Experiments in the kitchen and on the "design wall"

I love, love, love lemons!  They're my favorite fruit by a long shot, and yes, I even eat them all by themselves!!  I've never had a great sense of smell, so I really gravitate towards those "4 tongue tastes"... sweet, sour, bitter and salty.  Lemons are such a nice strong sour that I just can't get enough of them. 

I don't know why it took my over 40 years to first read about preserved lemons, but as soon as I did, I knew I had to try to make these!  I ran across the recipe when I was searching for recipes using pine nuts, as our basil (to use with the pine nuts for pesto) got nailed by an early frost last fall, and I had lot of extra pine nuts.  I came across a recipe for couscous with pine nuts and preserved lemons on the Food Network's website.  He gives directions on how to make preserved lemons too.

So finally I decided to give them a try.  Like many good things, though, they require a wait.  Most recipes say 3 weeks or so.  I'll let you know when I give them a try!

Has anyone else ever eaten or made these?  I'm so excited to give them a try!!

I also finished up the last of my granny squares.  I only had 40 charms squares from a local swap to work with.  These are not colors I keep in my stash, and I'm reluctant to buy additional fabric.  So I'm calling it quits after only 10 squares, and trying to come up with a layout.  I could make a small baby quilt, which was my original plan, but the mom to be just lost their baby in her 2nd trimester.  We're still getting used to this new reality.

I could also make a slightly bigger lap quilt.

Or, I could employ a lot of "negative space", and make an even bigger twin sized quilt.

I'm leaning towards the last option.  Just think of all the fun quilting that could be done in that "negative" space... very positive!

I'd love to hear your opinions on the design, and culinary experiences with preserved lemons!  I'm linking up with Quilt Story's Fabric Tuesday, and Debbie, at A Quilters Table.  Debbie's husband just made home made sausage, something we've been wanting to try for years now!!  I'm so impressed!

Quilt Show!!

Over the week-end, starting on Friday, I had the pleasure of helping out, being a part of, and attending our local quilt show!  Krazy Horse Quilt Show is a local, non-juried show, that had about 200 quilts on display (and a dozen or more vendors).  Despite our small rural town persona, there are always the most amazing quilts made by local quilters.  We sure have a super-talented group of quilters here!!  I didn't take nearly as many pictures as I should or could have, and a few aren't great quality, but I thought I'd share some with you.  There were some antique quilts on display too that I didn't get any pictures of, but some were very old, and just amazing to look at and think of the history behind them.  I feel far away from my family, but at least I have the Internet, photo sharing websites, telephones and even the latest communication tool, Skype, which we've now used a few times!  These women who made these quilts had hand written letters at best!  They had no fabric store either, and relied on clothing and other fabric scraps.  I'm so glad someone was kind enough to share these quilts with us!

Enough talk, here's some pictures.  These first 2 quilts literally tied for both viewers choice and the overall "excellence" award.

The rest are quilts that I really like for various reasons, including borders I want to try out, blocks I want to try and even a few granny squares and a "New York Beauty" variation. I think I accidentally skipped taking pictures of the whole front half of the arena, because I was in such awe LOL!  But here's a few for you to enjoy!

I wish I could show you pictures of all 200+ quilts, because these are just a few of the amazing quilts I saw.  As usual, one of my favorite parts of the quilt show is reading all of the stories behind the quilts.  After living here for over 2 years now, it's also super-fun to recognize so many of the quilters' names!!  After such a fun week-end, I'm recharged and have even more ideas and plans on new quilts and projects!!

Mail call!

First of all, thanks for all of the nice comments yesterday!  I got one quilt in the mail, and have another almost done, but also have our local quilt show this week-end, which I'll be busy helping out with. I hope to get the second quilt in the mail soon!

I thought I'd also show you what I got in the mail this week!!  There are a few more "plant" postcards.  Aren't they great?!!

Check out the sweet little beads on this one, from Beth!!

We also got these today!  We love "Territorial Seed Company"!  Despite the fact that it's rainy and only 50 degree right now, it should be warmer this week-end, so we can start planting some of these!  They sell a "corn succession" pack that you can plant all at once, and the 3 different types mature a few weeks apart, giving you corn for many weeks with one planting.  We tried these last year, and they worked out well!

I hope all of you have a great week-end!!

WIP Wed: Tag and Tops

I'm afraid we got 2 pieces of bad news in our family this week and last.  It's left me sad and reflective.  It's hard to live so far away from family during times like these.  I wish I were closer to help.  One thing I can do though is make a quilt.  I decided to pull out a top that's been in my "UFO" (unfinished object) pile and get to work.  I now have 2 quilt tops pin basted together, and hope to have a few in the mail by the end of the week.  So these are my big "WIP"'s this week.

On a lighter note, I was "tagged" by Amy at "Harriet Homemaker Strikes Again".  She left a post answering a set of questions, then tagged 5 of us to answer another set.  I decided instead of tagging another 5 bloggers, I'll ask you a question to answer in the comments, if you feel like playing :-).  Here's the questions she asked me:

1)    10 years ago, what occupied the majority of your time during the day.
Easy... my 2 boys, who were quite young then!!
2)    What motivated you to begin quilting and when did you start.
I've been sewing since I was a kid, started my first quilt 20 years ago for my fiance(now husband), but didn't finish it, or start another until about 2004, after discovering rotary cutters and rulers.
3)    How big is your fabric stash and what color do you have the most and least of?
I have 2 small bookcases where I store my fabric.  I'd guess about a square yard of fabric :-O.  Over half of this is fabric for garments though, including polar fleece, which takes up a lot of space. I probably have more "cammo" than anything else LOL.  I gravitate more towards the cooler colors in quilting, purple, blue, green.  I have very little red or orange.
4)    What is your favorite munchie snack or treat?
I go for salt over sugar, so Goldfish crackers are my favorite, at home, and french fries are my biggest restaurant vice.
5)    Where do you craft?
Wherever I can find room.  Lately it's been in a corner of our bedroom and the front door entryway.
6)    How many projects do you have in active (3 months or less since you working on it) progress, and what are they?
Oh my!  Can I plead the 5th on this one?
7)    Who do you make things for most and why?
My family, 'cause I love them...
8)    If you could live anywhere in the world, not including your current home, where would it be and why?
Wow.  I'm not a world traveler, so I'm not sure.  I've always wanted to see Australia!

Thanks Amy!  Now my question to all of you!   How do you plan to spend your summer?  Trips?  Pool-side?  Gardening?  Work?

I'm also linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced WIP Wed.  Come see what others are up to over there!!

Sushi and QR Code Quilt

This morning, I read quite a few blog posts about food, and decided, for a change, to join in on the subject!  This link-up by Debbie and A Quilters Table, a post by Susan at History Quilter, and this wonderful cooking class post by Beth at Notes really got me motivated.  I wouldn't call myself a "foodie" really, but I do cook most of our food from scratch with whole foods, that are as natural as I can get them.  With all of the wonderful food blogs out there, I have been too shy to post about food, but with the Spring and Summer sewing lag right around the corner, maybe it's time for a change...

Debbie asked us to share what our top "foodie moments" are.  After posting the above sushi picture on my Facebook page last Friday, I'd have to put my first taste of Sushi as a top moment.  It was such a revelation, that when we moved from Medford, Oregon, (where I had my first taste), to tiny Lewiston, Michigan in 2006, I began to have Sushi withdrawal symptoms that could only be alleviated by learning how to make it myself.  I have never tried sushi with raw fish, but in a pinch, even Lewiston (population 990) had Starkist smoked fish in a pouch.  The internet, or bigger city stores supply my sushi rice, Nori, wasabi, and pickled ginger.  YUM!

I'm not a world traveler, but I have lived in many parts of the USA, including Southern Louisiana.  If you've ever been down there, you know that the food is some of the best in the country.  I've also learned how to cook many things I crave after moving out of a city to the variety of small towns that I've lived in most of my adult life.  Here's my "top 10" list.

1. First taste of Sushi (and yes, both my boys LOVE it too).

2. Turtle Soup (I know, I'm sorry, but it's SO good) at a nice New Orleans restaurant.

3. My first home-cooked meal as a Freshman in college, after eating nothing but dorm food for months.  It was just steak, fresh pasta and frozen peas, but it's seared in my memory.

4. My first kid-free date night with my husband after becoming a mom, at a fancy (cloth napkins, glass water glasses, no high chair or booster to be found) very delicious Italian restaurant in Ashland, OR.

5. Eating authentic Greek food in Chicago for the first time after meeting my husbands' family, who are of Greek-ancestry.  Our traditional Christmas meal is lamb dolmades with avgolemono (egg and lemon) sauce.

6. Many evenings hanging out, enjoying snowballs at Plum Street Snowball Stand in New Orleans with my family.

7. Seeing my kids enjoy beignets for the first time at Cafe Du Monde in New Orleans.

8. Eating burritos at La Burrita Mexican Restaurant in Medford Oregon.  I have yet to find burritos just as good :-).

9. Cooking (and eating) fried okra with my mom.  Any meal with fried okra is memorable to me LOL!  Along with this goes making (and eating) my aunt Janice's home made dinner rolls (which won first place at a Texas State fair) with my mom's family.  Don't ask for the recipe ;-).

10. Crawfish boils in Southern Louisiana.  I crave this so much this time of year, and it's one of those things that's hard to replicate, although we did once have many pounds of live crawfish Fed-exed to Northern Michigan... another memorable meal, as I had to instruct all but a few people on how to cook and eat them! I can't take full credit for it though, as we had a Forest Service employee from Southern Mississippi there who was the ring leader and mastermind.  I got to bring home all of the left-overs, and made etoufee. The large office lunch meal I sent to work the next day was devoured by 9am LOL!

Looking at my list, it's apparent that most of my food moments were spent with family and friends.  That's what really makes a meal special for me!

Changing gears, if you're still with me, I also just finished my Vintage QR Code quilt!  I love it, but decided it might be a good "first quilt" to try to sell on Etsy.  I just listed in in my store.  It'll be interesting to see what happens!  I decided that I'm not as crazy about working with vintage sheets as I thought I'd be, but one thing I love is that even after washing it in hot water, it puckered up very little.  I've never been a huge fan of the puckered up look after washing a cotton quilt.  I may try to sell some of these sheets in my stash soon on Etsy or eBay soon.

It's also "Fabric Tuesday" at Quilt Story, so I'll be posting there as well!

The Garden is Open

Over the week-end, we spent a great deal of time in our yard and garden, getting ready for the growing season.  We weeded, dug, got the irrigation up and running, fixed trellises, and got out the tomato cages, as well as the "Wall of water" protectors for a dozen or so tomatoes we bought. 

I also stubbornly dug up yet another 10-12 foot section of "rock-scaping" that is in our yard and started turning it into usable dirt for edible plants.  Last year, I dug up a big chunk and planted blueberry plants.  Now we have a 2nd strawberry bed, and room for something else that is yet to be decided.  The rest we'll dig up next year!  The seed and plant catalogs have been deployed, and an order already placed. I'm sore, tired, and stiff, but the promise of yummy home-grown goodies keeps me going.  I love reading about gardens as much as sewing, so please let me know what you're growing this year!  We always like try something new each year.  Some of our past favorites, that have now become staples in our garden are pink banana squash, and Asian yard long beans.  We ordered some Edamame beans this year.  What else would you recommend?

Friday Finish: Another New York Beauty

Lately, I've been really falling hard for these paper piecing quilt blocks.  These "New York Beauties" take so gosh darn long, but they're so worth it!  It may take me the rest of the year to get through the series, but I plan to!

I'm linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts Finish it up Friday today.  She said this will be the last one for a while, so be sure to head over there to see what others have finished!  With kids getting out of school soon, Spring in the air, I can totally relate to that decision.