I am a quilt designer/teacher/author, a wife/mother/grandmother, and certified yoga instructor who is searching for balance, strength, and happiness in all things.
I’m here in the big city to take care of Ted, Jeff’s cat. He and I are getting along very well because I feed him on schedule. He would like to be fed more often but he’s a big guy (18 lbs) and he really should not be snacking. He does not believe that is true 🤣.
I’ve been out in Central Park and in the area west and south of there. I’ve walked many of these streets before but it’s not hard to find something new to notice.
Notice all the pigeons!Just around the corner of the monument, this guy had zero pigeons. Maybe he smells bad :-).Between rain showers.
Made to Bethesda Fountain…
I’ve not seen plants in the pool before. Nice!
There were lots of people out and about on Sunday. Lots of people sitting on the grassy areas. I live where just the idea of sitting in grass makes me itch. Chiggers. If you don’t have them where you live, count yourself blessed.
I cannot imagine stilton on grass. A bench, or a big rock… I would sit there :-).
And then there are the random fun things…
Chris Columbus, perched above the traffic circle that bears his name.Copper weather vane of a gazelle(?) on top of a maintenance building at the zoo. Notice the bird on its nose.Conservatory Water pond in Central ParkA Strand Bookstore kiosk outside the park.Love this giant disco ball that is part of something at Lincoln Center. I do not have tickets so this is the best view I found.
This morning I got to an amazing gluten free bakery, Modern Bread and Bagel. I came home with a slice of cinnamon bread and a bagel. Oh, my, the cinnamon bread is amazing. I’m going to do something with the bagel for dinner.
The icing is not necessary—but it’s good :-).
I will be out and about more through the rest of the week and will post more photos here and on Instagram and FB :-). Right now I have to get back to work!
A few days ago I ran across my box of 1/2″ EPP hexie flowers. I make these when I run out of other hand sewing because they are so cute and easy to sew on the go. Each side of the hex paper is 1/2″. EPP papers come in other sizes to make different sizes of flowers.
And then I looked over and saw my Piece O’ Cake Travel Pouches that were woefully unadorned. What a perfect combo!!!
I decided to stitch these hexie flowers to my red pouch, with a single hex spacer in between.
It works best to attach and sew one flower at a time. I pressed the flowers to make sure the creases stayed put and removed the basting thread. I used the Quilters Select glue pen. It works better if you hold the flower in place near the cent and fold back one petal at a time. Add glue to the underside of the outer edge of the petal and press it in place. Repeat for all petals and let the glue dry.
You will still need to add pins because the Yazzii fabric has a finish the glue doesn’t love. I used the 3/4″ Little House applique pins.
I’m still sewing the red pouch but I finished my blue one. Here’s what I learned:
The closer the applique is to the top of the pouch, the easier it is to sew.
I used my regular applique thread (Superior’s Masterpiece on the bobbin) and an invisible applique stitch.
I hid my stitch between the quilted layers of fabric.
You will have to be creative with the way you hold the fabric and you work around the flower. Take your time and focus on sewing the edges down. If it isn’t perfect, that’s OK. It just needs to be sturdy enough to hold up to the wear you give it.
I could add embroidery. I could add felted wool… maybe leaves, or a bee! But I have other hand projects that are calling me with a louder voice so I am going to call these finished (for now), because they are plenty cute as is :-).
Hexie flowers… you should make some and plant them where you need a spot of joy!
I went to the island of Paros on May 23rd to take a 300-hour yoga teacher training class from the Soma Yoga Institute. We stayed at the Okreblue Retreat Center. I did post on Instagram and Facebook, but this is the first chance I’ve had to post anything on my blog because we were busy every day from 6:30AM to 8:00PM. We did have 3 days off and there was time to eat, but mostly, we were super busy every day until June 17.
The dining area was open-air and had a great view. The yoga shalas were big, airy, and well equipped. And here you see me upside-down using two chairs to protect my neck. I’m a big believer in neck protection :-).
I took lots of photos of this road because I liked the look of it and I walked it multiple times a day. Paros is dry and kind of dusty but there were lots of plants growing.
All of the following places were a very short walk from Okreblue. Andrea (my travel companion) and I rented chairs under the umbrellas to celebrate finishing the course.
Greece has cats… so many cats. They are like chickens on Kauai.
Naoussa was the nearest town and it is lovely in the classically Greek way. It was walking distance (about 2 miles). Sometimes we walked but mostly we took a taxi.
Andrea took this photo
Before coming back to Texas, we spent a day in Athens. I went to the Acropolis and it was interesting! The caryatids were my favorites.
And everywhere were small churches… so many…
This is a really short tour that I hope gives you a sense of what I saw :-). I’m glad I went, and I’m happy to be home. I learned so much that I can’t wait to use when I teach yoga :-).
Carmen Nordback’s Aunt Millie’s Garden quiltI was in the Minnesota Quilters Show this past week where it received first place in the Appliqué Small category. Of course it won first place! I love the whole quilt and especially the border background treatment.
Carmen says “I reduced the size of the bocks from 14” to 10” so it was smaller than the original pattern. It was so much fun to make! Thanks again for all you do to create such fabulous designs.”
Thank you, Carmen, for sharing your beautiful quilt with us! It is a joy to behold :-).
[Note: this is a guest post from my son, Christopher.]
Let’s start with two recipes from Rare Collection: Superb Recipes by The Junior League of Galveston County (1985)—one for moussaka and one for brisket.
This cookbook originally belonged to Lorna’s maternal great-grandmother, and then to Lorna’s mom, Judy, and then to Lorna who took it when she moved out of her parents’ house. She’s cooked a variety of things from it over the years, but particularly the moussaka—most recently last December, which is when I first noticed the brisket recipe on the opposite page.
Season brisket with soy sauce and Worcestershire sauce. Okay, sure. Sprinkle Lipton onion soup mix, rosemary, caraway seed & celery seed onto brisket. Initially, the soup mix threw me off, but it’s basically a spice mix, so whatever. It’s the last step—where you put the drippings from the brisket into the bottom of a pan, layer the (cold) sliced brisket on top of it, and dump a can of cherry pie filling on top before baking the whole mess another half hour or so—that caught my attention in a wtf kind of way.
That recipe, and browsing through other recipes in the book as Lorna cooked, sparked a new obsession for me. I ordered a few other used Junior League cookbooks that evening (Dallas, Palo Alto, and Colorado), and several others in the following weeks. And more since: I have a cookbook called The Melting Pot: Ethnic Cuisine in Texas, which was compiled by UTSA’s Institute of Texan Cultures. My mom picked up a stack of cookbooks at a garage sale several weeks ago, including two that were evidently fundraisers for the Sherman School Food Service Association. I found a bunch at an antique mall in Denison last weekend, but only came home with four, ranging from a long-defunct Dallas restaurant to an RV park in Harlingen, Texas.
I’m still trying to figure out what’s behind my interest in these cookbooks, but I think a big thing is a curiosity about how recipes travel and change over time, and from context to context and kitchen to kitchen. I plan to write a guest post here once a week or so—look for one on braised celery next—but I’ll also be writing at inscrutable.substack.com, if you want to follow along in more depth. In the coming months, I’ll be putting out calls for favorite family recipes, as well as variations on particular themes. I look forward to hearing from y’all!
Applique Stitchery by Jean Ray Laurie is one of my all-time favorite books. It was published in 1966 and it is a delightful reflection of the time then—and it is still relevant today. The book is out of print, but Judy Fine had a spare copy and she gave it to me to share with one of you! The random number generator has chosen Pam Wilkerson to receive this book for her collection!
I showed this book in the Time Out below…
I’ll be back with another Giveaway next Wednesday. Until then you can shop for all sorts of sewing notions, books, and other fun stuff at pieceocake.com!
Piece O Cake Blog 