Turman Capote and I have a shared history. We had loving spinster aunts as partners in fruitcake preparation. When I taught a high-school course called the American Short Story, students’ reactions to the old-fogey ways Capote related in his A Christmas Memory were not ones of delight. But I was thrilled to revisit my childhood.
It’s the time of year when I buy things at the grocery store that I would normally never allow past my lips. Some candied fruit (I don’t even want to know how that is accomplished), a lot of sugar, butter, nuts, disposable baking pans.
This is a result of a lifelong habit of eating fruitcake at Christmastime. My mother baked the dark fruitcakes for as long as I can remember. She chopped all the fruit by hand, added nuts that either my grandmother or my Daddy had picked out of the shells, and that I had picked up from underneath the trees at home, and filled the house with a delightful smell including vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
Mama made these cakes and gave them to family and friends. Her gifts were generous, a full recipe baked in a tube cake pan. They were huge! Every year the search was on to find a store selling the round tins which would hold these 5-lb treasures.
Once I was grown, I became a recipient of the heavy gift in the tin. Mama would always have ours ready to take home at Thanksgiving and we would savor the treat throughout the holidays.
Jim found a way to improve on Mama’s recipe. We would remove her foil or waxed paper wrapping, substituting cheesecloth. The cheesecloth would soak up the brandy Jim added and make the cake more moist. Yes, that’s it, moist. Once when Mama came to visit us at Christmas, I served dessert. She remarked, “This is GOOD fruitcake. Who made it?” “I made it? Are you sure?” “Well, I don’t know. This tastes much better than the one at my house.” We never confessed the alteration.
Mama gave a cake to anyone who she thought would like them. Only when I started following in her footsteps did I realize what a gift a fruitcake was. The time, and expense, to bake these was no small matter. A few years ago, a cousin said, “You know your Mama always made me a dark fruitcake at Christmas. I always took it. But I couldn’t stand those things.” She lowers her voice when she uttered the words “dark fruitcake,” as it she were speaking of something evil. Now that I think about it, I bet Mama realized Charlotte was unappreciative, but she was one of those people who would have been hurt had Mama not given her one.
I’ve found some shortcuts to Mama’s process. I sometime buy nuts already shelled, and bake the concoction in small foil pans. Once the cakes are cooled, they are ready to wrap for presentation to appreciative friends. I know fruitcakes are the punch lines for many jokes, and I know we are all more conscious of our diets these days, but most reactions I get to the fruitcakes I share are of the “oh, I love this – it takes me back to Christmas of my childhood” type. And when I take a plate of sliced fruitcake to social gatherings this time of year, it’s always emptied.
If your mouth is watering for a trip down memory lane, here is Mama’s recipe.
Mama’s Stirring Fruitcake- 1 lb candied cherries
- ½ lb candied pineapple (white)
- ½ lb candied pineapple (green)
- 3 pts shelled nuts, coarsely chopped
- ¼ lb raisins (? cup)
- 1 cup sugar
- ½ lb butter
- 4 large eggs
- 1 cup self-rising flour
- 2 teaspoons vanilla flavoring
- 2 teaspoons almond flavoring
- 2 teaspoons cake spices
- Cream butter and sugar, add eggs one at the time and beat well. Add flour and spices and beat well. Add fruit and nuts. Pour into a large greased pan and place in 375 degree oven (note that she found 300 degrees in her oven to be better). After baking 15 minutes, stir. Do this a total of 3 times. After 3rd time, pack in tube cake pan and bake 15 minutes longer. Let stand in pan for 15 minutes before turning out.
My recipe notes:
I reduce the nuts to about 4 cups.
“cake spices” seem to be unavailable these days, so I use: 1 t. allspice, ½ t. nutmeg, and ½ t. cinnamon
I sometimes use 3” x 5” loaf pans to give as gifts. This recipe fills five of those. The plate pictured above the recipe shows one of those small loaf pans sliced. So the whole recipe is five of those!
Note: An internet search will yield numerous links to Truman Capote’s story, analyses of that work, and even audio files for your seasonal listening. It’s worth the time.
This time of year I often think, “I need to make more red and green quilts.” And, I sometimes stitch using those colors, part of being in the holiday spirit.
I came home with some leafy fabric, did some fussy cutting, and went to work. The patchwork sky was easy. I had some brilliant blue fabric with flecks of sparkle that made for a perfectly magical sky. I drafted a star with some elongated points, stitched that in place, and cut Bethlehem-like buildings free form. Then I added palm trees and was proud of my accomplishment.
Whatever you call it, it served as a backdrop for the nativity scene. And, I learned some ways to get a functional piece together in a minimal amount of time.
I love to sew with red and green fabrics during this time of the year so I often start a new project for my sewing serenity during the season. In the days of Christmas 2008, I began work on what became Pomegranates and Poinsettias. I was spending quite a bit of time with my mother-in-law, Sadie, during a time of failing health for her.
sampler background (as does everyone else who sees this quilt), and when I decided to add buttons for the berries, she giggled like a little girl. Imagine, putting BUTTONS on a quilt.
John loved riding his tractor and wearing his overalls. A country boy at heart for all of his 64 years, he represents what men in overalls convey to me: honesty, integrity, and a strong work ethic. Add a dog and the country boy takes on a loving and playful nature.
The photo is printed on cotton fabric, free motion machine quilted with cotton thread and wool batting. The brown layer is linen and all is hand stitched to a vintage quilt remnant as its base. The label is written on a scrap of vintage linen that was made blue when Marie and I played in the indigo dye vat one hot summer day. The finished piece measures 12” x 16”.
One earlier photo shows young John and Kemp on the farm. Another shows Marie flanked by her loving brothers and includes their dog Skippy.
Ethel teasingly dubbed herself the complainer, said she called Queen Tess 65 times. She doesn’t like square quilts, doesn’t like the fan block, and doesn’t like yellow. But Ethel is not a quitter, she’s a quilter, and her resulting piece is one of my favorites (the blue in the center is to dye for).
Linda combined this guild’s challenge with a project she was entering in a Windows and Doors exhibit at the Ashe Arts Center in West Jefferson, NC. Working from a photo she had taken in Nimes, France, Linda pieced the doorway panel. She added asymmetrical borders to bring the project to the 36” requirement for our guild, including pieced fans as butterfly wings and some yellow flowers blooming on the vine.
Sharon made, not one, but two quilts. One was made with fabric she bought in Japan while visiting her son and his family. The other, Ocho, RibBonz, and Shadow–3 FANtastic Cats, was inspired by several quilts on Pinterest. She has two cats name Ocho and RibBonz.. Since she needed three fans, she had to make three cats, and Shadow is the name she gave to her imaginary cat. She was asked to explain about one cat’s tail. He’s scared, she said.
Marie machine pieced and hand quilted a beauty including linen and cotton fabrics. Her title was Did you mean these fans? An M&M’s button on the label depicted her reference to the popular tv commercial. Dewey confessed that this commercial was his inspiration, too. His quilt exists only in his mind as he’s been busy building a new quilting studio.
Susi’s first place winner, Fantastic Frolicking Felines, brought smiles to all of us. Look how much fun these dancing cats are having. I think Dewey had fun, too, quilting this beauty. He added the thread-painted musical notes as he quilted the entry for Susi on his longarm machine. Susi adapted a pattern from Amy Bradley for this crowd pleaser.
In 2010, my photographer husband Jim captured a magical moment at sunrise with cows in the mist. I was captivated by the photo from the moment I saw it and immediately framed and hung an 8” x 10” print in our house.
I pieced four fan blocks (paper foundation piecing because they are tiny – 2” blocks) to create the windmill. To create the base, I photographed a toy windmill I have as part of my decor (complete with cows on my hutch in the breakfast room) and printed it in various sizes to test the scale. Using that photo as a pattern, I painted the windmill base using India ink, appliquéd the fan unit (the windmill) and had my quilt.
Then I remembered “yellow” requirement. Yellow, like the sun. Got it. The photo was taken at sunrise. So, a rising sun was appliquéd, then the quilting came into play. Green grass, blue wind, and continuous curves in the outer border all were quilted with 100 weight silk thread. Now I’m a fan of fans.
The guild’s quilt challenge for 2013 required us to use small bits of fabric from Tess’s stash. The Challenge Queen does this occasionally; requiring the use of what some might think of as uglies. That certainly was the case for my envelope. Yuck. A red and black color combination was given to me, a calico and something else, 2” squares of each. I tried several things that didn’t make my heart sing, but at some point I remembered a pattern from Country Threads featuring pieced goats.
A well-dressed goat appears in
This photo shows the background pinned to the design wall with my paper pattern drawn. That pattern was transferred to white Kona fabric, then the handwriting began. Sandpaper underneath the fabric helps to keep the fabric from slipping. I used Sharpies and Pigma Micron pens.
Once the words were pressed to make them permanent, I used needleturn appliqué to fix the tree to the background. In the areas of white where the blue background fabric showed through, I added a lining layer of white fabric.
Cotton batting was used and all quilting was hand-guided, freemotion stitching. Only the griffins on either side of the trunk were marked, all other quilting was spontaneous. Most used a matching blue cotton thread (50 weight, 2 ply), but some variegated thread was added in a few places for interest.
Our guild’s challenge quilt is due in three weeks. It’s secret until then, so I can’t show photos of it now, but I can say I’m excited about what I’m doing. 
I cut the largest square I could from the focus print (20” finished. (I know – it must have been a generous half-yard cut)), then cut smaller squares from the fish fabric and the others. 20” finished was a nice measure to use as the reference. It was easy to patch together units using 1”, 2”, 4”, 5”, 10” components.
As the project grew on the design wall, I had fun finishing a fish. Where one had been cut off, I could find missing components of that fellow somewhere else in the smaller squares and place it close by to make his image extend into the other spaces. I even discovered a batik striped fabric that mimicked the background of Mably’s fish and inserted that.
As the “squarequarium” grew on my design wall, I began imagining quilting lines. I could stitch even more of the missing parts of fish bodies, add bubbles in the water, and enhance fish fins and tails. Oh, my, how fun was that?
I sewed quickly to get the piecing done, layered it with cotton batting, and began dancing with my sewing machine. I used some heavy threads on some of the solid spaces, enjoyed stitching lots of free-motion quilting motifs, and especially enjoyed adding the octopus and starfish.
A solid blue fabric on the back made the stitching details noticeable. Susan said she liked the back of this quilt better than the front. So for her next birthday, I stitched a fish on blue fabric for her beach house.
Neither of them ever married. This photo was taken sometime around 1912. They were 18 and 15 at the time. Within ten years, their mother would be confined to a wheelchair, their older sister would die in childbirth, leaving two young daughters to their care.
During WWII, the teacher was offered “script” as her paycheck (a promise for money from the state someday), so she traveled further to work in a naval ordinance plant. The younger worked as a switchboard operator and in so doing, connected many families to news of their beloved ones. She was the first in town to get the word that the war was over, running down the stairs of the downtown office to spread the news.
Details of quilt: A vintage photo (circa 1912) of two unmarried sisters was printed on a remnant of a vintage linen tablecloth. Hand-guided, free-motion machine quilting was used to add detail, lace collars and beading were added with hand stitching. The linen background for the photo was attached to a vintage linen log cabin quilt made from silk. A vintage cotton doily was used for the label.