angry chicken

the week isn't even over yet.

 

It's been quite a week here. I can't really write about it all as I should, So here comes a list (In chronological order.)

-Fun times with Melissa, who turned 30. It was a surprise event and a good time was had by all.
-Mailorder sale.
-A trip to the ER. Pete had a kidney stone and almost passed out from the pain. Horrible and icky. I can't quite express how hard it was seeing him in this much pain.
-Met Kay and Ann (mason-dixon knitting) who are wonderful and funny as all get out. Going with them to a knitting shop was amazing, especially because I actually tried to talk to Ann about knitting. (I have only knit hats and booties, to give you a reference. She was very patient with me) I love their book. . .oh yeah, Mariko was there too. What would I do without her? Not much, that's what.
-Mailorder stuffing.
-Mailorder error alert-the boots are missing! PDF uploaded.

Which bring us up to today:

-Still trying to get mailorder out the door.
-Pete has another trip to the ER this morning, this time in an ambulance. Okay, his stone hasn't passed yet and I know a lot more now about IV drips, 911, emergency room etiquette, and assorted painkillers
-More mailorder. . .

So that's where I am now. Pete still isn't in the clear, which is not so good. I have all the mailorders out now, except the international ones, which I have to do in person on Monday. We also may have to go into the hospital again, but we are hoping not. E-mail and blogging might be sporadic, especially because I am beat tired and have out of town friends coming in on Monday for the week. . .

So some good times were had this week, some very hard times, and hopefully we will get through this all soon. I am trying to stay positive, but having emergency health issues, getting immediate care for the girls or taking them to the ER with us, all that (and most of it happening in the middle of the night or wee hours of the morning) has made a wreck of us.

So, what is up with these blouses? Yeah, well, catalogs (anthropologie) are in front of me and it's something for me to rest my eyes on. And the smocking and crochet details in these are making me very happy. So reason enough to show them I say. I'll take what I can get right now, you know?

no boots!!!!

Mailorder members, the most alarming issue has been brought to my attention:

The ragdoll pattern is missing the boots! Oh, I can not tell you how distressing I find this, and the dolls are so upset as you can see. Please accept my apologies for the gross oversight. The PDF for the boot pattern (as it ought to have appeared on the bloomers/pant page) is available right here. I will also put it up on kingpod under "mailorder/downloads" in the near future.

Update: when printing the PDF, please make sure your settings are at "actual size" or 100%, often the default for printing PDF's are smaller-so please check. . .thank you!

Thank you for your attention-your humbled secretary,
Amy Karol

getting ready for easter-

Thank you all for the mailorder love! Madly stuffing red envelopes now. . .

And in doing some research for Easter fun, here are some natural easter egg dyeing recipes I found:

-Martha kids (Great Easter crafts)
-Wild Oats
-All Fiber Arts

Has anyone done this before? I'm not a huge direction follower when it comes to dyeing, I usually just wing it. But I would like these to not be all murky brown, or so light you can't even tell we dyed them when they are dry. . .

Oh, and I meant to mention regarding the No Knead Bread I made. I thought it had too much salt. So did Pete and my Mom. I still ate the heck out of it (I think all the jam covered the saltiness a bit, so I didn't notice so much) but when I make it again I will probably reduce the salt by half.

you can get it now!

Hello Mailorder Members!

You can get your single issue of mailorder #6 right now! Just head on over to kingpod and hit that big ol' buy button. If you have questions during the sale, please e-mail me. There aren't many of these and they tend to sell out pretty fast, so please jump on over if you are interested.

Thank you so much! The single issues are all gone now.

Don't forget to look for that secret word hidden in this issue, it's worth it, I promise. (Enter it on kingpod when you find it and please let me know if you are having any issues with the prize, a PDF file.)

it's raining here.

I decided to draw a new spring banner and put it up to counteract the rain we are having this week. It's greatly inspired by this wonderful book, Rosie's Walk, a favorite around here.

We finally watched Squid and the Whale over the weekend after having it for so long (netflix) and we really liked it. Much to discuss. I also have been reading reviews of Reign Over Me, the new dramatic movie with Adam Sandler (the reviews aren't so hot) and laughed out loud reading one review in the Oregonian when the reviewer referred to Sandler as "pulling a Mork" which apparently is the industry term for a comedy actor going dramatic. This is so awesome. I now plan to say all the time even when it doesn't apply.

Speaking of pulling a Mork, I am super excited to hook up with rock stars Kay and Ann of the mighty Mason-Dixon fame this week while they are in town doing their crazy knitting thang and book signing (at Abundant Yarn this Wednesday night, for all you locals) the eggplant and I hope to ruin them with baked goods and bad puns.

No way!? Way.

Mariko said she was the last one to try this no knead bread, but she wasn't. I tried it this week, and oh lord. Like Mariko, I also used the recipe found in The Oregonian published recently. I had been reading about this over at not martha as well, and finally tried it.

While making it, I thought "cool, but no biggy" mostly because I don't like have cooking projects go so long unfinished (over 24 hours) but then I ate the bread. Not just good, but crazy good. I am a real bread snob and unless I shlep over to the Pearl Bakery in NW or Ken's, fancy bread is not in our regular diet because it's not convient to get. But this bread. . . so good that I am freaking out. The long rise with such little yeast gives it almost a sourdough taste and it's just amazing. Please try it. And have lots of butter on hand. Oh it's good plain, but so good with butter and jam.

Some info: I used Red Star yeast and Gold Medal organic unbleached flour.

coming next week. . .

It's almost that time again! Coming soon, (next Wednesday, March 28, at 8:00 AM PDT to be exact), the single issues of Mailorder #6 will be available for sale.

In mailorder #6 you will find in your red envelope:

• A full-sized ragdoll sewing pattern, suitable for both boy and girl dolls
• 5 doll clothes patterns: Pants, shirt, dress, pinafore, and bloomers
• Full color professionally printed official mailorder recipe card
• Mailorder merit badge for the merit badge plaque
• A hidden secret word, which can be entered on kingpod to redeem a prize
• A mini paper project - an illustrated hanging portrait of the ragdolls

Okay, a word to my Australian friends, please e-mail me if this sale in the wee hours for you, we can work something out. You special subscribers will receive your issues sometime in the next week (or the week after for you international members) and don't forget your subscriber issue will include the Official Mailorder Embroidered Patch! How exciting!

If you sign up on my mail list over at Kingpod, you will get an e-mail reminder when it's on sale next week.

 

it's the little things.

I love slang. Last year for my birthday my friends got me this set of slang flashcards and I have been trying really hard to incorporate some new ones into my vocab. Like my father, I am pretty bad at it-and this I find endlessly amusing. Pete, on the other hand, can bust these out like a pro. . . .what a guy.

We have been regularly using hoopty and po-po because these two things come up so often in our neighborhood-and Pete has been using hater for awhile now, why is this so funny? It just is.

I need to get the second set. And everything else on this site, actually. I realize "talking" about slang is so uncool. You just have to use these, you know, in context, and never mention it at all-like you have been using these words your whole life. . .but I think just owning these cards shows I am not so cool, and need slang help. And I am happy to have it. I will be that parent totally embarrassing my kids by using slang. We all can have goals.

sheets+grammie=quilts

Awhile back I got the girls new bedding. Up until now they had just white and cream, which was nice, but I thought they would like something more cheerful. So I got this set with the shams but didn't want to get the matching quilts--cause come on, it was just getting too expensive and feels wrong for me to buy a quilt, you know?

They don't like top sheets (can you blame them?) so I took the two top sheets over to Grammie's along with some backing fabric and she quilted them up, with batting in-between and added the binding. So I think the quilts ended up costing about $25 each, not the $175 they were in the store. Now, I realize the incredible advantage I have with Grammie-her amazing talent, expertise, and her Gammill sewing machine, which can quilt these up in no time, but I still think it's worth doing on a regular machine too. Especially if you have a lovely patterned sheet and aren't up for patchwork. Or you could just tie it off and not struggle running it through your machine at all. I remember Grammie used to make duvet covers for me out of sheet sets when I was little, Garfield seems to be my most vivid memory, and I loved them-

Thanks so much Grammie!! The girls love them too and so does my bank account.

so flippin' happy about this!

I just noticed today that flickr has a new feature, Collections, that allows you to bundle sets under another bigger category . . .so like sets within sets. This is HUGE. Amazing. I have been wishing for this feature for so long, and I guess I wasn't alone. I have so many Tie One On sets now, which is awesome, but was getting so hard to locate and flip through, not to mention all these other personal weird sets-now I finally can organize!

I cleaned up a bit and then felt instantly paralyzed by the obvious need to reorganize all my sets and photos. I have a tons of art and craft projects not in sets at all, just floating around in space, and many that are in the wrongs sets, just a lot of randomness all over-but fortunately the Tie One On sets are squeaky clean. If mailorder weren't on the boards for this weekend I would be doing this for sure. . .for now it will have to wait.

My only complaint is now there are teeny tiny mosaics you view instead of the single photo set image and they are too small. And it seems you can't display both sets and collections on your personal page-but still this is all so good. .

I wish I could grab an image of the mosaics to show here, but I couldn't figure it out in 5 minutes, which seems to be my breaking point nowadays.