Sister's Choice Quilts

Designer Mystery 2023 Coming Together

I've got to say I'm not mad about how this is coming together. Nine blocks done, and the end is in sight. I easily finished three blocks including the block surrounds yesterday. If the stars align, I hope to repeat that again today and get all twelve of these blocks done.

Having the units ready for the block surrounds was a game changer. Make the block, add the surrounding units and sew your row together. Boom. 

Isn't the coral/pink in this quilt beautiful? I think it catches your eye and makes your vision kind of dance over the quilt top. Oh foo, my dancing eyes just spotted a boo boo in the lower left block. One of the hsts is turned wrong. Oh well, serves me right for being smug about how cute this top is. 

So, three more blocks, four lattice rows, an easy pieced inner border, and a plain outer border. This is going to be finished by this weekend!


Here's the cutest girl in 8th grade heading off for her first day of school. She's not only the cutest, she's possibly the nicest as well. She's mostly over her cold/virus and was very excited to see her friends and teachers again. Here's hoping it's a great year!

Star of Wonder Block One

Hello there. This would be Star of Wonder, block one. It didn't take long to make, which was good because I had a busy Monday. I got together with my family in the Bay Area on Sunday and spent the night at my sister Kate's. We had not gotten together in ages. I had not seen anyone in the family since April! Since my dad's house sold, we no longer have a place to get together. One of my brothers-in-law hosted the bbq at his house. Then my sister Andrea and I spent the night at Kate's. We sat up late talking about books, beauty products, and family. It was just lovely. I hadn't been over to Kate's in ages either and it was so nice to see her pretty house. She also had a number of my quilts out and in use, which was so great to see. 

Also, while we were at my brother-in-law's he made a point to take me into his bedroom to show me a quilt I had made for my sister Trish years ago. His dog sleeps on the bed with him and the quilt was worn out to the batting in several places. He told me how much she had loved it and how it brings him such good memories of her. He was also telling me without saying it that he could use a new quilt! It is nice to have one's work appreciated. 

Anyway, I didn't get home until nearly 11 on Monday and of course it was baking day, so Eva and I made lemon loaf cake. I finally got up to my hot sewing room and knocked this block out. Today I hope to tackle block two. There are only four different blocks (some of which are made multiple times), but I still think getting this little table topper done in a week is very doable. 

I've been meaning to show you all this cute new little magnetic pin cushion I bought from Fat Quarter Shop recently. It is a Lori Holt design and it is designed really well. If you can see from the photo, the middle slopes down, which has the effect of keeping the pins. point down (once you arrange them that way). They stay put and there is much less finger stabbing as I have experienced with other magnetic pin dishes. 

Hope you all had as nice a weekend as I did!

Corn Husks Everywhere

I had the most delightful weekend. No deadlines, just lots of free time to spend just how I wanted. I had the nicest email chat with Carol of One Stitch at a Time blog. She had made this Let's Pop Some Corn runner a while ago and had some great tips for me. Check it out on her blog.

I tell you this pattern must have been written by AI lol. It is full of time-consuming old-fashioned methods that most of us quilters have left behind years ago. Here is a prime example:

The pattern instructs you to make these horrible little 1.5" half square triangles an sew them together with 1.5" squares. Lots of totally unnecessary seams.
Here is what Carol suggested:


Forget about those little half square triangles. Just sew 10 strips of 4 1.5" squares and do an easy sew and flip triangle on the top and bottom corners to form the shape of the ear of corn. 

Oh my gosh, this tip changed my life. Instead of fuming and cussing and definitely not having fun sewing, I am zipping through these blocks now. And I am enjoying myself. 

In other news, it was Eva's 13th birthday this past weekend and we have been celebrating. She was with her mom and step dad on the actual day of her birthday and she got to go to her favorite creek for some inner tubing. Then a festive dinner with her family in Groveland.

Sunday she came home to her dad's and we all went to dinner there to party some more!


How can my baby be 13?

Spaghetti Salad and Eva Under the Weather

Whew, it has been hot here. HOT. Heating the house up with the oven just isn't anything anyone is interested in doing, so I have been trying some recipes that can be made early in the day and served chilled later. One new recipe that we had this week is Spaghetti Salad. I discovered an Instagramer whose account is called "Belly Full" that has some great recipes. I highly recommend that you follow that account for some really delicious recipe suggestions. 

Spaghetti Salad was a make-ahead, easy recipe that tasted delicious. I used peppered salami and creamy Havarti cheese, along with olives, peppers, cucumber and cherry tomatoes. To make it positively divine, it was suggested that you use the included recipe for Homemade Italian Dressing. I was feeling lazy, so I used some Olive Garden Italian Dressing that I had on hand in the fridge. It worked out just fine for us. 


On another topic, Eva was very excited to have an appointment with our hairstylist for a new haircut this week. She will be 13 at the end of July (can you believe it?) and is ready for a hairstyle that involves some maintenance and styling. She had an idea in mind and was so excited to discuss it with our stylist. She wanted layers, but because she is involved in a lot of athletic activities, she needs to be able to pull it back off her face when needed. They came to an understanding, and it seemed that the desired outcome was achieved.

I thought she looked amazing, but during the haircut, she got progressively quieter and quieter. Uh oh. When we got out to the car I asked her "Honey, is your haircut ok? Do you like it?" And poor baby, she said "I love it, but I feel really yucky". We had planned to go out to lunch afterward but decided we needed to hightail it for home. When I look at the photo above, I can see she is smiling, but that smile does not quite reach her eyes. 

We got home, and sure enough, that was the right decision. She stayed in bed all afternoon and finally, after hours of running to the bathroom and sipping tiny amounts of water, she declared she felt "10 times better".

At this point everything is fine and she is experimenting with styling her new "do". She is off to spend some time with her mom this weekend and into next week. That girl is really growing up, which for some reason, blows my mind. 

Have a great weekend everyone!

Greetings From Dublin

I can tell you for sure that it is springtime in Ireland. We must have brought the California sunshine with us, because when we arrived it was a glorious sunny day here. The girls were all in their crop tops and summer sandals and the boys were in their shorts. It was a Bank Holiday weekend also, so everyone was out enjoying the three day weekend. Lots of folks in town.

Ahren has a gorgeous big lilac bush in his backyard and I had to go out and cut a stem to place in a vase on his hall table. Look at how spectacular that is!  One stem is like an entire bouquet.

 

He had gone to some trouble to spruce up his bachelor pad with nice touches such as those tulips on his mantel. It is so good to be here with him. 

Our first night we made fish chowder, and I can tell you it hit the spot. It is so much fun to cook together and hang out in his kitchen.

We are off to Edinburgh and London tomorrow, so my next update will be from there. Hope you are all enjoying a lovely time wherever you are.

Very Exciting Announcement

Hey, friends! I have a very exciting announcement to make to you all. 

My daughter Sara and I have started a podcast called Reeding Between the Lines!

You can click the link highlighted above, and there are also buttons on the right-hand sidebar that link to our podcast and to our Instagram accounts. We hope you will listen and subscribe (it's free)!

We recorded our first episode last week, and Sara did all the editing and got it uploaded to Apple Podcasts for your listening pleasure. We plan to get better-quality microphones for our next episode, so the sound quality should be better. We hope to upload a new episode every two weeks.

In the first episode, we introduce ourselves, describe our reading tastes, and review three current books we are reading, one backlist book, and one upcoming book we are looking forward to. Our reading tastes are pretty diverse, so you will get a wide selection of recommendations in each podcast. 

This entire endeavor was Sara's brainchild, and she did a lot of work to plan and execute all the technical details.

I do hope you will give it a listen and let us know what you think. Also, if you have any suggestions for content, we'd love to hear about it!

 

Pinetree Block, Archie Gets a Haircut, and Eva Makes Snickerdoodles

This is the Pinetree block from the Mercantile sew-along. See how I got my hour of sewing in? I've been keeping up with this project pretty well I think. The last few blocks will be stitched up in the next week or so, and I will have to trim them all down to the same size before I sew them together. They range in size from 13 1/4" to 14 inches. I hope it won't look odd to have the borders different widths.

Archie got his first proper haircut yesterday. I think he looks quite sharp. Except his tail is so skinny!  His fluffy tail was definitely one of his best features I think. But I guess the groomer thought it would look weird for this shaved down dog to have a big plume of a tail! He also has a bit of a pencil neck, but I won't let him know I said that.

Eva made Snickerdoodles for Baking Day yesterday and Archie was paying rapt attention.

I have a question for my well-traveled readers. For part of our upcoming trip to visit Ahren in Dublin, we plan a side trip first to Edinburgh, then London. We've been to London many times and always know where we want to go and do, but Edinburgh is new to us. I understand they have more bookstores per capita there than anywhere else on the planet. Do any of you have suggestions of cool things to do in Edinburgh? My husband and son will rebel if all I can think of to do is visit bookshops! Let me know in the comments if you have any ideas for me.

Lazy Blogger Syndrome

I do apologize for the lack of posts lately. I have not been doing much sewing, and have, in fact, been giving my hobby some serious consideration. I have so many quilts and it is becoming harder and harder to justify cranking out more of them. I am feeling overwhelmed with the number of quilts I have completed, planned, and have in progress. I am still working out how I feel and will eventually come to some conclusion on how to proceed.

In the meantime, I have been trying some great new recipes, planning our upcoming trip to Ireland to visit our son Ahren, and attempting to spend some time outdoors every day now that our weather is beginning to cooperate. The photo above is what I made for dinner last night. It is simply called "Lemon Pasta" and is an excellent choice when you want an easy meatless meal. The recipe is from Love and Lemons and is definitely one that I will make again. I made it exactly as described and it was delicious. My husband made some asparagus to go with it, and seemed very happy with his dinner. 

Speaking of my husband...The two of us celebrated our 55th wedding anniversary this week. Our daughter Sara had given us a very special bottle of wine, which we took to our favorite local Italian restaurant to have with our celebratory dinner. For those of you who aren't real familiar with wine, a zinfandel from Ridge Vinyards is truly a singularly valuable and delicious thing. 

My plan is to get some sewing done today and over the weekend, I may even work on some book reviews for you all! Wish me luck to get out of my funk! Have a great weekend everyone.

 

Easter Festivities

Hope you all had a happy Easter, if you celebrate it. We got together with family for an Easter egg hunt and brunch, and again later in the day for Easter dinner. My son-in-law Ryan hosts the brunch and egg hunt at the winery, and Eva was in charge of filling plastic eggs with goodies and planting them around the grassy grounds.

It was a cold grey morning, but the kids were all set to give the egg hunt their best shot. Ryan is telling the kids the rules of the egg hunt, and that in one of the plastic eggs there would be a silver coin worth $50 that they could give to their parents towards wine at the winery. And if they chose to keep it for themselves, they had to save it until they were 21.

Here the kids are, opening their eggs to find candy and little toys. The blond angel in the center of the photo in the pink sweater was the finder of the $50 gift coin, which her mom immediately confiscated. lol, can't say I blame her.

My contribution to brunch was my Blueberry French Toast with Blueberry Sauce, which is a longtime favorite of my family. It is one of those overnight casseroles that make brunch entertaining so easy. The family calls this dish "Blueberry Crack". 

For dinner, I made the Rice Krispy Sacrificial Lamb, pictured at the top of the post. My mother-in-law had a special mold to shape the lamb that I inherited. You make a batch of Rice Krispy treats and fill the two sections of the mold, bolt them together, and let it set overnight. Unmold and decorate as you like and use as a centerpiece or eat it if you prefer. 

I also made lime tartlets for Easter dinner's dessert. The tart shells are Pillsbury sugar cookie dough pressed into mini muffin pans and filled with lime curd and topped with a fresh berry. Easy peasy.

My plan is to get up in the sewing room today and see if I can make some magic happen. Wish me luck, I haven't been much in the mood to sew lately.

 

Irish Soda Bread

We had a lovely family St. Patrick's Day celebration. My son-in-law Ryan and his wife usually invite us over for dinner on that day, and this year was no exception. He prepared the traditional corned beef and cabbage, and boiled potatoes, and I volunteered to bring Irish Soda Bread.

You might think making Irish soda bread is a bit of an ordeal, but it really is an easy process. It is actually a "quick bread", not requiring yeast or prolonged kneading. The recipe I use is from Sally's Baking Addiction, a very reliable baking recipe source. The recipe calls for seven ingredients: buttermilk, one egg, flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and butter. Raisins are optional, but I left them out due to family preferences. 

I was able to whip the whole thing together in no time, with very little mess or drama. It tasted absolutely delicious. It is a humble bread, but it is completely worth the minimal effort to make it. I hope you will give it a try. I plan to add raisins next time when I make it just for my husband and me.

It looks like a meteor that fell from space, but I promise you, it is tender and slightly sweet, and totally delicious!

And, PS, Ryan's corned beef was amazing! Here he is in his kitchen, waiting for the corned beef to come out of the oven, with Eva in the foreground, proudly showing off the cupcakes she made for dessert. 

Gratuitous photo of Archie after his latest grooming. Pretty cute, huh?