angry chicken

a new silk dress has been sewn

I am really happy with how this silk dress turned out. It's made from Simplicity 2615. I struggled a bit with the pattern design. Not that the pattern was hard, it's very easy. It's got no closure, I used a narrow elastic piece stretched around the inside to cinch the waist but there is also a sash/ties included in the pattern. I have mixed feelings about dresses that tie in the back. Wearing them makes me feel like an 8 year old and the knot  annoys me when I sit. I prefer a belt for sure.

The sleeves are kimono style so there are no sleeves to set in. What I struggled with is the style. It was a bit too modern for me, but I really wanted a simple shape to show off these stripes. I didn't want darts breaking them up. So I made a few changes but I realized it could only go so far away from the original before it went bad and I was fighting to make it something it could never be, so I tried to work with it. I added pleats to bring up the sleeves, added this floppy bow, and cut the dress front a little different. I made it one piece instead of two, to avoid a center seam.

I love the length. I only tacked the bow at the top, so it can easily say hello while I am wearing layers. The shoes, which I mentioned a bit back, are I guess nearly not as granny as I thought, they now have them at Urban Outfitters, so there you go. I will mention that I do love them and am not wearing them in an ironic way, (same goes for dr. scholls.)

Unrelated-

• Apron makers, I am accepting your apron for the Paris theme over on Tie One On through this week! The new theme will be up on April 1st. Thanks so much for your submissions already!

• I am currently trying out samples I bought from Strange Invisible, a natural perfume company. It's so hard to find companies that don't use synthetic fragrances, and this one really doesn't. I can't decide on what to get, the 5 samples I have are all amazing. For really simple scents, I want to try blending my own. So far, I have not found the right balance yet and am tryng not to waste a ton of essential oil.

• In a steady stream of learning around here I was delighted to find out about water clocks and flower clocks. Who knew?

Modern Log Cabin Quilting

I have been looking forward to Susan Beal's newest book, Modern Log Cabin Quilting: 25 Simple Quilts and Patchwork Projects for a bit now and our publisher (Potter Craft) just sent me a review copy, not that I wouldn't have run out to buy it anyway, it's fantastic.

This one is a favorite of mine. The colors!

 

This book is all about log cabin quilts and how to make them. It has complete patterns and directions for both quilts and smaller projects using the log cabin piecing technique which Susan explains clearly. There's also information on the history of log cabin quilts and beautiful photography featuring the projects in a clean unfussy way. (I am biased here, I worked with her amazing photographer Alex Grablewski on my two books and I admire her work so much.) And I just gotta say, for those of you who have never met Susan, she is a wonderful woman—an enthusiastic craft and sewing supporter and champion of the creative arts here in Portland and online. Congrats on a lovely book, Susan!

Portlanders, come say hi to Susan at Modern Domestic this Saturday from 5-6 (hands-on! make your own quilt block!) and she will be at Powells this Sunday at 4, and because she is so awesome and so organized, she has a handy list of all her events right here. They look really fun, She is doing great stuff out and about all the way through September. Here's a link to her blog tour as well, which has some book reviews and interviews with Susan.

And, to help Japan, she also has set up a website for her Quilts for Quake Survivors project with Daniela. Very cool.

no nonsense spiced carrot cake

We had many carrots on hand and I am trying to get some more veggies in one of my daughters specifically, who seems to shun all fresh food, so carrot cake was made. I had fun researching this because there are about a zillion recipes out there and I have never found the perfect one, so I have always moved on. But this one is golden. It's very plain, no raisins, coconut, pineapple, or walnuts, all of which appear in some recipes. Also, it uses yogurt which I always have. There's just a glaze, not a frosting. It's pretty light as cakes go, especially as crazy carrot cake with cream cheese frosting goes, which is too rich for me usually.

The only changes I made:

• I used 1/4 cup melted butter instead of the oil

• 1/2 teaspoon of my spice mix for the spices

• Oh! And I used a mixture of a little powdered sugar, and apple juice for the glaze, and the apple juice instead of water was so very yummy. I must remember to do this again.

• I also used a mix of 1/2 cup white and 1/2 cup white whole wheat flour.

The recipe is from Everday Food. Martha has quite a few, but this one was it for me. I might try to reduce the sugar to 2/3 cup (total) next time, it was a bit sweeter than it needed to be. It's really moist. Like very moist. You know how carrot cakes are. It's even better the next day.

a cranberry girl dress

Liddy has her new costume on. It's much simpler than Sadie's and Delia's—much more fitting for an almost 4 year old.

The design comes from a family favorite, Peter in Blueberry Land. Warning, this link is for a mini version, not the nice big one I am holding here. At times all three girls have asked for a Cranberry Girl dress. I never got around to sewing one for Sadie or Delia, but when Lydia asked for one a few weeks ago, I realized it was the perfect dress for her costume and she got to choose it! Just like her sisters did. And boy am I happy it was an easy one. We have been sick, Pete's been working way too much overtime, and I have been working like crazy on birthcharts, so a nice simple dress was the perfect project. I sewed this in a day.

Here are the Cranberry Girls. The book falls open to this page, of course. Sadie and Delia have made it very clear they are still wanting Cranberry Girl dresses. Liddy is thrilled with her outfit. There is still a search for light green tights (!?) and red shoes, but I'm also pointing out to her how similar it looks to the picture, and trying not to dwell on what we are missing (like 4 more dresses).

This photo breaks my heart.

She was having a hard evening right before I gave this to her. Being almost 4 is pretty hard, especially when your older sisters are not so into the loud crayon requests over and over and over again. When I gave this to her, her face lit up. I had the polishing cloth all ready, she ran to get an apple, (her version of a large cranberry) and the bonnet we already had—I'd sewn this for Sadie years ago. I had the fabric already for this project. It's white muslin and some really nice red cotton sateen. The binding on the neck is satin and there are three white buttons in the back. I drafted this pattern, but so many patterns would work for this, like McCalls 6197, but I'd save the yardage and just gather a rectangular piece for the skirt. She is now sick and slept in this dress last night. She woke up and said "it's wrinkled, but that's okay, I smoothed it out" and went back to sleep.

Unrelated:

I have a new banner up (hello spring!) and new links and a new handy shop button taking you to a page showing everything I sell. All the PDF emailorders are hard to keep track of, hopefully this helps.

a very cool way to catalog my sewing patterns

Screen shot form PatternFile showing a new pattern entry

I little while back I got an e-mail from a woman regarding PatternFile, a program she had written to catalog sewing patterns. She asked if I'd like to test drive it for a possible review and having, um, a lot of sewing patterns, and thinking this sounded like such a cool idea I said yes indeed! About 30 minutes after downloading the program and using the PatternFile Plus features, I had cataloged over 60 of my patterns, complete with images and line drawings (including the back of the envelopes) by only entering the pattern number. That's it. Magic! I didn't have to enter anything else. It was ridiculously fun and by adding tags as I go I can now search for "sadie", for example, which wil up any pattern I have sewn for her as well. All the big companies are represented with this auto fill feature—McCall's, Simplicity, etc. and also some smaller indie pattern companies, like Colette Patterns and Amy Butler.

 

Screen Shot from PatternFile showing a pattern collection

There are more cool features other than this autofill-magic feature (which is only available with the subscription price level called PatternFile Plus) that allows you to enter a pattern so effortlessly. There's a search feature so you can see all your patterns by type—dresses, skirts, blouses, etc, or by size, and also a friends feature, so you can see what patterns your friends have.

The site is really informative and describes the program really well. I'd start by reading the Press Kit description here to see what all this program does. There are so many free services online, and Morgan, the software designer, has some great thoughts on their blog about why paying for this product makes sense and she is offering a 10 day free trial, which is awesome and would allow you to have some fun and see what you think. And there will be an app soon for your iphone so you will have access to your whole pattern collection at the fabric store. What a handy way to check your yardage!

I've already used this program a lot, not just for looking up what I have to get ideas about what to sew, but also as a quick check when I want to buy new patterns (on sale, when they are .99!) and don't want to repeat any. I do my pattern shopping online at the manufacturer sites and then jot the numbers down so when I get to the store I just go right to the drawers. With this program I can easily check my collection first, because I have been known to buy the same pattern before. And now I can keep tabs on what my friends have, too, so we can compare notes. It's pretty dang cool.

3 mice live here

Vernal Equinox is this weekend and it feels like it could snow around here. It's not that cold really, but you know what they say in Portland—it's a wet type of cold. We still plan to celebrate the first day of spring as usual but this might be putting on rain jackets and boots and visiting the few daffodils we have blooming before running inside for hot cocoa.

Some links:

• Grammie is showing some fabulous customer quilts she has machine quilted over on her Tillie Studio Blog. The photos showcase the machine quilting patterns so nicely, and the quilt tops are looking so good.

• Casey over at  Elegant Musings has a great tutorial on making fabric covered belts.

• Maison Bouche now has their Easter chocolate collection up and it looks wonderful, of course. I am dying over the wrapper on the chocolate bar with the picture on the little dog coming out of an egg!

• This huge list of links on book binding complied by Craftstew is outstanding! And I was happy to be included, thank you.

tuppence a bag

We all had a great time last weekend at the Mary Poppins Sing-A-Long (it's still going on this weekend, too!) at Cinema 21 here in Portland. The kids got these goodie bags with all sorts of items: a kazoo, a popper, a pixistick, a mini umbrella, a fan—all to use at various parts during the film, which was screened with all the words to the songs, facilitating the sing-a-long part nicely. I think I embarrassed Delia a bit with how loud I was singing. These flashcards were to be used at various times as well and now are prominently displayed in our house.

Unrelated to Mary Poppins-

There are many lists out there providing links on how to help the Japan disaster and our family is discussing these options, but the girls also have many questions and emotions that aren't addressed just by sending money somewhere, as do I. In the past year daily meditation has really helped me and I found these clear directions on tonglen meditation, which allows me to send out good vibes (my words) without ignoring that I feel sad. If the girls seem up for it I have also used this type of format as a way to guide them in a short meditation, but even more often just a talk about how they are feeling and it's pretty awesome.

more with the saved bread

Back to my bread saving. Not just for croutons and breadcrumbs.

I'm a fiend for bread pudding but always felt it was too rich, until my friend Erin gave me a recipe years ago that was much lighter, very forgiving, and incredibly tasty. I have modified it a little over the years. I have seen recipes for bread pudding and they always call for way more eggs, butter and cream (or all three) than I think is reasonable. This one is much lighter and so very good. I make it sightly different each time but here's the basic recipe:

• 6 cups bread, cubed. I use about 8 slices that are old, saved in the freezer. I use them frozen, tear them up and they are normally a mix of white and whole wheat and they are almost always the heels only.
• 1/4 cup melted butter (I usually use even less)
• 2 cups milk
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup sugar
• a little vanilla and some spices, like cinnamon (I use a teaspoon of my spice mix)
• 1 handful of berries (frozen or fresh, or chocolate chips, stone fruit, whatever you like) I used frozen raspberries in this one, which is a favorite.

I put the bread in an 8" x 8" casserole dish or pan, mix the other ingredients and pour them over the bread and then let it sit overnight in the fridge. This is key. I have tried it many times without letting it sit overnight, and it's never the right texture. So just make this the night before. Bake at 375 degrees for about 35-45 minutes. Let sit a little and then have it warm with a little maple syrup, lemon juice, and powdered sugar. Erin likes to drizzle a whiskey/powdered sugar glaze.

You can make this savory by omitting the sugar, adding about 1/2-1 cup grated cheese, and some mushrooms and onion that have been sauteed, or chilies, or just cheese, or some meat type item (like chopped ham or sausage) and some herbs. Delicious!

I love using my bread up for this dish because it's so good and so satisfying using up the weird stash of bread heels I insist on keeping that seems to grow at an alarming rate. I know it's not the prettiest dish to photograph, to to me, it's a beautiful photo of happiness.

bias-cut blouse

This is a bias cut blouse I sewed and is a new favorite pattern of mine. It's based on an existing blouse I have which has no darts and is only 3 pieces, one front and 2 back, all cut on the bias. Oh, there is a collar as well, so 4 pieces. And I added a bow, so 5 pieces. But still.

I sewed it up, after drafting the pattern and fussing with it a bit, in a navy rayon and it was perfect—but was a horrible candidate for photographing. All the details were lost and it just looked black, so I am showing this spring-like one instead, although I wear the navy one at least once a week. I changed the direction of the stripes on the collar and on the bow because I really nerd out on these kind of details. The removable bow can be worn on the side or front. For a closure, I used a vintage button and a loop. This is a silk, but it's not slinky, it's brushed, so you would mistake it for rayon. I got it at Mill Ends.

How much do I love my fake bangs?! Really, they are ridiclous and I need 3 more sets— for different lengths, you know. The girls love wearing them, too. They have always loved the man wigs we have (from Carlos Santata and Magnum PI costumes) and the craziness and screaming that happens when the kittens run off with them should be recorded.

Regarding stripes, bows, and blouses:

• Gertie's amazing striped dress!

• Super cute fabric bow tutorials at Colette Patterns Blog, by Caitlin

• Melissa's lovely blouse

As I post this, I am reading about the earthquake in Japan and reeling. So happy to hear from a few friends that they are okay and feeling so sad about all the loss and pain there right now.

happy chocolate experience

Chocolates and candies from Maison Bouche

I got a lovely offer to try some complementary samples of chocolates from Mason Bouche after I mentioned my love for them a bit back. And you know, seeing as it was for research and all, it took me about a second to hit reply to that e-mail, typing as fast as I ever have before.

These small floral flavored chocolates are divine. A little nibble goes a long way. They are called "The Botanicals" They are old fashioned tasting but bright, not too overpowering, and the mouth feel is perfect. I am a little picky about chocolates (very, actually) and as flavored chocolates go, these are some of my favorites.

Fleur de Sel caramels. These are sweet for a salted caramel. I could use a little more salt, but I might be a bit warped. I like my salted caramels to almost hurt. Saying that, these were gone in one afternoon.

These salted dark chocolates are addictive. Really. They come in milk chocolate, too, I think. And that cat! I love him! So often dark chocolate has a chalky texture, but these are smooth as silk.

This is a dark chocolate bar with cookie bits and it makes me want to cry in a good way when I eat it. I'm not exaggerating.

This is is my favorite and is what got me obsessed with this brand. It's not flavored but has bits of cookie in it. It's like a very high-falutin' Wonka Bar. Is that the best I can come up with? The description on the site is much better than what I just wrote.

And this one, a milk chocolate bar infused with bergamot, is my new favorite. It is so good—really well done. I have had earl grey chocolate before and this is the best I've had by far. It's not too strongly flavored and is lovely as a milk chocolate.

This brand of chocolate and candies is pretty much my ideal—the packaging and graphics are to die for, they are delicious and have the right texture, which I am picky about, and the flavors are special, but not too strange. You know what I mean, I don't need my chocolate to expand my taste boundaries. I just want to eat it and be happy.

Holding these bars feels so gifty and lovely and decadent. I would be lying if I were not to mention that receiving a whole lot of these makes it seem even more special and more decadent. It does. And I am raising some little chocolate connoisseurs, as well. Two of which even like dark chocolate! I do think this habit is online only for me, if any of you Portland peeps see this brand here in town, please let me know. I am really curious to see what Easter candies they will have.

making toys and learning to sew

The 2 older girls have had a surge in sewing interest the last month or so. Sadie made this amazing inchworm from one of our favorite books ever, Hillary's Wee Wonderfuls 24 Dolls to Love and Sew. She sleeps with the book in her bunk. For this project, she cut out the pieces and sewed it all herself. Delia got help with her dinosaur, but also did a lot of the handwork herself, including the ever-popular stuffing. Delia is actually more interested in cross-stitch which is thrilling to me.

I remember actually worrying a little about giving them opportunities to try handwork—building, sewing, knitting, and all that. For many years, they seemed not too interested. I didn't push it, but just always had supplies around. When their skills caught up with their ideas, they took off, and now devour all craft books and sewing books and are starting to knit as well. I think just having books around them helps. I don't really talk about it much but they always see me making something, so it's in their daily life. I was so excited to have them start sewing, like when they were way too little. I wanted so badly to do projects with them. Now I can barely keep up. It's pretty awesome. And what an incredible book Hillary has written! I keep singing her praises out loud when we sew another one of her designs. Her directions are so clear and amen to full size patterns!

Sewing with them is a homeschooling dream because of all the steps, planning, math, and problem solving that happens. Because it's me with only 3 of them they can tackle much more exciting projects because I can help them as much as they need for as long as they want and they get to decide on exactly what they want to do, instead of being told what the project is.

Unrelated-

• I got these shoes and I love them so much, as do my feet. I am wearing them with tights right now. They are vintage cute and yes, some might find them incredibly ugly, but others (myself included) will appreciate the granny-chic of them.

• Speaking of grannies, Grammie is blogging! Check her out over at the Tillie Studio Blog and see what she has been up to with customer quilts and musings on machine quilting.

paint and pen and artwork storage

We have been doing a lot of painting on canvas board lately. It started with the Mona Lisa self portraits and kept going from there. They love adding details in pen after the paint dries. It's so cool to see them painting the blocks of color and leaving it, knowing they are planning to add details later. This one of Sadie's is incredible to me. I reminds me so much of one of our favorite books of all time (both for the illustration style and text) The Runaway Dinner.

Here's Delia's. It's a dancer on stage. I love it to death. I find myself staring at these all the time. The canvas board is wonderful— it's inexpensive and provides support, so they can really brush hard and add paper collage or even 3-D materials if they want to. I can't find baby's because I am a bad mom.

I'm feeling the urge to do some early spring cleaning around here like some giving away/recycling of toys, books, clothes and stuff, including our massive amounts of kids artwork. Here are some links I found for ideas about artwork storage and saving it and how to also recycle it-

• What to do with your kid's artwork?
• And this from Ask Kiddo about the same topic with great suggestions in the comments.

*Thank you so much for all your orders for the Custom Birthcharts! I am lettering like a demon and will be busy for a while with these. It's so cool to see all the combinations and you all have some really amazing names! Outstanding!