Karen Gass, editor of Cotton Spice magazine, is celebrating April as Breast Health Awareness Month. A series of quilt blocks created by guest designers will be featured through out the month. I contributed this Square on the Fence block, a combination of two of my favorites: Square in Square and Rail Fence. Click over to the Cotton Spice blog to download the PDF pattern.

A bit dramatic you say, let me tell the story. Last year I posted about a meatball recipe and received a comment from Patty in Seattle that would forever change our lives. Well, at least how we spice our food and cook our meatballs, which is really changing our lives because we do one everyday and the other at least once a month.

I thanked Patty for her meatball expertise. We traded another round of e-mails where she recommended pimenton, a Spanish smoked paprika. As Patty suggested, this spice adds an amazing depth of flavor, both hot and sweet. Hands down the winner when compared to traditional Hungarian paprika.

The grill is fired up year-round and I use the paprika to season salmon, pork tenderloins, steaks, shrimp, hamburgers, I think I’ve used it on just about everything. The smokey aroma of the paprika elevates the flavor to new heights. It sits right next to the salt, pepper, and olive oil.

Here’s Patty’s foolproof method for cooking meatballs (foolproof because we’ve tested it many times and they come out perfect every time, I’ll never fry a meatball again!):

Coat a large baking sheet with olive oil, rub a coating of oil on each meatball as you place them on the baking sheet. Bake in a hot oven at 425, turning with a good spatula at about 7 minutes. Turn again if needed depending on the size of the meatball. The meatballs get a lovely browning where they touch the pan and never fall apart or over cook on one side…just remember to turn. I make my meatballs slightly smaller and have had wonderful results with even cooking and nice heavy browning on the exterior. Remember the olive oil…the key to the browning.

Thank you Patty! Why did this post make me so hungry?

These enchanting blooms sit beneath a large fir tree just outside my kitchen window. A delightful surprise discovering they had beauty marks.

• Amazing rubber stamp carvings by Regina.
• TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an annual conference which brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes) [description borrowed from their website]. They’re now offering the best videocasts online for free. LOVE this presentation by Philippe Starck.
• People who spark creative exploration, check out Orange Flower’s 30 Day Photography Challenge.

Spring finally decided to make an appearance. Adult, child, and cat have all been soaking in the rays.

I’ve been working feverishly on a new pattern. Being brain fried at this point, I plan to fuel the blog along through the final phases with pictures and links:

• Kathleen Fasanella writes the Fashion-Incubator, an incredibly content rich blog about sewn product manufacturing. Her knowledge of the industry reaches far and wide. Here’s a fabulous post about Japanese pattern books where she mentions the Misses’ Stylebook forum. Write off another hour of your day!
• I continue to dye fabric in my nightly dreams. I collect inspiration during the day. Malka of a stitch in dye and Kathy York provided this month’s fuel.
• Seth Godin’s post on his use of ‘just’ and ’sort of’ in his writing was a stark look in the mirror. I’m trying to go cold turkey. Have you noticed?

4/4/08: I received a private e-mail asking about the paintings. They’re by Maria Mayr. I purchased them in 1998. I’ve always LOVED the color and scale of these pieces. Artists renting studio space at the shipyards in San Francisco would hold a twice yearly open house where you could see their work space and buy their art. Looks like it still happens and it’s all fancy now! I often think about moving back to San Francisco when the nest empties.

The special edition Studios issue of Cloth Paper Scissors should be on the newstand April 1. It includes my project instructions for a 12-pocket colored pencil roll. I know the pre-orders hit mailboxes this week because I’ve already received some very lovely e-mails. Thank you!

A HUGE thanks to Kelly of Whatever is Lovely and Michelle of greetingarts for testing the pattern with zipped lips, in the dark of night, under time pressured conditions. You gals are fab!

The photography is gorgeous, the whole issue a treasure. A peek at 21 different studios and 9 different hands-on projects are included. A book for the price of a magazine.

Seeing so many working studios with creative solutions to common problems is extremely inspiring. I say ‘working studios’ because the artists are in their spaces creating in square footage from tiny to really big (yes Pam, I’m totally drooling over all that space!) and it’s all real, not staged to death. It gives me hope that I too can one day be organized!

4/1/08 Marianne requested a link for purchasing online.

I’m TOTALLY inspired each time I visit the Crafty Friends of Pink Chalk Studio Flickr group. I pull up each new image. Pore over how you’ve interpreted the pattern. Make a note to self to stamp names on twill tape for pencil roll gifts for small friends. Smile back at the joyful faces in the pictures. Gifts for others. Gifts for self. Joy, joy, joy.

1. What I made for the craft swap I was in, 2. DSC02305, 3. knitting needle case–reds/blues, 4. Rubblework reloaded, 5. Pencil Roll by Char, 6. P1010063.JPG, 7. Colored Pencil Roll, 8. Pencil Roll, 9. Picture-316, 10. Rubblework scarf, 11. Sippy Cup / Water Bottle Holder, 12. notelet front, 13. Needle Roll, 14. Pink Chalk Studio colored pencil rolls, 15. Rubblework for me, 16. (and the insides, of course)

I’d like to be the type of person that does things on a schedule. Feature this on Friday and that on the 1st Tuesday. Problem is it makes feel weighted. This Inspiration theme will take place when the mood strikes. A little category has been created on the sidebar to capture it all.

I check a LOT of books out at the library. Bless the librarians that pull the good stuff and put it on display. Here’s some photos from the book The American Quilt by Roderick Kiracofe. Everything old is truly new again.

1870-1890 Elongated Nine-Patch:

c. 1900 made by Elizabeth Hershberger, Arthur, Illinois, Amish:

Apple Blossom 1934 made by Nancy Starmer Mitten for her daughter. The embroidery on the back says “Mother, Utica, Kansas, 1934″. It’s her own portrait, what a quilt label!:

My first official blog post appeared March 10, 2006 right here on this very web address. Wow. 2 years later I feel like I’ve connected with that little creative voice that lives inside. I sometimes have to listen particularly hard. The noise of kids, husband, and house all competing for their share of me. I’m grateful for my blog. A place where it’s just me and what I want. My voice. Your voice. Talking about something we love. Thank you.

Switchplates were the March 2008 theme for my Out of the Box creativity challenge. I took some in progress photos but not a full-blown tutorial. I even forgot to take a stylized photo of the one I traded that night, very unlike me! Fortunately making these are extremely addictive so I had plenty more for that purpose. Guess which is Leil’s and which is Caitlin’s?

Feel free to ask questions about missing steps.

I used a standard white plastic switchplate for the base, Yes! paste and Mod Podge Gloss Lustre. I started off trying to use Mod Podge as both the adhesive to attach the fabric and as the top coat. Everything slipped around so I changed to Yes! paste for attaching the fabric. It provided just the right amount of tack to keep things in place.

The other construction element I experimented with was the center hole. I tried cutting a slot in the fabric and bending back the wings to paste them to the backside, a standard technique when using paper or contact paper. I wasn’t satisfied with this technique for fabric. The fibers tended to fray and it was difficult to get the tiny bits of fabric to hold well. I made a simple facing for the hole and was very pleased with the tidiness of the final result.

To make a facing:

Punch some holes for the screws:

The missing steps:

• push the facing fabric through the switchplate hole, bring all the seam allowances to the back, use Yes! paste to glue it all down
• brush the front of the plate with Yes! paste and smooth the fabric down
• turn back the corners and slather with paste to get them to stay in place (see final photo of switchplate back to get an idea of how I did mine)
• apply a good thick layer of Mod Podge to the whole thing
• try to be patient while it dries, start unscrewing every switchplate in the house

Finished switchplate now residing in my friend Margret’s home (I sure like the fabric on this one! the feedsack fibers gave it a fabulous texture):

Back sides of finished plates:

Thank goodness.

Do you ever volunteer to help out with something and end up completely, totally underestimating the time it will take?

The artwork and image transfer to fabric via Bubble Jet Set was all handled by the 2nd grade class moms. Marybeth O’Halloran of White Lotus Quilting did the exquisite long arm quilting, each block a mini-masterpiece.

I offered to do the piecing and the binding. Easy peasy, right?. And, of course, the quilts needed labels. And how could I possibly let these go out the door without hanging sleeves? Greg kept reminding me that my child wasn’t even in that grade level. I kept reminding him that this was my last school auction. Boo hoo. Leil’s last year of official elementary school. Double boo hoo. (The three elementary schools on the Island only go through 4th grade, the kids all funnel into a single ‘Intermediate’ school for 5th and 6th grade).

The silver lining was working with the beautiful art created by the kids. Pure sweetness. Little smiles on all the creatures, tiny hands used to create the animals on the top quilt. As I was constructing I’d get a glimpse of something new and it would make me smile and feel all warm inside.

Full photo shoot on Flickr.