Celtic T-Shirt Quilt

For quite some time now, I've been shuffling a stack of t-shirts from my winter clothing storage to my summer clothing storage and back again.  And each time I would think, some day I'll make something out of these things.  My first ever machine-sewn project was a striped turtle-neck shirt with a snap-in crotch (which would keep it tucked in nicely, but caused oh so much trouble when trying to go pee after drinking that first beer!!) which required me to know so much more about sewing than I was willing to learn.  Not sure that shirt ever did get finished, but I'm 100% positive that if it did, I didn't do the sewing!!  I do sew.  Sometimes.  It requires patience I rarely have and knowledge I've yet to gain.  I do however have an awesome sewing machine.  And I have used it to do more than repairs.  At one time I was sewing all of my youngest daughter's pants.  When she was two.  And the requirement was only two pattern pieces and a gathered waist.

So the fact that I've had a "sewing project" packed away for over ten years is no surprise to anyone, least of all me or my sisters.  But now I have a daughter who wants very much to learn to sew and I am in no way skilled enough to teach her.

Enter the third sister, Sandra, who learned to sew in High School and has mastered the art to such a degree she could be the Home Ec teacher now.  She tried in vain to teach me to sew years and years ago and was smart enough not to repeat the process more than once.  In fact, her lessons are what spurred me on to buy the multi-colored striped ultra-shiny synthetic fabric for that ill-fated turtleneck. There's a reason I dropped out of High School and opted instead to just take the GED test, namely no Home Ec requirement!

But I digress...

My sister was visiting last November so I asked her to help Sheli learn to sew by making a quilt out of my stack of t-shirts.  With all the running back and forth for her and a spur of the moment trip out of town for me along with the fact that Sheli lived a good half-hour away, we got a good start on it, but it had to be set aside for the Holidays and I ended up finishing it just this week.  So...

I washed and ironed all the t-shirts I thought I wanted to use in my quilt top.  Then we used the first one to make a "pattern" for the blocks.  You need to know how much of the printed area you're going to use and that determines the size of your blocks.  For instance, most of my t-shirts were printed on either the front or the back.  Only two had large printed areas on front and back.  And only one had print on the front with a small logo on back.  We determined that the largest square would be 18 inches and used that for a pattern.

 The absolute best way to make your cuts is with a rotary knife and pad, using a big block ruler to keep everything straight and square.  Even so, you will still have problems with the fabric stretching a bit and the cut edges will curl up.  Depending on where the print is on the shirt, and because you will need to add at least 3/4" to all sides for your seam allowance, you may have to cut into the neck and arm seams initially, but you can trim those off later.
And all those scraps can be used to make a really neat rag rug that I plan to attempt eventually and will post photos of here as well.

Once you have all the blocks cut out, it's a good idea to lay them all out on a flat surface and "place" them where you think you want them to go on the quilt.  You will find that certain colors clash or that you have too much of the same color together.  Also, some of the printed areas will be really small and some really large, so you need to try to balance the print as best you can.
Five of my t-shirts had really small printed areas leaving a LOT of blank fabric.  So, I folded them in half and put two together to make one block.  One of them I left in the original size, but took the logo off the back and sewed it on top of the block alongside the picture.
Doing the "dry fit" will enable you to see what the finished size will be and help you make adjustments so that everything fits and is in balance.

 I used really long dress maker's pins to hold the squares together.  I pinned the cut shirts together making three long columns.  Then I sewed the center column first, placing the right sides together and sewing the bottom of the first block to the top of the one that would come below it.  Once I had the center sewn into a strip, I laid everything back onto my flat surface (I had to use my bed because my table is round and the strips kept falling off the sides and the floor has an accumulation of dog hair that I really didn't want sewn into my quilt!) to make sure that the columns ended evenly and the overall flow of the patterns worked.
I knew my finished quilt would end up a bit more than lap-sized but smaller than twin.  I used a queen-sized flat bed sheet for the back and quilt batting for the middle.  I don't hand-quilt, nor do I have a machine that quilts, so my only option (unless I want to pay someone to quilt for me) is to hand-tie it.  My batting called for ties to be 4 to 6 inches apart and I tried to incorporate them into the printed areas where they would show least.
I folded the backing flat sheet forward to make my quilt binding and used a forest green embroidery thread to sew it down.  I never have any luck with mitered corners so I folded the edges down with one side overlapping the other and hand-sewed the ends closed.
Some of the squares shifted just enough to make them slant a bit and some of the blocks still have way too much solid color.  But all in all, I'm pleased with the final product and will get so much more use out of the shirts now than ever I would have when they were stacked in the bottom of the closet.

New Year, New Plan

It appears Sister and I aren't cooking so much as we were.  Or maybe we are, we just aren't telling each other about it or doing it together.  So...  what do you do with a food blog when you're too busy to cook and talk about cooking and show the pictures of the stuff you cooked?

I think maybe we can still make it work if we at least post some recipes that folks can try.  How's that?

A couple of years ago a bunch of us cousins got together down at Plum Lake to spend a weekend eating and drinking and shopping and laughing.  We had a lot of great food, but I think the best dish of all was our Sunday morning breakfast.  Sister had tried a recipe that I'd been given by a woman I'd worked with and adapted it just a bit to make it perfect.  The morning was cool and the smell of cinnamon and apples filled our little cabin and had us all sitting at the table with our forks in hand and our mouths watering.

Peggy Trammel's Apple Dumplings as passed on by Elnora Knowles and perfected by Sister

2 Granny Smith Apples
2 cans Crescent Rolls
2 cup sugar
2 sticks real butter
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
10 oz Mountain Dew

Ok, now that you have the ingredients as Peggy Trammel provided them to Elnora Knowles, you need to know a few things.
First off, you can use Granny Smith apples.  Or Fuji apples.  Or Honey Crisp apples (my favorite) or the apple of your choice so long as whatever apple you're using is crisp and a bit tart.
Elnora decided that Mountain Dew has too much caffeine.  So, she used 7-UP.  Sister didn't have 7-UP, so she used Sierra Mist.
And then you need to know that both Elnora and Sister felt that 2 cups of sugar was a bit much and altered the recipe to 1 1/2 cups of sugar.  But then I felt that was still a bit too sweet and changed it to 1 healthy cup of sugar.  Either way, 2 cups of sugar along with the sugar in the soda is way too much sugar no matter how you see it.  And diet soda makes the recipe taste terrible, so don't even go there!

Now, where was I?  Oh, right.  Assembly.

Peel and core apples and cut into eight slices.  Cook in microwave for two minutes.  Wrap one triangle of Crescent Roll dough around each apple slice, closing all edges until apple slice is completely covered.  Place in baking dish that has been sprayed with Pam (or whatever you use) in single layer.  Melt butter.  Mix cinnamon and sugar, then add melted butter and vanilla.  Stir well.  Spoon over dumplings.  Pour soda around and over dumplings.

Ok, time to make a few more adjustments.
We tried cutting the apples into slices and we tried wedges.  Wedges work just as well and give you a bit more substance after the dish has cooked.  So, cut the apples in half, lengthwise, then cut the halves in half (also lengthwise) so that you end with four wedges from each apple.  DO NOT skip the microwave step.  Trust me.
Also, you don't need 10 ounces of soda.  Once you spoon the sugar mixture over the dumplings, you need only enough soda to cover them, however much that ends up taking in the dish you've chosen to use.  I use a 9x13 Pyrex dish with 2 inch sides.


So, you're ready to bake.  It'll take 30-35 minutes in a 350 degree oven.  Once you pull the dish out of the oven, you'll want to spoon some of the juice over the dumplings.  Serve them hot.


Then, just grab the ice cream...


And for those of you who like to select and print:

Apple Dumplings


2 Granny Smith Apples (or any crisp, sweet/tart apple variety)
2 cans Crescent Rolls
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 sticks real butter
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
10 oz Lemon Lime soda, not diet


Peel and core apples and cut into eight wedges.  Cook in microwave for two minutes.  Wrap one triangle of Crescent Roll dough around each wedge, closing all edges until apple wedge is completely covered.  Place in baking dish that has been sprayed with Pam (or whatever you use) in single layer.  Melt butter.  Mix cinnamon and sugar, then add melted butter and vanilla.  Stir well.  Spoon over dumplings.  Pour soda around and over dumplings.
Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes.  Spoon liquid over cooked dumplings.  Serve hot.

THEN just grab the ice cream!!

We'll make it SNOW up in here!!!

Last year while staying at the 1905 Victorian House at Acorn Hill in Gruene, TX, I found a photo in a magazine showing a stack of snowballs in the window box of an old house and I stole it.  The idea, not the magazine!!  I took a photo of the photo so we could reference it in case we didn't find instructions online (oh ye of little faith; you can find EVERYTHING online!!).  Then, when we were hit with such a devastatingly hot summer, I wasn't sure even fake snowballs could survive, so I filed the idea away and promptly forgot about it.  Until last week.
So yesterday, Sister and I scoured the Walmarts from Waxahachie to Cedar Hill in search of Styrofoam balls and bags of fake snow.  We found what we needed at JoAnns; apparently there are other fake snowball makers out there and they all shop at Wallyworld.

We assembled our supplies on a table near the back door and opened a window to provide the ventilation needed to keep us from getting loopy on the spray adhesive.  If you're going to try this yourself, you need:
Styrofoam balls in assorted sizes
Wooden skewers
Spray adhesive (we had several kinds, but all were ok to use on foam)
A large bag for dredging the balls in the snow
Artificial snow (we had two kinds, but the smaller the pieces the better)
GLOVES
Good lighting and even better ventilation

An extra pair of hands (optional, but recommended!)

Dump the snow into the large bag and shake to distribute evenly.  Make sure you put the gloves on FIRST or you'll figure out you need them as soon as you start spraying adhesive and by then it's a bit too late!!

      







You want to stick the pointy end of the skewer into the ball, but not so far that you have to do anything more than tap it to get it back out.  This keeps you from actually touching the adhesive-coated ball and totally screwing up your nice clean gloves!!
Also, it helps if you have several balls skewered and ready to spray, then you just drop the wet ones into the snow and shake the bag till they disappear to the bottom.
  This is where the extra hands come in.  If one person does all the spraying and the other person skewers and shakes, you get six balls done in a small amount of time.
You may also need to pack your snowballs to help the fake snow stick.  We seemed to have great adhesion initially, but we were dealing with an incoming cold front and as the temperatures dropped the adhesive stopped sticking to the Styrofoam.  It clumped up the snow, so maybe the dredge technique was the problem.


And you will have a LOT of snow sticking to your gloves as you go, so best to leave trying to clean it off till you're finished.

We spread waxed paper on the table and let our snowballs dry there overnight.

Things I learned from this first attempt:

Work slowly.  We waited a bit late to start so we were rushing a bit.  Probably not the best results as a result...

Use the finest snow you can find.  We had the shredded plastic kind and our snowballs look like uncooked coconut macaroons.

And it's probably best to work in daylight, outside, when it's above 50 degrees.  Just sayin...

Oh, the weather outside is frightful...

Anyone who knows me knows all too well that cold weather will actually send me to the kitchen to cook.  Well, there's no need to fear that will happen anytime soon since it looks like summer will NEVER leave North Texas!!
This blog was intended as a place to showcase our efforts at creativity, in and out of the kitchen.  And in spite of the horrid summer heat, we have been creative in the months that have passed since we last put up a blog at My Sister's Kitchen.
So, I'll post a few pictures of my summer activities just to prove I've not been lazy.  And maybe now that Sister has a brand new stove she'll get to cooking!!

New "old" Kerr jars made by painting tinted Modge Podge onto glass jars.

The canning jar idea came from Pinterest, my new obsession.  If I did it again, I would try other colors, like maybe pink.  Right now my six blue jars are on my kitchen windowsill filled with leaves and pine cones.  But come December 1st, they'll be full of snow and snowballs!!

I hired a "handyman" to do some repairs around the house and it seemed like the more he repaired the more he destroyed!!  Lesson learned - do as much as you can yourself!!  So, this is my front bathroom wallpaper border after scoring and removal was started.  He made a complete mess of it by using it as his hand towel during a ceiling repair so the only choice I had was to replace it.  I ordered more rolls and Sister helped me take it down.

Then we put the new border up and I don't think it will EVER come off again!!  Once we were finished hanging the border and cleaning up the mess we made, I touched up the paint and repainted the doors, door frames, and trim.  The only thing left to replace is the light fixture...  guess it's time to learn to handle electricity!!  Won't it be cool when I can brag that I can make bolts of electricity fly from my fingertips??

I had a lot of paint left from my previous paint jobs, so I pulled it all out, stirred it all up real good, and commenced painting.  After the front bathroom was done, I moved out into the hallway and repainted the hall walls and trim.  Then I spent a good four days painting doors.  GOOD NIGHT NURSE we've got a lot of doors down that hall!!  But they look pretty good (except for the utility doors which still need another coat) and it's done.

Once the bathroom and hallway were back together, it was time to get to work on the guest room.   I knew from the beginning this would be a feminine room.  I have a collection of photos of family brides and wedding couples and wanted to incorporate those into the room.  The feel is that it is mostly a woman's room and the men are there by invitation only.  The wall color is "Possibly Pink" which contrasts well with the dark wood floors and is set off by the bright white trim and doors.  Sheli helped me with the painting job.  Sister, Sandra, and Sheli helped find the fabric for the toss pillows and sewed them up for me.  And they've all had input into the look and feel of the room, so it is most definitely a "feminine" room!!

With all the painting done for now (there's more to do, but other matters press me for time) I am focusing on projects to help organize and update and trying not to spend money in the process.  One project that is started and just waiting for a long rainy day to complete is making a quilt from all my Celtic Festival t-shirts.  I got the idea from Sandra and love it.  I've never been a fan of the way festival tees fit, so this gives me a chance to have them out of the storage box and still preserve them at the same time.

Sheli and Sandra cut the printed areas into 18" blocks.

The final quilt top will look something like this.

And of course, I've tried to spend as much time as I can with the Tater Tot.  He's growing so fast and can do so many things now it's hard to keep him busy.  But I've found that you can give him a chore and, if he's really into it, he'll do exactly what you tell him to and do his very best!!  Last week we made pizza.  He helped me use the cheese slicer on a block of mozzarella then I gave him the plate of cheese and told him to put it on the pizza dough so that every piece had its own spot.  When he was done, every single piece of cheese had a spot!!  Then he told me he wanted scrambled eggs for his dinner...  Well, you can't win 'em all.

So, you can see I haven't been completely comatose this hot, hot summer.  But I'm ready for the "Chili" days to arrive in North Texas and looking forward to some cold weather projects!!

Some people bake a ham...

Saturday before Easter, Sister and I got together in my kitchen and made holiday-themed cupcakes.  Admittedly, it was a bit late in the day to take on lambs and chicks, but I've seen her whip up a batch of fried pie dough in less than ten minutes so I am fully aware of what she's capable of creating when pushed for time.

THIS is what the lamb cupcakes look like if you start early and have all the right decorating ingredients...  Cute, huh?

This is what lamb cupcakes look like if you don't!!  I think if we'd maybe been drinking they would have been so much cuter.

You can bet I'll put wine on the shopping list next time.  And, now that we know what NOT to do, next year will be soooo much easier, right?  (Here I am assuming that we won't find anything even more creative to do by then.  What a sorry lack of faith!!)

I'll admit, the whole idea was mine.  And I'll even go so far as to say that, usually, the things that we end up doing that seem scatterbrained and far-fetched and ridiculous considering the resources we have are most often things I've suggested.  In my own defense, I always have pictures of what the end product needs to look like!!  In this case, I had actually even made the chick cupcakes all by myself a few Easters ago.  So I brought experience to the party.

I am a firm believer in taking the easy route whenever possible, so I had two boxes of ready-made cake mix and several tubs of ready-made frosting.  I suspect that my pictures came with recipes for a reason, at least where the frosting was concerned, as ours ended up a bit too soft for the project.

Live and learn.

We doubled the cake recipe so things would go faster and poured the entire batter into a large zip lock.  Snip one corner of the bag and the cups will fill quickly and with little mess!  The first shortage came when we filled the tins; I only had two and we really needed at least four.  Again, live and learn!!  Another shortcut that really helped was putting all the decorations out in small bowls to make them easy to see and to reach.  We separated by color and type.

I shopped several places in town looking for ready-made candy eyes for our sheep but nobody seems to stock them.  Michael's online shows them in the stores, but they are not.  Wal-Mart in Addison has a huge Wilton section, but no eyes!!  I could have spent the rest of the day looking for a "specialty" store that might have them, but I had other things to do, so we improvised and made them from mini-marshmallows and licorice bits.  Way too much cutting and snipping and placing and sticking to our fingers!!!  If ever we attempt lamb cupcakes again (or any other animal that requires eyes) I'll purchase them online well ahead of baking day.   Meanwhile,  the chick cupcakes require toasted coconut, so we took advantage of the warm oven to get that part done ahead as well.

Finally, we sat down to frost and assemble.  And quickly realized that, (1) it was way too late to be frosting and decorating cupcakes that required 35 mini-marshmallows, and (2), we were way too tired to really care all that much what something that was likely going to be eaten anyway looked like!!

Thankfully, the chicks ended up going really fast and looking really cute.

***SIGH***

The "F" word

Technically, Texas is located "in the South."  And in case you're not familiar with what goes on "in the South" or maybe you just think we make this stuff up to be considered interesting, EVERYTHING under the sun can be and probably has been fried, "in the South."  We fry our bacon (pork, not turkey), bologna, potatoes, fish, bread, broccoli, Mars bars, grits, and butter; the list is really quite long and covers pretty much anything edible.  Any child raised "in the South" has, at one time or another, consumed three meals in one day consisting entirely of fried food.  So imagine our dismay at the announcement that fried food isn't really all that good for you.  Rest assured there are some who changed doctors, repeatedly, to avoid giving up fried food.  Those health nuts were messin' with tradition!! 

However, while most of us have altered our diets to decrease, if not entirely eliminate, fried food, the one food that can't possibly be improved upon by preparing them any other way is our pies.  And it is quite possible that my sister makes the absolute tastiest fried pies in all the land!  Now, don't go thinking I'm about to put the crust recipe up here.  For one, I'm not sure how they do it in other parts of the country but "in the South" you have to be born into the family to ever get access to such a secret.  And two, having tried and failed miserably to cook those things for which my sister is famous, I'm just saving all y'all from being disappointed in your own sorry attempts at greatness.  Better to let Sister pick and choose her own apprentice in due time. 

Years of practice led Sister to her current fried pie recipe which she can double, triple, or halve, depending on whether they're being eaten by family, eaten at church, or sold in a raffle.  A platter of well-made fried pies can result in triple-digit bid wars at auction!!  And if you want to encourage a preacher to use the "short sermon" come Sunday, just tell him there's peach, cherry, and apple fried pies for the supper on the ground.

We've tested the competition and have discovered some interesting twists on the idea of what the innards of a fried pie can be.  Out at Canton there's a group of ladies who make a tasty pie (up for consideration as an ugly cousin, but certainly no real match to Sister).  From them we learned that pecan filling works really well.  And down toward Gruene there's a pie maker inside a Shell station that offered breakfast and lunch varieties.  I sampled the breakfast pie with eggs and bacon...  a bit runny and a whole lot salty; I'm pretty sure I know a woman who can make vast improvements on that!  Thus, and with no real surprise, the competition has been found lacking.  There is, after all, only one Sister!!

As yet, Sister hasn't ventured into the abyss of breakfast, lunch, and dinner pies; certainly that remains a possibility.  For now, fruit pies are her specialty.  Oh, and pecan.  Those sweet ladies in the bonnets at Canton are on to something good!!  So, after measuring and mixing her special crust recipe, Sister turns it out on a floured surface, in this case her ages-old Tupperware non-stick rolling sheet with the finished pie crust dimensions nicely measured and marked on it, and works the dough.  "You don't have to work it to death, but if you do it will come out really crispy.  I just like mine with a little chew to it."

Sister has a two-foot-long skinny rolling pin just right for rolling out pie crusts and biscuits, and for beatin' a stubbornly frozen bag of Sonic ice into submission.  With it she makes short work of turning plum-sized balls of fried pie dough into tortilla-sized flat circles ready to be filled with, in this case, Smucker's apricot jam (a Yankee company, but they do make really good jelly and jam) and Paula Deen's (a Southern girl all the way down to her "y'all") pecan filling.  The pies are then folded, sealed with the tines of a fork, and dropped into a deep pan of hot peanut oil.  

There's only enough room for two or three pies to cook properly (if you've made them big enough) so don't overcrowd the pot.  And since the filling is already cooked, all you're doing is browning up the crust and getting it crispy.  The pies will float to the top and need to be turned (just like frying a mess of crappie!!) to make sure both sides get that beautiful golden brown.  Then they'll need to drain for a few minutes since you don't want greasy pies (or clogged arteries).  By the time they're ready, you should have a goodly-sized crowd of family members who've already napkined their necks and seated themselves at the table.  All that remains is to sit down and join 'em!!

Paul Deen's Pecan Pie Pockets (http://www.pauladeenmagazine.com)

Ingredients

1. 1 cup sugar
2. 2/3 cup light corn syrup
3. 1/3 cup butter, melted
4. 2 large eggs
5. 1 1/2 cups chopped pecans
6. 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
7. 1/8 teaspoon salt
8. 1 1/2 (15-ounce) boxes refrigerated pie crusts
9. 1 egg yolk, beaten
10. Vegetable oil for frying
11. Confectioners’ sugar (optional)

Instructions

1. In a medium saucepan, combine sugar, corn syrup, melted butter, and eggs. Stir in pecans, vanilla, and salt. Bring to a boil over medium heat, reduce heat, and simmer 10 minutes.
2. On a lightly floured surface, unroll 1 pie crust. Cut out rounds, using a 4 1/2-inch cutter. Re-roll dough as needed. Repeat procedure with remaining piecrusts.
3. Place 1 piecrust round on a clean, flat surface. Lightly brush edges of crust with beaten egg yolk. Place 1 heaping tablespoon of pecan mixture in center of the round. Fold dough over filling, pressing edges with a fork to seal. Repeat with remaining rounds and pecan mixture.
4. In a Dutch oven or deep fryer, heat oil over medium heat to 350F. Fry pies, in batches, 1 to 2 minutes per side, or until lightly browned. Drain on paper towels. Lightly dust with confectioners’ sugar, if desired.

Italian Cream Cake

So, for some reason 2/3 of my children were born in March.  Aside from knowing that June must have been a busy month for me for a few years in the '70s, what that says about me is that I had to be pretty creative to make each kid feel like they were having their own special day.  Unfortunately, I did combine the birthdays a time or two (the first time being Sheli's 4th birthday when I gave her a little brother [she wanted a Barbie] as a gift then held her party a week late) most recently when they were teens and I offered to cook lasagna (Marc's favorite, not Sheli's) for their dinner.  Needless to say, I've learned from my mistakes and try a lot harder these days to acknowledge each person individually.  Marc got a carrot cake this year (from a box) and dinner out.  Sheli got an Italian cream cake made from scratch.  Even with the dinner, Marc came up at a loss this year.  That Italian cream was the bomb!!

So, here's the recipe and I would hope that all of you will let me know when you're pulling yours out of the oven so I'll have time to get us a cup of coffee on my way over!!

1 cup buttermilk
1tsp baking soda
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup shortening
2 cups white sugar
5 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup sweetened flaked coconut
1 tsp baking powder
2 cups flour


Preheat oven to 350.  Grease and flour three 9" round cake pans and set aside.
In a small bowl, dissolve baking soda in buttermilk and set aside.
In a large bowl, cream together butter, shortening, and sugar until light and fluffy.  By hand, stir in eggs, buttermilk mixture, vanilla, coconut, baking powder and flour.  Stir until just combined.  Divide batter equally between pans.

Bake in preheated over for 30 to 35 minutes or until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean.  Allow to cool before frosting.

To Make Frosting:
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups confectioner's sugar
2 TBSP light cream
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1 cup sweetened flaked coconut
In a medium bowl, combine cream cheese, butter, and vanilla until mixed well.  Add confectioner's sugar, half a cup at a time, until light and fluffy.  Use caution making frosting too sweet.  Use cream to thin to spreadable consistency.  Stir in nuts and coconut.  Spread between layers and on top of cake.