Saturday Update from the Resort

First, I am pleased to announce that all Christmas items are back in the closet and provide proof with a new picture of the basement hall:


Several of you spotted the treadle sewing machine behind all the boxes in my last picture, so I wanted to assure you that it has a treasured spot and is not usually hidden from sight.

Second, we had Will and Briana over again last night, and I am excited to tell you I triumphed in the dessert department (you may remember my failed attempt at gluten-free cherry crisp last time). I made flourless peanut butter cookies and they were delicious! From some deep recess of my mind, I remembered that my grandmother had made peanut butter cookies when I was about nine or ten and had excitedly shared that this amazing recipe contained no flour. So I Googled flourless pb cookies and found the recipe. Will loved them! Here's the recipe in case you have a gluten-free person over sometime, or a child or grandchild needs a treat for school and has a gluten-free classmate. (We had one in my room last year.)

Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies

1 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 white sugar
1 egg
1 tsp baking soda

Mix peanut butter and sugars well, then add egg and baking soda and mix two minutes. The mixture will look crumbly, but roll into walnut sized balls and place on cookie sheet. Smash with fork and bake at 350 for 10 minutes.

And last, here's a peek at part of my next project:


My house is clean since we had guests last night, so I'm free to stitch! Happy Saturday from The Resort!

A Little Do-over

Four years ago we spent Christmas with our son and family in Virginia. Amy and I had a wonderful time visiting quilt shops and although the economy was doing fine at the time, I did my best to keep it that way. One of my purchases was a Moda charm pack with unusual (for me) colors and patterns. Amy had just taken a class called Tessellations and so I used the charm pack to try it myself. I loved the result and brought my little top home and quilted it. I should have added some borders to it, but I didn't, for whatever reason, and I was never happy with how it turned out. Too small. Night before last, I decided the time had come and I ripped it all apart, down to the little pieced top.

Here is the redo with borders added:


and a closer picture of the tessellations:


I am so happy I found a fabric for the new borders in my stash. In fact, I must really like this fabric, because I found three different cuts of it on my shelves!! And now I have a new table topper for spring.

Pillowcases

In my continued attempt to do some spiffing up after the holidays, I decided to make some new pillowcases for our bed. Here's what I made today.


Our sheets and blankets, as well as our bedspread, are all cream colored, so it's fun to make seasonal pillowcases. Here're our Christmas ones which are just going back in the linen drawer today.


And here are our Valentine's ones which are going on our bed today. (Gotta get that bed made up before bedtime! I confess, I hate changing the sheets.)


We were the recipients of many sets of sheets and blankets when we got married. As it was 1972, the colors were mostly gold and green, with some pink and blue thrown in just for good measure. Our first bed was a double bed. When we bought a new queen bed some years later, it necessitated new sheets and blankets. After years of multi-colored bedding, I choose the all-cream theme we still have. It's much more restful. And it's fun to throw back the bedspread and find the colorful pillowcases.

Welcome Back, Winter

This was the view out my front door this morning.



And this is the view in my basement to the left of the stairs,


and to the right.


The good news is that I think all traces of Christmas have been removed from the main floor.

How I Came to Be a Quilter

When I was little, two to be exact, my parents moved to a duplex from their tiny one-bedroom cottage, and I got my first big bed (actually my only big bed as I used it until I was married). They bought me a double bed which could also be used as a guest bed when needed. My blankets were quilts that my paternal great-grandmothers had made. They were old and worn, well used. And they were heavy. To this day I equate warmth on a cold winter night with weight. As I grew older, I became a reader and my favorite books were by Louisa May Alcott and L.M. Montgomery. I was a dreamer and a romantic, and the "olden days" were golden in my dreams. Anything that hinted of days gone by intrigued me. And certainly no one I knew was quilting, so it seemed to be a long-lost art of the past. I made up my mind that someday I would quilt, just like my great-grandmothers whose work kept me warm.

When I got my own home and my own sewing machine, I tried to do a little patchwork, but in the '70's, cotton fabric was hard to find. And the colors, well, if you are old enough to remember the '70's, you know what I mean. I did pick up a couple of the very few quilt books published in those days, and most items were crafty: patchwork vests, placemats, etc. I fiddled, and I played, but I had no idea how to create a real quilt.

In 1985 we moved to our present town and it had a lovely fabric shop that had, be still my heart, quilt fabrics!! A whole row of cotton "calicos" actually labeled "Quilt Fabric". About the same time I met a new friend through church who quilted. Anne was about my age, and she had made several quilts. She offered to teach a class at church using Marilyn Burns' book, Log Cabin in a Day. I signed up.

About two weeks before the class, I was working up a box of peaches and was bitten on my right hand by some type of spider which had set up housekeeping among the peaches. Eventually I ended up at the emergency room and by the time I was through, we had used our extra fun money for not so fun medical expenses. How was I going to get fabric for that quilt? I dug through all my fabric and was able to find enough blue and brown to be able to go. I'm sure some of the fabric was not all cotton, having been purchased with clothing and home dec in mind, but nevertheless, it became part of my first quilt.


I actually hand-quilted this quilt; after all, that's how the great-grandmothers did it. It's not quilted well, but it's held together for all these years. I was on my way!

Charmed, I'm Sure

I picked up a charm pack of Moda's Snow Blooms by Kansas Troubles Quilters a year or so ago. I love their fabrics--the colors are just my style. I mentioned in my January Sorting post that I'd like to make a few changes around the house and that a new runner would be one of them. Then I was over at Sew Cindy's the other day and saw the runner on her hutch. It caught my eye and I thought, "Charm squares." And then I remembered the Snow Blooms and, more amazingly, found them! There were twenty-four squares in the pack, just enough to lay them out in a three by eight rectangle.


Super simple, but I love how it goes with the "Spoon Flowers" wallhanging in the breakfast nook.


Just ignore the Dustbuster on the floor. :-)

Sewing Room

Hmm, seems I'm a little behind in posting. We went to Costco yesterday and that took much of the day, not to mention the work that goes on once you get home. Where to put everything? Dan came up from our basement pantry to tell me I shouldn't worry about running out of canned chicken broth. By his calculations, with our latest purchases, we now have twenty-one cans. Guess we're set for now! :-)

But on to today's subject: my sewing room. Or as Dan refers to it, my "studio". When we purchased this house ten years ago, I designated the second main floor bedroom as my sewing room. Then several years ago, my parents went through a year when they each had both knees replaced. Yup, four new knees in one year. The non-surgery parent stayed with us and both stayed the night before the surgery. This worked out fine until Dad had his second surgery just six weeks following his first. No stairs for him, so the basement guest bedrooms were out. After some thinking, we decided to move the twin beds upstairs rather than the queen bed in the other bedroom. That way when grandsons stayed over without parents, they'd be just across the hall from us instead of a floor away. This move meant my sewing room would now be downstairs. Unintentionally this also meant it would go into a much larger room. Score!

As you know, I began my sewing on Mom's Singer, in its cabinet, in the living room of the house I grew up in. When Dan and I were first married, we lived in an 8'x35' trailer so I sewed on the little kitchen table. In our first real house, I sewed on the table in the little dining nook off the living room and then moved to the laundry room in the basement where Dan built me a wonderful sewing area. Unfortunately, it was built-in and when we moved, it stayed. We learned a valuable lesson: sewing cabinets need to be free standing. He built me a nice sewing center in our next house, and we were able to take it with us when we moved to a new town, and it's become the center of the much larger area I use now.


This is the view from the door into my sewing room. The Brother sits on my original sewing cabinet, to the right is a long table Dan built to match. It slides into the corner and holds my trusty Pfaff and my serger. While everything looks a bit scrunched in the photo, I can easily move from one machine to the other.


My 200/730 sits on a quilting table I purchased several years ago. It has the extra leaf which folds out on the back and has the lift for raising and lowering the machines. I have plexiglass surrounds for both the Brother and the Pfaff, and Dan cleverly made a wooden piece so the Bernina fits down in. Notice the little stand to the left--Dan made it to hold my embroidery threads, manuals, and extra stabilizers. It has wheels so I can move it around. It's so handy for sorting threads when I embroider, and then it's perfect to turn in place when I'm quilting or sewing on bindings to help hold the bulk of the quilt.


My Handi-Quilter fits into this same room. It wouldn't fit in the upstairs sewing room and so I was using it in the family room where it was not a happy fit. Having everything in one room is wonderful and I love it. I also love having its table for laying out fabrics.


This last picture is of a long table I use for sorting, um, piling things when I get creative. It's also the place where others can set up machines and sew. My daughter usually sets up two machines when she comes to sew and we have a blast visiting and watching chick flicks while we stitch away.

Thanks for hanging with me on this long post and visiting my sewing room!