Caught in the Act

Have you ever considered boycotting the entire notion of Christmas baking? Frankly, I'm sure most of us have at one time or another. We're so busy during December and stopping to bake a couple of dozen cookies for a swap, a party, or simply to steal from the freezer for the rest of the month is the last thing we want to do.

Then we see the covers of the magazines and every single one is a Christmas tree arrangement of glittery cookies tempting us back into the grocery store for butter and sugar. Our kids/partners beg for a batch of shortbread or some esoteric treat their mom used to make. Or the guilt hits.

Every year I swear I'm not going to do it. Maybe a batch of Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread or Peppermint Bark. But THAT'S IT.

And every year I bake 3 or 4 more kinds of cookies. Then I pretty much eat them all myself. What a Ninny.

So this year I vowed I wouldn't do it. I swore to my husband and my jiggly tummy that I wouldn't even buy the butter.

Then The Monster started prepping for the concert at school. It was all about The Gingerbread Man. In fact, a reenactment of the story. She's been walking around reciting the damn thing non stop. Then she asked to bake. I suggested gingerbread men. This brought on tears, full can't catch your breath sobs out of fear that our gingerbread men would run away after we baked them. We settled on gingerbread penguins and moose. Thank goodness there are no stories about runaway moose. At least none with catchy songs attached.

I pulled out the icing sugar, sprinkles, and ridiculously fake food colourings. It was craft time/kitchen time/treat time as far as the girls were concerned. It was a messy way to kill an hour. That's how I approached it at first. Still a Ninny.

The messier it got, however, the happier we all were. Grandma was visiting and happily iced the requested purple and pink penguins. We eventually laughed at the number of sprinkles underfoot, joking that one of us was going to wipe out like it was a pile of ball bearings and we were in a cartoon. My counters are stained and my kids ate more icing than cookies. There wasn't a single tantrum, by them or me.

No longer is Christmas baking about a pile of cookies in the freezer for the guests that might pop by. It isn't even about treats to share with the neighbours over tea. It is about process, the act of making. Baking and decorating cookies with the girls is like Jackson Pollack at a canvas.

Who cares that the cookies will likely not be eaten for lack of enough icing or the wrong sprinkles? They'll make me a little more Santa like, in spirit and with my jiggle.

For the record. We used this recipe from Julie for the cookies. The only change I made is that we cooked them for 10-11 minutes so they would be a bit softer.

Valuable Finish

Values Quilt

66'' Square

Finally, a finish. Well, almost. I haven't come up with a name for this one yet.

This one is a long time coming. It feels like it, at least. I started this one back in April. I'm usually much faster than this. Oh well. I fully claim life as getting in the way. It happens. And I'm okay with that. Lately, however, I've been craving finishes. I've got a few more going on, I'll keep you posted on those.

Once I got it basted it only took me a week to finish it. Really it took only one full day to quilt it. The one day Hubby gave me and I took it. Another evening and I had the binding on it. We went away for the weekend two weeks ago and I stitched away happily in the evenings at my MIL's.

The quilting is pretty darn simple. I can see why so many stick with simple straight lines. It's mindless, sure, but it gets things done quickly. For the one square section I went with these freehand and rather primitive hearts. The Monster is very big into drawing hearts these days, so that's where these came from.

The binding is this blue green. I found the quilt to be quite pink/red. Lots of warm tones. So I bound it in blue. The quilting is actually in two different blues as well. I think it balances things out a little bit better. What do you think?

Someone else has already taken to it quite quickly.

Class

I promise you that I cooked. Aside from our regular Sunday jaunt to the market, I actually cooked nearly all day. Unfortunately, I can't share it with you.

Everything I made today was for one article or another. None of which are due to come out until the New Year at the earliest. That means I can only tell you that I made apple kugel, butterscotch pudding, blackeyed peas, cardamom cookies, potstickers, and something called sabzi polo. I can't share a recipe or a photo. I'm sorry. If it helps, we ate this very eclectic meal for dinner and we are very, very full.

This is one of the advantages and disadvantages of the food writing gig. Sure, dinner gets made out of your work. That means your groceries are, in part, paid for. But after a day of cooking you are left with this really odd meal that you are too full to eat anyway.

Full confession: I totally sat and read a book with a beer in my hand when the light went and my mother-in-law arrived for a visit. Thanks, Susan, for playing hide and seek with the dinosaurs while I did nothing.

Don't get me wrong. I am not complaining about this new life I've chosen. I am getting more writing gigs. Being on my own with Hubby away as much as he's been is much more manageable now... sort of. And, no offense to my old colleagues, I don't miss the desk job at all. If anything, the hard part is giving everything the attention it needs. That includes the girls.

Truly, though, is there a mother in the world who thinks she spends enough time with her kids? Okay, quality time actually paying attention to them and doing nurturing activities?

If you are one of those mothers then I'm probably not the writer for you. Smilosaurus is losing her voice with a never ending cold and the realization that she might not be able to talk tomorrow made me very happy. Ridiculously happy.

So the kids watch a bit too much PBS Kids when I have a deadline. I'm not losing sleep over it. I feed them, and I feed them well. Tonight was a perfect example of that. Of course, with all that food I made all they wanted to eat was the spinach salad I served on the side.

Then Hubby still needed a snack. "There is nothing that goes better with kubasa than beer." We are a classy bunch.

Personality

Let's talk books.

I've reviewed a few books here and plan to review a lot more in the coming months. Before I go any further I wanted to bring up a conversation here.

There was a comment on last week's post by Weeks Ringle, one of the authors of The Modern Quilt Workshop, among others. Her comment led to a series of emails between she and I about the writing in quilt books.

I'm a fan of good writing. Just like I'm a fan of a cup of strong tea, colour, and the Edmonton Oilers. I also enjoy entertaining writing, or a piece that challenges or motivates me. While I've only read a couple dozen or so quilt books in my time I can say that it isn't always the writing that attracts me to the book.

Too often, a quilt book is a section outlining the concepts of the book - what makes this book different from all the rest of the books out there - followed by a basics quilting section. After that it is a bunch of patterns. The vast majority of books are glorified packages of patterns.

To be clear, I don't actually see anything wrong with that. I don't own many of this type of book, but they serve a purpose and can be quite motivating. What makes a book buyable and frequently browsed - to me - will be the good writing.

If I flip through a book and the patterns are interesting or exciting to me the first thing I do is read the Introduction. Bad or boring writing usually causes me to set the book down. I'll probably take a mental note of what I liked from the patterns and file it away for later inspiration. If the writing is engaging or grabs me with a challenging concept I am far more likely to take the book.

Of course, I'm also a sucker for pretty and clean layouts.

This leads me to what Weeks Ringle and I were chatting about - what is the appropriate level of personality in a book? The visuals, aside from the quilts themselves, are a strong part of the personality of the author. Compare Simplify with Camille Roskelly with The Practical Guide to Patchwork by Elizabeth Hartman, for example. Same publisher, same book format. But visually they are very different.

The writing is also part of the personality. And making the writing personal is about more than adding a whole pile of exclamation points or silly jokes. Being able to write in a voice that sounds like you when you are talking doesn't come to everyone. More importantly, being able to do so well and still be engaging is a big challenge. Even if you can do it well, it is hard to be great at it all the time.

In a book that is outlining specific concepts or technical design information, is there a place for personality? That was the question Weeks and I were debating. Or it is better to be succinct and specific?

This, of course also leads to the inherent links between blogging and books. Are they separate? Should they be? If you blog and write a book, how much of one should make it to the other - marketing aside?

I'm going to turn it back to you now. You've read the questions above. You've probably read a million books on your own. What are your thoughts? Oh, one more question. What is your experience as a quilter and what type of books do you like to read?