Quilt Fair

Last weekend there was a quilt fair downtown.  The quilts were just fantastic.  Here are some of my favorites:

Last night I went to the second quilting class at the community college.  There were about 18 ladies there. We had moved to a new classroom that had more room to work, but there were only 2 electrical outlets.  Not enough for all of the sewing machines.  The teacher showed us how to cut squares using a mat and rotary cutter.  I made nine  4 1/2 inch squares in several colors and headed for home.  I will sew them together later and create the nine square pattern.

The quilt fair was so inspirational.  Now I just have to figure out how it is done.

Book Club

Spider web in the morning sun

This week I became an official member of the Book Club that meets at the county library once a month.  There were about 25 ladies and two men at this weeks' meeting.  Last month they had read The Help.  The Help is about a young white woman in the early 1960s in Mississippi who becomes interested in the plight of the black ladies' maids that every family has working for them. She writes their stories about mistreatment, abuse and heartbreaks of working in white families' homes, all just before the Civil Rights revolution.

Many of the ladies at the book club were born and raised in the deep south-Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and they said the book captured the real essence of the era.  Some of their moms were in the junior league and many of them had black maids who helped raise them. It was interesting to get their take on the book, which is the opposite of the way this Yankee girl was raised.


This month the book we are reading is called Mudbound, which set on a farm in Mississippi in 1946.

The view from my back porch this morning.

Holy Sodium Batman!!

Last week I went to the mall in Boone and decided to have lunch at Panera Bread.  I really like Panera Bread!  I ordered the combo: vegetarian vegetable soup with pesto and half of a Mediterranean veggie sandwich with unsweetened ice tea to drink.  Feeling very virtuous, I went home and looked up the nutrition stats on my lunch.  Calorie wise I did okay- 110 calories for 10 ounces of soup and 305 calories for the sandwich.  When I looked across the row of stats to the sodium count my jaw dropped.  830 mg for the soup and 725 mg for the half sandwich- which comes to 1555 mg consumed in 15 minutes.  You should have 2400 mg per day tops!!  And it's better to stay under 1000 mg if you can.

Did I mention I also had the pumpkin latte and half a chocolate muffin top?  I didn't think so.

Eat at your own risk

UMW

We have started going to a new church.  The Catholic sermon was just too hard to follow.  Who knew you had to douse yourself with water, make hand gestures, kneel on hard surfaces for long periods of time and mumble a lot of holy words???

The United Methodist Church was right across the street and they have an 9AM service that lasts only 45 minutes.  The folks there are very, very friendly and, come to find out, a lot of our neighbors go there too.

Today I went to the first United Methodist Women's meeting.  I had a chicken salad sandwich on white bread (2nd one in 3 days), chips, ice cream and cookies for $4.00.  On October 9th is the church bazaar so the meeting focused on who was going to do what.  I volunteered to help out and I am kind of excited about it.  This year they collected old jewelry to resell and the ladies were gushing over how nice the jewelry is, so I want to get there early to see it before the good stuff is gone.  They also sell soup and sandwiches, jams and honey, baked goods and whatever stuff people donate.

So if you are near Jefferson October 9th between 10 AM and 1 PM, stop on by.

On the Same Plate

Part of the Ashe County's Literary Festival was a luncheon with five North Carolina authors and one journalist.  This was the culminating event of a week full of activities such as book readings, informal discussions over lunch, writing workshops and a movie.  I went to the open discussion of the Big Fish book and the author Daniel Wallace was at the luncheon.

The folks around here are so thoughtful.  When I presented my ticket I was asked if I had a place to sit and I told Jane (the ticket taker) that no, I really didn't know anyone.  She took me right over to her table and found me a seat.  I sat next with three people that live in my neighborhood that I had never met before, one of the few woman pastors in the area, Jane, and a writer from Greensboro.

After a delicious lunch of chicken salad sandwiches there was a panel discussion amongst the authors.  They talked about the role of place in their writing.  All of the authors were humorous and their love of North Carolina was evident.  I bought two mystery books by John Hart, whose books all made the NY Times Best Seller lists.  Daniel Wallace talked about his family life growing up and how he modeled the dad in his book to the dad he had.

I had a wonderful two hours surrounded by people who have the same love of reading as I do.  I am already looking forward to next year!

From left: Jane (standing), Daniel Wallace, Fred Chappell, Robert Morgan, DG Martin, John Hart, Georgann Eubanks

Quilting Class

Creating a rag quilt, while fun, is not very complicated.  You create 144 squares, each 8 1/2 inches square. Sandwich two squares together with a layer of flannel batting in the middle.  Sew a design, either an X or a star (which is what I used) on each sandwich.  Decide how you want to arrange the squares and sew the seams so that the seams face outward.  When done, put little slits in the seams 1/4 inch a part.

It is time to move to the next level.  Not having a clue what to do, I signed up for a quilting class at the local community college.  Not too local though, it takes about an hour to get there traveling over the mountain on a curly twirly road.

Thursday night was our first class. There were over 20 ladies there and the teacher seemed a little frazzled. Everyone is at a different sewing level, from beginners to intermediate.  Us beginners will be working on a variety of patterns that will become a small quilt in only 8 weeks (actually 7 weeks now).  Because there were so many of us there, the cost of the class was only $35.00!

I decided to make a lap quilt, 15 squares, out of Christmas fabric.  When I went through my fabric collection I found quite a bit that would be useful and will only need to purchase a few more yards, plus the backing and batting.

I can't wait to pack up the Janome 3160 (thank goodness it weighs only 12 pounds) and head to class next week.

Fabric for Christmas lap quilt

Death of a sewing machine

Quilters Attic in Pine Bush NY

Quilt I am trying to duplicate

Last summer, while visiting relatives in New York, I went to a quilt shop in the wonderful picturesque town of Pine Bush.  I purchased fabric, pattern and thread to create a rag quilt.  Once home I began to cut out the squares, (144 of them, each 81/2 inches square) but lost interest when school started back up again and  I had to go back to work.  Two weeks ago I dragged everything out again, finished cutting the squares and drew stars and seam lines in chalk.  I lugged out my 20+ year old Kenmore and set to work.  I noticed the machine was a little sluggish and I thought the smoke was chalk dust until I looked up and saw the motor had heated up and it was starting to smell pretty bad.

Thus began my search for a new machine.  The Kenmore was just a straight and zigzag stitcher, nothing fancy.  I went on-line to read sewing machine reviews.  My head was spinning with the sites of Singer, Viking, Bernina, Pfaff, and Janome, each one claiming to be better than the other.  There are electronic ones that do everything except cut the fabric, plain Janes and embroidery models.  AND THE PRICES!  Ohh boy.  They range from a few hundred dollars to eleven thousand.  Yes, eleven thousand dollars.

I settled on a Janome.  Now where to get it???  Why Ashe Sewing Center of course.  I couldn't believe my luck, an actual sewing center in my small little town.  I don't know if "sewing center" accurately describes it very well.  Maybe "small building behind someones house" is a better description. He had a nice selection of Janome's and spent time showing me how the 3160 works and why he thinks it is the best model for my needs. So far, I have been very happy with it.

The Janome 3160

My quilt so far.

Big Fish

Last Tuesday was the open discussion on Big Fish: A novel of mythic proportions  by Daniel Wallace.  This is the book that was chosen as the community read.  The discussion took place at the county library and was attended by over 30 people.  Big Fish is one of those books you either like or hate.  It is a sons' recollections of his father.  The dad wasn't home much while William was growing up and now he is dying.  William wants to know more about his dad, but his father is not very forthcoming.  All William has is a series of legends and myths inspired by the few facts he does have.

Each chapter is a different story about his dad.  Here's an example:
"He was so fast it was said he could arrive in a place before setting out to get there.  It was not running so much as it was flight, his legs seeming never to touch the ground but move across a current of air.  He never asked to race but many asked to race him, and though he tried to dissuade them, a young man's taunts and jibes are not easily sustained.  He would end up, invariably, removing his shoes - for he never ran in his shoes - and waiting for his eager counterpart to get ready.  Then they were off - or rather, it was over, for there was never any race to speak of.  Before the young man who wished so to test his skills against those of my father had even left the starting line, he viewed the dim figure of the man he had hoped to beat."

I enjoyed to book up to the last chapter.  The father was at deaths door and he asked William to drive him somewhere.  They ended up at the river and William carried his dad in his arms and"all of a sudden my arms were full of the most fantastic life, frenetic, impossible to hold on to even if I'd wanted to, and I wanted to.  But then all I was holding on to was the blanket, because my father had jumped into the river.  And that's when I discovered that my father hadn't been dying after all.  He was just changing, transforming himself into something new and different to carry his life forward in.  All this time, my father was becoming a fish."

I just sat there shaking my head at such an absurd ending. Anyway, the discussion at the library was lively.  Half of the folks were like me, not really understanding what was going on in the book.  The other half had also seen the movie, and they said that cleared up a lot of the questions that they had had.

This would be a great book to use in a Language Arts class as it is full of symbols,  innuendos, Greek and Roman myths and lots of fantasy.

Don't Cry for Me Margaret Mitchell

I was in the middle of reading a biography of David Selznick when an ad for a community play "Don't Cry for me Margaret Mitchell" caught my eye.  The play was part of the Ashe County Literary Festival.  


Selznick was a movie producer during the 1930's and his biggest hit was Gone With the Wind.  Selznick had a type A personality and had to be involved in every facet of the film he was producing.  He often  rewrote the screen plays himself, some several times.  Or he would have three or four different writers working on the same screen play without them knowing about the others and he would still rewrite them himself.  Ten different writers contributed to Gone With the Wind, including F. Scott Fitzgerald.

The play takes place in  1939, and Selznick had already begun filming Gone with the Wind, but he needed a new script (again). There was only one writer up to the task, the legendary Ben Hecht. The only problem, Hecht had never read the book, and they had only a week to write a new script. So Selznick locks himself, Hecht and director Victor Flemming in his office with the mission to write a screenplay for Gone With the Wind in one week, the book that took Margaret Mitchell ten years to write. They survive on bananas and peanuts.  

The dialogue was fast and snappy and even hubby enjoyed it.  The actors were hilarious and they captured the egomaniac Selznick perfectly.  

On the Same Page

Ashe County has a total of 25,700 people, so it is surprising that they have a literary festival each year where they celebrate North Carolina writers.  It began three years ago when they celebratied the remodeled library.  This year the  community read is Big Fish: A novel of mythic proportions by Daniel Wallace.  There will be writing workshops, discussions, luncheons, informal chats and readings with 8 different authors, and the showing of the movie Big Fish.

Tomato sauce

I went down to Welch's vegetable stand and picked up some yellow and red Roma tomatoes, onions, garlic and green peppers to make tomato sauce.  After chopping the onions, garlic and peppers I sautéed them in olive oil.  The tomatoes were blanched, peeled and chopped and added to the veggies along with some tomato paste, oregano and fresh basil from the farmers market.  After 45 minutes it had cooked down to some delicious sauce that I poured over pasta.  The rest I put in the freezer for later.  I plan on going back to Welch's for more.

Yoga

One of my goals when I moved to NC was to go to yoga classes.  A studio had just opened up in downtown West Jefferson a week after we moved here.  I talked hubby into going with me and we started with the beginners class (where we are still at).  He was the only guy there for the first few weeks and called himself "eye candy".  We have enjoyed our classes immensely and we are getting stronger and more limber each week.  Today we received the September newsletter in our e-mail and our pics were in it!!  Hubby is on the left and I am wearing the yellow shirt and we are in a restorative pose.  It is definitely not the most flattering of pictures...

Canasta

Some of the ladies down at the club house talked me into spending my Wednesday afternoon playing cards.  They start at 11 AM having lunch.  I didn't get there until 11:40 so I had to eat fast.  I just walked up to a table and asked if I was too late and they said "No" and pulled up a chair for me.  At noon we went into the card room and I sat with three of my lunch companions.  Never having played hand and foot canasta they had to explain the game to me.  We used 5 deck of cards at once!  It was a little confusing at first but after two hours I knew what I was doing.  By the 3:00 my butt had fallen asleep and my eyes were rolling back in my head.   If this is all I have to look forward to, kill me now.

Bake-off

There was a baking contest at the farmers market last Saturday.  I didn't decide to enter until Friday.  The rules were you had to bake a layer or pound cake from scratch.  Gingerbread is my specialty, but I wanted to make something more seasonal.  I chose a lemon poppy seed pound cake that I found on the Internet.

After running to the store for ingredients I changed my mind and went with a citrus pound cake that included both lemon and oranges.  I didn't have the cake flour the recipe called for so I substituted 3 tablespoons cornstarch for 3 tablespoons of the flour.  Then I couldn't find my sifter, so I used a colander. Do you smell disaster coming?

The pound cake came out fragrant and looking good.  My daughter-in-law volunteered to make the icing and she did a wonderful job of it.  We ran down to the farmers market to enter the cake without a minute to spare.  Unfortunately we did not win the best looking, or the best tasting cake.  That honor went to the Kentucky Bourbon Pound cake.  We did donate two dollars for a piece of our own creation and found it to be dry, but tasty.

Lessons learned: don't wait for the last minute, don't use an untried recipe and go for a regional favorite.

Homegrown tomatoes

There is nothing more tasty than a homegrown tomato!  Our daughter-in-law gave us two hanging tomato planters that we eagerly filled with plants.  Hubby has been faithfully giving them water and plant food.  We gaze at them longingly every day from the kitchen window.  Finally, we are starting to see the fruits of our labors.  We have tried both the beefsteak and romas and they are delicious!!