23 Tins of Tibbie's Famous Shortbread

Tibbie was this adorable little lady from Scotland who after her kids had grown, divorced her husband and answered an ad in her local paper to come to America and cook for a wealthy NYC couple living in the Dakota that famous building of John Lennon fame, and made immortal in the novel Time and Again. Tibbie ended up marrying into our family, and once while staying with us taught me the secrets of Scottish Short Bread. I've made 23 tins for my co-workers with the her recipe attached. Here it is if you'd like to try them.
Tibbie's Short Bread

Preheat 325°Using the butter wrappers from a LB of butter, grease large four sided cookie sheet. Cover pan with wax paper, and grease wax paper in the same manner.
Ingredients
1 LB butter (room temperature)

1 cup of sugar

5 cups of flour

1 cup rice flour (found in health food stores - you can use white or brown)

Cream sugar and butter

Transfer to an extra-large bowl. Add flour kneading with your hands until dough pulls away from the sides forming a ball. (10 minutes.)

Spread dough on prepared tray. Using the heels of your hand push evenly to all sides. Top with saran wrap or wax paper and smooth out with rolling pin. Remove top saran. Prick at even intervals with fork. Bake 325° oven for 40 minutes, or until lightly golden in color.

Secret: Cut in squares while still hot, cool completely before removing from tray. Wax paper will peel off from the bottom. Store in airtight container. If they become soft they can be put back into the oven for a few minutes.

Now Here's a Twist

Two Days ago I actually got a letter FROM the North Pole

Okay, well maybe not the real North Pole, but close enough. Nelson BC... Come on, Americans have never been that great in Geography... Sarcasm aside....my Christmas Sewing Workshop is officially closed. Merry Christmas

Christmas Day 1958

Sadly in April 1999 my sister and I had to sell our parent's beloved home.
In packing I found a remnant of the first curtains my mom made for her new 1956 kitchen. I tucked it away knowing someday I would surprise my sister with it in some fashion. Well , she’s about to be a grandmother, and this Christmas I’m surprising both my niece and sister with cookbooks with recipes and family stories covered in quilted fabric from our childhood kitchen. (Luckily no one in my family ever goes on my blog and PS I made one for myself and maybe a future granddaughter someday…) Merry Christmas Everyone.

ITouch Carriers... Done.. CHECK

I'm getting there, and hopefully by this weekend all sewing project gifts traveling long distances will be in the mail.
I loved the way these turned out and I actually made up a tutorial for the pattern but I can't figure out how to post a Word doc, and PDFs distort....Oh well, my intentions were good. If anyone wants the pattern I can email it to you.

Time to Quilt the Mead Notebooks.....

Brand new Mead Composition Notebooks are irresistible don't you think? So why not quilt covers for them?

I’ve been meaning to do that since a friend showed me an applique pattern she purchased making them out of blunt cut wool and hand blanket stitching.

I improvised and made a pattern traced onto a paper bag and printed labels on Printed Treasures fabric sheets, then machine quilted them.

Why are those Printed Treasure sheets so expensive now? Has anyone tried just running fabric through their printer ironed on to freezer paper? I keep thinking there is a chemical setting process after printing that I just don't want to deal with. Maybe they will set with a hot iron but that's a project for another day.

On to Iphone covers....I am so behind in my gift making this year.....

Two Quillows

Inspired by a pattern in the book Tis the Season, Quilts and Other comforts by Jeanne Large and Shelley Wicks, I made these two quillows to give as a gift for newlyweds with at passion for traveling. I thought they would be great to throw in the trunk of the car. After finishing them I must admit I prefer the original Christmas pattern and now have a hankering to make that as well.

Okay So I Made 9 of Them ....

But I've already given three away. Why resist making them? So festive don't you think? Thanks Stacy for posting your tutorial...


http://craftystaci.com/2010/11/08/fabric-cornucopia/

Presents for my favorite Nieces

And soon to be great-niece or nephew

I'm Back

I must say after the death of a favorite Aunt I pulled back from creating anything... I guess I was going through one of those, "What's it all about Alfie" phases, but with "A Little Help From my Friends" I'm back. A coworker in another life had worked in a Quilt Shop back in the 70's. She cleaned out her basement this summer and asked if I wanted a bag of strips. Wow, being the closet fabric snivel presser that I am, I said sure. I spent hours untangling through them, categorizing by color, pressing and hanging them. Great Therapy!! So as you can see it's back to Jane and back to sewing, thank you very much.

My Best Mother’s Day Gift to Myself….

I finished all eight photo memory books for my cousins and sister; they are in the mail!!!… Hip Hip Hooray. I scanned all the important family photos belonging to my Aunt, wrote up all of our conversations about the family history, quilted the covers and wrote the eulogy that I would have like to have given in church to include as the narrative. Note to anyone who is old school, and not a fan of the large 4 “X 6” photos from places like Snapfish. I used photo shop to make each 4x6 photo more of a collage of several photographs, then I took a color from the group to act as the background. It worked like a charm, brilliant. On to my next project….

Almost Back in the Game

It’s always a quick fix to make a few doll outfits to get the feel of accomplishment on the way to my goal of making 100 dresses, but here are some of the Top Ten Reasons for not spending much time in the sewing room lately....

4. Just found the show, Hoarding Buried Alive and have been making several runs to the Good Will, and have organized every closet and dresser drawer.

3. Just found the show Hoarding Buried Alive and have decided to embrace change…the Piano’s going and so are all the outdated valances and chair covers…oh and did I also put on the to do list slip covers for the family room and a new look for the living room…. So I’ve been out furniture shopping…

2. Making seven photo memory books for all the nieces and nephews in honor of my Aunt’s life

1. Lovin my new Kindle

Can You Help me Solve this Mystery??

I haven’t had the concentration for quilting lately. The last of my father’s sibling, my Aunt G recently passed away. Although we lived hundreds of miles apart we talked weekly by phone.

Here I am "back in the day", as the kids would say between my mom and my Aunt. G is on the right. When my cousin asked if there was anything I wanted from the house, two things came to mind immediately ….. Surprise Surprise they were both of fabric.

The little pink shawl was made for my great grandmother by her mother who was born in Sicily in 1840. My great grandmother passed it on to her granddaughter G sometime around 1937. G remembers her grandmother telling her to wear it because G was always “fredda” (cold). My Aunt kept it all those years, telling me about it often, and showing it to me whenever I’d visit NJ. The other thing I wanted was a crocheted bedspread.

We only had a small window of time after the funeral and it was hard to search for it, just being in the house for the last time was overwhelming. Anyway I came away with only a few mass cards that where by her bed .

When I got back to Illinois another cousin called telling me he had searched the attic and was sending the two items. When the package arrived, I recognized the shawl, but the bedspread I had never seen before. He remembers Grandma saying we would be the 9^th generation to own it. The tradition was for it to be passed from Mother to oldest daughter and since my Aunt had no children, and I being the oldest niece it was to go to me.

I am so puzzled by that. By the way, don’t make fun of "Billy Mayes Here", because Oxiclean really does work. Can anyone solve this mystery?

It’s heavy, tightly woven, and stiff. My mom had chenille bedspreads in the 1950’s but this is nothing like that. It consists of three panels 27” by 105” hand sewn together to measures 81 x 105.

Anyone out there know of this technique?

Is it early chenille? Thanks for listening.

I hope to get back to sewing real soon.

Andrew Jackson once said...

Andrew Jackson once said, “Never trust a man who has only one way to spell a word”.

He would have loved me, but unfortunately I’ve also never used the same technique twice to bind a quilt before until I met this little device from Fons and Porter…

All the guess work….GONE…. and for only $7.99 what a deal.

While I’m at it here are two other pearls gleaned since my last posting….

To clean all the mineral deposits from the bottom of your tea kettle, boil some water and white vinegar with one of those copper scrubbers and let it sit for a while….Awesome …

And did you know that parchment paper on your pizza peel rather than cornmeal will make it slide to you pizza stone like magic…Just trim the most of the excess paper, and it really won’t burn at 400 degrees.

Sorry, I digress.

Anyway New Year’s resolution to use stash for monthly decorations….February …CHECK.