angry chicken

friday, I'm in love

there are few things that make me happier than watching people totally rock and sing their hearts out on you tube. makes me cry and is totally awesome.

happy friday.

re-fashioned small style

I recently was the recipient of some clothing castaways. It's always more fun re-fashioning other people's clothes, or thrifted clothes, than clothes from my own closet, I think. I take more risks and am much more ruthless with the scissors. Free is such a good price. This top, (quite cute as-is) was commandeered by Miss D-

 

A short sleeve jumper appeared in its place-

And the sleeves turned into leg-warmers. She loves it, as do I. I am so digging this rag-tag-box-car-kid style. Here's the list of alterations, which may not be that helpful, because it really just only makes sense to make the decisions as you sew when doing this type of thing. That, and try it on about 100 times.

• The front was stitched up, making the cardigan a dress
• The sleeves removed, and made thinner, creating leg warmers
• The buttons shifted and were reinforced
• There is a new large box pleat in the back, taking up some girth
• The shoulder seams were raised.

Most of the edges are serged with a 3 thread rolled hem, but some edges are raw and look fine that way. I used a large zig-zag when I stitched up the cardigan. It was a collaborative effort, with lots of opinions thrown in by the 4-year old. Thank you so much miss black apple!

And wow, the alarm clocks! Who knew you all had so much experience with the moonglow? So, I lost the auction—curses. I will keep looking and there will be another round of this, I will not be beaten.

alarm clocks (bedside)

We need a new bedside alarm clock. The one we have is a $3.99 special that is aesthetics horrible and makes me grumpy whenever look at it.  There are plenty of swell ones out there, but finding an alarm function and crazy good style at an affordable price is elusive. Here's where I am at so far. This one above from ll bean—

 

This cost prohibitive, although stellar, George Nelson clock from Velocity

Another from ll bean. This one glows as the sun comes up. Could be cool, could be annoying. And I can't tell if it looks too cheap-y.

I have seen this one at UO in person, it's much smaller than it seems and is great is such a horrible way—but no alarm function.

The one I really want is vintage and I am waiting for the auction to end—I will report back.

We usually don't need an alarm (we have 3 human-shaped ones which have no snooze feature) but sometimes we do. We had some friends in college who had an alarm clock that had a sound activated snooze feature. So, when you want to hit snooze, you had to yell. Like, yell something, probably not a word, because it was first thing in the morning. The sounds coming from that bed must have been unholy. I thought this was the funniest thing ever and still do.

more stuff in a jar-

More random food in jar photos. This one has really made me happy this week. It's pureed chipotle peppers in adobo sauce. I always see this called for in recipes and it's always in very small quantities. Straight from the can, it's a mess. It's hard to save, a pain to freeze, and so I leave it out and just add cayenne pepper. But the taste so different than cayenne pepper—so nice and smoky, I needed to stop avoiding it out of sheer laziness.

 

I got a tip from a great cookbook (which I will blog about soon) to dump the whole can in a cuisinart, puree it, and then just keep it in the fridge—scoping out what you need. It's so good. Now it's in eggs, soups, stews, rice and beans—all that. I'm sure I will burn out on it soon, but I haven't yet. A little goes a long way and this method makes it so easy to not use too much. This is the brand I buy, the only type I know of, actually. An amazing soup recipe using this will be coming soon, but right now I am dealing with a diaper-less baby who is suspiciously quiet.

Thanks for all your eMailorder #9 orders!

eMailorder #9 is here!

 

I am sincerely excited to present to you eMailorder #9! This is a PDF file you download and print at home. It's not mailed to you. So, that's sad if you are missing the old red envelope, but happy if you want it right away—way cheaper for everyone!

In eMailorder #9 you will find:

• An eMailorder sewing project - House Slippers and Matching Travel Bag Pattern in 3 sizes (fits women's shoe size 5-10.) Please watch the extremely informative and mildly amusing video tutorial of how to sew this project.
• An eMailorder paper project - 2 door signs kindly asking your visitors to remove their shoes upon entering your home.
• A card containing a recipe sure to become a new favorite.

It's a mere $8 and It's right here. Please note the fine print about hitting the "return to kingpod" button after you pay for it with paypal, otherwise the PDF won't be sent to your computer (just e-mail me if this happens, no worries.)

You will need some 5/8" FOE (fold over elastic, available at SewZanne's) and you can revisit the FOE tutorial I made over here. 

Thank you kindly,

Amy Karol

Your eMailorder Secretary

old bread

So. Old bread. I have tried making croutons before, but they weren't perfect. Just not crispy enough. They are so easy, but I just never got the system down. Now I have it. I am addicted to these and it is so pleasing to use up the last 3-4 old pieces of bread. I save bread bits all the time—freezing them usually, but then only want to make bread pudding. The problem with this is I am the only bread pudding eater in the house, so it's not good for me. The bread bits sit in the freezer forever and get all gross and freezer burnt. I know I can make breadcrumbs too, but I seem to never use them, to be honest. Now croutons— I use those, but can't justify buying them, of course.

Okay, this is so simple, but the key for me was adding olive oil and baking it in the toaster/convection oven.

I cube up 3-4 pieces of bread, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper (and garlic salt, cheese powder, or some other nasty thing is you are feeling crazy—but plain is really nice too) and bake for 20 minutes in a 350° oven. I use a 9" x 9" pan and never use more than 4 pieces f bread in this size. I don't stir, just bake, and let it cool. Perfect. I use these on salads and in soup. I feel a bit silly writing about this, because you probably already do this, but who the heck knows—it's made my life better.

The fruit go to the city.

I made this paper cut for a special birthday girl earlier this month. Those January b-days are so sneaky.

It's monday and I need more of the weekend. I have a ton of projects on deck—some involving fake fur. What the?

Even more exciting, I am 99.9% done with eMailorder #9! It will be available very soon as a PDF download to print and sew at home and there's even a special video tutorial companion to it. Someone take my Flip away from me. Woot!

some books-

Recently Read:

I know I posted about this book, Lonely Werewolf Girl a bit back, but I have to give it another shout-out since I finished it and so badly want to read it again. If werewolves, punk bands, Scottish highlands, court intrigue, high fashion, joan jett, drug abuse, a little cross-dressing with a lot of witty humor sound good to you—please read this book.

Still Reading:

I got this book, The Best American Non-required Reading 2008 for Christmas and I love it. It's edited by Dave Eggers, among others, and there's a section in front that lists awesome things like "Best American Things for Sale That This Man on the Internet Will Sell You" and "Best American Facebook Groups" which is laugh-out-loud funny. The introduction Judy Blume is fascinating.

 

Still Reading:

This book, Outlander I discovered while combing through Goodreads one night and found myself in a genre I never knew existed—Time Travel Romance/Historical Fiction, or something similar. Who knew? So random and so RAD. I found this title and realized later that when it was written it was on the best seller list for like, ever. So, there you go. So far, it's great. And there's 6 more, (or at least 5 more, I don't remember) so if I really love them, I can have them with me for a bit before experiencing the heartbreak that comes from finishing an amazing book series.

The Tomten—for real

The Tomten outfit Sadie and I made for Delia for Winter Solstice was a huge hit. HUGE. Two nights ago, when Delia wore it all to bed (the whole outfit) she woke up twice, hysterical, because her beard had come off. Here's a drawing of all the pieces. I have not found suitable keys yet, but they appear in the book below, and they look cute in the illustration, so I added them in. This outfit is based on the book combined with the ornament in this post. I got smart and made sure the whole costume worked over the red nightgown I was sewing for her gift anyway.

Some specs:

• The hat is soft fleece. I didn't finish the seams or anything, just made a wide cone and stitched it up. The pattern came with the nightgown pattern below, which was so convenient.
• The smock is felt and made from an enlargement of the smock pattern in my book. To make it look like a pine cone, I cut out strips of scallops and stitched them on (actually Sadie did.) It just ties in the back.
• The beard is one layer of cotton quilt batting with elastic sewn on.
• The keys don't exist, but should, so I am looking.
• The slippers are the classic ballet leather ones.
• The red nightgown is a simple pull over in red mini-corduroy made from McCall's 5510. I love this very versatile pattern. It's great for dresses, nightgowns, and costumes—super easy and fast.

The Tomten says in character all day. She is quite solemn and a bit gruff, and it's all very very funny. She knows this, but won't crack a smile.

We got this surprise in the mail—The Tomten and the Fox book with no note or message. It was quite thrilling. We now know who sent it (thank you!) and love it so much. This whole Tomten business is so wonderful. I love the woodsy, natural, bearded little troll gig. There is a lot of princess love in this house and this is such a nice balance—you know what I mean.

 

peanuts, still funny. sort of.

Sadie is reading Peanuts.

I got this beautiful new edition of a Peanuts book a bit back. Actually it was for Delia, but Sadie (the reader) took it, and it's now squirreled away in her top bunk. I found this 1964 edition at Powell's over the weekend and the cover graphics just kill me. So cool. We can hear her laughing, hard, every night at these strips— which warms my heart because I loved Peanuts so much growing up. Nothing like that sad/funny combo. She thinks Lucy's yelling is so funny, which it is, but is kind of depressing too, since I think I read Lucy is modeled after Charles Schulz's first wife or something like that.

I love this cover. Charlie Brown is the only one happy, for a change.

easy yummy dinner.

homemade ornaments

During the Arctic Blast 2008 we made some ornaments to give away as gifts. They were super easy and fun. Nothing better than shrinking plastic in the oven.

We actually made these in a crazy way. I didn't have sand paper (which I needed for the matte finish) and the girls wanted to use media other than colored pencil on the sheets (which is what works best to my knowledge) so I had them draw/paint/pastel draw on regular paper, scanned that, and then printed it onto the shrink film for ink jet printers which is what I had on hand in the first place-no sanding required. How's that for taking the long road? But they look great.

Here's an update on the CPSC testing handmade toys issue. Looks like there are some tentatively approved exemptions, which is awesome.

the sticky orange stuff

I found myself inundated with oranges in the last few weeks (a good problem to have) so I was thrilled to see the orange themed January Martha on the stands and boldly tried the marmalade recipe. I have never made marmalade before. I like marmalade, I don't love it, but I like it a lot. One recipe called for a split vanilla bean and so I made that one, and now I do love it. A lot. Okay, can I just say I got a ridiculous thrill out of making this stuff? The 8 oranges made a ton of marmalade. More than I know what to do with. I have about 8 jars in the freezer. I gave some to mom and great grandpa, both of whom like marmalade, but not a lot of people do, so I think I will have a lot extra. Even my one good Canadian friend didn't help me out by taking a jar. Bad.

There's the vanilla bean—the sticks in there. So, you use the whole orange to make this, peel, rind and all— you just cook it with some sugar for a bit. That's it. I mean, read the recipe in the magazine, but that's really all there is to it. Amazing and so wonderfully frugal. Celebratory scones are in order.

I liked marmalade as a kid, at least I think I did, we never had it much in the house. My first introduction to marmalade was from the Paddington Bear books, which I haven't read since I was little. I need to revisit these, I have no copies in the house. I remember really liking them, but that's all.

And why are there no shops locally that carry the coolest canning jars ever, Weck jars? I am trying to get a great new baking shop to carry them here in town and I think I may have convinced them—I will report back.

handmade needs your help-please act on this today!

Today is the last day in get in your comments to the CPSC regarding the new mandatory testing for all items made for kids under 12 that is going into effect in 35 days.

There is a ton of info out there on this but in a nutshell— in response to freaky happenings regarding toy safety in the last year, the CPSP has written up a crazy-rigid testing procedure that will pretty much wipe out handmade toys and items for kids under 12. Not to be dramatic, but it's true. All items for sale, handmade or not, would have to be tested by a 3rd party and it would be so cost prohibitive that handmade items would perish and so would the shops that carry handmade items for sale. For instance, a crafter couldn't sew a bib from my book to sell, nor could anyone sell a handmade doll on etsy, or even a knitted cap or diaper cover without paying a 3rd party to test the item for $1000 of dollars. Insane!

So, what to do?

This site has a ton of information, including online petitions, documents to send to senators, letters, logos and the like. It fully explains the restrictions and proposed changes to the wording of the CPSC act to make it handmade friendly. Check it out.  This site also is well organized and has a lot of useful links.

If you feel so inclined, please, please, please get in your comments and online petitions today and hopefully this won't go into effect the way it is written now, which would totally suck. Thank you!

 

a new tradition for the holidays

This is our new Christmas cake. It's an almond bundt cake made using this crazy almond filling and a recipe from the inside of the label on the can. It's amazing. I found it at New Seasons here in Portland when I was looking for almond paste. I was struck by this can and am a sucker for recipes on cans, so I ended up with this in the cart instead. Even my not-so-into-almond-flavor husband said it was amazing. I served it Christmas Eve to my family with softly whipped cream and stewed berries and it was lovely, but the real treat was eating it the 2 days afterwards as a moist hand-held-coffee-cake-type thing. It got better each day and then was declared a once a year treat, because it's that good.

Here's the can of happiness. I love the way the logo looks more like an airline company than a food product. The recipe is here. I wouldn't try this with any other almond product, this is not almond paste nor is it marzipan. The almond flavor is not too strong and no almond extract is used in the cake (and I didn't use any in the glaze either, even though it called for it) so there no almond-y bite that can get overwhelming at times. I think this is the best site ever, by the way, it's way high on the random scale.

Happy 2009!