Giant Zucchini

This is what happens when you leave the zucchini on the plant for too long.

Matthew was not happy that we had so many zucchinis from our one plant this summer. He doesn't especially like them, and I was putting them in everything, cooking them as a side dish, freezing them and giving them away. He asked me to leave one on the plant and see how big it would get. (Thinking that would be one less that we would have to eat.) When I left town for a week in early September, my family conveniently "missed" two zucchinis. They were bigger than I like them when I returned, so I left them to see how big they would get. I only picked them when it got too cold and the plant started dying.

Matthew got his wish, but he didn't know the down side of his wish. I have about 50 seeds from just one of the zucchinis. I chopped it into large pieces and baked it like a pumpkin, then made a large pot of cream of zucchini soup with it. It actually smelled and tasted more like a squash or mild pumpkin than zucchini. Matthew actually ate seconds of the soup. We have a cellar, so I think I'll put the other one down there and save it for a cold day and another pot of soup. I'll probably keep the seeds from that one, too, because I can't stand to waste potential food.

I really don't know what I'll do with so many seeds. We only had one zucchini plant this year, and had more zucchinis than we knew what to do with. But it sure is fun to threaten Matthew with them!

Calico House Information

Someone asked me to post information about the Calico House quilt shop in Antwerp. They have recently moved. I don't know where they were before, but this is their current information.

Calico House
Vrijheidstraat 27
2000 Antwerpen
Belgium
phone: 03/233.60.23
email: calicohouse@belgacom.net

Hours: Tuesday and Wednesday 10-5, Thursday 4-8, and the 1st Saturday of the month 10-5.

This is a great little quilt shop in the ground floor of the owner's house. If you're ever in Antwerp, you should visit!

Things that are different in Belgium

I try to make mental notes of things I notice that are different in Belgium than in the U.S. Yesterday I went grocery shopping. There are a lot of small differences in this activity, but after I got home, one thing in particular stood out.

I made a fruit salad for dinner last night. It consisted of strawberries from Spain, kiwis from Greece, seedless grapes from India, and bananas from Columbia. We also had green beans from Egypt. We have truly international meals!

I remember not being able to get things from California when we lived in North Carolina. I think my international fruit salad was pretty cool, even though there was nothing "weird" in it.

What a great welcome!

I feel very welcome in my adopted country of Belgium. Not only are they really nice people, I have won two prizes in quilt shows since I came here in September!

At the beginning of October, I introduced myself to a local quilting group, led by Monique Gilbert. I brought along a couple of quilts to show them. Since she was teaching a class on machine quilting, I brought along my "Four Star Quilt", which is covered with lots of free-motion machine quilting (you can see it here: http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/photo/1169461769053918641NEVuOk). Monique invited me to enter it in a local quilt show. The winner would receive a Bernina sewing machine. So, I entered. I didn't win the sewing machine, but I did win 3rd place, which was a nice box of 48 different-colored spools of thread. I had only been in the country for a few weeks at that time.

Monique keeps us quilters up-to-date on quilting events in the area. Not too long ago, I got a notice of a Hobby Expo being held in Antwerp, which is about 50 km away. They were sponsoring a quilt contest. The only rules were that the quilt must measure 20cm square (about 8"), and the theme was "houses". The winner would receive a Singer sewing machine, and runners-up would receive a gift certificate to a quilt store in Antwerp. By the time I received the email, I had about a week to get something made and sent in.

I chose a block in EQ6 that looked similar to the townhouses or row houses that are so common here in Belgium. I sized the block to 8", printed the foundation piecing templates onto printable fabric sheets, then foundation pieced it. I did it this way so that I wouldn't have to deal with ripping the paper off, and the tiny pieces would be more stable. I had fun choosing the paint colors, roofing, windows, etc.

Next, I decorated. I cut bits and pieces from other fabrics, using some weird pictorial fat quarters that I thought I'd never use! My favorite was the flower boxes. I also found some lace that I had bought for making a slip (like that will ever happen), and made very traditional Belgian half curtains for one of the houses. Flowers, plants, and even a cat curled up in front of a door finished it off. All of these elements were glued on with a glue stick, then zig-zagged with either monofilament or matching thread.

To quilt it, I mostly just stitched in the ditch around the major parts. I did put some texture in the sidewalks, but most of it was very simple. When I finished the quilting, I added a backing with all of my information on it, and bound it. After I finished binding it, I realized that I had forgotten to quilt around one of the windows! I couldn't do it then, because the backing was not quilted. Hoping no one would notice, I took out my black fine point Pigma pen and drew in the quilting line around the window. I dare you to find which one it is!

So, I took it to the post office and mailed it on a Wednesday. It had to be there by Saturday, so I paid extra for quick service. I just kept my fingers crossed, because I never heard if it was received or not. The show was March 7-9. I was not able to go, so I just waited. A week after the show was over, I hadn't heard anything, so I assumed I just didn't win. And they were keeping the quilts (they are going to make the world's largest quilt), so I didn't even get my little quilt back.

Another week went by, and Monique sent me a copy of the newsletter from the quilt shop that sponsored the event. The newsletter announced that I was the winner of the sewing machine! Woo Hoo! I was surprised that they had not contacted me in person, but I won! The next day, I got an email from the quilt shop congratulating me.

So, we took a trip to Antwerp on Thursday to pick up my prize. Since we were going there, we made a day of it and took our kids (who are homeschooled) to see the diamond museum and Peter Paul Ruben's house (a famous Flemish painter from the 1600s). The Calico House was the first actual quilt shop I've seen since I've been here. There are a couple of fabric shops in my town, but very little fabric suitable for quilting. Now I know where to go when I just have to buy something. Although, it's still cheaper to order fabric from the U.S. and have it sent here, even with the postage. Here is a picture of me at the quilt shop, picking up my prize.

And here is a picture of my new baby, at home where she belongs.

So, like I said, I feel very welcomed. I now have a machine that doesn't need a transformer to work with the electricity in my house, and it even has more features than the one I was using. I've just been admiring it for a couple of days, but I finally did a little sewing on it today. Here's to more quilts!

Women of the Bible

As I was re-organizing my quilting space, I came across several baggies of pieces for Women of the Bible blocks. Now, I started this project in August of 2005. There are a total of 52 blocks, and I chose to hand piece all of them at 6". What was I thinking? If you do one per week, you can finish in a year, right? I had finished through number 32 by April of 2006. Then I moved back to the U.S. from Suriname, and got completely sidetracked. I have all the templates printed and, as I found, a few baggies ready to throw into my handpiecing kit. I found number 34 (I skipped 33 for some reason) all finished except for the little circle in the middle that needed to be appliqued on. So, last night, I SEWED THE CIRCLE ON! Does that officially mean that I have started this project again? I hope so. I had been posting picture of the blocks with some comments for each of them on my webpage. If you'd like to see them, they are here. This is the one I finished, called "Heart's Desire." The circle isn't terribly round, but it's done. It is for the Shulammite woman in the Song of Solomon. I only have two more left to finish the Old Testament, and then there are only 19 left to finish all of them. When I look back at the ones I finished, I'm pretty impressed. I keep thinking, "Did I make that?"

Chicken Recycling

In Belgium, they are much better at recycling than anywhere I have lived in the U.S., or in Suriname (recycling - what's that?). We have to separate our trash into paper, plastic bottles and aluminum cans, regular household trash, and food waste. The way you pay for your trash pickup is by purchasing the bags from the city. That way, you pay for what you use. If it's not in the official bag, it won't get picked up. The bags aren't cheap, either. The regular household trash bags are 1 Euro each. (I think they are trying to discourage overuse of these bags.) The bags for plastics and cans are much cheaper, and paper products/boxes don't need a bag at all. Just set them out in a cardboard box on paper pickup day. There are two options for food trash. Either rent a compost trash container for 80 Euros per year, which they pick up and empty once a month, or give the food trash to your chickens.

When we rented our house, it came with a chicken. She really belongs to the landlord's mother, who lives two doors down, but she doesn't have a good place to keep her, so the landlord asked if we wanted her. Sure! Her name is Zeertruude (I think that's spelled right), which is equivalent to our Gertrude. So, we call her Gertie. Here is a picture of her.

Our landlord told us that, at one time, our town's government decided it would help their recycling program if they gave everyone a chicken, because they love to eat kitchen scraps. That is how the chicken came to be with the house. She is part of our recycling program.

Now, Gertie is getting old, and wasn't laying very many eggs, so the kids thought it would be a good idea to get some more chickens. They were sure that Gertie was lonely. Actually, they just thought it was really cool to go in the chicken house and find an egg. So, we bought two more chickens. Of course, you know who cleans the chicken house and feeds them every morning. And now I have to actually buy chicken feed, because we don't have enough scraps for three chickens. (It's still cheap, though, and it is fun to have chickens.) We decided to name the other two chickens Kentucky F. and Barbie Q. (Okay, so I have a sick sense of humor...) Here are their pictures. Kentucky is first, and Barbie is second.

About a week ago, we had a surprise visitor. Although many of our neighbors have chickens, I had never heard a rooster. One day, I kept hearing a rooster, and he sounded pretty close by. When I looked out the window, we had a rooster in our yard! As I watched him throughout the day, he was easily flying over the fences between the yards, visiting all the chickens. When I went outside, he went over the fence. He is very good at NOT being caught. Since that first day, he has spent almost all of his time in our yard, and I'm pretty sure he's sleeping in our henhouse. I don't know why; our next-door neighbor has more chickens than we do, and he has a big garden, with lots of vegetables. Our chickens must be nicer - or maybe he likes the American food scraps better (we had tacos last night). Anyway, he seems to be good for egg production. Our new hens had not laid a single egg since we got them at the end of October. Chanticleer showed up (our name for him), and within a week, I'm getting one or two eggs a day. Besides that, he's gorgeous, as you can see by his picture. I don't know if anyone is looking for him. If they are, they better get a higher fence!

So, in case you're looking for a good way to get rid of food scraps, think chickens!

Okay, I know, now I have to make a chicken and/or rooster quilt!

First Impressions of Belgium

Obviously, I'm not much of a blogger. And this one won't even be about quilts, although I will mention a quilter. But, I thought this would be a good place to record some of our family's first impressions of Belgium after living here for three weeks.

First, it's cold. Actually, it hasn't been really cold, but the highs are generally in the low to mid 60s. Remember, we lived in Suriname for 6 years, and when we left North Carolina, they were having a record-breaking heat wave. I think it was over 90 the day we left.

I have noticed that people, especially women, really are more style-conscious than most Americans. I went downtown in my New Balance walking shoes (think white sport shoes). Standing at the bus stop, I watched people walk by. The only pair of white tennis shoes I saw were on a 12-year-old boy. I think I am too old for jeans, too, but they will have a hard time breaking me of that. I haven't worn my white shoes downtown again, though.

Carrots. They must be the national food. They are in everything. It's a good thing we like carrots. My kids tried something called a taco. It was a triangular pastry, filled with ground meat (probably pork or mixed pork and beef), peas and carrots. The kids said there was nothing even reminiscent of a taco in the flavor, although they weren't bad.

Everything is smaller and more expensive. But I already knew that would be the case. We have been here before, just not to live.

We have lots of spiders in our house. I don't know if it is the time of year, an especially "spidery" year, or just normal for Belgium. There are many perfect "Charlotte's Web" type webs in the corners of the windows.

You really have to conserve your drink. If you go to a restaurant and order a Coke (for 1.50 - 2.00 Euros), you will get an 8-oz glass of Coke with no ice. There are no refills. We have a running contest to see who can have the most drink left when their food is gone.

Nescafe is considered coffee.

It is normal to be a super gardener. You should see the yards. I'm in trouble. I bought some cute pots of herbs to grow in my kitchen. They died by the third day. I love plants, but my kids say I have a brown thumb.

I have not found any powdered drink mixes (Koolaid). This is very annoying, since my only transportation at this point is the bus. I can only get enough food for two days at a time, and bottles of soda pop are heavy! I don't think I could shop for a whole week anyway, since my refrigerator is European-sized. (Think small.)

Bakeries are awesome!

Architecture is almost always interesting, often gorgeous.

Closets? Why waste space on that? Or second bathrooms, or stairways that can accommodate a queen-size box spring?

People are friendly and very accommodating. As soon as they realize I am struggling to find the right words in Dutch, they switch to English for me. It's very nice of them, but it won't help me improve my Dutch.

O yeah, the quilter I mentioned. In the town right next to mine, there is an internationally-known quilter. Her name is Monique Gilbert. She has a website at www.moniquegilbert.be. I saw her quilts hanging at the City Hall when I was there to apply for stay papers. Quilting is not common here. In fact, I have yet to find a fabric store with any fabric suitable for quilting. I haven't met Monique yet, but I intend to.

So, there are my first impressions. This place will become "gewoon" (ordinary) in time, so I thought it would be good to record what I think now, when I still notice the things that are different.