The REAL Broken Dishes

One of the most interesting aspects of quilt collecting and making is understanding the association between quilts and the lives of the women who made them. The old names assigned to quilt patterns show us some of the connection.

Unfortunately, research done on the earliest quilt pattern names and where they came from have not been very successful.

When I was learning to quilt, my teacher encouraged us to sign the back of the quilt with our name, who the quilt was being given to (if applicable), the date made, the city and the pattern name. It's wonderful to imagine that someday a historian might find that on a quilt I've made and be able to use that information. However, as you might expect, that information is rarely to be found on an old quilt that you might buy at an auction. I have a few, particularly my red work quilts, where the year was included, but that is all.

The first known quilt pattern published in an American magazine was a honeycomb pattern, now commonly known as Grandmother's Flower Garden, published in Godey's Lady's Book in 1835. Often when patterns were published, they were printed without a name and just simply featured as "patchwork". Imagine a magazine today printing a recipe for chocolate cake and calling it "Baking"!!!

Thankfully, the ambiguous pattern publishing issue cleared up by the 1880's and things were off and running for the next 50 years or so and by the 1920's to 1930's, there was a big quilt-making revival.

The Broken Dishes pattern, for which this blog is named, is a pattern that reflects home life along with Cake Stand, Basket, Attic Windows, Baby Blocks, Tumbling Blocks, Puss in the Corner, Chimney Sweep, Dove in the Window and Dresden Plate. You might have read the post about SO's quilt -- that is a Dresden Plate pattern.

I had always wanted a Broken Dishes patterned quilt -- so much so it's part of the reason for this blog's name. I finally scored one at a yard sale recently and to top it off, I paid only $5 for this sweet little crib quilt.



It was a little stained, but cleaned up nicely. It is sitting in my spare room where it doesn't quite go, but I haven't figured out a better spot yet.






I hope to either find one or make one some day that's a bit bigger!

Coming Soon...

Here's a teaser of an upcoming post...THE BIG project is nearing completion:














She stands about 12 feet tall or so. She was up on Saturday (a week earlier than I expected) and then, down yesterday morning due to rain.

Last Weekend's Cooking Marathon - Update

As I mentioned earlier, I knocked myself out on Sunday cooking a lot of food for the week. But, I am enjoying the fruits of these labors. It's pretty nice just looking in the fridge and seeing a few appealing options already there staring me in the face when I am too frazzled to think! I am really appreciating the dessert items because I'm staying out of junky stuff and eating small portions of things made with healthier ingredients...and so is SO. He was away last weekend and the food wasn't so great so he's glad to be back eating Broken Dishes style.

So, today for lunch I packed some of my homemade goodies and, although I'm not much of a food stylist, I took a few snaps for the blog-er-roo. Here's part of my avocado sandwich -- I almost forgot to take the picture so I have to apologize that it's half eaten:
















I also had the yummy, yummy Bean Soup with Tomatoes and Greens.


The tomatoes in this were super good ones from the farm share last week -- the greens were too.










One thing I learned is I probably only needed to make about half of what I made for the lunches and dinners -- so I will be cutting back to one soup, one dinner entree and one lunch entree...but I think we need both desserts: one type of cookie and one other pie/cake type thing.

Sock Fest 2010!!!

My sweet cuz and I had a Sock Fest and Yarn Crawl down at the beach and I have a couple of pics to share.

Getting to the appointed rendezvous involved making a turn down an obscure unmarked road -- the best way to locate the proper turn is to use this landmark:















Within minutes, my cuz had established her knitting nest on the porch!














Of course, all knitter's approach the craft differently. I'm very strict about only having one big and one little project in process at all times. I'm afraid I will have a lot of Unfinished Objects (UFOs), if I let myself loose on a bunch of things at once. Cuz has no such fears -- in fact, she has at least three pairs of socks where only one sock is done. I can sort of understand taking a break in between because I do find it torturous to do the second sock as I've noted as recently as last week.


In honor of the occassion and because Halloween will be soon upon us, I chose to start the infamous Zombie BBQ socks:














As of right now, I'm 2/3 finished the first sock. So, that will get done this week...and then, the dreaded second sock will be upon me with a deadline looming, no less.

Our little yarn crawl took us to two yarn stores -- I bought just a little more yarn -- Just stuff to make quick scarves. My cup truly runneth over right now with yarn and I'm trying to take advantage of all opportunities to get caught up.

Once I got back from the Sock Fest, I set upon a mighty mountain of cooking. I'm trying a new approach this week -- I cooked everything for the whole week this afternoon. It took WAY longer than expected. But, I have two soups, an eggless egg salad, eggplant parm, cookies and a blueberry crunch ready for the week. I will hardly know what to pick from tomorrow! And, the kitchen is pretty well put back together.

The Color Purple

"I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it." -- The Color Purple by Alice Walker

In appreciation for the color purple, I've been knitting and knitting a mostly purple pair of socks. They are done. Phew! Lately, it feels like I'm knitting in mud -- knitting but nothing is getting accomplished.

Wow...second sock syndrome is really something else! It feels like I was slaving over these socks for the longest time but probably only about three weeks or so. In any event, they are done and now I have something purple-ish for the fall!

As you can see, I used the flat panel yarn which I love, love, love for traveling (no rolling balls of sock yarn down the airplane aisle!). And, truth be told, I thought the socks would be prettier because the panel was so pretty. I still like them, but I had higher hopes. But there will be other socks to fall in love with...

So, I give you the classic before and after shots:


















Right after I finished them I immediately cast on my next project because the casting on takes a little more concentration. I'm onto knitting the yarn known as "Zombie BBQ" which is greenish/grey/reddish in color. I confess I've already cast it on twice and not been happy with the results. Ugh!!!! Hopefully, third time will be a charm.

Crimes Committed in the Name of Crochet

We are getting closer to the structure being built for the defense and preservation of the crimes that have been committed in the name of crochet.

Saturday night, we tackled the project of getting some bamboo poles to support the structure:














On one hand, we were fortunate that we came in contact with someone whose backyard is overgrown with bamboo and was glad to get rid of part of the "Ho Chi Mihn Trail". On the other hand, it was a lot more difficult (physically) than was anticipated and took a lot longer. We were running out of daylight at the end of the harvesting and our benefactor had to hold a flashlight up while SO lashed the bamboo down. I drove back home and had a few good chuckles over how my car looked with a bamboo snout. The bamboo came from almost an hour away so the ride back felt pretty long. But, at the end of the whole ordeal, we were glad that we got this part done.


In the meantime, I found time before it got rainy to put together the draft layout of the afghans on the shell:













I confess, even though this was kind of taxing physically, this was the fun part I've been looking forward to! Finally, I can start to see the realization of this vision a little better.

I would like to direct your attention to the small granny square piece in the lower right-hand corner -- that is actually one of four chair pads that SO rescued from an estate sale. I'm trying to work all of those in and really hoping that I get them mostly in the front.

The piece that looks bluish-grey towards the far right has a little story too. We were coming back from Arlington on a Sunday afternoon, feeling somewhat exhausted from a full day of crocheted item hunting the day before and stopped at a large yard sale. I ferreted this piece out of a pile -- the picture does not do it justice but it is HORRIBLE. I inquired about the price and I think the man said a dollar or fifty cents, but the smallest bill that either of us had was a twenty and I only had a nickel in my change purse. The guy took the nickel!!! I think this wound up being the least expensive piece we saved from doom.

Now, we are making the mad dash to get the abused crochet pieces onto the shell. It's fun -- a lot like quilt-making -- but time consuming. I'd estimate that we are at least 30% done now. All but one of the big pieces are on...so I'm hoping that dealing with the smaller pieces will feel like rolling down hill...:-)

What I Did On My Stay-cation

I've been on stay-cation this week because (1) the office was closed on Monday, (2) Jewish holidays, and (3) early in the week, I took classes on preparing fiber for spinning it into yarn. It was pretty nice to be off for a bunch of days and not pack a suitcase for a change!!!

I took plenty of pics from the classes -- Without further ado:

This, my friends, is not an ancient instrument of torture or a prop from the "Saw" movies. This is called a picker and it gives a big loose combing to crunched up fleece. It actually works very nicely to prepare fleece for more fine combing. However, it is important not to get your hands in the wrong spots or wear loose clothing.















Here is some fleece before and after the carding process. The carding greatly helps to prepare fleece for spinning. Theoretically, the more combed out the fleece is, the easier it is to spin a nice smooth fine yarn. I say "theoretically" because I can chunk it up no matter what I start out with.















This picture is an example of the different effects of color blending that one can get from using different approaches when carding fleece.














Now, we move onto some of the stuff I prepared using my own drum carder. This was a mixture of green and yellow fleece:















Here's my drum carder in action! You feed some fleece loosely onto one side, turn the handle, the drum turns and as it turns, it combs the fleece!















Here is an example of a batt I produced with red, coral, yellow and brown to get a fall color effect going:
















And, finally, some yarn...this yarn is from fleece I prepared and then spun using some art yarn techniques. All along my path to learn how to do this stuff, this is what it is all about for me. I'm off and running now!!!

New Orleans, Part 2

The signs we ordered when we were in New Orleans arrived!!!!

Mine is hanging in my hallway from the ground floor leading up to the main floor right off the kitchen:



I picked this one because I love the song "They All Asked For You": Oh, I went down to the Audobon Zoo and they all asked for you...the tigers asked, the monkeys asked and the elephant asked too..."







SO picked this one because of his love of growing plants...really anything...sometimes we will be out somewhere and he will see a little plant and take a little piece to try to grow at home.















And, finally, one to honor our joint love of the jalapeno! We've been known to push the use of jalapenos a little -- I even snuck some into potato salad tonight. The snake is actually made from beer bottle caps -- the artist is partial to Heineken.