Sunday Sundry - Vol. 7

My brother Darrell makes his own homemade salsa every year.  It's a labor-intensive, Labor Day weekend tradition that he undertakes solo.  I think he said he canned something like 50 quarts this year.  It's quite the production, often involving an all-nighter until the last jar is filled.  And his salsa?  ROCKS!

Here are a few of the peppers he grows in his garden for this endeavor—jalapenos, habaneros, both hot and mild banana peppers.  He shared these with me this week (thanks!), and so far I've made chili and spicy pulled pork with some of them.  I'll probably throw a few in some pad thai tomorrow.

We like it hot up in here, culinarily speaking.

See the XX label on that jar?  That means it's a midrange salsa on my brother's heat scale, which goes from one X to three Xs.  One might think, then, that a double X means medium heat, right?  Not exactly.  Compared to a medium heat store brand, this tastes something more on the order of "Fire in the Hole!"  

And his XXX?  Well, to paraphrase Nigel from Spinal Tap, "This one goes to 11."

[beep]

Does anyone remember the old filmstrips from grade school?  The image would be projected on a screen, but the audio came from a 33 rpm record or cassette tape, which would sound a tone that meant it was time for the projectionist (i.e., the teacher or the class brown-noser) to advance the film one frame.  

Does that sound like ancient technology, or what?  And we did math on an abacus and chiseled our homework on stone tablets by firelight.

Anyway, sometimes I think I need a divider on these sundry posts as the segue to the next subject.  That's what the [beep] was above.  Feel free to leave better ideas for a divider in the comments.

[beep]

I dropped in at a small, local flooring store this week to check out options for our kitchen/hall/half bath.  It would appear, from my less-than-scientific observations, that most flooring falls into one of four categories:  Wood, stone/tile, fake wood, or fake tile.  Good thing I didn't have my heart set on that hideously colored/patterned crap from the '70s.

Speaking of both hideous crap (not really; I love this pottery) and my trip to the flooring store, this was an actual exchange that occurred in said store.  Just for fun, let's use these vintage Haeger vases I dragged out today, for fall decor, to illustrate.

Setup:  I had been talking to a helpful female sales clerk and had given her my info so she could set up time for someone to come out and measure.  Then she invited me to continue looking at the samples and let her know if I wanted to take anything home.  I disappeared behind a display toward the front of the store.  The store manager guy had come in through the back while I'd been talking to the sales clerk, and assumed I'd walked out the front door.

Okay, here we go.

Store Manager (in a normal voice):  She's a tall drink of water.

Sales Clerk:  Yes...and she's still here.

Me (from behind display):  I heard that.

Do you think I should ask for a discount—the Manager's Embarrassment Special?

[beep]

I did get a couple more gathered clutches sewn this week.  I especially heart the gold one, made from what I have left of a couple Frolic FQs.

I've been just putting in the card pockets, not the other divider on the inside.

Every zipper gets a little easier and smoother.

I'm making these from stash and thrifted zippers, and I've been pretty lucky coming up with fabric combinations that will work with the color zippers I have.  But yesterday I had an idea for a combination I didn't have a zipper for, so a run to the thrift store for stock replenishment was in order.

I did get a few more zips, none in the color I really wanted, but I took what I could find for a quarter or so apiece.

I may or may not have also found some Pyrex..which I may or may not have room for...but which I may or may not have purchased anyway.  I think I'll save that post for another day, though.  It'll give me time to get my story straight!

Thanks for visiting!  Please enjoy some Peppers.

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Snow (Hey Oh) - (Link to youtube video, because it didn't allow me to embed it.)

Favorite Things Friday - Home Baked Goodies!

I have always loved baking.  When I was a child, I used to page through my mom's 1950 edition of the Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook, drooling over the mouthwatering pies, cakes, and cookies.  

Mom's baking of sweets was usually centered around the holidays or birthdays, and her ordinary baking usually involved things like biscuits for breakfast.  I would watch intently as she'd pinch off a piece of soft dough and coax it between her palms into a round, somewhat flattened shape.  She would then place these in a circular pattern of about eight, in a round cake pan or pie plate, into the oven to bake.

The first cake I baked from scratch was when I was nine years old.  I had found a recipe for chocolate cake (I don't think it was in Betty Crocker but probably one of the other cookbooks in her library) that didn't seem too difficult.  I remember it called for a cup of boiling water, among other things, of course.  At any rate, mom let me have at it 100 percent on my own, and it turned out great!  A few weeks after that, she asked me to make that chocolate cake again and take it over to the neighbor, whose husband had passed away, for the funeral dinner.  Having my mom's endorsement on that occasion went a long way toward bolstering my baking confidence.

Fast forward almost four decades, when I found myself having to learn some new baking skills to accommodate a diagnosis of gluten intolerance.  All I can say is thank heavens the internet was invented in the meantime!  People like Karina at Gluten-Free Goddess and Shauna at Gluten-Free Girl became my new Betty Crockers.

I still love to bake, but it's now equally out of necessity as it is for the simple enjoyment of it.  If I'm craving a cookie or muffin, I can't just stop at the corner Kwik Trip and pick one up.  If I'm going to an event where there will be celebrating with a cake, I have to bring my own or sit out dessert (and who wants to do that?).

Today I baked one of my favorites, Maui Wowee bars.  (Having come of age in the 1970s, that would have had a whole different meaning then, but rest assured there is no secret herbal ingredient here.)  You can find the recipe at Gluten-Free Goddess (click the link above to be taken right there).

Here are the ingredients.  I used four different gluten-free flours blended together.  Why so many flours?  Why can't you just substitute one of them?  Well, because no single gluten-free flour can replicate the flavor and texture of wheat flour in baked goods, so you have to use a combination of them and add xanthan gum as well in order to get reasonably close.  Otherwise, you will end up with a gritty, tough, flavorless mess.

Here I'm using 1/3 cup each of tapioca flour, brown rice flour, sorghum flour, and buckwheat flour (which is not wheat at all, but related to the rhubarb and sorrel family of plants).

Here it is going into the oven...

And here it is coming out!

Sweet, chocolate chip and coconut goodness in an ooey, gooey bar.  I wish I could share these with you!

For more Favourite Things Friday, visit the links at Quilting In My Pyjamas.

Have a great weekend all—and remember to save room for dessert!

Coming Through in Waves

I practiced "wiggles" today as part of the free motion quilt along at A Few Scraps.

First I practiced drawing them on paper.  I preferred to think of them as waves versus wiggles.  

Then I thought of Pink Floyd and the lyrics to Comfortably Numb:  You are only coming through in waves...  

Wouldn't that be a great song to free motion quilt to?  Alas, I only have the Scissor Sisters version on CD, and that doesn't have quite the same vibe.

Hi.

Welcome to my rear view.  Sometimes I have the TV on when I'm sewing, but it's behind me.  Thus the mirror.

Quilting gloves?  Check.  Bifocals?  Check.  Beer?  You better believe it.

I liked quilting waves.  Then I went back and did them again, so one part looks like a DNA strand.

Oopsie in the middle there.  I let go of the quilt sandwich before my machine had come to a complete stop.

What has been most helpful is to hold my hands in a U-shape as I'm quilting.  The only thing about that is I have to stop when I quilt to the bottom of the U formed by my thumbs, reposition, and restart.  But once I got the hang of stopping and starting, it went okay.  I definitely felt more in control that way.

I really like the ribbon effect when you do sort of a shadow stitch along the first line of stitching.  The one above is my favorite.

This was fun.  Can't wait to do more!

Peace out.

Live long and prosper.

Sunday Sundry - Vol. 6

It's Sunday, and you know what that means.  A new episode of Mad Men tonight!  Seriously, MM fans, wasn't last week's episode just the best?  I watched it twice, it was so good.

And it's time once again for a Sunday Sundry post, where you never know what you're going to get.  Or maybe you do by now.  Odds are good there will be some kind of a Pyrex reference, right?  Let's just go ahead and get that out of the way then, shall we?

After last week's flea market, I was in a bit of a quandary about where to go with my newly acquired pieces.  I have a shelf I've been using, but it was getting full and I had Pyrex spilling over onto the floor underneath the shelf.  Ugh, I like collections but not clutter.  Once that line is crossed, some kind of anti-hoarder early warning system alarm goes off in my head (thank heavens), and I have to take stock and reconsider things.

So I spent some time rearranging and was able to squeeze everything on the shelves—barely.  I made a mental note to cool it on the Pyrex acquisition for a while, at least until I could come up with an alternative storage/display plan.

Well, that lasted a day or two.  Then I found myself in a thrift store.  A thrift store that was moving soon.  One that was having a "1/2 Off Everything!" sale.  And there was Pyrex.  Did I mention it was HALF OFF?  I did restrain myself from buying anything bigger than this little bowl, a remarkable feat of self control, if I do say so.  It was marked $2.49, meaning it really cost me less than $1.25.  And it will still fit on the shelf!

I made another gathered clutch on Saturday.  The main fabric is a piece Jenny swapped me several weeks ago.  I just love it!

On my way home from running errands one day this week, I stopped at a rummage sale in my neighborhood.  A few interesting items made their way home with me, including this still-sealed promotional deck of playing cards from a local dry-cleaning business back in the day.  I like the retro graphics on both the front and the back (see top photo above).  The business has since changed hands and name.  Hmm, I wonder why?

Also bought some sew-on patches at the rummage sale.  I have no idea what I'll do with them, but they looked interesting and fun.  Spiro must be from either the '68 or '72 election.  I was way too young to vote then, but I do remember the Nixon-Agnew years and not in a good way.  The music of that era was great, though.  Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, et al.  Woodstock happened in '69.  Have you seen the movie Taking Woodstock (2009)?  I liked it.  Not what I expected, but fun.

Finally, this.  A year ago, I opened a bag of yarn belonging to my late mother, and wept.  I stood there looking at some of her favorite colors, the raw materials of a craft she so enjoyed, thinking about all the pretty things she made and gave to others, and that there would be no more.  It was all there when I opened that tattered bag, but she was gone.

When I went to work on Thursday evening, this was on my desk.

It was a gift from a coworker to whom I had given my mom's yarn, someone who knitted and crocheted—skills that had apparently skipped a generation with me.  And there was this note:

I love that she used her grandmother's favorite pattern and some of mom's yarn to make this, bringing the past into the present in a beautiful scarf.  This time, I could only smile.

Thanks for visiting today.  I hope the week ahead gives you much to smile about! 

Gathered Clutch - Take #1

It's been a busy work week for me, but I did get one thing accomplished in the sewing department.  Well, two, if you count basting my practice quilt together for the free-motion quilt along, cleaning and oiling my Juki, aka Jane, and practicing a little FMQ to make sure the settings are okay.  Maybe that's two, three, and four.

Anyway, this little gathered clutch came together the other night.  I used the by-now-famous Noodlehead tutorial, which was excellent.

I will do a little tweaking on subsequent clutches, having to do with a little less interfacing on the inside pockets to reduce bulk, shortening my zipper just a tad more, and taking a deeper seam on the lining so it fits inside smoothly. 

Since the Juki was all set up for FMQ, I used my 1960s Singer Touch & Sew, aka Tammy.  She hee-hawed and got a little stubborn about sewing through thick spots, but for the most part, she clippity-clopped right along.

I've got a few more of these planned.  I think they'll make great gifts come Christmastime.  (And yes, I need a new deck...next spring, hopefully!)

I'm linking to Sew & Tell Friday.  Thanks for visiting, and be sure to check out the other fun finishes over at Amylouwho.