Today was the funeral. My uncle and cousins all spoke; they were so brave. They told wonderful stories of their Mother and wife. She was so loved.  It was a sobering sight to see my young  cousins, in their twenties, carrying their Mothers casket. It's so hard to imagine life without her.

A friend of mine sent me this poem a few days ago. I've read it many, many times and wanted to share it here. 

“I am standing upon the seashore.

A ship at my side spreads her white

sails to the morning breeze and starts

for the blue ocean. 

She is an object of beauty and strength. 

I stand and watch her until at length 

she hangs like a speck of white cloud 

just where the sea and sky come 

to mingle with each other.

Then, someone at my side says;

"There, she is gone!"

"Gone where?"

Gone from my sight. That is all. 

She is just as large in mast and hull 

and spar as she was when she left my side 

and she is just as able to bear her 

load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me, not in her.

And just at the moment when someone

at my side says, "There, she is gone!"

There are other eyes watching her coming,

and other voices ready to take up the glad

shout;

"Here she comes!"

And that is dying.”

–Henry Van Dyke

1862-1933

 This past weekend had me in the kitchen a lot. Food to comfort the body and soul, I suppose. When I had Charlie last November, a friend brought me over the most delicious, comforting, wonderful french bread. I begged her for the recipe and she obliged. I was so surprised when the bread actually worked. It's best straight out of the oven with a little dab of butter on top!

French Bread

1 1/2 cups warm water (105-115 degrees)

1 pkg. dry yeast

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon shortening (we used unsalted butter)

1 1/2 tsp. salt

3 – 4 cups flour

1 egg white

1 tablespoon water

sesame seeds (optional)

 Combine first 5 ingredients in a large bowl; let stand for 5 minutes. Add 2 cups flour; beat at medium speed of an electric mixeruntil smooth. Gradually stir in enough remaining flour to make a soft dough. Let stand 10 min. Stir gently for a few seconds; cover. Repeat gentle stirring at 10 min. intervals for 40 min. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface; divide in half. Roll each half to a 15- x 8-inch rectangle. Roll up jellyroll fashion, starting with the long side; pinch ends and seam to seal. Place loaves, seam side down, on a greased baking sheet. Make diagonal slits about 1/4-inch deep down the length of loaves, using a sharp knife. Combine egg white and 1 tablespoon water in a small bowl; beat with a wire whisk until blended. Brush loaves with egg white mixture and sprinkle with sesame seeds (if desired). Cover and let rise in a warm place, free from drafts, 45 min. or until doubled in bulk. Bake at 375 degrees for 30 min. or until loaves sound hollow when tapped. Yield: 2 loaves.  Heaven!

And because every loaf of bread needs to have a bowl of soup to dip in, we made one of our favorites:  Zuppa Toscana

1 lb ground italian sausage

2 large potatoes, thinly sliced

1 onion, chopped

1/2 C crumbled bacon 

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 cups of kale, torn

32 oz chieken broth

1 quart water

1 C whipping cream (we used skim milk)

Directions:

Cook sausage on stovetop and set aside. In large stockpot, add potatoes, onion, garlic, water & chicken broth. Cook until potatoes are done. Add bacon bits & sausage. Simmer 10 min. Add cream & kale. Cook 2 minutes. Salt & pepper to taste. 

We bought an extra bunch of kale and made the most delicious kale chips to go along. This is hands-down Henrys all time favorite soup. He's crazy about the kale. 

Thank you for all your wonderful and sweet comments about the previous post. We are in Utah now and so glad to be with family. xoxo

I was able to get the quilt mailed off this afternoon and it should be there in a few days. After a rocky weekend I am crossing my fingers it gets there in time. I am fairly happy with how it turned out. It's definitely the largest quilt I've ever made (not sure of the dimensions of a hospital bed- but this quilt was made to fit a twin with a little extra room.)

So first off all, quilts of this size….not so easy to photograph. At all. I sort of hung it off the patio in the backyard so you are missing the top of it, but it's the same as the bottom so you aren't missing much. 

For those of you who asked: the fabrics were a combination of mainly Amy Butler & Heather Bailey. The binding (yellow) was from Joann, so was the small border  (next to the binding- the blue, white & brown.)  I really like the idea of doing a log cabin design because it allows you a lot of freedom with fabrics & colors but the design sort of pulls it all together. Organized chaos I guess you could say. So instead of doing individual blocks with log cabins, I decided to start the quilt with one giant log cabin design. Aside from starting in the middle and building out- I'm not sure if I'm missing some fundamental part of making a log cabin design (all you experienced quilt makers can correct me here.) The fabrics (there were about 13 different ones- I had about  1/4 yard of each) were cut into 5" strips. I started in the middle and built it out until I didn't have enough of the strips left to go around. At that point, I cut down the remaining pieces and sewed them together. Just outside of the log cabin is a patchwork of all the fabrics (you can see it going around the log cabin design.)  The quilt was getting bigger, it just wasn't quite wide enough. I then cut about a 3" strip of fabric (this is the pink, white & green at  the top of the picture) put a few pieces of the stripe (which I love- I think it's Heather Bailey) in there and sewed that around the patchwork binding. At this point, it was almost wide enough. To make it longer I cut 4 pieces, which were the width of the quilt (the yellow and rose print at the bottom of the picture)  that were about 7" in length, sewed those to the top & bottom, put on a border to go around all of that (which was initially about 5" but disaster ensued and it had to be cut down to about 2" …ahhh!) and then finished it off with the yellow binding. Oh I quilted it by stitching in the ditch. I finally broke down and bought a walking foot (that thing is INTENSE) for my machine (maybe I've mentioned that before…I can't remember) anywho-it has been an absolute life saver. The back was a simple pink & white polka dot (fabric from Joann.) It's really prompted me to get going on a quilt for Henry's bed which is long overdue. And I want to cover my lampshades with fabric. Have you ever done this? If you have, give me your lampshade covering advice!  

xoxo

 Happy Valentines Day!

xoxo

I really like Valentines Day, really. Well not so much the actual day but the season of Valentines I guess. Valentines, chocolate, yumminess all around. I'm so swamped right now and really bummed that we weren't able to fully get into the season this year so I've dug into the One More Moore Valentine archives and pulled out a few ideas if you are feeling in a crafy mood. If you want to make the above oreo's you can click here.

A while back I did a tutorial on how to make this felt "LOVE" banner for Store & Style. You can get the directions here. Maybe it's yummy fluffy french meringues you are after (these were so easy and so good) You can find my recipe here.

Maybe it's truffles you are in the market for? I used this recipe.

This apron goes way back to 2007 (you'd be amazed at how many people still click on this link to make the apron.) You can find the directions here.

Happy Valentines Day all you love birds! We have a few little friends coming over on Saturday for a movie and yummy food. I am so close to finishing the quilt and will share dimensions/fabric, etc., for those of you who e-mailed.

xoxo

 My Aunt Cheryl is pretty great. Wonderful, in fact. I got to visit with her for a few hours when I was in Utah last week. She's been transfered to my cousins house now where they can care for her. My Aunt became ill over Thanksgiving and what was thought to be treatable has now turned into the worst. Words like 'terminal' have emerged and we don't know if we are looking at days or weeks or months. It all just seems unreal. What about 2nd opinions? What about a misdiagnosis? Surely they must have it all wrong. She is too young, younger than my own Mother. It just doesn't seem right. I wanted to do something for her but didn't know what. My cousins have her room painted this gorgeous turquoise so I decided to make her a quilt. I don't know what kind of fabric that she would want or choose. I don't even know if she will like this, but I know that she will appreciate that I made it for her. I think she will love that. So I am hoping that all these bright colors brighten her day and do the same for those who come to see her.  With every cut and every stitch, I've been thinking of her. I have wonderful memories of her. Growing up in California we spent time together & I remember playing at her house with Genevieve and picking cherry tomatoes from their garden in the backyard. I've been thinking about the last time we all went camping at the beach and the constant reference to Turd Fergusson. Every game, every conversation somehow always came back to Turd. My Aunt, she is the salt of the earth. When you think of 'family' you are glad she is on your team. She always treated me and my family like we were her own. She is honest and sincere and hilarious. She has the sweetest smile and when she smiles her eyes disappear into little half moons. When I visited her in the hospital in December, she kept telling me that I had the sweetest family and it meant so much. I loved our visit last week. We had some good hearty laughs didn't we Genevieve & Kari? We were laughing at our goofy family members (we are not telling a soul, right??) This quilt means a lot to me and I hope it helps to keep her warm on those cold Utah winter nights. Although it may not be something she would choose, I hope (and know) she'll feel the love and compassion that went into it. The quilt top is almost done (I ran out of fabric today and had to make a mad dash downtown for more) but hope to have it completed & in the mail in the next few days. I want her to get it in time. I'll post more soon.

xoxo

 of Charlie, alone… fat chance. 

 Today was my uncles funeral. He died very unexpectedly last Saturday and so I drove up to Utah with the children for the funeral. He is my third uncle who has passed in 11 months. All 3 were in their 50's. It's surreal. Anyway, it's a quick trip- we are heading home tomorrow. Been thinking about a lot of different things this week one of which has inspired a new project I want to start on Monday.  I'll share with you then. Have a happy weekend. See you next week. 

I've been thinking a lot about our living space lately. I pulled the blinds down last week and promised Chris I'd put curtains up asap. I totally lied. The windows are still bare, but many stops to many different shops left us, well…. curtain-less.  That's when I took matters into my own hands and headed downtown to look for fabric to make my own. Curtain fabric purchasing is no easy task I tell you. No.Easy.Task. We (Mom & I) went into at least a dozen shops. I took a photo with my phone of a very promising fabric and sent it to Chris "It's a bit old-lady if you ask me" he says. It was and well, it probably had too much pink and nothing in our living room is pink- but I'm trying to get more color in there, you know? I stumbled upon this fabric- it was leaning up against some other fabrics outside the shop. I really liked it. I later realized it's pretty much the same colors as our existing living room get-up (which is probably why I liked it) and is not introducing any new color to the room which was the whole point of the curtains. So it got draped up on the curtain rod when we got home. It matches the rug perfectly. While a lady never reveals how much she paid for things (I just made that up)- I'm no lady AND love a good deal. $1.99 a yard people. It's like heavy upholstery fabric. Curtains for under $20 bones. You can't beat it. I think the key is going to be new pillows. That is where the introduction of some new color is going to have to come from. Besides, the existing (and very old and falling apart) pillows make me gag every time I look at them. Gag, people. GAG!  I finally started hanging pictures up last week. It has been YEARS since I have printed, framed & hung any photos up. We actually already had all these frames, we just swapped out some of the pics. This frame situation made me realize that the problem with the living room might just been the wall color. It's 'swiss coffee.' It's what we had in our old apartment (did I mention we up & moved in Jan? Well, we did) and these new walls are also swiss coffee, which I didn't think I'd mind, but turns out I do. I think I just needed a change. The walls, they are going to need to be painted. The pictures must come down. So I went and got some paint. I'm hoping Chris can get it painted for us this week while I am gone with the children. I'll keep you posted. 

On to other news: the fortune I got today at a chinese buffet in American Fork (a city where all Chinese buffets should be located)