The Quilt Files, Episode 22

I'd made the same baby quilt pattern about five or six times, varying the colors and fabrics each time. So when I discovered last fall that a couple of friends were expecting, I was ready to try a different pattern. When one of them said they were decorating the nursery in "bright, bold colors," I knew exactly which pattern to choose. I headed over to my favorite fabric store with the goal of finding several bright, bold, mostly solid batiks. The "Pure and Simple" pattern called for five solids: red, yellow, green, blue, and purple. I thought, however, that the blue and purple were too close together to make a really good contrast. After pulling out a dozen different bolts, I decided that red, orange, yellow, green, and blue would produce the most striking combinations.

As you can see, the pattern itself is pretty basic: 3½-inch squares, pieced together in rows. It's the pattern of those differently colored squares, reminiscent of those old-fashioned woven potholders, that makes it interesting. The pattern may look too complicated to use the strip-piecing method—where you sew two or more strips together and then cut them into linked squares, which is much faster than cutting those strips into squares and then sewing the squares together—because those colors alternate all over the place. Careful analysis, however, showed me that there were equal numbers of paired squares: red-red/red-orange/red-yellow/red-green/red-blue/orange-orange, etc etc. So I was able to do some strip piecing to create the paired squares, and because I actually did two quilt tops at the same time, I saved quite a bit of time.

Once I had my stacks of color pairs, the rest was easy: sew together rows in the appropriate patterns, sew the rows together, and add a red border. Once I managed to get the right amount of fabric for the backing (I altered the size of the pattern, and forgot to add the borders in when I calculated the area), the rest was easy. The top was of a manageable size to machine quilt, and the pattern was extremely easy: straight diagonals radiating out from the center of the quilt. You may be able to tell from some of the darker squares in this picture that I used a variegated thread (in primary colors, of course) to do the quilting. (Click on the photo itself to get it in a new window, and you can enlarge to see the detail, if you like). I like using multicolored thread when I quilt because it makes different patterns against different colors, adding another layer of interest to the pattern.

I really loved the results I got with this design: the boldness of the colors, the high contrast of the pattern, the simplicity of it all. In the future I might adapt it to create a quilt with my huge stash of scraps, but in the meantime I have a old project to finish quilting, so I may not get to any new projects for a while.

Photo of the Week--9/13/10

My goodness, another photo with me in it? By the time we visited Washington DC in 2007, we had a teenager who wasn't very interested in sightseeing any more. (Actually, he never was very interested in sightseeing, but it's a lot easier to manage a non-teenager with promises of ice cream.) So TSU and I left him behind with Grandma and took a weekend trip by ourselves to the nation's capital. And here I am in our capital before the Capitol (spelled with a capital C), where you might be able to spy the capital part of some columns. It was a cloudy fall day, but we still had a great time walking our feet off seeing all the museums and other sights.

Conference Report: SCBWI LA

You might recall that about six weeks ago I headed to Los Angeles for the annual conference of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. It was exhilarating, exhausting, inspiring, entertaining, and an all-around great experience (despite the horror story of my three flights home, which I won't tell here except to say that it will be a cold day in Hell before I fly American Airlines if I have another choice).

And really, I meant to share some of the things I learned from the experience; for instance, if you want to place in the costume ball, "subtle and classy" is not the vibe you need. (Okay, the heart deely-bobbers are not exactly subtle, but I thought the dress was nice and the wings weren't over-the-top.) At first, I thought I might actually blog from the conference, as I did in New York in 2009. But I was taking a great workshop that was held all four days of the conference, and we had homework every night. I had no time or energy to blog during my scant free time.

So I thought, maybe I'll write something up the week I get back. After my misadventures getting home, though, I felt like I was playing catchup, and I kept putting it off. Now that it's September and I've barely had time to revise my manuscripts using information I learned, let alone sent out any queries to editors or agents I met there, I've had to admit defeat. You are not getting a detailed report of my experiences at the conference. There was a lot of esoteric writers' stuff anyway, although I'm sure everyone could appreciate the line, "if you chase trends [with your writing], the vampires win!"

But do not despair! I still have something special for you from the conference, and that is proof of my talent for bad puns. You see, at every SCBWI conference, they have joke contests. They give you a theme, you write a joke, and if they read it aloud in between sessions, you get a prize. And I won not one, but two prizes! Here was the theme: you are an editor who can travel through time and thus acquire a memoir by anyone in history. What is the title and who is the author?

My first winner was pretty tricky, as it was read aloud and it really works better visually, so you should be able to get it right off. The book? Abridged Too Far, by Noah Webster. (Of dictionary fame. Get it? Abridged dictionary. Get it? That's bad, we love words. Get—oh, never mind. The SCBWI director loved it.)

The next one came the next day in a flash of brilliance. Another bad pun, but easily figured out: A Farewell to Arms, by Venus DeMilo. Okay, you have to know your iconic art for that one, but writers are a smart crowd.

My last joke submission wasn't used, perhaps because it really described the challenge more than met it. The joke setup was that we had to choose one of six words that some say are inappropriate for a kids' book (like boobs, butt, booger), and write a sentence with a silly substitute. The challenge inspired a limerick:

An author was given a dare
To choose naughty words with more care
She didn't know what
Could fill in for "BUTT"
Oops! Pardon my French, "derriere."

That one wasn't a winner, but it was my favorite. Because really, I didn't "write" this limerick, it was more like it attacked me while I was trying to get to sleep and I had to write it down before it would leave me alone. And that, as much as anything else I can tell you, is a conference in a nutshell: inspiration even when you're exhausted and overworked and trying to sleep.

Recipes from Fish Camp: Don's Broetchen

Has anyone ever met a carbohydrate they didn't like? Certainly not anyone in my family, and my uncle Donald is the king when it comes to making tasty, yeasty, yummy treats. Each Thanksgiving at least one person burns their fingers on his rolls because they grabbed them straight from the oven, and for the past two years his contribution to camp cuisine has come in the form of broetchen. "Broetchen" rhymes with "Gretchen," which gives a clue as to the treat's German origin. They're "little bread," or rolls, and they are tasty, good with jam or meats or any other way you want to use them.

Now, my uncle has been baking bread from scratch for years and years, so it's hard to communicate the "feel" of bread dough that is properly ready. That comes with experience, but in the meantime we have his rambling recipe to help us along. I've boldfaced the ingredients to help you pick them out.

1. Begin with two cups of warm skim milk
• I actually use powdered milk and enough of it (usually almost 1 cup) to make almost a quart of (reconstituted) milk, but in only the two cups of warm water; result: extra rich milk
2. Add 1 package dried yeast  (or about 1½ tsp. dried yeast if you buy it in bulk, as I do)
3. Let yeast stand in warm milk base for 5 minutes (or lots longer, for that matter)
4. Add 1 teaspoon (or slightly more) salt
5. Add 2 Tbl sugar ...... mix well, and then you are ready for flour
6. Add approx. 3 cups bread flour; mix well (until you have like a thick slurry)
7. Mix in 2 Tbl oil (corn or canola or olive or grape or whatever .... the batches I made for vacation in the UP even had a tiny dab of cod liver oil)
8. Add  2 more cups of flour ... work it in as well as you can ... turn the mass out on counter top, kneading in more flour (up to maybe a cup more) until dough is is softly pliable, a mass which won't stick to your fingers
9. Let rise for an hour (or longer; it doesn't matter)
10. Punch the dough! Then cut the punched down mass of dough in half, and the halves in half, and those quarters in thirds ... until you have lumps of dough about the size of an extra-large egg (there should be about 12 of them)  
11. Shape it into a very small loaf.
• It's the feel of doing this which I can't give you.... You use the palms of your hands like a backdrop for shaping the dough-lets and your fingers to tuck the outside edges under and in; in shape they will be something like a miniature, misshapen football ... put them on a cornmeal sprinkled cookie sheet....let rise until double in size.
12. Take a knife and gently, delicately mark a slash longitudinally ... bake at 340 degrees F,  about 30  minutes ... take them out, see if you can resist eating one on the spot.*

*Especially if you have one of Don's home-made jams to go with it! I can speak from experience.

An additional note: These little treats do just fine if you freeze them, then thaw them in a microwave for 20-30 seconds or so. Don brought dozens and dozens to camp, and we made regular inroads on his supply until they were exhausted and we were looking around forlornly for more.

Photo of the Week--9/6/10

We took a short trip to New York in June of 2006, and capped it off with a visit to the USS Intrepid, a former aircraft carrier that is now a museum. I think this photo was actually taken on our way out of the museum, and miracle of miracles, Boy posed for it without complaint. I'm not sure where he acquire this "gotcha," cool-cat pose (maybe from too many Bond movies?), but he liked to bring it out once in a while and was cheerful enough after a day with mechanical marvels to smile for the camera.

The Printz Award Winners: 2004

Time again to check out the books—this time from 2004—that "exemplify literary excellence in young adult literature," according to the American Library Association.

Winner:

Angela Johnson, The First Part Last

Honor books:

Jennifer Donnelly, A Northern Light

Helen Frost, Keesha's House

K.L. Going, Fat Kid Rules the World

Carolyn Mackler, The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things

Donnelly's A Northern Light: I was really looking forward to reading this one, ever since I got my hands on an advance copy of the author's latest, Revolution, my favorite book of last quarter. This was a completely different type of book, being a pure historical rather than a modern-historical-magic realism (maybe?) hybrid, set in northern New York in 1906. It was inspired by the notorious murder that also inspired Theodore Dreiser's classic An American Tragedy, and opens with the discovery of Grace Mae Brown's body in Big Moose Lake. It is assumed that she and her male friend, two guests at an Adirondacks hotel, both drowned after an excursion on the lake. But hotel maid Mattie Gokey comes to suspect something different when she peeks into the letters that Grace asked her to burn before she died.

This seems like a straightforward mystery—and one that will be easily solved, once Mattie gets the courage to look at the letters—but the greater mystery actually lies in Mattie's own background. Although the novel opens with a body at the hotel, there are frequent flashbacks to Mattie's life on her father's farm, taking care of her three younger sisters despite a burning desire to write and go to college. Mattie made a promise to her mother on her deathbed to take care of the family, so each time we see Mattie in the present, working at the hotel despite her father's disapproval, we wonder not only what she will do about the letters, but how did she ever get here? With each flashback we think we have a better grasp on it, but only at the end does everything come together for Mattie, with each plot strand contributing to a satisfying conclusion. It's a wonderful example of how to use structure to amplify your story, as the use of flashback enhances the mystery and character development. (A Northern Light also won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for YA fiction and Britain's Carnegie Medal, under the title A Gathering Light.)

Frost's Keesha's House: Grrrr. My library didn't have this, and it looks interesting: a series of stories, all told in different poetic forms, about teens who find refuge for their various troubles at the inner-city home where Keesha lives with an unofficial guardian. I'm always interested in what people can do with poetry, so maybe I'll get this on loan later.

Mackler's The Earth, My Butt, etc.: I heard the author speak at this summer's SCBWI conference (an engaging talk on writing though good times and bad), and got my very own autographed copy of this honor book. The voice of her book's narrator, Virginia Shreves, was equally engaging as she opens the book by relating how her not-quite-boyfriend almost made it to second base with her—and all she could think about was whether he would see the bubber underneath her shirt. Virginia is a plus-sized girl in an average-sized family of overachievers, and she is having difficulty coping with their expectations, as well as the usual high school social pressures. For a while she tries to conform and get along, but a shocking accusation directed at the older brother she idolizes leads her to start standing up for herself and discover who she actually wants to be. It was a satisfying to see Virginia grow and change, without having the "makeover" ending you would get in a movie.

Going's Fat Kid Rules the World: Was the Printz committee having body issues this year? Another book told in first person by an overweight teen living in New York, that doesn't end with them miraculously slimming down and transforming their life? The similarities are superficial, though: whereas Mackler's Virginia is from a upper-middle-class, two-parent family, Going's Troy is from a poorer neighborhood and is living with his brother and their widowed father. His story opens as he is considering jumping off a subway platform into a train; he is stopped by a grubby, skinny older kid who turns out to be a legendary musician from Troy's high school. Curt sees something in Troy, inviting him to become his drummer, and despite his lack of self-confidence Troy responds. Curt has his own troubles, though, and Troy has to muster the guts to save his life in turn. While I found Curt's character a little unbelievable—kind of a drugged-out, male version of the manic pixie dreamgirl archetype, existing more to enable Troy's character development than to have a life of his own—Troy himself seemed fully realized and his story was very entertaining.

Johnson's The First Part Last: This is another novel that makes great use of a dual timeline to create mystery and add impact to the story. It's narrated by 16-year-old Bobby, who is alternately exhilarated and exhausted by his new baby daughter, Feather. His struggles to be a good parent alternate with flashbacks to the days when he was carefree and hanging out with his friends. When he discovers his girlfriend Nia is pregnant, they (with the help of their parents) decide to give the baby up for adoption. Therein lies the mystery: if they had decided on adoption, why does Bobby now have Feather, and why does he parent her alone? I found the answer, which comes at the very end of the book, both unexpected and moving. Johnson also subverts a lot of stereotypes with this novel: not only do we see a young man feeling tender and paternal, but her African American New Yorkers are not fatherless ghetto kids, but middle-class achievers who have the loving support of two parents (although one set is divorced). I think too often when people think of books with African American characters, they think of inner-city or historical settings, so it's nice to read one that shows a broader experience. This was a short but very powerful little book. (The First Part Last also won the Coretta Scott King Award for Fiction in 2004.)

So, how might I have voted this year? All the books I read were enjoyable, and while Johnson's First Part Last was a little gem, I have a thing for historicals, and Donnelly's A Northern Light was not only interesting as a historical but also as a mystery and as an wonderfully structured piece of writing.

An interesting note: this year there was no crossover at all with the list for the National Book Award for Young People's Literature, even though four of the five NBA finalists, including the winner, Pete Hautman's Godless, were YA novels. More evidence reinforcing how subjective these kinds of awards really are.

Cookie of the Month: Cookie Cutter Cookies

This week's treat is brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department.

I had some frosting left over from a previous batch of cookies, and I promised some treats to my taekwondo students for the last class of the summer, so I thought I would look for a plain, sugar-cookie type recipe. But where to get the recipe? First I checked the dessert recipe book that I put together when I lived in London, as a fundraiser for the local American Women's Club, but they were all fancy cookie recipes. Then I remembered I had a couple of church recipe books given to me by relatives—I guess cookbooks are popular fundraisers—and there I hit paydirt. From a 1988 Centennial cookbook created by my aunt's church in the UP, I found this recipe for "cookie cutter cookies," and I was intrigued because it contained corn syrup, that most American of ingredients. So here it is:

1 cup butter or oleo (do they even make oleo anymore?)
¾ cup sugar
½ cup light corn syrup
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla or ½ t. flavor extract
4 cups flour
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon salt

Mix all ingredients together. Shape into ball and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350F. Use one-third or less of the ball at a time, and keep the rest in the fridge. Roll dough to a ⅛- to ¼-inch thickness. Cut out. Place one inch apart on a greased cookie sheet. Bake 10 minutes. Grease the sheet for each batch. Frost when cool.

Funny thing about these "cookie cutter cookies": they didn't really hold their cut shapes very well. I started out trying some nice animal-shaped cookie cutters, but as I tried moving the cats and elephants to the cookie sheet, they lost their ears and trunks and ended up looking like some kind of crazy mutant creature. I didn't want to scare my poor students, so I re-rolled the dough and grabbed a cup. If a plain circular cookie got a little warped in the transfer from rolling sheet to baking sheet, it wouldn't look so crazy. You can see from the picture to the right that the dough was kind of shiny and gooey.

So what would happen after I baked them for ten minutes? I wasn't sure, and not just because the dough was kind of gooey; for most recipes, I end up needing one or two extra minutes to get cookies nice and golden. But after ten minutes, I had a nicely done tray of cookies:










All that remained was to get my frosting, top them off, and give them a try. And while the gooey nature of the dough made it difficult to cut out, it resulted in a really light, chewy cookie that was still lightly crispy on the outside. Not only was the texture enjoyable, the flavor was very tasty, especially with the frosting.

So my final verdict? I have to subtract one because as "cookie cutter cookies" they didn't quite cut it. That gives a rating of nom nom nom nom (four of five noms).