angry chicken

on the merits of glaze—

I made this cake for our new house this weekend. We have been in our house for one year now (it's not a new house, being born in 1968, but it's new to us) and we thanked our house for a good first year. We also shared what we liked best about our house, which was the bunk beds, so said the children. This is funny because we had the bunk beds in the old house too, but you know how it goes. Pete likes the yard (as do I) but my favorite feature is a bathroom off of our bedroom. Oh, how I wished we had that wonderful luxury when I was pregnant 3 times, lugging up and downstairs 5 times a night having to pee. I almost considered sleeping in the bathroom.

Moving on, we ate the chocolate cake and I made a glaze instead of frosting. I found myself wondering why I don't always make glaze instead of frosting. I am not a huge frosting fan, but glaze I love! I kept the extra in the fridge to heat up and use on just about anything. Fruit, ice cream, crepes, you name it.

The cake recipe (my favorite chocolate cake recipe ever) is here in this PDF cheat sheet I made a long time ago and the glaze is simple and very forgiving— 6 oz chocolate chips with about 1 cup heavy cream. You heat the cream, pour it over the chips, let it melt, stir it up, and pour in on the cake.

Unrelated:

Joanne's is selling McCall's and Simplicity patterns for $1.99 until Wednesday (this was in our local paper, but I assume it's all over? Not sure, so call your local Joanne's first so you don't swear at me later.) I am going to stock up. Seriously, I never regret buying patterns when this sale hits, because my favorites always go out of print! I have marked down this blouse for sure.

toy theater out of a moving box

I had two fixations in my head this last month—making a toy theater and making stuff out of old moving boxes from the garage. I made a crown and sword for Halloween out of these boxes and found it so thrilling (just using masking tape and a utility knife) that I immediately starting thinking bigger. I have made small theaters before (and there is a pattern for a cloth one in my first book) and I also had plans to make one using these images, but in the end—I went for a totally homemade one.

I just winged it for the design and started hacking away. What I love about making this out of an old moving box and using no plans, measurements, or even a straight edge to cut with, is that it makes every decision changeable and spontaneous. I really tried hard not to use a ruler, because once it gets too perfect, it loses its charm. I actually was taught to make models this way in architecture school, and it was so liberating. If it's not perfect, it's easier to design, because you aren't worried about taking it apart and making changes. It's a great way for me to work while incorporating the girls' ideas. And, you know, it's just a box—so who cares if it doesn't work out. It was free! And we have plenty more!

Here it is in progress. I kept all the tape on there and painted over it. There is pretty much no glue, just masking tape. I did glue some of the decorative details on toward the end.

And the painting—I won't lie here, acrylic paint and kids freaks me out but tempera wasn't the right choice for this. It's pretty much a stain-type activity, no matter how many wet towels I have on hand. But we did fine. Except the paint on the wall. Oops. I did limit the color choice to one, because then they could all paint and have fun and Mommy didn't get all controlling and freaky. Most crafts I let them have at it, but sometimes not, especially if I am getting all crazy excited about something I have built. They are cool with that, and actually I think it's good for them to respect what I have made and work with me in collaboration every once in a while.

After the two coats of red paint were dry, we added some stickers which I picked up at Michael's. They are self-adhesive borders that I cut apart and stuck on. That's all we bought for this project—we had the red paint, tape, and cardboard box already.

I made slots in the back to hold 3 layers of backdrops. The girls made a Nutcracker set, and I have since made a hanging cloud set. The flooring can change easily with colored paper. The backdrop ideas just keep coming, and it's really cool to see them switch them out and play. The ballet characters are just drawings of theirs I glued to cardstock and added a stander to. This took about 3 days of us all working on it a little bit. So fun. I miss my babies, but it is so wonderful having older kids now who dig this type of stuff. Unbelievable fun.

oh, I love pens.

Here's a cool online shop shout-out:

I got a chance to sample an assortment of items sent to me from Jet Pens and I am so happy with them in that 4th grade school supply way—these are so fun. The girls are partial to gel pens, (these ones erase!) I love white pens on dark paper and also am really happy with the black ink brush pen I tried. Brush pens normally can be very lame, and I love using a brush and real ink, but with the kids around at all times, I just can't deal with the sumi ink clean-up accident waiting to happen. So, I am trilled when I find a good brush pen. I know sampling pens is all the fun, but this online shop is really informative, the owners are super nice, they have a great inventory, and the site is easy to navigate.

There is a flickr group for them too! If you care to peek at pens and ink and stuff. You know how people get about pens!

Mailorder #5 re-issue! Now a PDF!

I am excited to re-release Mailorder #5, in its entirety, as a PDF you can print at home! You can buy it right here! And you can see examples made from this issue here in the Mailorder Flickr group.

This is a fun issue that is all about cross stitch. And don't worry if you haven't done it before—it includes a helpful how-to, perfect for beginners.

Here's what you get:

• Official Mailorder Sampler counted cross-stitch chart (shown in the first photo above)
• 3 small and equally charming counted cross-stitch mini-charts (perfect for the holidays!!)
• Mailorder recipe card
• Marvelous and handy you-color-in recipe card stand (print this on cardstock and color it in!)
• Secret word to unscramble, which after solving will earn you a very special prize.

Just in time for the holidays! The 3 mini-cross stitch projects would be lovely gifts/holiday ornaments which wouldn't take too long. Also, a nice gift might be this PDF, all printed out, with some linen and some thread all wrapped up pretty for that special someone who would love a project to start. I love giving craft projects as gifts, not necessarily finished items, you know? Less work for me and I like giving the gift of creating something.

You can buy it here ($8) and don't forget to hit "return to kingpod" after you pay. If you forget, just e-mail me. And this is a PDF, not anything that is mailed—instant gratification!

just some napkins.

 

These are my grandmother's salt and pepper shakers. She had many more sets, but theses are the ones I have. These colors are so her. She found her true design sensibility in about 1965 and never strayed from that aesthetic. I thought they looked lovely with the napkins I made the other day. Serging a stack of fabric squares was the best thing I did that day. So relaxing. I thought (briefly) about serging all my fabric into napkins, to give away as gifts, just so I could keep doing this serging of squares. This sounds insane, but I don't have a ton of fabric (it's true, my stash is really small!) and I get visually tired of fabrics easily, so I am always looking for ways to use it up, clear it out, and move on. Unloading it on friends and on Grammie helps a ton. Grammie never gives up a fabric. She still has fabric scraps from clothes she sewed for me when I was 3. I'm serious.

A few things:

• These rubber stamps are making me really happy—they are drawn by Ward Jenkins. You can buy them at Rubber Soul. (Thanks for the tweet, Claire!)
• There is a new e-book Crafty Tree Trimmings that Diane Gilleland has put together—it looks very cool and some of the profits go to a great cause. Please take a look.
• I was very pleased to find these free Cicely Mary Barker flower fairy coloring pages. They print small (half sheet) but are perfect to keep in my bag when we are out and bored.
• I'm going to re-release an out-of-print Mailorder next week (as a PDF for $8), which I think would be a nice one to have for the holidays. No electricity required for this project! Except to print the PDF.
• I saw Coco avant Chanel this week and liked it a lot. I had heard it was slow moving and Coco was not the most sympathetic of characters. Both were true, but that didn't stop me from enjoying it.
• I re-found this Finnish vintage paper doll site from my own archives and am in love with it all over again. Click on the smaller thumbnails and print!

Sincere Shrimp Sandwiches

Sadie is obsessed with peanuts (as am I) and she was given this book recently (thank you Emily) and it's so good on so many levels, I can't stop looking at it.

It's used, this hardback copy is from 1970. Oh, the book design packs a wallop. Outstanding.

It's got a recipe and comic per page.

 

It's taking all my will power to not hide this away. I think I need to get a mommy copy.

Excitement, then tears, then happy times.

This is the wool plaid dress I mentioned I was working on. It's McCall's 5927. All was going well, I loved working on it. I sewed a little in the evening, on weekends, not rushing and really enjoying not starting and finishing a garment in 2 days. I lowered the neckline and added an extra little tab. I was having such a great time. The lining is all hand-sewn into place, all pretty and tidy, the invisible zipper went in perfectly and the pockets are lined in such a nice way. I was getting ready to hem the dress and then I cut a hole in it.

A hole, actually 2 holes, because it was folded, about 3 inches from the bottom on the dress. This was after I had trimmed it, so the hem would now have to be 3 inches shorter than I had planned.

Um, yeah, so saying there was tears and swearing and an all-around freak-out is an understatement. I kept telling myself it was just a dress, but I just felt like such an ass. I cut a hole in it! And it wasn't a patching/workable hole. It was a big horrible oddly shaped hole. A dress-wrecking hole. Through tears, I hemmed it as low as I could and tried it on to see if it could be saved.

Here's a photo of it too short. I had to serge the edge because I didn't even have enough to fold up. Now, I know I could have kept it like this, but it was so NOT what I had envisioned, way too short and too 1980s and really not a good dress when picking up kids and all that, I just was so sad when it was in this state.

So here was the fix, which as these situations sometimes go, if I am lucky and extra clever— I really like better than the original pattern. I am so happy with how this turned out. I had enough fabric (I always buy extra) to cut a strip on the bias, and then added a side slit and some bras buttons for a detail to match the buttons on the neckline. I actually copied the cap sleeve construction and folded the strip on the bias, so it's double thick, and this allowed me to skip the dreaded hemming on the bias situation, because the hem is actually a folded edge, dig?

And here we are all layered and much warmer and very happy with how this turned out. Whew. Thank you family and friends for your support with the drama.

Kolache!

This is a kolache from Happy Sparrow here in Portland and I am now obsessed. I can't recommend this cafe highly enough. They have tasty kolache, great coffee, and are super nice. Baby ate a vegan special and a nutella filled kolache, and I had the same—and then took home one of each kind for weekend munching. So good!!

Thanks to all of you who braved the horrible rain and came out to Bolt last night! That was super fun.

Okay, Miss Delia turns 5 tomorrow, so I need to snap to it. She busy working on her "party flavors" which are really party favors, but I'm not about to correct her, 'cause how awesome is a party flavor?

donut holes.

Details are here and hope you can come by!

(I have a new fall banner and new links up, too.)

make your own sewing patterns!

I received a copy of this new sewing book, Design-It-Yourself Clothes: Pattern making Simplified, by Cal Patch (cool name!) and am really impressed. I often recommend Wendy's sewing books for basic garment sewing know-how, but haven't been able to recommend a sewing book that fully covers pattern making. This is that book. Cal explains thoroughly how to draft, alter, and sew garments that will really fit you. She also how teaches how to grade patterns which is what you need to know if you want to make items in multiple sizes.

There are quite a few designs in the book, complete with sewing directions. But, to clarify, this book contains no actual patterns—because you draft them yourself! This book is full of wonderful tips on creating patterns in many different styles—but the look of all the designs (for the most part) is pretty casual and loose. Not a vintage-tailored look, but more a casual-cool look. This makes the fitting issues easier, but also means the overall style of these pieces are sweeter and simpler than your favorite dress on Mad Men.

I have not actually tried any of these designs yet, have any of you? I bet some people are making some dang cool clothes out of this book.