Short Attention Span Girl

Vacation!

By Marcella on July 28, 2010 3:34 PM | 1 Comment | No TrackBacks

We also went high tech with our geocaching and instead of juggling papers and note cards we sported an ipad with gps. Except for the part where polarized sunglasses don't work too well for screen viewing, it worked perfectly.

The first day we drove down to Lake Alpine and started hunting. The first site we wanted to hunt turned out to be an island and since we were boatless and not looking for a swim we went for the next one on the list. We found this right next to a pretty little stream across the road from the lake.

Inside, we found something we hadn't found before.

Hello? July? Clearly not the best hiking shoes for the weather. Did not expect snow.

Under a bridge we found this little cache.

So glad I could be useful.

We think we found the right spot but in spite of our best hunting efforts could not find the cache in the pine trees.

At this point it was getting past lunch time and we were hungry. We drove to a nice picnic area beside Lake Alpine and gathered up our lunch things. On our way to the table the rain began to fall. We decided maybe lunch indoors would be better.

A very good decision.

By the time we were in the car, the rain started falling in buckets. It was a wild ride back to the condo. So nice to be dry indoors - with heat!

More soon!

-- marcella

Itty Bitty Blocks

By Marcella on July 22, 2010 2:12 PM | 2 Comments | No TrackBacks

Well, not all that itty, bitty. They are on the smaller size though at three inches.

See? I haven't been here, but I've been a little productive in between all the lazing about on the couch and trying to work up the gumption to lie about and read at the same time without falling asleep.

I had been teaching a beginning quilting class at church. Normally, when I was teaching at quilt shops I would have a gift for everyone the last day of class. Because I was a bona fide professional I always had a stash of free stuff from manufacturers - rulers, rotary cutters, notions and what have you. I would wrap them up and pass them out. All quilters, new or not, seem to like free stuff even if they already have three of the same thing at home.

However, the last of the free stuff was used for door prizes a few months ago and the last quilt making class was fast approaching. What to do, what to do. It's not that I actually had to do anything, but I did want to do something for the stalwart nine who stuck it out to the end. This being a casual bunch of ladies coupled with the class being free well, a number of people dropped out along the way.

First I thought to make adorable biscornu like my friend did. I made about four before I determined that mine were not as cute as hers. Bad fabric choices? I don't know. Whatever my problem they were rejected.

Then I procrastinated. I know, hard for those of you who know me to believe.

Then I got my act together and bought a cute charm pack of fabric and decided to make little pieced pincushions because I knew I could do that. Deciding and shopping was as far as I got.

Then I went on vacation.

And came home feeling really crummy.

That's where all that couch lying (laying, I never could get that one straight) came in.

Then I decided to get in gear and just get sewing.

Sally Collins' book The Art of Machine Piecing came to the rescue as it so often does. It's filled with block patterns in 3", 4" and 6" size. I made up a bunch of blocks and matched them up with plain squares for the backing and had the outsides done up in no time.

When I've made these before I stuffed them with wool batting. I started to do this but let me just say that it takes FOREVER to stuff in little pieces and pack them down so that you end up with a tight, firm pincushion. After three I decided to try something else.

Back to my friend with the good looking biscornu. She, like so many smart quilters, uses crushed walnut shells for filling. I decided to join the smart people, and smart they are because with the help of a funnel all of those little pincushions - even the first three which I unstuffed because, yes, I am that kind of person - were filled and sewn shut in less than an hour.

So happy to have actually finished something more than a nap!

Vacation pictures are coming along with some other fun stuff that I've been up to. Promise.

-- marcella

Out in the Garden

By Marcella on June 27, 2010 5:03 PM | 2 Comments | No TrackBacks

Well, not in my garden. That would be a short entry with many weeds and a few deer.

This was a real garden tour put on by the local Master Gardner's group. They apparently do this once a year, but this was the first time we had heard about it. We were able to tour 5 different gardens near our home.

While they were incredible to see, mostly they made me tired. All I could think of looking around was how I would need to spend all day every day all year working in the yard to have yards like theirs. Sure, all of these people had staff to tend their gardens. Some of the gardeners were even on hand to talk about what they did. I have no staff. My yard will never be like that, but that's ok. It's more fun to peek into others' yards and enjoy what they have and not have any weeding to do nor pests to contend with.

I admit it. I'm not really a flower person. Sure, I see them and think they're pretty and then my brain flits off onto other things. This dahlia caught my eye though. The colors look like a pineapple tomato. See? There I go with the food thing again.

There were lots of animals on the tour as well. I particularly liked the chickens. I have no idea why, but I've always had a thing for chickens. When I was in elementary school my friend had chickens (and turkeys which may be the dumbest of all animals) and I loved to visit the chicken coop. Maybe it was that book about chickens my mother gave me. Whatever it was, I love chickens. We also saw quite a few horses and I was surprised to see an elephant.

I was so busy looking down at the amazing vegetable garden that it took me by surprise to look up and see this huge ivy elephant. Talk about a garden ornament. The sign told us that he will be underplanted with sweet potatoes soon.

Several of the houses also had orchards. I love walking through fruit trees.

This reminds me that I should get outside and see if we have any pears growing.

These gardens were probably only 5 miles south of us, but their vegetables were so much farther along. It's really quite a bit warmer there than at our house. The tomatoes all had fruit on them while mine are still just blossoms. There were lettuces, green beans and even the start of squashes. Don't you just want to reach out and pick these raspberries?

The homes all had different ways to manage pests of the four legged variety. There were fences both tall and electrical. Some trees had been netted. I think to be successful at our house I might need something like this house has:

Isn't it amazing? A screened in house. The screening is small enough that even birds are kept out. It had two rows of planter beds and lovely gravel walkways. In the back was a sink! I cannot even imagine a house like this with plumbing too.

At several of the homes they had short lectures. We learned about keeping chickens as well as beekeeping and container gardening. The bee man will also set up a hive in your yard, tend it and give you a share of the honey. I think that's the way to go if we ever get a fence. I used to think I'd take the beekeepers class they teach near me, but realistic me says it would be better to let a pro do it and just have fun watching the bees and enjoy a little honey from our neighborhood. The container teacher said she is really successful with her container veggies because she really crowds the plants. She said if the plants have to compete for space and resources they grow bigger and produce more fruit so that their offspring will have a better chance. I'm going to try adding some herbs and flowers to one of my tomato pots. I'll let you know if we can see a difference.

-- marcella

Quilt Shop Hop

By Marcella on June 24, 2010 9:53 PM | 2 Comments | No TrackBacks

The goodie at each shop is a charm. My quilting charm bracelet is getting quite full after three years of charms. We all decided that the whale charm wins the cutest award so far.

Here we are: My sister, my niece and myself. Yes, I am aware that my hair was cut off. Yes, I've been getting this question a lot in the last three weeks. We're hanging out with the whale in Pacific Grove at about the mid-point of todays shopping adventures.

We still look pretty energetic, but then, we'd also just eaten lunch so we were recharged and ready to get more shopping done.

On this first leg of our hop we tend to do equal parts food shopping and fabric shopping. These shops take us past a chocolate factory, and well, not many quilters can pass up chocolate. We certainly cannot resist this one. We also go past our favorite bakery so that cannot be missed either.

Here's the food haul - bread, pastries in the bag and box, a GIANT caramel apple and some toffee and chocolate covered apricots. Oh, and that candy bar of deliciousness - apricots, almonds and caramel all dipped in milk chocolate.

Actually, it's a rather small haul this year. We did skip the cherry stand which was closed and the mexican bakery. Still, a lot of food.

Next up; the fabric haul.

It does not escape me that some of this fabric looks suspiciously like food too. I promise that it is really fabric and there is no actual chocolate or produce in the mix.

More danger tomorrow.

-- marcella

Summer Berries

By Marcella on June 22, 2010 12:49 PM | 3 Comments | No TrackBacks

June for our family means olallieberry picking. When we moved to California many years ago we were introduced to these berries which are related to a blackberry and are actually a cross between a loganberry and youngberry. Nearly every summer we have gone and picked lots of berries and frozen them to use in baking or just poured over ice cream all year long until berry season arrives again.

This year we just finished our berry trip.

We were put into a fairly new area for picking with lots of space between the bushes. However, the bushes really had a lot of ripe berries on them and our boxes quickly went from empty to filled.

Because school had just gotten out there were lots of children with their moms picking berries. One group of children would yell "jackpot" whenever they found a big cluster of ripe berries. Hilarious! Then it rubbed off on us adults too.

The next day at home most of those berries were turned into almost seedless jam. The recipe is simply the one for blackberry jam off the package of low sugar pectin. No fancy add ins or spices or anything, just plain olallieberry jam.

The jam making did mean more purple stains though. Even worse then the picking. My wooden stirring spoon might never recover. I think this winter, when I am eating toast with jam or thumbprint cookies filled with ollalieberry jam, I'll be so happy to have this jam that I won't even remember the sacrificial spoon.

-- marcella

Fair Report 2010

By Marcella on June 15, 2010 3:25 PM | 4 Comments | No TrackBacks

This week is our county fair. A few years ago I started entering the fair. It's not something we ever did in our family growing up. We rarely even attended the fair when I was growing up.

The local quilt guild is very involved with the fair. It's hard to be a member and not get involved with setting things up or helping out in some way. It's a slippery slope from there to entering as well.

This year instead of my usual one food entry, I went for four. When you look around the entries you see that four is pretty pitiful. These people enter a lot! But life is busy and I'm not exactly a ribbon hound so four seemed like quite a bit to me.

Saturday we went down because I had entered the cheesecake contest, and for that you had to present your cheesecake at the appointed time during the fair. This was a new one for me. I've only previously entered things that are dropped off before the fair even begins and you find out how everything went once the fair opens. I arrived with cheesecake in hand along with cutting utensils and paper plates (thanks to my husband because I totally forgot about them) as directed. I was sent to the ominous cutting room where I had to serve up half the cheesecake on one plate and a slice on another. Took me 35 seconds. Ok, maybe not quite that fast, but fast. The other lady in there with me was carefully arranging her garnish and had two slices cut and arranged differently on their plates and was trying to decide which arrangement looked best.

I was totally out of my league.

I turned in my entry and my husband and I took a look around the room.

First we saw this:

That would be my whole wheat seeded bread with a first place ribbon!

And next we found this:

This would be a first place next to that lemon marmalade.

And after a bit of hunting we also found these:

Yippee! Another first for the cheddar bacon scones.

The best part was during the cheesecake judging. One of the preserves judges approached me and returned my marmalade taster jar. She complimented me on my jam and said that so much was gone because my jam was in contention for best of show and it took a few rounds of tasting. I'm such the clueless one that winning anything other than my category had never even occurred to me. Too exciting to think of my jam up against all those other winning entries.

Back to the cheesecake. Can I just say that I clearly do not understand open judging? We all dutifully sat in our seats in front of the stage. The judges went to work and we watched. That was it. They said nothing out loud. In fact, for some conversations they covered their faces with their clipboards like they were NFL coaches and we'd lip read their plays. They did not tell us what they were looking for or anything. There was zero education here. What exactly is the point of this? If you know, clue me in, OK?

There is immediate gratification though. They do announce the winners then and there, and I got 5th which made me pretty darn happy especially since my lemon swirl cheesecake was completely garnish free.

-- marcella

Fruit Crisp

By Marcella on June 11, 2010 10:56 AM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

Every Wednesday a luscious box of fruit is delivered to my house. We split this delivery with friends and she picks up the fruit box and brings it to my house. On Thursday I pick up the veggies.

Because I have not unraveled the mysteries of this CSA, I almost never know what will be delivered in advance. Although there are Tuesday deliveries, their newsletter arrives late on our delivery day and isn't posted up on their website until even later. Only twice since we've joined have they divulged on twitter what is getting packed in their boxes.

I never realized until now how much I'm not a surprise girl. I have no idea why it matters, it's not like there is any reason I need to know in advance. Just another quirk of me.

Until now, the fruit has been sliced up and eaten, eaten whole and twice we've juiced the oranges. I decided it was time to do a little baking. After poking around the cookbook collection, I found a recipe for Apricot-Cherry Crisp in the Fields of Greens cookbook. I love this cookbook. Everything we've made out of it has worked and tasted delicious. Since both fruits called for were delivered this week it was time to get cooking.

Being me, I did make a few changes. Nothing huge. The recipe called for Bing cherries but Ranier had been delivered. I figured since both are sweet cherries they should swap out just fine. I also increased the sugar just a bit. Having been the victim of too tart baked goods too many times, I always now taste the fruit mixture and adjust as needed. Also, the recipe calls for a 9" square or round pan. I have to say that 8 cups of fruit and almost 2 cups of topping is an awful lot for that size pan. To be safe, and in the interest of avoiding an oven bubble over, I used a 7" x 11" pan.

This is sure to be appearing again over the summer. The topping would be great with any fruit that likes to be baked - peaches, berries, pears or apples.

Topped with a little vanilla ice cream or whipped cream it's a great summer dessert.

Apricot Cherry Crisp

from Fields of Greens by Annie Somerville

The crisp topping can be doubled with the extra frozen for a quick dessert another day. Change out the nuts to fit the fruit used or leave them out entirely for a nut free dessert.

Crisp Topping

1 C unbleached flour

1/4 C granulated sugar

1/4 C brown sugar

1/4 t salt

1/2 t ground cinnamon

1/4 t freshly ground nutmeg

1/2 C butter cut into small cubes

1/4 C chopped walnuts

In a bowl, mix together the flour, sugars, salt and spices. Add in the butter and work it in until the mixture is crumbly and begins to hold together. Stir in the nuts.

Filling

1 1/2 lbs apricots, sliced, about 6 cups

1/2 lb sweet cherries, pitted, about 2 cups

2 t lemon zest

1 t grated fresh ginger

1/2 C granulated sugar, adjust to the sweetness of your fruit

2 T unbleached flour

In a large bowl stir all of the ingredients together. Pour fruit mixture into a 9" baking dish.

Cover the fruit with the crumb topping and bake about 50 minutes until the topping is golden and the fruit juices bubble around the edges of the pan.

printable recipe - apricot_cherry_crisp.pdf

-- marcella

Baby Quilt

By Marcella on June 8, 2010 8:53 AM | 2 Comments | No TrackBacks

I've been busy here quilting away, so there hasn't been much time for posting.

A friend was having a baby shower and I decided that rather than the usual receiving blanket, an actual quilt was in order. It's true, I'm a quilter who almost never gives out baby quilts. I can only think of seven.

Why? Well, when I give a quilt I like it to be used. Not hung on a wall or shoved in a drawer for "when they are grown up". What adult wants an old baby quilt that they never used and have no attachment to? Nope. Also, the amount of work that goes into one is pretty huge so the person has to really rate to get a quilt.

Sadly, my poorly functioning brain did not think about giving a quilt to this friend weeks ago when I received the invitation. Nope, I had to wait until a week before the shower to think, "Hey, I should make a quilt."

Into the closet of unfinished projects I went. Fortunately, the perfect top was there. It was a tumbling block variation made with an old Moda fabric collection called Faded Memories. Lots of perfect for baby pastels. It was also a good size as I am not a fan of the 30" square baby quilt. I like them big. Big enough to wrap up in, play on top of, or build a fort with. Conveniently enough there were lots of scraps left in the bag; more than enough to piece a scrappy back, and 1/2 yard of a stripe that I had set aside for a binding. So glad my brain was working at one point!

Here's the happy finished quilt. I only had one bad spot when in the midst of quilting happily away on the white diamonds my machine suddenly started spitting up loops of thread onto the back of the quilt. Even sadder, I didn't discover it for quite a while. When I had to change the bobbin the machine rebelled and so I stopped and looked at the back only to discover half a row of thread guts.

At that point I nearly decided to throw in the towel. After all, the shower was the next day. However, thread guts pull out really fast and after some fiddling with the machine I finally got it to cooperate and finished up the quilting.

Because the fabrics I used don't have enough contrast to really highlight the tumbling block pattern, I decided to quilt it differently on the sides and the top of the block to try and help the pattern show better. The "sides" of the tumbling blocks are quilted in pink thread with a walking foot following the seam lines. Rows are stitched presser foot width apart so no marking was necessary. The white print diamonds are simply meander quilted with white thread and I stitched from one to the next in rows so it was quick with only a start and stop once each row.

The pattern is a fairly easy one from "From Me to You" by Diane McClun and Laura Nownes called "The Big Tumble". Their patterns are really the best. They are beautifully printed with color diagrams and clear instructions. So much nicer than most of the patterns on the market.

One more quilt from the unfinished pile finished and gifted to its new home!

-- marcella

In the quilting room

By Marcella on May 21, 2010 11:27 AM | 3 Comments | No TrackBacks

The local quilt guild invited Anelie Belden to come and lecture and teach a workshop on her Dresden Plate block method. We had a nearly full room of students who turned out very different but all really gorgeous blocks. I did mine out of scraps of batik fabrics I had hanging around. The background is a Nancy Crow print called "Classic Crush" in navy and it is the only fabric that I buy over and over and over again. It makes such a great background.

As you can see the center circle still needs to be added. Before I do that I need to decide what exactly I am going to make out of this block. I'm thinking table runner but I'm not sure. Whatever it is, it will likely be a small project so I can finish it and get back to other quilting projects that have been neglected.

One project that is finally done is my new sewing room. Above is my design wall. 7 feet by 8 feet of flannel happiness. The quilt on the left and the piece of a quilt on the right are from the Double Dip pattern. It is so great to have such an excessive amount of space to arrange and rearrange quilt blocks on.

So what do you think about that green and orange for the borders? I like just the green, and I like just the orange, but I'm not sure which I like better or if I want both. Sometimes I wish I were a little faster at these decisions. I might get something finished if I were.

-- marcella

Onion Rings

By Marcella on May 17, 2010 9:12 AM | 1 Comment | No TrackBacks

There was a lot of cooking going on this weekend at our house. Some were misses - like the graham crackers that were more like shortbread and the coconut marshmallows that were a bit too gooey after a day.

The hit for us were the onion rings.

My husband had mentioned that it would be nice to grill up some burgers this weekend. This meant, however, that we had to clean the grill after a long winter which was a pretty big job. After all that scrubbing and bad cookie baking and marshmallow making I was rather tired. Even though I had wanted to make onion rings to go with our burgers, I nearly decided that we could do without the homemade onion rings and maybe buy a bag of frozen at the store instead. Fortunately, good taste prevailed and we enjoyed a few too many delicious onion rings with our dinner.

It's actually an easy dish to make. Slice up some onions. Whisk together a few ingredients in a bowl. Heat the oil. Dip the onions in the batter and fry.

Dealing with the leftover oil and scrubbing the oil splattered stove is less fun, but worth it for an occasional fried treat.

We dipped our rings in some spicy ketchup. I simply stirred together about 1/3 C of ketchup with 2 T sherry vinegar, 1 t Worcestershire sauce, 1 t sugar, 1/2 t smoked paprika and 3 T finely minced onion. It was a nice spicy dip that went nicely with the sweet onions.

Simple Onion Rings

a Short Attention Span Girl original

1 large onion, cut into 1/4" slices and separated into rings

1 C all purpose flour

1/2 t salt

1/2 t baking powder

3/4C club soda

oil for frying

salt

If the onion is particularly hot, soak onion slices in cold salted water while preparing the batter.

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, salt and baking powder. Slowing whisk in the club soda until a thin batter is formed.

In a skillet, pour the oil in to measure 1 inch deep. Heat over medium to 365 degrees.

Dip an onion ring into the batter. Allow the excess batter to drip off and then carefully place in the hot oil. Fry until golden brown, turning so both sides cook evenly.

Remove onion rings to paper towels to drain. Sprinkle with salt.

Onion rings may be held in a 250 degree oven to keep warm while remaining onions are cooked.

printable version - onionrings.pdf

-- marcella