When Sewing Doesn't Go Well..

What do you do when you are frustrated because your latest project isn't turning out the way you'd expected? 

I bake. Sometimes I cook up some soup, but usually I bake.

The new quilting idea had looked wonderful on paper in black and white, but it didn't translate at all well into my chosen Christmas fabrics. Instead of agonizing over it, I took refuge in the kitchen. I baked zucchini bread one day and chocolate cake the next. 

The baking led to a discovery that made me wonder if my mom is still looking after me. 

I had picked up a huge zucchini earlier in the week because it reminded me of my mother's garden. She grew zucchini every summer and she grew them big. She used much of it to bake zucchini bread. I went searching for the perfect recipe, but I really wanted my mother's bread. I found a recipe with a five-star rating on All Recipes titled, "Mom's Zucchini Bread".

It was worth a try.  I cut the sugar down to 2 cups and added 1/2 cup of raisins to the recipe because Mother's zucchini bread had always contained raisins. The result was wonderful. My new recipe tasted exactly like I remember my mother's tasting. Moist, perfectly spiced, and sweetened with raisins. Positively scrumptious!

The next day, I was still unable to focus on sewing, so I baked a chocolate cake from a well loved recipe in my go to cookbook for baking. I've used this cookbook over and over since I found it in a used book sale in 1980.  It was so well loved that the pages were falling out. My wonderful baking book would soon be destroyed if I didn't do something to save it. Since I had nothing else that needing doing, I removed all of the pages, punched holes in them, and placed them in a big purple binder.

That's when I found this stuck between two pages. It's my mother's zucchini bread recipe in her own handwriting. I must have placed it there years and years ago and totally forgotten that I had it.

Mother's zucchini bread recipe.

The main differences between my mother's recipe and the one I found in All Recipes are that my mother's contains only 2 cups of sugar and it has raisins. These are the exact two changes that I made!

Compare the two recipes by following this link to All Recipes:

Happiness is a slice of warm zucchini bread. 

With raisins. 

Thank you, Mommy. 

 

Sugar and Spice for the Holidays

The Mug Rug


"Sugar and Spice" is a bright and cheerful holiday mug rug filled with old fashioned goodness. I could almost smell the cinnamon and spices of gingerbread as I stitched it together.

The design was inspired by my grandson, David. Since David is our family holiday cookie monster, I chose his favorite holiday cookies and treats to display.  Gingerbread, frosted sugar cookies, cupcakes, candy canes, and just about any other candy that isn't filled with nuts, make him smile.

He grinned when I showed this little quilty to him. "You even decorated the cookies like the ones you make," he said.

The baking season will begin be upon us in no time! What are your family favorites?

Three Pines

I'm often asked, "Where do you get your ideas?" To be truthful, I don't usually know the origin of a design, but this particular mug rug has a story.

Three Pines Mug Rug

I love to read. I'll read just about anything, but mystery novels are usually my first choice. I particularly like books that are a series so I can follow the characters over time.

Book 1 in the Inspector Gamache series

Recently, I've been entranced by the Inspector Gamache series by Louise Penny. The stories are set in a remote fictional hamlet named Three Pines. It's not too far from Quebec and is named for the three majestic pine trees that stand like sentinels over the small village. I've fallen in love with the eclectic group of residents, the setting, and the stories.

The "Three Pines" mug rug was inspired by those books. Log cabin blocks and pine trees fit perfectly together.

Wishing everyone a fabulous first weekend of October!

A Winter's Night

Sometimes I struggle for days or weeks to come up with a new pattern idea. Other times, the idea finds me and forces itself to be made. This mug rug pattern was one of those totally unexpected projects.

I ran into trouble with choosing a layout and a background fabric. Horizontal or vertical? Black or dark blue?

I asked my Facebook followers to help me decide between black and blue. I'm sorry ladies, but you weren't a whole lot of help. The votes were almost exactly even!

So, I did the only thing possible. I made two mug rugs. One is horizontal, the other vertical.
One has a blue background, the other uses black. 

Now to get on to other things!

Happy first week of Autumn!

Whew! The Village is Actually Finished!!

I am so excited to have this little wall hanging finished at last!

I can't ever remember having had so many delays in making one pattern. The fabrics were all collected and set aside in June, and the plan was to have everything ready to go no later than mid August. Then Murphy and his law came along and threw a hitch into every single step. During this past week, though, everything came together, and I found the time to settle in and really focus.

I truly love designing houses. I did my very best to make each of these totally unique and different from every other. Adding special details is my absolutely favorite part of my work. As a result, the village contains cats, pumpkins, a squirrel, a picket fence, a falling leaf, and even tiny button doorknobs. I can picture a toddler discovering and pointing out all of these little add ons.

The bobbin is a good indication of the size of the cats. I went very slowly sewing the blanket stitch when going around those little faces.

Next up, Christmas! 

Too many ideas and I'm already a month or more behind! 

Gotta go!

9/11/2001: Remembering

I've been sewing the last few friendship stars for my autumn village quilt, today. It's all assembly line work, so my mind has wandered back to the memories of September 11, fifteen years ago today.

We each have a story that we'll never forget. My story is a jumble of crystal clear images and hazy, blurred moments, as well. On that day, more than any other, I was acutely aware of the grave responsibility teachers have for the emotional needs of students. What we say can have an profound, long lasting effect on the children we teach.

It was a beautiful September morning and only a few weeks into the school year. As usual, I had come in early to set my classroom up for the day.

Did I have my television on while I worked? I don't think I did, but I'm not sure. My room was close to the office and to the front building entrance.  When the news reached the school, my room, with the unlocked door and a television, filled with office personnel and incoming staff. We watched the scene unfolding on the screen, in absolute shock and horror. Who could even begin to comprehend that an airplane had truly flown right into the Trade Center? And then the second plane and the second impact. It was real.

We stood glued to the news as students began arriving and gathering by the entry doors.  There was no protocol for how to handle a situation like this, and we didn't have time for a staff meeting. It was quickly decided that grade level teams of teachers would know best how to react to the needs of the students in their care. We were on our own. Primary students mainly needed to be assured that they were safe. My sixth graders, though, would need more actual information rather than less.

The bell rang, and students poured into the room. Everyone seemed to be talking at once. Rumors had spread rapidly before school. Information and misinformation and flown from one child to another. Some of the children were excited, others were panicked, several thought it was a stunt like in the movies, and one was in tears. I was bombarded with questions.

"Is it true?"
"Was it an accident?"
"Are we in a war?
"Did everybody die?"
"Who was it?"
"Why?"
"Are they coming here?
"Are we going to die?"
"Are they going to close the school?"

I know that I tried to answer their questions, but no one had very much accurate information at this point. I reassured the children, tried to impress upon them that they were safe. When my class went off to P.E. I caught up on the latest news. So many questions would not be answered for days and even weeks ahead.

When the students returned to class I shared what I knew with them. The buildings had fallen, all air traffic had been grounded, the president was on his way to the air force base near Omaha. He would be only 50 miles from Lincoln. Knowing that the president would be in Nebraska was comforting to some of the children. The president wouldn't be taken someplace where he'd be in danger.

How much actual news did I share? The words I used escape me. What did I say to help these preteens comprehend, yet to comfort and calm them? I know I was honest, but reassuring, and that somehow, in spite of events, the class was very calm. I do remember that students listened to me and to each other without interruption. It was one of the quietest days in my teaching career.

The events of that horrible day had a profound effect on all of us. Within the classroom I saw an unusual level of maturity that year. I saw children become more considerate of each other. More caring. Our class members drew together, and this became the year that we were a family.