Chocolate, Revised

The more I looked at the letters I had made for CHOCOLATE, the more I thought they were somewhat plain. I kept remembering what my friend Julie said, that I should "go for it" when I made these words. "Go for broke" is what she meant.

I remembered an article I read about creativity (in the business world, no less.) It said that most groups stopped thinking when they came up with the first idea. The article said you shouldn't stop when you have a good idea, that you should keep thinking of MORE good ideas; that you would then be forced to come up with better ones.

A brown word, CHOCOLATE, made using novelty chocolate themed fabrics - is that really original? Nope. Throughout my colors quilt I have tried to make the style of each word unique in some way. What I had with CHOCOLATE was good, but I wanted it to be better.
I liked some elements of this Showcard Gothic font (above). I liked that the letters were wider at the top than at the bottom. So I played with that a bit, (you will have to click the photo to enlarge, then click it again to see my drawings), but the letters looked like teeth, and that didn't remind me much of chocolate. Then I tried alternating the letters, but they just looked too blocky.
As I looked at the color words I had already sewn, I realized I did not have a word where I mixed up sentence case or the size of letters. I thought that might be a good thing to play with. So I played around a bit more, exaggerating angles and bumping the letters out of their horizontal boundaries a bit. I like this a lot, and it adds a bit of fun to the word.
Here are the first two letters. Yes, that's a piano and a double bass in the "H". Both say JAZZ, which while not necessarily chocolate, definitely say smooth to me. But don't worry, I'm definitely gonna get those chocolate novelty fabrics in there!

Chocolate

As I got off the highway and stopped at the end of the ramp on the way to the longarm quilter, I turned to say something to my Mom, who was sitting beside me. I was distracted, however, by the Lindt Chocolate sign. "There's a Lindt chocolate store right there!"

"We should stop on the way home," my Mom said, I could use a bit of chocolate."

So we did!

What would a day be without chocolate? Boring, that's for sure. I got two pounds of the individually wrapped milk chocolate pieces (above left), because that helps me resist temptation. But the big bars** were, "buy two get one free," and my resistance disappeared. I had never seen the Dark Chocolate Coconut, or the Dark Roasted Almond flavors, so of course I had to try those, and the stuff in the bag on the bottom was also on sale, and I love that little crunch. I had a Lindt points card, so I got that bag for free.

I won't tell you how much money I spent, but I know it was worth it.


** Yes Megan, I can get the big bars at my local grocery store as well, but they don't have all the flavors.

The Baking Frenzy

 Years ago my son and I would spend a weekend baking to create boxes of various sweets for him to give to his friends in college. We made brownies, caramel corn, cookies and biscotti and stuff I can’t even remember. We made so many different things I had to create a spreadsheet to calculate how many pounds of butter, sugar and chocolate I needed. It was a lot of fun.

I am not doing that this year, but I do want to give a box of a few different cookies to each of my family members on Christmas. Since I don’t want to give stale cookies, I made the cookie dough for several different kinds and put them in my “outside refrigerator,” which means they are sitting out on my front porch. After I rearrange the contents of my fridge, I’ll transfer them back to the fridge. The temperatures here for the next four days is not going above 34F so they are fine out there. There is a shortbread cookie with pretzels, chocolate, pumpkin seeds, coconut and pecans. There is an ultra-rich chocolate chip cookie; there are Russian Tea Cakes (also known as Mexican Wedding Cookies) and some Moroccan Semolina and Almond Cookies.

I’ll also be making some Gochujang Caramel Cookies, Chocolate Hazelnut Cookies, Spiced Chocolate Marble Shortbread Cookies and some Crunchy Coconut Twists.

I’ll also make some caramel corn, but I’ve also found a recipe for Cheddar Popcorn. This batch (above) is made with white cheddar powder. This is a test batch. I’ll bring it to work tomorrow to see what my coworkers think of it. Last week I made some Peppermint Saltine Toffee Bark and that was a great hit.

I have made another small pink bird, but with Christmas coming up around the corner, I’m pretty focused on that, and the dinner I will be cooking that day, so I haven’t been in the studio as much.

Chocolate Sneak Peek

I'm playing with CHOCOLATE. I can have fun fussy-cutting the fabrics, but I think I need to push them a bit more. My son doesn't like my interpretation of this "O", which uses a white chocolate as the center of the "O". He doesn't think it "reads" like an "O" because the chocolate directly above the center has that white swirl. I agree the letter doesn't quite work, but I think it's because it is too big. I'm going to keep tinkering.

Here's a bit of colors trivia. This is how many times each letter of the alphabet appears in the colors quilt.

A 7
B 1
C 4
D 2
E 9
F -
G 4
H 5
I 7
J -
K 1
L 4
M 5
N 6
O 7
P 2
Q 1
R 5
S 2
T 4
U 3
V 1
W 1
X -
Y -
Z -

Birthday

One of the best things of this trip was being able to spend my birthday with my son, which I haven’t done in about 4 or 5 years.

At Redondo Beach 

My son asked what I wanted to do, “X, or go to the beach.” For me the answer was easy. “The beach,” after all, if you have a July birthday you should spend it at the beach, and in your bathing suit.

Son, Granddaughter & Me

You should also eat ice cream, preferably from some gourmet shop, like Smitten, where it's made fresh with liquid hydrogen.

from left: Mint Chocolate Chip with TCHO crunchies, coffee with spiced caramel sauce in a waffle bowl, chocolate with whipped cream and chocolate chip cookie dough with pretzels and chocolate sauce.

have a great meal. We ate at Manhattan Beach Post,

this is a Vic Vega, a play on a Vodka Gimlet, with lime and coconut.

Heirloom Tomato Salad with Mint and Waxed Beans

Skirt Steak with Red Chimichurri Sauce over grilled Broccolini

It was the best birthday I've had in a long time.

We ate so much, we had to leave the CAKE until later!

A Christmas Gift

My Christmas gift for you is a story.

Way back in 2006 Millie and I participated in a Secret Paw. I sent a package to cats in California. I made some catnip sachets and kitty treats, but I included a box of Swiss Fudge from Van Otis Chocolates for Michelle, the woman who owned them. Michelle wrote to thank me for the gifts for the cats and the chocolates.

"Those chocolates are evil," she wrote. "EVIL, EVIL little chocolates. Send more."

I laughed and laughed.

Ever since then, when Millie and I had some kind of contest, we always sent the winner a small box of the "evil little chocolates." They were always a big hit. 

 

When Megan (from Sydney Australia) came to NH to visit way back in 2016, I made sure to have a box of the evil little chocolates to give her. You can see her reaction above.

When Julie came to visit this past summer, we made a special trip to Van Otis chocolates in town so we could buy some. I prefer the Milk Chocolate and Julie likes the Dark Chocolate.

Every year my company has a Holiday Festival. There are several gift baskets, chocolates, gift cards, pet baskets, etc for raffle, and we "earn" extra tickets by doing fun things (Wearing an ugly sweater, making a gingerbread house, bringing an ornament for the tree, etc.) My colleague Andrea put together the chocolate box, and went to Van Otis to get the things for it. I told her the story of the Evil Little Chocolates. We laughed, and then later I saw the giant basket of chocolates, and this package of 12 Days of Swiss Fudge!! Wow!

I put all my tickets in the chocolate basket, but I didn't win it. Andrea did.

I wasn't at work that day, and I was out the next one too, but when I got back Andrea dropped by my office and gave ME the package of the Swiss Fudge!

Here is what Andrea told me, "When I put the basket together, I wanted to win it. And I decided that if I won the basket, I would give you the box of Swiss Fudge. I won the basket. This box of Swiss Fudge is for you."

I thought it was the loveliest gift.

Merry Christmas.

Chocolate Love

See these fun crazy letters for the word CHOCOLATE? While I thought they looked good on paper, they just didn't look that great when placed next to the other colored words in the quilt. I just wasn't feeling the love. They have to go. They may have been good letters, they may have been interesting, but they just didn't continue the vibe I had going on with the rest of the words, so they are "out."

I spent some time last night re-drafting the word on graph paper, making the letters "life size" (about 4")
All the letters I made for CHOCOLATE have to be re-done. Every. Single. Letter.

Even that nifty "A" I made yesterday (it's too big).



As for Project Runway, I thought Mondo was the better designer by far and deserved to win.

A Chocolate Update

This CHOCOLATE looks good.

I've put together a Picasa page about my trip through CHOCOLATE. You can find it here.

Six by Nine

Here's MALACHITE all sewn up and trimmed. At this point, the rows are not sewn together. I may rearrange them. (you can click the photo to enlarge)

Yesterday I was trying to figure out if I -really- needed to add White, Black and Brown. Thinking about how yesterday was 10-10-10 made me think about how my color words had nine letters each, and if I used nine words, the quilt would be Nine by Nine, or Nine Squared.

I have decided the final three colors, Black, White and Brown. They will be:

NIGHTHAWK (gives me a W and a K)

CHAMPAGNE (ok, it isn't white, but you get the idea)

CHOCOLATE (too damn perfect to ignore)

I am making the letters for CHOCOLATE, and all I have is plain, ordinary browns. If anybody has chocolate-themed fabrics, I'd love to swap. Letters don't need much fabric - a 4-1/2" wide strip about 20" long is more than enough for any letter (except maybe a W). Email me at patcherymenagerie AT gmail DOT com. Thanks.

Cupcakes

                                   

Sometimes you just gotta have a cupcake. 

Yesterday my son and I walked along Manhattan Beach toward Hermosa Beach. We walked a couple of miles and on the way home we stopped for ice cream. Well, my son did. I opted for a cupcake. This is a Salted Caramel cupcake (Devil's Food Cake, Salted Caramel ganache and caramel frosting.) I also got a Tuxedo Cupcake (Chocolate blackout cake, vanilla frosting with a striped cookie and chocolate drops for decoration), but I ate that one for dessert last night. Positively divine. 

                                  

Here is the young lady at two weeks old. Quite the charmer, I assure you. 

I've been cooking and feeding my son and DIL, washing dishes taking the dog for a walk and holding the baby. 

    

It's a tough job, but someone's gotta do it. 

Going home is going to suck the big one, but I'm really glad I got this chance to visit.  I'm pretty sure I'll be back in a few months. 

Chocolate, in progress

Making these really wonky letters for CHOCOLATE is really tricky. I like the second "O" better this time around. Looking at the photo, I need to spread the letters apart more. They are too tightly packed. Good thing they aren't sewn down.

***The Project Runway finale is tonight! I will stay up to watch the whole thing!

Did You Know?

 My son is gluten-intolerant. When I ordered some one-for-one flour before his visit earlier in the month, I saw this and ordered a box. 

(Now I should tell you I've been using King Arthur flours and products for years... like 40 years. They are located in Vermont, not far from me, so ordering from them is in the realm of "normal" for me.)

Anyway, I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies with walnuts and dried apricots and milk chocolate chips the day he and my DGD were flying in. I was nervous, and baking helped settle my nerves and keep me busy. 

I don't like cookies that are too big, so I made smaller ones. I ended up making three dozen. I put them in a big tin and they were ready when he arrived.

After all the hubbub, when they were getting ready to go to my Mom's apartment (where they were staying), I indicated the giant tin on my kitchen table, that I had labelled "Gluten Free Cookies." My son took one look, lifted the lid, and started to cry. Then he stuffed a cookie in his mouth, and gave me a giant hug. "Omigod Mom, thank you so much."

He told me later he ate at least six of them that evening. By the time he left five days later, the tin was empty.

(I had eaten ONE, to test them. They were delicious.)

In the meantime I found a recipe for cookies with Malted Milk Powder. Amazon had some, of course, but I'd have to wait three weeks for it. I am not known for my patience. King Arthur had it in stock and they are just the next state over, so I decided to order it there.

Then I noticed they had this Gluten Free Cookie Mix* on sale. If you bought five boxes you'd get like a buck off each box. Such a deal, but what was I going to do with five boxes and my son living across the country?

The answer was apparent. Send them to him as a Christmas gift, of course, so he could make and enjoy cookies with my DGD any time he wanted.

It's always nice to find the perfect gift.

*One box makes 2-3 dozen cookies depending on size. All you need to add is a stick of butter (or a non-dairy substitute), one egg and a couple of tablespoons of water. You can add up to 3 cups of add-ins. Oh, the possibilities...

My son figured out a long time ago that I show love by cooking. I'm lucky that he gets it.

Nine x Nine Detail

Dolly commented yesterday that three letters in the same word were not the same size. That's not always the way I wanted it to be. The 'a' and the 'e' in chocolate are both too small. I made a mistake in each of them. I accidentally trimmed some elements (the crossbar in the 'A' and the top of the 'E') too thin.

Those two letters are fairly complex, and I had already made the 'A' once before, so I decided to just live with it. They are centered in the word more or less horizontally, because if I set them down on the baseline the word would have slanted downward and looked stupid.

HOWEVER... Notice the angle of the top loop of the 'a', the crossbar of the 't' and the top of the 'e' are all at the same angle? That was NOT accidental. That was deliberate, and serves to connect the letters visually.
Update:
PLEASE READ THIS: Ida, thank you for sticking up for me, but there is no need. Dolly left a lovely comment yesterday. My letters do have oddities, and her comment was in the vein of, "they aren't perfect, but they're perfect." I was pretty stoked!

I pay a lot of attention to how the letters look, and as regular readers know, I am a full believer in sharing my process. If there had been a goof, or mistake, my readers would have let me know long ago. If it's in the finished flimsy, it's there on purpose, and believe me, I KNOW about it.

This quilt was started way back in September with TURQUOISE, which I made to idle away a free afternoon. Back then I didn't know I had a quilt in the making. The whole quilt is actually a mini lesson in the possibilities of free pieced letter making. TURQUOISE, to me, is the way most beginners piece letters. A bit wonky, a bit uneven, but still very charming. The uneven letters are there quite deliberately.

AUBERGINE looks the way a quilter might make her second word, letters more even, straighter, more organized, more planned.

VERMILION is an example of a word that gets a little more inventive. Fabrics are "fussy cut".

The words get more creative after that, and also got somewhat trickier to sew. Regular readers know I made CHOCOLATE three times before I got the look I wanted.

In blogging, I open up my process for all to see. I value all comments, even dissenters. I'm not your average duck. I totally follow my own path, and it isn't traditional. I don't view the funky letters, the odd spacing, the irregularities as mistakes. I am using "artistic license". Quite liberally.

And enjoying every minute of it. Thank you all for your heartfelt support, and your thoughts!

Ola Pola Goes Home

This is my friend and colleague, Daniela. She was born in Poland and became a lawyer and a judge before coming to America twenty or so years ago. She got a job at my company doing secondary work in the factory. She did not understand a word of English. She hurt herself and they put her on "light duty" in the front office, assisting the Costing clerk in Accounting. It didn't take them long to figure out she had a crackerjack brain.

I befriended her when I discovered her love of Art. My mom and I put together a paintbox for her when I found out she had had to leave all those things behind in Poland. It turns out we have some amazing things in common. Although Daniela is about nine days older than I am, she celebrates her Name Day - which is my birthday.  And she started working at our company on my birthday. We have sons who studied the same thing (computers) and attended the same college.

We came to be friends and we work very well together. I don't think at all the way she does, and she thinks that's great. Together we solve big problems. When she was learning English I used to berate our colleagues for talking down to her. "She may not have the language skills," I told them, "but she's freaking smart. Don't treat her like a baby. Just give her a minute to do the translation in her head and she'll catch up."

Daniela is now the Vice President of Finance, and actually, I work for her, but that doesn't get in the way of our friendship. We share shopping stories, cat stories, and sweets. Daniela loves chocolate.

I've been wanting to make her a quilt for a couple of years now, but each time I thought I had one she'd like, one of my family members would step forward to claim it. Last fall when I was beginning to work on this quilt (at the time it was called Snaps), Daniela told me that she wanted to buy a red couch, but her husband had talked her out of it. Daniela has her own terrific sense of style.

As the Snaps quilt grew, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it would go to Daniela. I sent it off to be quilted, but that was delayed by events beyond my control. In the meantime, I needed a name for the quilt. I talked to my son, and said I wanted a name of some type of candy, because the colors were sweet, and Daniela liked them. None of the names we came up with really sang for me, so we turned to the internet. "What about names of candy from Poland?" I asked my son. Every time Daniela returns from a trip to Poland she always brings back some chocolates. Maybe we could find a Polish candy.

My son found Ola Pola, a chocolate wafer candy from the Ukraine. As soon as I heard it, I knew it was perfect. When Chris emailed me to say the quilt would be delivered to me at work on Friday, I knew my weekend would be spent finishing the quilt. I've never finished a quilt so quickly, or spent two solid days on the couch handsewing the binding down. Arthritis be damned, I wanted to give Daniela her quilt as soon as I could.

So I made a "ribbon" out of leftover orange fabric, tied it in a bow around the quilt, stuffed it in a plastic bag, and brought it to work with me on Monday. Needless to say, Daniela loves everything about the quilt, including the big floral print on the back.

Now, she says, she's definitely going to buy that red couch, and she won't let her husband talk her out of it.

The Next Thing

 

I finished sewing the jewel-toned Macnas quilt together. Here it is draped over my ironing table. You can better see the fabrics and colors. A random arrangement of fabrics works well many times, but this regular arrangement has a rhythm that I like very much.

Instead of ironing the backing fabric that needs it, I went into the studio yesterday morning with my hot chocolate and looked around, wondering what to do next.

I've got a lot of fabric in the big scrap bins and I've been working my way through that, but working on the jewel toned Macnas quilt had me searching through my stash, and I discovered a lot of older stuff hidden in there.

WHAT IF... I wondered, I used all the small pieces of forgotten stuff in the stash?

So I put my hot chocolate down, (mind you I was still in my nightgown), and looked through the stash. I found several smallish pieces of a lot of light colors - pastels, really.

Something else jiggled in my brain, and I went over to where I have stacks of Macnas-sized blocks resting on trays. I brought them over to the worktable and sorted through them. I had A LOT of pastel fabrics I didn't even need to cut.

I could get started RIGHT AWAY. 

I got out the laser level and set up plumb lines and cross lines on the design wall, putting random Macnas blocks on the wall the to establish a basic grid. The plumb lines help me to line up the blocks so the design  looks more or less straight and keeps the design from going out of whack. The plumb lines are nothing more than crochet cotton tied to a push pin at the top of the design wall, and with something heavy tied to the bottom. Sometimes it's a bulldog clip with a bunch of old business cards, but anything heavy-ish will work.

It quickly became clear that this new quilt was not going to take long. I knew I wanted something low-volume, pastel, spring-ish colors. I also knew I wanted to arrange the blocks randomly, and not pair them up first.

Excited, I picked up my now empty mug and headed toward the kitchen, where I had breakfast, and then to the bedroom where I got dressed and made the bed. (A shower would come after I got home from Swim class.)

I know from experience that I need 540 pieces to make a quilt 60" x 72" and that when I cut I can get a whole lot more really quickly, so I sorted through those pieces and made a stack. Then I went through the stash and found the smaller pieces of pastels and cut some blocks. It was quickly apparent that I had enough blocks to get started, so I put blocks on the wall, and then I'd cut more.

Quite frankly, these photos look terrible. It's dark, and I have every light in the studio pointed at the design wall, and the sun is out, so you have to believe me. It is not this dark, or dull, or unexciting.

This is not going to take long.

Chocolate A

I love this "A" from Chocolate. It's a little eccentric without being totally wacky.

Color, Squared

I finished the word CHOCOLATE, and moved the finished word blocks to the design wall in the dining room. They are arranged here in the order in which I made them. I'll think about how to arrange them, and play with various layouts.

After I moved them, I cleaned my sewing room. All the tables were covered in fabric and fabric bits, rules, notebooks and drawing ideas.Here are the "misfits" from the quilt. Misfits aren't bad letters, they didn't work out the way I expected/wanted them to.Next up: finish The Quick Brown Fox so I can hang it in my house for Thanksgiving.

Decisions, Decisions...

Not quite sure how I will arrange the words. I shouldn't even be worrying yet as I still have two more words to make. I want the very last word to be CHOCOLATE because I think it will be a fun surprise when you get to the end.

I was at the LQS this past Saturday and it hit me... I'm going to have to find an appropriate backing fabric for this quilt!

Should be interesting.

Questions and Leftovers

You have questions, I finally have some answers. 

Earlier this summer I wrote about making some simple ice cream sandwiches. I used Cool Whip and some low fat strawberry yogurt. I mixed them together and spread them between two crispy chocolate cookies and put them in the freezer. The important thing is to find a variety of low-fat yogurt you think tastes good. Otherwise, why bother.

When I was making the backing for the Early Morning Quilt, SewGirl asked if I kept the extra bits of quilt backing that got trimmed off the final quilt. The answer is YES. I save everything, and often reuse it for just what I did for this quilt backing - I add it to the outer bits knowing it will be trimmed off later. Sometimes those extra pieces get added into quilts.

I had so many blocks for the Nightingale Quilts that I decided to join them together to make slabs and then cut them into triangles. I have another black scrap slab triangle quilt shaping up in my mind. Scrap Slab Triangles are a terrific way to use up scraps. You can get my tutorial here, at my Etsy shop.

Long Distance Cooking

 

A week or so ago my DIL sent me this picture. My GRANDDAUGHTER made this "overnight bread" from a cookbook I sent her for kids aged 4+. 

My granddaughter is FIVE! I was impressed as hell. I didn't make my first loaf of yeast bread until I was in my twenties.

So I did what any good grandmother would do. I went shopping. A set of bowls, measuring cups, measuring spoon, a liquid measuring cup, some kid sized cooking tools (in pink), child safe knifes, a small cutting board, cooky scoop, timer, kid sized potholders, and instant read thermometer, cake testers, dish towels, wooden spoons, microplane grater, vegetable peeler, bench scraper and a couple more kids cookbooks went flying across the country to my DGD.

And yes, a custom embroidered apron with a PINK dinosaur and my DGD's name is being made (thank you Etsy) and will be flying to DGD this week.

Of course I went over the top. I'm a grandmother. That's my job.

That it enabled a long-distance cooking session was just frosting on the proverbial cake. Yes, DGD and I made the same thing at the same time. I was able to walk her through every step of the recipe and told her how to do it all. As you can see she did a great job. We made almond butter energy balls with coconut and mini chocolate chips. Next up we'll be making muffins. We had a great time.

It sure did wonders for my mood.