Orphan blocks Quilted

You may remember that way back in February 2007 I completed this top . I documented its progress here, here and here. I have finally found the time and energy to finish this quilt. I used it as practice on the Swiftquilter. Its the second quilt I have done on the frame. But other people have quilted, I think three quilts on the frame in the meantime. This was the first one I did, back in April.

I'm happy with the result on this one, an all over pattern of alternating leaves and squiggly lines. My hands are a bit stiff at the moment so I folded the binding to the front and machine stitched it down. It'll be a nice strong binding!

Jessica's Third Birthday

Terry and I took a day trip to Wellington on Saturday for Jessica's birthday party. It was a Jane and the Dragon Party and Sarah made a dragon cake using these instructions.

She also did face painting (Aimee didn't want her photo taken).

Chris was kept busy making swords and dragons from balloons.

Jessica took a rest on my lap.

We had a lovely day with the family and a restful trip home. I made tinned smoked fish & chickpeas in a white sauce on toast for dinner. Yumm!

Gluten Free Banana & Quinoa Biscuits

I've just made these for a friend's birthday present but I don't think he'll be getting all four dozen! I've adapted an old recipe, both the ingredients and method.

Dry Ingredients:

½ cup brown rice flour
½ cup buckwheat flour
½ cup tapioca flour
1½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp baking soda
Pinch salt
1 tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp nutmeg
1 cup sugar (I used my vanilla sugar made by storing vanilla pods in the sugar jar)
1½ cups quinoa flakes

Wet Ingredients:

2/3^rd cup (165 gm) butter or margarine
2 eggs
2 bananas

Put all dry ingredients EXCEPT quinoa flakes in a bowl and use a hand held whisk to gently blend together and remove any lumps. Beat wet ingredients in a food processor until smooth and creamy. Add mixed dry ingredients slowly through the tube while beating. Scrape batter from food processor into a bowl and mix in quinoa flakes gently. Drop from a teaspoon, widely spaced, onto three oven trays lined with baking paper - about 16 per tray. Bake 190 deg C for about 15 minutes. Cool on wire racks.

Update: Terry had one of these after breakfast this morning. I asked him if he liked it and at first he said "yes, they're great". Then he realised I was asking for a considered reaction, not an automatic one, and he looked at it and said "well, i'd prefer it to have more flavour". So while I was sitting there thinking, ok, i could substitute some brown sugar for some of the white sugar, or I could add more spice, maybe some ginger, or I could add some chopped walnuts or sultantas, while I was thinking all this he ate another four biscuits - looking for that elusive flavour I guess!

Challenge Quilt II

I so much enjoyed doing the small Limited Edition Challenge Quilt that I have now completed another - this time in green/blue and white instead of green/yellow and black. What do you think?

Again, I've used photos that Terry took in Anne's garden in Canada but this time, I've taken elements from four different photos to get this one scene.

Sewing Class II

Aimee and Jessica saw the pictures on my blog of James & Jasmine's quilts and asked if they could make one too when they came to stay for a few days. They are a bit younger (4 and 2) so we were less ambitious for these quilts. They chose the pink background fabric and some pieces of ready vlisofixed fabric which we cut into shapes. They arranged the shapes on the background and carefully ironed them on. Then they helped me choose the backing and layer it with some cotton batting. I pinned them all together and then we quilted them. Aimee is big enough to reach the foot pedal while seated and did sew a few rows at a careful speed, steering between the safety pins. Jessica wasn't tall enough to reach the pedal and watch the fabric so she did the pedal bit and I steered. Aimee thought that looked like good fun so then they both did the rest of their quilts by holding down the foot control while I steered! After I had trimmed them square, under supervision, we did a quick edging with a zig zag stitch.