Taking off .... yet again!

I have been attempting to finish a flying geese quilt. I must admit, it requires a lot of mental energy to colour balance over 2,000 flying geese blocks. 

The pattern is from this book. It's a great book ... so many quilts I want to make from the book.

I had to increase the number of geese in order to make it a queen size quilt. I used up one (1) layer cake, 30's Playtime by Cloe's Closet (Moda Fabrics)

And used up a few fat quarters from Darlene Zimmerman's favourite.

So off I went cutting and piece more geese ... 440 geese to be precise!

And off I went .... piecing again .....

Voila! More geese!

I decided to organize them by colour and pattern. I also had to make sure that the fabrics were all balanced throughout the quilt. Therefore, each fabrics had half of the block turned over ensuring I only use half for the first part of the quilt. Pictured is only one (1) table of blocks ... there are so many!

As you can imagine, it was challenging to balance over 2,000 fabrics, ensuring that the fabrics and colours were distributed evenly throughout the quilt. I could only work on it a bit at a time before it got too much and my brain felt like it would explode. LOL

As I kept working on it grew ....

And grew ....

This is pretty much the half way point. I am doing a 30 X 70 layout. The picture does not do justice to the colours and fabrics. I just love it! For now, it is on my design wall ... waiting for me to work on it again.

Thanks for stopping by! Cheers!

Beets me .....

You've probably noticed, I've been on a self-sufficiency kick ... I don't know ... it's so unpredictable out there at the moment. So many recalls .... I'm guessing having some kind of food stash is somewhat comforting to me. 

Sadly, I do not have space for a garden. There are also no public places around my neighborhood for a garden. However, I do have a bit of a container gardening thing going on. Mainly herbs. oregano, mint, rosemary, english thyme and two (2) tomato plants with basil. 

So far the tomato bounty has been wonderful. There's nothing like a fresh tomato right of the plant. In the fall, I will dehydrate the herbs but for now, I'm enjoying fresh herbs in my cooking.

Although I consider myself as someone living in the country ... others in this area might disagree, I do not have access to a local farmer's market. What is being farmed in my area is mainly corn feed. And, what is available is certainly not in abundance. Luckily, we have Pray's Market a bit south of me, that carries fresh product, mainly from Canada. I decided to stock up on beets. I love roasted beets!

Off I went to prepare them for roasting.

I do not peel them prior to roasting. I wash them, cut the ends and place them in a baking pan. I drizzle olive oil, balsamic vinegar add kosher salt ... bake at 425F until they are tender. The bigger the batch, the longer the cooking time.

Once roasted, I would normally peel them and prep them for the freezer, However, the skin was so thin that it made peeling almost impossible without losing much of the beet. They taste just fine with the peel on ... besides ... more fibre, nutrients and antioxidants!

The freezer stash ....

My neighbour does have access to land and has a garden. Thankfully, they share their bounty with me. I received some fresh green beans that I blanched and prep for freezing.

They last a long time in the freezer and taste almost like fresh.

Thanks for stopping by my little corner in cyberspace. For those in the northern hemisphere, I do hope you are enjoy the summer. Cheers!

Time for updating Old Bernie ....

Back in the middle of June, a couple of friends and I attended a quilt show in Burlington, Vermont. It had been sooooo long since any one of us attended a quilt show. I didn't purchase anything, but I did look at the new Bernina machines. A gal can dream! 

Fast forward to the middle of July .... Bernie, my 1090, was acting up. The Shop Troll and I went on a road trip to Gloversville Sewing Center to get our Bernina serviced. Bernie is old. I love that machine ... but given his age, and being, again, a mother board issue ... I decided that it was time to buy a new machine. 

Meet Floyd .... 

I haven't used it yet ... I'm attempting to finish my flying geese quilt that I started, back in 2017, on Bernie. It's a work in progress. I had to make 440 more flying geese in order to bring it to a queen size quilt. 

It sort of reminds me of the time when I purchased Bernie ... way back when .... needing to finish a quilt on my old machine before I could use Bernie .... Can you hear Bernie panting? LOL 

Thanks for stopping by! Cheers!

It's been a while ....

I continue to hang on to my peace .... I've actually been quilting/sewing ... I know ... a shocker! 

In an attempt to reduce/declutter, I have been looking to work on quilting projects that have been hanging around my studio for way too long ... Jelly roll rug here I come. 

I bought the pattern back in 2017. 

I found the perfect jelly roll back in 2021 .... Lella Boutine - Christmas Morning for Moda Fabrics. Gorgeous fabric line!

It had been sitting around for quite some time ... high time I do something with it. 

The main reason for purchasing this pattern was to use up cotton batting scraps .... You know, those useless left over pieces. You can purchase a roll of pre-cup batting ... but why? Make do with what I have. Off I went cutting strips. 

As a note, I did not use any type of fusible to join the batting strips. I just butted them one after the other and it worked great.

I will say ... the most difficult part of the rug process is starting it ... the pattern offers various tips to ensure it works out. It would have been more helpful if the illustrations were in colour, as opposed to a black and white drawing ... I found it difficult to wrap my head around what I needed to do ... and yes, I made a mistake but I can live with it ;)

Voila! The rug ....

I like how it turned out ... so comfy on the feet! 

Thanks for stopping by! Cheers~!~

Moving towards self sufficiency ...

As the world gets more and more uncertain/chaotic, I find myself moving towards self sufficiency. More specifically, making/baking/preparing my own foods. I don't have space for a garden... yet ... but I can see that materializing in the near future ;) Until then, I can consume foods that are minimally processed.

I've been making my own pasta for over 15 years (I'm dating myself here! LOL). It's easy and so delicious ...  well worth the effort. I had tried to dry pasta, once, for future use ... it was a complete failure. It looked grayish and unappetizing. 

I recently became aware of my mistake, I used an egg & flour based recipe, which is not meant to be dried, but consumed within a short period of time. If you want to dry pasta, one needs to use a semolina & water base recipe.  BTW, if you are going to make shaped pasta, a semolina water dough is the one to use. It will hold your shape while the egg flour dough will not.

Armed with this new knowledge, I bought myself a dehydrator ... The Magic Mill Premium Food Dehydrator Machine. 

OMG, I love it. I always thought dehydrators were noisy but ... I was wrong. This one is quiet. Goes to show you that you get what you pay for ;).

I used it for the first time to make bread crumbs. I use the end of my sourdough bread. BTW, sourdough bread crumbs add a lovely flavour to your goods. I found the bread crumbs texture made in the dehydrator much better than in the stove. 

Next, I attempted to make dry pasta. I have the kitchen Aid attachment that's been sitting in my pantry for quite some time. I hadn't had any success until now.

 

One recipe gave me quite a batch ... multiple drying trays full.

I have not mastered, consistently, the fusilli pasta shape, but that will come. It's good enough for now. 

Another useful tip I learned ... when using fresh pasta, you need to add lots of salt and that because it has a short cooking time. Unlike dried pasta, which cooks for a longer period of time, less salt is needed.

I found this tutorial from Helen Rennie quite informative.

I've enjoyed watching her various vlogs.

In my search for proper instructions on dehydrating a variety of foods, I leafed through numerous books. I found this book  The Beginner's Guide to Dehydrating Food by Teresa Marrone to be the best. This is a how to guide, with temperature and time for most foods.

Most of the books I had looked at were focused on recipes .... I wanted instructions, a how to guide. So, if you are looking for a recipe book, this is not the one for you. She does have a section with recipes but minimal .... the bulk of the book is instructive. A great book to add to your collection.