Meandering My Way Around a Twister

Two weeks ago, I learned how to free motion (FM) quilt from a wonderful teacher and quilt maker, Norma Jean at Parkland Parish Quilt Co. If you aren't sure what I'm talking about, FM quilting is done on your home machine and not on a long arm machine and if you don't know what a long arm machine is, you must google a picture of one. They are amazing and can be very very expensive. For those of us who are broke or just thrifty and can't bear to spend $25k+ on a long arm machine, we use our regular sewing machines to do it. I've used a long arm a couple of times and they are nice but as I can't afford one I ventured to learn on my machine.

I purchased an open toe FM quilting foot for my machine (I got it from allbrands.com- I don't get paid to advertise, just wanted to let you know)after my class and was excited when it came in the mail last week. I had a darning foot, which is what we used in class to learn how to FM, but it's all plastic at the bottom and is really a terrible foot if you want to see what you are doing, where you are going and where your last stitch was. I had a twister quilt that I designed and pieced together that I had just found the perfect backing for and decided that I would free motion quilt for the first time the quilt pictured by myself on my machine. FM quilting is tedious work and not for the faint at heart, it starts with clamping down your backing to some sort of table, the backing has to be very taught because if it isn't, it will ripple, gather and bunch under the stitching. After you've clamped it down, you later the batting and then your quilt top on the backing and then pin it down. My quilt probably could have stood to be pinned more but I didn't and that's something I'll remember for next time. Once I got it pinned up, I used a scrap quilt sandwich (fabric, batting, fabric) to practice my pattern on, just to warm up. That was a trick I was taught to do in my class. Once I felt I had it down I put the quilt in my machine and away I went. The top picture is just the quilt top, I took it minutes after I finished sewing the top together and the bottom one was minutes after I finished FM quilting it.

I learned about 6 different styles in my FM class but the one I'm most comfortable with is meandering or stippling. I love to meander, there's no rhyme or reason to it, and there's no set pattern, you just move your quilt around in squiggly lines and usually turns out looking like puzzle pieces. Mine normally look like coral, or at least that's what it reminds me of. I spent about 4 hours on Sunday quilting my twister quilt and I think it turned out beautifully, the only thing left to do is bind it and it will be ready for sale. One of these days I'll get around to binding the 4 quilted quilts that I have, and I will also get around to quilting the 5 tops that are ready to go, of course those have to wait until I find the perfect backing.

One of my goals in life is to own my own quilt store and make my own items to sell. I'd love to teach people how to sew and quilt, I think that not many people do it anymore and would love for the younger generations to keep up what our grandmothers used to do. Quilts may be expensive to some but I know that I have a greater appreciation for the price of a quilt after making and quilting my own. Lots of time and money go into the fabric and machines and if properly taken care of, can last a lifetime or more. Each quilt has it's own story to tell and I think that's amazing.



May you find something new in your fabric stash each time you look at it.

Rachel

These are the days...

The weekends are the days that I love, not because I'm not at work but because I'm home with my hubby and we get to plan and do things together. Even if it's just watching TV together or doing things in our offices separately. It means that at just about anytime I can walk to him and give him a hug or a kiss if I feel like it. Sometimes when we work so hard at our jobs we get so wrapped up in our days that we forget to connect when we take our uniforms off. Even though there are some weekends where we have separate things going on it's nice to be able to relax while doing something you love and coming home to tell your spouse about it. We try to ask each other how our days went at work every day when we come home but until this past week, it's not been very busy for at least me so it's hard to really connect when I'm not busy at work at all.

This past week has been amazing, many months ago I applied and was accepted for re-training (for all you non-military types out there that means I'm getting a new job and the Air Force is going to send me to school to do it). I will be leaving for San Antonio in August to attend Pharmacy Technician school at Ft. Sam Houston. I'm so excited, but since I have to wait so long for class I was granted an opportunity which I sought out do. I now intern over at our local pharmacy on base 4 days out of the week. Some days I'm not there all day but I have had exciting news to come home and share every day this week with my husband and it's so wonderful that now our conversations don't go.. "How was your day?" "Oh, fine you know, same stuff, sat on Facebook and CNN all day long waiting for something to do." That last part is me, I very much dislike being idle and not have a job to do when I'm at work. When I'm at the pharmacy I am busy from the moment I walk through that door to the moment I leave to go home in the afternoon. It's a wonderful feeling. This has solidified my hunch that I will be extremely happy in the pharmacy field and who knows, maybe down the road I go to school to complete my Doctorite in Pharmacology. My pharmacy endeavors will be another blog for another time, this is what I get for not blogging for 2 years, I have so much to say and I have a hard time keeping my blog focused on the original idea.

I just realized that I hyjacked my own blog from talking about connecting with your spouse on the weekend to my new endeavors into a new job with the Air Force but hey, it's my blog right?

As I get ready to head off to free motion quilt class, I will kiss my hubby, tell him I love him and have an awesome few hours learning more about perfecting my quilting craft here at home and then I'll be able to come home to my hubby and tell him all about my day. I guess the one thing I want to leave everyone with is, don't just wait for Valentine's Day to show your significant other how much they mean to you, every day should be Valentine's Day. I'm not saying expect flowers everyday but I'm glad to know that at least one time a day Nick and I will tell each other "I love you." That's more important to me than some silly holiday.

Enjoy the weekend my friends.

Back at it with Gluten Free Brownies

So, it's been about 2 years since I blogged last and I figured it's about time to start up again. I've decided to take this blog in a different direction than it was initially intended and here's what I'll be doing. In addition to keeping things updated about Nick and I, I will also be focusing this blog on gluten-free and dairy free recipes along with my quilting escapades. With the first blog in 2013 I'd like to kick it off with the recipe for gluten free brownies I have perfected (in my eyes and my husbands, since he is my guinnea pig for taste quality, oh and my best friend Jamie who has celiac).

So my dive into gluten free brownies really started with knowing one of my husbands airman wanted brownies for his birthday and since this is one thing my friend Jamie and I hadn't tried to perfect, I ventured on my own to create what I think is one of the best gluten free brownies I have ever tasted. Now I will preface this by saying, I am only gluten free, not grain free. So this recipe may not work for you and you might have to play around with it. There are 3 different variations I've tried and they've all worked out just fine. The three variations are plain, mocha, and mocha chip.

I used a basic recipe from a Hershey's cookbook my mother in law gave me as a present. Well Hershey doesn't have just a basic brownie recipe, they all have some twist to them so I took the most basic looking one and made it work for me. So here we go...

The basic gluten/dairy free brownie --Preheat oven to 350

3/4 c baking cocoa
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp xanthan gum or equivalent (I use xanthan gum, using something different may yield different results... yes you need this for gluten free baking)
1 c melted coconut oil divided*
1/2 c boiling water
2 c sugar
1 tbs honey or blue agave syrup** (I use honey)
2 eggs
1 1/3 c gluten free all purpose flour (I use Bob's Red Mill)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp salt

Mix together the cocoa, soda and xanthan gum in a large bowl (I use a kitchen aid but anything will do), stir in 1/2 the melted coconut oil, add the boiling water. Now at this step, if you so choose to make these mocha brownies I suggest you add 3 instant coffee packets to the boiling water before adding to the dry mix (this is tried and true, 3 packets give just enough mocha flavor, you may add more if you like the flavor to be stronger). Stir until mixture thickens. Mix in sugar, eggs and remaining melted coconut oil and stir until smooth. Add flour, vanilla and salt. To this end you are done, if you would like to add chocolate chips or peanut butter chips this is the place to do it. The mixture will be very thick and will really be kind of tough to spread and get out of the bowl, that's ok it's normal. It happens both when you use regular butter and coconut oil so I think it might be the gluten free flour that does this but I promise these babies will be awesome. Pour patter into a greased (I grease with dairy free butter or coconut oil) 13x9 baking pan. Bake for 40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean from center of brownies. I made these last night in the form of brownie bites and they were difficult to get out of the mini muffin pan, I will most definitely work on that. I piped vanilla frosting colored with food dye to make it pink on top and placed a raspberry on top of them. They were marvelous. I'm attaching a picture of the brownie bites, it's not the best picture because it was taken with my phone but you get the idea :) Enjoy and happy baking.

*I used coconut oil for this recipe but any butter will do. If you use regular butter (not dairy free) or vegan butter change the amount to 2/3 c and divided 1/3 in each of the two steps. I only had coconut oil on hand because the store was out of Earth Balance butter :( (Update: I used Earth Balance butter in my latest recipe and I could taste the bean flour after they were baked. You'll probably have to either up the honey/blue agave or default to regular or coconut oil for this step)

**Honey and blue agave both help mask the flavor of the bean flours used in gluten free all purpose flour. The first batch of brownies I made did not have any honey added and you could definitely taste the bean flour, it wasn't terrible but it wasn't great either. Once I added the honey to the mix the brownies came out perfect.

A word to the wise, never, ever, ever lick the spoon that has raw gluten free batter on it. I mean you could I suppose, but make sure you have someone take a picture of your face once you've tasted the batter, like my friend Jamie says, "It's like licking the inside of a bean!" The batter is disgusting but have at it if you like, I just know from experience that it doesn't taste good raw.

Rachel