and maybe someday I will get one of those. In the meantime, I have been using a trick which I picked up at the sewing summit. My machine has a ton of stitches, most of which I never use, and I never understood why there were special stitches for piecing and quilting. In one of the classes at the sewing summit they set up the machines using one of the piecing settings and let us know that that positioned the needle 1/4" in from the edge of the regular foot. Wow! I have been using this setting ever since and have found it to be more reliable for getting a 1/4" seam than my special 1/4" foot. This is setting #37 on my machine, and at least if you have a brother or a babylock you probably have a similar setting. This may be old news to folks but I thought I would share in case anyone else has been in the dark on this one! (and I still haven't figured out what the special "quilting" stitches are and how they are different from regular stitches - if you know, please do share).

Actually the hardest seams for me to sew in this block were the final ones where you join the four quarters of the block together, because the pieces you are sewing are each 1/2" wide to the next seam, which at least for me meant that when I sewed a 1/4" seam with the regular needle position, my foot was getting pushed out of place (towards the fabric edge, making a smaller seam allowance), by the thicker fabric from the previously sewn seam. Maybe if I had a nicer machine this wouldn't have happened, and I could have used a walking foot but that seemed like a pain. In the end I sewed these seams with my needle all the way to the left position (position 00 on my machine) which meant only less than 1/4" of my foot was on the fabric to the left of the needle and I just did my best to keep a 1/4" seam, which wasn't perfect. Has anyone else had this problem when sewing patchwork where the finished width is 1/4" or less, and if so, I'd love to hear if you came up with a better solution!

A surprise hat and a few cowls

2012-02-08T21:55:00.000-08:00

It is a testament to how little time I have had for blogging lately that it is the second week in February and I am only just now getting around to posting about the hat that I made Lawson for Christmas. Every weekend I kept forgetting to take pictures of him wearing it, so much so that I finished another two knitting projects in the meantime... so we had a little photoshoot this weekend and now I can finally share! I knit this hat using the Knotty but nice pattern from Knitty and I love how it turned out... this was the first time I had made traveling cables like this (my term - is that what they are really called?) and it was surprisingly easier than I expected. Details of my project are on ravelry here.

The best part about this hat was that it was a surprise! I had shown Lawson the pattern and he helped pick out the yarn, but he had no idea that I was actually making it for him for Christmas, and was totally shocked when I gave it to him. Mostly I was able to knit it in carpool or when he was out of the house, but I ended up frogging it a bit because I thought it was too small, and so I was still knitting it up to the last minute whenever he would go out for an errand (or even sometimes when he was in the other room). I felt pretty sneaky!

After that, I had been really wanting to make myself a cowl, and I found this pattern (looped loop) on Ravelry and thought it would be perfect. I really love how it turned out, it has a twist in it (a full twist, not a moebius half twist), so when you wrap it around your neck twice it loops around itself perfectly and there is no twist. I didn't think I would like it as much wrapped just once, but I am finding that I also like it that way... it is super comfy and I have been wearing it all the time since I made it! Ravelry details here.

I decided to continue right on and make the honey cowl next, because I got this gorgeous, soft Manos Maxima yarn as a christmas gift and it just seemed like the perfect pattern for it. I probably should have gone up a needle size to get better drape in the fabric, but I actually like that it is pretty dense fabric and really warm. I haven't actually worn this yet since it has been pretty warm here, but it will be great for outdoor adventures or for trips back east in the winter. I wanted it to wrap around twice but still fit pretty snugly, so I used somewhat fewer stitches than the large size - I think I used 210 but I don't actually remember; Ravelry details here.

The yarn really is as soft and delicious as it looks - I think I may have to get more of this to make other projects! It reminds me a lot of Malabrigo worsted but doesn't seems as pilly, which is nice.

I actually may make myself yet another cowl - more of a single wrap/neckwarmer type - but for now I have cast on a pair of lacy socks which are pretty fun!

And I have been working on a few sewing projects too, but don't have any photos of them yet. While I am not looking forward to getting up an hour earlier, I am looking forward to daylight savings time and the possibility of it actually being light any time that I am home during the week so that I could have time to take photos!

This and That

2012-01-18T22:15:00.000-08:00

Things have been pretty busy for me lately and I have a bit of a backlog of things to post about, so I thought I would throw a few different things together in a this and that update.

For our do.good stitches bee blocks this month, Rachel asked us to make a large herringbone block using her tutorial. Well actually it was for December, but luckily we decided to take the month off in January and Rachel gave us an extra few weeks to get the blocks done, which was much appreciated when I was frantically finishing up my holiday gifts. I had fun making this block and really like the fun, bright scrappy patchwork look of the color scheme she had us use - it'll be fun to see the quilt come together!

I was so thrilled to have won one of the giveaways on 2nd Avenue Studio for giveaway day (and happy to "meet" Rachel, who is a member of my guild here in Portland), and even more thrilled when this gorgeous package of Heather Ross fabrics came in the mail. I love all the cute creations I have seen other folks make with her fabrics, but other than the quilt I made with Far Far Away 2 I haven't had any of them myself. I am looking forward to some fun fussycutting in the future to show off these cuties, although I am a bit scared to cut into them!

Among many other fun craft-supply gifts that I got for the holidays (thank you friends and family, you know me well!), my mother-in-law gave me these fun vintage buttons. I am building up a bit of a button collection and love having a supply to use in future projects.

I took a t-shirt making class a few months ago (at local sewing studio, Modern Domestic) and have never gotten around to blogging about it here! I thought it would be fun to take a class to learn more tips and tricks about sewing with knits, although I felt a bit silly when I got there and realized it wasn't really different from the kids t-shirts I had sewed earlier this year.

One cool new thing that I did learn was how to make a v-neck (they showed us how to use wash-away wonder tape to hold everything in place, although it was still a bit tricky to get it to turn out nice). I also got to try out the serger which was really fun, definitely makes me want to save up and get one! And somehow I had more trouble sewing the hems with a double needle on their fancy bernina than I have had when I have done it at home. I am really happy with how my t-shirt turned out, though, and look forward to making more!

Happy New Year!

2012-01-09T22:36:00.000-08:00

OK, I know that it's more than a week into the new year... but I figured it wasn't too late to share some of my 2011 craft highlights with you all. Despite my telling myself that I am not a multiple works-in-progress kind of person, I have managed to stack up 3 unquilted quilt tops, so this mosaic includes both quilt tops and finished quilts (as well as a few other patchwork items):

1. Far far away quilt 2, 2. Central Park Quilt - Detail, 3. Rainbow Rail Quilt Finished, 4. All three yellow and grey nesting chairs pillows, 5. stacked coins quilt, 6. Drunkards Path Quilt Top, 7. Kaleidoscope Quilt Top, 8. SUTK Placemats, 9. Drunkard's Path Quilt Top

It was fun looking back through my Flickr stream at my various other crafty projects for the year - this is kind of a random potpourri of sewing and other crafts:

1. pleated pouches, 2. Jamie Dress, 3. freezer paper stencil whale t-shirt, 4. Monkey baby shoes, 5. Garden Apron Tool Belt 2, 6. Quilted Wine Tote, 7. L'illo baby sweater, 8. Watercolor valentines, 9. aqua and green patchwork clutches, 10. Box Bag 3, 11. Trillium and Ladyslipper Stained Glass, 12. purple and green socks, 13. dino and elephant applique tees, 14. Vegetable Big Butt Baby Pants, 15. Blue Peasant Dress Bodice, 16. Felt Fruit

Here's to another great year of crafting and blogging!

A Lotta Holiday

2012-01-03T21:30:00.000-08:00

Now that all the holiday presents have been gifted, I can show off some of the things I have been working on! I ended up making nearly all my sewn holiday gifts with Lotta Jansdotter's fabric line, Echo, so I'm putting all of those gifts in this post and will come back and share the others after I finish up one last (totally late) gift. It's funny, when I first saw Echo I wasn't sure if I would get any - which is crazy, since I have several of Lotta's books and love her designs. But I just wasn't sure it would play well with other fabrics and I didn't want to make a whole quilt out of it. Then when I started thinking about making holiday gifts, I decided to use it to make a few gifts... and then realized that it would be great for a number of folks on my list and ended up going back to get more fabric! Getting to use a fabric that I loved made the last minute frantic holiday sewing still feel fun, and I think everyone really liked their gifts.

I made a couple totes using my easy tote bag tutorial - the one at the top was sized up quite a bit to make a more substantial bag, while the one above was the regular size.

I also made a matching zip pouch to go with this tote, with some essex linen and a line of hand-stitching as an accent.

I think this tote bag with a reverse applique circle was my favorite sewn gift that I made - the idea of the circle with the off-kilter stitches was inspired by this bag on flickr.

The inside is lined with another Echo print and has a pocket.

Finally, I made a couple potholders, using a cut up bath towel as the inner layer rather than batting - I made a whole slew of potholders as gifts five or six years ago and that was the method I came up with at the time, it makes a nice, well-insulated potholder although the terry sheds everywhere in the process.

More essex linen on the back of this one.

Luckily I still have a bit of Echo left so I can make myself a little something too!

Lotus Hat and Mitts

2011-12-27T22:36:00.000-08:00

I actually finished my lotus hat several weeks ago, and even got Lawson to take some quick photos of me wearing it, but haven't had time to post about it with all the last minute holiday gift-making around here (more on that soon). I am really happy with how the hat turned out, the yarn (Knit Picks Capra) is so soft and comfy with the cashmere - not at all itchy. As I mentioned before, I ended up having to do more repeats than the pattern called for to get it long enough, so the pattern is a bit smaller scale than as written in the pattern, but I love how it looks, and now it is long enough to cover my ears, which is key.

I love the cool pattern the stitches make as they come together at the top of the hat - the charted pattern is really clear and turns out great.

I had bought 2 skeins of yarn and the hat used just a bit more than one, so I was thrilled that I had enough to knit up a matching pair of mitts! I modified a basic fingerless mitts pattern using the stitch pattern from the hat and also making them longer and adding ribbing at all the edges.

Since I finished these up, I have been continuing to knit away - I just finished a hat for Lawson and gave it to him for Christmas, so I'll be sure to show you that once I get a picture of him in it. And I just cast on for this cowl/infinity scarf for myself in a grey gloss DK (also lovely and soft) - it is knitting up pretty quickly, I can't wait to finish it up and get to wear it!

Giveaway Winner and Ornament Ideas

2011-12-18T20:51:00.000-08:00

Thanks so much to everyone who entered my giveaway! I had so much fun reading about handmade ornaments you have made or ideas you would like to make - definitely got me inspired. I actually got inspired and made some ornaments myself (even though I should have been sewing holiday gifts...) - more on that below. First, the winner!

Congratulations, JuneBug! I've emailed you to find out which pattern you would like.

If you didn't win but wanted to get a pattern, they are available in my meylah shop (with instant downloads!) and in my etsy shop :).

So, here are some photos of the quick ornaments I made:

To make these, I glued together two sheets of lightweight scrapbook paper to get a heavier weight paper with patterns on both sides, then cut strips and made them into various shapes. The middle ornament was inspired by a felt ornament in fa la la la felt, and I think the top one (and other similar sphere ones I made) was subconciously inspired by this ornament that I had seen probably last year. The glueing together two sheets of scrapbook paper wasn't ideal, really, and the paper puckered a bit on some of the ornaments I made but overall I was happy with most of the ones I made. I used perle cotton to sew knots and hold them together, and to make the hanging loops. I actually think these would be even better if you used fusible web to fuse together two pieces of fabric and then cut strips of that to work with, I may try to do that at some point.

Since you all were so nice to share your inspiration, I thought that I would share the ornament ideas that I have been feeling inspired by lately:

Paper flower ornament
Spiky paper starburst ornament
Paper ball ornament made from circles
Felt snow ball ornaments
Another felt ball ornament
String ball ornament
Water marbled glass ornament

And here are some great lists/roundups/sources for more ideas:

How About Orange (you may have noticed I love her ornaments!)
Martha Stewart Crafts
Craftzine
Pink Chalk Studios round-up
Stumbles and Stitches Christmas in July (includes several free patterns from Fa la la la felt)

Hope you all have a great holidays!! I may be back before then with a blog post, but I may be too busy finishing up making the last of my gifts (and possibly getting distracted making more fun ornaments).

Giveaway Day!

2011-12-11T22:18:00.000-08:00

I've had so much fun participating in Sew Mama Sew's giveaway day in the past, both as a giver-away and as a winner, so I'm excited to participate again this time!

I'll be giving away a copy of one of my PDF sewing patterns (also for sale in my meylah shop and my etsy shop) - the winner can choose:

Either the yoga mat bag sewing pattern -

(check out how it has a zipper up the front AND a zippered pocket for your essentials... sweet!)

OR a copy of my free-motion applique messenger bag pattern

(Two fun applique designs included, and the bag has lots of handy pockets)

To enter, all you have to do is leave me a comment telling me - what kind of handmade ornaments have you made or would you like to make? (This is actually for a purpose - my coworker told me she wanted to make handmade ornaments and was looking for ideas - I had a bunch but would love to pass on yours as well! Links to tutorials are welcome).

The winner will be picked at random, and the giveaway is open to both U.S. and international entries. The giveaway will close at 5 pm pacific on Friday December 16th and I will contact the winner via email - so make sure you have an email address in your blogger profile, or include it in your comment!

Thanks and good luck!

--GIVEAWAY CLOSED!-- Thanks to all who entered! Winner's posted here.

Drunkard's Path QAL - Winners!

2011-12-05T19:40:00.001-08:00

Thanks to everyone who joined in our QAL and thanks to Kristie for being an awesome partner in crime (er, curves)! I loved seeing all your quilt tops (and finished quilts - you guys are way more on top of this than I am!) - if you didn't see them yet, check out all the links here.

Thanks again to our lovely sponsors who donated the prizes... now it's time to draw our winners!

The winner of the fat quarter bundle of Tula Pink's Prince Charming fabric donated by The Fabric Shoppe is:

Alli at B. Yazoo, and...

The winner of the $40 gift certificate from Fresh Squeezed Fabrics is:

Beth at Sewing for Sanity!

Yay, congrats to both of you! We'll be in touch to get you your prizes.

{This post is part of the Drunkard's Path Quilt-Along that I am hosting with Kristie from OCD. Check out my Drunkard's Path QAL page for the schedule and links to the posts so far, and feel free to join in any time!}

Asterisk Bee Blocks and tips

2011-12-04T22:14:00.001-08:00

For last month's do.good stitches blocks for the Love circle, Lee from Freshly Pieced asked us all to make asterisk blocks in pinks, oranges, greys and whites - what a lovely winter palette! She directed us to this tutorial for the basics of how to make an asterisk block, but gave us free rein to play around with the blocks as long as they had one or more asterisk in them. I love these kinds of structured creative challenges so these were fun blocks to put together!

I made a smaller asterisk for one of my blocks and used it as the center of an improvisational log cabin block, which was really fun to make!

For my other block, I wanted to make a wonky/off-center asterisk with thicker fabric strips than the original tutorial called for. I didn't go much thicker, I used 1.5" strips (1" finished), rather than the 1" strips/0.5" finished that the tutorial called for. I wanted to share a quick tip for how to keep your asterisk strips aligned when using a wider strip. I imagine others have figured this out and may have blogged about it elsewhere, but I thought I would share in case this is helpful to anyone!

The original tutorial is great because it uses 1" strips of fabric, which means that when you cut the fabric and then insert the pieced strip, the 1/2" of the original quilt square eaten up by the two seam allowances is exactly replaced by the 1/2" of strip that shows on the top after it also loses 1/2" to seam allowances. So everything stays well aligned.

You may have seen asterisk blocks where the strips get kind of misaligned... I cut my in progress block and pulled it apart about 1/2" to show how this can happen - this is about how far apart the two sides would be if I had just cut it and then pieced in my 1.5" strip. It's not too extreme with such a small misalignment, but you can see that each of the diagonal strips kind of jumps across the divide rather than being a straight line. This problem would be more extreme and much more noticeable when using even wider strips, since the two pieces of the quilt block would be getting moved even farther apart.

The solution is simply to cut a strip out of the block where you are going to add the pieced strip. To figure out how wide a strip to cut out, you just subtract 1" from the size strip you are piecing in, to account for the 1/2" in seam allowances eaten up from each of the background and the strip you add. So, for my block, I cut out a 1/2" strip, since I was using 1.5" strips. I only did this for the final strip that I added, but in looking at it and thinking it through, I think I really should have done it for the final two (eg, the straight up and down segments, not the diagonal segments). You could do it for every strip you add, but it's definitely not necessary for the first one (nothing to line up yet) and for the second one, you can eyeball it to keep it lined up. I think my block turned out fine even though I only did this for the last strip, since I was not piecing with super thick strips, but I will remember to do it for both of the last two next time.

I definitely recommend the asterisk block if you have never made one before - they are really quick and fun to make!

Branching Out Scarf

2011-11-29T20:21:00.000-08:00

One of the great things about the long thanksgiving weekend was that not only did I have plenty of time to sew (and finish my Drunkard's Path quilt top - thanks everyone for your nice comments!), I also had lots of nice time to knit! I was really excited to finish my lacy branching out scarf (originally mentioned here). I love how it turned out, and was really impressed that I was able to get a whole scarf out of one skein of Knit Picks Gloss Fingering yarn (and the yarn is really lovely - super soft and it has great drape).

I love the leaf motif and it is a nice light weight that is perfect for the cool but not frigid weather we've been having here in Portland. It will get lots of use I am sure, since most of my other scarves are very heavy weight (and in fact, all of them except one are actually in storage).

I also only have one hat not in storage, and was overdue to make myself a new hat anyways, so as soon as I finished the scarf I cast on for a lotus hat using this lovely green cashmere blend yarn, also from Knitpicks (Capra). While this yarn is technically DK weight, and the pattern calls for worsted, the gauge called for on the pattern and the gauge on the yarn ball were the same, so I figured it would be OK (and no, I didn't knit a swatch... that would be too practical). The pattern calls for three repeats of the lace pattern before you start decreasing, but suggests you do four repeats if you want it to be less of a beanie and to actually cover your ears. Well, I did four repeats and then went ahead and did all the decreases... and it was way too short. I am guessing that since the yarn is a bit lighter weight the whole thing is just a bit smaller and while it can stretch to be wide enough, that makes it even shorter. So I frogged back to just before the decreases and am thinking I will add another two repeats of the pattern before decreasing again. I think I will still be able to make the hat with one ball of yarn, but I do have a second one if needed.

I love the stitch pattern - it is lacy but not so much that my head will get chilly, and actually looks a bit like a cable pattern at first glance. I am not planning to block it since I like how it looks as knitted and don't want to emphasize the lace aspect too much. If I can swing it with my second ball of yarn, I am hoping to make a pair of matching fingerless mitts, modifying a basic pattern like this one.

I am on a bit of a scarf/hat knitting kick, so I may well knit another one of each after this, too, or a cowl. How about you, have you been doing any knitting?

Drunkard's Path - Finished Quilt Top and Link-up

2011-11-28T06:00:00.000-08:00

Well, I can't believe the end is here! I have had so much fun with this quilt-along - and really my favorite part has been seeing all of your quilts progress, and especially hearing that this QAL inspired some of you to try something you wouldn't have otherwise. I can't tell you how happy that makes me! I hope you all enjoyed it and can't wait to see your finished quilt tops.

Speaking of which, I finished my own quilt top yesterday afternoon, just in time - and unfortunately at a time when photography conditions/lighting weren't great. So apologies for the somewhat grainy photo. I am excited about how the design turned out though and can't wait to quilt and bind this so that we can start using it as our couch throw! Can you believe that this will be the first quilt that I have ever kept? Lawson was very excited when I told him that this quilt was for us.

Your turn! Link up your finished quilt top using the linky below for a chance to win one of the fabulous prizes donated by Fabric Shoppe and Fresh Squeezed Fabrics. The linky is open for a week and then Kristie and I will draw winners next Monday 12/5. You can link up either here or on Kristie's blog, it will work either way :). If you have a blog, link up your blog post so we can all come say hi, but if you don't have a blog, feel free to link up a flickr photo instead.

Thanks again so much for joining in the QAL! I hope you all had as much fun as I did!!

{This post is part of the Drunkard's Path Quilt-Along that I am hosting with Kristie from OCD. Check out my Drunkard's Path QAL page for the schedule and links to the posts so far, and feel free to join in any time!}

Pumpkin Orange Muffins

2011-11-22T22:02:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned yesterday, I made these pumpkin orange muffins to bring to work and they were delicious! The recipe is from Mollie Katzen's Sunlight Cafe (also the source of the decadent sticky buns I posted previously) - I really enjoy having a book of all breakfast and brunch recipes in my cookbook collection, and it was fun to have a chance to try out another one from this book! I may have slightly undercooked these as we were running out the door to catch a movie so I didn't have time to put them in for another few minutes, but they were still very yummy, just not as golden and crispy on the top as they might have been otherwise. Adding the chopped orange zest is what really makes this recipe - the tangy orange taste is a great balance to the sweet pumpkin flavor. If you find yourself with leftover pumpkin puree this season, or if you just feel like making a yummy pumpkin breakfast treat, I heartily recommend them!

Pumpkin Muffins
Adapted from Mollie Katzen's Sunlight Cafe

Nonstick spray, or cupcake liners
1 1/3 cup white whole wheat flour (or whole wheat pastry flour, or just regular all purpose flour if you don't have either or prefer white flour)
2/3 cup all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon chopped orange zest (use a vegetable peeler to peel just the outer layer off about 1/2 an orange, then finely chop)
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup pumpkin puree (or she says you can substitute cooked sweet potato or winter squash)
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick / 1/4 cup) butter, melted

Preheat oven to 400, lightly spray 12 muffin cups in a muffin pan with non-stick spray, or use cupcake liners (I inadvertently used both because I wasn't paying attention, which was kind of overkill). Combine dry ingredients through orange zest in a bowl and mix together. Add the brown sugar and mix together until blended using a pastry blender thing or your hands, or just a spoon.

Mix together the remaining (wet) ingredients except the butter in a second bowl, whisking or stirring until well blended. Pour the wet ingredients and the butter into the dry ingredients and mix together until everything is moist, but without overmixing. Spoon the batter into the muffin pan and bake for 20-25 minutes, until browned on the top and a toothpick inserted into the top comes out clean. Let cool on a rack before serving.

I'm linking up over at Tuesday at the Table at A Quilter's Table again - and this time there is a (fabric!) giveaway if you link up - anything about your cooking or your table. You can link up through Friday night, so check it out!

What's Cooking

2011-11-21T21:09:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted a ton of recipes lately but I have been cooking away when I find time and making some good things. So I thought that I would pop in with a few tips if not full recipes.

The soup above is a Cuban black bean soup from Deborah Madison's awesome Vegetable Soups cookbook (previously mentioned here) - the soup is good, although I tweaked the recipe a bit this past time and it wasn't quite as good as I remembered it. I'll probably post a recipe here at some point in the future, once I have played around with it a bit more and gotten it just right (or, stopped trying to take shortcuts in what is a good recipe that just takes a while). In the meantime, I wanted to share what I think is the best part of this soup - you top it off with a delicious lime cilantro sour cream. This is literally just 1/2 cup sour cream with 3 tablespoons of chopped cilantro and 2-3 tablespoons of lime juice. I love it with this soup, but I have also served it with other black bean soups and dishes and it really just hits the spot!

The other night I made a veggie lasagne which turned out pretty well; I tested the theory that you can pretty much always use uncooked lasagna noodles whether or not they are actually labelled as no boil, and they were fully cooked by the time it was done. I actually think doing it that way is a good idea in general with veggie lasagna since it can tend to be a bit watery, and that helps to absorb some of the extra liquid. I also sauteed mushrooms and kale and layered that in with layers of ricotta/egg/parmesan mixture, low-fat mozzarella, and tomato sauce. Overall turned out quite good, which is a good thing since we have a lot left over.

I loved the vanilla caramels that I made from Sweet Confections so much, I couldn't wait to try the pumpkin caramels recipe from the book. I picked up a can of pumpkin at the store the other day, and made them up the other night, so they are all ready for thanksgiving (and super yummy)! Then I remembered that I had said I would bring muffins to work, and I found a recipe for pumpkin muffins that used up just the amount of pumpkin puree that I had left over - perfect! They were really yummy, so I'm planning to post the recipe tomorrow - just in case any one else has half a can of pumpkin puree to use up in the coming week :).

How about you - what have you been cooking up lately? Any tips to share?

Awesome Pillow from Jacey

2011-11-20T21:45:00.001-08:00

I was super excited to find this pillow in my mailbox... Jacey from Jaceycraft held a giveaway on her blog earlier this month where she would make you a personalized pillow and I was lucky enough to be one of the winners chosen! I was extra thrilled since I had met Jacey at Sewing Summit and she is just super nice - so having her make something specifically for me felt even more special. I like so many different styles of quilting that I was pretty open-ended in what I said I liked, and I am so thrilled with the pillow she made, it is so gorgeous, and in my favorite color green! Literally when I opened the package and showed it to Lawson, the first thing that he said was "Wow! It's so you!" Although I think he likes it too, he has been curled up on the couch with it pretty much since it got here. It is extra appreciated since we are living in a furnished apartment for the time being, and the apartment isn't really decorated in our style - so this makes it feel much more like our space.

Jacey was so sweet, she also included some nice fabric in the package for me too! Check out those cool birds and butterflies, and the awesome green swirl.

Thank you so much Jacey!! I love it all!

Drunkard's Path QAL: Assembling your quilt top

2011-11-15T06:00:00.000-08:00

So here we are, at the final post in the QAL instructions - and it's really not too complicated. To finish your quilt top, go ahead and sew together the blocks or strips/rows that you pieced, following the same general approach that I described in the last post, about assembling your blocks. Many of you have already moved right along to this step, and have your tops all finished up already, great work! It has been so fun seeing your quilts come together.

Since we are both running a bit behind, and guessing that some of you may be too, Kristie and I decided to add another week to the schedule before we post the link-up to show off your finished quilt top - it will not be posted on Monday, November 28th. We'll leave it open a week to give everyone lots of time to pop by and link up their finished quilt top, and then we'll draw for the great prizes from Fabric Shoppe and Fresh Squeezed Fabrics on Monday, December 5th... so make sure you finish up your quilt top and then come back to link up!

As far as where I am in my sewing... I finished sewing, ironing and trimming all my 1/4 circle blocks on Friday, and then spent some time mulling the different layout options. I thought that I wanted to go with a scalloped or wavy line design, but when I tried laying out the blocks, I just wasn't feeling it.

I even tried laying out almost all the blocks in this design below - and it just felt to rainbow-y for this quilt, which we plan to use on our couch. Also I guess I think that this would look better on a larger scale, it just makes the blocks feel to small I think.

Inspired by this quilt, which I saw linked to somewhere recently and now can't remember where it was, I tried a similar design (the same layout, but my + blocks are the inverse of the way they did it), and I decided to go with this. My plan is to have the colors more interspersed with eachother rather than in rainbow order, which should help make it feel less rainbow-y. I also appreciate that this means that I can just sew each set of four 1/4 circles into a small block and not try to keep track of the larger design until later!

I have been sewing away and getting this assembled, so stay tuned for the finished quilt top!

{This post is part of the Drunkard's Path Quilt-Along that I am hosting with Kristie from OCD. Check out my Drunkard's Path QAL page for the schedule and links to the posts so far, and feel free to join in any time!}

Sweet Confections Giveaway Winner!

2011-11-13T21:40:00.001-08:00

Thanks to everyone who entered the giveaway for the great candy-making book, Sweet Confections!

And the winner is...

Congrats! I have sent you an email to get your mailing address.

Knitting Update

2011-11-12T14:43:00.001-08:00

You may have noticed, I haven't been too good at doing regular blog updates lately other than the QAL... I am hoping that as we settle in and get into more of a routine here I will be able to get back into a more regular blogging schedule. I have also been having a lot less time to read blogs and to comment when I do get a chance to read them - often I seem to be reading blogs in spare minutes here and there on my phone, when I am waiting in a line or something, and it really isn't easy to comment then. So if I seem to have disappeared, I apologize! I am really still reading many folks blogs and try to pop in and comment when I can, but I do miss getting to be a more active participant in this online community. I actually had a chance both to catch up on my quilting and my blog-reading a bit yesterday with the holiday, which was really nice.

In any case, even though I haven't been posting regular knitting updates I have been getting a fair amount of knitting done, since I have a pretty long commute and am in a carpool, which gives me lots of good knitting time. So here is a roundup of my knitting projects from the past couple months (for more details like specific yarns used etc, all of these are up on my ravelry account):

I finished Lawson's 2011 birthday socks, last mentioned here (I forget exactly when - definitely late but I think within a month of his actual birthday, so good enough). I really enjoyed knitting those quick sport weight socks for him, so I promptly cast on a pair for myself using yarn which I had bought in Maine. They really are so fast to knit, very fun!

I love knitting myself socks and was tempted to cast on another pair after I finished those, but I decided that I should turn my attention to some holiday presents. I had made a number of cotton/linen knitted washcloths as gifts a few years ago and had a request for some more this year. I knit the peach one below in a feather and fan pattern, and then knit the two grey ones below in a waffle pattern and a garter stripe pattern respectively.

I think that is it for knitted holiday gifts on my plate (although I may think of more), so I have turned my attention to making myself some new winter scarves and hats. Most of our stuff is still in storage and while I have a hat and scarf that are not in storage, they aren't my favorites, so it seemed like a good chance to knit up some nice new ones. Plus I actually don't love any of the scarves that I have now, even the ones that are packed up. To start, I am knitting this fun lace scarf with a leafy motif, one of my favorite design elements. I have actually made a lot more progress since I took these photos a number of days ago, so I am probably halfway done - I'm using knitpicks gloss fingering weight yarn and I just love it - it is so soft and squisy, but not pilly so far.

I have knitted a number of projects with lace designs, but this is the first time that I have really figured out how to read a chart and relied on that while knitting rather than written instructions. I think that partially this is because the design is less repetitive/intuitive to me, so I haven't memorized it and really do have to look at the chart as I go.

I also made a center pull ball for the first time, which worked very well. I just wrapped the ball pretty much as I normally would, but was carefully not to wrap it too tightly at first and was also careful to leave the end hanging out the whole time. I was going to link to a tutorial showing how to do this but all the ones I found involve either wrapping it around a paper tube to start, or your thumb! So I guess I made up my own way without realizing it... it worked fine but one of the other methods might be more foolproof. I especially like that now I don't have to worry so much that my yarn will roll all over the place if I accidentally drop the ball. I actually dropped my ball of yarn at a movie theater once and it rolled down quite a few rows, then I had to go and retrieve it after the movie ended... and I tried not to think about what is on the floors of movie theaters where it had been rolling around, yuck.

Drunkard's Path QAL - Assembling your Blocks

2011-11-08T06:00:00.000-08:00

OK, I have a confession... I am behind in making my blocks and not ready to assemble them yet! I feel bad about this, but luckily we left lots of time in the schedule for the next two steps so I should be able to catch up by next week. Hopefully this is reassuring if you are running a bit behind too!

Not to make excuses, but just so no one gets turned away from this QAL thinking that it takes forever to sew the curves... really the problem has just been that I have had next to no time to sew in the past few weeks. I had a really bad cold and then last week we finally bought a car after our move. This past weekend I spent a good chunk of time sewing and got most of my curved blocks sewn, but not quite all of them, and I just know that I am going to want to play around with layouts and see how they all look, so I really didn't want to rush this step.

So, OK, I am a delinquent, but the QAL goes on regardless! I took some photos to illustrate this step and it's not too complicated, so hopefully this is enough of an explanation. You can also jump over to Kristie's blog to see her post, which should be more complete than mine :).

Once you have picked out your layout, you are going to want to assemble your smaller 1/4 square blocks into larger blocks before you assemble those blocks into the quilt top. The number of smaller squares in each of your larger blocks will depend on the layout that you choose, but a good size is a 4x4 block as I have laid out above. If you are lucky enough to have a design wall, you can lay out your whole quilt on the wall and then sew the blocks one by one. If not, depending on your design you can probably lay the blocks out one at a time as you sew them, or lay it all out on the floor and then keep the squares for each block organized using cardstock or paper. Or really whatever works for you!

When I sew together blocks like this, I like to make stacks for each of the rows that make up the block so that I can pick up a stack to sew at my machine and keep things in the correct order. Putting a pin on the first (far left) block can help you to keep track of which block is at the end (and which way is up) as you sew across the row. You may or may not have to use pins as you sew these seams depending on whether your layout involves matching any circle edges - if your design has 1/2, 3/4 or full circles, then you will need to pin at least the seam where the quarter circles meet to keep those edges lined up. You can of course pin all your seams if you find it helpful, but if you find it easier for any seams that don't have to match the circles, you can skip pinning them and just place them together.

I keep track of the order of the rows by keeping them laid out in the right order or stacked on top of each other; if you are worried about keeping track of the right order as you move them around, you could also label them with numbered sticky notes. You'll press each row before you sew them together to make the overall quilt block. I like to press my seams open, but many folks prefer to press seams to one side, and then alternate which direction they press for each row so that the seams lock together as they sew their rows together, so go ahead and press whichever way you prefer. When you sew the rows together, you will definitely want to use pins to keep all the corner seams nice and lined up. Go ahead and press the seams again, and you have a completed block.

If you are on a roll and sew all your larger blocks together to make a quilt top, I will understand - but technically that step is next week in the QAL. This should be a relief if you are running a bit behind, like me!

I'd love to hear how the QAL is going for you! It's been fun seeing everyone's photos in the Flickr group - if you have been quilting along but aren't on Flickr (or haven't had any photos to post yet), feel free to leave a comment here and share how it's going.

{This post is part of the Drunkard's Path Quilt-Along that I am hosting with Kristie from OCD. Check out my Drunkard's Path QAL page for the schedule and links to the posts so far, and feel free to join in any time!}

Sweet Confections - Book Review and Giveaway!

2011-11-06T20:32:00.000-08:00

I was so excited to receive this candy cookbook, Sweet Confections, in the mail from Lark Crafts to review. I have a big sweet tooth, but I have never really made candy before, so I was pretty sure I was going to love it. I was super impressed with the beautiful photographs, excellent how-to section and wide range of recipes.

The beginning getting started section has clear instructions and lots of step by step photos on everything you need to know, from candy temperatures (above), how to cook sugar and how to carmelize sugar, how to temper chocolate, how to hand dip and hand roll chocolates, and also a helpful overview of ingredients and tools.

Each of the recipes in the book has a big mouthwatering photo...

And then a full page of ingredients and instructions and often more photos. Being able to see a photo of every single recipe is so great, and the extra photos showing a cut open view and the like are super useful too.

There's also a section at the back with recipes for some of the ingredients that you could make yourself - like this candied citrus peel that is used in the recipe above.

One of the things that I was most impressed by was the range of recipes included in the book - it really covers the gamut of candy-making, from fancy stuff like chocolate truffles...

To peanut brittle, toffee, candied nuts and the like...

To chewy candies like these jellies...

And even marshmallows, yum! I also loved the fact that it included both basic recipes (like many of the ones shown above) and more interesting, unique combinations - like vanilla cheesecake fudge, pear hazelnut truffles, and pecan pie truffles. While I am totally new to making candy and found this book a great introduction, I am sure that even an experienced sweet-maker would find something delicious and new to try.

When I got the book, I couldn't wait to try my hand at making one of these yummy treats, and while I was tempted by many of the recipes I had no trouble deciding to go ahead with these vanilla caramels. Soft caramels are one of my favorite candies and also were something that I had never thought to try to make before, so I was super excited to learn how!

One thing about making your own candy is that you can no longer play dumb about how bad it is for you... with this set of ingredients, no wonder caramels are so yummy!

For the most part, the recipe was clear and easy to follow. The instructions on how to caramelize sugar (in the starting up section) were super helpful and showed exactly what to do. After you caramelize the sugar, you add the remaining ingredients (which have been warmed and mixed together), and it kind of bubbles all over the place as you cook it until it reaches the specified temperature. I was a bit worried that I might be doing that part wrong, but in the end the caramels had great taste and texture, so it all worked out.

The only real pitfall that I had was that the recipe instructed you to pour the cooked caramel mixture into a pan lined with plastic wrap... and maybe I was supposed to let it cool for a minute first, or maybe I have cheap plastic wrap or something, but it started to melt when I poured the hot caramel in! I freaked out a bit and pulled out the plastic wrap and threw it out (which sadly meant I lost some of the caramel with it). Then when the caramel cooled I just scraped it out of the pan, which wasn't actually as hard as I had feared - and the caramels were totally delicious, so I was still very happy with the result. I will definitely make this recipe again, but next time I will probably just use parchment to line the pan.

I wrapped up the finished caramels in waxed paper as suggested and they looked totally professional! I brought them in to my office for halloween and everyone was very impressed. I am planning to make the pumpkin caramel recipe in the book next, for thanksgiving. Yum!

Not only did the generous folks at Lark send me a copy to review, they also sent me a second copy to giveaway to one of you! To enter the giveaway, simply leave a comment below - I'd love to hear if you have ever tried making candy before and how it went.

Since I am paying for the shipping, the giveaway is open to U.S. residents only. The winner will be picked by random number, and I'll keep the giveaway open through next Sunday, November 13 at 9 pm PST. I will contact the winner by email so make sure you have an email address in your blogger profile, or leave on in your comment!

GIVEAWAY CLOSED!

Disclosure: This book was provided to me as a free review copy by Lark Crafts, but all opinions expressed are my own.

Drunkard's Path QAL - Piecing your blocks

2011-10-27T06:00:00.000-07:00

Now that you hopefully have all your fabric cut out, it's time to start piecing your blocks! The original block-piecing tutorial has the instructions for how to piece this block, so you can refer back to that, but I thought I would share a few more tips as well now.

If you haven't yet, I strongly suggest sewing up a few sample blocks to get the hang of it, and trimming them down to size. That way, if you are having any issues with the piecing you will be able to tell before you have sewn up a whole bunch. I doubt you'll have a problem but it's always good to test things out, right?

Once you've tried out the piecing and gotten comfortable with it, you will hopefully be able to whiz right through piecing these blocks! As you can see, they are totally amenable to chain piecing, which can make the piecing go really quickly.

After you piece your blocks, you will need to press them flat and then trim them to size... I personally like to sew some, and then press and trim them, then go back and sew some more, etc. That keeps it more interesting for me than being left with a whole huge pile to press and trim at the end. But hey, whatever way you prefer to work is fine of course.

As far as pressing seams, if you are planning to assemble your blocks in a design that has half, 3/4 or whole circles, then you may want to think about trying to press your seams in alternate directions so that they nest nicely. If you aren't doing a design with any half, 3/4 or whole circles then you really don't need to worry about it because those seams won't be abutting anyways. And really it will turn out fine even if you don't worry about it; for my original DP quilt, I just pressed some in and some out and then some of the seams ended up nesting and some didn't and it was all fine in the end anyways.

As you can see I still have quite a few blocks left to sew up! Can't wait to see your progress too. And if you have any questions or tips to share, feel free to leave them in the comments or start a discussion thread over in the Flickr group!

{This post is part of the Drunkard's Path Quilt-Along that I am hosting with Kristie from OCD. Check out my Drunkard's Path QAL page for the schedule and links to the posts so far, and feel free to join in any time!}

Kate Spain Month at Craizee Corners

2011-10-26T06:28:00.000-07:00

Have you seen the fun series of fabric designer months that Sharon at Craizee Corners has been putting together? Each month she has a bunch of guest posters who share projects and inspiration from a certain fabric designer. When I heard October was going to be Kate Spain month, I knew I had to join in! Hop on over to Sharon's blog to hear me gush more about how much I love Kate Spain fabric... and be sure to check out the other fun guest posters that she has had this month, too!

Thanks again for having me Sha!

Drunkard's Path QAL - Cutting your fabric

2011-10-21T06:00:00.000-07:00

Ladies and Gentleman, start your rotary cutters! (and scissors). We are ready to start cutting! I'll be showing the approach using the templates I designed, and Kristie will be using the Go! Baby cutter, so hop over there if you have one of those fun machines :)

I decided to use several sets of Kona cotton charm packs in the Dusty selection with Kona coal as my contrasting "solid" for my quilt. I haven't decided the exact size that I am making yet, but I want it to be a decent sized throw/large lap quilt, so I started with 4 charm packs (since I am not using the tans/beiges/browns from them I am hoping this will be enough), and 2 yards of the coal (although I may need a bit more). The color scheme is inspired by several beautiful quilts that I have seen that pair rainbow solids with grey - this gorgeous diamonds mini by Lindsay of Lindsay Sews, and this fun pinwheel quilt from Spontaneous Threads. Both of these examples used the Bright kona charms but I was more drawn to the Dusty selection, especially since I am hoping we will use this in our living room and I want it to be a bit understated.

So, back to cutting your fabric! I actually probably already covered most of what you need to know in the block-cutting tutorial, but I thought I would go through a few parts in more detail here. First, hop back to that page to print the template if you haven't already yet.

Hopefully you have purchased fabric and figured out how many blocks you need to cut from each at this point for your design (although I am actually planning to play around with my blocks once I get them sewn up and see what design appeals to me most - so that approach is fine too!). If you are cutting any charms from yardage, as I mentioned in the fabric requirements post, Elizabeth from Oh! Fransson has a good tutorial for cutting charm squares. I would note, however, that for making blocks using my templates, while you don't want to be too sloppy, you don't need to stress out about being exceedingly precise in your charm cutting since you will be trimming the final quarter-circle blocks down to the exact size.

I found that it worked fine to stack the cut strips two on top of each other (so four layers of fabric deep), and three in a row, and then cut them in rows. I am sure this is not the best way to do it if you need them to be exactly precisely 5" square, but since a tiny bit different will be fine for our purposes, this was a great way to speed things up. If you can tell you are a bit off, just try to err on the side of larger rather than smaller I would say.

Once I had my stack of contrasting solid charms cut, I used a disappearing pen to mark the quarter-circle on the square, lining up the template with the corner. You can also rotary cut around the template or use scissors to cut around the template while holding it, this just seemed easiest to me.

Then I like to use that first fabric piece that I cut out as a kind of fabric template when I cut the rest with scissors (again, feel free to use a rotary cutter or do this however is easiest for you - just wanted to share what worked well for me). I line that fabric template with the corner of the charms - and when I am using precut charms I try to line up the edge with the outer tips of the pinked edge, rather than the inner one - I think that is most accurate and avoids cutting too large a inner curve piece and thus leaving too small an outer curve piece.

I just hold onto that piece of fabric and hold it in place as I cut around with scissors, being careful not to cut anything off the grey piece that I am using as a fabric template. Then I got ahead and use the scissors to trim the two ends (3/8"). I found that I could cut 4 pieces of fabric at once with my prewashed Kona coal, but only 3 pieces with the unwashed precuts, since they were more slippery and it was harder to keep them lined up properly while cutting.

This may sound tedious but it actually goes really quickly! I had only cut a portion of my fabric when I took the picture below but I finished cutting the rest later and my total cutting time, including cutting out the kona coal charms and cutting all the inner/outer curve pieces, was about 2 hours (for a larger lap quilt).

I hope that helps, and happy cutting! I'd love to see your progress as you get going over in the Flickr group.

{This post is part of the Drunkard's Path Quilt-Along that I am hosting with Kristie from OCD. Check out my Drunkard's Path QAL page for the schedule and links to the posts so far, and feel free to join in any time!}

WIP weds - my first pieced quilt back

2011-10-18T21:45:00.000-07:00

Although I am itching to start lots of new quilt tops, I am trying to stay focused and finish my first drunkard's path quilt (and hopefully my kaleidoscope quilt too) before I start too many new projects. I pieced this quilt back for the drunkard's path quilt - this is actually my first pieced quilt back! I often make baby quilts where I can get away with just using a 42" width of fabric for the back, and while I have been thinking of this as a baby quilt, since it measures 45" square, I knew I would have to piece it somehow to make it big enough. When I was cutting charms for the front, I saved the random ends thinking that this would make a nice design, and then I cut some more to make enough for this pieced stripe. I like how it looks - the fact that I love the flowery central park fabric that I used as the main fabric doesn't hurt either. I hope to baste and quilt it this week.

And while I am trying to finish that up before I start too many new things, I can't ignore the Drunkard's Path QAL that Kristie and I are hosting... so I have picked out my fabric and started cutting! More on that later this week.

I'll be linking up to WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced - very happy to be back in the swing of things and looking forward to seeing what everyone else is up to!