Favorite Things: October 2008 Archives

Some of you may remember when I started piecing together a quilt.

One year and seven months later I put the final stitches into this huge project. It is made to fit our king-sized bed or to be used as a snuggly warm quilt for watching movies and cuddling by the fire.

The pattern is a simple nine-patch. The quilt top fabrics are 100% cotton. The quilt batting is 100% natural cotton fibers. The backing is 100% cottom muslin. I chose the color pallet based on a more masculine preference so as not to be girlish because after all it is a quilt for Steve.

A new quilt is a little too perfect for me. Can you see how very smooth and pristine the fabrics look? It doesn't look inviting and wonderful to my eye. I have a technique I use to age the quilt so it starts out looking as if it is older and has been used and loved for many years.

When starting a quilt top I always wash my fabrics first. Then iron them nice and cripsly. For the backing I don't wash it. I leave it as it. Once the quilt has been finished it is stiffer than I like and too much like it has been starched. So I wash it. The backing, having not been pre-washed will then shrink. Inside the batting fibers will also shrink. This pulls the pre-shrunk top into lovely soft puckers and wrinkles. Now it looks aged and loved and is super soft and feels more warm.

Most importantly the quilt is labled. This is the very last step for me. Creating a message to make the gift personal and more intimate. This is also a very large part of documenting the quilt hould something hapen to it - be it lost, stolen, or destroyed. Loosing a hand made quilt can be like loosing a friend. If you are searching for a lost quilt you can list it with Lost Quilt Come Home. Hopefully someone will find your quilt and return it to you.

I try to photograph the quilt in progress so that I have the story of its creation. The journal entry will also be a permanent document of this quilt.

I would love to hear from other quilters. Anyone out there?

I wanted to show you more of the bottles in my kitchen that I use to hold oils, vinegars and other items I like close at hand when cooking. For those of you that might have missed it Part I of my series on decorative and engaging vessels in which to store potions and notions in your kitchen can be found here.

This is one of my favorite bottles. It is for Sinclair's pure cottonseed salad oil. I have never seen pure cottonseed oil available on the store shelf. If I did I would buy it and run home rejoicing about the soaps I would make with it. Not so sure I would eat it but I would absolutely make soap with it. I know nothing of the company that produced this oil. I have Googled and hunted and so far come up with nothing. If anyone has any clue about this oil and the maker I would love to know. The bottle reads "Sinclair Oil Salad Pure Cottonseed Oil". The outer ring of writing reads "Bottled by Tillman & Bendel, Inc. San Francisco".

Next on the counter top is a White House Vinegar jug. For as long as I can remember my Grandma and my Momma only used White House vinegars. It is a name I know. Those things familiar from my childhood, even a lowly vinegar name, evoke such huge emotional repsonses in me. I can smell and see the bowl of cucumbers and onions marinating for dinner on my Grandma's kitchen counter. I know the scent of bowling vinegar used to pickle peppers and cukes and a steaming hot summer kitchen. Vinegar also invokes the memories of years up years of easter dying with the colored tablets, tablespoon of vinegar and a small cup of cold water. This bottle was a must have.  

The last bottle is another bottle that I haven't been able to find a clue as to what it was originally intended for. It is a bottle that is representative of George Washington. I know this because it is imprinted in the glass at the bottom "Washington".  I wonder if George was a novelty to sell distilled spirits. So far my research has turned up nothing whatsoever. For now George is overseeing the pouring of balsamic vinegar.

So, you can see, I have some odd delights and uses for bottles. I figure you can't shove everything into a cabinet. If you have to leave it sitting out it may as well be useful but above all it should be pretty, engaging, novel and a conversation starter.

I have had many people comment on my bottles. At first they appear nondescript and just a part of the kitchen clutter nestled near the stove top. Then someone pays a bit closer attention to what is really there. I have never asked, nor looked, but I do wonder how many people go home and look for something interesting to store their oils and vinegars in.