A folly of fabric

Years ago, a quilting friend and I came up with the idea of "a folly of fabric" as a way to describe our purchasing habits. The definition might be something like the following:

folly n. A unit of measure connoting the amount of happy excess added to one's fabric stash with each new purchase.

Mathematically, I think a folly would be a function of the variables N and T, with N denoting the amount of fabric purchased, and T the chances of using said fabric within what remains of one's natural lifetime. Perhaps the simple ratio of N : T would provide sufficient definition.

After the three-guild meet-up in Seattle earlier this month, I definitely returned with a folly of fabric:

Thanks to a combination of mail order and in-person shopping, I brought back a big pile of batiks, some lively and fun children's prints, a range of beautiful Japanese yukata fabrics, a gorgeous set of hand-dyed cottons by Vicki Welsh, and various other irresistibles. Although they're not visible in the photo, there are happy prints with gray elephants, little red mushrooms against a gray background, and a gray geometric that will go into the baby quilt that I'm planning. Work on that quilt will begin soon, once I finish binding my striped quilt.

By the way, did I mention that the African batiks that I ordered from Kallisti Quilts just arrived?

Plum update

I really do make quilts, I promise. In fact, my striped quilt is almost done--I just haven't been taken photographs of the work in progress. But as you can see from yesterday's post, I did cut off the excess edges, and I'm now about half-way through hand-finishing the binding. I'll have photos of the finished quilt before too long.

In the meantime, plum mania continues. But the end is approaching: we've picked nearly 400 plums, and there are just a few dozen left on the tree. Here's what a refrigerator half-full of plums looks like:

I told myself I wasn't going to buy an ice cream machine, but friends of ours, without even knowing of my granita experiments, gave me a book of ice cream, sorbet, and granita recipes for my birthday last week. It was fate: how could I not buy an ice cream maker? Yesterday evening was the trial run, and we had a delicious plum ginger vodka sorbet (same recipe as the granita discussed on August 22, but with ginger-infused simple syrup). I was also reduced to making plum fruit spread (just plums and sugar, and a lot of boiling), and it wasn't bad, but not as good as the sorbet. I'm going to puree a good portion of the remaining plums and store the puree in the freezer, so that we'll be able to enjoy sorbet all winter!

Invader!!

Somebody found her way into my sewing room a couple of days ago:

Bad kitty!

Plum vodka granita

What's to be done with our vast, crazy surplus of plums? The idea of jam seemed an affront to our beautiful, sweet, fresh fruit, and we don't have an ice cream maker for sorbet, so my neighbor and I started looking at granita recipes. As we surfed the net, I came up with the perfect idea: plum vodka granita! Here's my recipe:

1) Peel and pit enough sweet, juicy plums until you have about a quart's worth of fruit and juice. I used sixteen of our Shiro plums. Put the plums and juice into a blender and puree.

2) Blend in 1/2 c. vodka, or to taste.

3) Blend in simple syrup to taste. I used a simple syrup made from 2/3 c. water and 2/3 c. sugar, but a lot will depend on the sugar content of your plums.

4) Pour your plum/vodka/simple syrup mixture into a 9x13 baking tray and put it into the freezer.

5) After 45 min. to an hour, when the mixture has started to freeze, take a fork to mash it up and mix it around. Do this about every thirty minutes for the next 3-4 hours, until the granita seems as firm as it's going to get. If you want to see the basic technique, click on this watermelon granita link for a Youtube video tutorial.

6) Serve and savor!

If your plums aren't all that juicy, you might try a mixture of plum puree and white grape juice. The granita would probably also taste delicious if you used ginger simple syrup. I'll have to try that variation next time.

Enjoy!


Note (added 8/24): When you serve, it doesn't hurt to pour a little extra vodka on top!

The Tuesday farm report

Today's harvest:

Did I say we'd have about 180-200 plums this year? Now I'm estimating 250-300! The situation inside our refrigerator is getting ridiculous!

Plum season

We're now being inundated with plums! The photo shows yesterday morning's harvest. The tree has produced about a hundred ripe plums so far, with maybe another 80-100 still on their way. All told, we'll probably have over three times as much fruit as last year, and our friends and neighbors are enjoying their share of the bounty. Our fig tree has yielded ripe fruit for the first time as well. I love summer!

A Froggy Tale from the Backside

Here's the back of my cat quilt, as well as the story behind it:

I gave myself a rule that I couldn't buy additional fabric for the backing, so I pieced it together from various leftovers used to make the top, as well as the yard of so of the frog fabric that I happened to have on hand. There's actually a reason for having frogs on a quilt in honor of our cats. One day, when she was about a year-and-a-half old or so, our younger cat came running in with an excited squeal. Dangling from her mouth was an enormous dead frog!

Husband: Is it real? Me: I don't know--do you think it's real? DH: I don't know--what do you think? Me: I have no idea. How about if you find out? DH's pronouncement (upon closer examination): I am afraid it is real.

*Yuck!* I sent DH to retrieve and dispose of the dead frog. When he really had to get close to it, he discovered that it was made of rubber! So much for DH's talents as a naturalist. I don't know whether our cat stole the frog from some neighborhood children or if they gave it to her, but she was so excited and proud of herself for killing an enormous rubber frog. Oh, the mighty hunter!