chocolate pudding

My oldest son has developed a craving for chocolate pudding since track practice restarted. I was making the Jello box stuff, and decided I could do better, so I went back to the cornstarch pudding my mother had us make. I have tweaked the recipe to make, what I think is a pretty good one.
I like to cook on the stovetop, but after many trials, find it scorches less in the microwave.

1/3 cup Droste Cocoa (I am a good Dutch girl)
1/4 cup corn starch
1/3 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt



Wisk together in a 2 quart bowl so you have lots of room for stiring without it sloshing over the edge.

Slowly wisk in 2 cups of milk. (I've been using 2%)


Microwave on high for 3-4 minutes. Wisk. Microwave in one minute intervals, wisking between, until pretty thick--it will stick to the edges a bit at the done part. It takes about 3 1/2-5 more minutes in my microwave.
Wisk in 1 tablespoon of butter and 1 teaspoon of vanilla.



Let cool, wisking about every 3-5 minutes for the first 15, unless you, like my son, like pudding skins!
Pour into cups you have rinsed with cold water. (then the pudding won't stick)
Enjoy warm or cold!

Smocking

My mother makes these amazing smocked blankets for grandchildren. This one was for Seth. She starts with velvet, velveteen, or velour, draws a 1 inch grid on the back with marker or chalk, and then uses embroidery floss to smock from the back side. She has several different patterns that look like braids or basket weaves. I don't know this step--I plan to have a grid drawn on a light green velveteen the next time we are together so she can show me the smocking.
After the smocking is completed, she pins a cotton lining to the back and folds under the velvet and backing. She also tacks the top to back with floss, tied to the back and hidden in the smocking.


Aside: I have a problem in using alt-webring.com from both my Mac and my Dell. It happens in both Safari and Mozilla. Could it be the SBC DSL that is blocking it? Could it be a firewall? I was able to use it for months, and now it times out when I try to use it.
Any ideas would be welcome!
Lynn

flowers

My mother and I did handwork while we sat with my father in the hospital last week (knee surgery). I bound three quilts and she worked on a smocked blanket.
This quilt is for my sister Janna's birthday (and is 10 months late). My friend Erica had made a quilt with her florals--I really liked it and went to my pile of large scale florals. I took ideas from Stack a New Deck, but used my own methods.
I like how it turned out--I used a bit of fabric from my grandmother who died in 1948. She had just one grandchild at the time. Eventually there were 26 of us. I used some of that fabric in a quilt for my mother 5 years ago and plan to use the rest in one for my younger sister.

the lions' den

This year's Bible Story Theater at our church was the story of Daniel. I was in charge of the lions' costumes--the 4 and 5 year olds. We had a great sweat shop that did most of the work.




I also helped design the costumes for the angels (high schoolers) and the fiery furnace flames (1st and 2nd graders)--but other people did all the work.

scot's plaid

I love this quilt--I made it about 8 years ago from my 1 1/2 inch and 2 1/2 inch strips drawers. Who knew I had this many reds?

new stuff

I am getting used to a new computer and a new camera. I have a wonderful memory of my grandmother, sitting at the new telephone when we moved from operator phones to dials in about 1963. She just sat there, overwhelmed by this new technology.
She did master it, though. And I can too!
This quilt is for my father's 75th birthday which was last March. I gave it to him quilted for Christmas. And, I hope, bound on his 76th birthday! My family accepts the same quilt at different stages for different occasions. I'm lucky they like me.

neutrals

I love collecting neutrals and have an extensive selection that I pulled from for this quilt. Lots of them are conversationals. I also like to push neutrals to include lavender, green, and pink.

Foster Avenue Beach

A favorite place of mine in Chicago is Foster Avenue Beach. Many years ago, our city in its wisdom, saved most of the lakefront to have public access and be free of buildings. A few politically connected buildings have been built, but for the most part, the lake is open and beautiful.
Foster Avenue Beach is a family beach--we like to get there by 10 and leave by noon, ahead of the sun.
These pictures are taken in the spring, but it is beautiful in the winter too--I plan to head there tomorrow.

mystery quilt

I wrote a mystery quilt for my guild's newsletter many years ago, and it has floated upon the web ever since. Every few months I get a photograph from a person or group who has used the pattern.
This is my favorite photo--I used it for my computer wallpaper for a long time. It is a group in Norway.
Here is one place where the mystery is posted. (It was written before uploading of pictures was possible, so it took some work to visualize the steps.)
http://www.quilt.com/UserPublishing/SummerMystery1.html

Below is one I made (expanded) from the pattern.

aunt janna and mini me

Our camera is broken, so I am mining the data base of old photographs. Here is my sister, Janna, and our niece, Faith, on Christmas 2003. As we got ready for church, we noticed they were dressed alike.
The quilt in the background is an anvil pattern I made for my sister, Beth, a while back.

cat quilt

Here is the first cat quilt I made--Catherine is working on a free form style that looks great--check out her progress.
This one is all reds. It is being held by a couple of kids attending Eve's Christmas party. I am chaperone to about fifteen 12-14 year olds who are at this moment using a kareoke machine someone brought along. My husband was able to escape with Seth and Paul was very happy to be invited to a friend's house for a movie. I would go sew but that would be in the attic where I would be too far away from the action and too cold.
The girls are very sophisticated and clueless. The boys are unsophisticated and clueless. They are a good group of kids and I am glad to see them enjoying themselves. And I will be even more glad at 10 pm when they go home.

Oh, good Christmas Story--Seth asked at about age 4 when it would be Christmas Seth, he had enough of Christmas Eve. A similar thing happened when Eve was about that age, she asked our pastor if they could change our church's name from St Pauls to St Eves. Sibling rivalry pops up in the best places.

winter in the city

Now, I grew up on a farm in Iowa, and there is no more beautiful place on earth than that place in Sioux County, but there is a magical beautiful to life in the city too, especially in winter. Here is my house and my gargoyles with tinsel collars.




And here is one of my favorite sites in Chicago in winter--the neighborhood children turn their front steps into sled runs. I had never imagined such a thing before I moved to Chicago.

St Nikolaas Day

Yesterday morning the shoes were filled with chocolates--Seth (8) asked the question we have anticipated, "How come St Nikolaas only came to our house on the block?"
I said we are the only Dutch family on our street, and the other families celebrate their own traditions. Satisfied him for now--the older kids know that whoever questions openly gets only sticks in their shoes.

Beth's Roman Stripe

My sister, Beth, loves to quilt, but her busy teaching and lecturing schedule leaves little time. She fits in quilting one hour a week during her daughter's guitar lesson.
She made this top many (17?) years ago, and for Christmas last year, my mother had it quilted and I did the machine work of the binding. This gave her another hand-work project of getting the binding done over the year.
My mom has had several of my tops quilted as presents for me--a wonderful gift.

spinning stars

(((Lost this post when I tried to make a correction!)))
I made this little (about 20" by 28") quilt back in 1996. The pattern was in Quiltmaker. They used brights. These fabrics were from a challenge at my guild.

Fine Art of Fiber

My guild has a cooperative show with the weavers and knitters guilds, the Fine Art of Fiber. I displayed a beautiful quilt that was given to me this spring from the board in appreciation for being president. It is all different tulip blocks, made with many techniques. I love it.

The Ricky Timms pretty purple quilt was made by my friend Eleonore Hauser, and the wonderful geometric one is by my friend Leslie Riley.

The tiny lantern log cabin is a great quilt by my friend Donna Cook.
Eleonore, Leslie, Donna, and I are members of a small group of 13 that meets to encourage eachother in our work. I look forward to this every month.

another one of Bonnie's wonky houses

I just finished another quilt top using Bonnie's wonky houses. This one will be a fund raiser for my church--they participate in Appalachia Service Project each year. I think about 50 will go this year, including my husband and our two oldest children.
It is interesting to see the kids reaction to rural poverty, very different from the urban poverty they see here in Chicago.

red stars

I've been working on this red quilt for a while--finally at a place where I can concentrate on it and finish the top. Trying to figure out borders.
The reds are from my stash.

cowboy quilts

I buy plaid cotton shirts at the thrift stores--here in Chicago the big chains are Unique Thrift (half price on Mondays!) and Village Discount. I take them home, launder them to get rid of that "thrift store smell" and take apart the shirts.
I'm always looking for good cowboy prints to use for these quilts.
My neighbor and friend, Sharon, is a quilter and a thrift store treasure seeker too, and we have a deal where we give each other a sleeve off each shirt we buy.
Lately, I have been finding lots of yellow and orange shirts--must have been a fashion trend a year ago that passed me by.

go go white sox!

Chicago is full of Sox fever and I laughed when on the radio this morning the sports guy went on a rant about how there were no hotel rooms to be had in Houston because there were "all these damn quilters all over the place." He had to be in a hotel 15 miles out of town because of "these little old ladies who have a compulsion to quilt booked every hotel room in town."
I may invite him to our show in November...