October, 2024

A royal wedding, sheep quilts, a Heath Bar cookie recipe, and more

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Greetings quilting friends,

Halloween is almost upon us, which means I have no idea where the months have gone since we last talked! I promise you all my minutes have been filled as I bounce from one project to another. I apologize for how long it’s taken me to get a newsletter out, but I’ll try to make it worth your while. Let’s see if I succeed!

The Obituary

A man opened the morning newspaper and was dumbfounded to read in the obituary column that he had died. He quickly phoned his best friend.

“Did you see the paper?” asked the man. “They say I died!!”

“Yes, I saw it!" replied the friend. “Where are you calling from?”

The Royal Wedding

Last month Steve, Kate, and I drove to Chicago to celebrate the marriage of our own Prince William to Lady Lauren! To give you an idea of how big a deal this is, we all bought new fancy clothes for the event! We don’t do that for just anybody or anything!

We drove in on Thursday. Friday morning Lauren took Kate to get their makeup done professionally. It was a sweet gesture that made Kate feel like a celebrity. The wedding, an intimate affair with just the couple and the 7 members of their immediate families, was that evening. A reception dinner followed at The Loyalist, a bistro in the basement of a three Michelin-starred restaurant. On Saturday all 9 of us took in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the staging of which was breathtaking. Finally, Sunday we returned to our humdrum lives in Grinnell.

The ceremony was simply beautiful. They wrote their own vows, heartfelt expressions of the love that has grown organically for the past 11 years. Steve, whose stroke has caused his empathy gene to kick into hyperdrive, was fighting back tears of joy. I wasn’t far behind.

A stairway to heaven…

I cannot imagine a woman in the world who is more pleased with her daughter-in-law than I am with Lauren. She is kind, empathetic, unpretentious, and blessed with a social conscience. Lauren is also a smart, creative, athletic, beautiful woman who loves theater, music, good food, travel, and baseball, making her the perfect mate for Will and the ideal addition to our family.

Star Quilts Exhibit

If you would like to see 27 of my star quilts, it’s time to plan a visit to the Denver area in the first four months of 2025. The Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum in Golden, Colorado will feature them in an exhibit running from January 20 to April 19, 2025.

This will be a homecoming of sorts for me. When I moved to Colorado to take a job with Quilters Newsletter Magazine, I bought a condo in Golden. That’s where I was living when I met my future husband, an event celebrated in our son’s latest single, Golden, Colorado.

If you can’t get to the Denver area this spring, start planning early for the summer of 2027. That’s when the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum will be mounting an exhibit of my Log Cabin quilts. You can stay up with all the news by signing up for the museum’s weekly e-newsletter. Just go to https://www.rmqm.org/

And if you’d like to listen to Golden, Colorado by William Crosley Bennett,
https://williamcrosleybennett.com/spotify-stream-pyramid-scheme/

If you’re not on Spotify, here are some alternative ways to listen: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/williamcrosleybennett/golden-colorado

Mystery Solved

Karla the scientist wrote to explain why raisins float to the top in a champagne glass only to sink back to the bottom and start the process all over again. Here’s what she had to say, “The champagne bubbles attach to the raisin, making it light enough to float. When it reaches the surface, all the bubbles pop allowing it to sink.”

Makes sense. Thanks, Karla!

Fitness Challenge

My son and daughter did a family Olympics challenge to coincide with the Paris Games. Will gave each of them goals to beat their previous fitness standards. Kate was charged with running the 400 meters. After getting a baseline time from her, Will set 3 goals: a gold medal if she can run it in 3:35 or less; a silver for 3:36-3:45; and a bronze for 3:46-3:35. She really took it seriously, even challenging herself to walk to every school playground and park in our small community. There are six of them, some as far away as 1.5 miles.

The day of the competition arrived. We went to the track at Grinnell College. Kate facetimed Will. Steve took a position inside the oval so he could more easily urge her on. I sat in the bleachers. Ready, set, GO!

Kate had a good pace over the first 175 meters, but then she slowed to nearly a walk, and her gold medal pace was a distant memory. Over the next 125 meters there were small bursts followed by slowing. But with Steve yelling at her to keep driving, she went into her kick. Kate’s arms and legs started pumping with everything she had left to give. Her final 100 meters were the best I’ve ever seen her run. She crossed the finish line in 3.35, and by the narrowest of margins she had her gold medal!

Grinnell’s Other Gold Medalist

This year’s Summer Games marked the third time the Olympics were held in the City of Light. The most recent prior time was 100 years ago. You might remember the 1924 Games because of the Oscar-winning film, Chariots of Fire. In Grinnell, Iowa it’s also remembered as the site of Grinnell College’s F. Morgan Taylor’s first medal, a shiny gold, in the 400-meter hurdles.

Taylor was an interesting man. He was the world record holder in his signature event. He became the first American to medal in three straight Olympiads (unmatched until Edwin Moses did it in 1988). He was selected as the flag bearer for the opening ceremonies of the 1932 games in Los Angeles. Taylor, a member of the National Track Hall of Fame, was a celebrity in his time. He dined in Hollywood with Gary Cooper, also a Grinnellian. Later in life he even played a round of golf with Arnold Palmer. Taylor still holds the long jump record at Grinnell College. He set it 99 years ago in 1925.

Now you know the rest of the story.

Heath Bar Cookie Recipe

Despite publishing Cookies ’n’ Quilts almost a quarter century ago and constantly digging into its pages for the cookies I’m making for family, friends, and as thank you gifts, I continue to experiment with new recipes. This recipe which combines two of my favorite foods, toffee and almonds, is now my bestest (That’s greater than the best.) cookie. When you start planning for Thanksgiving, you might want to dispense with the pumpkin pie and substitute these delicious goodies. Or who needs turkey and fixins? Just go straight to the cookies for your best Thanksgiving ever!

Ingredients:
2 sticks (8 oz.) butter, browned*
1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt**

2 large eggs

2-1/4 cups flour
2-1/2 tablespoons corn starch
1 teaspoon baking soda

2 bags (8 oz. each) Heath Bar Milk Chocolate English Toffee Bits (There are 2 kinds of Heath Bar Bits; make sure you get the Milk Chocolate ones.)
1-1/4 cups slivered almonds, chopped

*To brown the butter, cut each stick into eight slices and place them in a heavy skillet. Boil on medium high heat, stirring constantly and scraping the bottom of the pan. When it first starts to boil, it will look like white foam on top. Then you will see large, clear bubbles. Keep it boiling as you stir until you see it starting to turn amber. Remove the pan from the heat. Transfer the butter to the mixing bowl, scraping the bottom of the skillet to get all the browned bits. Place the bowl on a trivet or potholder in the refrigerator. Chill until it is a soft solid. The browned bits will have sunk, so stir the soft butter to make an even color. While it is cooling, mix the dry ingredients and chop the nuts.

**If you use salted butter, use 1/2 teaspoon salt; if you use unsalted butter use 1 teaspoon salt.

Method:
By hand or with a mixer, combine the first group of ingredients and beat well.

Mix in the eggs.

In a separate bowl, stir together the flour, corn starch and baking soda. Gradually add this to the butter/sugar mixture, stirring on low speed. Do not overmix after adding the flour.

In the now-empty flour bowl, stir together the Heath Bar bits and almonds.

Remove the bowl of dough from the mixer. Dump in the Heath Bar bits and almonds and stir by hand.

Shape dough into spheres 1-3/4” in diameter. Place the dough balls in a gallon bag and chill at least 1 hour. I think I get 24 or 36 cookies per batch, but I’m not sure.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. While the oven is preheating, place 3 rows of 3 balls on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake 9 minutes total, turning the pan 180 degrees after 7 minutes for even browning. The cookies should be slightly browned on top when they are done. Cool on a wire rack for at least 20 minutes before removing the cookies from the baking sheet. I always bake one tray at a time so they bake evenly, and I get the next 9 dough balls out of the refrigerator as soon as I put the first sheet in the oven.

I generally keep the remaining dough balls in the freezer. I thaw as many as I need overnight in the refrigerator before baking.

The Importance of a Good Education

These pearls of wisdom were taken from tests by junior high and high school students. Some extra studying is called for.

“We believe that the reptiles came from the amphibians by spontaneous generation and the study of rocks.”

“The dodo is a bird that is almost decent by now.”

“English sparrows and starlings eat the farmers grain and soil his corpse.”

“People shouldn't be allowed to shoot extinct animals.”

“Humans are more intelligent than beasts because human branes have more convulsions.”

New York, New York

My two favorite boys went to New York. Will’s Christmas present to his father last year was to organize a weekend trip to New York to see the Broadway production of Tommy, eat at The Meatball Shop (authors of our favorite cookbook), and attend the first day of the US Open tennis championships. Steve said they also had to go to a baseball game.

Over the next several months Will arranged flights, booked a hotel near Times Square (for its proximity to subways that could take them to Yankee Stadium and to the National Tennis Center with a minimum of fuss), got theater tickets, Yankee tickets, and tickets to Arthur Ashe Stadium, the primary court at the tennis center. They bandied about other things they might want to do during their brief excursion.

Then mini-disaster struck: Tommy ended its run early, meaning one of the tent-pole events for the trip was scrapped. Travel is about adjusting on the fly. Since New York is renowned for its world-class museums, they decided to build the first day around the Museum of Modern Art.

With the high points of the itinerary fleshed out, on the last Friday of August Steve drove to Chicago’s Midway Airport and got a hotel so he could meet Will early the next day and begin the adventure. This was Steve’s first flight in 25 years.

The trip was a wonderful weekend shared by father and son. For a weekend that bounced from one fabulous memory to the next, Steve said the biggest highlights were Los Tacos No. 1, the Pedicab tour through Central Park, the Museum of Modern Art, and the entire day at the U.S. Open, which included watching Coco Gauff and Ben Shelton breeze to first-round victories.

When Steve was at the art museum, he texted me photos of paintings he liked, Van Gogh’s Starry Night being one. Imagine my surprise when I got a photo of this painting by Faith Ringgold. It’s called American People Series #20: Die.

American People Series #20: Die, a painting by Faith Ringgold

Steve had no idea she is also a famous quilter, children’s book author, and civil rights activist to go along with being a painter. He was just moved by the stark imagery of the painting.

Will was a superhero of compassion during the trip, always taking into account the limitations of his father’s speed and endurance and everything else (though at the Open, Will was the one to finally cry, “Uncle!” after 10 hours on the grounds). He even got a wheelchair and pushed Steve around the art museum on the first day. Knowing all the walking they had in front of them on the trip, he didn’t want his dad starting off already at a stamina deficit. That’s the boy I raised!

Love, Quilts, and Sheep

Maureen sent me photos of the scrap-happiest quilt she made for a friend. I think you’ll agree it’s fantastic!

Maureen’s Lakeshore Log Cabin (top) and the original that inspired her.

Maureen also passed along the story behind the quilt, a tale of a lifelong friendship. In her own words, edited lightly by me for brevity…

“I have a friend I've known since we were at school (some time in pre-history). Over the years, she has had a new quilt for those birthdays with a ‘0’ in them, and so the topic was raised a couple of years ago - did she want another, and what sort of design? The decisions remained up in the air, and then we had the plague which meant we couldn’t get together (She lives about 100 miles from me.) and the questions stayed unanswered.

“I was leafing through the books one day and I came to Lakeshore Log Cabin. As I looked at the picture, suddenly I could see sheep looking back. Once you see them, it’s hard not to see them. My friend farms on a small scale and has sheep, so the idea took root, but she wasn’t sure she wanted a whole flock staring at her and so things stalled again.

“This spring I decided I had to use up some of the stash; time to make a quilt that would do that and take a while to do too. I came back to the sheep. They are less immediately obvious if you reverse the shading, and I picked one of the alternative layouts. I started cutting out - that took getting on for 3 weeks. Apart from buying half a dozen more lights for variety, the whole thing came from the stash - both gratifying and embarrassing! Then I sewed the blocks - another couple of weeks by which time I was sick of it, so I put it aside and did something else for a bit. Then I got the blocks together and started on the border, and the top was finished by the end of June, and put aside to ‘mature’ while I sorted out wadding and backing and thought about the quilting. At the end of July, I layered it up and started the quilting. I started with straight lines on the dark sections, and was going to use straight lines on the lights, but the quilt said it had to be feathers, and quilts are usually right, so feathers it was. The whole thing was finished and bound by the end of August, so it certainly fulfilled the second part of the plan – ‘will take a while’ - too. The quilt is informally called ‘Not So Sheepy’, though it was also called other names while I was wrestling it through the machine to quilt it. And my friend wants it now that she’s seen the pictures, so all we have to do now is arrange delivery.”

This is Judy again. There is so much to like in both the quilt and the story. What a beautiful friendship they share! And I love that Maureen’s quilts “speak” to her. Often when I finish a quilt center, I’m ready to do the simplest border just to call it done. Then I hear the quilt talking, “Judy, you lazy hound dog! Don’t you dare quit on me now! If you ever expect me to go out in public, I need to look my best. Now get to work and make the border that properly complements all my charms.” So that’s what I do. I can’t afford to have any of my quilts mad at me!

Thank you, Maureen for sharing this with us!

Don’t Ever Forget

In closing I’ll leave you with the profound wisdom of 8-year-old Jessica. “You really shouldn't say ‘I love you’ unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.”

Judy Martin
http://www.judymartin.com/
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