Strawberry Time

I went strawberry picking with my husband and daughter on Wednesday. We go almost every year to Butler’s Orchard in Germantown Maryland- the same farm I’ve been going to since I was a little girl. The strawberries are fabulous this year. It was easy picking and look at the size - almost like California berries!

We picked 16 pounds. It took me a few years as a young adult to remember that picking is just the start. Once you get those berries home there is still more work to do! We made jam, froze whole berries for oatmeal (my favorite winter breakfast), sliced and sugared some and ate a lot while we worked.

We also like to eat our strawberries with this dip – mix together 1-32 oz. container vanilla yogurt, 1-3.9 oz. box vanilla or chocolate (we like the chocolate) instant pudding (not cooked, just the powder), and 1 cup mini chocolate chips. Yum!

Fabrics with strawberries on them were among the first I started collecting as a new quilter. I made the blocks in the quilt below a long, long time ago and they sat because I didn’t know what to do with them. The 2005 McLean QU challenge was to represent a favorite recipe in a quilt. So I put the blocks and sashing together and submitted the strawberry dip recipe for this cookbook.

Our challenges are almost always considered complete with just a top. A couple of years later our challenge was to use a technique you’d never used before. So I pulled out the strawberry top and added the borders – both the dogtooth border and scalloped edge were new techniques for me. This time my challenge was a completed quilt.

 


I think I started saving strawberry fabric because of a childhood memory. When I was about 5 years old I had a shorts set made of feed sack fabric. It was a beautiful cornflower blue with strawberries. My aunt had made it for my cousin and it was handed down to me. I loved it so much I wore it out.

Have a great weekend!