Yet Another Photo

I think I have written before about my husband and how he is one in a million. He not only likes quilts, he even enjoys going to quilt and fabric stores, often picking out fabrics all on his own. He is also the fellow who insisted I have this blog and who takes all the photos. So he insisted that I needed another photo, one where the quilt was hanging rather than lying on the floor on the ground.

The changes that I made to Sue Garman's design include rearranging the blocks to suit my own idea of balance, eliminating a couple of blocks and substituting some of my own choosing (I wanted hearts in each corner so two of the heart blocks are either Jeana Kimball or Eleanor Sinkiewicz), removing some minor elements and adding some others, and D2 block is an adaptation of a Jeana Kimball design. I also eliminated the final dogtooth edging and substituted the scalloped edging. The fabric choices and colors are always up to the maker unless it is a kit so those are different from the original as well. The end product is substantially the same but also noticeably different. The slight bend on the side comes from it running in to the handrail.

The most amazing difference between my husband and most other men is that he likes to shoe shop with me and often picks shoes for me without ever looking at the prices. As I said, one in a million.

Finished!

The quilt is done after nearly two years. If you have finished a long project like this then you know how odd it is, almost bereft but certainly a large gap.

It was still drying on the floor, one of the few places in the house large enough. My remaining dog, Tucker, seems to like it.

Not Quite Ready For Prime Time

I finished the quilt today. It isn't ready for its unveiling since it has to dry from its bath to get rid of the blue pen and whatever dirt, blood, and debris ended up on it during its 22 months in my various houses. So come back tomorrow for photos of the finished product.

In the meantime, Trump is trying to rile his base with all sorts of spurious ideas and ridiculous proposals. It is clearly working since in the past 4 days there have been heinous crimes against Democrats, news organizations, Jews, and blacks. And once again, Trump did not pull the trigger nor did he contact any of these folks directly but when you send messages to fringe groups you should not be surprised if some of the fringe unravels.

Halfway Around

I don't know how anyone else does binding. Truth be told, I have never taken a quilting class and have had very little exposure to other people's quilts except in museums or shows and more in museums. So when I first started quilting I had no clue what I was doing. I had sewed for years, made my own clothing, even made some sport jackets for my husband (despite flunking the sewing unit in home ec in junior high). But quilting, like most endeavors, has its own vocabulary and its own expectations.

All of my knowledge of quilting came originally from magazine articles that used to be more common decades ago. So when the instructions said that the binding needed to feel well stuffed, I thought stuffed meant what it normally means and my first several bindings were as fat as cording with me patiently stuffing fiber fill inside the small space that binding provided. It's no wonder that I ended up despising binding. I did learn that well stuffed only meant that the binding needed to fit the cut edge of the quilt nicely.

Then there was the whole continuous binding debacle. At least it was a debacle for me. Continuous binding is still a very commonly taught and accepted technique but after several years of knowing that my bindings were just that little bit askew, I decided to start making bias strips and proceeding from there. It takes more fabric but it makes an enormous difference in the end result. I should add that I am the person who complains to the museum that their painting is 1/16 inch out of true so continuous cut binding would never be right for me.

So I cut 2 inch strips on the bias and sew them by hand to assure myself that everything is straight and smooth in both the binding and in the end product. Since I have started that, my bindings end up straighter, better, and my quilts end up hanging straighter as well. I should have known this from the start because men's tailoring depends on the most intricate hand sewing that is never visible but has a huge impact in the finished product.

This is only my second quilt with a scalloped edge though I have done a few with a wavy edge. Halfway around I am satisfied that everything was measured correctly and that everything was given the proper amount of tug around those curved and biased edges. We'll see when it's done if that is true.

Round the Post and Heading Home

I applied the binding to the front of the quilt and joined the loose ends in a mitered joint. I began the turning process and got approximately three scallops done so I know how it will look. Stay tuned to this blog for the final result which should be in two days. The scalloped edge is a pain in the neck but it does enliven the quilt.

The man who wants to be speaker of the house of representatives,Kevin McCarthy, posted a tweet claiming that Jews wanted to buy the election three days before the disgusting events in Pittsburgh. He deleted his tweets as soon as the news reports came in but that certainly doesn't mean that he deleted his feelings about Soros, Bloomberg, or Steyer. We are already in early voting with Georgia officials preventing old black people from going to the polls.

I can guarantee now that I don't want to live in the world that Trumpettes support. What is happening is disgusting and despicable but we do have a chance to vote these creeps out.

Looney Tunes

When I lived in Utah I went to a few political rallies with my youngest son. Both of us decided to stop going because the crowds at the rallies were decidedly odd, sort of like the weird guy on the subway that you know you don't want to sit next to. So it wasn't surprising at all to me that the fellow arrested for sending out all the pipe bombs was not the sharpest knife in the drawer or that he had his very own MAGA hat and a van covered with pro-Trump stickers.

That's one of the primary reasons for Trump to soften his rhetoric. It isn't that it causes people to be crazy but that some crazy people might end up doing really stupid and/or dangerous stuff. I have a daughter in law with obsessive compulsive disorder. She is a nice woman and she and my son are still very much in love but her actions aren't always rational. If she were always rational she wouldn't be diagnosed with a mental disorder and mental disorders are just what the terms says.

I trimmed the quilt today and measured and marked the scalloped edge. I also made yards of binding so tomorrow I can get that process started. It's a queen sized quilt so it will be a few days.

Done But Not Done

After 22 months of work with interruptions to make five other quilts and foreign travel and moving 3000 miles, I finished quilting my Baltimore Album today. I didn't finish the quilt as it needs to be trimmed and blocked and bound and washed but this was a major step forward. This blog entry could also be titled, "Housekeeping Whenever, Quilting Forever" as the picture shows my lack of attention to some of the daily chores in order to get to this point.

Slime Balls

Lou Dobbs, Rush Limbaugh, and Donald Trump all blame Democrats for the rash of pipe bombs sent to...Democrats. Then in Wisconsin, Trump started by calling for national unity but then moving on to saying that national unity could only happen if the media stopped criticizing him. Sounds like the wife beater who says, "Don't make me hit you again."

Try This Now

Many people have been going to my September 5, 2017 post about the mock puff pastry adapted from the Silver Palate cookbooks. A couple of days ago I made the pastry to encase seasonal apples because my husband loves my apple pie but I wanted to try something that wasn't apple pie this time.

So go back to September 5, 2017 for the recipe or go to the Silver Palate cookbooks for the mock puff pastry recipe but remember that ice cold vodka instead of water works way better since the vodka doesn't cause the same problems with gluten as the water. So no tough pastry and delightfully crisp results.

Then what I did after prepping the pastry was I asked my husband, who is the prime beneficiary of any dessert I make, to peel and slice the apples. I had a pan ready on the stove with some butter melted and the pan heating up. As he peeled and sliced he added the apples to the pan. This ended up having a benefit to the dessert because some of the apples cooked longer and became almost applesauce and some of the pieces were still somewhat crisp when they went in to the pastry. I seasoned the apples with some cinnamon, added some golden raisins, stirred in a couple of tablespoons of butter and a quarter cup of sugar and cooked everything after the final apple addition for about 15 minutes. I wanted to cook the apples before encasing them because the pastry doesn't cook as long as a pie and I wanted the apples to be fully cooked. 

We only used half of the recipe of pastry but I sprayed an eight inch cake pan with cooking spray. then rolled out the half of the pastry into a rough square and put it in to the cake pan with the corners hanging over the edge. Then I put the apples in the middle and folded the pastry over the apples.

With the oven pre-heated to 425, I cooked the pastry apple combination for 35 minutes. It was fabulous.

If It Doesn't Sound True...

Yesterday Trump reported on a phone call that he had with the Saudi king. Now, forgetting for a minute that this was certainly in translation and may or may not have been the king since he is in his 80's and supposed to be suffering from dementia, Trump flat out stated that the king denied any involvement in the disappearance and possible murder of Jamal Khasshoggi, even suggesting that rogue elements had been responsible.

When the dog eats your homework no one believes you. These "rogue" elements arrived en masse at Istanbul's airport, drove in embassy cars to the embassy, left Turkey as a group, were connected to the Saudi royal family as security people, and happened to bring a bone saw with them to Turkey. Then, just before Turkish and Saudi investigators entered the embassy yesterday, a large cleaning crew, dressed in hazmat suits left the embassy.

Strong men, whoever they are, make denials to Trump and he sycophantishly nods his head in understanding. Dog meet homework.

Numerous Oddities

Yesterday Trump was quoted as describing General "Madddog" Mattis, the current Secretary of Defense as a Democrat who needed to leave. The entire world should be very afraid if that happens since Mattis is one of the few adults in the room who have also been through combat. Trump and Bolton, neither of whom saw combat duty although Bolton did serve 18 weeks in Louisiana as part of his National Guard requirements, spend other people's lives with abandon. As an Army brat and a Navy wife my view of jerks like that is colored by what seems to be their privilege. It is always easier to send someone else to do a job you don't want to do than to go yourself.

Bolton is a hawk, a serious hawk who thinks the US military might has only one purpose--to punish with military action those who disagree with the US about pretty much anything. Unfortunately there are plenty of people who agree with that view. With Trump leading the way, the entire world looks like a nail to the military's hammer.

Then, in another version of how low can you go, Trump said that it didn't matter if the Saudis killed Jamal Khashoggi as far as the multi-million dollar arms deals go because the US economy depended on arms deals to survive. So two jerks who never got closer to a firing line than a range want to abdicate their moral responsibility to stand up for human decency along with freedom of conscience and freedom of the press so that the US can continue to sell weapons to countries that kill the innocent and punish the truth tellers.

Donald Trump, jr, chimed in with a decades old photo of Khashoggi with mujaheddin in Afghanistan during the time when the Russians were trying to subdue Afghanistan to open their own front in that area. Junior (you thought he was the smart one) declared that the Saudi journalist, who had a green card to live in the US after serious vetting, deserved to be assassinated because he sided with terrorists. Hell and damnation! Back about the same time as the photo was taken, my seven year old son wanted to dress up as a mujaheddin because they were the "heroes" fighting against Soviet oppression. I guess it's still hard to tell who the players are without a program.

Probably Posted This Before

My husband and I just finished dinner. The weather has changed here in southeastern Pennsylvania and the outdoor temperature never got above 60F. We knew this was going to happen so we put a few items on our weekly menu* to address the drop in temperature. One of those dinners was Pork and Green Bean Stew, a recipe I adapted from a Gourmet Magazine article that came out just prior to the Barcelona Olympics. Gourmet doesn't exist any more but my husband and I still enjoy our version of this Spanish dish.

Pork and Green Bean Stew

A small package of boneless spareribs or something similar cut into cubes
1 small yellow onion chopped medium sized bits (about half an inch on a side)
A couple of small shallots chopped fine but not superfine
At least two and up to six garlic cloves minced or crushed (in Utah the garlic cloves were smaller and here they are bigger and my husband and I like garlic)
A couple of sprigs of fresh thyme, a couple of sprigs of fresh oregano
1 can of chopped tomatoes (about 14 oz)
1/2 cup white wine
1 cup chicken stock
1/2 to 3/4 cup pitted Greek olives (the original recipe was for Spanish olives that you pitted but I streamlined)
1 cup fresh green beans cut or snapped into 1 inch lengths

olive oil
salt and pepper

1 potato chopped into cubes This is separate from everything else because it is not in the original recipe at all but we like the stew to cover all the bases from protein to starch so we add the potato.

Brown your pork in batches in a heavy pot in some olive oil seasoned with a little salt and pepper. Remove to a plate or bowl and add the onions and shallots to the pot. If you need a little more olive oil add some but cook over medium to medium high heat until they are soft. Add the cubed potatoes if you are using them and cook for five minutes. Add the garlic and the herbs and stir for a couple of minutes until you can smell them in the air around you. Add the white wine (I always use dry vermouth because Julia Child always said that was appropriate) and cook until reduced by half. Add the chicken broth and cook until reduced by half. Put the pork back in to the pot and add the pitted olives. Stir in the canned tomatoes and simmer for about 30 minutes. At this point the stew itself should be very aromatic, reduced to a nice consistency and just waiting for the green beans.

15 minutes before serving turn the stew back on, throw in your fresh green beans when it begins to bubble around the edges, and cook for 10 minutes after that. The beans will still be nicely crisp and green. Taste and adjust for seasoning of salt and pepper. Serve with crusty bread.

After all the travails that my husband and I have endured to live in this house, we have decided to do a smaller remodel and sell. We still plan to stay near Philadelphia but for many reasons, including the death of our beloved dog, we don't want to invest in this neighborhood. I will give more updates as they happen. 

Mohs Surgery

I am of northern European extraction, primarily Irish and German, so I am pretty fair-skinned. But I am also an older woman and back in my youth no one wore sunscreen. Add to that the fact that I was a competitive swimmer most of my life up to the age of 53 and that means I have been out in the sun not only a lot but often in sun environments that are harsher than the norm. South Texas is pretty brutal with very little cloud cover, California has sun most of the time, Utah has less sun though not by much, but where we lived was around 4600 feet above sea level so the natural filters for sunlight were fewer.

Anyway, my body is sort of the gift that keeps on giving for dermatologists. I am lucky enough to not have had melanoma yet (though a sister did), but I have a constant battle with squamous and basal cell carcinomas. The squamous cell ones are no big deal at all but the basal cell ones, while usually slow growing and not quick to metastasize, do spread if allowed to grow. I went to a dermatologist here on 10/2 simply to establish a relationship in my new home and have my body mapped. I had been to my previous dermatologist in Utah in April so didn't expect there to be any surprises.

That's why my scheduled Mohs surgery is a shocker. I have a basal cell carcinoma under my right nostril that needs more attention. The doctor here cut off and out a great deal in order to send tissue to the pathology lab but she says I need to get the Mohs expert in to complete the job. Not at all what I was expecting. I feel like calling my old doctor and asking him to review his notes.

Banksy's Gone

The art world was stunned when Banksy's painting of a girl with a red balloon shredded itself as soon as the auction hammer fell for $1.4 million dollars. Banksy's message sent at the same time was, "Going, going, gone." Banksy is supposed to be British though no one knows for certain but I know an artist who many years ago had a very large work on display in a gallery in Salt Lake City, a self-portrait, that shredded itself while everyone watched. My friend's shredding was done very slowly by hand cranking a shredder through which the art was rolled as a sort of performance piece during the run of the gallery show. I was mildly perturbed by the act but he owned the piece and it was his statement. He, like many artists I know, believes art should be more ephemeral than permanent. I don't know the whole story behind the Banksy event but he might feel the same as my friend.

Apropos of Nothing

My husband has our computers set to show photos on the home page. Today a picture he took in Florence last year popped up. There are numerous porcelain and china museums throughout Europe and my husband and I enjoy visiting them not only for the beauty of the goods displayed but for the technological innovations that usually accompany the objects. We tend to take ideas for granted, an attitude that seems to have grown to encompass more than technology these days.

In any case, there is a cup and saucer from the collection in Florence. The color combination is delightful and the expertise of the manufacturer is undeniable.

Factions

The United States constitution and the Federalist papers (one seminal and legally binding and the other a guidance written by a faction within the founding fathers) both warn against factions. Given that the Supreme Court constantly and continually and even continuously focuses on the originality of the language. So when the original document castigates factions, to what does it refer?

Keep in mind that the original document didn't even want the President and the Vice-President to be elected as a ticket or combination. The original thought was that the two men (and, yes it would have always been men in the late 18th and early 19th century) could find commonality if they were forced to by the will of the people. It didn't take long for factions to destroy that idea (which coincidentally was also part of the French Revolution's Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite, but that's a whole different story) leading to political parties (factions) from the very early 19th century and moving forward.

So over the centuries of the United States existence, there have been many different factions. There have been clashes between these factions since the Constitution was amended to allow for the election of a faction, that is the election of two men who both represent one faction and whose  election is intended to move the goals of that faction, rather than a compromise of ideas as envisioned by the original document.


What  I am trying to point out here is that all those originalists who want judges to be originalists as well don't really go back to the original document nor to the original ideas of the writers. Political parties end up being destructive of the common weal, an idea that was central to the Revolutionary War and central to the arguments and disagreements that gave all of us the guiding principles that have unfortunately been destroyed in modern times.

That's the real reason we have the Electoral College and once that reason was destroyed by the factions that the document itself decried, the Electoral College should have been either eliminated or amended. Unfortunately what we have now is a Frankenstein's monster that only gives advantage to the factions that the original document despised.

Don't get me wrong. I cannot stand any of the Clintons and as far as I know that includes their grandchildren. But that is one of the by-products of factions. We are bound by the document we have and as long as factions have all the money and power we are helpless to  overcome them.     
   

No Recourse

Mitch McConnell, unfortunately one of the homeliest men I have ever seen, flat out stated today that it didn't matter what happened with the FBI investigation--there will be a vote on Friday regardless of whether the investigation is complete or even reported to the senate. There you go all you Trumpettes--that's what Republican leaders think of your concerns and complaints. Because I know for a fact that it isn't only Democrat females who get groped, get propositioned, get sexually abused. It doesn't matter that McConnell wants to elevate Kavanaugh before the facts are in.

I sincerely hope that Flake understands that it does matter and not just to me but to millions of women. He says he feels obligated to vote for Kavanaugh because he is a conservative but there are dozens of qualified conservative judges who not only do not have questions about their past hanging over them, but their actions in the present staining their reputation. When he confronted Senator Klobuchar belligerently I knew for sure he had done what Blasey Ford claimed because he exposed himself (no pun intended) as a man who bullies women. She had not been confrontational at all; her questioning was more collegial than I had anticipated and far more personal, but Kavanaugh was ugly and angry--he practically spit at her with his contempt.

In the meantime Trump and Trump junior claim that all young boys are in danger now. Really? In danger if they grope, abuse, or rape women? Part of me certainly hopes that is true and part of me wonders what those two did when they were 15--17. I have three sons and all the women that they have dated and married have praised them as paragons of understanding. Even the young women I have tutored over the years bemoan the fact that I didn't have more sons because mine are "woke". I deplore the slang  but I understand the sentiment.