Friday Night Suggestion

I met the owners of St. Peter's Village Bakery at a local farmer's market - they make fantastic artisinal bread. They told me Friday nights at their bakery is pizza night - they take their delicious sesame semolina bread dough and turn it into pizza. St. Peter's Village is located in northern Chester County of PA, along the French Creek and close to French Creek State Park. The village was established in the 1800's to support the then prosperous black granite quarry - long since gone. Here's the bakery - lovely, isn't it.

I should have taken a photo of the pizza, but my family ate it too fast - suffice it to say - it was delicious! It's a BYOB - feel free to bring wine or beer - we brought Yards IPA made in Philly, PA - I love our local micro-brews! The back of the bakery has two tiers of decking overlooking the beautiful boulder laden French Creek. It just doesn't get better that this! For our entertainment pleasure there was a lively guitarist playing folksie tunes - my friend Laura was the dance captain for his version of the chicken dance - that I did get photos of - I'm holding on to them for blackmail fodder should I ever need it.

After dinner, before dessert (It's a bakery - you don't expect me to ignore my responsibility to taste-test the baked goods, do you) we walked along the stream enjoying dusk.

See this boulder - I think there's a quilt in this image - time will tell.

Ahhh, dessert. We bought a sampling of cookies - all amazing. The best - the macaroons - perfectly heavenly. Friday pizza night at St. Peter's Bakery - I strongly recommend it!

That Ding, Dang, Dongle

I drive a Bernina 200 - embroidery loaded. When I purchased my Bernina years ago I also purchased the Auto-Designer Software, and in the past I used it a lot - it was the basis of many teacher gifts and personalized birthday presents. As you know my computer recently crashed and I've been in the process of reinstalling all of my software - not a fun task. After finding my software - (note to self: must come up with an organized storage system for all household software, and must throw out all out of date software) - it was a rocky road getting it loaded. I love Bernina, but I hate that they abandoned tech support of their older software packages. And this ding, dang, dongle - if it weren't for the dongle, life could be so much easier. Happy ending - I have a working embroidery machine again.


I needed to get the software up and functional as my neighbor and good friend asked me to monogram some fabric for her daughter's wedding. Here's the machine chugging along.


First I stitched out sample monograms in 2 different fonts and with a few thread options so she could decide which font / color she liked best.

She chose a simple, clean script stitched in a Madeira black / white twist thread - it really glistens, without the hassle of metallic.

Here is the finished monogram - this fabric is beautiful! Her daughter is getting married in Charleston, SC and wants this fabric turned into pillows to decorate the wooden benches surrounding the rustic outdoor wedding site.

Triangle Treasure

My laptop is still not talking to my printer - computers - I thought they were supposed to make my life easier! And now, I have something I really want to print - darn. And you know what - you're going to want to print this too - well if you're one of my quilting readers, foodie readers, not so much.

Run, don't walk, to this great link at C&T's Blog post on setting triangles. It is the best resource on the subject!

I love the C&T Blog - check it out!

Sunday's Dinner Menu

I made a great dinner last night and wanted to share the recipes with you. And, yes, I made homemade pasta (I give you permission to use boxed), and made pie dough (again, permission granted to use a pre-made crust), but all in all, this was a super simple menu. I don't have a lot of photos - forgive me please.

Have a look at my eggs, fresh from my growers' market - and yes - they are multi-colored. They come from Araucanan chickens which lay eggs with shells tinted in blues, greens and violets. Aren't they beautiful - almost too pretty to crack!


Those beautiful eggs, 9 yolks, became the base for this lovely pasta - rolled out so thin you can see through it!

Sit back, have a sip of wine and a nosh of this beautiful appetizer as I share the menu with you:

A lovely Chardonnay
Spicy Baby Okra and Olives
Swiss Chard and Cannellini Bean Bruschetta

More lovely Chardonnay
Spinach Lasagna Rolls
Ribboned Zucchini Salad

Espresso
Raspberry Infused Grappa
Mixed Berry Pie
(blueberry, blackberry and raspberry)
from Martha Stewart's pie cookbook

Good friends and family!

Houston - Or Bust!

Here it is - Wilde Ideas: Strings Attached - a compilation of 35 individual knife edge bound quilts, tied together. It features an Oscar Wilde quote from the Importance of Being Earnest - "the pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple". This baby was a ton of work: all of the gray target squares are machine quilted with truth-isms and it includes lots of hand quilted chicken scratch to fill in spaces. Every component of this quilt is a comment on the ambiguity of the quote. I am very proud of it. And, yesterday, I had to say goodbye. It's on the way to Houston for the Text on Textiles special exhibit at the International Quilt Festival, and will then travel for a year with the exhibit. I will admit, it was hard to let it go - I've heard of many stories of quilts gone missing from these shows and, well, I just hope it gets back home here safely and no worse for the wear.


Before shipping the quilt I had a lot of reinforcing to take care of - I tightened up all of the hardware, pinched together all of the openings of the metal eyes, triple stitched all of the blocks together from the back, and added a healthy dose of Fray Check to ensure my knots don't come undone.

I had to add a label - I am not fond of labels on my quilts and typically just hide a stitched signature and year somewhere in the quilt. The label ended up being the 35th quilt component to Wilde Ideas and includes the name of the quilt, my name and year. DOES NOT FOLLOW DIRECTIONS! Woops! After packing the whole thing up I realized I was to include my address and phone number on the quilt label as well - my bad - and you know what - I did not unpack it. If they call to complain I'll just have them hand write it on the label - if it makes it back home I'll remove the label anyway.

Here it is at my local UPS store. I was hoping to have it shipped in a tube but it wouldn't fit. When my friendly packaging expert at the store pulled out this box I had a fit - this quilt contains 2 wooden dowels and 2 slats as integral components to the structure. If the box bends, the wood breaks, end of the tour for Wilde Ideas. But my expert knows his packaging - he put it in the box and then slid compacted cardboard corner reinforcements in each of the corners of the box. That baby is smash proof, or so I hope. I made him put the fragile tape on every side of that box. I just checked tracking - I love tracking - it's in Dallas - yippee ya hoo! Cross your fingers that it arrives safely in Houston by Monday!

Two for Two-sies

Yesterday I shared the beautiful dress with you that I made for my niece's 2 year old birthday using a pattern from oliver + s. I just couldn't stop myself at the dress - - - I had to make the kimono inspired pajamas - the pattern is unisex as you can see.

I fell in love with this fantastic fabric from Free Spirit by Valori Wells called Nest - purchased it at Spool in Philly. They call it a viole, but I think it feels more like a lawn cloth - it is so light and airy, it feels like you're wearing a breeze. If you want to make a blouse for yourself you'd want to line it - or not - depends what reaction you're looking for - it is fairly transparent.
Here are two views of Katie Mae's kimono PJ's - as you can see I used a red solid as my contrasting fabric.




















A day after Katie Mae's birthday party I found these great magnetic dress up dolls - they reminded me of the oliver + s patterns, and of my paper dolls when I was young. I stashed those away for Christmas.

Katie Mae Turns Two

Happy Birthday Princess Katie Mae - our adorable niece! I assure you she loved her pink princess cake and crown!


A few weeks ago I was trying to come up with an idea for Katie Mae's birthday present - I was in the handmade frame of mind. While in Philadelphia for an outing I stopped by Spool on South Street - you know - where all the hippies go! Now, Spool is not a large shop but they do carry a lovely collection of fabrics - here's one of the shop owner's, Laura Singewald.

I spied the perfect gift for Katie Mae - the "birthday dress" from oliver + s. I've been curious to give this pattern company a try and this was the perfect excuse - after all - who can turn their back on anything with a paper doll on it???

Here is my version - so cute!!! I just love the bright yellow flowered fabric - I wish I could tell you who made it but the selvage went out with the trash - sorry selvage savers. And I couldn't stop myself at the dress - I had to create a matching handbag - every princess needs a handbag to carry her lipstick. Unfortunately I don't have a photo of Katie Mae in the dress - as soon as my sister-in-law forwards a photo I will be sure to share it with you.

What I loved about the oliver + s pattern was the attention to detail and the little extras. Look at the hem - the pattern gives you directions for how to use a contrasting fabric giving such a beautifully finished look. The front of the dress has 3 box pleats - the pattern instructed you to edge sew the pleats to make ironing easier after washing. As you can see I pulled out the serger for this project - I finished all of my raw edges.
The dress closes in the back with buttons - I just love the button placket.

There was a lot of edge sewing with this pattern - my number 5 edge foot really came in handy.

Caution - Caution - Caution

I needed to pick up tracing paper to mark the pleats and button placket - it's been a long time since I used tracing paper. I found this Mark-B-Gone paper from Dritz and thought I'd give it a try.

Oh heavens!!! What a mess!!! The purple inky stuff got on everything - my hands, all over the fabric, the table, my clothes - you name it. Luckily it washed out without a problem - will I use it again - NO!
Tomorrow - Part Two of Katie Mae's present. Yes, I got carried away.