The great American weekend

I did a little more paper piecing this weekend! I find it's the easiest type of sewing for me to tackle right now with my neck issues, because there's no rotary cutting involved. I just grab some scraps, piece, and then trim the seams down.

I stumbled across this pattern a couple weeks ago whenever I was looking for star blocks, and bookmarked it for future reference. I didn't really have a set plan for using it, but then I had a moment of inspiration a few weeks ago, and thought maybe if I used different fabrics for the center and background, it would look like a little cherry blossom!

I tried it out with some pink fabric this weekend, and I think it totally passes the test :) What you see is just 1/4 of a complete block, so each block will contain a total of 4 little "cherry blossoms". It's intended for a mini quilt for a friend, and I think I'm going to make it 2x2, so the final measurements will be 24" x 24" and there will be 16 blossoms total. I haven't decided yet if I want to use 16 different pink prints, or do 2 each of 8 prints - we shall see...

So. Right about now you're probably wondering why the heck I titled my post "the great American weekend". Well, I couldn't help but laugh yesterday because I did some of the most stereotypically American things possible all within the span of a day. Not only did I quilt, but we had some apples that were spoiling, so I made an apple pie yesterday morning - and what's more American than apple pie? I totally wore my favorite flouncy apron while I was doing it. And gazed out my kitchen window while I made the crust.

It's basically a deep-dish apple pie that you bake in a cake pan (I used a springform pan instead because I thought it would make removal easier, and I was totally right). The filling was so rich and fantastic - instead of slicing and seasoning the apples and calling it a day, you place them in a dutch oven and cook them down into a soft filling with some butter, cinnamon and lemon juice. For those of you from the south, it was very similar to making fried apples. So yeah, imagine fried apples stuffed inside a thick pastry crust - pure heaven!

My husband and brother-in-law are are such good sons and spent the past two weekends helping their dad put a new roof on the house he and my mother-in-law just purchased, so I took this over to their new home yesterday morning. I figured there would be some hungry men coming off the roof for breakfast, so the 5 of us ate it as a sort of breakfast pastry with coffee. It was delish. And it was gone within 2 hours ;)

The recipe is from one of my favorite cookbooks, Nick Malgieri's Modern Baker. I haven't found a bad recipe in it yet!

Item #3 on the list of uber-American things to do on the weekend? Grilling burgers. We made buffalo burgers with fresh basil, avocado and goat cheese. YUM!

So between the quilting, apple pie, and burgers, I should probably borrow Rex Kwan Do's American Flag pants to round out the weekend. "Nobody wants a round-house kick to the face while I'm wearing these bad boys!"

So what did you all do this weekend? The weather has been beautiful in New Orleans the past two weeks, and it makes me excited for summer to arrive! Hope you all have been having similar luck with the weather where you are :)

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Scottie Watch

 

1.  Love cute paper templates? This website has some adorable ones that range all the way from owls to little girls to slices of birthday cake. I think my favorite is the little mice with the block of cheese. You can also join a free paper calendar of the month club here. As soon as I saw January's adorable Yeti, I immediately printed the template and made it for my cubicle. He sits happily below my monitor :)

2.  One of my favorite websites, How About Orange, has some of the best tutorials on the internet. Check out her origami fabric box tute! She even has another tutorial showing you how to make the fabric flower that's on top of the box. And to top it all off, she has a second fabric flower tutorial that I think would be adorable made out of the Modern Meadow Flower Fields print!

 3. You've probably already heard about this if you frequent the Flickr boards, but Aunt Bea's Fabric is closing :(  They've marked all their fabric 30% off.

4. Jeni over at In Color Order is doing a great series called the Art of Choosing. She's covering the best ways to fold and store fabric (complete with video clips), as well as lessons on how to identify and create different color palettes.

5. If you love to cook or bake, you seriously need to check out The Spice House. I've talked about them on here before, but their Chicago store was a few blocks from our apartment and I walked down there at least once a week. I can't say enough good things about them. It's a family run business, the employees are super nice, and their prices are incredibly reasonable because they cut out the middle man by importing their spices directly from the growers. They buy and sell with a lot of integrity, so you can also feel good about buying from them! 

Their meat rubs are fantastic and they have an equally amazing selection of baking spices. After years of paying $12 for one shriveled McCormick vanilla bean in a jar, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven when I saw you could buy 3 quality vanilla beans for a mere $6. They also make their own vanilla extract, which is equally delicious. I'm kind of a snob when it comes to vanilla extract, and theirs is awesome. I buy two 16 oz. jars at a time. When ordering, I recommend two things. 1) Forgo the glass jars and buy the spices loose in resealable bags because you get a lot more for your money. Also, shipping runs a little high (usually $8-$12), so I'd recommend placing one large order instead of a few small ones.

I swear they didn't pay me to write a small novel about the awesomeness of their products! It's just that when I find a good thing, I like to share it! If you see any spices you'd like to order but are unsure about, shoot me an email and I can give you my thoughts. I've tried a large number of their individual spices and blends, and I'll give you an honest opinion :) Some of my favorites are the Tomato Powder, Lake Shore Drive Seasoning, Tuscan Dipping Seasoning, Pumpkin Pie Spice, Apple Pie Spice, Ceylon Cinnamon, Green Cardamom Pods, and the Taylor Street Cheese Sprinkle (mmm...so delicious on buttered garlic bread!)

Have fun exploring!

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MQG Retreat: Projects #3 & #4 - Potholders & Box Pouches

When I emailed Mary about her prize, she told me the appliances in her kitchen were black and the cabinets were a light color. So what could be better than a black & white potholder? I used 2" squares for the center fussy cut piece and the outer border. The binding is some 1/2" black bias tape I bought at Joann's a while back.

I wanted to fussy cut a larger square for the Christmas potholder, but I screwed up my math somewhere so the blocks are a little wonky. Don't judge my skills based on this potholder because I'm a tad embarrassed about it! I was going to keep it and make another, but the gals at the retreat told me it was fine and I was just being anal about it. Aren't we always our own worst critics?

And here's the back of both potholders. I tucked a little piece of linen tape in there before I sewed the binding so she can hang them if she wants :) She asked for a modern Christmas potholder, but I couldn't resist the holiday hostess...esp since the potholder is a present and she's holding a present! Too cute of a coincidence to pass up!

Note:  love.sewn...can you please email me at ktelschow@gmail.com? I don't mean to call you out on here, but I couldn't find an email address for you and I haven't been able to get ahold of you through your blog or flickr, so I wasn't sure what else to do (and I don't wanna have to choose another winner!) Thanks!

And last but not least, here's our group project from the retreat! We didn't have time to get to the strawberry pillow project Angela brought (*tear*...hopefully next time!), but I got a chance to show everyone how to make box pouches one night at 3 am. It's a testament to their talent the pouches turned out so well, because everyone was a little cracked out from sleep deprivation at that point!

If you'd like to learn how to make one, check back later this week because I hope to have a tutorial posted by Friday or Saturday. I already have the instructions written up, I just need to take some photos!

Pouches from L to R: Angela, Mandi, Cherie, and Me

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SURPRISE!!!

When I asked for people to leave their favorite fall recipes as a way to get another entry into the giveaway, "Quilary" jokingly suggested that I should make a cookbook for The Plaid Scottie. After I thought about it for a while, I realized it wouldn't actually be a bad idea! It would be a real pain for you guys to have to go to my website, click around looking for the post you needed, and then have to sift through 200 comments for a specific recipe. Soooo....*drumroll*...I've put together a pdf file of "reader's choice" recipes!!!! All the recipes posted as of 5 o'clock today are included, and I'm gonna go back and update the file on Tuesday with any new ones that are posted over the weekend. If I knew you had a blog, then I tried to write the title out next to your user name. If I missed your blog and you'd like for me to go back and add it, I'd be more than happy to. Also feel free to email me with any typos or other errors you notice.

So in case you'd been wondering where the heck I was the past few days, there's your answer! You guys are so awesome, and since I can't give every single one of you a fat quarter bundle (much as I'd like to), I wanted to do something small for everyone as a "thank you for reading my insignificant craft blog" present...hehe! Consider it a tiny repayment of all the happiness your support, suggestions, and compliments bring me :) It really means a lot to me that so many people have become followers, and I can't tell you how nice it is to come home from Corporate America every day and read your sweet comments. Sewing is my true passion, and I look forward to working on my projects and blog every day (sometimes it's the only thing that gets me through work!)

So enough of the mushy stuff. Readers - time to fire up those ovens!!! (Note: The cookbook has been updated with the change requests I received and the new recipes that were posted over the weekend)
The Plaid Scottie Fall Recipes

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Some Well-Mannered Frivolity

My blog title promises well-mannered frivolity, and frivolity you shall have. Tonight I made a carmelized onion, goat cheese and fresh basil pizza on a whole wheat crust. It has absolutely nothing to do with quilting, and is in no way important...except to my stomach. Mmm.

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