Bloggers' Quilt Festival: Myself, as a Teacher

This is my entry to the Spring 2012 Bloggers' Quilt Festival, which is a first for me.

The quilt, finished at the end of March, was conceived as a homework assignment for a class in my final semester in the College of Education. It ended up being far more meaningful to me than I could have expected.

The back - a metaphor for ways we learn.

After deciding to use the quilt as a way to learn new techniques and block styles while expressing who I am as a teacher and what I stand for as an educator, I sent out a call for help to my fellow bloggers to contribute.  Quilting, like education, is a community-based and collaborative activity.  I was lucky enough to have 5 special women lend me a piece of themselves for this project.

There are many different elements at work here.

Turning darts to feathers

An awareness of what it means to be an antiracist, anti oppressive educator, a commitment to being a lifelong learner, and a uniqueness that I hope to inspire in every one of my students.

Random crumbs - no contribution too small

Unpacking pop culture and looking at influences on our young people - all part of the job

Humour also plays a part, as does improvisation and working with limited resources.

Tiny piecing - this is about 9" square.

Firsts, such as free-motion quilting, paper-piecing, and new-to-me block styles are there; modern techniques and traditional knowledge are there, too.

However, the most important idea is love, which is not only the cornerstone in the quilt and hidden in the stitching, but the absolute foundation of my teaching practice.

You can read more about the individual elements of this quilt in this collection of posts.
"Myself, as a Teacher", finished March 2012.  Approx 72x80.
Pieced by hand and machine, machine-quilted.

Thank you to Amy for hosting, and to you for stopping by!

The Wearables

I can cross a few things off my list.

I managed to finish the socks I was working on a couple weeks ago while watching hockey.  Knit using  Purl Soho's Perfect Fit Socks. I used the Anzula Cloud yarn they suggested but while the socks were easy and feel much softer than any socks I've knit before, I didn't particularly enjoy knitting them.  The yarn split. A lot. It was difficult to keep a good tension with it, as you can see below, and I never have tensions problems. I don't think I'd be inclined to use that yarn again.

And at long last, here are pictures of that sweater I finished what seems like forever ago.

I'll be completely honest, the pattern wasn't all the easy to follow in places so it had its completely tricky moments.  But I figured it out (or made something up - who can tell.)  If you'd like to try your own, it appeared in the Holiday 2011 issue of Vogue Knitting - it had Martha on the cover.

While I am not a person predisposed towards glitter, I used the exact yarn they did which has a metallic filament in it.  Berocco Flicker, it's called.  It had a braided ply so it knit beautifully (no splitting!).  

How it looks open - one of the not-so-good shots from before...

Despite the glitter, it satisfies my sensibility: feminine, but not girly.  And there is something so Gatsby about it...

I took a brief time-out from my works-in-progress spree to whip up an apron for Haiti by Hand. I've been meaning to do more goodwill sewing and the timing on this was perfect. Maureen McCracknell put up a tutorial for quick aprons and a link to the organization's info. The deadline is May 31st, if you'd like to add one to the bunch. Is it bad that I asked my mum to model an apron on Mother's Day?

The rest of my works-in-progress, Scrappy Afghan and my spiderweb quilt, are coming along, though now in the home-stretches Scrappy Afghan no longer wants to be that.  I'll tell you more about that later, but for now, we're well past the felting point.  The spiderweb is quilted and will get binding today...

Figured out a trick to make small pieces of tape stick to the quilt top - pins. :-)  Double-reinforced quilting barriers.

Further on the list of things I've been meaning to do, I have decided to enter the Blogger's Quilt Festival tomorrow so I'll be posting (again) about the Teacher Identity Project quilt.  If you're sick of it, feel free to skip tomorrow's post. :-) And because I'm feeling fun and crazy, on Monday, I'm going to be giving away some fabric for Sew, Mama, Sew's Giveaway Day.

Have a wonderful Thursday and long weekend (if it's a long weekend for you!)

Sourdough: The Complete First Series (photo-heavy)

So I mentioned that I picked up this book.

And I mentioned that I'd started a starter and planned to make sourdough. The starter now lives in the fridge, by the way.  I named it Keith.

Keith

Then came about a week of trials and a whole lot of errors.

Episode One: The Trusting Home Chef
I am a person who follows a recipe very faithfully the first time I make it.  I made my starter from my other starter (two starter process - odd I know) the night before and left it to get all fluffy and yeasty. It was beautiful, stretchy and sticky, and there was more than enough for two so in the morning, I saved the extra second starter and popped it in the fridge with Keith.

Son of Keith

Then I measured out my ingredients, dissolved Second Starter in a little warm water and dumped in my flour and salt.

It felt dry.  However, this author is an award-winning breadmaker with international credentials so I trusted that he wouldn't steer me by the wayside. Bah!

It's not a tumah...

Dough did not relax during its initial pinch-knead-rest cycles.  Dough did not rise in the first hour in the bowl stage.  Dough did not rise during its 3-6 hours in a colander lined with a floured tea towel stage.  After a few hours, I grew desperate and popped it in the warming drawer of the oven on the dough-proofing setting.  Dough did not proof.  Dough dried out.  Dough was a brick. Dough ended up in the garbage never having realized its destiny. Bah!

Theories:
1) I need to use my kitchen scale for bread ingredients - don't know why I didn't.  Really foolish. But 2 cups of flour and 8 7/8oz can be dramatically different things.
2) The kitchen is too chilly for rising.
3) My warm water was too cold in the beginning.


Episode Two: Scale Away With Me
This time I weighed my ingredients. I ended up using almost 1/2cup less flour (from 2 cups total!) Professional bakers always use weights instead of volume, right?  Hmm.

A little like old chewing gum

Dough felt better but still stiff. It didn't rise a lot in the first stages but I figured in the colander stage, this time it would work. Bah!  Once in the colander and covered with the tea towel, the top of the dough again dried out. Disgusted, I left it sitting on the counter as I whipped up another second starter.

Theories:
1) I have often heard that Canadian flours are harder and you need less of them for most recipes that aren't developed in Canada.  Weighting or not, the amounts are going to be off.
2) I'm not getting the dough enough moisture or warmth. When using a two-bowl covering system (the book recommends covering the dough in the first couple of stages with the bowl that held the flour), probably shouldn't use a plastic bowl to cover.  They don't collect condensation on the inside and don't absorb the warmth in the air.

Episode Three: Jungle Fever or The Sun Rises Faster
In the morning, I had a fresh batch of Second Starter. For those keeping track, this was my SECOND Second Starter, which overnight, had outgrown its container and was slipping out underneath the lid it had managed to pop off.  Don't care, I'm using it anyway.  I plop that starter into some very warm water and whisk it until it's all dissolved and the kitchen smells like a brewery. I also discover that Dough Two, that I abandon on the counter and forgot about, has managed to do some rising underneath the dried out top.  Hunh.  Well, I figured, set it on a pan, cover it and we'll bake it with Three, just for sh*** & giggles.
I measure the flour by feel.  I add only as much as the dough can handle and still look like the picture. I'm okay with it being a little sticky if it's still elastic and pliable. It has a little give to it. The first pinch-knead-rest cycles feel awesome.  I'm thinking that I might have nailed it this time.  I start plotting bakery takeovers like Daniel Day Lewis... There will be Bread! I even have a bit of a crazy old prospector jig in the kitchen. (There Will Be Blood - Anyone? No?)

Getting closer

This time, I mist the inside of the covering bowl and place warm towels over it.

And it barely rises.  I give it 7 hours and it barely gets bigger. And it's starting to dry out. I know the recipe said small loaf but COME ON!  Two rose higher and its half-crusty already. Bah!

I heat the oven with a small pan on the lower rack.  I place deformed and dried out Dough Two on the sheet with sluggish Dough Three.  When the oven is hot, I readjusted the temp, throw pour boiling water in the hot pan, slide in the sheet and bake.

That's Two on the left, tiny Three is on the right. Dark photos at 9pm - sorry!

Bread has good flavour.  It's a little too done on the bottom and man, it's dense, but it's enough of a step forward to keep me going.
Theories:
1) In my growing impatience and familiarity with the recipe, I mis-measured the salt. Salt kills yeast.  Dead yeast=no rise.
2) My water in the beginning was too warm.  Hot water kills yeast.  See above.
3) The oven was too hot.  It has difficulty at very high temperatures so rather than crank it up and turn it down, set it to the lower temp in the first place.
4) The hot pan for steam was too close to the bottom of the baking sheet.  I should've set it on the very bottom of the oven.

Episode Four:  The Reckoning
I will lick this thing if it kills me.  This time, I use my wrist to determine water temperature. I measure the salt precisely before adding to the flour, of which I use just enough to arrive at that perfect tacky dough feel.  I cover with a metal bowl.  The pinch-knead-rest goes perfectly.  Meanwhile, I have turned on the fireplace in the living room.  It does its one-hour in the bowl near the fireplace in the warm living room.  I transfer the dough to the lined and floured colander.  This time, I place a wet tea towel over the top of the colander.  It returns to its set near the fireplace.

Four hours later, it's doubled in size.

I heat the oven to 425, not 475.  I place the steam pan in the bottom of the oven.  I add my hot water.  I move my too good to be true at this point Dough Four to the pan, which sticks to the towel a bit and mucks the top but I don't care. I cut the v's and I slide it into the oven.

Instead of a prospector jig, I'm holding my breath, like I'm defusing a nuke.  (Red wire? Blue wire?  Oh, no, they're all yellow!)


And it's beautiful.

And delicious.  

It's a small loaf but it's a decent size if you don't want it to get stale. And I have cracked it.  I own this recipe! Haha!!  Back to the jig.  Cue the butter!

Final comments:
1) I love that the starter is just flour and water.  It relies on wild yeast.  Therefore the recipe was remarkably cheap to screw up several times.  Flour, water, salt, starter.  That's it. Hmmm, chemistry and biology working together. Delicious and educational!

2) The book, though I have no doubt of the talents of the chef, is not written for the novice/average home baker.  If I hadn't made breads from scratch before, the first few attempts would probably put me off trying again.  It was MY experience with bread and Canadian flour that allowed me to tweak what was going on and not his advice.  However, now that I know that the flour measure will be tremendously off, I feel confident trying other recipes from it.  Find an easier recipe if you've never made bread before.

3) It makes great french toast.

REALLY Early or Fantastically Late

Spring hit me pretty hard this week/end.  I'm adversely affected by low-air pressure and have been pretty lucky so far this year weather-wise but the skies unleashed the torrents of spring rain and I wasn't  particularly social. (Unless you were my nephew, who received most of my attention the last several days...) However, I have finally finished my Figgy Pudding quilt! (Cue the parade. Enter trumpets and streamers.)

It was begun in January 2010.  Yes, 2010, shortly after I received the kit for Christmas. I'm not a kit person but I absolutely loved this pattern and couldn't not do it exactly the way it was.  The trees float off the back, which is even more prominent now that it's quilted and washed.

 I finished the top in February of 2010.

I pieced a back with scraps and a mottled blue batik in August of 2010 and basted it.

It sat, folded, with the binding rolled neatly on top, waiting.
It waited until August of 2011 when I started the quilting.  And I hated what I was doing with it and decided to wait until I either learned how to make my sputtering, squealing, grinder of a sewing machine do free motion quilting OR until I saved the pennies to get a new machine.

Then I got a new machine for Christmas 2011. YAY.  I am now free motion capable, albeit somewhat challenged by the fact that I haven't done enough of it to call myself anything other than a novice.  I really need to make myself keep a constant speed/motion ratio.  If I don't, the tension gets a little *ahem* interesting...

However, this weekend, after unpicking every last stitch that I had already quilted (luckily less than a few blocks worth), I sat down and quilted it with my beloved Oscar. Friday was a one-game hockey night so I  had some free (motion) time.

These pictures did NOT turn out great.  I was in too big a hurry and borrowing a babysitting grandma... :-)

Basic stippling. The only thing original is the back.  Also, leaving a quilt for 2+years means the lint accumulation is insane.

But it's done, (un)dusted, and crossed off the works-in-progress list.  It's currently waiting for December to deck the couch.

In semi-related news, I haven't seen my quilt labels since last December.  It's distressing me greatly and I fear they may have accidentally been tossed in the Christmas chaos.  I'm hoping for just lost instead of tossed, and soon to be found, but I've been looking for two months... :-(

***
Scrappy afghan is also nearing completion.  All panels knit.  Ends woven in.  Seaming and felting (though maybe just fulling) to come.

***

Sourdough:  There will be an update. Oh, there will be.  In saga form. 

A Little List

I'm in the process of revising.  Now that I've finished school and spring has arrived, it's time to do a little housekeeping.  It's time to organize, edit, rearrange, and check that one systems still work. When one is in a period of growth and moulting, there are a lot of little feathers to pick up.

I have to say that after the Pythonesque insanity of the last couple of years, I feel a little like Wile E. Coyote standing by the side of the road, singed from the roadrunner-shaped bomb that went off and spitting feathers out his mouth. However, I caught the roadrunner so I'm up on that score. Time to wash the soot out of my ears. So I'm making changes.

Food:  Years ago, I banished fast food from my diet with a few exceptions.  It was tricky when I was in a hurry but I rarely had that moment of yuck that filled my belly the second the wrappers were crumpled and tossed back into the bag.  As a student, fast food began creeping in again after too many meals done on the fly.  There are still french fries wedged into unreachable places in my car.  The fact that they are still in the same condition as when they fell into those spots only reinforces my stance.  The fast food is once again banished. Like Napoleon. That's right, greasy burgers - it's Waterloo for you! I'm allowing Subway and DQ ice cream as occasional eats because I've never felt ill after eating either and I can pretend that Subway's moderately healthy.

Secondly, I am resolving to make a new and untried recipe once a week. Or more if I have time. I love cooking but with my time eroded by studies and other commitments, I have relied heavily on eating what others have cooked and what's available - beyond boring for a would-be foodie like myself. This way, I can start knocking things off the "I've always wanted to try making..." list.

So far:
Dutch Oven Bread

Smells like potential

Sourdough bread starter

Raisin Cake - it's a really good snack cake but very dense and reminiscent of gingerbread.  Must use a brown sugar or cream cheese frosting to really complete it.  Too heavy without it. Best during the three days after it's baked.

Next:
Sourdough bread - from this book

I've been better at being social.  I've actually initiated plans with friends instead of waiting for people to contact me. And when you don't have Facebook, people forget to tell you things.  I can be more proactive. I'm certainly not getting Facebook.

I also want to finish my works in progress before starting new ones. I have a few I'd like done and dusted before I begin piling more things on my work surfaces.
Still going:

1) Spiderweb - needs quilting though I can't decided how yet
2) Figgy Pudding - you know, the one I basted two years ago and haven't touched because I decided I wanted to free-motion and couldn't make my old machine do it.  Well, no excuse now, and it'd be nice to have the Christmas quilt finished before the next Christmas comes around.
3)Scrappy afghan - I figure I'll have this one done before the Stanley Cup is hoisted.  But then, I also thought I'd have it finished before my beloved Bruins were knocked out.* C'est la vie.

4)White socks. I think I have about five inches to go before the toes start.  I'm glad I'm doing both of them at the same time or I'd be finished one and unlikely to start the second.

When I'm not working on these bits, I'll be starting the Great Purge of 2012. Drawers, closets, old notes, computer files... the lot. Though the digital age has begun limiting the paper detritus that I accumulate in a given year, I have found that electronic clutter has started to infiltrate my organized existence. Must. Stop. Data. Incursion!

We'll see how it goes... I'll let you know how the sourdough turns out.

*The Bruins being out is bittersweet. The series was basically stolen by the Caps third string goalie who played for the Saskatoon Blades and was my favourite player when he was here.  I'm so freaking happy for him that it takes the sting out of the B's not showing up to play. Braden Holtby.  Love that kid.  Reminds me of Brodeur. (AKA greatest goalie of all-time).

Blue Skies: Finished

There were only two games Friday and they finished quite early. Before and after, I had a little space to myself to do some quilting.

Thanks for the help, Dad!

 This entire project was an experiment from start to finish. Completely improv pieced background. Using two different degree dresden rulers and random length wedges.

I dabbled a little more with free-motion quilting and tried variegated threads and a little bit of wool. I wanted the sun to be less separate from the background and tried free-handing some flames.

Finished size is about 35x39". Backed and bound in a pale blue Kona.

I added pocket pockets on the back for hanging it. I won't show you the back though.  I will concede some tension issues. The variegated threads were much thicker than I normally use and I have to keep the tension on the top ratcheted up to the maximum when free-motioning. Finding the balance between speed, top tension and thread breakage point was a challenge. Much learned. The perfectionist in me has been persuaded to let it go.

It will be headed overseas shortly as a gift for a friend who doesn't read this blog. :-)

***

My scrappy afghan is coming along.  I was about 16" into the fourth panel when I picked it up last week. Now the fourth panel is complete and I've cast on the fifth and hopefully final panel.  

Most of them are capped with an off-white, which you can't see because of the sun coming in the windows. The last one has a brown top on it. However, if the plan comes to together (and I love it when a plan comes together.... A-Team, anyone? No?) then the top will actually be the side when it's finished.  Once sewn, I intend to throw it in the washer and give it a good felting, or at least a fulling. I am already well-aware that this could go horribly, horribly awry. Much like some of the hockey games I've watched while knitting it.  Of the three teams out right now, two I was sad to see go.  Sharks - my heart is bleeding for you, but you gotta show up, guys. My western hopes (the east is still too open but go, Bruins!) are now solely pinned on the Preds. I can think of a few people in need of a Weber-ing.