Vintage Spools

Here’s the wall hanging I’ll submit later today; my entry in the 2017 Utah State Fair Quilt Challenge. This year’s theme is “Tickled Pink,” an apt description of the challenge fabric. The fat quarters we were given last September were covered in tiny red tulips on pink stems – Teddy Stripe Pink by Riley Blake – which I used in the inner and outer borders and two of the spools. Most of the twenty-nine other prints are Japanese: Lecien Fabrics’ Minny Muu collection. It’s hard to see from this photo, but there are impossibly small pastel daisies, foxes, kittens and strawberries all over the place. I tried to put more quilting into this project than in previous years. It’s the one thing the judges seem to notice. It would be nice to earn a blue ribbon this time, but I’m not counting on it. I did have a lot of fun making this quilt. That should be enough, shouldn’t it? 

Home Treasure

Three of my grandchildren live in my house with their parents. It’s a temporary arrangement, but it brings back so many memories of when I called my grandma’s house home. I can close my eyes and see snapdragons, snowball bushes, apricot and walnut trees, a cow pasture and milking barn. There was a clothesline hung from metal pipes that wasps found irresistible, a garage housing everything in the world but cars, a well with a noisy pump, and a basement window that once delivered coal to the furnace room. I explored my world on bare feet as hard as horns. I think must have been a wild child, as feral as the cats that nested in the shed and in the car set “out to pasture.” My grandkids are far more domesticated, spending their days with Disney movies and handheld tablets. Theirs is a safer, less messy world. But somehow it still makes me sad.

Sixteen Diamond Nine-Patches

Our current president says his first job was collecting empty soda bottles. When his dad would visit construction sites, Donald and his brother tagged along and snagged bottles to redeem for cash. At age thirteen, Hillary Clinton tended her neighbors’ children. Harrison Ford, Bernie Sanders and Matt LeBlanc used to be carpenters. Madeline Albright sold lingerie in a Denver department store. Whoopi Goldberg used to work as a beautician. In a morgue. Hugh Jackman was once a high school gym teacher. He also worked as a $50-per-party clown. Amy Adams was a waitress at Hooters. Jennifer Aniston was a telemarketer for two whole weeks. My point is that first jobs don’t tend to be very glamorous or lucrative. They’re not meant to be. They’re not even meant to pay a living wage. I think the purpose of entry-level jobs is that they compel you - in so many ways - to move to the next level.

You Go Girl

“The consecrated life is a pure life. While Jesus is the only one to have led a sinless life, those who come unto Him and take His yoke upon them have claim on His grace, which will make them as He is, guiltless and spotless. With deep love the Lord encourages us in these words: ‘Repent, all ye ends of the earth, and come unto me and be baptized in my name, that ye may be sanctified by the reception of the Holy Ghost, that ye may stand spotless before me at the last day.’ Consecration therefore means repentance. Stubbornness, rebellion, and rationalization must be abandoned, and in their place submission, a desire for correction, and acceptance of all that the Lord may require. This is what King Benjamin called putting off the natural man, yielding to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and becoming a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord.” – Elder D. Todd Christofferson

Nine Diamond Nine-Patches

Lemon Blueberry Bread

1 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup butter, melted

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1/2 cup milk

1 cup blueberries

1 tablespoons flour

2 tablespons butter, melted

1/2 cup powdered sugar

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350F and butter a standard loaf pan. In a medium bowl, whisk flour, baking powder and salt; set aside. Blend together butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, and lemon juice.  Mix well. Stir dry mixture into wet mixture just until combined. Toss blueberries in 1 tablespoon flour, then gently fold into batter. Pour into pan and bake one hour.  Cool 30 minutes, then remove from pan. Whisk remaining four ingredients together and drizzle over bread. Slice after bread has completely cooled.

Crazy Music

When I finish a quilt top – especially one that took a great deal of time or made a huge mess – I spend some time tidying up my work space. I run a slightly damp cloth across those surfaces that don’t mind a little moisture, and take a lint roller to the rest. Next I clean and oil my sewing machine and change the needle. I gather the scraps from the piece I just finished and design a “bone bag” quilt. If the scraps are long and skinny, the result might be a log cabin, a pineapple or a string quilt. The Musical Mice baby quilt I made a dozen years ago https://mombowe.blogspot.com/2017/05/musical-mice.html involved a lot of fussy-cutting, so the left-over fabric looked just like Swiss cheese. It seemed like a good opportunity to try a crazy quilt. These thirty crazy blocks were a blast to make and came together in no time. 

Four Diamond Nine-Patch Blocks

If you give a mom a muffin, she'll want a cup of coffee to go with it.

Her three-year-old will spill the coffee. She'll wipe it up.

Wiping the floor, she'll find dirty socks. She'll remember she must do laundry.

While putting laundry in the washer she'll bump into the freezer.

Bumping into the freezer will remind her she has to plan supper.

After thawing a pound of hamburger, she'll look for her cookbook under a pile of mail.

She’ll see the phone bill that’s due tomorrow.

She’ll look for her checkbook which is in the purse her two-year-old is dumping out.

She'll smell something funny. She'll change the two-year-old's diaper.

While she’s changing the diaper, the phone will ring. Her five-year-old will answer and hang up.

She'll remember she wants to phone a friend for coffee.

Thinking of coffee will remind her she meant to have a cup.

If she has a cup of coffee, her kids will have eaten the muffin.

- Beth Brubaker

Flying Geese Variation

We like to eat out once – sometimes twice – a week. It’s nice to sample somebody else’s cooking, and even nicer when someone besides me sets the table, clears away and does the washing up. If the food is good, it can inspire new creations in my own kitchen. A few weeks ago we splurged at a nice barbecue restaurant. I ordered a sirloin that came with steamed vegetables and mashed potatoes – two whole cups of mashed potatoes for one person! Who eats like that? I polished off the veg and the steak, which were wonderful. The intimidating mound of spuds came home in a box, completely untouched. The next morning I added two beaten eggs and a quarter cup of flour. My recipe called for chives, salt and pepper, but the mashed potatoes already had all three. I fried up eight potato pancakes for breakfast and served them with sour cream, but they'd also have been delicious with applesauce.

Diamond Nine-Patch

I wasn’t old enough to vote for Jimmy Carter in 1976, but if I was I wouldn’t have. In fact, I voted against him four years later and celebrated when he lost. Between his claim to have seen a UFO and consulting his preteen daughter about nuclear weapons policy, Carter was in my opinion not our most dignified president. But his behavior after leaving office has really impressed me. When he and Rosalyn left the White House, they moved back into the little one-story brick ranch house they built in Plains, Georgia in 1961. They’re still there. (Compare that with the Obamas’ $5.3 million digs.) For more than 30 years he’s been a staunch supporter of Habitat for Humanity – not just writing checks, but wielding hammers. This year he leased ten acres to build a solar farm that will supply more than half his home town’s energy needs. 

Hidden Stars, Straight Setting

“When we are baptized, we enter into a covenant. Elder Robert D. Hales taught, ‘When we make and keep covenants, we are coming out of the world and into the kingdom of God.’ We are changed. We look different, and we act different. The things we listen to and read and say are different, and what we wear is different because we become daughters of God bound to Him by covenant. When we’re confirmed, we receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, the right to have the constant influence of a member of the Godhead to guide us, to comfort us, and to protect us. He warns us when we are tempted to walk away from our covenants and back into the world.” - Carole M. Stephens, Relief Society General Presidency First Counselor

Kite Block

At midday on Monday a total eclipse of the sun will be visible from much of the contiguous United States. It will be the first solar eclipse to reach from sea to shining sea in nearly a century. If I live to be 100 (somehow that sounded like a better idea 25 years ago than it does now) there will be 28 more total solar eclipses in my lifetime. Very, very few of them will take place anywhere near my home. I could probably catch one if I visited Nauvoo, Illinois on April 8, 2024. Or I could just stay put. One will come to the Salt Lake area on August 12, 2045. That one shouldn’t be hard to attend, assuming I’m still living in the Salt Lake valley. And assuming there are considerate staff members who are willing to push my wheelchair out of the nursing home.

Grandma's Pump

I’m not sure I’d attempt this recipe with an ordinary blender. Things like pineapple fibers and raspberry seeds used to overwhelm my old one. It was a classic Oster beehive model; looked great on the counter but just couldn’t cut the mustard. These days I use a Blendtec “Wild Side” blender, which so far has handled everything I’ve thrown at it.

Bear Lake Raspberry Shake

1/2 cup milk (whole, skim, or 2%)

1/2 cup unsweetened raspberries, fresh or frozen

1 tablespoon raw honey

2 cups vanilla ice cream, ice milk, frozen custard or frozen yogurt

Assemble all ingredients in blender jar in the order listed; secure lid. Blend at medium-low speed for thirty to forty seconds or until smooth. Serve immediately. For an authentic La Beau’s of Bear Lake experience, use whole milk and frozen custard. But frozen yogurt and skim milk are still quite yummy, and you can pretend you’re eating healthy.

E for Eliza

It was Christmas, and we were wishing we could spend it with our kids who were halfway around the world from us. Our boiler was out (again) and we were feeling a little sorry for ourselves. If life has taught me anything, it’s that the best way to cheer yourself up is to look for someone else who might need cheering. Our neighbors had just brought home a tiny baby girl, and they weren’t able to travel to be with their family. So the six of us had Christmas dinner together. I don’t remember what I cooked, but the pork pie they shared was the best I’ve ever tasted. I made this baby quilt for their little girl out of scraps from Marti Michell’s American Beauty quilt, and also from her Romance Continues line. I didn’t have quite enough of the dark pink sashing, so I used a slightly lighter print for five of them, forming a subtle letter “E” in the center.

Devil's Claws

Slow Cooker Moroccan Chicken Stew

4 carrots, sliced

2 onions, thinly sliced

4 chicken breasts, cut into large pieces

1/2 cup raisins

1/2 cup dried apricot, coarsely chopped

14 ounces chicken broth

2 tablespoons tomato paste

2 tablespoons flour

2 tablespoons lemon juice

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 1/2 teaspoons cumin

1 1/2 teaspoons ginger

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Place carrots and onions in slow cooker. Sprinkle chicken with 1/2 teaspoon salt. Add to cooker; top chicken with raisins and apricots. Whisk together broth, tomato paste, flour, lemon juice, garlic, cumin, ginger, cinnamon; add to cooker. Cover and cook on low seven hours or on high four hours. Serve in bowls with couscous and toasted pine nuts. Serves four.

Framed Chickadee

Google “90% of parenting is,” and you’ll get amazing results, like: 90% of parenting is screaming at your kids to stop screaming. 90% of parenting is pretending to look for something you threw away on purpose. 90% of parenting is listening to kids sitting there whining, “Why do I always have to do everything?” while you’re in the middle of actually doing everything. 90% of parenting is doing just enough to keep the other parents from judging you. 90% of parenting is waiting for the other parent to do something about it. 90% of parenting is answering hundreds of pointless questions asked by a tiny person seated on a plastic potty. 90% of parenting is resisting the urge to say, “I told you so.” 90% of parenting is trying to keep the awake ones quiet enough that the sleeping ones stay asleep. 90% of parenting is wondering if your parents made it sound easy so you’d give them grandkids.

Night Flight

“In pondering and pursuing consecration, understandably we tremble inwardly at what may be required. Yet the Lord has said consolingly, ‘My grace is sufficient for you.’ These remarks are addressed to the imperfect but still striving in the household of faith. As always, my immediate audience is myself. We tend to think of consecration only as yielding up, when divinely directed, our material possessions. But ultimate consecration is the yielding up of oneself to God. Heart, soul, and mind were the encompassing words of Christ in describing the first commandment, which is constantly, not periodically, operative. If kept, then our performances will, in turn, be fully consecrated for the lasting welfare of our souls. Such totality involves the submissive converging of feelings, thoughts, words, and deeds, the very opposite of estrangement.” – Elder Neal A. Maxwell

Holland Magic

We’d just finished a disappointing meal at a nearby restaurant and the waiter showed up with our bill on an electronic tablet. John swiped his card, signed with his finger, and then looked for the spot to add a tip. We were shocked to find a 20% tip had already been added, and that changing the percentage would mean cancelling the transaction. If there was a way to pay without leaving a tip, it wasn’t obvious. When did 20% become the norm? When did tipping cease to be voluntary? In 1922 Emily Post suggested a 10% tip. In 2004, Miss Manners said 15% was acceptable. Will it be 25% in 2027? Why is the percentage going up, when the price of the meals on which the tips are based is certainly keeping pace with inflation? Why do we tip at all? Would it be so hard for restaurants to pay a decent wage?

Follow the Leader

The man with the longest television career is British actor/presenter Bruce Forsyth. (He’s barely recognizable to American audiences, but if you don’t blink you’ll catch his performance as the henchman Swinburn in Bedknobs and Broomsticks.) The actress with the longest TV career is Betty White, the first woman to produce a television sitcom. Depending on your age, you’ll either remember her best as Sue Ann Nivens on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, or as Rose Nylund from The Golden Girls. When asked about her secret for longevity, Betty answered, “I’m a health nut. My favorite food is hot dogs with French fries. And my exercise: I have a two-story house and a very bad memory, so I’m up and down those stairs.” She  may be onto something. Sir Bruce retired two years ago at the age of 87. But Betty, at 95, is still going strong.   

Tinker Toy Toss

I haven’t seen most of the movies that made Liam Neeson famous. They may all be wonderful films, but I've learned I have to be selective about the things that fill my head. In those movies I HAVE seen, he’s had several very memorable lines. But my favorite Liam Neeson quotes didn’t come from the cinema: “Everyone says love hurts, but that is not true. Loneliness hurts. Rejection hurts. Losing someone hurts. Envy hurts. Everyone gets these things confused with love but in reality, love is the only thing in the world that covers up all the pain and makes someone feel wonderful again. Love is the only thing in the world that does not hurt.” “It’s still a great big beautiful world no matter what the headlines of the newspapers are and it’s there to be explored. It’s there for our children to go out and explore different cultures and learn from it. I never lose hope.”

Thrifty Block

Quilts Etc chose today’s block to honor Grandma Moses. I wrote about her less than a year ago – at https://mombowe.blogspot.com/2016/09/scotch-quilt.html - so I won’t repeat myself here. Instead, I’ll tell you about someone I thought would be included in the Quilts Etc. “You Go Girl” series, but wasn’t. Maria do Carmo Miranda da Cunha was born in Marco de Canaveses, Portugal in 1909. As a young woman, Carmen Miranda worked designing hats in a boutique in Brazil. She recorded her first album at the age of 20. Her second record catapulted her to stardom, and into films. When she appeared in “Down Argentine Way” in 1940, the Brazilian Bombshell had to learn all her lines phonetically, as she spoke almost no English. In her words, “I say twenty words in English. I say money, money, money and I say hot dog! I say yes, no and I say money, money, money and I say turkey sandwich and I say grape juice.”

Nine Devil's Puzzles

Eleven-year-old Noah Ursrey and his eight-year-old brother Stephen were playing in the waves at Panama City Beach. When they were caught in a deadly riptide they screamed for help. Tabatha and Brittany Monroe were the first to hear them. They swam out to rescue the boys but were overpowered themselves. The same thing happened to the boys’ mom and dad, their 27-year-old cousin and 67-year-old grandmother. No lifeguards were present, and police opted to wait for a rescue boat. Dozens of people on the beach could only watch as the exhausted victims – 100 yards from shore – were swept into the Gulf of Mexico. Then someone shouted, “Form a human chain!” Hundreds of people did just that, linking arms and legs to save every one of them. Afterwards, one witness remarked, “To see people come to action to help TOTAL strangers is amazing! People who didn’t know each other went HAND IN HAND to reach them. Pause and IMAGINE that.”

Hidden Stars, Diagonal Setting

“Every woman has been endowed by God with distinctive characteristics, gifts, and talents in order that she may fulfill a specific mission in the eternal plan. The priesthood is for the benefit of all members of the Church. While women do not hold the priesthood, men have no greater claim than women upon the blessings that issue from it. The home is the basic organization to teach an individual to walk uprightly before the Lord. Compassionate service and a sensitivity to the needs of others are the principal purposes for which a woman’s program was organized. Share your talents. Each of you, single or married, regardless of age, has the opportunity to learn and grow. Expand your knowledge, both intellectual and spiritual, to the full stature of your divine potential. There is no limit to your influence for good. Share your talents, for that which we willingly share, we keep. But that which we selfishly keep, we lose.” – President Thomas S. Monson

Four Devil's Puzzles

Sure, the Greek Festival is five weeks away, but who can wait that long?

Chicken Souvlaki

1 pound chicken breast , cut into 1 inch chunks

2 tablespoons of lemon juice

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon oregano

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

2 garlic cloves , minced

1 cup plain organic greek yogurt

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 cup minced cucumber

1/4 cup minced fresh parsley

Combine the lemon juice, olive oil, oregano, salt, pepper and garlic, along with 1 tablespoon water, in a bowl. Add chicken and toss to coat. Marinate 1 hour. Heat a grill to medium. Thread chicken onto 4 skewers. Grill chicken 5 minutes on each side or until cooked through. Mix together yogurt, sour cream, cucumber and parsley. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot chicken with yogurt sauce.

Big Baby Star

It takes roughly nine months to produce a human. It must take me a good chunk of that time to produce a baby quilt, because it always feels like I’m struggling to pull it off at the last minute. I never seem to do my best work when I’m under a deadline, so maybe I can be forgiven for not being on top of my game where baby quilts are concerned. When I bought the pattern for this quilt I thought it would be a good way to use up eleven of the 30’s fat quarters I’d been collecting. I wish I’d remembered that since fat quarters would also be used for the binding, there would be twice as many lumpy seams at the edges of the quilt. I’m considering making two more of these – one pink and one blue – to have on hand in case of baby showers. If I do, I’m buying separate yardage for the binding.

Devil's Puzzle Block

Kumbali was born May 12, 2015 to Hatari and Khari, a pair of cheetahs at the Richmond Zoo. Kumbali was the runt of a litter of three. His siblings were thriving, but Kumbali was losing weight. So the zoo decided to hand raise him. The original plan was to reintroduce Kumbali to his family when his health was restored, but they wanted nothing to do with him. The poor cheetah cub began to show signs of anxiety. So the zoo got him a puppy: Kago, a rescued male yellow Lab mix. The practice of using dogs as companions for cheetahs has been going on for thirty years, beginning with the San Diego Zoo. It’s a relationship that would never happen in the wild, but it was exactly what the nervous cheetah needed. Kumbali and Kago are adorable together. You can follow this odd couple online at http://metrorichmondzoo.com or you can visit them in person. Bring a camera.

Bow Ties for Ethan

When we lived in England John had a coworker who was king of barbecues. This fellow had a roasting box big enough to accommodate a fully grown pig, which he procured from a local butcher. (This is completely beside the point, but if you’ve only ever lived in the United States, you probably have no idea what real pork tastes like. Pigs here are deliberately bred to have less fat and harvested early to cut costs. The result tastes a bit like dry chicken.)  When the barbecue king and his wife were expecting a little boy I made this baby quilt for them. I used a charm pack (a stack of five inch squares) of Aunt Gracie prints from American Jane line for Moda fabrics. The almost-but-not-quite white background was leftover scraps of Kona Snow. The sashing, border, backing and binding were ordered by mail from The Fat Quarter Shop, who didn’t mind shipping to an APO. 

Nine Cotton Reels

I've scarcely fired up my oven in weeks. My air conditioner is already having a tough time keeping the house cool, especially around dinner time. These days most of my cooking happens on the grill, on the range, in the microwave, or in my slow cooker.

Slow Cooker Upside-Down Cake

1 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup butter, melted

1 20-ounce can pineapple slices drained, reserve juice

10 maraschino cherries without stems

1 box yellow cake mix

Oil and eggs called for on cake mix box

Spray 6-quart slow cooker with cooking spray. Spread butter and brown sugar evenly in bottom. Arrange pineapple slices on brown sugar mixture. Place a cherry in center of each. Make cake batter as directed on box, substituting pineapple juice mixture for the water. Pour batter over pineapple and cherries. Cook on High heat setting 2 1/2 to 3 hours or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Serve while still warm.