Vintage-sheet quilt
Just a little something I’m putting together for our new queen sized bed for spring. The top will be about, oh, 85”x95”, made of alternating rows of 4.5” rectangles and 7” rectangles, all different lengths. I think there are 5 different vintage sheets involved and two or three different bits of calico. You might remember some of the prints from maternity-wear shirts I sewed last year.
I bought 100% cotton batting in a light loft for the inside and haven’t decided how I’m going to piece the back (or from what). I also haven’t decided whether I am going to do a white border on the top. Nor have I decided how I’m going to quilt it — I’ll do it by machine, but should I channel quilt it? On the diagonal? Wiggly lines? I don’t think I could do free-motion on my machine, but that would be cool.
I drew inspiration from the patchwork throw in Amy Butler’s In Stitches; from the summer throw quilt in Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts, and from the easy lap quilt in Bend The Rules Sewing, as well as the patchwork quilt from Machine Made Patchworks. I made the rectangle widths in two uniform sizes but varied the lengths as whim dictated. I cut so many rectangles that I might have enough left over for a baby quilt that I might sell on etsy, along with a vintage-sheet grocery sack. (My etsy shop is like a million years in the making. Taking forever. Probably worthy of its own post.)
The sheets I’ve been saving for a year or more, and I had the idea for this quilt last summer but obviously have not had the time to get going on it. Quilting Month seemed like the perfect opportunity.
I love to strip-quilt like this, throwing things together and seeing what I like. Fussy quilting and intricate blocks drive me bonkers with the tedious and the boring and the detailed; I’d rather have a finished quilt on the bed than 500 teeny triangles in a pile on the floor, you know?
Heartland express
Funny the things one gets nostalgic for: I-75 South in the winter, huge grey sky, snow blowing across the highway, miles and miles of farmland and nothing but tractor-trailers to punctuate the view. I could drive up and down this stretch of road all day.
Getting all the snow I was wishing for in Maryland
So. Somehow I survived another 8-hour car ride with Owen and Cormac. I think it was helped by making the trip in a tricked-out Honda Odyssey — DVD player, heated seats, spacious accomodations, automatic doors. Instead of navigating, I got to sit in the back seat and watch Cormac throw things at me. Owen sat in the way-back, wearing headphones and watching Toy Story.
We haven’t done much so far, which is the entire point of visiting my parents. I went shopping by myself and got lost in the Giant Eagle. It’s actually not that hard to do. When I was growing up, this town had three grocery stores: Food Town, Kroger, and the teeny Kazmaier’s. No, wait, four — I worked as a cashier at Churchill’s. Now, since I left 10 years ago, the family-owned Churchill’s is gone, and an entire cornfield’s worth of big boxes have gone up: Target, Meijer, Giant Eagle, Wal-Mart. They are huge stores, very clean and well-kept. (While visiting Target in Towson is nothing but a headache from the minute you wait in traffic to enter the shopping plaza, visiting Target in suburban Perrysburg is easy as pie. The parking lot is huge and clean and half-empty; the store is huge and clean and half-empty; the employees … well, I’m sure a few are huge, and most are clean, and I won’t speak as to their emptiness, but they’re all at least pretending to work. I chalk it all up to my large, well-documented Midwestern bias.)
And it’s been snowing out here, which is freaking sweet. It’s snowing right now, actually. There are many inches of snow. And it’s so pretty. Cold as fuck, but pretty.
I’ve watched a few episodes of Project Runway, since we don’t have cable at home, and pored over my sister’s issue of Nylon. I have looked longingly at her sewing machine, wishing I could just sit here and sew and sew and sew instead of wiping up yet more baby barf. But I haven’t gone so far as to compose the blog post I’ve been ruminating on for two weeks — the one about the spring wardrobe I want to sew, the one where I have about 20 photographs of clothes I want to make. I will write that one some time, and hopefully soon, if only so I can use the word “rub-off” in a sentence (it’s a term for copying ready-to-wear clothes so you can make them yourself).
Today I am going to visit my old college roommate. I hope I don’t look like tired, worn-out crap. I mean, I am tired and worn-out, but there’s no reason to foist that on other people. Especially on people who don’t have children yet. No need to frighten them further.
Old Home Weekend
Oh flat, featureless Ohio, I’ve missed you so!
I’m leaving tomorrow with the kids for a long weekend with my parents. I anticipate much Wii bowling and much family fun time and hopefully a tiny bit of sleeping in. God knows I could use it; these children are wearing me into the ground.
Save my brain
I have definitely emerged from the post-partum cloud, that mist that decends in the later half of the third trimester and persists well after the baby is born, the fog that keeps you microscopically attuned to your offspring’s output, to the exclusion of pretty much everything else happening in the outside world.
But now I fear: is it gone, that brain I once had? Will I ever be able to correctly string together an articulate sentence again? (Case in point: the preceding sentence.) Or am I, to my children’s peril, doomed to forever making up words and discussing nothing more perplexing than the plot of Disney’s Aladdin?
I’m asking you: what’s the number one thing I should be doing so this mushroom between my ears doesn’t atrophy? What should I be doing to ensure my kids are getting some sort of neurological stimulation as well? Save me from myself. All my news comes from watercooler scuttlebutt or the mangled grammar of a three-year-old Pixar devotee. I feel as though I owe my children a bit more than a mummy who, on her best day, lets her kids make muffins from a boxed mix and takes them to the Tiny Tot Town at the mall. Help me.
Crockpot Challenge: South of the Border
Sunday night is Challenge Night! On the menu: Burrito Casserole. Ole!
Picture a lasagna, reimagined Mexican style, with tortillas for noodles and refried beans for ricotta. It isn’t as gross as it sounds, but I believe my intestinal tract would give me a stern talking to if I tried it for a second time.
- 1 1/2 pounds lean ground beef
- 1 can (16 ounces) refried beans
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 1 red or green bell pepper, chopped
- 1 envelope burrito or taco seasoning mix
- 1 jalapeno pepper, minced, or use 1 can chopped mild green chiles
- 1 1/2 to 2 cups salsa
- 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
- 6 to 8 corn tortillas, cut in strips
It feels … counterintuitive to put something so lacking in liquid into a crockpot and then walk away, but that’s what I did. The result was expectedly rather mushy, though with plenty of appealing burrito flavor. Being the colossal wuss that I am, I included a mere fraction of the onion called for and none of the jalapenos. Nonetheless, the meal continues to speak to me, and I cannot wholly blame it on my ongoing medical condition; some of the fault lies squarely in my stupid decision to cook Mexican. Everyone knows what burritos will do to a body.
What you might not realize is that Burrito Casserole is an A-1 way to throw your preschooler into a tailspin of rebellion. It began the moment he caught a glimpse of his (beautifully plated yet) monochromatic meal. Seconds after being placed into his seat, a fork was brandished and several cc’s of ground beef suddenly sailed through the air, landing with a thwack several feet away. Disciplinary time-out was established out of earshot, so that his father and I could confess to one another that the meal that sat in front of us may very well have deserved a small, puddle-jumping flight such as Owen’s portion received. Nothing so fancy as a first-class ticket, or even coach, but definitely a little Cessna headed to the bin.
There was bound to be a downer in Crockpot Challenge. Perhaps it was the Mexican flavorings; perhaps it was that I attempted to cook a meal that didn’t involve an entire stick of butter or block of cream cheese. Nevertheless, a lesson has been learned, and at the very least I have saved myself six long minutes of transcribing the recipe by hand onto a 4x6” index card, to be hoarded for the day several months in the future when I might wish to repeat myself.
For that, at least, we can all be grateful. And by we all, I mean me.
Dilute! Dilute! All-One! OK!*
With all this talk about superbugs caused by overuse of antibiotic soap, and of baby soaps causing some sort of chick hormones in babies, I’ve decided to switch the family to exclusive Dr Bronners usage.
It’s the stuff we always use when I go camping with Iain, and now when I bathe the boys and get a whiff of peppermint I am immediately transported to the Teton Wilderness, where I hiked for 40 miles and cried for 40 miles and peed in the woods more times than I ever want to remember.
It also brings me back to the many weekends we’ve spent in a tent up at “the camp,” the family acreage in PA.
More peeing in the woods. Not so much crying, but then again I do nothing but sit around getting tan when we hang out at the camp. None of this hiking uphill both ways, fording an icy-cold river nonsense. Just bug-swatting.
Anyway, enough memory lane. Point? This stuff is good. Biodegradable, vegan, organic, all that good jazz. And all I had to do was dig it out of our camping supplies bin and stick it in the bathroom. Easy-peasy.
*You ever read a Doc Bronner bottle label? Like 20 square inches of 8 point font and many, many exclamation points. I love it. RIP, Doc.
family selfportrait
This is my new favorite picture of all of us. Cormac is asleep — see his wee little face? — but otherwise this is each of us, quintessentially: me, shaggy and laughing; Iain, trying not to smile; and Owen way up in the business end.
Radio shame
Have you ever been dial surfing and find yourself lingering over the SCAN button a little too long when Hootie and the Blowfish comes on the station with Today’s Hits and Yesterday’s Favorites, because it reminds you of cruising I-75 in your mom’s Dodge Caravan, headed to Detroit to buy clogs?
Me neither.
I also never leave it on Billy Joel, tapping my foot in time rather than singing so the other drivers can’t see. I would never find myself stopped at a red light, tearing up when Touch of Grey comes on 100.7 The Bay and feeling very sorry for myself that Jerry Garcia died. And I would never, ever, not in a million years would I pause while SEEKing to listen to Elton John, Journey or Rush. Or possibly all three in succession.
No, definitely not, that never happens. Just wanted to make that clear.
Crockpot challenge: Cafeteria Food
Sunday night is Challenge Night! I was in the mood for caff trays and hairnets today, so I give you: Cheater Beef Stroganoff.
1 can beef broth
1 can french onion condensed soup
dash paprika
dash garlic powder
1.5 lbs of … chuck … steak? hmm.
dash red wine
sprinkling of bisquick. because we are out of flour. yup.
1 tbsp butter
put it on high for many hours then turned it to low when i realized it had been on high. then turned it back to high to try to boil off some liquid. Added half a carton of sour cream for last half hour of cooking. served over egg noodles. Pretty good, actually.
As always, we welcome all comers over at the Crockpot Challenge Flickr Pool.
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