A Quilter Has to Eat

I'm not a person who loves to cook. On the other hand, I don't hate it either, because I do enjoy eating tasty food. My goal in the kitchen is to get in and back out in an hour's time, and that includes unloading the dishwasher. In my experience the best meals to meet that objective are those prepared in one pan, like the Mexican Cabbage Stir-fry shown above. (The original recipe came from Healthy Southwest Cooking, but I've tweaked it a bit.)

Ingredients:

2.5 lbs ground turkey
1 onion, chopped
5 cloves garlic, minced or chopped
1-2 Tbsp olive oil to sauté the turkey (or spray the pan with Pam)
1 lg tomato, chopped (or one can diced tomatoes)
1 red pepper, chopped
1 yellow pepper, chopped
½ head of cabbage, shredded with knife
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp cumin

Sour cream (optional)

In a 5 qt saucepan, brown the ground turkey together with onion, and garlic. Add oregano and cumin while browning. When turkey is browned, add the tomatoes, cabbage, and peppers. Cook until the veggies are done—approximately 20 minutes.

You can eat as is, top with sour cream, or put the mixture into a tortilla.

It's a large recipe, so smaller families are likely to have leftovers. In my house, leftovers are enjoyed at lunch the next day. However, I've also frozen this dish and whipped it out as "brand new" a couple of weeks later. It freezes well.

The Last of the Hand-quilting for the Season

For this week's finish, I got these two blocks hand-quilted (along with a bit of the border). I can usually do about 3 per week just sitting in front of the TV in the evening. This makes 48 out of 53 blocks done on this quilt. I started in November.


The pattern is called Lucky Star. I like it because it gives the illusion of curved pieces.


Hand-quilting season is about to come to an end. I can see the writing on the wall. The temperatures here in southern Nevada are warming enough that it will soon be too hot for me to hold the quilt in my lap. So it looks like this quilt will have to wait until next winter to get completely finished. The only good news about that, is that hand-quilting season gives way to hand-piecing season. :-)

Hand-piecing

One of the most interesting aspects about quilting is that there are many techniques that can be used to reach that ultimate goal of the finished work of art--a work of art we so modestly refer to as a quilt. The various approaches include: machine-piecing and quilting (including free motion quilting), paper-piecing, applique, art quilting, rotary cutting, using templates, hand-piecing and hand-quilting. This blog is about hand-piecing.

I do both machine-piecing and hand-piecing. A quilter must approach hand-piecing with a different psychology. It's not about getting the quilt done ASAP. It can't be. A hand-pieced quilt takes time. It's about communing with our female pioneer ancestors; it's about enjoying the color and texture of each fabric; it's about the meditative quality of stitching each block together.

There are some practical aspects to hand-piecing as well. Being low tech, a hand-pieced quilt can go anywhere. Take your quilt block pieces, a needle, some thread, and scissors and you're good to go. Then when you need a little quiet time at your relative's house or in the hotel after a day out in and about, you've got a some quilting on hand that just fits the bill. Hand-piecing is also a form of quilting that can be done in front of the TV when you're hanging out at home with family watching a movie.

I've also found that I prefer to do smaller blocks and blocks with curves by hand. Every curved seam, no matter whether it is to be hand-pieced or machine-pieced must be pinned. When I'm using the machine, I'm going for speed. Stopping to pin just seems wrong. But when I'm in the slow mode of hand-piecing, stopping to pin just seems like part of the process.




When the seam is short enough, I can just about hand-piece the seam in the time it would take me to position it on the sewing machine and sew it together. On a seam that's an inch and half long, the sewing machine just isn't that much of an advantage.


To that end, I've started yet another hand-pieced quilt. These are examples of the blocks I've done so far. I've made forty just sitting in front of the TV in the evening with my family. This way, I've got both a hand-pieced project going AND a machine pieced project going. Maximizes my quilting time.

All of the quilts featured below have been hand-pieced. It is my preferred method of quilting.

Sew and Tell Friday

This year, I'm pushing hard to lessen my quilting UFO pile. To that end, this week I dragged out the "Pansy Quilt". It is "finished" languishing in the closet. :-) The quilt came about due to a block exchange called "Your Pick". The block exchange got the "Your Pick" name because we each bought a focus fabric--in my case pansy fabric--and sent a piece to each of the participants. Each participant made a block with the focus fabric and sent the block back. I received some particularly beautiful blocks.

Like many of my projects, I got so far with it, and then got distracted. In this case, I have did get the 16 blocks sashed and joined together before going off on another tangent. So here's where I'm picking up.

At this point, I need to add some borders. I began auditioning borders, and decided the first border around would be 2" and green. I plan to add a 4" inch border of the same white on beige fabric that is in the sashing, and finally another 2" green border. (That big 4 inch white on beige border will give me lots of space to improve my FMQ skills. HA!)

The outermost border will be composed of 6" butterfly blocks like the ones below. I *think* I need 52 of them. So far I have 20 done.

So that's where I am this week. More of a start really than a finish.

I want to extend my thanks to Amy for hosting Sew and Tell Fridays. :-) This is my first Sew and Tell, and I'm excited to see what everyone else is doing.

The Teddy Bear Quilt: A Team Effort

The Teddy Bear Quilt, made for my cousin who is due in July, was another team effort. My mom and I chose the fabrics together, and we both did part of the piecing and machine quilting. Once again, I am very pleased with the results of our joint effort.



We built the quilt around the Teddy Bear fabric panel. The other polka dot fabrics were complimentary fabrics created in the same fabric line. However, we added the yellow, green, and blue striped border fabric. The baby feet fabric in the center blocks came from a piece we'd had in our stash forever. It was nice to be able to use it.

Most of the quilting was done by stitching in the ditch. However, my mom cross-hatched the bear panels, and we tried to do something a little fancier in the outer border. I machine quilted the cord, and my mom put the baby feet in the corners. The quilted baby feet turned out particularly well, and honestly are my favorite part of the quilt.

Naturally, when I tried to take a picture of the back of the quilt, my quilt inspector had to give the quilt another going over. Either that, or he wants everyone to know whose boss. Ahem.