Sister's Choice Quilts

Designer Mystery Quilt 2024- Block 2

This is the second block of Fat Quarter Shop's Designer Mystery 2024 sew-along. I think this block is stunning. I will definitely use it in future quilts that call for a 12" block. The block doesn't include the surrounding border strips or the roof. The block is just the flower shape against the white background.

Stacy Iest Hsu designed this beautiful block. Isn't the fabric line by Bunny Hill exquisite? Each month has been a very happy surprise, with the fabrics just lovely each time. They aren't my typical color palette, but I am really enjoying the change.


Here are the first two blocks, side by side. I hope the future months will feature blocks as complex and interesting as this one!


I have an outstanding summer pasta recipe for you. It is from allrecipes.com, Pasta with Fresh Tomatoes and Corn. With tomatoes and corn at their best this time of year, there is no better time to make this. I used fresh tomatoes and fresh corn on the cob. If I'd had fresh basil, that would have been a perfect addition. 


I ended up serving this at room temperature, but I had the leftovers for lunch the next day, cold out of the fridge, and it was still delicious. You make a vinaigrette in which you toss fresh tomatoes, cooked corn kernels, green onions, and other seasonings. Add the cooked pasta and stir together. Serve right away or let it sit on the counter until you are ready. Or stick it in the fridge and serve it chilled.

All the best tastes of summer in one bowl!

 

 

 

 

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!

Jubilee Quilt and Baked Beans

It was a lovely and relaxing weekend. My Jubilee blocks are up on the design wall and I've started to add the lattice and will sew the rows together this week. One thing I really enjoy about Margot Languedoc's Pattern Basket patterns is the way they reliably show off whatever fabric collection you are working with. I love the clear jewel-like colors in these two fabric collections. I used Summer Sweet by Sheri and Chelsi and Canning Day by Coriander Quilts. I think it is fabulous the way the two collections work together. 

It wouldn't be Memorial Day without a barbeque and Eva's daddy Ryan had us over for burgers. I made crockpot baked beans, which are usually a hit at a potluck.

Our neighborhood had it's annual community garage sale, and I tell you, the joint was jumping. The folks behind us own a couple of surf shops in Santa Cruz and had a gigantic inventory sale in their driveway, which is just on the other side of our fence. Our neighbor told me they brought up 70 tubs of merchandise from their warehouse. Typically it is as quiet as a graveyard in our neighborhood, but Saturday we had hundreds of people a stone's throw from our back porch. It was a circus, complete with tents.

"You should come over and pick something out for yourself", our neighbor insisted. "You know, to make up for the commotion". So, I took Eva over and she picked out some flip flops, two pairs of shorts, and a cute blue and white sundress. $83 later I was wondering what happened to the "pick something out for yourself" part of the invitation...

Hope you all had a nice weekend, wherever you are! By the way, Sara and I recorded another book review podcast on May 24. Just click the Reeding Between the Lines symbol on the top right to listen on Apple podcasts. 

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.

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.

 

You've Got To Try This

I know this is supposed to be mostly a quilting blog, but I haven't got any sewing to show you, so I am going to fall back on one of my next favorite activities:  cooking. I made the absolute best dinner ever last night, and you have just got to try it. 

I made my St. Patrick's Day Irish Soda Bread again, and it turned out great. This time I put an aluminum foil tent over the top about halfway through the cooking time so it didn't get so brown and it was much prettier looking.

It sliced up great, had a nice "crumb" and a perfect texture. The recipe is Grandma's Irish Soda Bread from Sally's Baking Addiction. I made it exactly as directed, except I omitted the raisins. It takes 10-15 to mix together and 45 minutes to bake, so not a huge time commitment. I told my husband I was going to eat the entire loaf by myself.

Except before I could accomplish that, I got full of the other thing I made, which was Creamy Chicken and Mushroom Soup by Damn Delicious. You must try this soup. It is totally out of this world. Seasoned chicken, with lots of mushrooms and other veggies and an incredible creamy broth to dunk your bread in. Yum.

This is really a perfect soup. I have never had a bad recipe from Damn Delicious, and highly recommend Chungah's cookbook of the same name. Her Shrimp and Grits is the best I've ever had. 

My tummy is totally happy right now, but I have to admit the waistband of my jeans feels a bit tight...

 

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.

 

Well, That Didn't Go Well

Well, that certainly did not go well. I invited some family members over for dinner to celebrate the holidays and to visit with our son while he is staying with us. I wanted to make something delicious that I could prepare ahead and that would please everyone. I chose a turkey lasagna recipe from Ina Garten's book "Family Style". It got good reviews and sounded really good. It had all the typical ingredients including turkey Italian sausage, goat cheese, mozzarella, ricotta, fresh herbs, etc. 


First of all, Ina Garten has never let me down until now. This recipe wasn't just bad, it was inedible. Can you imagine, inviting people over and proudly dishing up dinner and....yuck?

The flavors just weren't there in spite of lots of cheese, fresh basil and parsley, and Diestel turkey. But the worst thing was the pasta. The recipe calls for NOT boiling the noodles in advance, but pouring super hot water over them and letting them soak for 20 minutes. What bad advice. That pasta was barely softened. I boiled water in my electric kettle and poured it over the pasta in a 7 x 11" pan for 20 minutes as the recipe instructed. The pasta was somewhat softened after 20 minutes, but certainly not "done". I figured the rest would happen in the oven when it cooked in the sauce. That did not happen. 

I am amazed that my guests could even choke down a few mouthfuls. I was so embarrassed. If you have made this recipe, what was your experience? The online reviews are all raves. If I had boiled the noodles as I usually do when making lasagna, it would have been better, but still, it was pretty flavorless. 

Luckily one of my nephews had sent us a box of assorted brownies from the "Killer Brownie" company, which I served for dessert. At least people left with the taste of something good in their mouths.

Have you ever had a major recipe fail when entertaining? Share your experience and help me feel better. 

 

 

 

 

 

Nothing But Cooking Going On

Honestly, it seems as if all we have been doing is cooking. I made bread in the bread machine and I am not sure what the special juju was, but it was the biggest and best-formed loaf I have ever gotten out of the thing. 

It was nice that the bread turned out because things went downhill from there. Ahren and I set up the pasta machine to make linguine and oh my, we should have read the instructions just a bit more carefully. We forgot to attach the disk that shapes the pasta and the liquidy flour and water/egg mixture all leaked out before we even got started. After a 15-minute clean up we began again. 

Ultimately, we ended up with a nice amount of linguine for our Linguine and Clam dish, but it was a bit chaotic for a while. Ahren had to excuse himself at one point to run upstairs to his room and have an emergency chocolate bar break. Honestly, I need to use that machine more often and not have to reinvent the wheel every time I use it. 

Our finished Linguine and Clam dish was quite delicious, although it is all a bit of a white meal, isn't it? 

Today we all go to puppy class with Archie, and as far as dinner goes, I am going to let the guys figure it out. I am ready for a break. We made pizza on Monday night and that was quite a production as well. Southwestern Bacon Quiche the night before that, which was delicious.

When I haven't been cooking, I have been reading, and I am ending the year with some outstanding books. Tomorrow I will share my latest recommendations and I think I have some good ones for you!