A Modern Mini Swap Between the Omaha and Lincoln Modern Quilt Guilds

I am a member of two modern quilt guilds - one in Omaha and one in Lincoln. Having access to two (actually four, two of which are modern guilds) groups' activities makes it more likely I'll get to some of them each month with family and work commitments. Each guild has meetings most months with educational programs, show and tell, and connecting with other local quilters plus an assortment of classes, workshops, outreach events, and sew-days.

A few of us are in both the Lincoln and Omaha Modern Quilt Guilds. The leadership of the two guilds decided this year to host an activity to bring the guilds together. That sew day included a mini swap to help members from one guild get to know members of the other guild on a more individual basis. I was fortunate to be paired with someone that I recognize but don't really know.

My swap partner is a great quilter who is inspired by zentangles. She lives in a mid-1900's house and loves all things Mid-Century Modern. This quilt was adapted from a photo I had found on Pinterest (unfortunately without attribution). I paper pieced it using Kona Solids from a paper template I drafted in Adobe Illustrator. Few colors seem more mid-century to me than aqua and orange.

I was not planning to be at the swap day but I was able to show up for an hour or so. Nancy loved her quilt, and I'm pretty excited about the mini she made me - it was actually similar to one on my short list to make for her!

Chicken Taco Bowls

We like all kinds of tacos, burritos, rice bowls, and quesadillas. To keep things interesting, we are always looking for new, quick filling ideas. With a hectic work, school, and activity schedule, a slow cooker filling would provide a quick dinner at whatever time everyone got home to eat.

A quick inspection of the freezer yielded three pounds of boneless, skinless chicken breasts. Once defrosted, they were seasoned with Penzy's Chicken Taco seasoning. As I've mentioned, we love Penzy's. Whether I visit the retail store about an hour away or order online, I always find high-quality, interesting seasoning mixes to try. There have been few that have not made the regular rotation in my kitchen. The Chicken Taco is one of our favorites. I now buy it by the bag for a big jar instead of the little sampler sizes. It works great mixed with some rotisserie chicken for a quick taco filling or as seasoning for chicken fajitas. It is also a great seasoning for carnitas, other pork and vegetables. The seasoning mix doesn't have any salt so I can control the amount of salt added, too.

The night I made this chicken taco filling, we ended up with a cancelled soccer game. While the kids played elsewhere, I made a big pan of fajita veggies and a pot of rice. Not only did dinner get more interesting, but I was able to make a few taco bowls for lunches later in the week and beyond. These taco bowls freeze well for future lunches or quick dinners, too.

Slow Cooker Chicken Taco Filling

3 lbs. Thawed Boneless, Skinless, Chicken Breasts

4 tbs. Penzy's Chicken Taco Seasoning

1-2 cups Low Sodium Chicken Broth

1 lime

Put the chicken in the slow cooker. Sprinkle the seasoning on top. Pour the chicken broth over the seasoning and chicken. Set the slow cooker to low for 6-8 hours. I have a model that lets me set the cooking time and automatically switches to a warm setting until whenever someone turns it off. I love this! With this feature, I set the time to the low end of the range as the warm setting will continue to cook a little bit. A typical work day for us is usually about 11 hours of total slow cooking time.

To serve, shred the chicken and mix in the seasoned broth. I smashed the chicken pieces with a tongs to shred. Taste and add salt and pepper to taste. When I slow cook with a pre-made broth, I always wait to season with salt until the end. I find that even the low sodium brand cooks down and concentrates the salt flavor. Juice one lime over the chicken.

Serve in tacos, on top of baked potatoes, in a rice bowl or in quesadillas. Leftovers can be refrigerated for three days or frozen.

Fajita Veggies

3 large bell peppers - we prefer red and I'm always tempted by the big bag at Costco

3 large yellow onions

2-3 tbs. olive oil

1 cup low sodium chicken broth

2-3 tbs. Penzy's Chicken Taco Seasoning

Cut the peppers into strips, and finely slice the onions. I prefer the pieces of peppers a little bigger and the onions a little finer. Preheat a large cast iron skillet over medium heat. Add the olive oil and the vegetables. Cook over medium-low to medium heat for twenty to thirty minutes. Stir frequently, being sure to scrape the bottom. I like a flat-edged wooden spoon for this. If you notice some areas sticking or over-browning, add a little more olive oil. Midway through, I add a cup or so of low-sodium chicken broth and the seasoning. This steams the vegetables and helps adhere the seasoning to them. When the vegetables are all soft and have a little color, they are done.

WIP - National Quilter's Circle Block Challenge Part 2

As I mentioned earlier, I started the year with the National Quilter's Circle Block Challenge. In the earlier post, I shared that blocks three and five were done, but not photographed. Here they are:

Block six was still in-progress as of the last post, primarily because I changed it a bit to allow for the continuous stripes of the fabric in the bounding square set on-point. I am positive it would have been easier to just follow the directions. Here it is:

Block six and some other commitments in my life led me to set this project aside for a bit. Hopefully it will be a late 2018 or 2019 finish.

What does Modern Quilting mean to you?

One of the modern quilting e-zines I read is Jessica Skultety's Wonky Press. She has a great mix of current activities, trends and movements in the online modern quilting community and her own personal project accountability. Each issue has at least a couple of links to works I'm really glad to have found. If you haven't yet checked it out, visit her site, The Quilty Habit.

In a recent issue, she asked readers to share what modern quilting means to them. It prompted me to reply. My contribution follows.

Modern quilting encompasses a methodology, an aesthetic and a community. The best modern quilters are technically sound quilters who are skilled at knowing when to adhere to age-old rules and when to toss them out the window. As someone who isn't particularly adept at following rules, this is part of what draws me.

Modern quilting formalizes improvisational piecing, wonky lines, "made" fabric and other techniques that quilters have been doing for generations. The aesthetic of modern quilting is what I feel is most defined - the use of bold colors and prints, high contrast and graphic areas of solid color, improvisational piecing, minimalism, expansive negative space, and alternate grid work. "Modern traditionalism" or the updating of classic quilt designs is also often seen in modern quilting. I would add asymmetry to this list. While quilters have been gathering for centuries, The advent of modern quilting in a time when social media has exploded has allowed quilters to identify a global community no longer limited by face-to-face interaction or geographic proximity. That said, modern quilting has also brought together new groups of quilters in communities around the world.

I am a member of two long-standing general or traditional guilds. One is small and based in my local community. The other is larger and meets in a nearby city. I am also a member of two modern quilt guilds, both in nearby cities. I am one of the youngest members in my two general guilds and solidly in the middle in my two modern guilds. The modern quilting community has been more inviting to new and younger quilters than the traditional quilting community has seemed to be.

In the most recent issue, #59, Jessica printed my response! It's always exciting to see something you've written in print. Thank you, Jessica!

So, what does modern quilting mean to you?

Modern Quilt Guild Swap

One of the few perks of membership in the greater Modern Quilt Guild in which I participate is the annual MQG Swap now in its second year. I was paired with Linda McLaren aka the Quilting Biker from Ontario, Canada. She is a tremendously talented longarmer and quilter.

At the time I was making my mini to swap, I was also experimenting with a simple loom I had gotten Anne for Christmas a couple of years prior. I decided to bind and finish one of the woven quilts I had made as a part of this experiment.

I used fabric from a MQG Michael Miller Challenge for the back and as the guide for my quilting. Knowing that this mini was for a talented machine quilter - which I am decidedly not - was a little intimidating, for sure. (Photo credit: Linda McLaren)

Here is the finished mini I sent: (Photo credit: Linda McLaren)

Here is the beautiful mini I received. One of the things I love about quilts is that I receive quilts outside my typical colors, fabrics and patterns. I love when my partners experiment as I have often used swaps as motivation to try something new. Linda knocked it out of the park!

WIP - National Quilter's Circle Block Challenge

I've had a productive few weeks, though I haven't shared much of it, yet. One of these projects is the National Quilter's Circle Block Challenge. This free quilt along is a series of nine blocks constructed primarily with half square triangles and flying geese. They are deceptively complicated. I think one block has 81 pieces! I've made a few modifications, but, other than being a couple of blocks behind at this point, am excited by the challenge. Gina Perkes of the Copper Needle has designed nine excellent 16" blocks.

One of my quilt goals this year is to make a couple of quilts to live on our couch. This will be one of those quilts. Because I knew it was staying home, I cut into a layer cake I've had for awhile now of the first Cotton + Steel line by Melody Miller. It was a little scary, I'm not going to lie. I've opted for Kona Steel for my background.

I've managed to take pictures of blocks 1, 2 and 4. I also have blocks 3 and 5 complete, and block 6 is in-progress. This is one that I am modifying slightly. It has a great square set on point that separates the inner and outer parts of the block. The original pattern makes this box with a lot of smallish half square triangles. I'm not intimidated by the HST's, but I do have a striped fabric I'd like to fussy cut and use to frame the inner part. I'm pretty sure this has been more work than just following the directions would have been. Blocks 7 and 8 have been officially released and block 9 was leaked. Hopefully, I can have them all complete by the end of next weekend.

I've also played some with designing a setting for the blocks. The nine blocks on their own are a little smaller than I'd like the finished product to be. I'm up to six variations in Illustrator and about a dozen pictures from similar quilts done by others and shared on Facebook or Instagram.

This post will be linked to Elm Street Quilts' One Monthly Goal. I'd like to finish the top by March 31.

Quilting Influencer: Grandma Patent

I've been fortunate to have access to many talented quilters in my life. Some briefly for a class or workshop and others for more long-term, deeper relationships. One of the first quilters in my life was my paternal grandmother, Lorene Patent, or as my children called her, Grandma 'Tent.

For most of my memory, she was an avid hand-quilter. She spent hours and hours quilting nearly every day at home on family or customer quilts, at the local senior citizen's center for fundraiser quilts and at church on charity quilts. Her standards were exceptionally high. She was known to take out what she considered sub-par quilting done by others and restitching it to not let customers down. She was a retired elementary school teacher and meticulous in her record-keeping. She could estimate how many stitches were in a quilt based on the number of turns around the spool of thread the she used on the quilt.

Grandma was a Type I Brittle Diabetic. Her blood sugar was quite volatile. Her mortality was always at the forefront of her mind. When I was in later elementary school, she thought it was important for my sister and I to know how to do all of her various crafts so we could finish whatever she was working on when she died, particularly since many of her projects were commissions or work other people were paying for. I learned to hand quilt at this time, but have not done a lot of it since. We also learned how to cross stitch and embroider.

I made her this mini for her 96th birthday on February 2. It is made with half-square triangles and is based on a similar quilt made by a guild friend. It was a great project for the Prairie Point Quilters' Retreat. The solids are all Kona Cottons by Robert Kauffman.

I talked about Grandma in the past-tense in this post because she passed away shortly after celebrating her 96th birthday. Because I am the most avid quilter among her descendants, I received her collection of quilt design templates including many from her mother, a precut quilt kit from the 1930's or 1940's, her hand quilting hoop, and the last quilt she had started hand quilting. Fortunately, it was not a client quilt, and I will be able to keep it once it is complete.