I took a long-distance train trip from Chicago to San Francisco on the California Zephyr at the end of January. I woke up early to see the sunrise. I took images from the observation car with my phone pressed against the window. The images aren’t the best, but the view was spectacular. It was worth the early morning rise.
This is somewhere in Nevada. The emptiness and fog were so beautiful. Wake up early, so worth it.
Note: I was trying to get this post done for a while, but life throws curve balls, and things are just a little delayed.
No. 7 started with wanting to make a quilt with a star pattern. I looked through my stash and found what I thought would be enough scraps for a throw. The scraps also gave me an idea of who the quilt was for.
Once I tested the star pattern, I realized I may not have enough print scraps for a star-only quilt. I worked up a few sketches and chose the simplest solution.
I decided on a square of four prints surrounded by pink. I had the pieces mostly cut, and sewing up the blocks was fast. The layout was easy, as I laid it out in my sketch.
After a few mistakes, the blocks are done. One last check to see if I’m good with the placement. I did wonder if it needed a border.
I decided against the border because it didn’t go well with the backing and binding I planned to use. I found a perfect piece for the backing in my stash. It was large enough that I didn’t need to be stitched together. The backing print had a reddish-purple background that went well with the quilt top. Then, I found an olive green swirl print that worked well with the backing print. Both prints had similar greens that worked well with the quilt top.
I didn’t know what I would do for the quilting. I hate seeing my wobbly stitch lines that should be straight on the quilt. And when I was testing out free motion quilting (which I didn’t do), I did some test quilting with random intersecting circles that I enjoyed. That was my plan.
We all should remember (well, I should say “I”) that my test quilting was done on small pieces of scrap versus a quilt the size of a throw. Thank goodness it wasn’t a bigger blanket.
Tah Dah! Here it is. I thought I would have more control of the swirls, but the quilt’s size made a big difference from the test I did. A bit of ripping out and starting over again was involved. It’s been done for a while and has been with its new owner. I hope she likes it or finds someone who does.
I need to work on my quilting skills, which means more quilting. Next in my queue is a throw for a friend of a friend who gave me some 70s prints from her mom. I just have to get my sewing room back up to working order. I moved my machines inside, but I still need to set them up to make my quilting more efficient.
I spend more time thinking about the future and what life will be like after my parents are gone. I may complain about my life as a caregiver. But once they are gone, what will I do. It scares me a bit because I will really be on my own.
I hope I will have the ambition to keep up doing things creative and looking for things that are beautiful.
Every morning, I wonder what my parents will be like today. My biggest challenge is having enough patience to care for my parents. Life as a caregiver is the hardest job I have ever had.
Mom and Dad make leis with pakalana blossoms from our yard.
I hope your holidays were festive and fun. I did start off trying to post this before Christmas. But I got stuck and decided to stop. I started a new post about what I made and thought I could combine this post and my made post. Well, it didn’t happen. I’m back at it again. I wanted to share what I made.
I had a late start with my Christmas baking and spent a few days catching up. I initially thought I was going down the cookie route, but I turned to a few old favorites to share this year.
I used my favorite quiche recipe, Caramelized Onions and Zucchini Quiche. It was always a hit at my office parties. I had all the ingredients (well, almost) and had enough to make two. I used this quiche recipe from One Perfect Bite as my base. I tend to make it cheesier than the recipe calls for, and I ran out of milk, so I added heavy cream (how could that hurt it, haha).
I was going through old posts and realized I’ve been making this tart every year since we received a gift of Harry and David pears for the holidays. These were the last of the pears of this year’s gift. I kept them till they were very ripe and juicy. I found this recipe on the Chowhound forum years ago, but the link doesn’t take you to the recipe. I decided to add the recipe below the pictures. The tart is a combination of tart/cake. The juiciness of the pears creates a custard-like quality with the batter. Perfectly sweet.
The recipe was originally found on the Chowhound forum from Gallery Girl
Ingredients:
4 or so ripe, juicy pears, peeled, cored, and cut into sixths or eighths
1 stick butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Spray an 8-inch (important) spring form pan with Pam.
In a large bowl, cream the butter, sugar, and vanilla with an electric mixer. Add the eggs one at a time. Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Incorporate it into the wet mixture.
Spread the batter into the pan. Now, in a pinwheel pattern, press the slices of pear, peeled side up, into the batter. Cram in as many as you can; since the batter rises and covers the pears, there are no points for style here. The more pears, the moister the cake will be.
Bake until a skewer comes out clean, about an hour. If you have any doubts, UNDERBAKE. This is a whole different animal if it dries out. Then it’s just a cake. Correctly done, you’ll love it. It’s just one of those recipes that is greater than the sum of its parts. really.
Moving back home and becoming a caregiver for my parents made me want to make food that they loved, and I’m slowly learning to love, too. A lot of these foods are what I had as a kid. Probably, my taste palette wasn’t sophisticated enough to appreciate their deliciousness. Or what tell everyone, I didn’t like them before, I thought they were old lady food. But now that I’m an old lady, I love them. haha.
One of these foods that I now love is manju. Manju is a Japanese confection. It’s like a filled mochi or biscuit. Unlike mochi, the dough is made with wheat flour instead of rice. The filling is a sweetened paste made out of beans or sweet potato. I found this recipe for sweet potato manju from Keeping It Relle. And have kept it on the side waiting for the right moment to make it.
In my utter craze of holiday baking, I forgot to document one of the bakes (Sweet Potato Haupia pie) that led me to finally make this Manju recipe. I made too much potato and needed to do something with it. Ta Dah! I wish I could say what it tastes like, but my two roommates ate the last three pieces. But everyone I received it said it was good. The key to this recipe is to measure the filling and dough before you start. Both the dough and filling are very sticky. And it helps keep the manju clean and tidy.
Princess Hot Flash 