Presents for the lil' boys

Mateo's baby quilt

I finally finished the mitered quilt.  This is my first true quilt where I followed a particular design.  I've made crazy quilts before, but I found this was actually easier/faster because it was basically a series of blocks that I sewed together.  When I first saw this design in a book, I had no reason to make a baby quilt, aside from just "for the fun of it."  But then I saw the perfect fabric, and it just so happens that my coworker was expecting a baby any day and it hit me.  I'd make her a baby gift.  Well I began cutting it out Monday, November 21st and coincidentally, Baby Mateo was born the next day, Tuesday, November 22nd. 

The quilt turned out lovely, and I ended up using some cotton batting so it's not only soft for baby, but  a little more eco friendly too.  I tied off the centers with some yarn that I happened to have that luckily matched pretty closely to the colors.  An excellent benefit of having a multi-colored motif.  The only problem is that I am going to have a hard time giving this one away!  I want to snuggle with my blankie on this cold December night!

I mostly finished (depends if I want to make 3 more name tags to include "aunt," "uncle" and "cousin") Charles mailman set for his Christmas present.  I will explain how it was created in a future post, but want to show of tonight's hard work.  I was so involved in these projects that I kind of forgot about eating.  Peanut M&Ms got me through the evening. . . but now that it's almost midnight I think that I'll just head to bed.  Have to go to my real job in the morn.

Mail bag, hat, and sample postcards & envelope

Thanksgiving and quilt block update

For Thanksgiving I brought this platter of goodies:

To the left are homemade wheat thin crackers. To the right are sugar cookies.  I used my mini fall themed cookie cutters.  There are 3 versions of leaves, an acorn, pumpkin and apple shapes.  These are way too fun and I felt very "Martha Stewart" cutting these out and arranging them on the plate.  The filling is actually cooked pumpkin pie filling!

And here's an update on the quilt I'm making:

I included a sample of what the backing will look like.  According to the directions I'm supposed to use flannel.  I didn't realize that when I bought the fabric, so I will have to hold off in putting it together until I buy some batting to put between the layers.  The inspiration for this blanket came from this one yard fabric book:

Stay tuned for future updates on my mitered receiving blanket!

Projects for this week

So I went to a sewing club on Thursday and this was my contribution:

They are place cards for a Christmas table setting.  Simple to do -- I just free hand cut out tree shapes from scraps of fabric, ironed on some fusible interfacing for extra stiffness and then sewed them on in a zig zag pattern with the machine.  Hand sewed on some buttons -- and if you look closely there are free form sewn halos around the buttons.  Address labels on some winter themed scrap book paper pulls it all together.  From start to finish I probably did this in a half an hour.

Mitered quilt blocks

From a sewing book that lists projects that only take a yard of fabric, I found a cute recieving blanket project that involves turning striped fabric into square blocks.  This is the first time I've attempted an actual pattern based quilt.  The couple of throw quilt's I've made before have always been the use up the scraps crazy quilts.  This is a mitered block quilt.   See all the triangles?  Now they are squares.  I was attracted to all the geometric shapes when I saw this project.  There is something very satisfying about turning lines into squares.  All those crisp edges. . . just don't look too closely, cuz they aren't perfect.  But as long as you don't take out the magnifying glass, it's starting to look impressive.  I can't believe how much I got done in one afternoon/evening.  I didn't even start until 4:00 p.m.!

These crisp lines are such a turn on!

Beautiful day out

It's a beautiful day out and it's Labor Day weekend.  I  spent part of it sewing, and then hanging out with a friend.  In honor of this day  of rest I'm posting a version of the song, Canticle of the Sun.  This was one of the songs that we sang in church today and I felt that it really summed up not only the day but how I feel about our world.  Enjoy!

New kitchen gadgets

Just a quick post about some new kitchen gadgets I got on Tuesday while I was killing some time during a split shift at work. The kitchen product store, Habitat is on the other side of town in an area that I rarely find myself.  So when I found myself with 2 hours to kill, I headed over there to see what they had.  I've been wanting to get a funnel for quite awhile, but am picky and wanted a metal one.  I've been trying to cut out plastic in kitchenware as well as concerns about BPA and other  phyleates leaching into food, specially when heated so have been out of a full sized strainer for almost a year.  At first I was scrounging thrift stores in hopes of finding good quality second hand stuff.  But metal colianders and funnels weren't to be found (granted I didn't search monthly every single shop in town), but I  have a feeling that these are items that people hang on to!  So I finally decided I would purchase them new, and hoped a kitchen store would have some awesome choices. 

I was a little surprised on how small the Habitat's selection was, as half of the store seemed focused more on kitchen related decor, but there was a corner of the store where I found a bunch of fun gizmos.  Discovered they make cake donut pans, which rather excites me.  Perhaps if they ever have a sale . . .  But for the day I walked out with this snazzy strainer, which made me want to go cook some spaghetti right away, a cool funnel that even had a little strainer that you can take in or out, and a  "magic" lid.  This lid is mostly silicone (a glass based product rather than plastic) with some metal support ribbing that using suction, will seal in moisture and freshness in what ever kind of bowl you choose (as long as the edge of the bowl is smooth and clean -- food particles would break the seal).  At the price I found it at I will only be able to afford just one of these extravagances (specially since I found similar product by a different company on a enviro website) but I feel it was worth the money to have  one on hand so I make store food in my lidless glass and metal bowls.

As an aside I appreciated the store packaging -- was a large white plain paper bag with twisted paper handles.  Perfect to be reused as a gift bag.

Stack of books

As  I was checking out yet a couple more books tonight at work, it occurred to me that a lot could be learned of my current interests from the list of books that I have currently checked out.  I realized after I downloaded this picture that I took, that I left out 2 other craft books that were scattered in a different area of the room than normal.  So these can be clumped into a couple broad areas of interest or sorted out into many other categories (subject headings in library speak).  In what ways would you organize these?
Here's the list in no particular order:

• The new low-maintenance garden: How to have a beautiful, productive garden and the time to enjoy it by Valerie Easton
• Organic beauty: look and feel gorgeous the natural way by Josephine Fairley
• Absolute Beauty: radiant skin and inner harmony through the ancient secrets of Ayurveda by Pratima Raichur
• How to start making money with your crafts by Kathryn Caputo
• The complete book of Ayurvedic home remedies by Vasant Lad.
• Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath
• Self-promotion for the creative person by Lee Silber
• Preserve it edited by Lynda Brown
• Heat Wave by Richard Castle (the lone fiction book in the group, and yes the book featured in the television series Castle)
• Retro Mania!: 60 hip handmade cards, scrapbook pages, gifts and more! by Judi Watanabe et. al.
• Complete guide to container gardening by Better Homes and Gardens
• Edible: a celebration of local foods by Tracey Ryder and Carole Topalian
• Nourishing traditions: the cookbook that challenges politically correct nutrition and the diet dictocrats by Sally Fallon (an interlibrary loan book)

The books that I left out of the photo:

• Sew pretty Christmas homestyle by Sew Pretty (checked out for it's patterns in the back)
• The new handmade: simple sewing for the contemporary style by Cassie Barden

Expect me to refer to these in future posts.  Some of these are better than others.  For instance Nourishing Traditions is massive and I'll never read it all. I wasn't impressed by the Organic Beauty, specially not after browsing through Absolute Beauty.  The complete home remedies Aryuvedic book would probably be good for a serious practitioner; I got it mainly out of curiosity when grabbing the Absolute Beauty one.  The 2.0 book I haven't actually looked at yet.  According to book reviews it's not very helpful unless you buy the book so you can get the password for the online quiz. . .  

So enjoy the list.  If I was nice, considerate blogger tonight, I would link all these titles to Amazon for you.  But being as it's 11:00 pm. and I really should head to bed now, I will just assume that if a title strikes your fancy you know how to head over to Amazon or Barnes and Noble website and search the reviews for these books. 

Looking at this list of mostly hardcover and some relatively new books I should really add up the prices and see what kind of savings I'm storing up from using my local library.  Of course, I highly doubt I would currently have half as many of these books if I wasn't working there every day.  :)

From this to that: Sourdough Mozzerella Sticks

The sourdough started I created from thin air.  ;)

Many moons ago I created some sourdough started from scratch because I had an itching to make that Friendship Bread where you stick in flavored puddings.  My mom had made some when I was a kid (reciving starter from a friend/relative who had passed on this chain of food).  Having no one with starter that I new of I was excited to be successful in starting my own.  Well, that bread didn't turn out so well; it didn't rise enough.  I blame my cheapo bread pans more than the failed recipe.  (Which in fact I believe that the 2nd loaf of that batch is still in my freezer -- waiting for me to do something with it.) Discouraged, I put my extra start in the freezer until the day I had the urge to try again.

That day came again several weeks ago when I decided to take the plunge into exploring real foods.  I haven't been 100% in changing my eating habits.  It is hard when I have never cared for wheat breads in the past.  I have been absent from recording my eating habits, because I've still caved into the convenience of eating out during my lunch breaks. 

But I am reporting my excitement now it what may be the best pizza I've had in a very long time.  And get this, the basis of this yummy goodness is my wheat sourdough pizza crust. Therefore from this:

I  made this:

I didn't have any jarred, purchased pizza sauce in the house, since I'm trying to move away from processes foods with high fructose corn syrup, so I made my own from some home made canned tomato juice my mom had given me (also many moons ago).  Topped with Italian sausage and cheese, this gooey goodness is making me hungry for a slice even as I finished it off last night. 

But I was able to enjoy another round of the crust.  How?  Well I felt that my mound of pizza dough was more than would fit on my pizza pan.  I didn't want a super thick crust that would have a hard time baking so I left out maybe a quarter of that dough with the abstract idea of making something else with it . . .perhaps buns.

Then yesterday as  I was rearranging my fridge in order to use up some leftovers, I saw my glass dish of mozzarella.  Bread dough and mozzarella. . .perfect combo to make cheese sticks!

Simple to make if dough is already made! 

 

Slice some cheese and roll up!

Roll to press into shape so holds together.

Admittedly they look a little odd on the pan. . . .wheat flour.

Maybe a little much cheese, as they exploded with melty-ness!

Bread sticks a side dish to my salad!

Proto-type snail project

This is still a work in progress. But you can kind of get the idea.  Work was slow today so I thought this project up and then immediately came home and whipped one up.  The idea is to have a group of them and then maybe turn them into magnets or stick velcro on thier bottoms so that they can climb up furniture or something.  Taking this picture reminded me of the Twiddle Bugs on Sesame Street.  I loved those segments and their miniature worlds.

Vegan chocolate pudding

This past week was my first exploration into whole  food cooking. I started off with what almost one could could call "extreme" to this refined sugar, grain eating, animal eating and milk loving girl.  But take a look at what I made!

The idea is to cook with only real foods.  No processed foods.  Which is more true to form with what I grew up eating on the farm. But this full time working girl, and grad student (albiet taking a break from classes this summer. . .hence the energy and desire to eat better and to experiment with cooking) has been not so good this past year and a half in making healthy eating choices.

But enough of that.  There's time for wallowing in that in another post.  Instead I am anxious to share with you what is in this delectible looking concoction.  Because really, pudding can't be pudding with out eggs and milk right?  Ok, everybody, you do know that's how you make homemade pudding right?  Which is a thousand times better than that box stuff.

Mmm. . . homemade pudding.  With milk.  This version can not replace "real" pudding. But this version is defintely something I would make again. Cuz once you  get past that first initial surprise of banana.. .it is really quite tasty!

And now I will get around to actually listing the ingredients: 1 banana, 1 avacado (! yes I know really I wouldn't never have guessed it either!), cocoa powder, honey, vanilla, and some coconut milk. Blend, chill and enjoy.

I found this on another foodie website about real foods and I couldn't resist trying it because I couldn't believe I actually had all the ingredients in my kitchen all at once.  Avacados don't have much of a counter life once I bring one home from the store and coconut milk certainly would not have been a staple in my cupboards a year ago.

Random

The above pic is of the single flower that showed up in my garden. I have no idea what it is  . . .iris, fancy gladiola? But the coloring sure is captivating!

Soon it will be time to go to weekly kareoke tonight to hang with friends.  I don't sing publically, but it can be great fun.  So I'm gonna go eat a piece of my birthday cake before I leave.

Today's food log:
Breakfast: Oatmeal with cinnimon and coconut milk, scrambled eggs, coffee with honey
Lunch/supper: Small dish of taco noodles and cheese, dish of yogurt, small mini loaf of banana bread
Evening snack: chocolate cake!

"Art is the only way to run away without leaving home"

Found that quote in a art/journal-ing book.  Think it might have been Creative Awakening: Envisioning the life of your dreams through art?  But not entirely sure.

I spent 2 hours at Barnes and Nobel tonight after work looking at art and sewing books.  One was about embroidering with red thread, 2 others were about how to organize your art/sewing room and a couple others were about journaling/exploring art. Yet another one was about sewing items for your home (which had lovely pictures but was mostly ideas I'd seen before only repackaged).  I did end up breaking down and bought one of those exploring art books.  It seemed chock full of stories from artists who were giving life experience tips on how to make time to create.  Thus the title: Creative Time and Space: Making Room for Making Art.  I can think of at least 4 people I could pass this on to read it, and one of those is my art major sister who has a birthday coming up in November.  (Good thing she wouldn't read this, huh?)

So I'm gonna go start reading it now before I hit the hay.  But first I'm going to record my meals today.  I've never had a food journal before, but I thought now would be a good way to help kick start and encourage me in keeping to a mostly "real food diet" if I can visually see all the good things I ate and all the bad.  I don't foresee myself totally cutting out sugar or white flour (I got my Nourishing Traditions book today through Interlibrary loan), as one could see from this list, but a body has to start somewhere!

Because I feel the need to add some cheery color to this post!

Breakfast:  Half a glass of peach keifer, 2 scrambled eggs in coconut oil
Lunch/Supper: Small glass container of "taco noodles and cheese (ground beef, tomato sauce, cheese and noodles), lettuce salad with Dorthy Lynch and one carrot (discovered they'd frozen in the fridge and thawed. . .gross) and a small chunk of sponge cake with yogurt and blueberries. Water.
Evening break: Snicker bar
After work: Medium Starbucks Carmel frappe from B&N

Two toned Seagull Shower Curtain

If you follow the green environment push at all, I am sure you have heard about the various chemicals that may off-gas from plastic. Fabric is one alternative to plastic, and in an effort to eliminate one major source of plastic in my apartment -- the sheet of it that hangs across the width of my bathroom -- I designed my own fabric shower curtain.

For the cost of some time, thread and clearance fabrics I made a stylish two toned shower curtain to replace my semi clear world map plastic shower curtain.  As awesome as the design was on my plastic shower curtain (and admittedly I loved the graphics) I decided that it was time to "remodel".  Being "green" in this case really wasn't the biggest push. Nor was the fact that part of holes in the plastic were gradually tearing through (which I solved by taking a hole punch to it to create new slots for the plastic rings to hang through).  It wasn't even the possibility of creating a sophisticated home decor to go along with the beige floor tiles, fancy vanity lighting and the sea shell wall paper border that came along with the rental.  No, basically it was the thrill of designing and creating a new sewing project after seeing a similar idea in somewhere, probably at least a year ago, on some crafter's blog!

Designing, buying fabric, cutting out and sewing was a 2 day project.

Here is what I found:

• Not quite a yard of striped tan linen from the clearance aisle for the main part of the curtain. $1.39
• A yard of sheer tan organza type for the see thru panel (to allow light in, nothing worse than trying to shower without being able to see!) 
• Blue seagull novelty fabric 2 yards.  Decided to get 2 yards of it so could also decorate matching towels.  $3.15
• Even thread was on sale, so I got me some matching neutral beige thread, $1.39

The construction  is fairly simple and one can probably figure out how to put it together just by looking at the photo.  The only "extra" step that may not be obvious is that the sheer panel is actually 2 layers, as I folded it in half.  I also seemed to do a lot of hemming and folding seams over so they wouldn't ravel.

I chose the linen because I was looking to go for as close to a natural fabric as I could that would also be light and air-y so that it would dry quickly in a humid bathroom.   It also was a stroke of luck to find something in the clearance aisle that perfectly matched my color scheme!  The tans in the print are in the colors of the birds.