Recipe for Blog Helper Dave!

This is not my recipe but i have made it and it is pretty good!The only thing i changed was the pecans.....i didn;t use them, and i put the filling OVEr the first noodle in the bottom of the pan instead of under it...
Spinach Lasagne with Feta Cheese

Serves 4

Spinach ( Frozen will do)
1/2 teaspoon of grated Nutmeg
Garlic ( 1 large clove, crushed)
1 oz. Pecan Nuts ( grated)
1 1/2 oz. Plain Flour
1 1/2 oz. Butter
1 pint of Milk
Lasagne
Paprika
Pepper
8 oz. of Feta ( crumbled)
Breadcrumbs
1 large Tomato
6 Olives
Olive Oil
1 teaspoon of Mustard

Wash the spinach, don't drain it, and put it in a saucepan together with the
nutmeg, nuts and the crushed garlic. To a second saucepan, add the butter, flour
and the milk and slowly bring to the boil stirring all the time over a low heat.
'Cook the flour out' for at least three minutes then add 6 oz. of the crumbled
feta, the mustard and the pepper. In an ovenproof dish, spread the spinach over
the base and top with the remaining feta. Cover the feta with the lasagne
sheets. Finish off by spreading the Bechamel sauce over the top then sprinkle
with breadcrumbs and the paprika. Arrange the tomato slices, sprinkled with
dried basil and olive oil, over the sauce and add the olives. Bake on the top
shelf of a moderately hot oven ( Gas Mark 6 / 400F / 200 C) for at least 25
minutes. As feta is a salty cheese, there is no need to add more to this recipe.

01 05 07 CQ Round Robin and just stuff

Susan Nixon;s Pink Lady




Seven of us are in a private crazyquilting round robin. Several of us have known each other for years and have done quite a bit of stitching together, and others are newly met friends. One of those newly met friends is Susan Nixon. She has her block all ready to go. It's a lovely block ...don;t know what size it is but I do know that the things you see on it are not attached. They are being auditioned and she will be sending around this block to us completly empty! What this means is that there is going to be room for us to stitch and i can;t wait...the ideas have already begun to flow. I just hope that by the time it gets to me, there will be some space left!

One of the other women in the rr asked what sort of things we were doing....my answer was that i was going to pick the first 20 fabric scraps i had laying around and i would put the first 7 of those that were big enough on a foundation. That will be a far cry from this wonderfully pieced block!


On another note, i have been stitching some on the little FIT block i posted yesterday and have also done more on the one corner with herringbone wide band. If this block were not going to be used on a book cover i think i would bead that seam, but i don't like using beads on things that will see heavy? use.However, I have decided to get out a piece of evenweave and do this band again and see what i can come up with.

And yet again...on yet another note, a friend from Canada (Nikki) and I have been talking about making January our month to celebrate and to share with each other what we are celebrating. I love New Year's for the very reason that it signifies beginning, trying again....and in a sense, a re-committment to values, and value-ing yourself, life, and by extension other's lives and selves.Even though every moment is a beginning, it helps me to have a symbol...it reminds me to live NOW...not to wait till i have "time" not tow ait till i am done with the housework, or wait till i feel better, or wait till......whatever.......but I think it is important to be engaged in the moment you are in....and every moment is NOW....there is no other moment and so....i have realized that i have many things to celebrate just today.
1. I went to the Zen center this morning and recieved instructions on doing chiden in the center. That means that once a week I help take care of the various altars that are in different rooms. Since steps are very difficult for me, another person is also doing chiden for the upstairs altars. They must be dusted, and vessels for offering incense must be sifted and cleaned of debris. The candle holders must be cleaned, pictures dusted and flowers must be refreshed. The altars are different sizes and some are simply small small shelves attached to a wall with a picture, an incense holder, candle and small vase for a single flower and a piece of greenery. There are larger surfaces also that serve as altars and in the Zendo itself there is a beautiful free-standing altar. We learned how to arrange the flowers so that they lean forward in front of the greens that are placed in the vase with them. We also learned placement of various articles on the surfaces and it was all very wonderful to learn. This will be a three month assignment.

I am also celebrating today two rather mundane but related things....one i resisted the very strong urge to go food shopping! I recognized that i would was using it as an excuse to get next to the candy aisle.....oh that chocolate has my name on it!
The other thing i did was COOK! amazing....yes, me, i actually chopped and seasoned food, then put it on a burner....and yes, it was good!Of course it was a simple thing and took all of five minutes to get into the pan......but you know what, for the most part of the last 12 years i considered heating water in the microwave to be cooking.........ggggggg.So who knows, it's January 5th 2007, aqnd if i can repeat this scenario with the food, i just might lose weight and have less pressure on the joints...and feel better too-what could be bad?????

01-03-07 FIT progress and more herringbone

Before I talk about the pics below I want to say that on the Stitching Post blog:

here.

There have been some new posts for the Paisley challenge. Mandy H. has been learning how to wet felt and also free motion embroider...you should see the three paiselies she has come up with. One is a very bright wet felted motif, another piece has two paisely the same done with FME and the third piece used machine stitched paiselies as a repeat on the background and a slipped paisely for the foreground....i won;t spoil it by describing any of them in detail....just go see for yourself! Mandy also has her own blog

here.

Also, try as I may, i cannot seem to get the comments turned back on for the posts....have a post in blogger help about it so maybe it will get figured out. In the meantime, any comments can be directed to me through my email address at the right in the sidebar.

The first pic below shows the further working on the first cotton block i have chosen to work on for Sandie's
UFO challenge.
I have done some work on the motif in the middle adding some running stitches and then some filled lazy-daisies around the circles. I also did some work on the seam with the orange-y flowers but i am not nuts about it and it either needs ripped out(the yellow stitches) or added to. I also added some chain stitch lines around some of the edges which i think adds a certain sense of boundary to it. And, i have been adding another set of wide band border type stitches in the upper left. It is based on the herringbone and is not finished by a long shot. There is a detail of it in the second pic.



This wide band stitched border is based on the herringbone...with some straight stitches at the little crossed intersection and then horizontal straight stitches in between the crossed parts to give it an overall look of being tiled....then i did some fly stitches...to me it makes a great looking lattice just as it is.And I can certainly see filling a larger area with this as an allover pattern. However, i won;t be filling the orange patch with this, but i will be working more on it. Haven;t decided exactly what to do but there will be much more done in the spaces and possibly on the inside edges. Stay tuned...lol......

Herringbone Stitch

Sharon' s Take A Stitch Tuesday has started off with the herringbone stitch and she provided a number of really attractive ways of using this stitch to make combination stitch bands as seam treatments for cq. It is a fortuitoous coiincidence that the first FIT that i have chosen to work on this year as part of Sandie W.'s challenge is a block with a wide band seam treatment made up of stacked herringbone stitch and "embellishers" in the spaces.

The detail is above and the full block it was taken from was posted on Dec 15th.

Stitching on break-pt 4-Blackwork design

I really really liked that snowflake (see previous posts from this evening) and decided I just had to try developing a blackwork band from it. What i came up with is really a border design and i like it very much.I actually charted this one out before trying to stitch it. It takes a lot of concentration!

Stitching On Breaks-pt.3

This is another small piece of Aida that i had in the workbox and i decided after doing the band sampler band that i better practice....this is a sort of design as you go thing(as were the three small motifs on the previous piece). As you can see it's not done but i sure have learned a lot about what NOT to do! The green buttonholing was put around the edge to keep it from unravelling more than it had. It will be taken off when i am done but it did give me ideas for doing other small pieces.More than likely I will make a coaster out of this and keep it as a reminder of all the ways you can mess up something as simple as crossing two pieces of thread in an X .

Stitching on Breaks-pt. 2

I SAID i was going to start on next year's postcards(this year's now.lol) early!
I had a small sqaure of Aida and decided to cross stitch some small motifs to use on the next batch of holiday postcards.

#1 is the first one I did....did the word first and decided it needed a border. Then decided it needed snowflakes.

#2 is what happened when i looked at the snowflakes and wondered what they would look like if they were all in a row.

#3 is what happened when i wanted to use the basic design for the snowflake and see if it would make a good blackwork motif.

What I do on breaks at work-pt.1

Neck Pillow block 3

a number of years ago i put together 3 5 inch blocks in a horizontal row and machine buttonhooled the patches in black thread. My idea was to concentrate on filling each patch with something and not worry about the seam treatments. It got put away and i took it out not more than a couple of weeks ago while rummaging in the FITS drawer....took it to work and have been working on it on the breaks. The other two blocks are fully embroidered but this one is what needed done.




This is a detail iimage of one of the patches...it was so much fun and i consider it the best patch on the block...I took crochet thread and stacked three running stitches and interlaced them..(ala the center of the guilloche stitch-)after that i did buttonholing on the interlaced threads and this is what i came up with.

Band Sampler

This is the band i did for my own sampler....the Stitching Post is doing a band sampler(counted work on even weave) round robin...we each do the first band on our own sampler then pass it on to the next person.....it didn;t take all that long to do but i sure made some mistakes and must have unstitched a section about three times before i finally got the count right.

FITS challenge-project for January

Well, here it is..lol.....the FITS(UFO) project that i am going to finish in January.
I have an odd assortment of smallish cotton blocks that are part way embroidered. This one is actually most of the way embroidered but still needs some work in various areas. I have indicated on the scan where i am going to do the work and after that I am going to turn this block into the cover for a small fabric booklet. Just something with a few pages that i can fill with various things. I want to make so that i can send like a multipaged card of good wishes to a friend of mine. The part that i am committing to for January is to get the front cover done, and then make the booklet itself. The inner pages will be done one at a time as I can....but definitely they will be a priority and probably will end up being the thing i do each month as a ufo.....hopefully it won;t take very many months!

The postcards I made for the swap

Here are the five postcards that i made for the swap...I feel so guilty cause none of them are the caliber of what i recieved. I have one more to do cause i made a mistake and sent one to someone who was not on my list. I don;t want to say which one it was in case she has not recieved it yet. I learned so much making these cards....especially about finishing the edges of them....that is the one part i am very pleased with.

To CrazyquiltingFriends,Learn to Embroider and Stitching Post members

I was working the day Thanksgiving was celebrated in the United States, but that happens to be one holiday that i can celebrate anywhere, no matter what. It's my favorite because it really is about connection.....connection with friends, with family....and with yourself as well......understanding that we are connected by being alive....and if we allow it....we have have much to offer and much to receive....to be simply and deeply grateful is not necessarily a religious idea...all one needs is to recognize that no accomplishment is made individually alone......food is available because others grow it, yet others pick it, and someone else probably packaged it and drove the truck the brought it.....the clothes we wear, the furniture we use is the embodiment of the labor of countless others....and no matter what we subscribe to as the reason for life.....we are in fact connected;it is simply a matter of opening the heart and recognizing that no one succeeds alone..we share the planet and each moment connected to each other.
I would like to take this particular moment to thank the members of the Crazyquiltingfriends list, and the Learn to Embroider list...and the Stitching Post list for being open to the connections that we have made...for whatever reason and on whatever basis. My life is enriched and my heart is glad. So many of us are going through some pretty tough times right now....if not we ourselves, then someone we love dearly.

The CQF is different than the LTE and the Sp lists....having as it's basis the friendship that has formed between a number of people who have known each other quite a while. It is also similar to the LTE and SP in that it opens itself with arms wide to newcomers. On all three of these lists I have met people that care about me and check on me if i am not around.....they try to cheer me up when i am blue and feel bad if i feel bad.....and the same is true in reverse.....there are many many cyber hugs passing back and forth between here (????-where IS here when you are on the internet???) and Australia...and England, and California....and North Carolina....and much appreciation for the willingness to share what we know and love with each other..

To all the members of these three lists.....i wish to thank you for accepting me...for being willing to read posts, put up with my ups and downs and lack of organziation.....i want to thank you for confiding in me when you have...trusting me to care, and caring back.I thank you all for the opportunity to be connected.

Treasures

This has been the month from hell physically.....it's too long a story and very boring on top of that, but suffice it to say it will take a long time for the pain levels to go down to more or less tolerable. However.....it has eased up quite a bit and my computer is back up to speed as well....so here i am......finally!

ONe thing i have to say though, it hasn;t been the month from hell for friendship...quite the wonderful opposite. I have been on the recieving end of beautiful fiber postcards that were exchanged in a swap on the CrazyquiltingFriends list on Yahoo. Sandie does such a great job on that list....it really is like an e-home!

Take a look at the postcards below and see if you don;t agree with me that they are just incredible and wonderful.,...and every other superlative that i can find.No amount of physical pain can take away or dampen the wonderfullness that they are!

Sandie Wilmott


Sandie Wilmott


This is Sandie's card...the finest most even stitching..a single strand of thread and just perfect.....Sandie made all her cards in white with stunning accents and all of us who have been lucky enough to recieve one have had the same reaction-pure elegance!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Catherine Scott



This is such a warm and inviting card...isn;t it lovely....take a good look at that Santa face..is that the kindest,gentlest look you have ever seen.....it's like he's saying..that's ok...I know you've REALLY been good.....i love the SRE flowers and the red bugle beads inverting the colors on the foliage. Very very cool!
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Maureen Curlewis




Maureen says she doesn't like the red lacy knit, but i think it is perfect. I hope she finds yards and yards of it in her stash somewhere and decides it needs a new home...........gggggg....well, ok, one yard ought to do me for a few years...this is such a well put together card...i love the balance of the colors and the stitching....ok...i love everything about it....

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Ulla F.



This card is such a treasure.....i adore cross stitch, especially when it is pieced into cq....and this angel is just the right amount of detail without being fussy. The card is just gorgeous. I have such a long way to go to be good enough for these cards.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Maureen Bond



If you look closely and really take notice you will see the most delicate curl to the flower petals in the upper left hand corner....this flower was made with the finest silk gauze...it;s amazing...Maureen cut the petals out of silk teabags! That tells you the size she was working with. There is something so elegant about the simplicity of the compositiion..I can;t really put it into words why it affects me so much, but i just find myself reacting to it so positively.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++=
Maureen Curlewis-Winter Haiku




I saved this one for last although if I had been able to scan them as the cards came in, it would have been the first image..this is the first fiber postcard I ever recieved....I wish you all could see it in person....the sheer overlay has angelina fibers in it so that it sparkles....there are ab bugle beads stitched on to represent ice and sleet...this is truly a winter card. When i first saw this card on Maureen's blog it was love at first sight....the single tree and the sloping lines have such a sense of space...and endurance.This tree, bowed but not broken....
and maureen was kind enough to send it to me as a sort of swap in trust.

11- 05-06 Postcard 2 finished/thoughts on UFO's

TheCQF group on yahoo is doing a holiday postcard swap and this the second one i have done. The third.fourth and fifth ones are in the works, with #3 almost done. I am glad to say that cause they have to be in the mail no later than 17th of this month.....needless to say i am pushing the deadline here....lol....



The white part on the left side is stuffed to look like mounds of snow...and the pinkish stitches you see are not really pink, it;s an ab specialty thread that reflects light in different ways. For the life of me i had no idea how to make a little cottage in the country with all the trimmings in such a small space. After i did the outline i went nuts looking for a wee wee miniature wreath...it would have had to be about 1/8th inch wide all told.....and no way could i find one in the usual stores.....then i went looking for fabric that might have tiny houses on it that i could applique...nope, all too big....soooo, this little brown country saltbox is stranded there in the snow.
===================================================================================

Sandie W. has put out a challenge to the rest of the stitching world....on her blog,
ABeautifulCraft
are more details, but the upshot is to try to finish those undone as yet projects in 2007 and blog our progress. These undone as yet projects are also known as:

WIPS-works in progress
WISPS-Works in SLOW progress
UFO's-unfinished objects..........
and for some of us.... formerly interesting things(FITS)

On her blog Sandie explains why she has a collection of UFO's and in an email conversation I enumerated the reasons why i have a drawerful of FITS.....and starts. And with encouragement from her...i now post them....(not in order of importance.)

1. once i learn the technique i get bored with the project sometimes.
2. sometimes while learning a technique i jump way ahead of it and want to try the next step asap!
3. sometimes if it doesn;t come out the way i think i want it and it is taking longer than i thought..or is harder than i thought then i put it aside till i either have time or patience...and then it sits!
4. My finishing skills are lousy..and i often will set something aside becuase i don;t know how to finish it and have it look nice too.
5. by the time i am near done with something, i am often so bored with it i don;t even want to see it again...unless it is for someone else....
6.I really have been impatient at times and jump from project to project.
7. i have so little time to stitch most of the time that i really coulnd;t finish anything but committments ..but i love to try things.

how's that for a fistfull of reasons........and i think one of the main things is that i need to leverage a little discipline into it!

10-27-06 Piecework Magazine

I wish i could show you some of the contents of this issue of Piecework magazine....it is chock full of stuff that stitchers love...information about various types of stitching..history, some how-two and some patterns, but for crazyquilters and others who use things other than threads alone, this is an especially wonderful issue cause is tells you how to make crochet covered buttons! They are gorgeous! I can see them on almmost anything...a cq, an embroidered piece that wants texture and suggestion of shape....and of course, clothing.

There is also a project for a knitted, embroidered and then finally felted pillow.
It can be found on on their website.

PW MAG

There is also an ad for the 2007 costume calendar that sounds just full of eyecandy! That can be bought from the Texas Tech University Press-the Costume Society of America is putting out these calendars yearly as part of a Historic Fashion Series.
PO BOX 41037 Lubbock Texas 79409-1036(TTUPress)



Does anyone here remember all the felt kits you could(and probably still can) buy for things like christmas ornaments and such....all the tiny figures you had to cut out and embellish with sequins and tiny stitches? Well, there is a full article on a tree skirt that was made like this and it is gorgeous. The only time i ever had the money to buy one of those kits, i was so disappointed in my lack of patience and skill...i just couldn;t get those tiny figures stitched! Here is someone who actually got the whole thing done and the results are so nice.And of course there is a pattern for a gret bird ornament. My favorite kind!



I don;t want to spoil everything, but there are more and more and more wonderful articles...beading...needlelace, some Chinese embroidery with a pattern...the whole issue is just wonderful.

10 27 06 2nd Postcard-WIP

Have the second postcard started..I have begun to use a timer in the sewing room....and i found that it took 1/2 our start to finish to get a postcard pieced and with the basting stitch all around the outside. This will help me figure out a time frame to get the others done.



ktj

10 25 06 Xmas Post card done!(1)

Below are the two sides of the First Xmas postcard i finished to my satisfaction. I am so pleased with it.lol.....
I fused the front and back to their own seperate pieces of heavyweight interfacing and then fused them together, then whipstitched the edges all around and added a puurely decorative buttonhole stitch to the front.

10 24 06 Re-embroidered butterfly

I have been going nuts trying to make fabric postcards that have a finished edge i can accept for myself....i like having a nice, neat edge with no little hairs or fuzzies....and i don;t mind at all having a nice machine satin stitch as long as it doesn;t end up all fuzzy............welllll.....it just may take me a long time to get that down pat with my machine. So instead of the fiber postcard i wanted to post, here is a piece of work from the past..........a re-embroidered butterfly. It's part of the weave of the fabric and i used single strand metallics and other threads on it.

Eve's Dragonfly scissors bag

Dragonfly scissors bag, originally uploaded by dreamdress2.

On the LTE we have been doing small bags and Eve is on a roll! This is her second one and i can see her doing these forever! They are very easy to make and the creative possibilites are endless, as Eve so well shows us!

ktj

10-22-06 More of Nikki's Work

This is some cross stitch and beading as a seam treatment that Nikki did on a round robin many years ago....isn;t it great!All of her stitching is such a treat to see.

ktj