Sew Fast

Some time ago, I promised my grandson a quilt for his card table tent. I had already made a flannel one to be the "floor" of his tent, but he needed one to cover up with. I had bought a nice fleece fabric to use as the backing (even though I had never used fleece backing before), figuring these lions were appropriate for my (not so) little man. 

I picked up the orange fabric first, since orange is his favourite colour and then found a black Crayola print. But eventually I decided that print was more suitable to use with a Crayola jelly roll I had. Then I found the animal print, but still needed a third fabric to make a 3-yard quilt. Teal is my grandson's second favourite colour, so I was happy when I found a teal fabric that I felt would work (it looks almost black in the picture). 
Next, I needed a pattern. I had already decided on a 3-yard quilt as they are generally quick and easy. I had already made two from Missouri Star Quilt Company's video, but I wasn't sure if I really liked the third option. And then I found this video from another quilter that I follow: 

And I decided that would work well with the fabrics I had. The 2 main fabrics are used in large enough pieces that I wouldn't be chopping the animal print so small that you could hardly tell what animals they were. And, of course, it would also showcase my grandson's favourite orange. 
When it came time for the quilting, I had a couple of cones of orange thread, but not one as vibrant as I wanted. I was placing my first order with Cleaner's Supply, and noticed that they sold Isacord thread. I had heard of Isacord thread before but had never used it. So, I asked about it in one of the longarm groups I'm in on Facebook. The input came back positive, so I ordered this cone of very vibrant orange. 

I also ordered some Schmetz ball point needles at the same time as I intended to use one for the quilting. That was one of the recommendations for quilting with a fleece backing when I asked in the longarm group. I didn't even know previously that Schmetz made needles that could be used on the longarm. 
Finally, I had to choose a quilting design. Another recommendation for quilting with fleece backing was to quilt a fairly big pattern. This is kind of a non-descript quilt, so I picked a rather non-descript pattern: Bumpity by Barbara Becker from Urban Elementz.

I had learned longarm quilting using Bumpity and I used it on my first few quilts back when I was renting longarms. I purchased it when I got my own longarm as it's a very easy design that works up quickly. But I actually haven't used it since those early days of learning longarming. Now I have. 
One of the nice things about buying metres of fabric instead of yards when doing a 3-yard quilt is that you have extra fabric and I had enough to do a double fold binding instead of just a single fold one, like in the pattern. I find if a quilt is going to wear out, the binding is one of the places this is likely to happen, so prefer the double binding.

One more thing to make for his card table tent and then his bedding will be complete: a pillow. But that will be another time. 

 

Attending Church

Historic St. Thomas Anglican Church, St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada
Old St Thomas' Anglican Church - St Thomas, ON - Anglican and Episcopal Churches on Waymarking.com

"Not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching." Hebrews 10:25 NIV

I believe in attending church. And, up until the last several years, aside from when my nursing career prevented me from doing so, I attended every Sabbath, unless ill or vacationing in a location where there was no Adventist church to attend. The church I had been attending, and where my membership remains is an hour's drive from my home. For various reasons, I stopped attending there, and it just became more convenient to watch various ministries online. That was long before the pandemic started. I tried attending the local Adventist church, where I have had my membership in the past, but I generally left there frustrated, not fed and blessed. 

And now I'm home, struggling with anxiety and depression, and I really would like to be able to go back to church. However, with fuel prices being so high, and winter on the horizon, and me now having winter driving phobia, I don't really think going back to the church where I hold membership is a realistic option. 

I have attended the local church online a couple of times recently. I found it challenging because it's done via Microsoft Teams, which meant sitting at my computer with my headset on and my cat yelling at me in the background. When I watch other services, it's generally via my Roku on my TV in the living room and my cat can sit on my lap and not yell forlornly. 

I decided to attempt attending in person, where my cat - and the phone and whatever else - can't distract me. Our denomination has Sabbath School for all ages, including adults. So, I figured I would attend just Sabbath School at first and see how that went. Yesterday, even though I would rather not, I went to Sabbath School. I didn't want people making a big fuss over me or drawing attention to me, so was quite relieved that there was no greeter at the door. It's not a big church and there's not a large attendance, so I knew that even though I slipped in quietly, I would not go unnoticed to those on the platform. I sat down in the back pew with a woman I knew and we clasped hands briefly, greeted each other quietly and smiled. I tried to deal with the anxiety of being there by the 5-4-3-2-1 technique: find 5 things you can see, 4 things you can hear, etc., going through the 5 senses. It wasn't working, so I stared at the carpet, which has a very pronounced pattern and pondered whether it would work as a quilting pattern, where to start, how to do it. That worked better at calming me than the other technique. Then the woman on the platform decided to make a point of welcoming a couple of people that "we haven't seen for a long time." I put my head down: "Please, no!" The first was one of her daughters who was home visiting. Then she mentioned me. By name. From the platform! I looked up scowling at her, hoping to shut her up. But instead, she said, "Yes, you! We know you tried to sneak in unnoticed and sit in the back pew." It's still painful, and I'm struggling not to cry as I'm typing this. But it wasn't till this morning, as I was messaging a friend to tell him what happened that I realized that that was abusive. It trully was! She may have thought it was perfectly acceptable because the old me would have been fine with it. Or maybe just mildly annoyed. And I believe (I hope) that she was just trying to be genuinely welcoming. But the anxious me most definitely was not okay with it. And how insensitive can we be to recognize that someone tried to sneak into church unnoticed, yet still deliberately draw attention to them? Oh Lord, help me not to be so insensitive, to recognize situations that make people uncomfortable and make sure I don't cause them and to do what I can to stop them. 

Nevertheless, I did end up staying through the Sabbath School lesson, but left before the closing hymn. That way I wouldn't have to deal with well-meaning people overwhelming me. 

This morning is the memorial service for my friend that died of COVID a couple of months ago. I fully intended to go, even though it would have been challenging for me. It's not the grief because grief is a normal part of the human experience and I'm not afraid of facing it. It's the anxiety. I really don't want to be with all of those people. I feel guilty for not going. I did send her husband an email expressing my condolences, but I would have liked to be able to be there for the family, to show my care and support. But after what happened yesterday, I just don't feel that I can. I don't even know if I will ever try to go back to that church again. 

Waves of Blue

 

As a general rule, I prefer to only purchase fabric with a purpose in mind. I then keep it, with all associated fabrics and the pattern in an extra large zip lock freezer bag, so that it's all together when I want to make the project. I'm not saying that I don't buy random fabrics - I probably do it more often than I should - but buying random fabrics puts me in the position where, when I finally come to use that fabric, I might not have enough for the pattern I chose. And since it may be several years - or more - since I purchased that fabric, there's little, if any, chance of getting more of the same fabric. I'm not saying that I haven't made some amazing quilts with random fabrics. It's just that I prefer to know what I'm going to use it for and how much I need before buying it. 
Nevertheless, having a stash of random fabrics does occasionally come in handy. I needed a blue quilt and I needed it quickly. I had no blue quilts finished or blue UFOs. But I did have this jelly roll in my stash. 

Determining what to do with it, I decided to do a bargello. Reviewing Jenny Doan's tutorial, I knew that wasn't going to work for what I wanted. I then went to my Eileen Wright book, Twist and Turn Bargello Quilts, and there was nothing in there that would work either. But I at least had a little bit of guidance to do it on my own. Doing some calculations, I determined that I needed a little more fabric to make the size I wanted, and found this blue flowered print in my stash. Cutting it into strips, I then started sewing strips together. 

I kept the order that the fabric strips came in, just adding the print in between. When it came time to decide how the design was going to go, I didn't want something perfectly symmetrical and basically just winged it as I went along. 

the first half of the quilt top

If I ever chose to do this again - without a pattern, that is - I'd like to do the PQRST wave of a normal sinus rhythm. I suppose that one should probably be in red...

While I did eventually have to go to the quilt shop to buy the fabric for the border and backing, I was able to get the majority of the quilt top done before that using the fabrics from my stash. 
I then had to choose a quilting design. I wanted one that showed flow and motion and portrayed water without being overly watery (if that makes sense). I had just recently purchased Waterworld by ClothWerx from Willow Leaf Studio and decided on that. 

I was very happy with the results. And I think the quilt is amazing. As something I designed myself and basically just threw it together on the fly, I'm pretty impressed with how it turned out. It helped to have a really amazing jelly roll that worked very well in the bargello technique. 

I've only ever done one other bargello, Chelsea Rose Bargello. It too used a jelly roll and I followed Jenny Doan's pattern. While I think that quilt is very pretty, it was made using distinct prints, rather than tonal fabrics. so I don't really find it as striking as this one. The prints interrupt the flow. 

As anyone who has been following my blog knows, I'm not that thrilled with fabric pre-cuts. I use them and still have quite a number in my stash, but, for the most part, I don't find them as functional as I would wish. Too often, there's a lot of fabric left over or wasted. This quilt, however, was the exception. I used the full width and length of each strip. There was not a single strip left over, and the only thing I cut off was the selvages. Win-win!

The Great Bread Making Adventure: Barley Bannock

As promised, I made bannock. I just didn't get it made on Friday, Canada's National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. I was too busy working on a quilt. So, this morning for breakfast, I had beans and bannock. I ground the barley in the grain grinder and started the beans in the slow cooker last night. The beans were ready this morning, just needed to add some salt and garlic. Then cooked up the Barley Bannock recipe from The World Encyclopedia of Bread and Bread Making  

It tuned out fine, but I really don't know what went wrong with the recipe. In the instructions, #3 says, "On a floured surface pat the dough out to form a round about 2cm/¾ in thick. Mark the dough into 4 wedges, using a sharp knife, if you prefer." My dough was more the consistency of batter and if I had tried to form it into a round on the counter, I would have ended up with a sticky mess on both my hands and the counter. And forget about trying to mark it into wedges... I just dumped the batter into the skillet and spread it out with the fork I had mixed it with. It worked. I checked and double checked the ingredients and amounts several times and I did not make any mistakes. The only thing I can think of is that maybe there was a lot of moisture in my barley flour. Although, I don't think this should have made that significant a difference. Maybe next time I will weigh the ingredients instead. 
The recipe calls for cream of tartar. Hmm, I don't think I've seen that since my childhood. I couldn't find it in my regular grocery store (No Frills), nor in Walmart, but finally found it in the Co-op. Otherwise, I would have had to figure out how to substitute the baking soda and cream of tartar with baking powder. I spent over $7 for a small jar! To replace the butter, I used Earth Balance Buttery Sticks, which is also not cheap, but I happened to have some in my freezer.
The book has this to say about bannock: 

"Bannock" is an Old English word of Celtic origin and was probably the first word used to describe bread, as long ago as the 5th century AD... It generally describes a type of flat, scone-like bread and in Scotland the two words "bannock" and "scone" are used interchangeably. Bannocks were originally unleavened breads, made with barley or oatmeal and cooked on a griddle. p. 54

"It is conventionally believed that Scottish fur traders called Selkirk settlers introduced bannock to the Indigenous peoples of North America during the 18th and 19th centuries... While bannock has its roots in Europe, some Indigenous nations in North America had versions of unleavened bread-like foods." This is from the online Canadian Encyclopedia article "Bannock". Read the whole article if you're interested in more of bannock's history in Canada and its association with indigenous people. 

I will now return to making Italian breads. The recipe for Focaccia calls for two 10" round, shallow cake or pizza pans. I couldn't find any. I found 9" cake pans and some 11" pans, which I assume were pizza/flatbread pans because of their low sides. But no ten inch. I do have a 10 inch Pyrex pie plate, and a 10" springform cake pan, which is definitely not shallow, so I don't think either of those will work. I haven't decided what I will end up using. I don't want to waste a lot of time running around looking for something, nor spend a lot of money that I'm not likely to use regularly. Still pondering...

UPDATE: In the interest of full disclosure, and your tastebuds, I decided I needed to update this post. When I first made the bannock and tasted it fresh, I did notice a metallic taste, but didn't consider it that significant and tried to shrug it off. Until I tasted it the next day. I reheated a piece in the microwave and couldn't finish the whole thing. I found the metallic taste so revolting! Could it be the cream of tartar? Why would people use that stuff when it tasted so horrible? Could it be one of those genetic things like cilantro, where only a small percentage of the population know how disgusting it is? I googled and found this: "It has a tinny, metallic taste..." (Taken from "What is Cream of Tartar", Cooking Clarified). So, now I will have to figure out how to substitute baking powder in the recipes that call for cream of tartar. And I guess I will be making a lot of play dough in order to use up my expensive jar. I have no intention of putting anything that revolting in my mouth again. 

The Great Bread Making Adventure: Pugliese

Well, now, that's disappointing! After making a nearly perfectly formed and risen loaf, it got scorched in the oven. 

But I still think it's beautiful. I've had experiences with bread being too crumbly, fallen in the middle, really yeasty tasting and other bread failures. That I managed to produce such a well-formed loaf is pretty impressive to me. And the inside is still good. 

And tasty. Initially, I was just going to cut off the burnt top crust, but bread without a top crust does not slice very well. So, I decided to leave it in place and just cut the burnt parts off each individual slice. 
Today's loaf is another Italian bread, Pugliese. In case you need to know how to pronounce that (I did), here it is:

(Even after listening to it several times, I still don't think I have it quite right). 
The World Encyclopedia of Bread and Bread Making has this to say, "This much-loved Italian bread was once the regional bread from Puglia, in the southern region of Apulia. Perhaps is is the extra virgin olive oil from this region or the excellence of the wheat, but pugliese is considered to be among the jewels of Italian breads, popular all over the country and beyond as well. The bread is normally white, with a pale, floury crust and a soft crumb, quite dense by Italian standards, compared with the holey ciabatta and the open-textured pagnotta."

I want to make a couple of statements in regard to this quote. The first is regarding the use of fats/oils in these breads. While I prefer to avoid the use of added oils in most of my cooking at home, I am not attempting to make these breads oil-free. Having never made them before, I need to know what the taste and texture should be with the oil, before I attempt to make them without. Also, the standard replacements for oil may not work in breads. Pureed prunes and apple sauce likely will impart a slightly sweet flavour, which may not be desirable. Avocado and pureed prunes could also add some inappropriate colour. So, I will be making the recipes with the oil/fats included. Having said that, there is a recipe for lardy cake and, as I pointed out in my previous post, I will be making all of the recipes vegan, so I most definitely will not be using lard. 
The second statement I want to make is just a reminder that, as far as possible, I will be making these breads 100% whole grain. So, in spite of the fact that the book states that this bread is normally white, and the recipe calls for only 2 cups whole meal flour out of a total of 5½ cups, I did use whole wheat for the entire amount. 
An interesting thing about this bread is that it starts with a biga. This is sort of like a sourdough starter, except that the traditional sourdough starter is made using wild yeast, not commercial yeast (though I think many modern cooks start their sourdough with commercial yeast) and the cook keeps replenishing the sourdough starter. A biga starter is made using commercial yeast and only sufficient for that recipe is made. If you want to know more, I suggest you check out this link. 

As mentioned in my first bread post, this book was published in Britain. As such, I will have some challenges with ingredients. The recipes frequently call for fresh yeast, which comes in a soft cake, rather than dry yeast, which comes in a package or jar. So I've had to use this website to help me figure out the equivalents, as well as this one because fresh yeast is not readily available where I live. However, if I find some I might buy it just to give it a try. But more than just yeast, some products are really challenging to find in North America or figure out the North American equivalent for. Granary or malthouse flour, for example. I can find them on Amazon, but the shipping nearly doubles the already high price. I suppose if I knew someone going to visit the UK, I could ask if they could bring back a kilogram of one or the other... Nevertheless, I will figure out what I will do when I get to those recipes. 

Meanwhile, I am planning on taking a detour from Italian breads in order to make the Barley Bannock in honour of Canada's National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (September 30th), also known colloquially as Orange Shirt Day. I'll tell you more about that next time. I'm also going to look for an oven thermometer to see if my oven temperature is accurate or not. 


 

The Great Bread Making Adventure: Olive Bread

Different cultures - their customs and traditions, their history, their dress, their food - fascinate me. So, when I found the book, The Cook's Guide to Bread, in a bookstore, I bought two copies, one for myself and one for my daughter. That was PD (pre-divorce), so I've had it for quite a few years. Later on, I found the second book, The World Encyclopedia of Bread and Bread Making, in a thrift store and purchased it as well. not realizing that the contents were identical. 

That's right: aside from the size and cover, the books are the same, even to the page numbers. 

I'm still happy I bought the second book, however, because the print is larger and it stays open easier. I haven't decided what I'm going to do with the first one. 
While this book does make an interesting reference book, and I enjoy perusing its pages, it also has at least 100 recipes. None of which I had tried, until yesterday. Making a dinner of lasagne, I decided to complete it with a Caesar salad (vegan dressing recipe here) and bread. An Italian bread, since the meal was Italian (though apparently, Caesar salad was invented in Mexico by an Italian American, who had also lived in Canada). The book has this to say about Italian Breads: "The distinguishing feature of most Italian breads, especially those bought from an Italian-style baker, is the shape rather than the dough... The difference lies in the shaping, the slashing and the baking..." p. 66.

Flipping through the Mediterranean Breads section (most of which are Italian), I found the Olive Bread recipe and knew I had everything required to make it. About olive breads, "Olives are grown throughout Italy and it's not surprising to find all sorts of olive bread. the more commercially produced loaves are enriched with eggs and butter, and normally contain pitted green olives and sometimes whole olives stuffed, Spanish-style, with red pimento. Smaller bakers often also produce their own olive breads. These are plainer doughs, which usually contain black olives, sometimes pitted, sometimes not - so take care when biting into a slice." The World Encyclopedia of Bread and Bread Making, p. 71

I did use pitted olives. 😉 The green ones were stuffed with pimento because that's what I had on hand, and I added black and Kalamata olives as well.  I prefer to use whole grains, so instead of 2-1/2 cups of white flour and 1/2 cup of whole meal flour, I used 3 cups of whole wheat flour.

And it turned out delicious! Admittedly, my loaf is not as professional-looking as the picture in the book. I think one of the problems is the measurements. This is a British book and in Britain, they weigh their ingredients rather than measure them by volume, like we do here in North America. And while the book provides measurements in both metric and imperial, I think sometimes something is lost in translation. The book actually has this statement on the copyright page:

For all recipes, quantities are given in both metric and imperial measures and, where appropriate, measures are also given in standard cups and spoons. Follow one set, but not a mixture because they are not interchangeable. (In the smaller book, it omits this note). 

Fair enough, but it is an inexact science. 

As a Canadian, I automatically defaulted to the cups/spoons measurements and that went well until it came time to add the olives. Olives, kind of like dry pasta, do not measure well in a cup. Being oval shaped and hollow if they're pitted, there's lots of empty space in and around the olives. The kalamata olives were already sliced, so it took more of them to fill the space. The pimento-stuffed green olives also took up more space than the hollow black olives.  And mine ended up being a "generous" one cup rather than a level one cup. How do you level a cup of olives anyway? So, I found it was almost impossible to incorporate the olives into that amount of bread dough. And in the picture from the book, there appears to be a lot less olives than in my finished loaf. 

Taken from The World Encyclopedia of Bread and Bread Making

Next time, I think I will weigh the olives instead of trying to measure them in a cup. And anything else that might not measure well in a cup. I will have to keep this in mind as I continue to try the recipes. 

And that's what I intend to do. I've set myself the goal of trying every bread recipe in this book. They will, of course, be veganized, and made with whole grains as much as possible. So, stay tuned and I will report on each one. 

By the way, this book has been reprinted once again under the title The Bread Bible and you can find the full pdf of this book here. The printing is so small as to be almost inscrutable, so it's not like you could actually try any of the recipes from it, though, at least on my 21" screen. And certainly not from your cell phone. So buy the book if you want to follow along and experiment with different breads from around the world. 

Grieving and Not Moving On

Last week, I was really struggling with whether or not I should renew my registration as an active nurse, or whether I should switch it to "non-practice". I'm honestly feeling that I will likely never go back to my nursing career. I was reading this article about the changes being implemented in Ontario regarding patients waiting for long term care placement in hospital, and came across this statement: 'Jones said discharge planners will have to have "very challenging" conversations with patients about going into a home that they do not want to go to.' I have been having those "very challenging" conversations with patients for years already. And as I was writing a commentary on the article on Facebook, I realized how very burnt out I am. Not just depression, anxiety and winter driving phobia, but burnt out as a nurse. I'm really tired of being responsible for other people's lives, of trying to convince them that it's no longer safe for them to live at home, convince family members that have promised mom, dad or spouse that they would never put them in a nursing home that keeping them at home is not the best or safest option. And yes, convincing them that they couldn't wait in the hospital until a bed becomes available in their first choice of long term care because it has a long waiting list. Of putting up with their anger because I was the one they were dealing with, even though I didn't make the rules. And regularly being caught in the middle, between clients, families, doctors, home care, acute care, long term care, placement office...

In the end, I did put in for active registration. But when I had to answer yes to the questions, "Do you have a mental or physical health problem that prevents you from safely practicing nursing?" and "Are you currently off work?" followed by "When do you expect to return to work?" to which I had to answer that I was uncertain, the College of Nurses has placed my application in the "For further evaluation" pile. If they decide to place me in the "non-practice" category, I'll be fine with that, as long as they refund the difference I paid for active registration. 😁

But I'm still trying to figure out how to get on with my life. I don't really want to be on disability indefinitely. A month ago, I applied to a couple of insurance brokerages who were both advertising for insurance brokers as I felt that was something I could do that wouldn't be as stressful as nursing. I did a little investigating first and found the training that I could take to become a licensed broker and figured it wouldn't take me long to get my level 1 licence. However, I had no intention of paying for the course until I knew that I had the job. In my cover letter, I did point out how I felt many of my skills as a nurse were readily transferable to being an insurance broker. I did get an interview with one broker, but the anxiety the night before seriously hampered my sleep, making me wonder how well I could do in any job, subsisting on so little sleep. The interview only lasted about 10 minutes and they didn't even ask for my references, so I knew I wasn't getting that job. They were polite enough to email me to let me know that they wanted someone with training and experience. The second brokerage initially emailed me back stating that they had a likely candidate, so were no longer looking. I wished them well with their new candidate and was relieved that that was the end of that. At least I thought so. Then late last week, I got another email from them stating that the candidate they hired had decided not to pursue that line of work and was I still willing to come in for an interview. I didn't respond until yesterday. Honestly, I really didn't want to go in for an interview as I really didn't want to go back to work. And I was trying to analyze myself - is it because I'm just too lazy? Maybe this is God's plan for me. What if it's the answer that I've been praying for? And believe me, I was praying. I even asked God to make me feel positive about this job if it was His plan for me. But I didn't. However, I also didn't feel that I should pass this opportunity up. So, I actually had an interview booked for tomorrow, even though I was incredibly stressed out about the idea. But then I started crying and crying and crying, and getting short of breath and started hyperventilating. It didn't get to a full blown panic attack, but it was heading in that direction. And so I called my sister Judy. She's my second oldest sister and has basically stepped into the maternal role since my mother passed away. Yes, at 60-something, sometimes we still wish we could talk to our mothers. Anyway, she said that I need to just stay on disability. I agree. I know that God would not expect me to take a job, or even a job interview that would stress me out almost to the point of a panic attack. But I still feel lingering guilt about it. And that guilt and doubt has been forcing me to try to get on with my life when I'm just not emotionally ready. 

Meanwhile, the Queen died. We all knew it was coming, but I really didn't expect the Queen's death to hit me as hard as it did. I don't consider myself a monarchist, but nor am I anti-monarchist. However, she has been a part of my life for my entire life. I've known the anthem, "God Save the Queen", since early childhood and I'm still struggling to replace it with "King" and "him".  It's the end of an era. And I think my emotional health has really impacted my ability to cope with the death of the monarch. I've sat there and watched multiple long processions of her coffin, with tears running down my cheeks and sometimes great sobs racking my body. This morning, when I was watching the rerun of her actual funeral (I didn't get up early enough to watch it live), I thought I was doing okay until the bagpipes started to play. My prayers are with the royal family. Charles and Camilla looked absolutely exhausted as well as bereft at the funeral today. I almost felt as if was revisting the loss of my mother through this entire mourning period. 

On the plus side, I did a self-study module on insomnia and I am trying to implement better sleep hygiene habits, like going to bed and getting up at the same time every day and not using electronic devices close to bedtime. And maybe someday, in the not too distant future, I will actually get a decent night's sleep in return. Hopefully, more than one decent night's sleep. This evening is not the evening for good sleep hygiene, though. After nearly having a panic attack over a job interview, I felt that I needed to write.