BOOKS – Chasing MY Life WHEREVER it Leads ME

ELVIS COOKIES ala DUFF GOLDMAN

Duff says that the King deserves a cookie. And you know what, he’s absolutely right, and I for one am so glad Duff created a cookie for him! Elvis was known for some odd eating combos and this cookie showcases them all – bananas, peanut butter, garlic, bacon, pretzels… YEP I said garlic. I always make a recipe as written the first time and then adjust from there. I did include the garlic, but I WILL omit it next time. Hubby couldn’t taste it, but I could.

ELVIS COOKIES ala DUFF GOLDMAN yields 30 cookies
3 cups sugar
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup peanut butter, smooth or crunchy
2 tablespoons molasses
1 tablespoon PURE vanilla extract
BIG pinch of baking powder*
1 garlic clove, minced **(optional)
2 teaspoons kosher salt
3 VERY ripe bananas
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/4 cups chocolate chips
3/4 cup pretzel crumbs (about 5 ounces hard pretzels smashed)
10 bacon strips, cooked crisp and chopped FINE

Preheat oven to 350°.
Spray baking sheet with non-stick cooking spray.
In a large bowl combine the butter, peanut butter, molasses, sugar, baking powder, garlic and salt, mixing until all one color.
Add the bananas, mixing until all the same consistency.
Add flour and gently mix until incorporated with no lumps.
Fold in the chocolate chips, pretzel pieces and bacon.
This is my little addition – chill the entire batch of dough for 1 hour before using.
Place large walnut sized spoon fulls onto prepared baking sheets 2 inches apart.
Chill baking sheets 10 minutes.
Bake for 12 minutes or until golden on the outside and gooey in the middle.
Cool on wire rack.

*NOTE: Duff qualifies this by saying yes, he said a BIG pinch of baking powder and to get over it 😀

**NOTE: Duff claims that the garlic isn’t weird and that there is actually a long standing tradition of putting garlic in chocolate chip cookies. I have to admit t does sound weird, but in reality no weirder than the bacon 😀 But like I said hubby couldn’t taste it, but I could so I will omit it next time and leave it up to you.

The Romance of Cookery and Housekeeping – A Thousand Ways to Please A Husband

I found this awesome book at a rummage sale a few years ago and it’s just been sitting on the shelf begging to be read, “A Thousand Ways to Please A Husband with Bettina’s Best Recipes”, by Louise Bennett Weaver and Helen Cowles LeCron. This is a 1932 complete revised edition. It was originally written in 1917.

It appears (I have hardly began to read it, only leafed through it so far) to have been written as a novel of Bettina’s life and interjects the recipes as needed to emphasis the points of the message.

By today’s standards it is obviously outdated, but I found it amusingly quaint and it has some awesome recipes. It’s in like new condition. This too I find amazing, it obviously wasn’t well used. Over the next few weeks, on Tuesdays, I will post several of the more appealing recipes that I’ve adapted to today’s ingredients and standards.

GOOD HOPE ROAD by LISA WINGATE

Wingate’s stories are all about compassion, understanding and trying to see each other’s point of view while you realize the grass isn’t always greener, maybe you just need to water your own grass more.

KENTUCKY HOT BROWN

Tonight we tried the HOT BROWN from THE BROWN HOTEL from OFF THE EATEN PATH by Morgan Murphy from Southern Living. I did have to make a couple of small substitutions but we loved it and cannot even think about changing the substitution back.

THE HOT BROWN serves 4

1/4 cup butter

1/3 cup flour

4 cups heavy cream

10 tablespoons Pecorino Romano cheese, divided**

salt and pepper, to taste

1 pound thinly sliced turkey (I used Costco sliced and it was perfect)

4 Texas toast slices (I used thick Sourdough)

4 plum tomatoes, sliced lengthwise (I used grape tomatoes halved and scattered)

1/4 teaspoon paprika

8 cooked bacon slices

2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

Preheat broiler with rack 4 inches from heat.
Melt butter in a heavy 2 quart saucepan over medium low heat.
Whisk in the flour until smooth and golden.
Gradually whisk in cream over medium heat, whisking constantly until thick and bubbly.
Stir in 1/2 cup cheese, salt and pepper, stirring to blend.
Place toast slice in the bottom of a lightly greased casserole dish.
Top with turkey slices.
Top with tomatoes.
Spoon cheese sauce over tomatoes.
Sprinkle with the remaining cheese.
Broil 5 minutes or until cheese begins to brown.
Sprinkle with paprika.
Top with bacon pieces.
Sprinkle with parsley.
Enjoy.

**I didn’t realize I was out, but I was, so I substituted sharp cheddar and it was lick the plate clean good.

SNAPPER WRAPPERS

SNAPPER PATRICK from PAT’S FISHERMAN’S WHARF was a fantastic choice!! I will make this again and again, but next time I will go simpler and make it more of a casserole bake.

SNAPPER WRAPPERS
1 pound lump crabmeat, drained (I used chopped flaked Krab)
4 skinned red snapper fillets (any white fish would work)
1 teaspoon salt (we felt this was too much-next time I’ll use 1/4 teaspoon)
1 teaspoon garlic powder (we felt this was too much-next time I’ll use 1/2 teaspoon or fresh)
1 teaspoon ground red pepper
1/4 cup butter, melted
2 tablespoons water
lemon wedges (I used lemon slices under each roll up while cooking)

Preheat oven to 400˚.
Pick crabmeat, removing any bits of shell.
Cut snapper fillets in half lengthwise.
Top each fillet with about 1/3 cup crabmeat.
Roll up fillets and secure with wooden toothpicks.
Blend together the salt, garlic powder and red pepper.
Combine melted butter and water in the bottom of your baking dish, blending well.
Sprinkle 1 teaspoon of seasoning mix over top of the butter mixture.
Arrange roll ups in baking dish.
Sprinkle roll ups with remaining seasoning mixture.
Bake uncovered for 16-18 minutes or fish flakes when tested with a fork.
Plate roll ups.
Spoon pan drippings over roll ups before serving.
Serve with lemon wedges.

2014, COOKBOOKS, MENUS and A PLAN FOR SIMPLIFYING

Every year I receive a new cookbook from my brother as a gift for either my birthday or Christmas. I sit and devour these books as I read them like a novel tagging every “MUST TRY” recipe. Besides those cook books I’ve been collecting recipes from magazines, newspapers and blogs. I recently scanned in all those little pieces of paper which took up and entire 18 gallon tote. I also vowed to hubby not to cut out any more, well at least for awhile.

This year I’ve decided to work on the basics – my working theory that once you have a good foundation the rest is all icing. I’m particularly fond of tutorial style with color pictures and/or historical based cookbooks. So all the scanned little recipes will wait (by the way, there were over 5000 recipes in that tote) and I’m going to concentrate on these 3 cookbooks this year.

OFF THE EATEN PATH by Morgan Murphy from Southern Living
SECOND HELPINGS by Morgan Murphy from Southern Living
AMERICA’S TEST KITCHEN QUICK FAMILY COOKBOOK

I’ve always believed that no recipe is the same depending on who is making it and their techniques – whether the techniques are passed down through the generations, are school learned or experience learned through trial and error. Once you get your basics down pat, variations based on your likes and dislikes become fun and easy to experiment with and then the rest is all gravy.

So I sat down with these cookbooks and read from cover to cover, tagging each recipe that caught my eye (and tummy too) to try or technique I wanted to learn and then made a list by categories.

Like Julie cooking her way through Julia Child’s cookbook, I will work my way through these books before buying another cookbook or touching my stash of recipes. My biggest drawback will be that I’m only cooking for 2 so need to alter or adapt almost every recipe. Spices and seasonings will become my best friends to make these recipes my own. It’s all about your choice of ingredients, spices, seasonings and ALSO about HOW you put them together.

Our palates know flavors and based on our genetics we all crave different flavors, flavor combinations and have our individual cravings and comfort foods. Cooking healthy can be done from scratch easily with enough preparation and organization.

My ultimate goal is to cook my way through 2014 using absolutely no pre-prepared ingredients while learning new techniques and trying tried and true recipes.

Here is my basic thoughts on menu planning and what should be in a basic pantry from earlier posts:

~ MENU PLANNING ~

There is more to menu planning than just deciding what to make for dinner, at least for the average family. We’re a military family used to getting paid once a month and trying to make it last. So for me, menu planning also encompasses recipe scouring, coupon clipping (we love to read the Sunday papers and have coffee. One of the things I always go for first is the coupons to see what I can save for us – hubby always laughs when I get excited at a large coupon for something already on the list – LOL), sale ad reading and logical common sense planning. I do participate in Menu Plan Monday, but I actually prepare my menu for the entire month all at once and then just break it up for posting.

I start the last week of the previous month with checking out what I already have in the freezer inventory and then the ads for my local markets for the upcoming week. I see what meats will be going on sale and then scour my recipe file for recipes to match. One of the biggest things I do to help not only with cost of ingredients, but also waste is to make sure to back up recipes to each other that use similar ingredients that I can buy in bulk. For example if a recipe calls for 1/2 an onion for Monday night’s recipe, I make sure Tuesday night’s recipe uses the other 1/2. I also know which meals we’ll probably have leftovers for so I plan to either freeze part of it for a future meal or plan a CORN (clean out refrigerator night) within my plan if there is only going to be a little of this and that leftover. I write my list and then I match up the coupons for whatever staples (flour, sugar, eggs, butter, etc…) I need and then the luxuries if there is room within the budget. If there is a really good sale I buy in super bulk for the following month also. Now I know this sounds like a lot of work, but the whole process takes less than an hour and then it’s done for the month.

I have every scrap of a recipe I ever saved as well as many of my grandma’s too. It’s like an obsession with me. If a recipe sounds good in a magazine, I figure I can make it better based on my family’s likes and dislikes and tuck it away to try and manipulate at a later date. I recently decided it was time to clean-up this mess.

I found an old metal LP file box at a garage sale for 50 cents and dressed it up a bit so it didn’t look like a trash bin on my kitchen counter. (it was a beat up lime green with stickers everywhere). I have written 2 family reunion cook books in the past which helped some with eliminating the scraps of paper and I’m also in the midst of writing a Tastebook to use as family Christmas gifts that is helping to clean up this mess on a permanent basis.

I have a perpetual list on the counter and every time we use something or run out of something, everyone is trained (finally) to list whatever they used or ran out of on an ongoing basis.

We keep a pretty concise calendar with everyone’s activities, appointments, meetings and such on it. I also write what we will be eating on each day so they’ll know what to expect. For the planning purposes here I’ll show you the rest of the month so you can see the pattern(s). If for some reason we have to cancel a night I will rearrange the week so that the meal actually canceled is one using something from the freezer, not the fresh ingredients I’ve already purchased. When I do the shopping I buy in bulk to cut the cost and since I have my menu plan ahead of time, I break down the bulk package into meal appropriate sizes before freezing when I get home. Then I wrap each meat package with a color coded band to help keep the freezer organized. Red for beef, green for fish, blue for chicken and yellow for pork.

Here is a sample month of menu planing with links to current recipes. With each meal we also incorporate a small salad or 4 ounces of Green Goddess.

MONDAY ~ Meatloaf & Scalloped Potatoes
TUESDAY ~ Stuffed Shells & Salad
WEDNESDAY ~ Seafood Salad & Parmesan Rolls
THURSDAY ~ Chicken Cacciatore & Salad
FRIDAY ~ Chicken Carbonara & Salad
SATURDAY ~ Lemon Lime Pepper Chicken & Rice Pilaf
SUNDAY ~ Hot Wings and Home made bleu cheese dressing

MONDAY ~ Out
TUESDAY ~ Mexican Baja Casserole
WEDNESDAY ~ Spaghetti Bolegnese & Salad
THURSDAY ~ Sauteed Garlic Shrimp & Salad
FRIDAY ~ Meatloaf Muffins & Garlic Smashers
SATURDAY ~ Chicken and Onions in White Cream Sauce
SUNDAY ~ Beef Stew & Cheddar rolls

MONDAY ~ Taco Ring Salad
TUESDAY ~ Chicken Cordon Bleu & Applesauce
WEDNESDAY ~ Orange Honey Chicken & Fried Rice
THURSDAY ~ Grandma’s Chicken and Noodles – I’m working on a written recipe for this – I’ve made it from scratch for so long – it’s hard to write it down – LOL
FRIDAY ~ Chili and Beer Bread
SATURDAY ~ Chicken Enchiladas & Refried Beans
SUNDAY ~ Stuffed Pork Chops & Salad

MONDAY ~ PEANUT PORK NOODLE SALAD
TUESDAY ~ HOBO FOIL STEW
WEDNESDAY ~ CHICKEN SAUSAGE GUMBO
THURSDAY ~ HOT CHICKEN SALAD
FRIDAY ~ CROQUE MADAME
SATURDAY ~ HOT WING SOUP
SUNDAY ~ TWISTED PEPPER STEAK IN GRAVY

As you can see the theme for this month is chicken with a bit of pork and hamburger thrown in.

ESSENTIAL KITCHEN INGREDIENTS

~ Tools, Condiments and Seasonings ~

I’ve been thinking about this category a lot and no matter how you look at it, it is subjective. I mean if I cooked a lot of oriental food I’m sure I’d find a WOK an essential tool, but I don’t so we’ll approach this through logic and I’ll list ‘my’ essentials and then you can interpret any way necessary for your household and the meals you prepare.

As for essential tools I have many that I consider truly essential! But, in reality we can truly get by with very few. I consider a good set of cutting boards, a set of great sharp knives, my cast iron skillet, quality stainless steel pans, spoons, spatulas and tongs a necessity. I try to stay away from most plastics as they do wear quicker and tend to harbor bacteria. I’m still using the same stainless steel tools and cookie sheets I spent a small fortune on 20 years ago, so that expenditure has paid off. The cast iron skillet has been passed down through my hubby’s parents and grandparents and it too is still going strong. I did purchase new heavy gauge stainless steel pots and pans about 10 years ago and they look brand new as stainless cleans so well. I also stay away from all non-stick surfaces as they do wear eventually and I just don’t want that in our food. I do change my cutting boards and rubber spatulas every couple of years just to be on the safe side despite always running them through the dishwasher.

As much as I like all my pampered chef toys, they could all be eliminated by using just what I have listed above. Personally I cannot live without my essential Kitchen Aid stand mixer & hand mixer and my Cuisinart mini food chopper. I have a blender, but only use it to make my home made Creamy Tomato Basil soup. I don’t even own an electric can opener. I do love my slow cooker too and my Magnalite stock pots and roaster, but they too could be substituted with other pots and pans.

Now for seasonings, this too is subjective based on the foods you prepare, but honestly if that recipe you cut out of a magazine calls for Herbs de Provence don’t run out and buy it for a one time recipe. It is a combination of herbs you probably already have on hand. It usually contains rosemary, marjoram, basil, bay leaf and thyme. So you can adjust what you have with your own likes. What I consider essential in the spice cabinet around here is kosher salt, sea salt, white & black pepper, celery salt, garlic salt/powder, basil, thyme, oregano, marjoram, parsley, paprika, cinnamon, apple pie spice, pumpkin pie spice, PURE vanilla, maple sugar, orange rind, bourbon extract, rum extract and vanilla powder.

In the pantry I have:

flours ~ all purpose, bread and cake flour, self rising flour
sugars ~ fine sugar, brown sugar, powdered sugar
coconut
golden raisins
cornstarch
baking soda
baking powder
rices ~ white rice, brown rice…
barley
split peas
tapioca
various pastas.

In the way of liquid essentials I have:

Worcestershire sauce
soy sauce
honey
apple cider vinegar
red wine vinegar
avocado oil
olive oil
canola oil
balsamic vinegar and several flavored rice wine vinegars.

In the refrigerator I have:

mayonnaise
ketchup (both homemade when I have the time)
mustard (despite my severe allergy everyone else LOVES it)
sun dried tomato pesto
Better than Bouillon chicken and beef bases
fresh lemons & limes
chili sauce.

The real key here is to have what YOU need on hand at all times without a lot of effort.

Lisa Wingate – author – believer in hope

Good Hope Road was the story of a town devastated by a tornado and how a young girl from the wrong side of the tracks so to speak was given a chance at things she otherwise wouldn’t have because most considered her white trash.Wingate’s stories are all about compassion, understanding and trying to see each other’s point of view while you realize the grass isn’t always greener, maybe you just need to water your own grass more.

I’m dreaming about books again, cookbooks that is!

Check these books out at Amazon

from the reviews I want to cook it all!

Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics is the essential Ina Garten cookbook, focusing on the techniques behind her elegant food and easy entertaining style, and offering nearly a hundred brand-new recipes that will become trusted favorites.

Marjorie Druker is passionate about soups. She fell in love with soups when she first heard the story Stone Soup. After attending Johnston & Whales, Marjorie created the menu for the popular Boston Market restaurant chain, and soups were always her favorite. “My niche is taking what people like to eat and turning it into a soup,” she says.

Over time, twin enterprises Cook’s Illustrated magazine and America’s Test Kitchen have published many books dedicated to providing exhaustively tested recipes–“best” versions of traditional dishes plus definitive takes on kitchen equipment and ingredients. Some series readers have complained of endlessly recycled or rejiggered recipes; others take each book at face value, finding the formulas and cooking insights good and helpful. America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook, which calls itself a cookbook, cooking school, and kitchen reference in one, offers over 1,200 approachable recipes for a very wide range of dishes–from “weekday” fare like Creamy Rice Casserole, Cheesy Nachos with Spicy Beef, and Skillet Lasagna, to dressier recipes, including Pan-Seared Lamb Chops with Red Wine Rosemary Sauce, Roasted Trout Stuffed with Bacon and Spinach, and Chocolate Marshmallow Mousse. There are “specialty” chapters devoted to sandwiches, drinks, and slow cooker and pressure cooker dishes; a grilling section is a tutorial in itself.

Thumbing through the pages…

Amazon’s book description: She’s taught us every facet of Italian cooking–from traditional and regional to seasonal and contemporary. She even made us fall in love with pasta again by opening us up to lighter, healthier versions that don’t weigh us down. Now the Food Network star and bestselling author of Everyday Pasta, Giada De Laurentiis, takes us down a new path, sharing her love of food with clean, vibrant, simple flavors and bursts of bright colors that look as beautiful on the plate as they are delicious.

Yes, you will still find those fabulous recipes she remembers so fondly from family meals, but you’ll also find updated twists on classic trattoria favorites–California-inflected, hearty but not overwhelming, and with the perfect balance of healthfulness and terrific flavor. Wouldn’t you love a faster, lighter take on osso buco (here made with turkey instead of veal), a salad with real substance (like one of cantaloupe, red onion, and walnuts), and fish that gets an Italian makeover by way of lots of fresh veggies and accents such as fennel and grapefruit salsa? And let’s not forget dessert. After all, what’s not to adore about little doughnuts dipped in chocolate sauce?

Ranging from soups and snacks to easy entres and elegant dinner-party fare, Giada’s recipes are perfect for any day of the week. And for the first time, she includes a full section of dishes that the little ones will love making as much as they love eating (like mini chicken meatballs). With something to please everyone at your table, Giada’s Kitchen deliciously demonstrates why Giada De Laurentiis has become America’s best-loved Italian cook.

Italy meets California in Giada De Laurentiis’s collection of 100 new recipes. She focuses on fresh ingredients, simple preparation, and bright flavors. Anyone who wants to indulge in the pleasures of Italian food without feeling weighed down will find inspiration for delicious, hearty yet healthy weekday meals. Giada’s recipes satisfy both our desire to eat with gusto and to feel good about what we eat.

Amazon’s book description: Slow-roasted meats, marinated vegetables, surprising flavor combinations, this is not your mother’s sandwich.

With acclaimed restaurants located across the United States, and a high-profile job as head judge of the hit show Top Chef, Tom Colicchio is one of the best-known chefs and personalities in the culinary world today. His popular chain of ’wichcraft sandwich shops is known for crafting sandwiches with high-quality fresh ingredients prepared to Colicchio’s exacting standards. And since the first ’wichcraft opened in 2003, diners can’t seem to get enough.

In ’wichcraft, Colicchio shares the shops’ secrets with step-by-step recipes for all their best-loved offerings.

Amazon’s product description: Anyone who has visited Carmine’s flagship Times Square restaurant knows that Carmine’s food is the best of classic Italian cuisine—each dish prepared simply to bring out the most vibrant flavor and make anyone who tastes it smile and reach for seconds.

Carmine’s Family-Style Cookbook reveals the simple secret of Carmine’s longtime success—hearty, rich Italian food, just right for sharing, and perfect for cooking at home!

Carmine’s Family-Style Cookbook’s perfect Italian recipes include:
–Appetizers, Soups and Salads: from Chicken Wings Scarpariello-Style to Carmine’s Famous Caesar Salad
–Carmine’s Heroes: from classic Cold Italian Hero sandwiches to Italian Cheesesteak Heroes
–Pasta: from Country-style Rigatoni to Pasta Marinara
–Fish and Seafood Main Courses: from Salmon Puttanesca to Shrimp Fra Diavolo
–Meat and Poultry Main Courses: from Porterhouse Steak Contadina to Veal Parmigiana
–Side Dishes: from Spinach with Garlic and Oil to Creamy Polenta
–Carmine’s Desserts: from Chocolate Bread Pudding to the world-famous Titanic Ice Cream Sundae

Carmine’s restaurant packs them in every night in its four bustling locations, including its warm, festive Times Square flagship where over a million people from all across the country come every year to share meatballs, chicken parmigiana, linguini with clam sauce, and fried calamari. Carmine’s flavors are the tastes Americans love to cook and eat at home—fresh garlic, bubbling tomato sauce, and pasta boiled just to the perfect al dente. Try any of the recipes in Carmine’s Family-Style Cookbook and bring home that classic Italian flavor to your family.

Almost Meatless by Joy Manning

excerpt from Amazon’s review: Despite its title, almost every recipe in this book uses meat, fish or eggs. A collaboration between Manning, a former vegan, and Desmond, an unabashed meat lover, the aim is to help Americans, who they believe eat far more meat than is healthy or good for agricultural sustainability, compose meals that are both tasty and filling without having a slab of meat as the overbearing star ingredient. Instead, meat appears in smaller quantities supplemented by layers of flavor in the form of additional savory ingredients that should keep people who usually expect lots of meat from noticing the difference.

The Organized Quilter aka always a Novice, a Fabric Stash & a giveaway for National Quilt Day

I was having a conversation with my favorite homemaker friend Barbara about the dread I was having over the upcoming packing of my studio. I commented that my fabric stash for quilting alone was one of the worst parts because of the weight. The past couple of years have been all about this house so I haven’t gotten as much studio work done as originally intended. She mentioned how she’d love to learn to quilt but felt that it was too complicated to take on with her busy schedule. This got me thinking that I should do a post that would take the intimidation out of of learning to quilt.

I had always felt that way myself, intimidated that is to learn to quilt. I always wanted to learn but figured it took more time and effort than I had to give. I got my start quilting by accident and out of boredom one day. I wandered into a fabric store, Bolts in the Bathtub, and started browsing. The owner and her sister befriended me almost immediately and we began a wonderful friendship. They convinced me I needed something to fill my time and that it wasn’t as hard as I was making it out to be.

Hubby’s unit had just been deployed to Yakima, Washington for training before being shipped to Iraq so I agreed to sign up for a class to fill a few evenings and get the quilt bug out of my system. I got lucky though, the bug didn’t leave my system, but it bit really hard instead and drew out the quilter blood in me. Quilting became like a medicinal leech. It made me feel whole again and well. I also got lucky that hubby stayed state side for the duration of his deployment, but it still left me with quite a bit of time to fill during his long days, weeks and TDYs. I went on to complete ten quilt tops during that eighteen months. All but one of which now live somewhere else.

My biggest tip for any beginner who may feel intimidated by the thought of learning to quilt is to start by taking a beginner class at a qualified fabric store and/or quilt guild, start small and pick an easy to do pattern for your first quilt.

The whole process wasn’t as expensive as I thought it would be either. My beginner class ran about $30 plus fabric. During the duration of that class I learned and completed enough blocks of varying patterns for a small sampler quilt that I kept on my treadle sewing machine until recently and a sampler table runner. I had an awesome teacher too. If she didn’t know the answer to my question she would find out. She was also hands on and did quite a few tutorials. You were always welcome to drop in, bring your sewing machine and learn. The store became my home away from home. Ironically I have still yet to bind the table runner. The sampler now hangs in my foyer. Even with 2 dozen quilts completed I feel like a novice. There is always something new to learn about quilting which makes it a fun and rewarding hobby.

There are many internet sites out there offering free quilt patterns, but one of the easiest to use that I have found is free patterns.com .

There were a few tools to purchase such as a good rotary cutter, cutting mat, quilting ruler and quilting square. One of the most valuable tools I purchased was Harriet Hargrave’s Heirloom Machine Quilting. This book truly is a comprehensive reference guide to machine quilting. This book is full of easy to follow instruction and diagrams for doing the most complicated of tasks and doing them correctly. I keep it handy near my sewing machine and freely write notes in the margin.

Dawna asked me help out at the quilt show that next summer. I had a blast. I visited all of the vendors at least twice and talked and listened to so many experienced quilters. I learned so much in that 2 days I felt like I should have been paying for a class. One of the coolest things I learned was using a kaleidoscope for choosing colors. What you do is put all the fabrics you are thinking of choosing into a stack (bolts work really well) then step back and use this little toy as a kaleidoscope. If any one fabric stands out, remove it and start again. Keep this up until you have the fabrics you need and they make a continuous kaleidoscope pattern where no one color or fabric stands out by itself.

Over the last several years I have acquired a HUGE fabric stash, but nothing compared to Dawna’s stash. The store, Bolts in the Bathtub was aptly named because she had such a HUGE stash of fabric that she actually stored the extra bolts in the spare bathroom’s bathtub.

There are literally thousands of quilt patterns to be had out there. One of the easiest to read, follow and assemble brands of patterns that I have found is by Atkinson Design. Some of my favorites by them are Yellow Brick Road, Daisy Chain, Slide Show, Cheese and Crackers and Tile Tango.

These little Sterilite organizing boxes are perfect. I write the pattern name and recipients name on each box. I may not get them made right away, but I’m ready. The only thing not in each box is the batting and occasionally the backing. I also keep all my patterns in plastic sleeves and then I keep those alphabetically in a couple of large binders. That way they are always easy to find and never misplaced.

One of the greatest things I discovered when I learned to quilt is 108 inch backing materials. For most size quilts this eliminates having to piece your backing.

While organizing the studio I ran across duplicates of 2 super easy patterns and and picture quilt book of poems. In order to be entered to win one of these just leave me a comment on this post. I’ll be giving away the book, Winter Lights ~ A Season in Poems & Quilts by Anna Grossnickle Hines, the pattern, Tree farm by Thimbleberries and the pattern Allegro by Atkinson Design. I’ll leave this giveaway open until March 21st to celebrate National quilt day, the 3rd Saturday in March.

These are some of the quilts I have either just finished or am working on.

Now just for your reading pleasure also is the Elm Creek Quilt series by Jennifer Chiaverini. These are warm and refreshing novels. I have read the entire series. The series does not have to be read in order, but I recommend it for a more pleasurable experience. I learned quite a bit just from these books about the rich history of quilting and patterns. This is an outstanding series of novels that allows us to explore human relationships on so many levels of depth.

The Organized Quilter aka always a Novice, a Fabric Stash & a giveaway for National Quilt Day

There are many internet sites out there offering free quilt patterns, but one of the easiest to use that I have found is free patterns.com .

Now for the organized part. Some of my stash is already allocated for specific quilts as you can see from this picture. These little Sterilite organizing boxes are perfect. I write the pattern name and recipients name on each box. I may not get them made right away, but I’m ready. The only thing not in each box is the batting and occasionally the backing. I also keep all my patterns in plastic sleeves and then I keep those alphabetically in a couple of large binders. That way they are always easy to find and never misplaced.

One of the greatest things I discovered when I learned to quilt is 108 inch backing materials. For most size quilts this eliminates having to piece your backing.

These are some of the quilts I have either just finished or am working on.

♥

The Organized Quilter aka always a Novice, and Fabric Stash

There are many internet sites out there offering free quilt patterns, but one of the easiest to use that I have found is free patterns.com .

One of the greatest things I discovered when I learned to quilt is 108 inch backing materials. For most size quilts this eliminates having to piece your backing.

These are some of the quilts I have either just finished or am working on.

Category: BOOKS