Paris Food

The French eat better than we do.
There is just no two ways about it.  We had some wonderful meals, saw some exquisite shops, and each of us, Mary and I, also had some truly memorable experiences...come along and bring your appetite!

Our first stop after checking into our hotel was Angelina's, a tea shop where Coco Chanel and Audrey Hepburn used to go on the Rue de Rivoli across from the Louvre.

The African hot chocolate was truly to die for.

Mary is here having her first crepe.  The Nutella ones were good, but here she was really hungry and ordered one with egg and cheese.  Just scrumptious, and cheap too.

 For our first restaurant experience, this little place looked so quintessentially French!  In we went...but alas...

Mary ordered brains by mistake.  Before we left on our trip, it was the one thing she had said she would not eat in France.

I thought it was hysterical, as only an older sister can.  But my turn was next.

Chartier was highly recommended as a landmark restaurant, not fancy, but venerably serving the working classes with great food for over 100 years.

You had to walk through a little courtyard to find it.  We were so excited!

The waiters scrawl the orders on the paper table cloth..

Our starters were fine, hard boiled eggs with rich homemade mayonnaise, leeks en vinaigrette, and pate.

The grilled anduille sausage, not pictured because it looked SO GROSS, was next to the fries here.  Three bites was all I could manage.  Mary got even with me for laughing at her!

We saw this shop window on our walk home from Chartier, and wished we had eaten here.

The food at the humble sidewalk brasseries was much better.  Salad du Nord and Crock au Madame, yum yum, yum!

We loved going into the little shops, just to see how they have their food arranged so beautifully. (But then, everything is beautiful in Paris.) Fruit on one side, vegetables on the other.

This was a greek "deli".  Everything looked so good, but we were just window shopping.

This little table of pasta was in the Italian deli next door to the Greek one.

The French onion soup was truly the best we ever tasted, the real deal.

Our favorite meals were picnics.  Here is a typical boulangerie where we bought bread and pain au chocolat.

The peaches straight off the shelves were juicy and perfumed...real fruit, not bred for shipping with no flavor like ours.  ;-(  The cheese was brie and glorious.

 The evening picnics on the Seine are our favorite memory....

 For our last picnic we found this extraordinary cheese shop in St. Germain des Pres.

I was not supposed to take pictures in there, but I did anyways.  We found the most incredible Camembert  that just defies description.  We got drunk on it.

And where else to go for a late night desert than a chocolate shop?

We walked so many miles every day that we didn't gain any weight....and agreed that the cheese was our favorite food...I need to go back and do some serious study of the pastry!

In my next post I'll write about trim shopping in Montmartre....
Adieu!

Just Home from Paris...

 

I have SO much to tell you about.....

But I have to get acclimated being back home.  Many pictures and posts to follow....

Thank you DMC for ever!!!

50% Off My Craftsy Class Through Spetember 21st!

50% off is a great bargain!  Craftsy has so many great classes and lovely fabrics, yarns, and other goodies, too.
Remember, you'll receive an ebook copy of my book, Allie Aller's Crazy Quilting with your class materials when you purchase my class, even at this low price.

HERE IS THE LINK!!!!!!

Noah's Quilt

My niece Naomi and her wonderful husband Dino had a baby boy in June.  I finally get to meet the little prince this week-end and will come bearing his baby quilt.

I have got this burgeoning passion to work with vintage textiles, incorporating them into contemporary quilt work.  For Noah's quilt I dipped into my Ebay bin of old blocks, tweaked a few of them, assembled them with some old jellyroll Moda sashing, some plaid cotton upholstery samples, and a few quilters cottons that I had on hand....seriously, this went together F-A-S-T, especially as I quilted it on the HandiQuilter Sweet 16 and machine sewed a ribbon binding on it.  4 days was all it took, with time off for baseball too!

One of the blocks needed red in it to match the other two I used, so a quick applique job took care of that!

Another block had its center taken out (you can see it on the left), with some vintage feedsack cotton swapped in place, so that I had a place to put the name.

These letters have fusible web on the back.  I've learned the hard way to always always always use a ruler to line them up before ironing them down.

 And here are the blocks, ready to be sashed and bordered!

You can see, this will be quick....

Sashings and borders on, piece of cake!

Then I used a tip I learned in Cindy Needham's Craftsy class, "Design It, Quilt It".

Maybe you all know this but I didn't: tape the quilt back to the table nice and taut before layering it with batting and top to pin baste.  What a difference this made! You can see the tape in the upper left corner.

I enjoy making an all over fan quilt design, freehand, no marking.  Easy peasy, and really fun.

A plaid taffeta ribbon made binding the quilt a snap.  What you see here is one of the corners from the back.

One line of zig zag stitch, carefully making sure that the front and back binding edges were sewn down, and it was a done deal.

I didn't want to make a big ol' label but thought a little inscription for the record would be better for this baby quilt. I used a Pentel Gel Roller for Fabric pen.

And here is Noah's quilt, ready for delivery...

 

It is 46" X 48".

Hooray for Noah!

He's Leaving Home....Chad's Quilt and Pillow

Our son Chad has managed to buck the trend, and after spending 4 months back with us after graduating from the University of Washington, has gotten a really great job and moved into his own apartment.  It is 25 minutes away...not too far, but 5 minutes away would have been better! 
For a housewarming present I made him a large throw quilt and pillow for his handsome new couch.
Here is how it went:

He wanted an Asian them and warm colors; I got permission to add a few spikes of blue. That pile of white fabric you see above the iron is leftover muslin squares and rectangles from other projects; I figured I'd use them up.
This resulted in the quilt's lay-out, which I like very much!  Couldn't have thought it up myself otherwise.

 

Here they all are pinned up on the design wall.  After doing some beginning "piecing"--it is really Intuitive Applique, Method 4 in my Craftsy class--I decided to pin up some major elements like the large chunks and the blue bits so that down the line the quilt would actually have a bit of balance.

Moving right along here!

 

Once I started sewing it together, I got a sense that this quilt was really going to work ok!  I loved using fabrics from my stash...silks from our trip to India, Kimono silks from a generous student, sample linen from a friend, quilters' cotton, some trims I'd gathered along the way...I loved putting them all together.

I found this scrap in the bottom of my brown/black bin where it had been waiting for years....

Squaring up the blocks...

.....gave me lots of trimmings!

The top was really pretty easy to assemble.

It looks formal here, but it is about to be transformed into a snuggly couch quilt!

But first I decided to make a co-ordinating pillow from some of the scraps.  I used a fairly uniform mid-value and stayed with the gold/orange part of the palette.

What you see here are scraps that have had their overlapping edges ironed under.  Those ironed edges then received a light smear of Tacky Glue and then each piece was just smoothed into place on a muslin foundation.  Collage work, very fast, very fun.

 The glued patches were totally secured into place with the quilting; I'd spray basted my collage onto a piece of flannel drapery lining and then around and around I went on my Sweet 16.

It finished out at 20" X 20", with a black linen back....to match Chad's couch, of course!

OK, back to the quilt.  I wanted it to be cozy, so for the backing I used a plush microfiber throw that I got on Amazon.

It made for a wonderfully functional throw, too!  Colorful and kind of classy on top, cozy and yummy on the underside, lightweight but warm.

Quilting on such a stretchy back did distort that perfect rectangular quilt top though.  Gotta work on that for next time...

  Pretty cozy looking, isn't it?  ;-)

It was very fun, delivering them....

....and so satisfying, seeing them in use.

Makes it easier, having an Empty Nest, knowing my fledgling's nest has a comfy quilt in it.

Next up, a baby quilt for my great nephew!  Sewing for publication is very rewarding, but sewing for family is the best...

 

Sewing for Publication

It is such an honor to be published, to think that people are interested in what comes out of my sewing room!
The hard part is that while I'm working on a project that is meant for future publication, I can't write about it.

But I just have to give a sneak peek:

My friend Michele Muska is writing a very interesting quilt book for Sixth and Spring books.  I am so excited to be contributing to it!  But you will have to wait for awhile to see the whole thing...

My book with Valerie Bothell is in it's final editing stages before it goes into production, to be released sometime in the Spring of 2014.  Val and I have loved working with C & T Publishing and the fabulous team of editors who have shepherded us along the way, and we are all very proud of our collaboration.  We hope you will enjoy it, and sure wish we could talk about it...

Here is just one little teeny weeny sneak peek from our book...hope I don't get into trouble here!

You won't believe the backstory on this one...

When Michele's quilt is done (which will be soon), I'll be doing some personal sewing for the family. I look forward to blogging about the couch quilt for Chad, who is moving into his own apartment, and the baby quilt for my niece's son, Noah. I'll be putting that Sweet 16 to great use!

Here's the quilt that is inspiring my manly son's quilt.  It is owned by Laura Fisher Quilts; I saw it on the Quilts-Vintage and Antique page on Facebook.  (Lots of amazing quilts float by on that group page.)

He wants his colors to be very bright, so it will look different than this one, of course.  But the graphic layout of the design is perfect for him.
I'll get started on it soon...see you then.