sequinK

Felt food tutorials

Craftster felt food tutorial

Rabbit and carrot tutorial

Felted donut tutorial

Cupcake inspiration

Blanket stitching felt tutorial

Strawberry (and cake) tutorial

three bags full

Got some crafty goodness in the mail today!

One of our summer crafting projects is making felt food, and I found these wool felt scrap bags on sale at Weir Dolls and Crafts (alas, they're sold out now) and ordered a few.

Fabulous!  I bought some wool felt at Joann's last week with my 40% off coupon, but it's all scratchy and stiff compared to these soft and lovely pieces.  Meh.  Will have to find another use for it, I guess.

My poor little one is under the weather today, so we've been reading, lolling about on the couch, sipping watered down juice (a first, if you can believe it), and even watching a little TV (totally decadent).  I never thought I'd be one of those uptight moms with the no TV, no candy, no juice rules in effect, but there you go—never say never.  Hope everyone stays healthy out there!!

gnomes and scones

Miss H. and I have the day off today, and decided to do a little breakfast baking.

Cranberry orange scones -- yummy.  Notice the one missing?  Wonder where that went?

Recipe by the goddess of all things totally tasty (as long as your not watching your cholesterol or calories), Ina Garten.  She adds a drizzle of glaze to hers, but I prefer my scones naked, thank you.

And wonder of knitting wonders, I whipped up a little gnome friend last night, and finished her up this morning.

Typepad is being wonky and rotating the picture, so I guess we'll go with the gnome in repose option. 

The pattern is about the easiest, and can be found here for the low low price of $2 -- what a bargain!  I think I'm going to cast on another immediately.  I couldn't find any roving or fiberfill ANYWHERE last night, so dug out a unloved skein of pale green Lopi and used that, as well as the yarn ends from the project itself, for stuffing.  Worked awesomely.

Edited to add:  The gnome's name is YoYo.  This is the first doll/animal/friend that Miss H. hasn't suggested naming after herself, or Baby, or Mommy or Daddy.  Kind of a momentous milestone, don't you think??  Probably not, but I do!

I have a conference call tomorrow morning at the ungodly 5:30am hour, but as soon as that is done and sorted (painlessly, knock wood), I'm heading over to Joann's, armed with my 40% coupon, to see if I can find some wool felt, some Wilton's icing dye (we're all about playsilks these days, more on that later), and pick up a Built By Wendy pattern for $1.99.  I'm not a fan of the big box store, but can you beat a $1.99 pattern sale?  I think not. 

Off to do a little reading with Miss H., then off the the farmer's market for our midweek stockup.  Our menu planning is kicking ass right now, and making it really easy for us to easily pull it together for dinner.  Highly recommended!

weekly menu plan -- take 2

Okay,... let's try this again.

The weekly menu plan worked for the first week, then fell apart when work ramped up.  So now we're trying a new approach -- themes.  Rather than blindly trying to figure out what we're going to eat on any given day, we've set some parameters to help us out.  Here's what we settled on last week, and it seems like it is going to be a good approach for our family.

Comfort Food Sunday (roast chicken, pot pie, meatloaf, waffles, BLTs, you get the picture)
BBQ Monday (salmon, burgers, steaks)
Soup/Salad Tuesday (my least fave day, but whatever)
Farmer Wednesday (Farmers' Market day, so fresh veggie curries, pasta dishes, stir fries)
Take Out Thursday (self-explanatory)
Pizza Friday (summertime means grilled pizza!!)
Chicken Saturday (baked, BBQ'd, grilled, stir-fried, curried, anything goes)

This Friday I tried a new pizza dough recipe that worked out really well.  I added a little more sugar (because I like it sweet like that) and replaced a third of the flour with whole wheat.  I also doubled the recipe so I could throw half into the freezer for next week.  Oh, and since I have a stand mixer rather than a food processor, I mixed it with the dough hook for about a minute and a half, then kneaded it by hand for another minute. Tres tasty.

Weekly menu plan -- take 1

It's a crazy work week for me, so I'm not shooting too high with the cooking / menu planning this week.

Monday:  burgers on the grill, salad, baked sweet potato fries

Tuesday:  spinach/cheese ravioli with pesto, green salad

Wednesday:  thai green curry with tofu and veggies, brown rice

Thursday:  takeout Mexi

Friday:  marinated baked chicken, broccoli, steamed brown rice

Saturday:  cedar plank grilled salmon, grilled asparagus, steamed brown rice

fabric coops rock!

It took me a while to understand how all these mamas in the online sewing groups I've come across seem to have unlimited supply of fabric and notions.  I found the answer -- fabric coops!  I participated in my first coop this week, and scored seven yards of fabric -- a mix of Amy Butler and Joel Dewberry -- for $5 a yard.  Sweet.  The plan is to make some Emmeline aprons (which was also being coop-ed on the same board, coincidentally, but I'd already ordered one) for myself, family and friends.  I guess some coops take a really long time (like months) to get your order to your hot little hands, but this particular coop should only take a few weeks, as it's a pretty small one.

I also subscribed to Ottobre Designs magazine this afternoon.  It's a Finnish publication with awesome children's sewing designs.  I mean painfully, painfully cute stuff here, and boy am I a sucker for cute.  If you're in the market for cute baby/toddler/kids designs, totally check it out.

And can anyone tell me what the approximate retail price is for a BabyLock Imagine serger?  I'd go to my local dealer to find out, but am afraid I'd end up leaving with one, which is exactly what I totally do not need to do right now.

bring on the poos

About three weeks ago, Miss H. decided it was time to use the potty on a regular basis.  The husband and I were caught totally unprepared for this significant milestone, and are STILL trying to get this new process sorted.  We are so playing catch up!  Miss H. is totally down with the program, does great at home, but at this point is still a little inconsistent we're out and about—public bathrooms where she points out that everyone is "going potty together" are still a bit distracting. 

So what to use when we're out?  Pull-ups and diapers are too diaper-like (obviously), and padded underwear just doesn't have the fortitude to contain any accidents sufficiently.  So I cruised the Internet for training pants patterns, broke out the sewing machine (I heart you, Bernina!) and new snap press, and came up with this first trainer prototype.

Not too bad for my first foray with foldover elastic.  And see the pretty lining?

So cute and girly I can hardly stand it! 

I totally screwed up with placing the snaps (it was like 1:30 in the morning, and no one should be doing anything that requires even a semblance of thinking at that time), and had to pry off like eight of them and re-orient/attach new ones.  The fit still leaves something to be desired—I think I put too much padding in—so will attempt to refine on the next iteration.

Pattern:  based on the Wee Weka side-snap FOE training pants, size m/l
Materials:  1mil PUL (baby blue) for the outside, stretch cotton terry (pink) for the inner, and a three layer soaker made of hemp/cotton fleece, burley knit terry, and hemp/cotton jersey (layered in that order from inside to out).

napkinos

I have a pile of stash fabrics that are waiting to become cloth napkins.  I'm not much of a production cutter/sewer, so the project has been languishing for, oh, I don't know, like MONTHS now.  I believe I made three napkins before I my interest began waning. 

So yesterday I swung by one of the very organized, local thrift shops, and picked up a pile of cloth napkins.

I'm not a big thrifter, but the idea of reusing, rather than buying or making, especially for something like cloth napkins, is a no-brainer.  And the fact that I got 20 napkins for like $6 -- bonus.

dinner making rut averted!

I can't be the only one in a dinner-making rut these days, am I?  I've been trying to do a weekly menu/shopping list on Sundays, but haven't been too successful.  I think trying to post it here on Sundays might be a good plan.  I"ll put a reminder in my calendar and see how it goes!

I just got a promo e-mail from Everyday Food -- did you know they have a dinner blog?  Added it to my Bloglines IMMEDIATELY, and it's already reminded me of things I can cook besides baked chicken and pasta.  Tonight we're having meatloaf and baked potatoes, and tomorrow I'm thinking mustard chicken -- one of my husband's fave comfort foods.  Except I serve it with brown rice, 'cause that's the kind of girl I am.

did you hear something SNAP?

Posting two days in a row??  NO WAY.  I got a fun package from Shanghai today, and just had to share my excitement.

That would be my new snap press, and a ridiculous amount of snaps. Nearly 1500, I believe.  Here's a close up of the bounty:

I got a really great deal on this snap press set from an American expat living in China.  The press, two sets of dies, and a 1000 sets of snaps for $135, shipping included.  I also ordered a die set for applying metal snaps, and the gal threw in a few extras packages of snaps for free (because clearly, I didn't order enough).  Here's a link to her stock, and here's the link to her Yahoo! group where you can place orders.  Get snapping, people!!