2010 April 30 — Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara

Mystery Questions Answered

April 30, 2010 · by JudyL

If you have more questions or if you already asked and I missed it, send it again and I’ll edit this post to answer:

Timetable:

May 15 – Fabric requirements and cutting instructions will be posted.
June 1 (Tuesday) – First clue will be given.

I will give all the cutting instructions in the beginning. You can cut everything or you can wait til each day and see which pieces you will need for that clue (all the pieces will have an alphabetical identification), and cut those pieces then. If you are confident you will stick with it til the end, then cut all the pieces at once. If you’re not sure you’ll finish for whatever reason, my suggestion is that you cut the pieces for each clue as needed.

As with all my projects, the clues will be written out and posted so that they appear automatically on the correct day. In the unlikely event something happens to me, you will get all the clues.

Each Tuesday til we’re done, a clue will be posted. On Wednesday, a link box will be posted so that you can link to a blog post or a flickr or webshots type photo of your progress.

For those who get behind, I will not post my progress on my blog. If you do not want to spoil the surprise, do not click on the links in the link boxes!

My regular blog chatter will go on. At different times during other projects, I tried limiting my blog posts to just the instructions but I just have too much to say!

All of the instructions will stay up til at least a month after the project is finished.

I will give some guidance in choosing fabrics and I will show pictures of the fabrics I’m using, as well as pictures of other choices I would use. Please remember that tone one tones are really the only things I know how to use though!

Hopefully I will post instructions to make it clear for those who are using one dark/accent and one background fabric, as well as for those who are using scrappy backgrounds and scrappy dark/accent fabrics.

OK . . if I forgot anything, please let me know.

· Filed Under: Quilting · 13 Comments

Speaking of Flour

April 30, 2010 · by JudyL

Well, actually, we were speaking of the flower garden but . . flour or flower . . sound sounds the same to me!

Once upon a time I used whatever flour I found in the grocery store. Probably the less it cost, the more I liked it. From there I switched to bread flour for my breadmaking. Then I discovered King Arthur flour and thought that was the best thing ever. Then I found patent flour at a Mennonite store. I liked it a lot . . til I found Wheat Montana Natural White Premium Flour at the Amish store. Did you even know there were so many variations of flour? Here’s a good article about different flours.

The Wheat Montana flour is my all time favorite. A friend here bought a bag for the first time this week so I’m anxious to hear what she thinks of it. I buy the 50 pound bag and store it in 2 – 5 gallon buckets.

Some of my buckets were ordered new. Some were purchased for $1.50 from the local grocery store deli or for $1 from the Wal-Mart deli. Icing comes in these buckets and the deli cleans them up and sells them when they’re finished.

I use the Gamma Seal lids which seal it tightly and keep any critters out. If I were buying more than 50 pounds, I’d freeze it for a few days before putting it in the buckets but I’ll go through 50 pounds quickly enough that I didn’t bother to freeze this bag.

And sometimes most of the time, I make a bit of a mess transferring the flour from the bag to the buckets.

And then I make bread, and even though I should wait til it gets cool, I can’t! I slice a piece off when it first comes out of the oven (I don’t eat the end!), add some butter and make sure it’s worthy of serving to my family. I would never serve bread to my family if I didn’t taste it first, while it’s warm . . I’m just a good person like that!

· Filed Under: Cooking · 31 Comments

Flower Garden

April 30, 2010 · by JudyL

The flower garden has always been one of my favorite quilt patterns. I’ve never made one but I’ve started several.

Looking at the fabrics I used in this quilt, you can probably guess this one was started in the 80′s. Who knows if I will ever finish it.

A couple of friends have been working on flower garden tops using the English paper pieces method. Every year, the Paper Pieces ladies are at Paducah. Every year I stop and talk to them. Every year I say . . I’m going to do that! I have a bag of the pieces that I bought at Paducah in 2007.

Truth is . . I started one already but I don’t have a clue where it is. I don’t have much of it done and I was doing in 30′s prints (reproductions of course). Don’t ask me why I chose those. They’re so ‘not me’. The problem has been that everyone else was using a “theme” or one line of fabric. Elaine did hers in all Chocolate fabric. Someone used all reds, whites and blacks. I can’t remember what all I’ve seen and I kept trying to convince myself to use a certain line of fabric and make the whole top out of that line but . . I just can’t.

So, I’m going to use a green for the path . . maybe a Dimples by Andover green, and a yellow center . . maybe also a Dimples, but then everything else will just be from the stash. I can do that.

Only problem is . . when I’m sitting, I could be working on computer stuff, knitting socks or making paper pieces for the flower garden. And, I so rarely sit. Maybe I should put this project away before I ever get started!