During my lunch break today I hurried and sewed together the initial blocks for the remaining 11 large blocks for this palate-cleansing quilt top. I chain pieced them and it didn’t take any time. Then I pressed them all to have them ready to square up after work.
I have to be live on the radio early tomorrow morning for our end of year fundraising campaign so stopped working a little early today. I had the 11 larger blocks sewn together and pressed pretty quickly and up on the design wall.
Here they are just tossed up with all the blocks in the same orientation, which is not the final layout. I just wanted to see them all up there.
This does look better in person. The fabrics are more interesting in person. Some of them look a little flat in this photo.
Here’s a closer look.
And another one…
Since it was still early I decided to orient the blocks to show the design on the written pattern.
Some of the blocks don’t have enough contrast and that makes the design a little hard to see. Here’s this photo with some drawing to emphasize the pattern.
I will pull out the most offending blocks with no contrast. Maybe three or four blocks. But I’m not going to spend a ton of time, effort and fabric on this quilt top.
Even though this isn’t quite where I want it to be, it’s been exactly what I needed at the end of the year… something fast, easy, and mind clearing made from fabrics in my stash.
I came home from Christmas dinner the other night with a turkey carcass in tow. This is not an unusual thing for me. I can’t stand seeing someone just throw away their turkey carcass. There is such good soup potential in there and I LOVE soup.
So after work I pulled out the carcass and removed all the turkey that was left on the bones. I got nearly two pounds of meat off this thing! I can have a couple sandwiches and still have plenty left for soup.
Then I tossed the bones and everything that fell off into a big stock pot with onions, carrots, celery, some seasoning and bay leaves and let it simmer for a few hours. I turned the heat off as we headed out for our evening walk and when we got home the house smelled incredible. Then was the biggest job… getting all the flotsam and jetsam out of the pot and running the broth through a fine sieve. I’ll skim the fat off of it tomorrow.
It feels good to have a large container of delicious broth and plenty of turkey meat in my fridge, just waiting to be combined into a wonderful winter soup.
I’ll stop at the grocery store on the way home from my early shift on the radio tomorrow morning and pick up some noodles. I usually like to make home made noodles for my home made soup but with my dishwasher still on the fritz I’m trying to make as little mess as possible.
We have two on air fundraising days this week and that will basically wrap up a hectic month. I’m glad I have another long weekend and plan to take advantage of that extra time.
agilejack 
That looks great even with the less contrasty blocks, IMO. The aboriginal fabrics really elevate the design.
I made a Three Sisters soup with our leftover turkey meat and broth after Thanksgiving. Highly recommend it! The turkey was a surprisingly nice variation on the usual chicken. If I could send you a spoonful over the internet to taste, I’m sure you’d be convinced 🍲!
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Googled the soup. It looks good and I love winter squash in soup! I’ll have to give it a try.
When you invent a way to send soup on the inter webs, let me know!
Anne
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I do love me a good soup! My grown daughters were just asking me what to do with the chicken carcasses they have left over from their holiday dinner….so we had an online soup lesson. My all time fave soup is, hilariously, a soup my very not-talented-in-the-kitchen mom made: Albondigas. She sure hit it out of the park on that one, happy to share the recipe! I am glad your quilt came together so nicely and I love that trip around the world secondary pattern. Looking forward to seeing what you are up to next, and good luck with the station fundraising!
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Good job on the turkey 🦃 carcass! You’re so efficient and productive. I bet the boys love the turkey too😻
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You’ll need to scroll all the way to the bottom of one of the emails you receive from me and there’s a link to unsubscribe or manage your sub preferences.
Anne
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I really like the second variation of the quilt top! Happy new year!
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I like it too, and it’s so much prettier in person.
Happy new year to you!
Anne
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Two tips from a fellow soup lover:
— add a good glug (is, too, a word!) of white vinegar to the initial broth pot. The vinegar cooks off so you don’t taste it, but it pulls even more calcium from the bones.
— barley is almost always a good carb for soup!
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Hmm. I’ll have to give that a try!
Anne
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There’s a wonderful little must-have called a Soup Sock. Basically it’s a cheesecloth bag into which you put all your bones, veggies, herbs etc – tie it up and place it in the water. When it’s done you can let it drain in a colander over the pot and from there straight into the compost. No mess, no fuss, no waste.
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Oh! great idea. I’ll have to see if I can find one.
Anne
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I like the use of fabrics here so lovely, a bit of contrast missing gives a quilt interest in my opinion. Don’t see any attribution to the pattern maker?
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I kind of agree with you. With differences in contrast the pattern sort of comes and goes. I like that.
This blog post from a few days ago shows the pattern. https://agilejack1.com/2023/12/26/time-for-a-palate-cleanser/
Anne
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I ordered the pattern and ruler to make the quilt you made. I love yours. I think I’m going to use k fassett that I have. Thank you for the idea. Hugs,
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This would be really fun in Kaffe fabrics. I was thinking of making the blocks just a little smaller and using Kaffe fabrics. The ruler accommodates many different sizes.
Anne
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Your quilts Never fail to impress🤩
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Thank you!
Anne
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You can put the lesser contrast blocks in the corners and then they don’t mess with the layout design.
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I was actually thinking about that myself. I’m glad you’ve confirmed my thinking!
Anne
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I wonder if you couldn’t use a couple of the Kaffe aboriginal dots to replace one of the less-contrasting fabrics in a couple of those blocks?
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I don’t have more than a couple Aboriginal dots in my stash. Plus, they are a bit flat and read like a solid. I think that’s what I don’t like about some of the lighter fabrics in this quilt… they read like a solid. I should prefer light with more pattern.
But it is what it is. I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this.
Anne
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Your turkey soup sounds divine . Like you, I love soup. In winter could (and sometimes do) eat it every day. Dishwasher on the fritz? what a disaster! I keep nervously eyeing mine – its been faithfully on duty for 17 years … shhhh …
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I’m never as happy as when I have a freezer full of a good variety of home made soup! That’s where I am now… even put two containers of turkey soup in there yesterday!
Anne
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Your fabric choice was great. I love the aboriginal fabrics….wish I had that kind of a fabric store near me…..is it the cream & beige fabric throwing you off?
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No, it’s the blocks where there isn’t enough contrast between the two different fabrics. There is more yellow/beige in this than I would like. But it is what it is.
Anne
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I
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Both my daughter and daughter in law always take turns with me on who gets the carcass. We all love soup. Can you share the pattern source for your quilt. Love it.
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My mother never would have thrown a carcass away! It’s ingrained in me.
This blog post shows the pattern:https://agilejack1.com/2023/12/26/time-for-a-palate-cleanser/
Anne
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So pretty🪅
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