Off to a Quilt Show

We’re packing up and leaving home tomorrow – off on a caravan road trip.  But to tell the truth, it’s really so that I can attend a quilt show.  And have a pleasant weekend away, just the two of us and our travelling cat Muffy.  The Rangitikei Country Quilters are holding their exhibition at Marton, so that’s the reason for the trip.  Robin will have to amuse himself on Saturday while I’m off admiring the quilts.  But that won’t be a hardship for him, no doubt he will wander around the camp grounds and chat away to fellow travellers.  More quilty details later……

Cheese Puffs

With friends coming for lunch today, I decided to whip up another batch of Cheese Puffs.  There had been a request for the recipe I use, so here it is.  Adapted from “A Real Gem”, Tried and Tested Recipes from the Eastern Bay of Plenty Country Women’s Institute.

2 cups flour, 4 teaspoons baking powder, 2 cups grated cheese, 1 cup chopped parsley
Mix together with 2 beaten eggs and enough milk to make a runny dough
Put into greased 12 hole muffin pan
Cook 180 degrees 15-20 mins till well risen and browned
Serve warm with butter, yummy!

Cheese Puffs, fresh from the oven

Because I wanted to make them just before lunch, I had all the dry ingredients placed together in the mixing bowl, left it covered, then just had to add the eggs and milk when I was ready to mix it all together.

Ready for the wet ingredients

They are best eaten the same day.  I usually freeze any leftovers.  If we fancy something extra for lunch, it is easy to pull a couple out of the bag, and pop them in the microwave to warm through.  Do let me know if you try them.

September UFO Night

Quilt Club UFO night is held on the last Friday of the month, and I’m always keen to go along and spend time stitching with fellow club members.  That’s if we are not heading away for a caravan weekend, it’s always a shame if the dates clash.  What to take to work on, is always the question.  During the day I laid out my burgundy and cream log cabin blocks on the bed to see if I had made enough.  Not wide enough, I decided, I’ll need to make another row of blocks to add to each side.  The mattress and base on new beds these days are so deep that quilts need to be much larger to fit nicely.  Then I spent some time standing over the cutting board slicing more burgundy and cream strips, located my bag of centre squares, then packed up the sewing machine and assorted bits and pieces all ready for my night out.  Oh, mustn’t forget to prepare my plate for the shared meal, club sandwiches this time, I think.

The ladies arrived and settled in, ready for a good night’s stitching.  The food for our evening meal was placed on the kitchen counter, together with a bowl of baby chocolate fish, to keep our energy levels up.  Hand stitchers gathered together at the long tables in the centre of the room, while those of us with sewing machines sat at tables around the perimeter of the room, close to the power switches.  I started work on 8 more log cabin blocks, stitching each log on, folding the fabric back to trim the excess off, them jumping up to the ironing board to press.  It’s slow work, but paper piecing keeps the blocks nice and accurate.  I’m sure I wouldn’t get the same great results if I wasn’t sewing on the lines.

What I’m working on

Kathy’s 6 year old grand-daughter loves cats, so of course her new quilt contains lots of fun cat prints.  Kathy was cutting lots of squares and rectangles to make flying geese blocks  out of paw print fabric.   Kathy also took charge of the kitchen, heating up things in the oven, dealing with the dishes, and making sure we were all well looked after.  Thanks very much, Kathy.

Pussies galore for a grand-daughter

Kaye came in for a bit of good hearted banter when she brought out her hand pieced play blocks from last month’s UFO night.  But, she told us, she has been doing all sorts of other sewing during the month, and was saving this project for tonight.  With all that hand stitching, it will take a while, and the variegated thread adds a nice touch.

Hand stitching the foam blocks together

Leigh was also working on a long term project.  Her fun appliqué cat quilt was purchased from The Cloth Shop and she has been busy cutting and fusing all the pieces together.  When all this fiddly preparation work is done, she will hand button hole stitch each block.  Leigh has some chooks at home which have been very busy laying, and brought in some lovely eggs to give away.  I was lucky to get half a dozen to take home – thanks very much, Leigh.

Leigh’s cat project

Half square triangles of every imaginable colour all went together nicely in Jan’s pin wheel quilt.  These blocks were part of a challenge run by Sawmillers Quilt Shop.  I like the way Jan is putting these blocks together with the black framing squares.  She has heaps more blocks to play with, so it will be good to see how it looks with the next border added.

Jan’s pin wheel quilt

Sandra loves batiks and has batiks of many lovely shades in this quilt which will be made for her own bed.  This nice simple block has been arranged into big squares with black sashing between.  Still more blocks to be added, and it will look great when it is done.

Sandra’s batik blocks

Now, back to the hand stitchers at the middle tables.  Vickie was working on an appliqué block featuring strawberries on a pretty blue background.  Just look at those fine bias stems.  She showed me a picture of the complete quilt, which will be stunning.

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Vickie and her strawberry block

Just look at this Crinoline lady with such fine stitching which Mary has completed.  This will be made into a pretty lace trimmed cushion.  Mary is one of the original club members, and learnt embroidery as a child, she told us. 

Embroidered cushion front

And Sara and (another) Mary were sitting together working on yet another Mystery Block of the Month project together.  (These girls in the club all love their Block of the Month projects).  This one was designed by the very talented Lynette Anderson and each segment comes with a beautiful hand crafted wooden button, which gets added after the blocks are put together and quilted.  And those teeny tiny hexagon blocks will be part of the quilt too.

Lynette Anderson BOM

So that’s an overview of what everyone was working on during the evening.  Add in the friendly banter, companionship, and tasty shared meal, you can see that we all had a great night.  And thanks again for those eggs, Leigh, much appreciated.

Embroideries at the Library

Embroidery is alive and well in sunny Levin.  I know because today I popped down to the library to select a couple of books for the upcoming Book Club.  (This month's category is the Tudors – would have to be my favourite time in history).  Members of the Horowhenua Embroiderers Guild had pieces of their work displayed in the library, so I stopped to have a look.  Such a variety of work, from cross stitch, to hardanger, stump work and black work.  There was even some pulled thread work, which I remember doing many years ago when I was at Primary School.  My stitching from all those years ago was nothing like the fine work on display.  Who else can remember stitching pulled thread work at school on a piece of sacking to make an oven cloth for our Mums?  We used wool threaded onto a bodkin, if I remember rightly.

I’ve always admired hardanger, though I don’t know if I could trust myself with cutting the threads between the stitching.  My clever daughter stitched me two pretty runners many years ago when she was a young Mum home looking after her youngsters.

Selection of hardanger pieces

Stump work

The stitching on this 3D hydrangea picture was so fine, lots of tiny stitches and beads.  It looks like the background was painted onto fabric.

  3D Hydrangea picture

And there was a lovely wall hanging which caught my eye, beautifully machine quilted which accentuated the flowers and leaves. 

Poppy wall-hanging

The librarian who runs the Book Club stopped for a quick chat.  She also organises the monthly displays, and the local potters will be the next group to show their work.  I’m sure that will be worth checking out too.

Patchwork and Pastries

We had a couple of reasons to visit the big city of Wellington yesterday.  The weather wasn’t the best, it rained, and rained, and rained some more, as only Wellington can.  Living further north in the milder climate of Levin these days, we didn’t bother to take coats with us.  That was a mistake, we should really have known better.  In the afternoon we parked the car in Thorndon, and I dodged the rain as I hurried along the footpath for a quick visit to Nancy’s Embroidery Store.

 

I can remember visiting Nancy’s a life time ago when I first started work.  Back then the shop was situated on the ground floor of the iconic James Smith’s department store.  Sewing dresses to wear to the Saturday night dances was more my style back then, but I was fascinated with all the different embroidery threads, fabric, patterns and samples on display.  The shop is now owned by Mary Self, who kindly allowed me to take some photos on my visit.  This is Wellington’s only specialist embroidery store and has everything needed for all the different types of hand work, plus yarn for keen knitters.  I of course gravitated to the shelves of colourful patchwork fabric, and spent some time checking it out.  Well worth a stop if you are travelling to Wellington

 

After my patchwork fix we had lunch just up the street at the Bordeaux French Bakery.  The counters were full of delicious French goodies  and as the mistress of procrastination, it took me ages to make up my mind what to order.  Choices are never easy, and  I finally chose a toasted bagel with salmon and cream cheese.  Robin had no trouble making up his mind, and his choice was one of the spicy Barvarian barbecued sausages which we could see slowly turning over on a bed of rollers, served in a bread roll with mustard and plum sauce. 

It all looks good enough to eat

And you could hardly expect us to eat at a French Bakery without ordering one of those delicious pastries for dessert, would you?  How about a slice of apricot custard tart for me, and a huge pastry covered in nuts for Robin, with a gooey custard centre?  Probably a million calories in each, but oh, so yummy.

Apricot tart for dessert

In praise of Parsley

Years ago, when I was just a little girl of three or four, I had my first introduction to parsley.  My Mother took me to visit a friend of hers, and we stayed for lunch, scrambled eggs with parsley mixed through.  I looked at my plate and asked, “what’s that green stuff?”.  My Mother was horrified with my lack of manners, and told me to be quiet and eat my lunch up.  Oh dear, I was a quiet little thing back then, and getting told off was the end of the world.  What had I done wrong?  I really didn’t know what that green stuff was in my scrambled eggs!

Here in our new home, I have a parsley plant in the garden that is growing so well.  Now I’m grown up, I know all about putting some of this tasty herb in scrambled eggs these days.

Parsley plant in the garden

I made some Cheese Puffs recently, and although the recipe didn’t specify it, I added chopped parsley to the mixture.  They were so delicious, hot and cheesy, with the hint of parsley taste.  Quick and easy to make, just the thing to whip up next time I have visitors coming, I think

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Cheese puffs with added parsley

Did you know that parsley is the world's most popular herb? It derives its name from the Greek word meaning "rock celery".  It is chock full of vitamins K, C, and A, as well as folate and iron.   Guess I’ll have to find some more recipes that I can add more of my parsley to.  Mr Google knows everything, so that’s a good place to start.

How many days till Christmas?

I’m wondering how many days till Christmas?  (Someone is sure to know.)   Hopefully I’ll have my long neglected Christmas quilt finished by then.  I’ve been working on it intermittently for quite some time, so it would be nice finally get it finished.  Perhaps you remember when I started machine quilting it in variegated red and green thread?  Sadly, this showed up all my quilting imperfections and I sat and ripped all the stitches out.  This time, having learnt my lesson, I’m quilting it with cream thread, and I’m much happier with the results.  It’s not that my machine quilting skills have magically improved, just that any weird stitches blend in better.

Today I was sitting outside at the picnic table sewing my ends in.  I know some people make tiny stitches when they start and finish, but I don’t like to do that.  It was quite restful, sitting out, enjoying the warm morning and working quietly away.  We are going camping for a few days, then I’ll get back to some more machine quilting again.

Still working on my Christmas quilt