Family Topper Quilt for a Man

I'm working on a series of five quilts for the grandchildren of my mother, Bertie Carter.  We ended up with a huge stack of odd fabrics, so I've brought them to my house and blended them with a few pieces I already had.  My inspiration was a quilt Dennis owns, made by his grandmother in the 1960s or 1970s, with a Log Cabin variation called Sunshine and Shadows where the lights are all on one half and the darks are all on the other half of a block built with strips "going around". 

So, Nana had five grandchildren-- My sister's three girls and my girl and boy.  So we needed one quilt that would look a bit more masculine.  And this is it.  It has darker colors, less floral print, and more geometrics. 

These quilts will be toppers--- quilts just the right size to lay on top of a full bed, adding color and weight.  Any more size than that, and I wouldn't have had the tenacity to make a set of 5 quilts that are all similar.  I'd be too bored.  This is just a top and it has not yet been quilted.

Ziggy's Looking Dreamy

Zigmund Cadbury Snugglesworth

British Shorthair Cat

I caught darling Ziggy sleeping on the sofa in wonderful lighting and took this pic to share.  He's a Chocolate Smoke British Shorthair.  Don't you love those brass-colored eyes?  He's got gently defined agouti markings.  With his coloring and Gracie's they might have a chocolate Selkirk Rex, which is rare indeed.  Ziggy was born 9/15/2009 and he's a bit over six months old.

Gracie's Easter Picture

Gracie Piddlewhiskers

Selkirk Rex

This photo ws taken by Katy Winbray Brinkley, who is Gracie's big sister and a real human.    

I am amazed at how different breeds have different characteristics.  Some cats come from an ancient history of catching their prey around the watering holes of Asia and Africa, and these cats are not shy of water.  We know a lot about Gracie Piddlewhiskers because we have her family history back twenty plus years.  And there are no Servals or Asian Leopard Cats in there.  Yet, she is a water-tolerant cat.  Today, I gave her a shower.  And she comes running if she thinks there is an opportunity to watch the bathroom sink faucet running or.. even better... to watch the toilet flush.  After she has a shower, she licks her curly fur all over.  I thought that was about the sandalwood perfumed soap I had used on her last time, so today I only held her in my arms under the water (all but her head) and didn't use anything for fear that she might ingest soap that would upset her tummy.  But she licked her fur down anyway.  Afterward, she seemed pleased to be so curly and all primped up.  She spent a lovey morning on Dennis' lap and then took over his office chair when he left to go to the school where he was holding a speech pathology clinic today.  

Our other cat is Zigmund Cadbury  Snugglesworth, a British Shorthair cat.  The wisdom is that British Shorthair breed cats are distinctively not 'luvvey' cats-- they're aloof and dictatorial.  I don't see Ziggy as dictatorial, but Shadow his predecessor certainly was the boss around here.  He'd whip his tail as if to say, "YOU don't call the shots.  I make the decisions around here."  And he'd jump up and rub his tail right across your mouth as if to say "zip it" if he didn't like something.  As for Ziggy, he's just spooky and shy and aloof.  Somehow these qualities make one feel honored when he does come around for petting or just to be in the milleu of Den's computer game or my quilting.  His eyes are stunning.  I'll post a picture update for him soon, as his previous family in OKC must be curious about how he looks now at almost seven months of age.  

Kai's Cowboy Suit

Kai Thomas Brinkley

Dennis and I are charmed by our wonderful new little first grandson, Kai Thomas Brinkley, born December 22, 2009 and weighing in at birth at 11 pounds.  Here, he's modelling his Baby Gap Cowboy clothes.  Since he's going to dress western for Easter, I will too.  Everyone thinks they got a cute grandbaby, but Kai is already absorbing so much about the world every moment.  He loves the paintings made by Dennis which hang on our walls, and he is fascinated by light fixtures, fans, ceiling glitter, shadows, reflections and the like.  Based on that I'm wondering if he'd like to be an architect some day.  For now, he's a cowboy.

This year I said I would make the rolls for Easter.  Its a tough job, because my mother always made these tender delicious wheat cloverleaf rolls for Easter, but she passed away.  I made a batch of bread today for the first time using her recipe.  I'm coping well despite her death--- or was until today.  All my life I could call her anytime.  She had an instant answer to my questions.... Is hydrogen peroxide OK for gargling?  Can you use a zipper foot for machine quilting?  If you don't have baking powder can you use soda?  How deep are jonquils planted?  When giving myself a perm, when do I know that its done?

This time, she wasn't there for me.  Her recipe is in a cookbook, and she has sold hundreds of copies of  our family recipes, always donating the proceeds to Relay for Life. She raised and donated hundreds of dollars, one cookbook at a time.   I melt when I see her post-it notes.  Her handwriting is like a message to me from heaven.  Dennis says she must have been playing a little joke on the world, because there in her cookbook... our only clue to continuing the Easter bread tradition, in the list of ingredients was "1 egg."  No place in the recipe was any instruction for what to do with it.  My first thought was that it should say to brown the rolls, then brush the egg whites on and burnish them so they'd be glossy.  Without checking, on a whim, I just decided to add the egg to the dough.  I don't know if that is right but the bread was good.  It wasn't as good as her bread though.  I followed up, by using one egg, whites only, to gloss the bread when it came out of the oven.

I suppose holidays are hard for anyone who lost a loved one.  She's not at the table.  Her bread isn't there.  She's not seeing this darling boy in his cute outfit.  And she'll never be there again.  Never.  We're left to make our own traditions to fill in the empty spots that she leaves behind.  And we have to do that, else we'll feel sorry for ourselves and miss out on the joys we are blessed to have around us.  Joys such as darlin' lil cowboys-- Grandma Fluffy has to love him twice as much now.

Nana's Basic Wheat Bread

As Adapted by Kathy

1/2 c. Water at 110 degrees farenheit

1 Packet of Activated Super Fast Acting Dry Yeast

1/2 c. of hot water (hotter)

1/2 stick butter

2 T molasses

1 T. salt

1 lg. egg

2 c. Bread Flour (Nana used enriched)

1/2 c. wheat flour (I use stone ground Oklahoma Organic)

Tablespoon or so of Wheat Gluten (my add, not hers)

Dissolve yeast in the warm water and set it aside.  Combine hot water, butter, molasses and salt.  You can microwave this if the the butter doesn't melt well.  To this add 1 c. of white flour, and the wheat flour, stirring after each.  Add the yeast mix, then remaining flour.  Mix in.  Let it rest.  Nana would knead for ten minutes, but I did this step with the mixter and didn't even have a dough hook.  Just watch and you're finished when it becomes smoothe and shiny.  Nana says to let this rise until it doubles in bulk and then form a loave or rolls and let it rise again until it doubles in bulk.  However, as soon as it turned viscous and smooth, I cut off plum-sized balls and dropped them onto a cornmeal-sprinkled cookie sheet to rise till double in bulk.  Nana says to bake at 350 degrees farenheit for about a half hour.  I'll add this tip:  I like to preheat my oven with a roasting pan full of water in there, so it is very humid when I add the bread.  You must watch to prevent steam burns every time you open the door if using this much humidity.  The humidity in the room also helps the bread to rise higher because the protein cloak on the outside of bread is elastic and stretchy as the air allows it to be.

Also, I do crack an egg into a ramekin, taking care not to break the yolk.  With a pastry brush, coat the top of each browned roll or loaf with a thin brush of egg white.  Too little, and there won't be a nice shiny glow.  Too much, and the  whites will soak in making the crust somewhat tough.  If you do this just as you take it out of the oven before cooling, there isn't any particular need to stick it back in the oven because the heat will absorb and cook the egg whites.

Let these rolls cool before taking them up, if you plan to freeze them or serve them later.  (It never hurts to eat them hot right off of the pan though.  ; ) 

Its a Good Friday

Easter this year is a bit of an anomaly.  I always like Good Friday because it is an extra day off of work, and a play day.  I often spend it cooking for Easter or dyeing eggs or tee shirts.

This year, Easter will be different without my mother's touch as family matriarch.  She was a gracious hostess and a good cook.  Most of all, she had boundless energy and never was there a holiday where the cake was not themed, or any such thing.  I, on the other hand, somehow inherited the 'guy' genes in my family consisting of two girls, and usually I'm asked to bring the soda pop.  For years there, relatives told ME that the get-together was an hour earlier than 'real time' because I was habitually late... being the type of partygoer who just starts preparing for the party when it is time to be there.

Maybe I exaggerate.  I've been reputed to bring brilliantly delicious dishes from time to time.  And scarcely mediocre ones at other times.

My best Easter was when my sister lived down the street from my parents on Victor Street, and had 3 girls just of the age to wear wonderful Beatrix Potter empire waist chintz floral dresses with fantastic large sashes.  Back then, we had lots of children of the age to race across the yard in competitive Easter Egg Hunting.  Oh the pink velvet and lace tights!  One niece wore a shirt from her grandfather, "Just Say No To Hollow Bunnies."  We were a large extended family of 5 aunts and uncles, their children and grandchildren.  Every person on Earth should have the delight of such a large, fun, funny, handsome, competent, and loving family.

Nieces and nephews now have grown up and there is an equally charming age cluster of Oklahoma University cohorts consisting of not less than five of them this semester.  Now the darling dresses are replaced by crimson and cream jerseys with the number 14 on them.  (For those who may not know, that is Sam Bradford, OU's former great quarterback and Heisman Award winner, who happens to be Cherokee like all of our OU students in the family).

Optical Snowball Quilt Top, 1950s

1950s Optical Snowball

See yesterday's bowtie quilt for a similar yet different one.  This quilt top was made a decade earlier.  See how the colors are different, and have for example, complimentary color wheel colors in the turquoise and chartreuse?  (This is one of my fave color combinations).  See how the plaids are more "American Western"?  If you look at the turquoise and chartreuse "bow ties" in the lower righthand area, you'd see similarities with yesterday's quilt.  But look at how the circles are really round.  Quilters scream and run away at the thought of piecing round shapes.  Think about how round shapes are the opposite curve of the piece they're being attached-to.  Like putting in a gathered sleeve, you never quite know if you're on track until you get to the end and check to see if there is fabric overhanging on either side.

I adore this quilt.  Why?  Because the use of the black checkered gingham fabric makes me crazy!    Big round postholes are like a textural collage on the surface.  And in other places, the pattern drops mistily and indistinctly into the background.  Now look at the block below the red square.  Its like spaghetti or wheels in motion.  You can tell that the woman who made this quilt was not over-intellectualizing the process.  She just put things together any which way.  We could speculate that a quilt like this was made by a woman who learned her skills in the depression era, when it didn't really matter what the right way was... a seamstress just did whatever conserved the most fabric and minimized the most waste.  It was Lllooonnnnggg before the days of fussy-cutting quilt fabrics.

This quilt is small twin or personal quilt size.  It is a top only.  It would be for sale for $75 as a top, or $250 quilted and backed in the colors of the buyer's choice.  It could be edged out with a border of historically-accurate fabric to make a full, king, queen quilt for $450.  It is hand-sewn.

1960s Bowtie Quilt Panel

1960s Bowtie Quilt Panel

Don't you just love those pop art quilts using stark contrast to trick your eyes into seeing different parts of a quilt?  This one was probably made in the 1960s, if my take on the fabrics is accurate.  It contains bowties made up of a four-square with a diamond block in the middle of it.  I don't know who made it.  Its a partial quilt top, about four feet by 3 feet in size. 

Now, look again.  Focus on the roundish square made between the two green bowties near the bottom and middle.  See how that "square" is actually eight-sided?  Sometimes ladies make a SNOWBALL quilt using this same pattern, by accentuating the round part and then fading out the surrounding pieces in a monotone of background.

This piece is so very informal that I keep looking at it from different angles like my eyes are playing tricks.  The bowtie is green.  Now it is pink.  That plaid middle is no help in giving context.  Women with no art training (or quilt training for that matter) just exhuberantly made things up as they went along, and the result is wacky quilts for fun.