Quilt Along Update

We had our last official quilt along for about six months because a couple of our members are moving to MO next week!  Of course I will still get together with  some of my other friends and sew and quilt throughout the summer with them.  We had a potluck Wednesday, Chipotle style, my favorite!  We had a few ladies not able to come though.

Kayla is teaching our newbie, Holly, how to hand quilt.  All we have left is a couple of rows on these two blocks they are working on, then I will machine quilt the borders because we need to have it finished by this Sunday!

Chrystal has almost finished her granny square top.  She is thinking of adding a border of the blue to make the quilt bigger.

Here is a sample quilt she is working on for her mother.  She does her piecing on her machines but will hand quilt them when she is done.  She is going to embroider the names of her mother's children in one blank square (with birthdays), and the grandchildren in the other blank square.

Abideth is hand quilting her first quilt.  Her grandmother traced hearts all over it onto her quilt for her to hand quilt.

I'll share updates on my what I'm working on for my personal quilts tomorrow!
Missy

More Sewing Machines

I have some more machines to show you, hand cranks and treadles!  It took me over an hour to scale down all the images (some will be in another post), so this will be a silent picture (mostly anyways) post.  You can click on the pictures to make them larger.

These blue flowers are beautiful!

Don't you love this bird?

Plymouth Economy - I actually won this at the TOGA, I just need more information on it!

Featherweights!

See this knee bar?  They are very rare, it reminds me of a crow bar!  This is a Singer 99k

Spartan - I love how each person has their own little personality in the middle of their machine!

I love the colors of the old machines!

German Carob Cake

I love this recipe!  Before you say gross - carob! you have to try this recipe, my husband looked at me and said "it didn't taste like carob" and he was surprised I used 100% wheat flour too.  Now, carob does not taste like chocolate, it tastes like carob and if you are expecting it to taste like chocolate, you will be disappointed.    I love carob as carob and I love chocolate as chocolate, now enough of the lecture - onto the recipe
This is my friend, Chrystal's recipe.  I usually make it as a peppermint carob cake, which is my favorite, but I needed a German Carob Cake, so I used my friend Kristi's recipe for the frosting.  I love it with regular buttercream too.

Cake - ingredients
1/2 cup carob powder
1/2 cup boiling water   (boil it in the teapot and make yourself a cup of tea also!)
2/3 cup butter
1 3/4 cup palm sugar  (go here for more info on palm sugar) or any sugar you wish
2 eggs
2 1/4 cups wheat flour (don't forget to sift!)
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/3 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla (peppermint for a peppermint carob cake)

Directions
Pour boiling water into carob, whisking until smooth.  Set aside to cool.
Cream butter and sugar.  Mix in eggs and vanilla.
In a separate bowl - combine flour, baking soda and salt - sifting together.
Add flour to mixture alternating with milk until combined.
Add carob and mix until just blended.  Do not over mix, this will make a dense cake, in fact I usually finish it up by hand mixing it.

Do not expect it to stick to the sides, but I thought it went pretty good with the theme.

Coconut Pecan Frosting originally from Betty Crocker
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 cup evaporated milk
1 tsp vanilla
3 large egg yolks (I saw a recipe that called for 5 egg yolks, and I'll try that next time)
1 1/3 cups flaked coconut
1 cup chopped pecans

1.  Mix sugar, butter, milk, vanilla and egg yolks in 2 qt saucepan.  Cook over medium heat about 12-15 minutes, whisking occasionally, until thick.
2.  Stir in coconut and pecans.  Cool about 30 minutes, beating occasionally, until spreadable.

This covered half a sheet cake, but
I think I would want more frosting next time!

The birthday boy gets the biggest piece.  It was his 50th birthday.

I usually double the recipe for church, but after yesterday I realized that our church has grown and next time I will need to make three recipes!

FYI - the baker of the cake always has to serve the cake, so don't forget your apron and hair clip(you don't want hair in the cake!)

This is delicious, I hope you enjoy!
Missy

Barns

I was hoping a churn dash would be one of the blocks!

I got my newest barn done!  As you can see we added the white back ground all the way around, and the sashing.  I decided to do my sashing in black, red and white,  Every other block will be slightly different, with the top and bottom going all the way across and the sides short, so I needed more red and black material for the top and bottom.  I already had the black and white material for the sides.  I found a black and white gingham print with watermelons, and a black print with larger cherries.  I'll have to put those on later.  The material is in the washing machine so I did not get a picture.
I messed up this next block, I will never try to do two blocks at the same time again.  I already had to seam rip it after I finished the block once, only to realize after I finished it off with the white strips and hung it to take the picture, that I had made another mistake, why didn't I notice it when I had taken the block apart the first time?

What do you think, should I fix it or leave it?

Here are my other two blocks, I finished up one and the other was waiting for my new material.

It is really hard to sew when I have two cats wanting attention!  You can see the laptop opened to the side, I was looking at the tutorial.  Pippi was checking it out too, but Muffin just wanted my attention!

You can get the tutorials here:  http://beeinmybonnetco.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-quilty-barn-alongblock.html
I used a different block on the second picture, she had a plain scrappy with just squares and I used a tutorial from the Barrister's Block here:  http://barristersblock.blogspot.com/2012/10/sow-long-blocks-first-wednesday-of.html

I've been using my hand crank, but I finally learned how to use my treadle and was using it for some of the block also!  Boy does that treadle go fast!

Are you making the barn blocks?
Missy

Hand Crank Sewing Machines

Today I'm going to share lots of pictures of hand crank sewing machines and treadles for the TOGA.
There are more, these are just the ones I took on Saturday.

I love this "modern" hand crank, it is an original hand crank, one of the last ones made.  I want one!

Here's a close up view of her notions, a little clock, a hoodie (thread cutter) and her scissors!

These two are called chain stitcher sewing machines because they do not use bobbins and and make a chain stitch intead of a lock stitch like later machines.

White feather weight, it was for sale but not in my budget right now.

Back and front views of a Jones, isn't it gorgeous?

I also really like this green Singer, I believe it was manufactured in the 60's.  I love the block she's making too.

This Necchi (pronounced neck e)is from Italy.  I hear they are one of the best machines ever made.  She's also making a string block!

I'm not sure what kind of machine this is, but it's gorgeous, we had a beauty contest for the machines!

Another gorgeous machines, the decals are perfect!

This one was passed down through her husband's family.

A Wilcox and Gibbs, the motor is almost as big as the machine!  Don't you love  the foot pedal?

One of these days I would love to have an original hand crank, both of my machines have been converted, one was an electric and one was a treadle.  I'll post more pictures later!  And yes, all of these machines are used to sew with, they do not just sit on shelves!

Cranking away in TX,
Missy