kelsey's baby quilt

One of the girls Sister Suzy graduated with is having a little one in August.  Sister Suzy asked if I would make a baby quilt for her to give to Kelsey.  Of course, I will make one!

I found the pattern for the block a while ago and thought it was a great way to use scraps.  It was from the Quilting Daily web site and a hexagon shaped baby blanket.  It is baby quilt #4.  I loved the idea of the block construction but not the shape of the quilt.  So me being me, I changed it around into what I believe to be a far more useable shaped quilt.

The quilt measures 43" by 55".  You will need 18 whole blocks, 4 half blocks, 9 half diamonds and 2 quarter diamonds.  The border is 2 1/2" wide with a matching bias-cut French binding.  I don't know how much fabric is in the quilt because I used scraps but there is 13" of fabric in the binding.  LOL!

I used a traditional weight cotton-batting for the inside layer.  Not as thick as I like but after washing the quilt it has a very old-timey look so all is wonderful.

This is the shape of the basic unit of the block.

I started by sewing long strips of fabric together and then cutting out the shapes.  Lots of wasted material in my mind and as you cut, your temple gets smaller. Not very satisfying! So what to do?  How about paper piecing?  I have never paper-pieced and it works amazingly well.  Here is a link to a youtube video if you are curious.  And when you have the three basic units sewn together they look like this.

Well I got tired of putting the blocks together the recommended way and I was also running out of strips long enough, so I tried something a little bit different.  I rotated my scraps 90 degrees and made a few blocks this way.

I thought that was cute and wish I had done a few more like them.

I did outline quilting for the most part in the body of the quilt.  I wanted something different for the quilting on the border.  I did a search in some quilt stencil books I have and found this one I really liked.

The stencil comes from the book Quilting Designs from the Amish by Pepper Cory.  When you are looking for stencil designs for machine quilting look for designs that flow from one repeat to the other.  If you can't take your finger and follow the line for long distances the design is not a good candidate like the very top design.  There is a lot of starting and stopping in that one.  The one I chose (in the middle) the lines flow for however long you want to repeat the design.  This is how I did the corner.

There are several ways to do corners.  Hum, I think, I will do a blog post on how to make your quilt stencil design turn the corner!

And lastly the back and label!

Bubbles!  I love that fabric for the backs of children's quilts.  Yes, I do!

Until next time, have a good day!

Judy

chocolate covered strawberries

We bought a flat of strawberries and before I froze all of them I wanted to try something new with the strawberries. I have always been curious as to what all the buzz was about with chocolate dipped fruit. So, I had my first chocolate covered strawberry this summer.  They were okay, just, okay.
 
I must have a truly unsophisticated palate, because, why would you cover up the wonderful taste of strawberry with chocolate?  So I turned the bowl of chocolate over to the resident chocoholic (Sister Suzy) and sprinkled a wee touch of sugar on my bowl of strawberries and was in heaven.

It just wasn’t the strawberries, I tried chocolate with pineapple and blueberries, and that didn't turn my crank either.  I know!  Pure sacrilege!  A female who doesn't like something covered in chocolate!  What can I say, except, I will save the my chocolate for cookies, cakes or brownies!

Have a good day!

Judy

The apricot post

This is the apricot post I promised so many moons ago.  I finally got my recipes together and at the computer all at the same time!  Amazing!

History; I like apricots, specifically dried apricots, a lot.  So I bought two sweet-pit apricot trees from Stark Brothers Nursery about 12 years ago not knowing that the Kansas State Extension Service considers apricot trees as ornamental because they bloom so early.  What happens is we will have a spell of warm weather in late February or early March then we will have a heavy frost or snow storm late March or early April most years.  The blooms freeze so no fruit.  We have only gotten two crops from the trees.

A couple of years ago was our first harvest of apricots.  I pitted, dipped them in a Fruit Fresh solution and individually froze them.  They turned dark about six months after freezing them.  I was disappointed, I thought just dipping them would have been enough.  They tasted okay, but weren't pretty any more, best used for cooking. I then dehydrated what was left for use in cooking.   If I ever try freezing apricots again I will freeze them in a simple syrup solution with Fruit Fresh in the solution to see if the color is preserved any better.  One of the issues with just dehydrating the apricots that are dipped in Fruit fresh or lemon juice is they will go ahead and turn dark.  You really need to treat them with sulfur to keep the apricots from darkening.  Too much sulfur consumption and I develop hives.  No Thank-You!

This year I decided to do something different with the apricots, so I decided to make leathers with them and apricot nectar because I found a couple of recipes that used apricot nectar in them.  I also wanted to use the nectar in fruit punches.

This first recipe I found several years ago.  It calls for fresh apricots but I have used dried (re-hydrated) in it with good results.  The recipe is called Djedjad (Chicken Roasted With Apricots).  It calls for rose water but if you don't have any, just leave it out.  The rose water does add a nice subtle fragrance and taste though, so if you have access to an Indian Market go for it. Or snag a cup of fresh rose petals; bring a 1/2 cup of water to a boil.  Then pour the water on the rose petals, cover and let steep for 15 minutes.  Strain and store in the fridge.  I freeze the rose water in little condiment cups in one-teaspoon portions; ice cube trays would work too.

I have fixed Djedhad several different ways.  As described baking a whole chicken.  Then as rotisserie chicken with the apricots stuffed in the body cavity and then all the pan juices and apricots pureed in the blender as gravy.  The last way was with the chicken cut up in a baking dish and baked.  The last way I though was the best.

The next way I have used apricots is in Apricot-Orange Marmalade, very good, and of course Apricot Jam. (use the second recipe)

This year I used Apricot Leather recipe from makeandtake.com.  These were great and we still have a few left that I have hidden away for this fall.  The other recipe is for Apricot Nectar from myfamilyprepared blog.  I found a recipe for Apricot Nectar Pound Cake from allrecipes.com we loved and an Apricot Nectar Cheesecake from bestrecipes.com we haven't tried yet but looks promising.  I modified the pound cake recipe somewhat (What else is new!) so here it is.

1 yellow cake mix
4 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup apricot nectar

1/2 cup apricot nectar
1/3 cup sugar
4 TBSP butter

1 cup of whipping cream
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 TBSP sugar

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.  Grease and flour a 9 x 13-cake pan.  In a large bowl mix together the cake mix, eggs, 1/2-cup sugar and cup of apricot nectar on low speed until blended.  Then mix on high speed for 3 minutes.  Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 45 minutes or until the toothpick comes out clean.  Cool the cake in the pan.

When the cake is cool poke holes all over the top of the cake.  In a small saucepan mix the 1/2-cup apricot nectar, 1/3-cup sugar and butter. Cook over a medium heat stirring until the butter is melted and the sugar has dissolved.  Pour over the cake; place the cake in the fridge while making the whipped cream topping.

Beat the cream until stiff.  Then add the vanilla extract and 2 TBSP of sugar and beat until stiff peaks form.  Spread over the cake and keep chilled until ready to serve.

Okay this is long enough!
Have a good day!

Judy

the last of the knitting frenzy

Here is the last scarf that I knitted.

The scarf is called a Slotted Scarf from IrishKnitCat Designs.  I made my scarf's body seven inches longer than the pattern called for because I don't like anything tight around my neck.

I used Red Heart Designer Sport in Dutch Blue on US #7 needles.  I wish I had cast-on just two stitches so I could have had a sharper point.  This is the first time I actually knit a decent seed stitch.  I think that is because I knit the scarf using Western style knitting instead of my usual Eastern Uncrossed.

I also think that this scarf could be knitted in different weight yarns with just adjusting the number of increases to get the width you want.  I could knit several of these without getting bored.

Next up everything you wanted to know about apricots but were afraid to ask! LOL Not really!

Have a good day!

Judy

apricots

Help! I'm swimming in a sea of apricots!  Morning, noon and night!  I'm even dreaming in apricots!  I am out of fruit jars!  I don't want to dehydrate any more.  I'm tired of the smell of apricots!  I've ate my fill!  And there are still more in the trees!

Have a good day!

Judy

my sun hat

Last Saturday Hubby's family had a picnic at El Dorado State Park.  I carefully dressed for the occasion: long pants, long sleeve shirt, straw hat in the big truck.   I had Sister Suzy and Hubby get our straw hats out of the truck. This is what my hat looked like when I pulled it out of the trunk of the car at his mother's.

What you can't see in this picture is that the brim is separated from the top of the hat about halfway around.  A little bit of duct tape wasn't going to fix it if I had had some.  Hubby offered one of his straw hats but the wind was blowing about 30 or 40 mph and neither one of them had a chin strap.

So my face got burnt, purple-red burnt.  Sunday my face was so swollen that my eyes were little slits.  My face hasn't been this burned since high school.  Fortunately I didn't blister.  Now I'm peeling, including my eyelids and my lips of all things.

Well I needed a new sun hat and quickly.  I went out on the web to see if I could find some sun hat patterns.  I found one really cool one but they wanted $15.00 for the pattern.  Sorry, I don't have that kind of money for patterns.  So my second choice was a hat tutorial from just-chic.blogspot.com.  This is my new sun hat.

I used the leg of an old pair of lightweight denim pants I hadn't thrown away yet.  I thought the watch pocket would be a nice touch so I add it to the side of the crown.

And for more whimsy I used a fabric called bubbles for the lining.  The brim of the hat isn't very stiff.  Several things could be done to stiffing it up.  One, would be to use a very firm or stiff interfacing in the brim.  Two, would be to add another piece of interfacing.  Three, is a piece of florist wire in the bias tape around the brim which will be what I'm going to do, if I decide I want a stiffer brim than I have. I want to wear the hat a time or two before I decide.  I did starch the brim and sew concentric circles on the brim like a Boonie hat, which helped a lot.  Something else to consider is to cut a couple of pieces of fusing and weld everything together.

Things the tutorial did not talk about but you might want to consider if you want to make a sun hat yourself is she didn't talk about seam allowances.  I would suggest 1/4-inch seam allowances, as it is easier to get everything to match up for sewing.  She also didn't mention depth of the side of the crown.  I found a three inch side deep enough to let the top of the crown rest on the top of my head. I will probably be adding buttonholes on the sides of the crown to run a ribbon through to tie the hat on my head, as it is windy here. Press the seam allowances at the brim to the brim side, clip the seams and top-stitch the seam allowance to the brim helps the brim to stand out.

The cherries and apricots are beginning to ripen so I may be away from the computer for a bit.

Have a good day!

Judy

item # 5 of knitting frenzy

While cruising through Ravelry's pattern section for more unique scarves I found Wingspan.  Wingspan is truly a fun knit!  I also thought it would be a better use of the heavy worsted yarn I tried to use for the Potato Chip Scarf Pattern.

I restarted this scarf a couple of times like several others.  My restart was because I did not like the holes along the top of the short rows as several others noted in their comments on Ravelry. So I frogged and did the classic wrap-n-turn of the short rows.  I also added two more wedges like several others did.  I think the eight wedges would work if you were knitting for someone very petite or only wanted the scarf as an accent piece not to keep your shoulders and neck warm.

I did the recommend cast-on of 45 stitches on US #9 needles and staggered every ten stitches using a backward 'e' cast-on for the steps. I used Jeny's Surprisingly Stretch Bind-off to finish the scarf.  I really like this bind-off and have started using it for everything.  I will be knitting this one again; I am thinking about casting-on more stitches and making it more of a capelet next time.

Have a good day!

Judy