The Challenge is On

I've been working diligently on the design for my Layers Tweets Challenge - it can be a frustrating process - arghhhh! I've been spending a lot of time sitting at my kitchen table drawing, and just as much time erasing. I do all my drawings freehand from my photos or from photo inspiration I find on-line. I never trace an image, other than when I work with portraits.

I'm happy to report that I'm sticking with my original concept - of course I can't tell you - that would spoil the reveal. I was afraid that once I started drawing I would lose my vision - it's a spacial thing for me - this 28 x 24 inch requirement is rectangular, only slightly so - it really feels very square to me. The drawing is nearly complete, still have a small section that needs "something" - not sure what that "something" will be.


Thought I'd share this lovely photo from my garden of barren wort - these flowers are so delicate and small - you need to see them up close to appreciate their beauty. They are the loveliest yellow of yellows. Once the blossoms are spent the beautiful foliage is left to be appreciated all season.

Happy National Quilting Day

Hi All - hope you had a wonderful National Quilting Day! I didn't do any quilting today - it was such a beautiful day my husband and I spent the day hiking at Hawk Mountain - wonderfully inspiring!

I'm sending you this bouquet of flowers to help you celebrate the day. I made this years ago - and sorry it's not finished. It was the outcome of a class I took with Teresa Fusco on "snipplets", all raw edge, all glued. It was pretty much this class that confirmed that I do not like raw edge or gluing. Thing is - I really like this piece - so rather than banish it to the back of my quilting closet forever - I'm sharing it with you on our special quilting day.

Here are some detail shots. I loved coming up with my flower designs in this class.

Two simple offset triangles make an intriguing flower.

Spring is here and so are pussy willows.

I love the bend to the twigs of the plants.

Simple flowers, yet all distinctly different.

I was new to machine quilting when I took this piece to the machine - I over quilted - basically thread painted some of the first flowers I attempted to quilt. I honestly don't think it can be saved - but it's still nice to look at. Enjoy your holiday quilters!

Baskets Full of Poseys

It's time - the reveal of my Mom's quilt - no more teases - today is the day.

Meet my Mom, Leah - she'll be 90 years old this December! She has never been a quilter, but she loves to embroider everything, as long as it's not cross-stitch - her stitches are beautiful. A few years ago - when the Fort Washington show was still in Fort Washington - I signed her up for a block of the month quilt from Sis n' Me. I thought she needed something to keep her busy.
Every month she received 3 new blocks to embroider - the blocks needed to be traced onto the fabric - she did the tracing the first month, and then quickly decided to make it my chore. Mom was diligent in her task - every month completing the 3 blocks. The heat was on - she did her part and expected me to do the same when it came to putting everything together. There were 32 blocks in total - but I used only 30 in the setting of the quilt. All of the blocks feature baskets of flowers, and all of the blocks are chockful of French knots - she loves French knots. I apologize for this next photo - this quilt is difficult to photograph.


According to the pattern, the blocks were to be set on point with intersecting sashing. My Mom traced the first blocks square and I didn't have the heart to tell her she goofed. I figured I'd just continue tracing them as squares and deal with a new setting after she finished the embroidery process. If I do say so myself, my setting has way more interest than your standard sashed on-point setting.

A dear friend, Jackie, from my guild, Calico Cutters, agreed to hand quilt it for me. I just couldn't see machine quilting something with so much handwork on it. Jackie did a beautiful job on the hand quilting.

My Mom loves her quilt and was very excited that I was going to share it on my blog - she has absolutely no idea what a blog is. I gave her one more assignment - she is to be stitching our names on the corners, and the date. I hope you enjoy her handwork!

My Colorful Dreary Day

It was another gray and dreary day here in the mid-Atlantic region - enough is enough already. Into the sewing room and break out the color - my charm squares from the Kaufman solid collection - 48 five inch squares of their solid collection.

I'm working on a sample quilt based on a technique I've been experimenting with - I'd love to share it with you, but I'm not sure what I want to do with the technique in terms of publishing it. I love using charm squares with the technique - but all of these colors needed to meet the special guest at my rainy day color party - - -

GRAY! Using a strong neutral like gray can really make the colors shout. Think about it - a gray sky makes all of the colors of the landscape look alive.

I love working with solids - thing is not all solids are created equally. My favorite mass produced solids by far are the Amy Butler broadcloth solids. Take a look at the weaves below on the three sample fabrics. The gray is the Amy Butler solid - slate color - a nice tight weave, and a beautifully soft hand. The weave on the other two sample fabrics is visually different - the fibers are larger and the weave is not as tight, resulting in a stiffer hand to the fabric. The Amy Butler fabric is manufactured by Free Spirit - however, only in a limited color choice - - - Free Spirit - if your listening - MORE COLORS PLEASE!!!
Tomorrow I'm posting my St. Patty's menu just in case you want to cook along. Stay tuned - you're going to need Guiness and a nice Irish whiskey.

The Ultimate Compliment

When I was pregnant with my first daughter I wanted to tell my Mom in a special way. She likes to embroider, so I purchased a quilt top for her to embroider for the baby, wrapped it up and gave it to her as a gift - needless to say, she was thrilled. She embroidered that top, and then gave it to her friend who hand quilted it and finished the edge with prairie points. I was delighted when my Mom gave it to me at my baby shower.

Fast forward - That daughter, Meredith, was just home for her spring break - headed back to BU yesterday. Last night I got a frantic phone call - "Mom - I left my blankie at home" - sometimes they're not as grown up as they think they are. Her blankie is that quilt that my Mom embroidered for her over 20 years ago. Here is her blankie - the embroidery stitches are for the most part history. You can see through it - you can even see where the batting is split. Amazingly the hand quilting stitches are are still holding.
The design on the quilt was a choo-choo train that circled the perimeter with a prayer in the center. Below you can see the needle holes where the train used to be, the red wheels are the only thing left. The border was pink - it's now white, dirty white, same as the embroidered section and the prairie points.
Here you can see a fragment of the embroidery, and the embroidery floss trapped in the quilt sandwich.
This quilt has literally been washed hundreds of times, it's accompanied us on all of our vacations, been cuddled at sleep over camps, it's been cried into, laughed into, it lulls her to sleep and reminds her of home, even while she is away at college. Yes, when it was fresh and new it was beautiful - but, honestly it's more beautiful now - it's been so loved. My Mom couldn't be happier to know that her quilt was so well loved - it's really the greatest compliment!

I just launched a Baby Quilt Challenge for my quilt guild, Calico Cutters of West Chester. I tried to stress to the women to make their quilts sturdy, prepare them for all of the love they're hopefully going to receive. The challenge quilts are due in May - can't wait.

As promised - here are 2 more teasers of my Mom's embroidered blocks - aren't they beautiful? Early next week I'll be posting the full quilt.There are literally hundreds of French knots in this quilt.

The current issue of Fine Cooking has some fantastic recipes - I'm making the roasted lamb for dinner tonight.

My brioche has been resting in the fridge all night - here it is before heading into the oven. This recipe is from the current issue of Fine Cooking as well - check yesterday's blog post for the preparation steps.
And here it is after baking. This was a great recipe - give it a try!

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!

Warrior Games

I received an e-mail this morning from Quilts of Valor - an organization that collects patriotic quilts for our wounded soldiers, and to date has awarded over 26100 quilts. They are looking for 200 quilt donations to be given out at the first ever Warrior Games May 10 - 14, 2010. I have three patriotic quilts that I finished up back in December that haven't made it into the mail to QOV, so I decided this would be a perfect destination.

About two years ago I picked up charm packs from Moda - red, white, and blue. It was so simple to use charm packs for QOV quilts - just sew the fabric squares together, adding sashing to give a lap size quilt. Here's the second quilt using the Moda charm pack - what I really like about this fabric is that it has a contemporary feminine feel - the flowers and dots really make it perfect for our female soldiers. These 2 quilts were so simple to throw together - you should really consider making a donation to this organization if you haven't already done so.Now this next quilt is a smidge more involved. I used the Crazy Rays pattern from The Buggy Barn to create the center star part of the quilt, and then added a scalloped border and paper-pieced flags in the corners. It measures approximately 5 feet square.
I have only one thing to do before I put these quilts in the mail - the dedication label on the back. I find this is the most difficult part of donating a quilt to Quilts of Valor - how can words aptly express how proud I am that these brave soldiers risked their lives for our freedom. Nevertheless, it is the most important detail of the quilt to me.

'nuther Nor-Easter

Woke up this morning to the remnants of yet another Nor-Easter here on the east coast. I have no idea how much snow we got, but the wind was fierce! I didn't sleep good last night - who can sleep with all that wind - gave me time to catch up on my favorite blogs. When I woke up this morning I was grumpy - I wanted my espresso and my favorite winter breakfast, fast - a hot bowl of oatmeal with local Pennsylvania maple syrup - Buy Local PA! I love dark amber syrup - it has a rich maple-y flavor, adds a lot more than sweetness to whatever you add it to. And yes - that's my name on the napkin. I have one of those fancy sewing / embroidery machines and I love to make sets of cloth napkins for our table (and as gifts to friends) - this one is probably 10 years old! Every couple of days they get thrown in the laundry - we're saving trees!I use steel cut oats, called oat groats, to make our oatmeal - it has a nice, toothy bite to it. I buy it at a bulk food store outside of my hometown of Fleetwood, PA.

Steel cut oats have a relatively long cooking time - so I cook up a batch of about 6 servings, keep it in the fridge, and reheat on the stovetop as needed.

Finished my table runner this morning - here's the A side - bird's eye view -
Take a step back and have a look. There is no rhyme or reason to the quilting - it's a liberated quilt - no rules, remember? I'm using it on the table for my dinner party tomorrow night - wonder who will be the first to spill red wine on it? I used mostly Kaffe Fassett fabrics. The solid fabric is a new line from Moda called Basic Gray - I love the painterly look but so wish they had a softer hand - it will work nicely in wall hangings.

And here's the B side - bird's eye view -
And taking a step back. I really like both sides - what do you think?
Just to end on a whine - this is what my garage roof looks like today - over 4 feet of drifted snow; yesterday it was almost free of snow from the last storm. Got to get it off of there before March 7th - that's the date an Amish gentleman from Berks County is predicting the biggest snow storm of the year - oh, how I hope he is wrong!

Sweetly Sings My Bird

Say "Hi" to Sweetie, my little birdie that sits atop my sewing machine - she has quite a magnetic personality. She guards my EZ thread needle - the one I use to bury all of my quilting threads in the batting. If I'm sewing really fast, and my machine starts bouncing around a little, she'll start singing her little tweetie song - always makes me smile! I especially love her colors, so much so that ... they are showing up in my new project. If you haven't noticed, I keep a number of projects going at the same time. When I finish a big project I like to reward myself with a quickie project, so, here's my quickie - a table runner - a liberated table runner - no rules, cut and sew - using up the fabrics I purchased on my shopping trip yesterday. I just cut a bunch of strips and started sewing.
Here's my table runner - I've moved the blocks around since I snapped this photo to breakup the blocks with the darker red solid. I had a lot of strips left over after piecing it - so I decided to piece the back - you'll have to wait until tomorrow to see the back, and the quilting.
I apologize for not having a recipe today - here's the reason - I did make a cabbage and pork dish for dinner, but I just didn't like it enough to share. In addition to quilting my table runner, I've been cooking all day as well - getting ready for a dinner party Saturday night - today I made duck rillettes and pickled fennel for my appetizer. Promise to share a full photo review of the dinner party with you on Sunday!

Progress Report: Feathers and Scallops

"a thread from the edge" - what is the deep meaning to the name of this blog? First - it's me - there is no deep meaning to anything I do, period, I am just not that complicated. I do drive myself to being the best I can be - some think I have a perfection complex - and in quilting, that philosophy can lead you to the edge. Case in point - here is a sampling of my current quilt - those are all of the threads I pull to the top of the quilt, which I will eventually bury in the batting - when I'm good and ready. Until that time, they sit on the top of my quilt, getting tangled, getting in the way, and getting on my nerves - moving me closer to the edge.

I've been busy working on my feathers in an attempt to impress you. I think I'm improving daily. I admit I am still chalking in some of the feather motif, but I am getting better at "free birding" my feathers. Have a gander at the twin feathers on my one corner block - not bad - eh?

Scallop Update - no, silly - not quilted scallops, dinner scallops. I'm going to try to give you a healthy dinner entree every day this week, and tonight's dinner entree includes the lovely sweet mollusk, scallops. Two large scallops cost you a whole of 25 calories - perfect protein source while you are trying to keep the calories in check. The secret is you need to watch your preparation method. Tonight's entree, Seared Scallops with Fennel Salad and Kumquat Vinaigrette, is a reduced calorie version based on the original recipe from epicurious. A kumquat looks like a small orange, about the size of an olive. They are in season and readily available now. I love to eat them plain - you need to squeeze them between your fingers to release the bitter oil, and then eat the whole fruit - the skin actually has sweetness, while the pulpy inside is quite sour - eaten together they balance out. I'm playing with my photos today - here are my kumquats as seen by the impressionist eye.
And, here is a still life of my ingredients - kumquats, radicchio, fennel, scallions, and tarragon (it pains me to buy tarragon - in the summer it becoms a weed in my herb garden).
Here are my changes to the original recipe - I made the dressing as written but used only 4 ounces of olive oil in the dressing, and added 4 ounces of water - savings of 800 calories. The original recipe had you use the entire amount of dressing - I used only 1/4 of the dressing in the final dish and have the remainder to use in the future. I seared the scallops in only 2 teaspoons of olive oil - that's all you need if you have a good hot pan. My scallops seared perfectly - and I saved over 300 calories in the searing process. All I did was cut excess olive oil from the recipe and I saved over 1100 calories. This dish is chockful of beautiful crunchy veggies - calorie-wise they just don't count; flavor-wise they are amazing. I served 6 scallops per serving - 75 calories of pure protein. I accompanied the dish with a slice of whole grain bread rubbed with garlic and toasted under the broiler.