Lemon Tree Tales

Citrus Heart

This lovely heart quilt showed up on my doorstep (via the friendly neighborhood postal carrier) last Friday but I've been so busy that I haven't had time to take good pictures of it to share with you. It was made by Robyn of Where The Boys Are for the Doll Quilt Swap III. Robyn was so sweet and decided to use all citrus colored fabrics because of my lemons. All the fabrics on the front are luscious reproductions in the colors of oranges, limes and of course lemons. The backing fabric is a beautiful green vintage print that I forgot to take a picture, but you can see it here. Thank you so much Robyn! I love it!

What do you think of my little tableau? I was inspired by the talented Jane of Yarnstorm but somehow I missed the mark a bit. But isn't it wonderful how my family room walls match the color of the binding?!

I'll leave you with a closeup detail of the retro fabrics:

Gotta love those cute little birds.

Tea for two

Yesterday my friend Trena invited me to join her for an early tea at Lisa's Tea Treasures in San Jose while she was on an errand to buy a gift certificate for Miss L's teacher. This was such a quaint little tea room. It had the same type of molding and high ceilings that Steve and I found in little restaurants and sitting rooms while we toured the Irish and English countrysides. I ordered the Lady's Respite (traditional sandwiches, scones and quiche with Earl Grey tea) and Trena tried the Mother's Day special which had a delicious looking salad with strawberries and nuts in addition to sandwiches and scones, all accompanied by vanilla tea. Our hostess wore a sweet pink dress with a white apron modeled upon Victorian garb. Of course I think that the Victorians would be scandalized by the knee length hem. It was a delightful lunch and we're looking forward to taking Miss L and Miss J there sometime later this summer. We'll all wear our best "lady-like" dresses and have lots of fun.

Spring Flower Bed Quilt

Ah, it's finally complete! Here's what I'm sending off to my Four Seasons Quilt Swap partner for the Spring themed quilt. Originally I wanted to make a Strips 'n Curves quilt, but I just didn't have the required variety of fabrics in my stash to do that justice. And once I mastered making these little fabric origami flowers I just couldn't stop. They're popping up everywhere in my projects lately. Since they add the oomph I kept the actual quilt design simple with a classic checkerboard on point. I love how the flowers turn the green squares into X's once they were opened and tacked down.

A detail shot of the flowers. I used the directions from Rebecca Wat's book, Fantastic Fabric Folding. They needed a little something for the centers so I added a wee bit of bead soup in purples and greens. Hmm, those same colors again! I guess that I'll just have to continue with those colors until I get another color obsession. My only regret is that I was late in sending this out to my swap partner. Many apologies to her and to Margaret, the swap hostess, who has once again hosted a lovely quilt swap. Just take a look at all the beautiful quilts that were created to celebrate Spring at the Four Seasons Quilt Swap flickr pool.

Spring Bento Box quilt

I think that my backyard has been influencing my color choices lately. Here's the finished quilt that I'm mailing out to my swap partner for the Doll Quilt Swap III. At first I wasn't sure what I'd make for this swap, but then I remembered that I have been wanting to try my hand at the Bento Box pattern. I scaled it down 50% and used a total of eighteen fabrics for the front and binding plus another fabric for the backing - all from the stash. There are batiks, Kaffe Fassett, Heather Bailey and a few quilting stand-bys such as the dimples print by Andover. Hopefully she likes it and isn't too disappointed that I've managed my time so poorly.

Here's the entire pattern. Since it was with a lot of "busy" fabrics I kept the quilting very simple - diagonal going one way for half and then the remainder at a 90 degree angle. I did use a variegated quilting thread for some extra interest. This is a very fun pattern and so very easy. I'll definitely be making another one soon.

Oh dear, I'm late, I'm late ...

... I have two little quilts that I must finish. I'm so far behind because my lovely Bernina was in the shop getting a check-up. The binding is on and they just need a bit of fine tuning before being sent out. I'm afraid that I should include a little something extra because of my tardiness so that the recipients will forgive me.  :-)

A quick little peek for both of them. I'll have to tell you all about my adventure with metallic threads next week. In the meantime have a happy, lovely weekend! (That's John Tenniel's illustration of the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland.)

Book Review: Comfort Food

Imagine my delight a month ago when I discovered an email from the Penguin Group publishers regarding my book review of Kate Jacob's The Friday Night Knitting Club. They wanted to know if I, along with others who had reviewed her book, would be interested in receiving a review copy of her newest book, Comfort Food. How could I pass on that since I really enjoyed her first book?

The story starts out enjoyably with thoughts about the importance of birthday cake. Gus Simpson (short for Augusta) is a successful TV chef/personality. She's the type of warm hostess that makes sure that every possible need of her guests is addressed while serving delicious home-styled food and of course that most important component, dessert. The problem is that she's about to turn the big 5-0 yet she doesn't feel like she's that age. Suddenly her comfortable world begins to turn on its ear - from dealing with her two grown yet not quite adult daughters, a beautiful and young competitor to her TV hostess domain, and being the one person who always has the right answers for everyone else. Now it's time for Gus to get answers for herself.

Just like Kate Jacob's first book, this one is filled with strong female relationships and characters that you don't ever want to let go. It's also a good behind-the-scenes peek at food television. Of course like all good stories, it had to end. Immediately I missed reading about the characters and couldn't help but wonder about the future of these interesting characters. Definitely a good enjoyable read. You'll like getting to know Gus.

Friday Archive - My first doll

Loobylu has a Friday Archives started so I thought that this would be a perfect time to show you this photograph that I found the other day. It's my very first cloth doll that I made in either 1987 or 1988. Oh my, in my memory it turned out much, much better than this. I wanted to make it for my sister, Nikki, because I really liked her prom dress. The pattern came from a fairy/ballerina doll but sadly I don't remember what company published it. Although I found a nice shade of brown for the skin I didn't do a great job of painting her face. Now I can see that it was too cartoony and not blended very well. The hair has nothing to do with my sister's hairstyle, but was loosely based on those ringlets that all the Southern belles wore. My favorite part of this doll was the dress. I used a luscious dark green velvet for the bodice and a black and medium green satin for the skirt. No pattern for that, just a bit of draping and lots of patience sewing approximately two feet of fabric into four inches or less of waist! I've come a long way in my doll-making skills since then. Regardless, I do remember being very happy with how it turned out and was excited to give it to my little sister.

Three windows quiltlets

I've completed the sewing portion of my windows quiltlets from the Angela Jarecki class. Now I just have to embellish them with a little bead soup; however, I couldn't wait until then to show them to you. They are approximately the size of a postcard, 5" x 6" at the widest part.

1st window - Ruby Red with Aqua

2nd window - Amethyst Dreams

3rd window - Spring at the Sea Shore

How NOT to exit Turn Four

The meat pastel experiment with extra spices was a success! In addition to preparing that yesterday (which by the way was messy ... I don't understand how I could have dirtied EIGHT! bowls during the prep work), I also was working on my quilt Windows from Angela Jarecki's class. I'll post pictures soon. In the meantime, this is how Steve spent yesterday, practicing at Laguna Seca for his next race. He called this video "how NOT to exit Turn 4":

What happened to the matzo?

Between Saturday and Sunday morning, I went to six supermarkets on the hunt for matzo. I couldn't believe that not one store carried any. Not one box anywhere. Since we didn't have plans to go to LA to be with family and hadn't invited them to make the drive to our house, Steve and I kept things casual and had no Seder. But no matzo at all? How could it really feel like Passover without any? It turns out that there's some sort of delivery or manufacturing snafu with Manischewitz this year. One grocer knew what was going on and told me that one of their supermarkets had received a delivery of 10 cases of another brand. Off I went to hunt down the elusive matzos and was finally victorious!

I think that next year we'll see if we can plan a family Seder. We had one at our house a couple years ago and it was nice. Before that we'd make the drive down to LA which isn't always easy to plan around. I'd also like to make a family Haggadah with some of my illustrations and maybe a few quilted designs. In a little bit I'll start cooking my MIL's pastel - basically a meat pie that uses matzo as the top and bottom pieces. It's good, but I think that I'll add a bit more onion and some red pepper flakes in it because Steve really likes things spicy. Just not too much spice else I won't enjoy it as much. If you're celebrating, have a happy Pesach! If you don't, then I hope you're enjoying the beautiful Spring time.   :-)