Pretzel Jell-O Salad

My younger sister sent me a recipe and I just had to share it.  She said it’s an old recipe and had made the rounds in the Midwest about 10 years ago.  I had never heard of it.  Maybe you haven’t, either.

The tartness of the raspberries, the sweet of the Jell-O and sugar, the coolness of the cream cheese and the saltiness of the pretzels make a song in your mouth!

Pretzel Jell-O Salad

1.  Spray or butter a 9 x 13 pan  (you could cut recipe in half for an 8 x 8 size)
    2 CUPS CRUSHED PRETZELS (crush to the size of chopped pecans)
    3/4 cup of melted butter or margarine
    2 Tbsp. sugar
Blend together, press into bottom of pan.  Bake at 350 for 10 minutes.
Let cool.

2.  Cream together:
    8 oz. cream cheese (room temp)
    1 c. sugar
     Fold in:
     8 oz. Cool Whip (room temp)
Spread on top of cooled crust.  Put into freezer for an hour.

3.  2 small or 1 large package of Raspberry     
    TWO    12 oz. packages of frozen raspberries
    2 cups boiling water
Mix Jell-O with boiling water.  Mix in raspberries. 
Chill a little until sort of set.
Spoon over cheese layer and refrigerate for at least 3 hours. 

You can use any kind of pretzels you have on hand.  I used the skinny stick ones.  But, twisted or rods will do fine.

Only in South Florida

Interesting reading in this morning’s Miami Herald.  Yes, I know you can get newspapers online, but I like the feel of the newspaper in my hand as I drink my cup of morning coffee with the other. 

DH & I tend to switch between our local newspapers down here.  We’ll get the Herald for a period of time and then switch over to the Sun-Sentinel for awhile.  Since “the South Beach Scene” is in Miami Beach, the Herald is loaded with Celebrity Gossip.

But what I found very interesting this morning was the crazy headlines and crazy stories that, I suppose, if you wanted to write a book of fiction, no one would ever believe these things -- too preposterous.  But, they are real life.  I read them in the newspaper!

How about this one -- “Worker finds head, body parts near a canal”  Not an everyday occurrence, eh?  Did the worker quit his job?  Or did he come back to work the next day, figuring the odds were good that this kind of thing would never happen again?

And then there was “The trial against a police officer accused of raping a family member while his allegedly drugged wife and 4-year-old child slept in the same bed begins”  He also allegedly drugged the family member.  Gives more meaning to “let’s keep it all in the family”.

And in Miami-Dade county, you can pay your property taxes online.  But, they charge you $87.25 for the privilege.  They call it a “non-refundable convenience fee”.  I think writing out a check and putting a 44¢ stamp on an envelope would be much more convenient.

And the most bizarre of all.  It seems that a book published this past summer, which didn’t really sell many copies, might have been possibly the inspiration for a recent murder.  You’re just going to have to read this one for yourself – another book will probably come out about this whole thing.

Do these stories happen in your neck of the woods?  Or is it just South Florida? -- “Things are different here” was a clever advertising phrase to sell tourism in South Florida, at one time.  I don’t think it was intended to be a derogatory comment.

I know South Florida won’t disappoint.  I know I’ll be back with some more “Only in South Florida” stories … all I have to do is open the local newspaper …

Radiator Cover

It all started with this article in Quilters Newsletter Magazine, dated October 2003.

The fabric above was bought specifically for the making of a wallhanging.  The fabric at top is a panel print and there are 4 fabrics below it.

After cutting the pieces for 1 block, I decided I didn't want to make a whole bunch more – a little too much fussy-cutting.  So, I set the fabric and the block aside.

Then, came the winter of 2010. It was cold.  More days in a row of cold than we've ever experienced living in South Florida for 38 years. We bought a portable room radiator and used it more times in January thru March than I care to think about.

I knew just by looking at that radiator that it was going to be a dust-catcher! It needed a cover. I remembered that fabric and the lonely block.

I went into my EQ7 with my measurements for the radiator cover and started to design.  I even scanned my fabric so I could use it in the design in EQ7.  In order to make what looks like the panel print, I took a digital picture of the actual fabric and brought the image into EQ7.  If you do that, make sure the image is “square” so that the proportion will be correct.  You end up with some real silly looking images if you use rectangle-shaped images.I took a screenshot of the upside-down back portion of design and brought it into MS Paint. I am delighted with Windows7 version of MS Paint. I can manipulate images with ease and it doesn’t have the learning curve that the high-end graphics programs do.

Here’s the layout, in progress, on the design wall.

Here's all the layers pinned together, ready to be quilted.

After a couple of movies on the Hallmark Movie Channel, the "bones" of the cover are quilted and now the "fun quilting" begins …

I used Sulky Blendable 12 wt cotton thread for the quilting.  I like the heaviness of that thread.  Makes the stitching stand out.  I use a 90/14 Topstitch needle for the 12 wt. thread.

I find I get a better fit if I wash & dry the piece after quilting and before sewing the sides together.  Especially if I use cotton batting as I did in this project. 

Finished cover – front

 
Finished cover - back

Dolphins on a radiator?
In South Florida - but of course!

Convert WMV to iPad compatible file

I like to combine digital photos with the movies that I take with my PureDigital Flip Camera and make them into slideshows using HP Memories Creator which came bundled with my HP printer.

Thought it would be nice to have a slideshow presentation like that on my iPad.

Well, I figured out how.  And I didn’t have to buy any new programs to do it - the necessary programs were free.

I got the Windows Live Movie Maker program free from Microsoft.
Get yours here.  It comes as part of the Live Essentials package. You have to have Windows 7 to run WLMM.

In Windows Live Movie Maker, I can combine photos, videos, music and have special effects and all kinds of cool stuff.  It generates a WMV file.  WMV files can be viewed in a Windows Media Player.

You cannot upload a WMV file to the iPad / iPodTouch. 

You will need to convert that WMV file into a MP4, which is compatible with the iPad and iPod Touch.  And to convert it, you need another free program - Any Video Converter.  Get the “Any Video Converter Free”.

Once you convert the WMV to MP4, you upload the MP4 through iTunes, the usual way. 

I’ve been looking for a WMV file convertor for a long time.  The ones I’ve seen cost $40 to $50.  Free is so much nicer!  And you can convert WMV to AVI, also.

And Microsoft has another nice free program that does a nice slideshow of zooming in, out and across photos – Photo Story.  It really makes a nice presentation of your quilts, with music.  Or make a slideshow of the construction of a particular quilt (or gift) for a special occasion.  It will generate a WMV file that you can convert to MP4 for iPad / iPodTouch.

An Innocent Quilt Block

The above photo appeared in an article by Jenny Deam of the LATimes in my morning paper about the above quilt.  It mentions that the “swastika block” is known by other names (aren’t all quilt blocks): Whirligig and Catch Me If You Can.  After reading the article, I was intrigued and went on a quest.

I had to go and see what information Barbara Brackman had in her Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilted Patterns book and in the software program Block Base v2 about the above mentioned quilt blocks.

Blocks known as Whirligig
~ screenshot from BlockBase v2 ~

The blocks from the photo at top is not in image above.

 Blocks known as Catch Me If You Can
~ screenshot from BlockBase v2 ~

There’s the block from the photo at top in the image above, block on right.  But, there’s 2 borders around that block, a white one and a blue one which makes it a tad different than the blocks in the photo at the top.

So then I decided to do a search in BlockBase for “swastika”.

 Blocks known as Swastika
~ screenshot from BlockBase v2 ~

I just don’t see how all the blocks in the first row could be named Swastika.  They don’t even resemble one.

By the way – here’s a Swastika --

And here is a symbol for a Unit in the United States Army 45th Infantry Division in World War I which was mentioned in the article --

And this block (left) is not to be confused with the Rail Fence (right):

The block on the left is drawn on a 5x5 grid.  The block on the right is drawn on a 6x6 grid.

I think I’m going to call the block on the left Catch Me If You Can.  After all, it is not the block’s fault that a despicable little man chose that symbol and turned it into something hateful.

Will I ever use the Catch Me If You Can block in a quilt - no, I don’t think so.  Would you?

I made the above image in EQ7, trying to duplicate what was in the photo at the top of this post.  I wonder if the maker of the quilt meant for the blocks to be mirrored from one to the other.  Maybe not, cuz there isn’t a pattern to the mirroring.  Maybe that wasn’t a concern for the quilt maker.

Jenny of Elefantz (BOM)

In the current issue of Quilters Newsletter Magazine, there is an article, page 28, Stitchery from Down Under.  One of the quilters interviewed is Jenny Reynolds from Queensland, Australia.  QNM did not list Jenny’s website, but it was easy enuf to goggle her --http://www.elefantz.blogspot.com/

I just love the way she combines quilting and simple embroidery.  And she is so generous in giving away her designs for free.  She makes them available for a while and then you have to go to her Etsy shop to purchase some of the older designs. Her prices are very reasonable.

Jenny has a Block of the Month coming up – Daisy Do on July 1.  Her sneak peeks have got me hooked. 

I love doing embroidery every once in a while.  It calms the soul.

Hurricane Season, again

June 1 to November 30 is Hurricane Season in my part of the world.  This will be our 37th Hurricane season in South Florida.  We’ve had to lower the awnings quite a few times over the years.  The most devastating hurricanes we’ve been through were Hurricane Andrew in August 1992 and Hurricane Wilma, the end of October 2005.

The worst year for the whole state of Florida was 2004 when 4 hurricanes criss-crossed the state.  That was also the year that my younger sister and her husband moved to the west coast of Florida!  What a welcome that was.  During Hurricane Charley, they hunkered down with martinis and popcorn in a big closet in their bathroom!

In 2005, there were 28 named storms: 15 of which were hurricanes.  They had predicted 14 named storms (9 hurricanes)!  I guess “they” didn’t see it coming …

The above pic is taken after Wilma visited our neighborhood in 2005.  Our beautiful Pon Gam tree in the front yard has been uprooted and stripped of half its leaves.  Lamppost had been blown over and is laying on its side.  Leaves from a tree on side of the house litter the sidewalk.  With the help of neighbors, the Pon Gam was pushed back into place.  It is a still a good tree, but is not the same and I don’t expect it ever will be.

This year they are predicting 14 – 23 storms, which includes 8 – 14 hurricanes.  Unless you have one of them Time Machines and go take a trip to the future and come back again, I really don’t think you can be an accurate predictor of hurricanes.

I hope the number of storms falls short of this year’s predictions.  I have a feeling that we will be preparing for some storms in Florida.  All we can do is be prepared.  Keep a watch on the weather.  And always respect Mother Nature.