Squirrel Cage

I’m not fond of this block, though it wasn’t particularly challenging. It seems off balance somehow. It might be that the clusters of pale pink flowers against the raspberry background are messing with the symmetry. Maybe I should have used fabric with a stronger value for the diamonds and less intense prints elsewhere. I do like the name, though. Squirrel Cage is the term for the rotating part of the most common form of AC motor. I was eleven or twelve when our garbage disposal broke and Daddy decided to take the whole thing apart and rebuild it. He tried to explain how a rotating magnetic field creates an electrical current. I don’t know how much of it I understood then, but I do remember being amused at the name “Squirrel Cage.” It was much more fun to imagine a hamster wheel powering the motor that chewed up apple cores and orange peels. 

Four Hourglass Blocks

White Chicken Chili

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 large onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, crushed

1 small tomato, peeled and seeded

2 32-ounce cartons chicken stock

2 15-ounce cans cannellini or northern beans, drained and rinsed

2 15-ounce cans lima or butter beans, drained and rinsed

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

A dash of ground cayenne pepper

1 pound cooked rotisserie chicken, coarsely chopped

 In 6-quart saucepan or Dutch oven, heat oil over low heat. Add onion and garlic; cook and stir until onion is tender. Add remaining ingredients except chicken. Heat to boiling. Reduce heat to low; simmer 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add cooked chicken and continue cooking another 5 or 10 minutes until heated through. Serve with hot sauce or salsa, so your guests can add as much heat as they like.

Lakeland

The designer of this quilt, Brenda Riddle, said she looked long and hard for a block that would showcase the pretty floral prints of the Windermere line. She settled on the block named Ripples, also called Ocean Waves. Each block uses thirty flying geese sub-blocks. She said, “I don’t know if there are geese in the English Lake District that inspired the name of this collection [of fabrics], but I think they fit right in.” I’ve been to Lake Windermere; it was just over 80 miles (a two hour trip) from my English home. We spent a lovely day there, boating on the lake, lunching at a quaint little restaurant, and exploring the World of Beatrix Potter museum. There were hundreds of geese, as well as ducks, seagulls and enormous swans. Lakeland, though, was the name of one of our favourite British shops; sort of a cross between Sur La Table and the Container Store.

Sister Star

The tune we associate with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star wasn’t written by Mozart, but it’s frequently attributed to the classical composer. Mozart is old enough to have composed the piece. Ah! vous dirai-je, maman (French for “Oh! Would I Tell You, Mother”) was published in 1761. Mozart turned five that year, but he already had at least three documented compositions under his belt. Two decades later Mozart wrote twelve variations on the simple folk song, which is doubtless the reason for all the confusion. Ah! vous dirai-je, maman is also the tune we sing when we teach a child the alphabet. And when you sing Baa Baa Black Sheep? Yep. Same tune. If you watched Sesame Street, you might recognize my personal favorite:

“Whistle, whistle little bird. Isn't eating crumbs absurd?

Try a ham and cheese on rye and a piece of cherry pie.

If those crumbs are all you want, don't come in my restaurant.”

Four Louisiana Blocks

On this day in 1895 the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty was founded in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. (There’s a separate National Trust for Scotland. Don’t ask me why.) The Trust’s original focus was to protect and preserve English country houses, but it also holds many gardens and historic urban properties. While we were in England we visited several National Trust sites, including the Treasurer’s House in York, Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal Water Garden, Hadrian's Wall and Housesteads Roman Fort, Beningbrough Hall, Moulton Hall and the old coastguard station at Robin Hood’s Bay. We always meant to visit Brimham Rocks, but we kept finding excuses not to. It was only eleven miles from our home, but it’s not exactly the sort of place you can take a wheelchair. We very nearly made it to Hilltop House – Beatrix Potter’s home in Cumbria – only the winding, bouncy ride there made Heather carsick.

Wheel of Fortune

“I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book.” – Joseph Smith

“As the Church membership embarks this year in its study of the Book of Mormon in Sunday School gospel doctrine classes, our hope would be that people would read it on a daily basis, pray about it and, as a consequence, they would get closer to God than they’ve ever been in their lives.” – Brother Tad R. Callister, Sunday school general president.

Twinkle Twinkle

Jane and Anne Taylor first published their poem in London in 1806. There were originally four other verses, but most of us are only familiar with:

“Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are!

Up above the world so high like a diamond in the sky.

Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are!”

Fifty-nine years later Lewis Carroll wrote a parody (with slightly better grammar) into chapter seven of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland:

“Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! How I wonder what you're at!

Up above the world you fly, like a tea tray in the sky.

Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! How I wonder what you're at!”

Some think his poem may have been a reference to Professor Bartholomew Price, a former teacher of Carroll’s whom he called "The Bat." It may also refer to an unfortunate incident involving a mechanical flying bat and a startled butler. I like to think both are partly true.