Pretzel Rolls

When we visit the kids in their midwestern cities we have always enjoyed the pretzel rolls. Since I can't find them where I live, I have to make them from scratch.

These rolls make the perfect sandwich. They are moist, chewy and ohhh so flavorful. Delish as a hamburger bun.

The recipe is a little labor intensive, but not complicated. I put all of the ingredients into my bread machine and put it on the dough cycle. Then when the dough is ready I just make up the buns, boil in the soda water and bake.

This is the recipe I use. It is easy to follow and the rolls come out perfect every time....soooo good!

Unleashing My Creativity

When my art quilt group met in April we did slow blind contour drawing. It was an exercise from this book that involved drawing a still life slowly following the contours of all of the shapes with your eyes but not looking at your paper as you drew. Doing this exercise takes the left brain out of the picture. The left brain is bossy and wants to label everything and rationalize everything, while the right brain wants to play and explore and experiment. The right brain doesn't care about words or logic. If you can shut up the left brain then you can unleash your creative self....even if you think you don't have one.

This is the drawing I came up with while doing the exercise. For May's meeting we were to pick a section of the drawing that we wanted to enlarge and work with.

I picked this portion of the blind drawing and enlarged it. The next step was to trace or copy the enlarged drawing onto watercolor paper and paint it.

This is my painting. I don't know anything about watercolors...other than using water with the paint. In fact I don't know anything about art...I wasn't the one in my family to get the artistic talent. I wish I had more talent. Maybe if I keep doing the exercises in the book I can unlock my inner artist and be more creative.

I think I will go back to the watercolors and add some layering and see what happens. I would like to figure out how to blend the colors better too. The next step from here would be to design a quilt off of this painting. I'm not sure about doing all of those petals on the flower, but I think it would make an interesting quilt.

Crazy Quilt

Some folks are lucky enough to have quilts that have been handed down and now are either collectibles or antiques. I only have one quilt like that, but I am thrilled to have it. It is a crazy quilt that was made by mom's great-aunt; probably sometime in the late 1800's. We don't have a specific date and we don't have any information like why she made it and if she ever made any others. Maybe she just tried to make a crazy quilt on a whim because it was a popular activity back then. Crazy quilts were quite the fad in the 1880's. They were made of a variety of fabrics and heavily embellished and hand embroidered.

My quilt has satin, silk, velvet and even some type of faux fur in it. I had it appraised by a very knowledgeable and certified quilt appraiser. She said that the embroidery in this quilt was quite unusual. Most embroidery in crazy quilts has some meaning behind it. The appraiser speculated that maybe since the quilt was made in Montana that might have been the significance behind some of the embroidery, like the embroidered wheat stalks.

This little frog is an example of some of the embroidery. It is a little uncharacteristic for Victorian crazy quilts to have frogs.

This ornate stork is more characteristic of the typical embroidery on crazy quilts.

From all of the pictures you can see the ornate stitching that adorns the entire quilt. These embroidery stitches are my favorite thing about the quilt. They are so colorful and varied and unique.

Unfortunately there are several damaged areas in the quilt. The appraiser said that since most of the damage was on the silk squares, it was very likely that silk dresses were used. She explained that during this time period the silk for dresses were chemically bonded with a metal salt. This caused the silk to rustle which evidently was highly desirable. Using such a caustic treatment has caused the silk to deteriorate over time. She said that there was nothing that could be done and it was unlikely that there would be that much further deterioration. As a result she encouraged me not to stow this wonderful quilt away, but to display it. So I have. I keep it on a quilt stand in my bedroom. It is an awesome keepsake and I am lucky to have it.

UFOs

These aren't the flying kind as in unidentified flying objects. These are the ones that get started, but then become unfinished objects. I am really good at starting a quilt wallhanging, but then I seem to become distracted with something else and I never get back to finishing the original project. Maybe I am an ADD (attention deficit disorder) quilter?!

I really hope that I will make myself get these done sometime this year...I am making that a goal. Now that it is down in writing I have to finish them!

Self Portrait

Some time ago my art quilt group explored making a self portrait quilt. I didn't go into making one with any hard and firm decisions. I did a sketch and then just decided to let the quilt fall into place on its own. I typically don't even wear lipstick, but I think that vicariously I covet ruby red lips!

When I was younger I used to blush at the drop of a hat. I don't seem to do that so much anymore....probably has to do with blood circulating slower or somethin!

I still say that my hair is blonde, but hubby says it is gray...what does he know anyway! My driver's license will forever say blonde!

Yup...this is what I look like! Actually in a sort of funky way I do think it looks like me!

Features were fused on and then appliqued. Highlighting was done with stitching and some thread painting. Eyelashes were hand sewn with perl cotton. Bangs were labeled with black pigma pen. Hair was enhanced with couched yarn...my version of extensions! The necklace is beads hand sewn on. Instead of putting a binding on the quilt I did a small close zigzag around the border and then did a second round zigzagging over a thick yarn. This turned out to be a fun little project...now where to hang it?

Happy Easter

I found this cute bunny pattern and made it up for little grandson. It was a snap to sew. 

I was afraid I was going to have to rip out threads and redo the ears a couple of times because of the tight curves, but they actually came out looking decent.

The bunny tail is a cute addition...just made with a simple yarn pompom.

This bunny was perfect for little granddaughter. This was a tutorial from here. Super easy to make and great for tiny hands to latch onto. Plus this was made from a t-shirt.

Embroidered face details. I would recommend putting the face on before sewing the bunny together. I followed the directions and put the face on at the end. It was tricky getting the knots out of sight.

And a little pink pompom for the tail! Have a great Easter! Joan

Moose On The Loose

On a recent trip up to the Wyoming mountains we caught glimpses of 6 moose. We have never seen that many moose in the area. We were between Cody, WY and Cooke City, MT.

They aren't the cutest animals in the world...in fact they look like they were created from parts of different animals and then those parts were stuck together. But it is pretty cool to see them in the area, especially since the wolf population out of Yellowstone Park has been aggressively attacking the elk and moose populations.