Cottage Quilting Bee: Emily the Strange Quilt Block

I've gotten some questions about what a virtual quilting bee is, so let me take a moment to explain. Basically, a group of individuals agree to participate for a year and each person is assigned one month. My month comes in October. What happens is I will pick out some fabrics and a quilt theme/style, then divide up the fabric so that each person will receive a little parcel in the mail with fabric and instructions. My fellow bee-mates will then sew up a nice quilt block for me and send it back. So, when it is not my month to send out fabric, I receive little parcels of fabric from the other bee-mates and complete blocks for them. Tina, over at Little Blue Cottage is our fearless organizer and is our distributor and receiver of fabrics and quilt blocks. With the Cottage Quilting Bee, the are actually more than twelve people so some of the months will have two people sending out fabric. March is one of those months.

Emily The Strange
Viv selected sent out some dark fabrics and included some lovely little pictures of Emily. I was not familiar with Emily The Stange, but have since learned she is a "counterculture icon." Wikipedia describes her as a character that began to surface on stickers at concerts to promote a company called Cosmic Debris. She's 13 years old and has an affinity for black cats. Here is what I came up with:




When Viv suggested incorporating hearts, I jumped at the chance to try making a pretty heart block Jacquie of Tallgrass Prairie Studio designed. My hearts were on a much smaller scale, but her tutorial was very helpful.



Emily the Strange.

I am looking forward to seeing all the blocks together in a quilt. My bee-mates were very creative and pulled out all the stops with reverse applique, embroidery, and buttons. Take a look at our flicker page.

In other news, I found a fabulous local quilting shop today! I love shopping for fabric online, but have been looking for a fun little shop to use. Glad Creations is a shop in the Powderhorn Park neighborhood of Minneapolis. They have an extraordinarily large selection of fabrics and supplies in a small space. Upstairs classes and social sewing events are held. The staff there was also very friendly and helpful. They were busy helping customers select fabrics and cutting the entire time I was there. I was happy to see that they carry quite a bit of Moda and a really nice big selection of Kaffe Fassett. I got a selection of Basic Grey's urban couture line. There are several other shops I would like to visit, but they are out in the suburbs and I wanted a quick trip today. I will definitely be heading back to Glad Creations.

Second Annual Polish Dinner

I grew up in the Chicago area with Polish grandparents. We were fortunate growing up to have my mother's parents, Grandma and Grandpa Bodzewski, close by. I have countless memories of them... For awhile, they would come over once per week and watch me and my brother Evan while my mom did errands. Everyone would come together at their home for Christmas Day. There were even special nights when Evan and I got to stay overnight. I remember sitting with my grandmother and asking her to tell me stories. Stories about my mom when she was growing up and stories about me when I was too young to remember. I also asked my grandmother to tell me about times when she and my grandfather were young. Unfortunately I don't remember many of the stories, but I do remember hearing about fancy evenings out with the other polish couples... balls, galas, special events. Chicago is known for having a large polish immigrant population.

Grandma and Grandpa: Helen and Ludwig Bodzewski

Now that the years have gone by and my grandparents have gone on to heaven, I have been thinking about how to hold on to my memories and create new ones with family and friends. Even though I can't remember all the stories, I can remember the food. We used to eat barshch (beet soup), pierogis, polish sausage, sauerkraut... Last year Jim and I hosted our first Polish Dinner. It was so much fun, we decided to make it an annual event. Here is the menu I came up with:

• Barshch
• Pierogi: Blueberry-Apple and Potato
• Golabki (stuffed cabbage leaves)
• Kidney Bean Salad
• Drambuie Liqueure Ice Cream

I created the menu and made everything but the ice cream. I requested Drambuie because it was a favorite of my grandfather's. Jim did a great job finding a recipe for the ice cream. My biggest mistake last year was underestimating how much time it would take to make all the food, so made everything over the week prior to the dinner. It made a big difference and I was able to relax the day of the dinner and enjoy the meal and company. Here are some pictures.



These napkins were my first sewing project. I chose the variety of colors because we have fiestaware place settings in every color. We enjoyed the very first use of these napkins at the dinner.


The table was set and decorated with candles. We used every single chair in the apartment. Including two folding chairs that made an appearance from the garage.

Barshch or Beet Soup
Pierogi!
Cooking in the kitchen. The golabki are in the two pots on the stove. Cooking offered the opportunity to be nostialgic. My mom helped me out long distance over the phone.

The dinner was a success. I'm thinking the challenge next year will be polish pastries...