A Couple of Quilted Gifts

 Almost any occasion is a good excuse to make a quilted gift. 

The daugher of one of my former colleagues from my working life gifted her with her first grandchild. And I decided to mark the occasion with the gift of a quilt. Using my Quick and Easy Baby Quilt method using layer cake squares, I created this quilt. 
Initially, I wasn't sure if I really liked it. The print fabric is so pale that it nearly fades into the background. But once I started putting it together, I felt that it was very delicate and feminine - perfect for a little princess. Crowns are featured in the fabric, and since Grandma is of French descent, I named the quilt "La Petite Princesse" and quilted it with crowns, 

the Crowns-n-Diamonds pantograph. It was a rather challenging design because of all the points and angles, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. 
Next, I had a wedding reception to attend. The wedding itself was a destination wedding in the mountains, with just immediate family. Unfortunately, my anxiety and my GI system got the better of me and I was unable to attend. But I did send a gift. I had recently picked up the Triangle Frenzy Runner pattern and some fabric that would work well with it, so I decided that would make a great wedding gift. 

In addition to regular batting, I added a layer of metallic insulating batting (like Insul-Bright, but the brand my LQS sells), so that the couple can safely put hot dishes on it. The colours are neutral enough that I'm hoping will suit their decor. I don't generally like large quilting designs on smaller projects, so I used Christy's Whisper, a 6.5" design. I think maybe I should get a few more small designs for projects like this.

Wrapped with a dishtowel and a crocheted dishcloth for a bow, I'm having fun with more environmentally-friendly giftwrap options. 

Run the Race

The runner in my family (one of my great nephews) was graduating from high school this year. So I figured I should get his quilt made. I had already found the pattern (Shoephoria) and saved it to Pinterest, but unfortunately, when it came time to purchase it, neither the designer's Etsy store nor her website were available. (I have since learned that she has passed away)> I was hoping to purchase a PDF download as it makes no sense to pay exorbitant shipping from the US. But I was having a difficult time even finding a paper copy. I managed to find one Canadian vendor, but it was sold out. I found one US vendor (since sold out), but as I mentioned, I was trying to avoid the often expensive US shipping. So, when I did a Bing search, I started clicking on each image that popped up to see where it originated. Finally, I was able to find it at one Canadian shop and, as it turns out, it was right here in Alberta: Jelly Roll Shop! I actually called them to confirm that they did have it in stock, so it was set aside for me. I placed the order, topping up with a few items to make the shipping worthwhile. 😁
The outside of the pattern announces "Fat Quarter Friendly". Hmm, fat quarters are my least favourite pre-cut, and my experience with "fat quarter friendly" patterns is not positive. They either have you trying to squeeze so many pieces out of one fat quarter, that it's not even do-able if your fat quarter is even slightly wonky (My Beloved's Vineyard), or they use so little of the fat quarter that you're then left with multiple pieces that are even more useless than a fat quarter is (Unbroken). As it turns out, this pattern fell into the latter category. The pattern requirements state 15 fat quarters for the shoes. Since I was only planning on doing 12 blocks, I would therefore require only 12 fat quarters, though I bought more because I didn't record how many I needed when I went to the fabric store (I wasn't specifically going for this pattern and just happened to spy the fat quarters on my way to the cutting table). 
Assuming, wrongly as it turns out, that each block would use up most of one fat quarter, I was very disappointed to discover that there was no layout diagram to show how to cut the pieces from the fat quarter to make the best use of the fabric. So, I pulled out my graph paper and created my own layout, only to discover that it took up less than half of the fat quarter.

Then I re-designed it to get two shoes out of one fat quarter. That still didn't take up the whole fat quarter and I made one more design to include the pieces for 3 shoes in one fat quarter.

And quess what? I did manage to make 3 blocks from one fat quater

and still had all of this fabric left over.

I didn't quite have enough to make one more block. Granted, this was a metric fat quarter, but that's only slightly bigger than an imperial (or US) fat quarter (not all Canadian shops cut metric fat quarters, many use the US ones). And my layout plan was based on a US fat quarter since I hadn't measured mine yet to see which it was. 
So, I really only needed 4 fat quarters for the 12 blocks I planned to make. Or 5 if I was going to make all 15 blocks, not 15 fat quarters. And if I really wanted each shoe to be different, I could have just used fabrics from my scrap stash. The shoe part of each block requires a small enough amount of fabric that I could have easily found 12 scraps big enough. But the pattern doesn't suggest that option. Instead it wants me to waste money on fat quarters that I would only use a fraction of. Grr.
Another major annoyance with this pattern is the fact that cutting dimensions are given for only one block. To a certain extent, I get it for the shoe pieces cut from the fat quarter if you were actually only going to make one per fat quarter (even though no design layout was given as mentioned above), but the white, grey and background fabric are used in all of the blocks. Yet there are no cutting directions for how to cut the recommended yardage to make the best use of the fabric, not to mention my time. It only gives the dimensions for the individual pieces for one block. It's a good thing that I'm good at math. 

I did all of the calculations (half of the second sheet of paper is also covered with notes on the back, and I hadn't even done the calculations for the sashing yet). 
By this time, I had lost any enthisiasm I had for this project. I resent paying for a pattern that I believe is incomplete. Surely, if the designer actually tested her own pattern, she would have known how to cut up the yardage. Otherwise, how would she know how much yardage to put in the fabric requirements? I feel that it was disrespectful to us quilters to sell a pattern that requires so many calculations on the part of the purchaser. I have designed some of my own quilts and I expect to have to do these calculations for my own designs or when I occasionally rework a design if I think I can make a more efficient use of the fabric, but not have to do it for a pattern that I've purchased. And I know quilters who would really struggle with this, and some who would likely not even be able to complete the quilt.
I had admired one or two of this designer's other patterns, but I'm certainly thankful that I didn't purchase them, if this one is an example of what her patterns are like. 
One other, and much more minor, annoyance with this pattern is that I believe that the piece of fabric used for the logo is much too large. If I had to do it over again (and I have no intention of repeating this pattern), I would make the logo a fraction of the size - likely 2" instead of 4". But I had already done more than enough calculations for this quilt. 
The final - and petty - complaint about this pattern is the name. Shoephoria? Maybe it's because I really don't know how runners feel about their shoes (and high tops is not what they run in anyway. My great nephew has shown me one of the light-weight, streamlined running shoes he wears - definitely not these big, clunky things. Although he does wear these ones to play basketball, his second favourite sport). But to me, a pattern named Shoephoria should be a bunch of fancy high-heeled women's shoes... But that's just my bias. 
This wasn't my favourite quilt to make, but I persisted for my great nephew's sake. It's very fiddly piecing. But I'm pleased with the final result. And so is my great nephew. 
I had already ordered the Marathon - Running Shoes pantograph that I used for the quilting. 

I used red, white and blue variegated Aurilux thread, and I enjoyed the quilting part. And it's all ready for gifting. Just in time, as he graduated June 23, and his grad party is this Sunday. 
I chose red, blue and black as those are the colours my great nephew wanted, and named it Run the Race, a more fitting name, in my opinion, than Shoephoria. And it brings to mind the Bible text that was chosen for him for his graduation: 

Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. 1 Corinthians 9:24-25 NKJV

May we all strive for that imperishable crown of eternal life.  

 

Canada Day Food

 The tiny, little community where my daughter and grandson live with my ex-husband (in the house we shared, when we were still together) has a Canada Day parade. A small parade because it's a small community, so small that they go around the hamlet twice in one direction and then back again in the other direction... This year it was the smallest that I have ever seen it: about 5 vehicles (some of which I wondered why they were in the parade). one John Deere tractor and a horse drawn cart. No Mounties, no riders on horseback, no emergency vehicles. Maybe it's because the original organizers have died or moved away...
So, I generally spend the day with my family and take in the parade. This year, I decided to supply all of the food, as well as the disposable plates, cups and cutlery (yes, I still have a bunch of that stuff that I'm using up, but will move to compostables in the future for the rare occasions when I do use disposables). Here's what was on offer:
For lunch, I decided on salads: a bean salad, a potato salad and a tossed salad. I chose Texas Caviar from Forks Over Knives - The Cookbook for the bean salad.

Sorry, I couldn't find the recipe on the website, but there are plenty of recipes online, which are very similar, if you wish to try it. It's also known as Cowboy Caviar. First challenge was cooking the black-eyed peas. I soaked them and then decided to cook them on the stovetop. I googled to see how long it would take and found 45 minutes to 1 hour. I like my legumes soft - they're more digestible that way - so I went with the 1 hour. They were still a little on the firm side, but I figured they would work. I set aside the amount required in the recipe and a day or two later ate some of the leftovers with my dinner. Did they harden up in the meantime? So, before making up the recipe, I cooked them for a further 1/2 hour and they were better. Unfortunately, the recipe called for cilantro. I have been known to substitute parsley in the past, but I'm not even that big a fan of parsley (though it's infinitely preferable to cilantro). So I opted for dill this time. But the flavour just wasn't quite right, although I don't think it was the dill. Maybe it was too much cumin. Or the combination with balsamic vinegar. Somethinig just wasn't working. Plus I think I oversalted the recipe. It was one of those recipes that has that annoying phrase "salt to taste" in the ingredients. I don't generally keep tasting a recipe to make sure I get the salt right. Why don't these recipe authors just put "1 tsp. salt (or whatever would be an appropriate amount), or to taste"? That would at least give me a starting point. <sigh> I also didn't add in the jalepeno. I wasn't sure how much "heat" my grandson would like and I don't like too much of it myself. So, I put the chopped jalapeno in a separate container, so people could "jalapeno to taste". As it turned out, my daughter and grandson added jalapeno while my ex and I did not. But I don't think I'll be repeating this recipe. When my cousin made Cowboy Caviar for a family reunion, I quite liked it, but this recipe? There's something just not quite right about it.

Also from Forks Over Knives - The Cookbook is this amazing potato salad. Actually, it's White Bean, Potato and Asparagus Salad. And it's delicious. It also called for "salt to taste" but I guess I got it right with this one. While you can't find the recipe on the Forks Over Knives website, you can find it here. This one gave me the opportunity to use the chives from my yard while they are actually in season. Honestly, one of the best potato salads I have ever eaten.
For the tossed salad, I didn't use a recipe: Romaine lettuce, a bunch of those mixed variety small tomatoes, English cucumber, red pepper, yellow pepper, black olives and packaged salad toppings (seeds, dried fruit and some funky dried noodle thing), topped with Ranch dressing, for which you can find the recipe in the 7 Secrets Cookbook. That's the best vegan ranch dressing I've tried so far, better than any store bought version. 

For dessert, what could be more fitting for Canada's birthday than ice cream and cake? The recipe for the strawberry ice cream is in the little cookbook that accompanied my Ninja Creami. It said to make it dairy free, substitute coconut cream for the heavy cream. And I happened to have some coconut cream in my cupboard, so that's what I did. Big mistake! The flavour of the coconut is so overpowering that there is barely any strawberry taste. I don't plan on doing that again unless I actually want coconut flavoured ice cream. I will make my own vegan "heavy cream" with cashews, which are much more neutral in flavour. 

This is Dreena Burton's Vegan Vanilla Sweet Potato Cake. To get started, I first had to bake this monster white sweet potato, 

which gave me enough cooked sweet potato for the cake, and the frosting, with a little bit left over. I like a lot of Dreena's recipes, but as I've mentioned before, I find she sometimes uses expensive and hard to find ingredients. I don't believe that you should have to use these in order to follow a whole food, plant-based/vegan diet. As a matter of fact, having these in the list of ingredients could actually be a deterrent to people wanting to follow a healthier lifestyle. Yes, cake is not a necessity of life, but it is nice to have some healthy dessert options. Furthermore, I also find that Dreena's recipes use coconut products a little too freely in my opinion. Most of the fat in coconut is saturated fat. So, while I'm not necessarily opposed to consuming coconut, I believe we need to be judicious in the amount we consume. (For more info, see this video). The frosting recipe accompanying this cake calls for coconut butter, which not only is hard to find and expensive but, as mentioned, high in saturated fat. It does offer the option of using raw cashew butter instead, but that too is expensive and hard to find. For flavouring, the frosting recipe calls for pure vanilla bean powder, which again is expensive and hard to find. Yes, it is listed as optional, but then you are left with a frosting that either tastes like coconut (as mentioned, a very strong flavour) or raw cashew butter (which in my opinion has a rather funky flavour), with sweet potato overtones. Initially, I opted for the cashew butter option, and since it was so expensive, I attempted to make my own. After running my food processor over and over again for so long that I was becoming worried about burning it out, I finally added some oil, and still ended up with something just slightly beyond the consistency of pastry dough. I also had some homemade coconut butter left over from when I made Dreena's Nanaimo Bars, which I had kept in the fridge. It looked something like paraffin wax, but was harder and more crumbly. Weird stuff! So I used a combination of the two: leftover coconut butter and my newly made cashew butter. And I added vanilla extract. Not bad, but as I texted to one of my sisters, Angela Liddon's frosting (chocolate frosting made with avocados, found in the Oh She Glows cookbook) beats Dreena Burton's. I suppose it might be difficult to make a vanilla frosting using avocados - that might make for a rather weird coloured frosting... 
About the actual cake itself, I'm not sure why the recipe calls for two 9" cake pans, when it's barely enough for 8" pans. I found this when I doubled her chocolate cake recipe to make 2 layers. So, this time, I decided to just use 8" pans. I also found that it didn't rise very well. When I used the chocolate cake recipe, I found the same thing and thought that maybe my baking powder was outdated. But when I used the same baking powder in a different recipe, I had no issues. I'm not sure what's going on with that. I might try the whole wheat pastry flour next time instead. And the frosting will probably be made with almond butter: cheaper than cashew butter or coconut butter and more readily available. I may make a lot of things from scratch, but nut butters in a food processor is not one I will be in a hurry to repeat. 

For supper, it was burgers and fries - homemade oven fries, that is, made with mini potatoes. I doubled the recipe for Sourdough Hamburger Buns, using mostly white whole wheat flour, but didn't have enough and didn't want to take the time to get out the grain grinder and grind some more, so about these are about 1/3 white bread flour. I did use the yeast called for in the recipe and they rose beautifully, though I should have flattened them a little as the recipe said, because they did end up being a rather big bite once stuffed with burgers and toppings. They also are big enough to accomodate a large burger. 

The burger recipe I used was another one of Dreena's recipes: Bistro Burgers. While some of the ingredients may sound obscure (miso, tahini, nutritional yeast, sun-dried tomatoes), all of them can be found at the local grocery store in my small town. I opted to bake rather than fry the burgers and they smelled amazing while baking. And they taste great too. The website says that these are "a cinch to make". I wouldn't quite say that. I did have to assemble quite a list of ingredients and have a large and powerful enough food processor to handle processing them.
Topping options included sliced tomatoes, Romaine lettuce, red onion, dill pickles, vegan mayonnaise, ketchup and corn relish. 
Dessert was simply watermelon. 
A few new recipes tried, some that are definite keepers and some that may require a little tweaking. 

Grandma's Sewing Room - One of Grandmother's Twins

This project started before Valentine's Day of last year (2023), after I had finished my heart wallhanging and table topper. 
I really love the looks of  blocks set on point with a focus fabric filling the spaces in between. And I decided to keep notes of my measurements, etc. so that I could repeat the design when I wanted to. I used it for Let It Snow, though in that one I used two different blocks.It's a great size for snuggling on the sofa and I backed both Let It Snow and this one with minky. 
If you read my original Heart Quilts post, then you're aware that I had planned on using another heart fabric as the focus fabric in this quilt top, but was not happy with how it looked. And so I went to the LQS to find an alternate fabric that would work. It wasn't easy because the coral/pink was a tough match. Then I spied this sewing themed fabric. 

And I decided that that would work. And it would make it the perfect choice for a quilt for my "sewing room". And hence the name of the quilt. The block itself is called Grandmother's Choice, and this grandmother's choice is to spend time in her sewing room. I will be making a companion quilt to this one, using Grandmother Percy's Puzzle quilt block and the other heart fabric. And I will call the pair of quilts "Grandmother's Twins". 
The quilt top was finished and then I set it aside, because I had other quilts that were a greater priority. And then I used the backing I had purchased for this quilt in Take Flight. But I purchased a replacement backing, which I think coordinated better with the top. And when New Year's Eve came and I determined to see how many quilts I could finish before midgnight, this was one of them. Heard It Through the Grapevine and Let It Snow were the other two I finished that night. 

I chose the Sewing Time pantograph for the quilting. 
And now for a quick Tortoise Project update: honestly, not much progress made on any of my projects except for the quilt block. 

Though I'm trying to be as accurate as I can, the mini blocks ended up larger than the edges of the diamonds for the centre star, so I had to ease in a lot of fullness when attaching them. 
I'm working on the 24th square of the Shannon afghan, maybe did a couple more rows of the Variegated Moss Stitch afghan, and have made some progress in attaching the binding to the latchhook project, but I haven't touched the needlepoint at all. I've been kind of running out of steam when it comes to my tortoise projects. But they will get done. Eventually. 

Fanshawe 40

 

When I finally found a vendor that sells rug binding for my latch hook project, I had to decide what else I was going to buy from them in order to justify the cost of shipping. As I was perusing their sale fabric, I found a couple of fabrics from a line called Essential Heroes.

During the pandemic, a lot of fabric companies were producing health-care related fabrics in support of the frontline "heroes" and now, with the pandemic behind us, most of these fabrics can be found in the clearance sections. Being a health care professional who worked throughout the pandemic, I figured it was time I bought some. This particular vendor sells their fabric by the half yard, so I bought 1 yard each of the two "heroes" fabrics and choose 1½ yards of the coordinating red fabric. I planned to make a 3-yard quilt and wanted to make sure I had enough fabric to do a French (double fold) binding.

Just wanted to point out something interesting about the blue fabric. While the white fabric is just stethoscopes, in addition to healhcare-related items, the blue fabric also has shopping baskets, gas pumps and garbage cans (see the items I've circled). I have to laugh about the garbage can because initially I thought that it was because we did produce a lot of garbage in healthcare because of all the disposable PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) that we used. But then I saw the other non-healthcare symbols and realized that this fabric company chose to recognize other "essential heroes" as well, like the garbage collectors and the people who work in grocery stores and gas stations. Yes, those are essential as well and I'm glad this fabric recognizes that. 
I wasn't planning on using this fabric right away, but then when Nurses' Week came up, I figured it was a good project to work on during that week. I purchased some deep pile textured minky (it was more like faux fur) in red for the backing and chose the Corner Play pattern from the book Pretty Darn Quick. 

As I began working on the quilt, I thought about the fact that this year is the 40th anniversary of my graduation from nursing school, and I decided that it was a good thing that I had purchased red as the third fabric and the backing fabric, as 40 is the ruby anniversary. So I decided to make this my quilt in celebration of my ruby anniversary. Hence the name Fanshawe (the name of the college I graduated from) 40. 
I chose the Lady with the Lamp pantograph. 

It has stethoscopes, nurses' caps, ECG tracings, needles and syringes (which look to me like the Empire State Building on its side) and bandaids. 

With regular minky, the quilting design is very evident. But because this one was deep pile and textured, you can't really discern the design at all. And for the most part, it's not that obvious from the front either. 
Which brings me to something I've been thinking about: I'm getting kind of tired of pantographs. Don't get me wrong - I still love my pantographs. But I used to really be all about my novelty pantographs, coordinating the panto design with the quilt top as much as possible. But sometimes, like It's a Grey Area, the panto is too busy and actually detracts from the quilt top. I think sometimes an alternate design that instead enhances the pattern of the quilt top would be better. And when, like this one, you have to look hard to see what I've quilted, what difference does it make if I've quilted nurses' caps and stethoscopes? I guess maybe I'm getting to the point where I want to branch out and do more with my quilting, more to fill in the negative spaces with fun designs and enhance the other spaces  as well. But I need to practice my free motion quilting more. And I don't really want to do that on quilts that I'm giving away. I want to get caught up on some quilts and then do some that will be just for fun, for experimenting and finding out what I and my Amara can accomplish together.  And I need to be braver about it, and quit defaulting to my pantograph comfort zone. 
But back to Fanshawe 40 - if I thought regular minky fabric produced a lot of fluff, this was a whole lot worse. I actually took my little hand vac and had to vacuum off my cutting mat after trimming the quilt. 

Look at how deep that pile is and how much fluff is on my leader! Once I had the binding on, I tossed the quilt in the dryer on the "air only" setting to hopefully get rid of any loose fluff left on the quilt, and took the lint roller to all of the cloth leaders on my longarm frame. 

But this I couldn't get rid of so easily! I have never had that happen before where the dye on the fabric actually stained my longarm machine. And I certainly didn't expect it from a synthetic fabric. I tried washing it with straight water, and it took a minimal amount of the colour off. Then I sprayed some Fantastik on my cleaning rag and tried that, and that didn't take any more off. Ah well, if water and Fantastik won't take it off, it's unlikely to rub off on another quilt, and that would be my main concern. Having a stained longarm is really not that big of a deal since it doesn't affect its function. It's only cosmetic. 
Now, I have a graduation quilt to finish for a great nephew, so I'd better get back to work. 

My Grandson's Dino Bag

 

On a quilt shop hop with a friend, she pointed out the awesome dinosaur fabric in one shop, knowing my grandson is a big dino fan. Of course, I had to buy some, not having a clue what I would end up doing with it.
Then one day, my grandson had to bring his laptop computer to Grandma's house and my daughter happened to mention that he didn't have a carrying bag for it. Thinking about this later, I asked my daughter if she thought he would like a carrier bag for his laptop made from the dinosaur fabric. She said yes, and so the adventure began. 

I already owned at least one " By Annie" pattern, plus a couple of Craftsy courses, but I hadn't had the opportunity to use any of them yet. I ordered this one and got the requisite hardware, opting to make the bigger of the two bags in the pattern. 

Cutting and labelling all of the parts

Aside from some pretty basic tote bags, I was really green in the art of bag making, especially one of this complexity. I even made my own zippers from zippers by the yard. 

I have to admit that I'm pretty impressed by my own work. 

It was by no means easy, working through multiple layers of fabric, foam, strapping, binding. 

But I got it done on time for Christmas. 
Maybe it's time to tackle some of those other bag patterns I have. But next time, I think I will quilt using a denser, but non-descript design. For this one, I used Dave's Dinosaurs, which is a fairly open design and appropriate to the theme of the fabric. But the dinosaurs in the quilting were basically lost in the multiple pieces used in making the bag. And some pieces were small enough to have benefitted from denser quilting. 

A Few Random Fabric Projects

 

I first introduced the Tea Party wallhanging back in December of 2022. At that time, it just needed binding and a hanging sleeve. I finally got that accomplished in July of 2023, and here I am finally blogging about it. I still haven't figured out what to do with it. One only has so much wall space...

Several years ago, for a short time, I was subscribed to a pantograph set a month from a Canadian vendor. A pantograph set includes extras, such as corners and blocks in addition to the edge to edge pantograph. The Confetti set came with a Christmas tree skirt design and I determined to give it a try. Last year, during the agricultural fair season, I made the skirt in order to enter it in a local fair. I chose a white on white snowflake fabric for the top, and red thread for the quilting. Because it's a hexagon shape, with a circle opening in the middle, I would have had to use bias binding if I had bound this quilt. Instead, I quilted it with a faux backing and then stitched the edges with the skirt and the actual backing right sides together and then flipped it right side out. It is, in my opinion, disappointing. It just lacks that wow factor. I did use it under my large green Christmas tree this past Christmas, but only because I have yet to finish the crocheted one that I started eons ago. If someone else decides they want it, I will likely pass it on. 

Another project I made to enter in a local fair is the Chocolate Apron. I used a vintage pattern that I had in my stash and I think it turned out well. Too high-waisted and small for my girth, I passed it on to my daughter. 
And I really think I need to keep more up-to-date on blogging about my projects if I want to be able to share the process at all. I'm getting too old to remember many details when I made a project months ago.