Jill’s Jumble

Front of Baby Irish Garb Prototype

In the SCAdian circles I frequent this style of dress tends to be called Irish. It’s frequently made with plaid fabrics as the next one I make for Mlle. C will. We’re going to an Austin family reunion soon and I have a little less then half a yard of the Austin plaid to work with. The dress pictured here is a prototype since I didn’t dare cut into the plaid without testing is since I did it on the fly!

Note to self: The skirt is a 36″ x approx 17″ rectangle. The plaid version will be shorter since I don’t have 17″ without cutting and piecing.

Terribly out of season, I know!  Pumpkin can make up for the lack of eggs in baked goods so I try to have it on hand year round.   I’ve had problems with gluten and egg-free pancake and waffle recipes that stick terribly.  This recipe from Karina tastes good and doesn’t stick!  Some of the later waffles split a bit so maybe it’s best not to let the batter sit around to much.  We were so anxious to eat them that we let the batter sit before cooking the next ones!

One of the most exciting lessons I learned while making them is that I can make oat flour using our rocket blender and quick oats.  Gluten-free baking seems to involve many different flours and they take up quite a bit of space!  I’m excited to make this trick work for me so that I’ve got one thing less I need to store!

That’s right, I haven’t posted for a year.  There’s a very good reason for that.  She turned a year old today:

Mlle. C

I am changing the focus of this blog.  It will no longer focus on just one topic.  It will become a place for all those things that I think about.  I enjoy a variety of topics and would rather have one place for all rather then try to maintain a place for each.  So the few posts on the quilting blog I started will migrate at some point.  Future posts will cover topics such as personal finance, craft projects, or my involvement in the Society for Creative Anachronism.

This little project was started when I was in the 7th grade.  Somehow there was a free period that the teachers used to teach us about various hobbies they all had.  We had some choice about it so I was very exciting to learn something about quilting from the French teacher.  She brought in fabrics and a selection of quilt block patterns. I love the Card Trick block:

The block itself is hand stitched though I did use the machine to turn it into a pillow.  It’s in pretty good condition considering it’s nearly 20 years old, huh?

I have to admit I’m not a prolific quilter.  I started this quilt for Evan in August of 2006, about two months before he was even born.  Piecing it really didn’t take very long.

I wanted to do more curved quilting on it to emphasize the pinwheels like I had in the quilt pictured in the previous post.  Only I was intimidated at the thought of doing it by machine.  In the intervening time, I did managed to get the right feet for machine quilting.  I discovered that the curves were a bit much for the walking foot so I had to get over my fear of free motion quilting.  I am unfortunately a bit of a perfectionist so I don’t tend to like my efforts while I’m still getting used to something new.  Eventually, knowing that Evan’s birthday was coming up I just pushed through my anxiety and got it done!

The second picture shows the quilting a bit better, even though it’s a bit blurry.

I’ve been having fun experimenting with some sprouted corn tortillas that I bought.  They work great for quesadillas!

I also topped one with a quick guacamole.  It was really good that way too.  I think I’ll be needing to keep avocados on hand more frequently!

So yummy!  And it should make great camping food too!

My husband and I have joined a few CSA’s this year. Today was our pickup day for the one at Stony Loam Farm. They’ll be providing our veggies all summer long. I got to meet the farmers and pick up the very first set of veggies! We’ve been having some crazy weather here lately so apparently this haul isn’t overwhelming but I think it’s great.

Tonight’s dinner was a salad made from the redder of the two heads of lettuce with a couple of the radishes. I also threw on some chick peas I’d prepared the other day, some goat cheese and a half an avocado that I had lying around. The turkey I was cooking to go along with it didn’t actually get cooked through until well after we’d eaten. I did eat some of the crisp skin while it was still hot, but really the salad seems to have hit the spot.

So after a period lacking in creativity when it came to food, I’ve picked up on being adventuresome! I’ve been craving some easy summer salads that would work well as a meal. The last two nights the salads have had a quinoa base. Leftovers work well in bento!

This bento contains cut up baked chicken thighs, soaked and cooked quinoa, and steamed broccoli, asparagus, and carrots. I also had a side of soy-ginger dressing. I was attempting a bit of a landscape theme so you would see a cliff of chicken “rock”, a sky of quinoa, and a forest of veggies.

Of course I then had more veggies so the forest overgrew the rocks!

We went camping this weekend. I was kind of nervous about how well food would work out because I hadn’t done as much prep as I’d hoped to. I haven’t been as good about prepping food ahead in general lately. Everything worked out really well though! Here’s a list of what I brought:

1. Apples
2. Celery
3. Carrots
4. Cucumber
5. Green Beans
6. Peanut Butter
7. Hummus
8. Cheese (goat for me)
9. Leftover Jambalaya
10. Various sausages (Bratwurst, Knockwurst, Hot Dogs)
11. Sauerkraut
12. Mustard
13. Ketchup
14. Crackers for Justin
15. Hot dog rolls for Justin
16. Tea bags
17. Butter
18. Potato chips
19. Banana chips

We actually bought the potato chips and banana chips because we got hungry on the way. They ended up being our dinner that night! Saturday morning’s breakfast was apples and PB with tea. For lunch I had a bratwurst with sauerkraut while Justin had Jambalaya. Dinner ended up being brats and sauerkraut again because I’d actually forgotten to pack mustard and ketchup.

A friend cooked breakfast for everyone on Sunday morning so I had bacon while everyone else enjoyed the typical breakfast fare of eggs and gluten. Lunch ended up being hummus and veggies. We had snacks along the way though I never did eat my cheese. Justin had some of his though. The banana chips worked really well as a sweet ending to our meals.

I had bought, but forgot to pack some canned fruit in juice. Hopefully I’ll go back to read this post before I pack next time to try and be more organized!

Next time I want to bring a sausage that’s good eaten cold. The kielbasa I’d used in the jambalaya would have worked really well but it came from a health food store and we didn’t have a chance to pick up more before we left for the weekend. Chili would also make a good leftover meal we could bring along. I’ve discovered that it works just find cold as a tortilla chip dip. Since I can have oats I want to bring oatmeal next time too.

I think I’ll be experimenting more with bean based dips. The hummus and veggies worked out really well. I know there are other bean based dips out there so that may be my next food based internet search.