Vicki Lane's Blog, page 35

Looking East

 

Glimmer Tree

                                                                                   

I stepped out on the porch just as the sun broke through the clouds, setting alight the millions of raindrops clinging to the river birch in the front yard.


It was a magical, fleeting moment. And it reminded me I need to get the Christmas lights up.


 

Christmas Card Production Line

 

It might seem tedious to some--there are forty to do- but as I work, I keep finding different ways of doing things and small improvements to add or to speed up the process. Plus, the watercolor hues shift about and keep me entertained.
I think of these as celebrating the Winter Solstice but after staring at them a while, decided to add a sprig of holly on the stag's horns as a nod to traditional Christmas.

The Christmas Quilts

                                                                           

The red, white and green one was made by my great-grandmother, Alice Morris Wright, in Troy, Alabama. It's not dated and my grandmother, who gave it to me, didn't know much about it. It had been kept in a cedar chest and, so far as I know, never used.
This quilt is made of 9 large squares, each with the red and green motif appliqued on the white backing. Alice seems not to have been a particularly skilled seamstress -- but, to be fair, it's really hard to applique circles.

I'm guessing this was made before Alice was married -- maybe 1880-ish? After Alice was married, she had four children and also worked as a milliner and then as a buyer for an early department store in Troy before dying of Bright's disease in her fifties.



After Alice died, Aunt Georgia was a part of the household as my grandmother grew up. Aunt Georgia made a number of beautiful, quilts, all of which were used. This one of little red and white triangles is quilted with more tiny stitches than I care to think about.



I'



I look forward every year to bringing out these quilts to warm our spirits at Christmas -- and to remembering two women I never knew.
I asked my professional quilter friend Pepper Cory what she could tell me about these quilts. And she said:
"I think the applique quilt is some species of Coxscomb. The green calico was a classic print by Eli & Walker and was available from the 1880s right up into the 1970s. In the pictures, the red looks slightly smudged around the little circles and I wonder if this that might indicate a less than fast red. Or is the picture slightly blurry? I do know that when a chemical red dye was being developed, there were a lot of misses, the most famous being the fugitive red dye that quickly faded to tan. That was called Congo Red and named in 'honor' of that African country being annexed by Belgium in 1884. Your 1880 date is spot on.

"The other triangles quilt might be inter-generational. The red with black circles looks like a faded c.1900 print but the solid red on the scalloped border looks newer and of a different weave (thanks for the close-ups!). Maybe this top was made of earlier fabric and then made larger and finished in the 1920s or 30s when the scalloped border treatment was very popular."

A Sherlock of old quilts, Pepper is.

Breathe

 

A Southern Take on Caldo Gallego.

                                                                       

 The classic Spanish version calls for turnip greens and Spanish chorizo (not at all like Mexican.) In the past I have used kielbasa but what I had on hand was collard greens and Alabama's Conecuh hickory smoked sausage. And a bunch of broth left over from boiling the turkey carcass. 

Accompanied by John's bread, hot from the oven, and a salad of spinach, red cabbage, and tangerines with blue (for John) or goat (for me) cheese, it was a more than worthy iteration of the classic. Goodbye, kielbasa--it's Conecuh from now on!

                                                  

5 quarts turkey broth (or whatever broth you choose)

1 package chopped collar (or kale) greens

1 can garbanzos, undrained

1 can cannellini beans, undrained

1 pkg Conecuh sausage, cut into bite size pieces

2 onions, chopped

1 red (or green) pepper, also chopped

about half a head of garlic, peeled and chopped

two medium red potatoes, chopped

2 bay leaves

2 pkg Goya Sazon

Bring the broth to a boil, stir in greens and beans. In a skillet, brown the sausage then add to soup. In the sausage fat, sauté the onions, pepper, and garlic and add to soup. Throw in the chopped potatoes, a couple of bay leaves, and the Sazon.

Simmer about an hour. Taste to decide if you need salt.  Freezes well.

                                                          

A Busy Snow Day--With Some Boring Bits

No school because of snow again! Yesterday my mom and dad both stayed home and I got to play with my sled. Today they went to work and I went up to stay with Meema. Meema does not go out in the snow because she is old and afraid of falling. 
So I brought some snow in. What are you doing? she asked me.Science, I told her. If you pour water into the snow it doesn't take up any room AND it all turns to ice.

I did some drawing and coloring while Meema was painting Christmas cards.

And I vacuumed, and I polished tables and stuff.
It was pretty boring, and I wanted to do games and watch videos on my tablet, but Meema got cranky and said I had already had enough screen time after breakfast. She even wrote me a story about a princess and a wizard gave her a magic screen that had neat stuff on it all the time and the princess forgot to eat or bathe or anything, she just watched her screen all the time. Then Meema said could I write the end of the story. 
So I wrote about a princess who had a magic robot crown, and a witch came and took it away. The princess fought the witch with her sword and got the robot crown back. The End.
I wrote some more stuff and went and read it to Grumpy. He thought it was pretty good. Then I read some books--two to myself and one long one called Pirate Stew to Meema. (I had already read three other books before lunch.

Meema asked me about my doll. How many of those skinny leg dolls do you have anyway, she said.  About a hundred, I told her, and they're called Barbies.
They didn't even have Barbies when Meema was a little girl. (I told you she was old.)

 

Snow Day

 

Needs Must Salad

Needs Must salad is what I make the night before I go to the grocery. I'm out of lettuce and/or spinach so I turn to that nice, long-lasting purple cabbage lurking in the bottom drawer of the fridge. Shredded carrots, celery, and yellow bell pepper round out this iteration. Sometimes there are onions and tomatoes--really, whatever I can find that crunches. I dress it with a little salt, olive oil, and white balsamic vinegar for a touch of sweetness.

On this night we also had a cream of celery and onion soup, made with some broth from the turkey carcass, and hot popovers--those little miracles made from just flour, salt, eggs, milk, and a hot oven.

Yum.

 

Early Morning with Jenny

                                                                                    

I probably wouldn't crawl out of a warm bed before sunup to go out and appreciate the dawn in below freezing weather if it weren't for Jenny. But she needs to attend to business, so out we go.

And what a gift, to enjoy the day's dawning and the pastel sky etched with dark branches!

Jenny seems appreciative too.