A quilt finish!

Wheh! It's been a while.



**JUST TO CLARIFY, this isn't my own pattern or idea. I saw something like it on Pinterest maybe ... anyway, just not claiming it.

A quilt for my brother's birthday! He's 25.



I was just terrified of sandwiching and quilting this beast, but it wasn't a big deal. I think this helped:



It's my first bed-sized quilt. I didn't get a final measurement, but it covered the top of our full-size mattress with a little drape.

Anyway ... the brother loved it! I gave it to him on his visit out here at Thanksgiving, and he used it when he crashed on our couch. Twice. We do holidays right in our family.

The specs:

Fabric is a mix of Kona solids (Orange, Jade, Earth and Daffodil) and Essex Linen (PFD and Sand).

The batting is Warm and Natural.

I used straight-line quilting, with rows an inch apart. I marked the lines with a Clover water-soluble marker, and about had a heart attack when the whole soluble thing wasn't solublizing. But it came out after a go in the washer sans soap and a tumble in the dryer sans heat.


We had fun photographing this one.





And most importantly, the brother loved it.

:: ::

On other fronts, I built a lightbox.



Specifically to take photos of the dinos.



This one was mostly a just-to-see-how-it-works effort; now I want one big enough to accommodate sewing projects.

I made some super wonky stars.



Onesies.





Tag blankie. It's from Lotta Jansdotter's Simple Sewing for Baby. I made it to test sewing with minky, except I cheated and sandwiched some batting in there too (for sturdiness). Finding fabric ribbon was hard! My JoAnn didn't have any. I went to Target, but all their gift-wrapping ribbon wasn't fabric. But the ribbon adorning their gift bags was, so I bought a few and appropriated the ribbon. Not too bad of a situation, because gift bags (the rad plain brown paper ones) always come in handy.



Soft baby blankie. The front is a great flannel. The back is super-soft minky. I've never really sewed with either before and was nervous. The flannel was fun. The minky made me swear a lot. It's slippery, even with a walking foot. But it makes an awesome baby blanket. I sort of wish I'd used a piece of quilt batting in the middle to give this thing some weight, but I don't the the layers would have stuck together.



I made a pretty bad-ass pie.



Ran well with others.



And learned some new skills!





All in about a week and a half.

Winning.

Pie

This pie.

Not to brag or anything, but it might be the best thing to ever come out of an oven. Not just our oven. An oven. As in all ovens across the world.



Oh my.

I'm a little sad I didn't take any photos of the cooking/baking process. The making of a masterpiece should be documented. Plus it was really pretty. But I was rushing to bind a quilt/take a shower/bake blondies for work and didn't have the time.

Anyway, here's what went into the filling. The crust is an all-butter crust (2.5 cups flour, 2 sticks butter, 1 teaspoon salt, 5 tablespoons ice water, minimally mixed ... to the point where it barely held together ... for maximum flakiness)

2 big parsnips, chopped into smallish pieces
3 big carrots, cut like the parsnips
1 onion, minced
2 cloves garlic, smashed to tiny bits
Frozen peans
Veggie stock
Butter
Olive oil
Flour
Salt, pepper, sage, thyme and chives

I sautéed the carrots and parsnips with salt and pepper in a lot of olive oil, like a half-inch deep in a big pan. I let them go for about 10 minutes over medium heat. They didn't quite brown up, but they got soft. Then I added the onion and cooked it all for another 5 minutes, then threw in the garlic and took it all off the heat.

I drained out and kept the oil, then moved the veggies to a bowl to cool. I added the olive oil back to the pan, along with a few tablespoons of butter and the sage and thyme (both dried). I cooked that until it foamed, and then added the flour to form a paste. That cooked for a few minutes, and then I whisked in the veggie stock until I had a thick cream.

Then I dumped the veggies back in the pan, added the peas and chopped chives and let everything cool while I rolled out the bottom crust. Then I assembled the pie and baked it at 400 degrees for about 50 minutes. I used a massive pie dish; it'll probably need less time in a normal-size one.

It's seriously so good. And cheap, too.

I don't have any photos of us eating it because I forgot my camera at work. But if I'd taken any, you'd see an almost-half-gone pie by the time dinner was over.

It was that good.