A Little Sewing, A Little Cooking

It’s been so long since I’ve really celebrated the holidays properly that I’d forgotten how enjoyable it can be when you get your spirit on.  For the past few years life had gotten in the way and I haven’t felt like decorating or cooking or even participating in anything remotely celebratory.  Now that life has gotten on a more even keel, I want to get festive.  It feels good – really good.

So this weekend I worked a bit on one of my latest projects – yes – another project.  I started the ‘Home Sweet Home’ quilt.  A very, very talented quilter from my group named Lyn made this quilt about 4 years ago and recently brought it to show and tell.  I was blown away.  Number one I’m completely in awe of anyone able to do needle turn appliqué and secondly, this is a house quilt and I’ve liked them for as long as I can remember.  So putting the two together opened my eyes to the possibility that even I, the un-applique queen, could get brave and give it a go.  I don’t usually follow patterns.  Not because I’m a snob in any way and feel my original designs are the only designs.  On the contrary, I love so many patterns out there.  No, I’ve always just done my own thing because I’m not the least bit organized when I start a quilt.  Meaning I start with a design I find pleasing and fabric I like and just jump into it.  I don’t plan yardage or even color most of the time since I’m a big fan of scrap quilts which incorporates all the colors of the rainbow (just my style).  And my quilts almost never come out the way I envisioned them when I started because I change bits here and there as I progress.  It’s just how I’ve always done it.  

Now that I’ve started the Home Sweet Home quilt I find myself getting a bit frustrated by instructions – I’m used to them!  The only thing I’ve planned ahead for in fabric selection are the block backgrounds.  I thought at first I was going to do the entire quilt in mooted, primitive style as the author’s originals are – but already that’s gone out the window.  The background fabric I found is anything but primitive and as I’ve searched my stash for fabrics to use in building the houses in the block I’ve found  so much I want to use that doesn’t fall into the primitive category.  So I’m going to mix it up because that’s what I do.  I think it doesn’t really matter if I use some primitive, modern, solids or some textured in the same quilt as long as the overall effect is pleasing.  For example I found a wonderfully deep colored poke-a-dot fabric I used in a previous quilt and had a left over bit.  The bit wasn’t big enough to make the house so I added some solid to the top of the remnant to make the correct size.  I improvised and I think it looks really good.  I have a feeling the entire quilt is going to go this way for me.  

Besides quilting this weekend I also baked.  I made a delish New York baked cheese cake on a homemade graham cracker crust (yes – homemade graham crackers.....) with homemade raspberry sauce.  I made the graham crackers for a quilt meeting last week and didn’t want the leftovers to go to waste so I decided to make a cheese cake to use up the crackers.  The cake turned out well and I brought it to work where it was praised to a sufficiently high level to make my head swell.  My DH was miffed however that I brought it to work as he thought I was making it for consumption at home.  I promised him I would bring some slices back for him tonight.  LOL