Keeping Busy On a Rainy Day

My first order of business for the day was to take in the Lorraine Glessner exhibit at Cabrini College. Lorraine is a local artist who works in encaustic mixed media and fiber. The exhibit at Cabrini is a sampling of her newest work utilizing encaustic techniques on rusted and branded silk, and incorporating human and horse hair. Her pieces have a very organic feel, watermark-like in appearance.


After a quick trip to the grocery I'm ready to indulge myself and dive into my cooking play time for today. Guess what I'm making - - -
If you guessed brioche you'd be correct. The pans pictured above are called "a tete" molds.
The current issue of Fine Cooking has a wonderful, pictoral recipe for brioche. I've made brioche in the past - they can be fickle, but are well worth the effort.
Here's a quick hint - the recipe calls for room temperature eggs - I of course never remember to set my ingredients out ahead of time. Quick Solution - place your eggs in a warm water bath to bring to room temperature - works every time.
Another tip - when adding eggs to a batter always crack the eggs into a bowl first. This will prevent you from adding shell to the batter, or worse yet, a bad egg.
To warm up the milk I put it in the microwave for one minute at 30% power. And, yes, I always use organic milk.
Here is my dough before the addition of the butter. Ahhhh, yes, the BUTTER.
Sorry kids - brioche is loaded with butter - that's what makes it taste so good. This recipe makes 16 servings and calls for a half pound of butter - it's an indulgence, what can I say?
How lovely - look at the perfect dough after one hour of proofing at room temperature. Now into the fridge overnight to develop flavor. I'll finish the brioche tomorrow - stay tuned for follow-up.

Now here is another "teaser" - I was working on a binding for this quilt today. You're only getting a sniplet of a tease - I want the full reveal to include a photo of my Mom - she embroidered all of the blocks in this quilt. You're going to have to wait until next week to see the entire quilt - until then, only sniplets!

A Day in Philadelphia

Meredith is home this week so it's time for us to play. We headed down to Philadelphia to have lunch (and dinner), take in a movie at the Ritz, and enjoy the sights. No sewing today!
We stopped by the Snyderman - Works Gallery to see the Seventh International Fiber Biennial - the collection is fantastic, and well worth the trip to Philly. Included in the exhibit this year are BJ Adams, Dorothy Caldwell, Lia Cook, Michael James, Joy Saville, Joan Schulze and Jeanne Williamson to name a few. Check out their website for the complete list - or better still - get in the car (or train) and see it first hand.
While at Snyderman I picked up an announcement for the grand opening of "A Fiber Arts Community" in Reading PA scheduled for March 13 - 14, 2010. The opening includes works by Kathryn Pannepacker, Barbara Schulman and Melanie Ritter Mitchell. Another upcoming show at Cabrini College features the work of local surface design artist Lorraine Glessner scheduled March 8th through the 31, 2010.

In a Bind

I needed to make binding today for I quilt I made for my friend, Cheryl Lynch - she asked that I make something for the gallery for her soon to be published book - can't show you a photo of the quilt, but I can tell you I used all Kaffe Fassett fabric from Glorious Color, Liza Lucy's on-line resource for all things Kaffe. I'm using the Venetian glass pattern for the binding - I only use bias binding - I love the process of making the binding. I start with a square of fabric large enough to give me the needed 236 inches of fabric.

Woops - mistake sewing my binding triangles together - need to seam rip. Here I go living on the edge again. I know a lot of quilters are content to pick stitches out when they've made a mistake. Sorry, that just takes too long for me. We are using a tool called a seam ripper, not a seam picker. I slip my seam ripper into the seam and, very carefully, slide it along the seam, ripping it open. You need to stop every couple of inches to clean the ripper of thread. Warning - you want to get proficient on this method before you try it on a project. If you are not careful you run the risk of slicing the fabric. When you get good at it you can open up a 2 foot seam in a few seconds - I'm good at it!

Once I get my binding tube together I use a smaller cutting mat to slip into the tube to cut my binding. This is not a great photo, but hopefully you understand. By slipping the mat inside of the tube you can simply spin the tube as you cut your binding.

Once my binding is cut I iron it - as I iron the length of binding I roll it onto my can of spray starch - that way it's not all over my sewing room floor picking up loose thread and getting all messy. When I sew the binding onto the quilt I put the "spool" of binding on the floor and unwind as needed.

Here are two important tools I cannot live without when it comes to binding. The red laminated paper, called the "Strip Ticket" is invaluable - one side has an illustrated step by step instruction of how to make continuous binding, and the reverse side has a chart listing the amount of fabric needed according to your binding width and desired length. You can find a version of the Strip Ticket in most quilting shops. The Fons and Porter Binding Tool is a relatively new tool for me, and I don't know how I lived without it - take my advice - you need it - you will get a flat final seam every time.

Too close for comfort - today I calculated that I needed 236 inches of binding. That was a loose estimation - my border is scalloped - oh no, I cut exactly 236 inches. I like to have a few extra feet of binding. Panic - slightly - I didn't have any more fabric left! I could not believe it - 4 inches of leftover binding - way too close for comfort!

Tonight's healthy dinner is vegetarian, actually vegan - we are having Sauteed Greens and Cannellini Beans accompanied by a slice of wheat berry bread topped with carrot and fennel bruschetta. You can follow the beans and greens recipe as written - it is only 270 calories per serving. Instead of using canned cannellini beans I used dried calypso beans - aren't they beautiful? I like making something with dried beans on a Monday - makes me feel like I'm back in Louisiana where they make red beans and rice on Mondays, giving the women time to do their laundry - I didn't do any laundry today! The kale is from the West Chester Grower's Market - kale is so beautiful - I've been known to use it in bouquets on the dinner table.

I'm not a real gadget person in the kitchen, but I do love these small 2 ounce measuring cups from OXO - great for portioning out oil - at 100 calories per tablespoon you really need to watch portions.
Here's dinner - served in and on gorgeous pottery from Willi Singleton, an amazingly talented artist who resides at the base of Hawk Mountain. To make the carrot and fennel bruschetta I simply sauteed in 2 teaspoons olive oil - 5 sliced carrots, 1/2 cup chopped fennel, 1/4 cup chopped onion, 1 minced clove of garlic, 1 tablespoon capers, 4 diced dried apricots. I finished the bruschetta with a handful of chopped parsley, and then spread the mixture onto the bread - loaded with whole grain goodness and a powerful blast of Vitamin A - it's all good for you!

Ruffled Feathers

We spend so much time on our quilt tops and then all too often write off the quilting phase - throw some stippling on it, or hand it off to a long-arm quilter - I do it all the time. But I've decided I want to be more involved in the quilting process. One of the most impressionable quilting books I've ever owned is "Quilting Makes the Quilt" by Lee Cleland - long out of print. The purpose of the book was to show you just how different a quilt can look based on the quilting. The book features multiple identical quilts - Lee made the same top 5 times - and then quilted each one with a different design - it is amazing to see how dramatically the quilting can alter the appearance of the quilt. If you ever run across a used copy of the book I suggest you add it to your collection.

This is one of my quilts that I am currently working on - a friend of mine, Christine, named it Snowballs in Spring because of the snowball border. I think I'll stick with the name, but I certainly hope it's not the forecast for our spring - enuf with the white stuff! I'm at the quilting stage, and I really wanted to do some interesting quilting to highlight the overall piecing design. I've taken many machine quilting classes, most recently with Philippa Naylor - an amazing quilt artist from England. Her machine quilting is simply extraordinary - every stitch controlled and calculated. This would be my feather quilt - I will conquer my fear of feathers - no more aimless wandering and meandering - this quilting would have purpose, add an extra dimension of interest.
Round One: OMG - how pathetic! Quilt Police, I surrender - tar and feather me - all of these years of quilting, of classes, multiple books and tutorials and this is the best I can do??? WAIT - can you believe I actually kept quilting these feathers in some vain belief that the more I quilted the better they might look - that all the stitches would fall into place when I finished and they would look "right"? What was I thinking? I pity the poor bird that gets stuck with my feathers - it has no hope of ever taking flight. Back to the drawing board and the seam ripper - all traces of my first attempts must be removed. Pull out the books, stack up the practice sandwiches - I will not ruin this quilt with shoddy quilting. And, I will not relinquish this quilt to yet another stippling experience. Don't get me wrong - stippling and fill has it's place, and I'm very good at both, but I want to master ("master" might be a strong descriptive here - I'm not completely at the edge) more technical quilting techniques.


Deep breath - I can do this. When I first started machine quilting years ago all of the instructors encouraged you to move fast - keep the quilt moving. Well that may be fine for meandering, but when you want to incorporate some meaningful quilting motifs, you need to slow the speed down, significantly. Move slowly, and reposition your hands often. I always sew with my needle in a down position - that way when I stop sewing my needle is in the quilt holding it steady. I've learned that when I resume sewing it is best to lift the needle before taking the next stitch to be certain your quilt hasn't shifted. While these feathers are not perfect, they are dramatically improved. I'm finding the larger the feather, the easier it is for me to get the best results.
You're going to see a lot more of this quilt as I progress with the quilting phase. I have no aspirations to become an incredible machine quilter, I just want to move it up a notch or two. I think it will be a good learning experience for me.

Nancy Cosmos Debuts at Jenkins Arboretum

Stalking Nancy: Last year at the Lancaster Quilt show I saw this quilt and was simply blown away - the use of color, the movement in the design, everything about this quilt was captivating. The name of the quilt is Hamlet and it was made by Nancy Cosmos, Nancy Cosmos of Malvern - STOP - I live in Malvern and not many quilters slip by my quilter radar. Who is this woman and why don't I know her. The investigation / stalking began - I start e-mailing friends - they don't know her. I realize she actually lives less than a mile from me - who is she and why don't I know her??? That month at my guild meeting, Calico Cutters Quilt Guild of West Chester, PA, this visitor steps up on the stage and unfurls Hamlet - the visitor is Nancy Cosmos - I jumped up and shouted "I've been stalking you" - and so started my friendship with Nancy.

The Opening: Last night Nancy opened an exhibit at Jenkins Arboretum in Wayne. As we walked toward the lovely new visitors center for the arboretum we were greeted by a beautiful view of Nancy's tumbling blocks quilt - it was the perfect lure to pique your curiosity for what awaited you once inside. Nancy has quite a "fan club" as attendance was excellent at her opening. Her quilts were beautifully presented on the massive walls of the visitor's center. Meet Nancy in front of one of her quilts.



One of my favorite quilts was this beautiful impressionistic interpretation of the gardens of the Jenkins Arboretum in bloom. Nancy - congratulations on an amazing show! Pinch yourself - it wasn't a dream!



Nancy's exhibit, Order and Chaos, Color and Perspective will be on exhibit at the Jenkins Arboretum- www.jenkinsarboretum.org through February 21 so plan accordingly - you don't want to miss it.