In recent weeks I have been thinking of an old poem by William Davies. I think of it now because my life recently has been the opposite of the advice Mr. Davies urges upon me:

Leisure

What is this life if, full of care
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass,
No time to see, in broad day light,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at beauty’s glance
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

In an effort to remedy my over busy life I stopped today for a time to enjoy the birth of a new season. Here is what I observe:

The ground has a new cast of green as tender shoots of spring grass push through the cold brown soil. This past week it has snowed nearly every day, yet as the warming days melt the snow away the optimistic grass still shows green.

From the tops of tall old trees in town the red-wing blackbirds are voicing their optimism about the future and busy robins hustle about looking for the best nesting materials. Our cats spend hours each day practically glued to the windows with their teeth chattering at the temptation caused by robins hopping past.

You can see I have been thinking of the red-wings from the block I stitched this week. This bird is stitched from all 1930s fabrics and realistically it should be all black, except for the red wing tips, of course. I colored it lighter in view of the colors used in the rest of the quilt. Sadly, it is still wa-a-ay too dark to fit into my traditional 1930s colored quilt. It is back to the drawing board for me…. (The quilt is newly designed for my year-long classes that I teach in the City.)

Here in the country the changing of seasons is marked by many events that ignore how warm or cold the temperature may be. A new generation of babies, sheep, calves and colts is on their way and it will not be long before I spot new babies wobbling alongside their mothers. I always shudder and wish I could bring them indoors and away from the cold nights.

This year I am planning a herb garden and plans of what I will plant and how it will all fit together fit lull me to sleep at nights…..

A few days ago I was quietly working in my sewing room when I heard one of the cats jumping at one of the windows in the next room. I went to investigate and saw nothing.

Meanwhile another cat began jumping at a window in the room I had just left. Returning to the sewing room I saw an unusual sight.

A large bird, with a long beak, was investigating all of the mortar indentations between the bricks around the one of the windows. The large bird deftly climbed the bricks from the bottom to the top of each window, checking the mortar between each and every brick. Sometimes this bird was lucky and found a morsel of food (probably a spider) in the cracks.

The bird, intent on its task, was undaunted by the cats or me, with my camera, on the other side of the window.

Since I was able to photograph this surprise visitor, we were able to identify this bird as a Northern Flicker.

In the depths of a very cold winter my visiting flicker was a surprise reminder of how fortunate and comfortable I am inside my cozy, warm house with plenty of good food to eat.

Living in the country in the wintertime is sometimes an adventure. In the past week we have had two very large snowstorms complete with more than twelve inches of snow each time and two twelve-hour power outages during the day.

Planned activities had to be cancelled while we stayed home shoveling snow and trying to stay warm. A kind neighbor plowed the long driveway leading to our house, but we still put in long hours hand shoveling the sidewalks and parts of the driveway. Our neighbor’s dogs kept us company while we worked.

Even though our electricity service was uncertain, and the storms seemed to rage on forever and ever, the beauty that such snow provides more than makes up for the hardships.

The photos here are from the past two days’ snowstorm.

Like the rest of you, this month has been filled with holiday preparations and festivities: decorating, mailing gifts to family members living far away, making treats for friends near and far, Christmas parties, elementary school programs and a photo shoot of my Old Fashioned Christmas quilt.

Here are a few photos to illustrate this past week’s flurry of activities.

Wrapping and Packing Gifts to Be Sent Far Away

Fudge for our troops in Afghanistan

Attended a couple of Christmas Programs

Playing Quilt Bingo at Christmas quilt class/party

Tomorrow this table will be set and loaded with lots of good things to eat. How fortunate I am to have enough, and more, in all areas of my life. Thanksgiving truly is my favorite holiday.

Last year, at my quilt classes’ Christmas party, one of my students brought this yummy appetizer. It is quick and easy to make. I thought you might enjoy it too.

Cranberry Relish Appetizer

 12 oz. Package of fresh cranberries, washed and sorted

3/4 cup sugar

1 medium jalapino, seeded

3 green onions

2 tablespoons fresh cilantro

 8 oz cream cheese (This makes enough Cranberry Relish to go with two 8 oz cream cheese blocks.)

Combine the first six ingredients in food processor. Process them to the consistency of coarse bread crumbs.

Pour over cream cheese block and serve with crackers.

 Enjoy and Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!

 

In the past I have thought of winter as a colorless season—with everything dormant, sleeping, cold, harsh and drab. This year I have seen winter with new eyes. 

The first I noticed was the view outside my kitchen window. The snow is deep here and it has covered the brown earth for well over two months now. Just before sunset, when the sun is low in the southwest, the landscape outside my window is transformed.

The dimming sunlight of early evening reflects off from the snow that has settled into the landscape. The previously white snow becomes tinted with blue. The contours of the plowed, uneven land are reminiscent of gently rippling waves and the view outside my window is transformed from a bleak, cold wasteland into a quiet lake of icy blue that seems to float outside my window.

 

Since then I have been looking for color in places where I had previously assumed there was none.  

Earlier this week, with camera in hand, I took a short walk to document the color of winter I could find. Below are a few of the photos I took.

What I learned from this simple exercise is that winter has it’s own beauty when one takes the time to see it. I also learned that a wide range of color lives on through the cold, frozen season.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When we lived in the desert a few years ago I longed for real winter weather. I missed the snow, the clean landscape the snow creates and the embracing quiet that snow storms bring. I missed the comforting feel of layered clothing, and most of all I wanted to stop being hot so much of the time. It was even hard to enjoy the temperate winter weather there because I knew the blazing heat was approaching again.

As we made plans for our move I loudly proclaimed that, “I will never complain about being cold, no matter how cold it gets!” I repeated it many times on moving day when the temperature was 102 degrees in mid-April!

Now that I am living in the cold I have kept my promise and I have not yet complained about being cold. However, I am keenly aware of it and I am finding ways to take some of the bite off from this coldest time of year. I thought I would share a few of my techniques with you.

The first is a comforting cup of my mom’s homemade hot cocoa. In the far off days when I was still a child, we had a plentiful milk supply. My parents kept a cow at the bottom of our large property and my brothers took turns milking it night and morning. Many winter days at home were begun with a bowl of hot oatmeal and a cup of hot cocoa before setting off to walk to school. (Marshmallows melting on top were an extra treat that I still enjoy.) 

Here is the simple recipe should you want to try it yourself.

Mom’s Hot Cocoa

2/3 cup sugar

1/3 c unsweetened cocoa powder

Pinch of salt

2/3 cup water

8 cups milk

1-2 teaspoons vanilla

Mix sugar, cocoa, salt and water in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil and let gently boil until the sugar is dissolved. Add milk and blend. Heat to desired temperature. Mix in vanilla. Serve.

Another way to cozy up winter is a warm hot water bottle at your feet. However, a friend recently gave me a much faster and easier substitute for this warming comfort.

It is a simple 12” x 12” flannel bag filled with feed corn that you heat in the microwave for 3 minutes. This personal spot warmer is amazing, it stays warm for at least an hour and it is quickly renewed with another two or three minute spin in the microwave.

She also made me a 4” x 22” corn bag to warm and drape across my shoulders and around my neck. Heaven!

She tells me these same bags can be kept in the refrigerator for comfort from summer’s heat in reverse—instant cool for heat relief. I would not want to try it now, but I believe her and I will try it next summer.

My friend buys a 50 lb bag of this corn from the feed store for filling her flannel bags—which she gives to all of her friends, but dry beans or rice could will work as a substitute for the corn. I would not recommend filling your flannel bag with popcorn—for obvious reasons.

My final cold weather neutralizer is familiar to all of us quilters—Bag Balm. I bought some at our local pharmacy recently—at the recommendation of the pharmacist—for healing cracked, dry skin on hands.

Since then I read on Wikipedia that Bag Balm is Shania Twain’s best beauty secret. She uses it on her face and her legs.

So I figured that if it is good enough for Shania, it is good enough for me, and I have been using it in the mornings on my face, neck and hands. It really works!

My hands are never dry anymore and they look like they belong to someone much younger. About my face, I really can’t say since at my age one cannot truly be objective about how young or old one may look, but the skin on my face and neck never feels dry anymore.

I hope you are staying warm this winter. Meanwhile, I am off to the microwave to re-heat my foot warmer.

 

 I promised a few weeks ago to show you pictures of the doll quilts I made for our daughter’s children. The three older girls have American Girls dolls. For Christmas they received a bunk bed with a trundle underneath for their dolls to sleep in. At my daughter’s suggestion I made quilts for each of their beds.

The colors for each doll quilt were chosen to match the bed-sized quilts each girl sleeps under every night—which also portrays their personalities.

 

 I started first with this Economy Block quilt. The tiny squares are each finished one and one-half inches square.

When my husband saw me laboring over the tiny quarter-square pieces. He kindly suggested that larger pieces would go together faster. I reminded him, however, that this quilt was for a doll and that scale made a difference.

 

  The top went together fairly fast, but the machine quilting on my trusty little featherweight Singer was difficult. It kept skipping stitches on the thick intersections. So for the remaining quilts I purposefully planned designs that did not have such thick intersections.

 

 Quilt number two was a Log Cabin. This quilt went together very well and quickly. Each Log Cabin block is 3″ square with each log measuring one-half inch when finished.

 

 Accuracy, as you know, is always a problem with log cabin quilt blocks, but I squared up each block with each log addition and that kept the squares accurate.

I finished three outside edges of the doll quilts with rick rack. The rick rack allowed me to avoid hand sewing a binding onto the quilt and it’s placement indicates the top and bottom of the quilt for easy reference when “tucking in” the dolls for the night.

Next I made the Steeple Chase quilt for our oldest grandaughter. Again, the quarter sections of the main quilt block were one and one-half inches square, with the completed block a 3″ square. Since it was late Thursday night and I had classes in the City for the next two days, I prepared the blocks to hand applique the curved smaller piece onto a 1-½” square instead of trying to machine piece those tiny curved seams. That way I could work on the blocks when I was away.

 

 It worked like a charm. After the small corner piece was appliqued onto the larger square, I trimmed the excess larger square fabric away from behind the small curved piece. It was a fun quilt to make and I was sorry when I had to move onto the next quilt.

 

 In my hurry to wrap these gifts last Monday I neglected to take a full quilt picture of my grandson’s quilt. His quilt is much larger than the girls’ quilts. It is a 34″ square. The Four Patch Unit (including the corner pieces that square it up) is 4″ square. The sashing between the blocks is 1″ wide.

 

 I intentionally planned to make a larger quilt for his toy dinosaur, but it grew bigger and bigger as I put it together. In the end, he is happy with his quilt anyway.

 

 Then, finally, for our littlest granddaughter, I made a dress for her new Bitty Baby doll that Santa brought her for Christmas. Since the doll came with her own quilt, a change of clothes seemed like a good idea.

 

 Whew! And I thought I was through making doll accessories when our daughter became a teenager!

Many, many years ago, before I decided to pursue a quilt career, I made Christmas tree ornaments for sale.

It was a sad time in our lives for me because my husband had been laid off work (during the recession in the early 1980’s) and I had to go back to work.

I was trained as a secretary. I easily found a job as a legal secretary, but it was not a good fit. I could do the work just fine but I was unhappy because I could no longer be at home full time. With our two children in elementary school, I wanted to be a full time, stay-at-home mom and that was not possible with my job.

So, I started looking around at what I could do and still be at home when the kids got home from school. At that time craft boutiques were just beginning and I decided to try making things to sell, hoping that my crafts would be wildly popular and I could quit my job.

In the evenings I stitched and stuffed and sold what I had made during the week on the weekend at craft fairs. I made napkin ring pincushions and fridge magnets from counted cross stitch designs. As well, I made Christmas tree ornaments. My most popular Christmas tree ornaments were a pair of miniature Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls with hand painted faces. They were six inches tall. I made and sold hundreds of these cute little guys.

 

After two years of working dual jobs I finally gave up, recognizing that I could never replace my salary with crafts. The following Christmas I realized that I did not own a single set of Raggedy dolls for my own Christmas tree.

Then five or six years ago I pulled out my patterns, fabric and stuffing to make a few more sets for my sister—who had complained every year that she did not have a set of Raggedys but her mother-in-law did. Together we made enough dolls for her and the gifts she wanted to make, but when we were finished I realized that, once again, I did not make myself a set.

This year I ran into a friend from my craft fair days. She, unlike me, was very successful with her dollmaking. Pauline Davenport has established a great reputation as a dollmaker and she is still successfully teaching classes, making dolls and patterns for dolls. In fact, the elf shown at the top of this post is a current Pauline creation.

She told me that every year at Christmastime she thinks of me when she puts up her Christmas tree because she has two sets of Raggedys that she puts on her tree. When I told her that I did not have any, she said, “That must change.”

When I saw Pauline this past weekend at the quilt shop where I teach she presented me with one of her sets of my original Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls. So now, after more than twenty years, a pair of my dolls have come home.

It snowed earlier this week. Approximately 6 to 8 inches of snow fell and then it turned very cold. In fact, I understand from the national news that two-thirds of our country was, and still is, under the icy grip of this same storm.

When the first big snow of the year falls, I always think of a lovely lady that I knew many years ago, and I think of homemade donuts. Her name was Marilla Baker. I met her during her retirement years. She has since passed away, but she left a positive mark on many lives with a simple tradition that she started as a young mother.

In the late fall she would stock all the ingredients needed for making donuts in preparation for the big day. One never knows when the first measurable storm of the year will fall so she prepared early.

And then, on the first big snowstorm of the year she would start early in the morning making donuts and she continued making them all day long. There was a standing invitation to all she or her family knew to come to Marilla’s house on the day of the storm for freshly made donuts and a cup of something warm to drink. Visitors came by all day long.

Marilla’s tradition started small with her children’s friends and nearby neighbors, but over the years as her family moved a few times, old and new neighbors continued to come. Through work, church and other community associations more acquaintances were made and more people were invited. And so it grew, until at the time I met Marilla, a couple of hundred people showed up each year at her house on the first snow storm of the year. It was a wonderful time for renewing friendships and catching up on the news.

On the evening of a cold snowy day I always think of staying inside and staying warm. Part of achieving that sense of coziness is good food. Comfort food. A steaming bowl of Chicken Noodle Soup (made with homemade noodles) is a good start. For me, a cozy finish to a comfort food meal is a generous serving of my mother’s standard Sunday desert: Eggless, Milkless, Butterless Cake.

Although it’s name is not necessarily appealing to our twenty-first century sensibility, at the time Mom started making this cake it’s name may have been the reason she first tried it. My mother was a Second World War bride. During a time of rationing and many shortages this was a desert she could make with basic ingredients and a few spices.

As our family continued to grow after the War, the family’s economic situation did not improve a great deal. So for a large family this was a recipe that made sense, and it was a great desert to go with Sunday dinners.

The smell of the sugar, spices and raisins boiling on the stove remind me of home, of the comforts of being safe and loved, and of Saturday nights when I was a child.

Here is the recipe in case you want to give it a try.

Eggless, Milkless, Butterless Cake

1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed

1-1/4 cup water

1/3 cup shortening (I use butter instead)

2/3 cup raisins

2 teaspoons cinnamon

½ teaspoon nutmeg

½ teaspoon cloves

In a small saucepan, over medium heat, bring the above ingredients to a boil, continue to boil for five minutes. Remove from heat and cool slightly—about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile combine:

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ cup chopped walnuts (this is my addition to the original recipe)

Pour hot mixture all at once into dry ingredients and stir thoroughly by hand being sure to break up any clumps of flour that may form when the liquid ingredients are added.

Transfer batter to a greased 8″ square baking dish. Bake at 325 degrees for 30-35 minutes.

Buttercream Frosting

1/3 cup butter, softened

1 pound powdered sugar

2-3 tablespoons very hot milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

Combine all ingredients and beat with an electric beater. The hot milk is vital to making the Frosting taste right. The heat from the milk “cooks” the powdered sugar slightly and gives the frosting a less raw taste. I usually heat 1/3 cup of milk in the microwave to the point of boiling and then add as much as is needed to the frosting to get the correct consistency for spreading on the cake.