Holidays

Nativity paper-pieced quilt – part one

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Our Prayer Quilt Ministry is getting ready again for the St. Martha’s Catholic Church parish festival. This year it will be held on Saturday, October 3. Along with lots of crafty items for sale, our group has just started working on a special surprise for the silent auction.

The conception of the project began when Lynn brought to Noreen, our resident “Fabric Whisperer,” an intricate paper-pieced quilt pattern called, Advent Nativity, on the Paper Panache website. It is a stunning quilt! But it would be a HUGE project for just one person. I could almost see the wheels turning inside Noreen’s head at the possibilities. It wasn’t long before she was organizing a group of us to make the quilt. Certainly seven pairs of hands could pull this quilt together. With Noreen at the helm there was Sally, Liz, Helaine, Lynn, Clara and myself volunteering for the assignment. No small task, Noreen enlarged the quilt by 190% and put together the quilt sections with fabric pieces into zip lock bags. When finished, the quilt will be 60 inches wide. I don’t recall the length.

Last week, seven of us took home instructions and fabric pieces for a small section of the quilt. I was given the Kneeling King. It had been five years since I’d tackled a paper-pieced project, so I was a little nervous. I have to confess, in the privacy of my sewing room last week, I said a bad word a few times after ripping out the same two small fabric pieces three times.

On Wednesday, everyone brought their paper-pieced assignments in and laid them out. There were lots of confessions of frustration, but you couldn’t tell by wonderful results. I was very impressed! This week will be easier!

Three more weeks of sewing assignments and then the task of sewing the small sections together. This week I was assigned a Shepherd.

Tell me what you think?

Kate Spain Christmas quilt all done!

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I LOVE Christmas fabric! I’ve been collecting fat quarters for years. So every now and then I find it healthy to pull some of those pretty fabric pieces out and actually use them in a quilt.

When I saw Kate Spain’s pattern called “Flurry,” I knew what I had to do. If the truth were told though … I really wanted the fabric line that Kate Spain used for the Flurry quilt. OK so I couldn’t find it anywhere on the Internet. Hence … my stash to the rescue!

I changed up the pattern slightly since I didn’t have her “Flurry Panel” which is found in the corners of the quilt and in strategic spots between the rows of “present” boxes.

The fabulous Kim Norton of A Busy Bobbin quilted an all-over quilt design called Holly Jolly Christmas from Urban Elementz with a butternut-colored thread from King Tut.

This quilt is destined to become a Christmas present for … wouldn’t you like to know?

Lobster risotto … need I say more?

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Did you notice that all the retail establishments are decorated for Valentine’s Day? It made me think about what I could make this year. My favorite go-to fancy recipe is Lobster Risotto. Found it in a book published several years ago by Williams-Sonoma called Wine & Food a New Look at Flavor. Thought I’d share!

Time saving hint … shop for a lobster at a grocery store that will steam one as you shop. Saves lots of preparation time and there will be one less pot to clean.

Ingredients
3 cups chicken broth
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup finely chopped yellow onion
pinch of red pepper flakes
1 cup Arborio rice
1/4 cup rich white wine
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
pinch of saffron threads
1/2 pound lobster tail meat, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup peeled, seeded and finely chopped tomato
2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Pour the broth into a small saucepan, bring to a simmer over medium heat, and adjust the heat to keep the broth at a bare simmer. In a large deep skillet over medium-low heat, warm the oil. Add the onion and red pepper flakes and sauté until the onion is soft, about 3 to 4 minutes. Add the Arborio rice and cook, stirring to coat with the onion mixture, until the grains are opaque, about 2 minutes. Add the wine, lemon zest and juice, and saffron threads. Cook for 2 minutes.

Begin adding the hot broth to the rice 1/2 cup at a time, stirring often and waiting until each addition is almost fully absorbed before adding more. After about 20 minutes, when you have added all but 1/2 cup of the broth, the mixture should look creamy. Taste a grain of rice. It should be cooked through but still slightly firm (not hard) at the center. If it is still too firm, add the remaining broth and continue cooking.

When the rice is ready, stir in the lobster, distributing it evenly, and then stir in the tomato and butter. Let stand covered for 5 minutes before serving to heat through the lobster and tomato.

Spoon the risotto into shallow bowls and serve right away. Makes 4 servings.

Loretta’s goodbye quilt

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When someone in our “Bloom Where You Are Planted” quilt bee moves we make them a house quilt as a parting gift. It is an expression of our love for all the years we have been together. Friendship and quilting are a lot like Super Glue … a powerful bonding agent. Since I’ve been a member of the bee there have been four “house” quilts made. The last one was for Jan. I blogged about Jan’s quilt some time back. We had to mail her quilt as she sold her house so fast one day she was with us and the next … gone. We decided to use the same “house” pattern. If I remember correctly, the pattern came out of one of Loretta’s quilting books. We all loved it … and changed the colors up a bit for Loretta.


When we learned Loretta was moving. we immediately went into hyper-quilting mode. We were determined to get Loretta’s quilt finished before she left us. After assembling the top and basting the quilt, we turned it over to Tina who machine quilted it and made the awesome patch on the back. I don’t know who sewed the binding on. I was out of that loop but I have to say the quilt turned out awesome!


This week at our annual Christmas bee we presented Loretta with her quilt. I don’t think she saw the surprise coming as we also exchanged little gifts and celebrated Tina’s birthday. We are sneaky like that.

World’s largest corn maze

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When my son, Ricky, told me about his adventure with his wife, Kate, in the world’s largest corn maze, I thought it would make a great blog post, especially for Halloween. We have corn mazes in Texas, but this one seems to have taken mazes to a whole different level. In honor of Halloween, I’m calling the following … Ricky’s “blob post.”

My wife, Kate, and I have been living out in the modest city of Dixon, California, for the past four years, largely due to its proximity to Travis Air Force Base, where I’m stationed, and where Kate works in Sacramento. The quiet, triangle-shaped city’s main claim-to-fame is the Dixon May Fair, held every year in, you guessed it, the month of May. Boasted as the longest-running fair in all of California, you can find fried anything, midway games, and celebrity acts ranging from Snoop Dog to Larry the Cable Guy–what a variety right? Sadly, even though the May Fair is a 20-minute walk from our door step, Kate and I have never made the trek to the famous fair; it seems we’re always spending time in Napa that time of year!

Aside from the annual May Fair, did you know Dixon hosts the Guinness Book of World Records largest corn maze? Who knew tiny Dixon, also known as “Sheep Town” or “Lamb Town,” had so many quirks? Well it took us three-and-one-half years, but recently we made the five-minute drive over to Cool Patch Pumpkins to conquer the maize maze. After parking, quite appropriately, in a field, we wandered on up to buy our tickets. At $12 per person, we thought the price was steep for a simple corn maze, but we quickly found our jaws dropping in disbelief after looking at the map of the maze!

“Please allow two hours to complete the Corn Maze,” said a posted sign. Probably meant to be a cautionary note, we took it as a challenge and glided to the maze entrance. The labyrinth of corn has you doing loops, following corridors in a large grid, and scratching your head at quadruple forks-in-the-road going in all directions. The map is absolutely necessary to keep you on track, because some of the fake paths are extensive. An alpha-numeric grid helps you match your position on the map with various markers along the maze paths, just in case you’re completely stumped, but watch out for pranksters that have moved the markers around the maze!

As we trekked through the corn rows, our strategies to tackle the maze evolved and refined. We began considering drawing a complete start-to-finish line on our map, then highlighting our position as we went—this proved difficult without writing utensils! Another consideration was using Google Maps on our phone, but, alas, no cell service! About a third of the way through, we started trailing a couple that looked confident in their route, which got us another third of the way through the maze before they took a wrong turn and got us lost as well! Finally, Kate surrendered, gave me the map, and I used my internal compass and sense of direction to calculate our path. Despite these obstacles, we finished in just under one hour! Not the case with everyone where every weekend someone calls 911 hopelessly lost in the corn maze. In case you were wondering, there is no cheese at the end of the maze, but we did take a celebratory photo, high-fived, and headed to nearby Woodland, California for Mexican food and margaritas, which, honestly, should be at the end of every maze.

So while you may not jump to book your next vacation in Dixon, California, remember the world record-setting corn maze at Cool Patch Pumpkins for your next visit out to Northern California. You may just need to walk off some of that wine and cheese from nearby Napa Valley!

2013 … a look back

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I only managed to complete two quilts in 2013. I have loftier quilting goals for 2014! The first completed 2013 quilt was a Christmas present for one of my husband’s many, many lovely sisters. Dipping into my collection of Christmas fat quarters, I used a disappearing nine-patch pattern (future blog alert) that I learned to make at our church’s prayer quilt ministry. A real stash buster and lots of fun to make! Did I mention that Becky is one of nine sisters in the family? She lives in San Antonio and runs a soup kitchen. I finished the quilt in the nick of time … only one year late!

The other quilt went to a charity gala for The Village Learning Center (www.villagelac.org). I make one every year for them. It’s the least I can do. Among other wonderful things, the Center runs an adult day program that my special needs daughter attends. Mimi’s favorite day of the week is Tuesday when her class goes bowling! Life should be so simple.

Just so you don’t think I was a total slug in 2014, I did manage to make coordinating pillow cases, dust ruffle and a little skirt for under Mimi’s television. It goes nicely with the quilt I made for her wall in 2012 with a collection of Kaffe Fassett fat quarters. The fabric on one side of the pillow cases is blue and the other green. The pillow cases were a booger to make until I learned the “hot dog bun” method of making pillow cases from my friend Angela. Now I just gotta figure out what to do with Mimi’s curtain-less window!

A twist on ‘Sharing Sunday’

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This year for ‘Sharing Sunday’ at St. Martha’s Catholic Church in Kingwood, hubby and I cashed in a year’s worth of small change before heading down to our local toy store. On the Park (www.onthepark.com) is a lovely toy store that really shines this time of year … and they gift wrap … not my strongest gift. We came out of there with 10 baby gifts. It was a new world’s record for the Frantz family. We usually wind up with 5 or 6 baby dolls.

Our “twist” to our church’s event this year was all the gifts purchased were for babies about eight months old. Yep … we are getting in some practice on what it will be like being grandparents. Our first will be born in May … so by next Christmas we will have an eight-month-old bouncing on our knees.

I wrote a column this week about this very subject for my newspaper (www.ourtribune.com) with lots more words … no photographs … because that is what columns are … lots of words. You can also check it out on the “You Gotta Laugh” tab of this blog in case you are interested.

I love my Christmas LED lights!

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I don’t know what boulder I’ve been living under. I’ve just discovered battery-powered LED Christmas lights. My friend, Gwenn, was telling us at our annual Christmas Bee Party (basically, we are friends who quilt) this week.

“I have them all over my house. I love them,” Gwenn said.

Since I don’t frequent hardware establishments unless hubby gives me a very detailed list, I didn’t have a clue what they were. Bells went off in my head as I looked at our mantle … decorated … but certainly lacking in the “sparkle” arena. Note the “before” and “after” shots.

My only complaint with the LED lights I purchased is you have to have a very teeny tiny cross-point (Philips) screwdriver (not included in the box). I struggled with my tiny sewing machine (common) screwdriver for 45 minutes before my husband came home from work. Give me a sewing machine over a screwdriver any day. I did get two screws out, but it was a struggle. Also, each LED strand requires 4 AA batteries.

Bottom line … love the lights! Get some before they run out!