Sew Frustrating

Good morning, my friends. Welcome to a new week. How bad can it be with Pi Day tomorrow? I have in mind to make a Dutch Apple Pie for Two, but I could change my mind between now and then. 

For now, I'm busying myself trying out a new recipe for Orange Rolls. They can be made two days ahead, and then baked off when you're ready. I made the rolls first thing yesterday morning...well...maybe not the first thing, but close. When they went into the refrigerator, they looked like this:

It was my day to work out, but I bagged the whole thing. I lost an hour out of yesterday with the time change. As I went looking through the hours of my day, I'm pretty sure the workout hour was missing. Oh well...another day, another missed workout. Fortunately, no one has died, and so we can still call it a good day.

Having realized there was no hour in my day for working out, I turned my attention to sewing. I'd left off with this the day before.

It was then I realized I was making this project more difficult than it needed to be. I'd been using colored pencils to color on the enlarged pattern, color-coding them as I went. Then, I turned one page in the book and realized there was already a color-coded diagram included. Duh.

And then I realized I was envisioning the piece all wrong. I've been showing you this photo from the book cover. But looking at it, I realized it was quite different from the block I was making. For one thing, the spool of thread is quilted onto the machine. And her hands are shown in more detail with the fingers splayed open. This is actually the block for "Machine Quilting."

I'm working on the block for "Machine Piecing." Double Duh. The spool is made from one of the templates. And the hands are different.

With all this confusion, I was very lucky to have my quilting cat close at hand to make sure there were no more misinterpurrtations.

Humans. What are you going to do?

Okay, so having my brain adjusted properly, possibly for the first time in weeks, I went to work finishing off the piecing. When I had it all sewn together, it looked like this.

I still needed to remove all those paper templates. This is a little easier than with traditional paper-piecing since I hadn't actually sewn over the paper...not on purpose, anyway. They can mostly just be lifted off the fabric with tweezers.

And then, I trimmed it, evening up the edges. It ends up at 15 x 17 inches. If I make 12 blocks, and I use a very narrow sashing between the blocks, my finished quilt will end up at approximately 65 x 55 inches. (That's a very rough estimate.)

Okay, next I wanted to make the little quilt to finish off the Winter Wonder piece. Here's the picture from the pattern cover. I decided to hold off on the pieced border for now. I'm thinking I'll want to finish these off with seasonally appropriate borders. I could still change my mind and do them as pictured, but I'll decide on that when they're all finished.

So, the little quilt ends up at about 5 inches square, and it is paper-pieced. (Have you noticed how it seems like I'm doing nothing but paper-piecing right now? Yes, I am, and I'm not happy about it.) When I had the paper-piecing finished, I had these sections. And this was a major frustration because there were no instructions about sewing the sections together. So...take a look at this. Now, look at the picture above. Where do they all go????

Oh myeow...that is purrplexing.

After fussing and fuming and no small amount of swearing, I was able to figure it out by looking at the diagram. It was like putting together a puzzle.

When they were sewn together and paper removed, I added a narrow border and a back, and I had myself a little tiny quilt.

I ended up using a black straight stitch and sewing it directly to the embroidery background. Now this one is finished for the time being.

Okay, but I'll just bet you're wondering about those Orange Rolls, aren't you? Well, you're in luck because I've already baked them and eaten one. When they came out of the oven, they looked like this.

While they cooled for five minutes, I made a glaze from cream cheese, orange zest, confectioner's sugar, and orange juice. Then, I slathered that on. (You know anything that is "slathered" is going to taste good, right?)

As usual, I asked Mike whether he wanted breakfast or blog post first. He suggested eating one of the rolls first, and then I was free to come have a chat with you guys. Capital idea! So, that's what we did. Mmm, mmm, mmm. These were surprisingly easy to make. I worried the dough would stick and give me trouble, but they were super simple. Way better than Pop n Fresh. Here's the recipe:

Orange Rolls

recipe from the NYTimes

Makes 8 rolls

Ingredients:

1/3 cup/72 grams packed light brown sugar

1 orange

1 2/3 cups/220 grams all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling

1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon fine salt

3 tablespoons/42 grams cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces, plus softened butter for the pan

2 tablespoons/30 grams cold cream cheese

2/3 cup/155 grams whole milk or half-and-half

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon or a combination of cinnamon and cardamom

2 tablespoons/28 grams unsalted butter, very soft

1/4 cup/60 grams cream cheese, room temperature

3 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar, or to taste

1 orange

Directions:

Make the dough: Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Place the brown sugar in a small bowl and zest the orange directly over it. Gently rub the zest into the sugar and transfer 2 tablespoons/25 grams to a large bowl to use for the dough. Save the rest of the orange sugar for the filling.

Add the flour, baking powder and salt to the large bowl and whisk well. Add the butter and cream cheese, and smash and rub them into the dry ingredients with your fingertips until they’re fully incorporated and the mixture resembles crumbs.

Add the milk all at once and stir gently with a fork until the dough comes together and no dry bits remain. Freeze while you prepare the pan and filling. Very generously butter the bottom and sides of an 8-inch round cake pan or ovenproof skillet.

Make the filling: Mix the cinnamon (and cardamom, if using) into the reserved orange sugar.

Scrape the dough onto a well-floured work surface. Use a floured rolling pin to roll the dough or flour your hands to pat the dough into a 12-by-5-inch rectangle. It may be sticky, but that’s OK. Just flour the dough enough to be able to shape it.

To fill the dough, spread the very soft butter evenly over the surface, then sprinkle the orange sugar on top. Starting with one long side of the dough, roll it up into a 12-inch-long log. If it’s stuck to the surface, scrape it up as you roll it using a bench scraper or stiff spatula.

Use a serrated knife to cut the log with a sawing motion into 8 (1 1/2-inch-thick) slices. Place a slice in the center of the pan, then space the remaining slices 1/2-inch apart around it. At this point, the rolls can be covered and chilled for up to 2 days before baking directly from the refrigerator.

Bake until golden on top, 23 to 25 minutes. You don’t want to overbake, but also want the dough to be cooked through. When you press the top, the roll shouldn’t sink but spring back just a little.

If you’d like to glaze the rolls, make the glaze while the rolls bake: Place the cream cheese then the confectioners’ sugar in a bowl. Zest the orange directly over the sugar, then mix and smush together until smooth. Squeeze in 2 tablespoons orange juice and mix well. The glaze should be a bit thick because it will loosen when it hits the hot rolls. Taste and add more confectioners’ sugar if you’d like. Stir in more juice if it’s too stiff.

Let the rolls cool for 5 minutes in the pan, then spread the glaze all over them. Cool a bit longer to serve hot or warm.

* * * * *

Okay, so I think I'll head back downstairs for breakfast and another Orange Roll. A new Tiny House has been released. I might work on that today if I can stand another day of paper-piecing. If not, I'll just continue on with my list of WIPs. Next up would be the final four of the Shop Hop blocks, but I still have a little embroidery to do on the names and places. I might skip over that and get to work on the next of the barn blocks. These are the ones I have so far.

Mike and I will be making a trip into town today too. He's doing something...I forget what...or maybe I just wasn't listening...but I need to make a trip to the post office. Life goes on.