Finished Transportation Quilt

 I have been working on the transportation quilt I am making for our grandson for some time. He was turning two and I wanted to finish it in time for his birthday.  Not that he would know or care, but I wanted to get it done by then.

      

I found some absolutely adorable fabric online with cartoon workers and construction vehicles. What did we do before the internet???

As with all the appliqués I have done, I stitched around the designs as part of the quilting process.  I did most of the quilting in free motion.  Then I added a binding using the same fabric I used for the backing. 

I was unhappy with the bus and plane square.  I remade them and then saved the originals. This is explained in earlier posts.

I quilted each one with batting and scrap fabric for the backing. I sewed them together with right sides facing, leaving part of one side open. 

 I turned them right side out and then stuffed the pillow with poly fill stuffing and stitched it closed. I had a matching pillow!

       

I managed to finish before his birthday.  He is now using his new quilt.  I don't know if he appreciates it or not, but I guess time will tell.

      

Mug Rug Gifts

 I was planning a trip to Pasadena soon.  I grew up there and have friends and family that I haven't seen in quite some time.  When my mother was living in Southern California I went about 4 times a year to see her. Now that she's gone, my trips to the west coast are to visit our granddaughters in Northern California. 

I thought it would be fun to make a mug rug for some of the people I am visiting.

I already sent my former roommate and host for my visit a mug rug. But she has a beloved granddaughter, so I decided to make one for her to give as a gift.  What little girl doesn't like a unicorn?  I used a Cricut design for the template and cut it out using Steam-A-Seam to place it on a white square. Purple and pink are the usually good colors for little girls.  

The  super cute bug fabric on the back makes it reversible and it has a lot of purple to go with the binding.

I have a friend who is a writer.  She gets the book case. I didn't have a pattern for this so it took a few tries to get the dimensions right. The bird design is from another project.

My friend Mary grew up near me, four houses away. I have known her as far back as I have memories.  When we were kids we decided we should have a club.  A bunch of neighbor girls got together and had meetings and even put on a carnival to raise money we donated to a worthy cause.  We agonized over a name. The Beatles were popular then, so we tried out bug names and ended up with the Ladybug Club. I found a ladybug design on Cricut and used that.

There were many kids on our block and we played outside together after school and all summer.  We were in and out of each other's house all the time. Mary's mother was a big part of my childhood.  So I wanted to make her a rug, too.   She was a librarian, so she needed a book theme, too.  I still have some fabulous antique book fabric I used to make some masks at the beginning of the pandemic, so I chose some for her. Both sides have books, one with Shakespeare as I don't know what her reading tastes are.

And lastly I made a drone mug rug.  My daughter-in-law and son are engineers on drones being built for the Air Force. I pulled up a bunch of photos online and used one to make the template for a drone mug rug for my daughter-in-law. I hope she likes it. But if not, she has a whole office full of people to pass it off to!

I finished this post after I returned from my trip.  My daughter-in-law liked my drone mug rug and asked if I could make a similar one for a friend. I did so happily.  I really need to make one for myself!  I just keep giving them away!  Hmmmm.  I wonder what pattern I should use...

Honey Pecan Cream Cheese

 I recently had bought some bagels. This is a moderately big event for me as there are no places in our town.  I love a Nutella bagel, Burt I also like them with a honey pecan cream cheese. Sadly, I haven't been able to find any.  I can find regular cream cheese and savory cream cheese flavors, but not the honey pecan ones.  

I don't know if it is COVID related, supply chain issues, or what the issue is, but I decided to make my own.  How hard could it be?

So I bought a tub of plain Philadelphia cream cheese and made some.

Honey Pecan Cream Cheese

1/2 cup cream cheese

1 Tablespoon honey

2 Tablespoons pecans

I toasted some pecans in the toaster oven. Keep an eye on them. They can go from not toasted enough to burnt pretty quickly.  I set the oven to 300° and only kept them in a few minutes.  After cooling, chop finely.

Mix the cream cheese, honey and chopped nuts.  That's it.

I made this after breakfast, so I wasn't hungry enough to toast a bagel to try it out. I placed a small amount on an animal cracker. It was delicious.  It was a bit sweeter than I was used to, so I may use a bit less honey next time I make it.  And I will make it again.

Place the flavored cream cheese in an air tight container and keep it in the refrigerator. 

Maple Oat Nut Scones

I first had maple oat nut scones at Starbucks. I've been trying to recreate them ever since.  Maybe not exactly, but close enough.  In this blog I previously posted a similar recipe using an oatmeal scone mix from Victorian House Scones. This one is made from scratch and I liked it a lot.

A lot of scone recipes call for the oatmeal to be ground in a for processor but I like the rustic quality of the whole oats. Don't use the quick oats.

Maple Oat Nut Scones

1 1/2 cup flour, plus some for the counter

1 cup oatmeal 

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

6 Tablespoons butter

3/4 cup buttermilk

2 teaspoon maple flavoring or 1 of Mapleine

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 425°.  Place a sheet of parchment on a baking pan. I use a Silpat.  

Place the stick of butter in the freezer for about 10 minutes while you get everything else set up.

Put the flour, oatmeal, sugar, salt, baking powder, and baking soda in a large mixing bowl. Give it a stir.

Grate the partially frozen butter over a piece of waxed paper.  Add the curls of butter to the flour mixture. Use a pastry cutter to blend the butter into the flour.  Add the maple flavoring into the buttermilk and stir to combine. 

Don't over mix or the scones will get tough.  You may even think it isn't mixed enough. Add the nuts and give another quick mix.

Sprinkle some flour on the very clean counter and dump contents of the bowl onto it.  Knead the dough about three times and then shape it into a flattened circle. 

Cut the dough into eight pieces and place on the prepared baking sheet.   

 

Bake for 12-15 minutes or until the scones start to brown on the edges.  cool on the sheet for about 2 minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack. 

These scones need a maple flavored icing on it. The recipe is on my other scone recipe, so I will be brief. 

1 Tablespoon butter

2 Tablespoons milk or cream

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

2 teaspoons maple flavoring, or 1 of Mapleine

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat.  Add the milk.  Heat until little bubbles form.

Add the sugar and cook until it starts to thicken.  Remove from the heat and add the flavoring.  If you use Mapleine it will be a darker color.  I like using it, but the store doesn't carry it here.

Mix well and then drizzle over the cooled scones.  

These are best the day you make them.  But they are also good the next day if you pop them in a toaster oven for a quick minute, and before the icing melts off.

Colcannon

I decided to make a traditional Irish meal for St. Patrick's Day.  I have a Irish Soda Bread recipe elsewhere on this blog. All I needed was a recipe with cabbage and potatoes.  This recipe started with the one on Bon Appetit, but I made some changes.  

You can add ham or bacon with this recipe, but we chose to go meatless.

Colcannon

5 Yukon Gold potatoes, about 2 pounds

6 Tablespoons butter

2 leeks

2 teaspoons minced garlic

2 cups shredded Savoy cabbage

1 1/4 cups milk

1/2 cup heavy cream 

pepper

salt

1 green onion, thinly sliced

Peel and cut the potatoes into a rough dice. place them in a medium saucepan and cover them with salted water.  

Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer until you can piece the potatoes with a sharp knife, about 15 or 20 minutes. Drain and set aside.

While the potatoes are cooking, trim off the roots and the dark green leaves of the leeks.  

Cut them in half lengthwise and rinse them under running water.  This is important as dirt gets in there and you need to get it out!

Thinly slice the leeks.  Melt the butter in a large sauce pan over medium heat.  Add the leeks, stirring frequently. Thinly slice the cabbage.  Avoid the tough core. 

After the leeks are very soft add the garlic. Cook for about three minutes, stirring and then add the cabbage.  Continue stirring frequently until they are wilted. Add the milk and cream and bring to a simmer.

Add the potatoes and mash with a potato masher. Season with salt and pepper.

Transfer to a serving dish and top with the remaining butter and the thinly sliced green onions. 

Serve with Irish soda bread dotted with currants for the full experience.

White Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

Lee mentioned that we did not have any cookies in the house.  I think that was a subtle hint he would like some cookies in the house.  I happened to have a bag of chocolate chips and a bag of white chocolate chips. I asked him which I should use and he chose the white ones.  I thought a chocolate cookie would be a good base.

I found a recipe on the Two Sisters Crafting site.  I made a minor change and made them mostly as I found there.

Chocolate White Chocolate Chip Cookies.

1 cup butter, softened. (two sticks)

3/4 cup sugar

2/3 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla 

2 1/4 cups flour

2/3 cup cocoa powder

1/3 baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 bag white chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 °.  Prepare baking sheets. I use Silpat.

I like creaming butter in a Kitchen Aid. You can let it run while you get the rest of the ingredients ready.   The lightest cookies need light and fluffy butter.  Scrape down the sides and keep beating. It will take about 5 minutes.

Add the two sugars and beat for a few more minutes. When fully mixed add the eggs and vanilla. Mix until fully incorporated.  

Add the cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt.  Mix very slowly or you will be covered in cocoa.

Mix in 1 1/4 cup flour and then the remaining cup of flour, just until incorporated.

Lastly, pour in a bag of your favorite white chocolate chips. mix briefly or they will all get smashed.

I used a medium cookie scoop to make even balls on the prepared baking sheets.

Bake for 9-11 minutes.  Let the baking sheets cool for two minutes and then transfer the cookies to a cooling rack. 

These cookies did not flatten and were soft and quite delicious. 

 I would make them again.

Top Of The Transportation Quilt

 I used a pattern for first six construction vehicles on the transportation quilt I'm making for my grandson. I cut out shapes on my Cricut to use as a template for the next three vehicles.  I found designs for a train, a school bus and a fire truck.  I played around with them a bit to make them a bit more simple so they would fit in with the first six.

I wanted to add three more shapes.  I didn't find three that I liked in the Cricut catalog, so I looked at online free images.  I picked out the ones I wanted.  I tried to trace them from my iPad. My iPad screen is not big enough. I enlarged the design so that the whole thing didn't fit on the screen. I taped tracing paper on my counter and tried very hard not to touch the screen with anything but my pencil, because caused the whole thing to move. Then I shifted the design on the screen to get the whole thing traced. I managed to get the designs I wanted in the size I wanted after a LOT of crumbled up tracing paper.

I used the tracings to make a page of shapes to trace on Steam A Seam.  I ironed it on the back side of the fabric, then appliquéd them on the precut white squares.

I made a garbage truck using two different designs for inspiration.  Getting the recycling design drawn and appliquéd was a bit tricky, but fun.

The helicopter I traced and appliquéd as I found it.  It fit in really well with the flavor of the original designs, kind of cartoonish.

 

Airplanes are a favorite of Wesley's. He stops what he is doing and runs to the window to try and find one when he hears one flying by.  

This is the shape I chose.

When I cut out the final shape, it was too big to go horizontal, so I angled it down, like a strafing run.  I didn't really want to have it horizontal as it would fill more of the square rising or falling. I sent a text of the picture to my daughters.  Trista asked why the plane was crashing.

Oh. That was not the impression I wanted to convey.  So I used the same design and aimed it up as though it was climbing. After all, the plane has windows, so it must be a passenger plane.  They don't do strafing runs!

I saved the diving plane and I may use it as a pillow to go with the quilt.

The top is finished and I'm waiting for the fabric for the back to be delivered.