Quilting — Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara

Sunny Side Up – Instructions #6

May 16, 2013 · by JudyL

For today’s instructions:

1. Today we’re going to be making quarter square triangles. Make these using your preferred method. If you do not have a preferred method, here are some basic instructions:

Using dark gold fabric and background fabric, cut 4 – 4-1/4” strips.
Cut these into 34 – 4-1/4” squares.
Cut these squares on the diagonal twice to yield 136 triangles.
Sew the triangles together as shown below. Make 136.

Sew two units together to create the quarter square triangle. These should measure 3-1/2” unfinished. Make 68.

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Camp Loopy 2013

May 14, 2013 · by JudyL

Camp Loopy has started and despite Vince’s threat, he did not withdraw me from Camp Loopy! You know me . . I would never try to talk someone into doing something but . . there are advantages to doing Camp Loopy. You get a discount, you get a prize at the end if you do all three session, it’s good, friendly competition . . even if you don’t finish, it’s fun!

I think this is my third summer to participate in Camp Loopy. No . . maybe it’s the 4th summer. I can’t remember. All I know for sure is that during the summer of 2011, we were moving and that was quite a crazy summer. Every year about this time, I come up with a million reasons why I can’t or shouldn’t do Camp Loopy but I know the minute it starts, and everyone else is doing it, I would be so sad if I weren’t do it. I’m in!

So, for the first camp session, we have to use a single skein of lace weight or fingering weight yarn and use at least 375 yards. And, it has to be a yarn we’ve never used before. One skein of yarn! I don’t have a clue what I will make but half the fun for me is going through all the patterns on Ravelry and planning and scheming. I don’t know why I feel the need to order my yarn the instant I know what the rules are. We can’t start til June 1 but .. I ordered my yarn yesterday as soon as I saw Sheri’s blog post.

The yarn I ordered is Three Irish Girls Adorn Sock in the color Storm Brew. (I don’t know if that link will work once they run out of yarn and there’s only one skein left as of the writing of this post.)

Camp Loopy Possibilities

After spending hours, literally, going through patterns, I’ve narrowed it down to these . . but I could add more to the list! :)

Storm Warning
Afternoon Tea
To Infinity and Beyond
3S Shawl
Summer Flies

The real problem with Camp Loopy is that on Ravelry, everyone is showing the yarn they ordered and what they’re going to make and I want to order all the yarn and buy all the patterns. That’s not good!

Right now, I’m leaning towards Storm Warning, or Summer Flies, or . . maybe 3S Shawl. Heck . . I don’t have a clue what I’ll make.

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Persimmon Blooms

May 14, 2013 · by JudyL

My dad had a persimmon tree when I was a kid. Of course, I thought they were terrible and wouldn’t dare eat them but at some point, I started to love them. In Missouri, we could find wild persimmons in the woods but the deer loved them too so it was a battle for us humans to get them before the deer did.

If you aren’t familiar with persimmons, there are two main types – astringent and non-astringent. For the astringent variety, if eaten before they are fully ripe, you would probably never eat another persimmon for the rest of your life. They contain a high level of tannin, which makes them quite bitter and they seem to coat your mouth with a nasty feeling that just won’t go away! Yuck! Therefore, astringent varieties have to be so darned ripe that they’re almost mushy before they’re fit to eat. They’re great for making cakes, cookies, pudding and the like. The one my dad had when I was a kid must have been an astringent variety because those persimmons caused lots of puckering! As kids, we always wanted to try one but one little bite had us vowing to never eat another persimmon. Mom would make cookies with them after they were mushy ripe and those were great.

The non-astringent variety is what we like most. They don’t have to be mushy ripe before they’re good. In fact, the best time to eat them, in my opinion, is when they’re crispy . . kinda crunchy like an apple, but sweet like a juicy pear.

We planted one persimmon tree, a non-astringent Fuyu, and will plant more but I noticed over the weekend that our tree is blooming. Here’s a little more info about them.

Persimmon Blossom

I had no idea what persimmon blossoms look like and had to google it to be sure this is really a persimmon. Not sure what I was expecting it to look like but it wasn’t this. If you look at the picture on this page, you’ll see that our blossoms look pretty correct. It’s a pretty massive blossom compared to peaches, pears and apricot blooms.

I hope this means we’ll get at least a few persimmons this year.

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Sunny Side Up – Instructions #5

May 13, 2013 · by JudyL

For today’s instructions:

1. From background fabric, cut 9 – 2-3/4” strips. Cut these into 72 – 5” x 2-3/4” rectangles.

2. Sew a rectangle to the left and right sides of the units from Instructions #4.

3. Sew the light four patches and the gold four patches to the ends of the remaining strips. Pay attention to the orientation (the colored corners should be at the bottom, next to the background rectangles.