Olallieberry

Birds 'n Bees

What an utterly gorgeous weekend. Sunshine, cooler weather hovering in the low 20's, completed yard work, clean birdhouse, ready for next spring's inhabitants. (Thank heavens we did not find any unfortunate surprises in there as was the case last year, this year they all appear to have fledged.) Even the bees have been busy searching out those last blossoms before the sudden temperature drop which is inevitable.

Bees have always been fascinating to me. I remember when I was a little girl, maybe four or five years old, I was having a stayover at my grandfather's farm in Saskatchewan. I enjoyed spending time with him, trailing behind while he puttered around with the chores and the farm work. He always looked me in the eye when I talked to him, and he always answered me whenever I had something four-year-oldish to say no matter how menial must have sounded to him.

I remember one day we were in the garden. It must have been late summer as it was lush with vegetables, berries, blossoms, flowering shrubs, and most notably a great number of gladiolas in every conceivable colour towering high above my head. It was during a careful study of the gladiolas when I began to notice a significant number of bees buzzing everywhere around me. Naturally I panicked. Immediately attentive my grandfather took the time to calm my fears. He proceeded to explain how the bees had no interest in me whatsoever as they were far too busy collecting nectar to make honey for the winter. Moving slowly and calmly so as to avoid startling them, he began to pet some of the bees lightly on their backs to demonstrate. I watched him intently as he did this, then I did as well. Amazingly, the bees did not seem to mind in the least and continued on busily without so much as a bother. This moment was significant for me and I have never forgotten it. I have also never forgotten my grandfather's reaction when I moved to share my new found love with a nearby wasp. Clearly this friendship was not to be prescribed to the wasp population, and from a distance I was tutored on its voracious nature. 

He is gone now, my grandfather. He never knew it, but he gave me two precious gifts that day... a lifelong fondness for bees and the very special memory of a little girl, surrounded by the warm buzzing of bee-filled gladiolas, in the garden with her grandfather.

Basking

Thank you, thank you, thank you for gifting me with your visits and very kind comments recently; I'm so happy to meet many of you and discover more of your lovely blogs. AND, I'm so pleased that some of you have found success working through the soapmaking tutorial! Your own journeys down this path give me such pleasure, thank you for sharing your experiences. 

It' been a stunning September so far, warm and summery. Hard to remember Septembers of past years where the hard frost often set in early. As for right now, the light is glorious; everything basks in it. It is the guilded season; plush, gold, beckoning, fleeting. We push away thoughts of the grey we know is inevitable. How is it possible when surrounded by such splendour?

Ahhh, and I've been knitting, knitting, knitting. Promise to share soon! xoxoxoxoxox

Fall Flowers

This Fall Flower Quilt (initially referred to as Summer Daisy Quilt renamed for obvious reasons) spent many many many months lurking at the top of my closet, thrown there in frustration after my old sewing machine finally convinced me that I simply would never posses the skills required to complete such a project to a level of perfection that would be satisfactory to me. 

Now it has been taken down, carefully pressed and hung on the wall in my sewing room... flowers carefully arranged and pinned to where they will soon be permanently attached.

This is a big quilt. Made from a kit purchased at one of our local quilt shops, I intended for it to be hung prominently above the stairwell for all to see. This quilt took me from high hopes and inspiration, to frustration and despair, and back again to confident acceptance.

It is far from perfect, and that's okay.

This quilt really has been a journey, and the journey is not over yet. Finishing it will be a victory. But for now, on the wall it shall remain... a reminder that in this world there is no such thing as perfection, which is exactly what being handmade is all about.

Evening

The light fades earlier in the evenings now as we settle comfortably into our fall routine.

In Progress

Well it's officially September which means back to structure and routine for all of us beginning Tuesday. It's a long weekend for us here; one of my very favourites as fall can be felt so strongly in the air and the light, and the very last moments of summer holidays are sweetly savoured. 

Remember when I said I was going to stash my beautiful Amy Butler jelly roll for a rainy day? So much for good intentions. I've worked on the Summer Garden Quilt fairly steadily over the past several days, intermittently mingled with other required activities, such as back-to-school preparations (whew, I did in fact get the list completed), cooking, baking, laundry, etc. I really had to think about the design of this quilt as the fabrics are so incredibly vibrant. I finally decided on the current arrangement along with the equally vibrant background fabric purchased separately at my local quilt shop. The whole project was kicked off by sewing all the jelly roll strips together in variations of four. Each of these looonngg strips was then cut into lots and lots of 2 1/2 inch, four-fabric strips. I then sewed four of these little four-fabric strips together to make each block. Simple right? Next came choosing the background fabric, which was no easy feat. With the intense colours of the blocks, I was initially planning on a pure solid, worried that anything even remotely wanting to be a print would just be too busy. And what colour on earth could possibly work with this intense mash of hues? There was only one thing to do. I packed up my finished blocks and hauled them all to the local fabric shop where I insisted on commanding everyone's attention by eliciting opinions from every staff member and customer within the vicinity. (I have no shame when there's a job to be done).

"My, those ARE bright, aren't they?"

"Maybe something a little... er... softer, would provide a nice balance?"

After narrowing down the choices, blurring my eyes, inspecting everything from several feet away, then again from close up, then from far away again, I of course chose the most vibrant of the lot. I think it compliments the intensity of the Amy Butler fabrics while still holding its own and giving the whole thing some semblance of order. I love it.

The top is now officially completed, hanging in my window patiently awaiting the attachment of borders. (Doesn't it look like stained glass with the light coming through like that?) I'm really excited to move on to actually quilting the thing-- determined to take the plunge into my very first attempt at free motion quilting. I've been researching U-Tube religiously, carefully planning out my full strategy including the use of several practice sandwich blocks to get the technique down before tacking the quilt itself.

Naturally, I'm terrified.

Oh... before I sign off I thought I'd share my recipe for scratch pie crust 'cause it's just so gosh dang yummy!

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Best Ever Pie Crust

2 cups flour (plus extra for rolling out the dough)

3/4 tsp salt

1 cup cold shortening (I use Crisco Golden)

5 tbsp ice water

1/2 tbsp lemon juice (or vinegar if you don't have any)

Stir flour and salt together in a medium sized bowl. Cut the shortening roughly into 1/2 inch cubes and drop them into the flour/salt mixture. Cut the shortening into the mixture with a fork or pastry cutter until the everything resembles coarse corn meal. Sprinkle ice water and lemon juice over the mixture and quickly stir until everything comes together into a loose ball. Split the dough in half and form into 2 firm balls, handling the dough just enough to get the job done. Wrap each ball individually in saran wrap and refrigerate for at least 20 minutes. I use this time to tidy up and prepare my filling if I'm making a double crust pie. On a lightly floured surface, roll out your crusts to approximately 1/8 inch thick. Place them into 9 inch pie plates, trimming around the edges neatly with a knife. You can reshape the excess dough to make decorations for the top of your pie, or you can just crimp the edges with your fingers. Makes enough for 1 double crust pie or 2 single pie shells. To blind bake as single shells, either pierce the bottom with a fork, or line with parchment paper and fill with dried beans or pie weights. Bake at 425F for 10 - 12 minutes. Otherwise, follow the baking instructions for whatever pie recipe you are using.

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P.S. - Some of you have asked where I found the Amy Butler jelly roll. I bought mine online from http://www.fabricsquareshop.com

Have a wonderful week!

xox

 

The List

Back-to-School Preparation List

- Clean out front garden bed:  Check.

- Back-to-school clothes shopping:  Check.

- Back-to-school haircuts:  Check.

- Back-to-school bus passes:  uhmmm...

- Back-to-school supplies: cough...

- Back-to-school grocery shopping for standard pantry lunch items and easy meal preparation:  ahem...

- Frantically and obsessively work on Summer Garden quilt before it's officially not summer anymore:  Double check.

Summer Lazy

My week began horribly.

It started out with me simply relaxing on the couch. In fact I was so relaxed, I accidentally spilled an entire cup of tea, complete with cream and sugar no less, directly onto the keyboard of my still fairly newish laptop. Yep--I really did that. Right on there, or shall I say, Into... definitely more "Into" than "Onto" the laptop.

Anyway, being a girl of quick action, I immediately proceeded to invert the laptop and pour the liquid directly onto the snowy white carpet at my feet. (Sigh)

Well... it took several days for the laptop to dry and become useable again, but I'm happy to report it eventually did and now works good as new (minus the horrible crunching-that-used-to-be-pleasant-clicking sound of the keyboard). And after several workouts I finally managed to remove the stain from the carpet and it looks good as new too. (Whew!)

In between the highly dramatic moments and the slower ones involving waiting for the laptop to dry, it's actually been a pretty nice pace around here. We left the kids at the lake with Grandma and Grandpa for a few days, and the Mr and I have the entire house to ourselves. I'm working on my own version of a Jess Brown knockoff (her dolls are so simple and beautiful) and gearing up to pull out Celes for a comforting round or two.

Lazy pancake mornings, lake visiting, very old fabric stash sorting, and Ikea browsing--on the laptop--not such a bad week after all. xox

How has your week been?