Monthly Archives: April 2010

Exhibitions at the DC Textile Museum

30 Friday Apr 2010

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Whenever I visit Washington DC I always try to go to the Textile Museum. I have seen wonderful things there from stunning Mamluk rugs to vibrant Amish quilts. I signed up for their eNewsletter on one of my visits and now I get a regular stream of information on all topics related to textiles.

They have some fabulous exhibitions coming up. What a pity I won’t be there to see them. However if you’re in DC go take a look at these:

Green: the Color and the Cause April 16 – September 11, 2011

Art by the Yard: Women Design Mid-Century Britain May 15, 2010 – September 12, 2010

Second Lives: The Age-Old Art of Recycling Textiles February 4 – July 10, 2011

If you want to receive their newsletter too you can sign up here.

I’ve written to the Museum to see if they’ll let me show some images from their exhibitions so fingers crossed. Keep watching

Online exhibitions

They also have some online exhibitions which are just as interesting – including Ottoman Embroideries. Can you believe they did the most amazing and intricate embroidery on the ends of their bath towels! I guess they must have been for the Sultan.

Anyway pay them a visit I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.

The hand quilting journey continues…

28 Wednesday Apr 2010

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Yesterday I realised that my quilting journey with Andalusian Tile Quilt  was not over. My quilt needs more hand quilting. So I thought I ‘d show a before and after set of photos so you can see what I mean.

Here are two photos showing the corner with a star and the triangles before the extra quilting.

Corner with star before extra quilting

Corner with star before extra quilting

Triangles before extra quilting

And here they are again after the extra quilting.

Corner with extra quilting

Corner with extra quilting

Triangles with extra quilting

Triangles with extra quilting

As you can see I’ve got about three times as much again to do as I have already done! How to turn a finished item into 1/4 finished item in one fell swoop! Oh well it’s all about the journey and not the destination, isn’t it?

Chicken soup and a false finish

27 Tuesday Apr 2010

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Chicken soup

Chicken soup

I hope chicken soup works. I had it for lunch yesterday and today but I can’t say I feel any better. This cough just seems to go on for ever.

As does my hand-quilting. I thought I had finished hand-quilting my Andalusian Tile quilt today. I had finished each of the rectangles in the final border but then I looked at it… and I thought I liked the denser quilting I had done there rather than the sparser quilting in the rest of the quilt. So, I took a deep breath – coughed and coughed because of it – and then plunged in to adding more quilting in all the other parts of the quilt.

What have I done? Probably added another 12 months onto the finish date. Hopefully I can take some photos tomorrow to show you what I mean.

A Wild Thread Chase

26 Monday Apr 2010

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How can DMC Perle Cotton be so elusive? I called an unmentionable large fabric and thread store in Alexandria and asked if they stocked it. “Yes!” was the reply. So DH and I trekked all the way into town. Not a ball of it be seen anywhere! The person who said “yes” had apparently gone home and all the other staff could say was “Sorry, but it’s on the computer” and “The Sydney store probably has it”.

So we trekked into Sydney and you guessed it – no one in there even knows what it is!!!

Perle, Perle wherefore art thou??

So perhaps I might abandon the Perle and go for Sulky Blendables like Silly Boo Dilly. Or will that be even harder to find?

Kaffe for All Seasons

25 Sunday Apr 2010

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Summer

Summer

A while ago I began to do the Sampler quilt from  the Kaffe Fassett Museum Quilts book. A group of us from all over the world started a Yahoo email group to encourage one another. The idea was to do one block per week.

As the quilt can be viewed as four identical quadrants I decided to do each quadrant in a colour way that represented one of the seasons and I called my quilt Kaffe For All Seasons.

Anyway the group foundered for a variety of reasons and I became bored with it. It wasn’t my favourite of his quilts and I had really agreed just to be a part of a group effort. I thought it would be fun. When I went back and looked at the size of this quilt in the book it was enormous! I was totally over it.

Rainy day

Rainy day

I decided to bail but I didn’t want to waste all the hand-pieced blocks I had done so I decide to mix them with blocks of whole Kaffe fabrics and design my own quilt. I have pieced the whole top now and quilted the summer quadrant. I’m going to join the seasons together at the end. This one is summer.

I know I shouldn’t have machine quilted my hand-pieced blocks but, as I said, I’m over it.

Anyway these colours cheer me up and remind me of summer – contrast to the rainy day outside.

A quick and tasty dinner

24 Saturday Apr 2010

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Last night I cooked a quick and tasty meal that was really yummy. My Spicy Lamb Bolognese with vegie spiral pasta. I thought I’d share it with you. Here are the ingredients:

Quick tasty dinner

Quick tasty dinner

2 tbs Olive oil
6 mushrooms (sliced)
1 medium sized zucchini (sliced)
1 large carrot (grated)
2 leeks (split and finely sliced)
1 squirt of Gourmet Garden garlic
1 squirt of Gourmet Garden mild chilli
1 squirt of Gourmet Garden ginger
3 dessertspoons of tomato paste
500g lamb mince
2 cups of water
1 tsp Massel chicken-style stockpowder

Method

Zucchini and mushrooms

Zucchini and mushrooms

Saute the mushrooms and zucchini in 1 tbs of oil until they start to caramelise then set aside. In another pan place the other tbs of oil and add the leeks, carrots, garlic, ginger and chilli. Mix well and then  put the lid on and place on a medium heat until they sweat down. You don’t want these to brown. Add the mushroom and zucchini to the carrots and leeks and using the leftover oil in the pan brown the lamb mince. Once browned add the meat to the other ingredients.

Add the tomato paste, water and stock powder, stir well and bring to the boil. Then reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Cook the pasta as per the instructions on the pack, drain and serve.

Dinner's ready

Dinner's ready

Cooking up a storm

23 Friday Apr 2010

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Making cookies

Making cookies

I’m sick but I’ve been bitten by the cooking bug. The smell of fresh bread is wafting through my house and now I’m planning to make some cookies from a recipe I’ve used hundreds of times based on one from The Nursing Mothers’ Association of Australia Cookbook (circa 1978).

They call it fruit slab but I make it into individual cookies and I’ve changed the recipe substantially over the years so it’s barely recognisable but I like to give credit where credit is due. I don’t think the book is available anymore. Anyway here is my version of the recipe:

Ingredients

40g butter

35g olive oil (who says you can’t subsitute oil for butter?)

1 cup white SR flour

.5 cup wholemal plain flour

1.5 cups sultanas

1 cup shredded coconut

1 cup raw sugar

.5 tsp cinnamon

.25 tsp cardamom

.25 tsp ground ginger

2 eggs

Method

Melt butter in the olive oil. Put all the flours, sugar, spices and eggs into a bowl and mix. Add the melted butter/oil, mix and then add the coconut and sultanas. I like to mix with my hands you get a better homogeneity.

Grease a silicone baking sheet and spoon little piles on the sheet. Cook in a fan-forced oven at 180C for 10 minutes. Switch the oven off and leave the cookies in there for another 5 minutes. Cool and EAT!!!

Here’s the result…

Bread and cookies- yum!

Bread and cookies- yum!

Hearts and handwork

23 Friday Apr 2010

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Hearts and Handwork

Hearts and Handwork

Recently a friend of mine from the States sent me a lovely package full of handworked hearts. The beautiful wooden box contained the blue cross-stitched pouch which contained a lovely fluorite heart and the two reverse applique hanging hearts. Aren’t they lovely? The box is less than 3″x3″x3″ so you can tell how small they all are. The stitching on the reverse applique hearts is invisible and the embroidery minute. Take a closer look…

Reverse Applique Hearts

Reverse Applique Hearts

I love traditional handwork whether it’s pottery or woodwork, knitting or embroidery, it adds a dimension of beauty to the everyday. There’s a lovely Islamic saying which goes “God is beautiful and He loves beauty”. I think that just about sums it up.

Sniffle, sniffle, cough, cough…

22 Thursday Apr 2010

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Flu season

Flu season

Last Wednesday I had a flu shot. By Friday bits of me were aching. By Sunday I had the scratchy throat and by Tuesday I was really sick. I’m on the mend now I think but I still have a sore throat and a hacking cough. When I speak I sound like a poor waif as my voice is all but non-existent. However on the plus side – and there has to be one, right? – I have been sitting quietly, if sniffly, and hand quilting while listening to my audio books.

hand quilting

hand quilting