New Itajime and Arashi Shibori Quilt

Here is a picture of my newest quilt all sewn together.  I can see lots of great places for hand stitching on this one.

Below is a closeup.

Reversible Tote Bag

The other day, Saturday to be specific,  on Laura Kemshall's blog, she had a great post on making an easy reversible tote bag. Instructions are here: http://laurakemshall.blogspot.com/

Here's a picture of mine. Since I was using two lightweight fabrics, I added interfacing to one of the them so the bag would be more sturdy.

Elephant Seals, Beautiful Stenciling and Family

Sorry I did not get to post a blog this weekend.  Nor, did I get to any artwork. Oh well, I did have a great time however. My oldest brother,  sister-in-law, and nephew from Michigan were visiting us.  They had not been out here for about 9 years.We took them to two missions, three wineries and the show at the SLO museum where my art quilt is hanging as part of the "Off Kilter" exhibit by the Cutting Edge Fiber Art Group. We also took them to see the elephant seals on the beach near Hearst Castle.  They were really incredibly interesting.

Here's the whole group of us at our house.  We had a wonderful, long overdue visit. 

 Some beautiful stenciling from the San Luis Obispo Mission.

The largest Elephant Seal we saw on the coast.  They can get up to 5,000 lbs.  Watching the interactions between them, the females and the pups was really incredible.

Planning New Shibori Quilt

This is what I sewed together late last night, thinking it was pretty good. 

 

This morning it didn't look as exciting as it did last night, so I did this:

 

Then I pinned up this variation:

Followed by this last variation:

 

So if you are looking at this, please give me some feedback as to what you think is most interesting, 1, 2, 3 or 4.  I'm leaning towards 3 or 4.

 

Mission San Miguel at Christmas

My husband and I visited Mission San Miguel yesterday. It really is a very beautiful spiritual place. Wishing everyone a wonderful Christmas or Happy Hanukkah. 

On the Design Wall Now

Been very busy finishing up Christmas 'stuff', like making cookies, cookie dough for sugar cookies, wrapping presents, blah, blah, blah.  Yesterday I spent a couple of hours cleaning and sorting in my studio.  It was a huge mess! Found all sorts of buried treasure.  Rediscovered and remembered at least three or four UFOs that I want to continue working on and put away some that I have lost interest in.  Picked out some fabrics to jumpstart my next two quilts, one being in reds, greens, blacks and yellow and the other the same except interchanging the red for the orange.

On the far left is an arashi shibori.  There are three that are marbled fabrics, in yellow, orange and blacks with circular motifs, and the remaining ones are itajime fabrics.

I like having projects in multiple stages, incubation, physically putting pieces together and finishing up, i.e., quilting or embroidering, in this case.

Beautiful Skies and the Best Almond Brittle

We've been having such gorgeous skies in the early morning streaked with yellow, oranges and pinks.

With quarter grades due at the end of the week and Christmas around the corner, didn't get to any quilting this weekend.  Today I made my 6th or 7th batch of Almond brittle to give to relatives, friends and co-workers.  It's a great recipe I got form our former wood-shop teacher at the middle school at which I teach. We haven't had the woodshop program for twenty some years, unfortunately, but I always think of him when I make his recipe.

 In his classroom, he had the following sign on all four walls:  Measure twice, Cut once.  I try to remember that when I'm cutting fabric for projects.  It's a very good rule.  And his recipe is a very good one too.  I have it below exactly as Brian wrote it out for me.

Don't try doubling the recipe.  It sure didn't work for me.

Almond Brittle

1 cube (4oz) butter
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cup raw almonds (I use Trader Joe's)

Dump (yes, that's the word  he used) all ingredients into a heavy fry pan (not cast iron).  Cook stirring constantly with a wooden or heavy metal spoon (Ask me how I know that) Keep stirring until all butter gets stirred back into the candy syrup.  Be careful not to burn.

Below are pictures of some of the stages it goes through:

Butter melts,

then the butter sugar mixture gets thicker and lighter in color. the first time I made it, I didn't think it would ever turn out.

  

When the mixture starts looking more golden brown and you hear some snapping of the nuts, you are about done.

Pour and spread out the brittle onto a metal pan to cool. In the picture it's looking a little green, but it's really a lovely golden brown.  The lighting in my kitchen made the color look off.

Hope you give it a try and enjoy it.