angry chicken

pencil sharpeners

A bit back I was discussing staplers and someone asked me about my favorite pencil sharpeners. This heavy brass one is my all time favorite. It's not just my favorite sharpener, it's one of my favorite objects in the world. I bought it in college when I worked at an art supply store. I had many different kinds I used in art class, but after I bought this one—it became The One. Of course, in that freaky "only in blog-world" type-way, almost the same words have been typed before about what seems to be an identical sharpener over here at Creature Comforts, which I found while searching for mine to link to. It's really such a substantial wonderful useful object—it makes me so happy.

I just realized I've had this 14 years. I'm so happy I have never lost it. So, I can't find it online anywhere. It's made by Möbius+Ruppert in Germany but it looks so much like the KUM that Creature Comforts writes about. Maybe they are very similar? If anyone can find these, let me know. Maybe there was a name change? I swear this one was more money than the KUM one when I bought it. I want to say it was closer to $20. I could be very wrong about all this.

This is my second runner up pencil sharpener—the brass bullet. It's not nearly as pleasing to use, but is a good back up and handy to have around. I can see some broken off blue colored pencil in there—the kids use this one a lot.

• My favorite all time kids pencil sharpener is the grip trio sharpener over at Stubby Pencil Studio. I love it for many reasons, but mostly because it contains the shavings, to it's great to pack on the go. I also greatly appreciate the inexpensive wood KUM sharpeners that you can get replacement blades for. While looking over here I am reminded how much I love the colored pencil selection at this shop.

• I really would like to get a wall mounted pencil sharpener, and most likely will—nothing beats those, right? I want to get a heavy duty one that will last forever, so let me know if you all are using one you love. I think my grandpa still has one in his garage. I should see if I can unmount it. Maybe that is weird. I will have to discuss this with my brother first, because I bet he wants it.

• I also want an electric one, because they are just good fun and so helpful for when we have to sharpen like, 30 pencils which seems to come up a lot. I feel like I spend a significant amount of time sharpening colored pencils. I am in love with the retro ugliness of this one. I will admit I get a little crazy if I see a dull pencil lying around. It's like vampires stopping to count rice—I just have to sit and sharpen them.

I am limiting this post to pencil sharpeners but I also have strong love for lead holders—which is what I drafted with in college. (Not mechanical pencils which for some reason make me totally insane in a bad way.) This was way back when. Before we all had e-mail. You had to register for classes in person! We thought we were so cool when we could register by phone. Ha! And yes, vampires have to pick up rice if you throw it at them. A good tip to remember if you forgot your stake.

It's like we are living in a rainforest.

The weather in Portland has been pretty miserable. Lots of rain and not much sun—even for here. A couple weeks ago we happened to be learning about the rainforest in the Magic Tree House book Good Morning, Gorillas along with gorillas, Koko, and sign language. It all seems quite fitting. I wrote a bit about learning from these books, reading one a week, and were are still doing it. It's still been really great for us.

For an indoor activity, I found a list of everyday items made from resources from the rainforest. It comes with these tags which you can cut out and stick on objects to identify. I'm still finding them stuck on things around the house—it's pretty cool. The various worksheets I printed out are from TeacherVision. We subscribe to this resource so we get full access, but I think you can see a few sheets for free.

We do most of our research for these weekly topics from library books (in addition to the Magic Treehouse we are reading that week) but it's nice to have online resources, too. We have been trying to include a mix of field trips, building and crafts, writing and reading, and physical activity with each book. Also cooking, music, and role-play, if it works. Some books lend themselves to more variety than others. It's been so fun and contagious to see their enthusiasm each week. The key for me is to not plan too much. I try to think of it as a survey of topics and not worry if we only discuss or do a few things. Also, if I plan too much, I get disappointed if we don't get to it. It's better if we sort of work on the fly—without much prep work.

We made our own mini-rain forest, with the help of a thrifted terrarium (thanks Grammie!) and some tropical flowers they got to pick out at the nursery. After we moved it indoors we discovered there was a small slug living in the dirt we didn't know about. About 10 days later, it wasn't so small (Huge!) and was crawling around. Pretty gross, but awesome, in that natural gross way.

in a glossy magazine—

I am thrilled to have a sewing project in the newest issue of BUST magazine. It's the music issue—June/July 2010.

I show you how to make undies and a cami from an old t-shirt. In this case, I used a concert T-shirt I had from about 1998 or so. Maybe earlier. I never wear these t-shirts, but can't throw them out—so why not make something from them?

This is a great issue. I wrote down a ton of music, books, and films I need to research. Among the short book reviews, there is a review of this new book, Nomad: From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations which I really would like to read especially after hearing a fascinating interview with the author on NPR.

And completely unrelated:

• I had a lovely birthday! I got my orange cake, courtesy of Grammie and the Dessert Tray, a local bakery here in town that makes a Creamsicle Cake. It was so wonderful in that old-school bakery way. I had it with both chocolate ice cream and raspberry sorbet. I had a piece of my favorite cake made by Papa Haydns, the Cassatta. It's also got a bit of orange in it and they have been making it for years and it's pretty much the perfect dessert in my book. There are much newer, trendier places here in town to get nice desserts, but when I need a sure thing, I always come back to my old-stand by—and it's just perfect.

Revisiting older blog topics that were unresolved:

• I did get rain boots. I bought these Kamiks and I love them so much.

• I did get slippers. These here, and they are the exact pair I had worn out. I'm not sure why I didn't replace them just to start with. I think it was because I get a mental block when I can't just order from Zappos? Not sure. But I love them and will never stray again. Except I am going to sew a new pair of little ballet style slippers (from my own pattern, ahem.) as another option. I love my Haflingers, but they are very cozy-hobbit, and sometimes I just need to have a more vintage-retro option. Especially if I am donning my vintage kimono or something equally fabulous and impractical.

oh, bagels!

I made homemade pretzels a bit back (this will be discussed soon) and had so much fun boiling dough. Bagels were clearly the next project.

I'm not sure why I hadn't tried making homemade bagels before. They are not difficult, don't take long to make (at least with the recipe I used) and are so delicious, they should be illegal. Really, just incredibly good. We love bagels in this house and the really good local ones we buy are .99 cents each. It adds up, man. So, we are making them at home from now on. I made them smaller, 12 from the recipe not 10. The girls love the small size, too. They freeze beautifully.

The recipe I used was from Martha's Baking Handbook and I can't find the recipe online, but found this great post which also used the same Martha recipe with some changes—it's a really really good recipe. The only thing I did differently from this altered version is I used all white flour (I want to try a mix of whole wheat/white next time) and I added about 5-7 minutes to the total baking time.

And I also checked Smitten Kitchen's archives for bagel recipes knowing she would have one, and she does, but dang, that's a lot of text! I just couldn't hang, nor could I wait a day to bake them, so I went for the easier version.

I wanted to make homemade cream cheese for these, but I didn't and really, they got eaten so fast—I didn't get a chance to wait for whey to drip from anything. You know how it goes. Can't speed up that whey drippage. There are many recipes out there for homemade cream cheese, some are simple, some take longer, some use rennet some don't, so I will report back. There is a recipe in this book for cream cheese, but this one looks much simpler. Too simple? Anyone making homemade cream cheese?

new prints—watercolor quilts

I have been really enjoying watercolor recently. I painted these quilt patterns a few months ago and finally have them all ready to go for sale as digital prints. This one is called Red Quilt.

Here is Blue Patchwork

And Snowball Quilt, which is a classic pattern I have always wanted to try on a real quilt, and someday I will.

This is the first time I have reproduced watercolor digitally, and the results are amazing to me. I seriously can't tell when looking at these prints if it's a real watercolor or not—the colors and subtle gradations are so well rendered. I am using my favorite crazy-expensive rag watercolor style paper to print on (archival and all that) so it has a thickness to it which feels really nice. You can read all the specs for this on the print description.

All 3 are available in my etsy shop.

and unrelated:

Okay, getting ready for a birthday around here. Mine. Next week. I am requesting a cake from my family. An Orangesicle Cake. I have named it, but it's up to them to interpret what it will be. I am terribly excited. If you have any recipes (I am thinking orange cake with a marshmallow or 7-minute frosting?) let me know. Maybe a cake with orange marmalade? What I really want is a homemade version of an all-time childhood favorite dessert of mine, which is utterly nasty, I know, but I loved them so much—not the chocolate version but the much less revered Orange Hostess Cupcake.

a magical stapler for some magical books

We make a ton of books around here, and I usually sew them, or have the girls staple them with a stapler I have had since, I don't know—at least 1980. It jams all the time and is a real pain. I hadn't realized there had been such advancement in the world of staplers! Where have I been?

When Sadie and I sampled this stapler, a "one finger" stapler, mind you, it had to come home with us. As did the long arm version—which staples a ton of pages! No more jams and now the girls can make books totally by themselves, which wasn't the case when I was sewing them. This stapler really only needs one finger to use. Even baby uses it with glee and it hasn't jammed yet. I think the middle child is now doing stapler art. She uses it almost as much as scotch tape—which is an impressive feat.

shorts have been sewn

Okay, then! I made some shorts. These are sewn from the pants pattern in Simplicity 2570 which I widened a bit in the thigh. I realized it is much easier to find a shorts pattern I liked from pants/trouser patterns than actually looking for a shorts patterns—which are too casual or athletic for I what I wanted. To find good trouser patterns, I look in the sportswear section of pattern books. They seem to have a lot more styles than the separates—and often I like all the pieces in the group.

   
These are grey linen with a flat front, 2 back darts, no pockets, and side invisible zipper. I wanted them to be smooth and flat and longer than what I am seeing out there. I was going for a 1940s look here and I am really happy with them. They cost about $7 to make.

I added the front tabs and buttons after these were all sewn because they needed an extra something and this sort of detailing is why I sew. The linen can have a mind of its own, but it behaved nicely this time. Only just recently have I been able to wear these even though I made them about 3 weeks ago. It's been so cold here. Really lame. I do wear them with tights, too so that helps.

The blouse I sewed last summer. The belt I made last summer and the cardi is from Old Navy last year.

Related to sewing:

• this skirt is making me crazy! (in a very good way)
• Very helpful tips on sewing with sheers over at Burda Style
• Check out this very inspiring local Portland lass, Hannah Elise, who is making gorgeous clothes—she interviewed over here at Clever Nettle (thanks for that tip, Emily!)

homemade whoopie pies

So, these homemade whoopie pies were a huge success. These are chocolate, with a fancy sweetened mascarpone cheese frosting in the middle. For any of you who have never had whoopie pies (Is that possible? Maybe?) they are like two cupcake tops with a filling. They are messy to eat, comforting, and wonderful. You don't need a fancy tin to bake them—I used an ice cream scoop for the dough and it worked great.

The recipes for both the cookies and filling are in this stupidly cute new book, Whoopie Pies. I bought it about 2 weeks ago and have made too many batches since then.

The book is really clever. There is a section for the cake recipes and a section for all the filling recipes—you can mix and match. Of course they provide suggestions. I love the classic marshmallow filling with chocolate, but I was intrigued by the mascarpone filling (which they flavor with lemon but I kept it plain because I was pairing it with the chocolate cookies.)

Two very important things I must note:

1. All the cookie recipes (which are really just like a cupcake top) call for shortening and butter. They say this is a must. I disagree fully, and used all butter in all my batches so far with great success.

2. They provide the classic filling for a chocolate whoopie pie as shortening mixed with purchased Marshmallow Fluff. I love marshmallow filling so much, but I'm not down with this. I am totally fine eating it if I buy it somewhere, or whatever, but I'm not going to make it this way at home. So, what bums me out is they don't provide a homemade marshmallow filling—which can just be a 7-minute frosting. So, when I want a more classic whoopie pie, that's the filing I use—a homemade 7-minute frosting. You have to work fast when using this, by the way. I haven't tried freezing them with the marshmallow filling yet, but with a buttercream or mascarpone filling, they freeze beautifully after they are assembled.

Okay, I did make homemade mascarpone cheese for the filling. This might seem a little crazy, but really, it's so easy to make, and I was looking for an excuse to make some from scratch. It was heavenly and the extra I stirred into mac and cheese. Wow. It's also wonderful on strawberries. All you need is heavy cream, lemon juice, and some time.

Here's a vanilla whoopie pie with mascarpone cheese filling and I added a few raspberries when I mixed it up. These were good, too, but so far, the chocolate is my favorite.

In some research I found this—good lordy!

wonderful new quilting eZine

I was thrilled to preview a copy of this wonderful new eZine, Fat Quarterly—it's a modern quilting magazine available as a PDF. I went ahead and printed it out on nice paper, which I'm going to put in a notebook. I LOVE this pillow pattern.

It's got patterns (6!) interviews, challenges, giveaways—it's really outstanding and HUGE, like 78 pages! I was astounded at the amount of content. Really and truly impressive. Here's the link to buy and here's a bit more about what's inside.

It's so nice to see a quilting publication focusing on a modern look. You can read about some swaps on the blog as well.

So, for a last minute Mother's Day gift I'm thinking this would be perfect, along with some fabric, of course. (Hint.) Happy Mother's Day you all!

let the swimming begin!

Sadie's one-piece suit

Delia's one-piece suit with an attached skirt

Liddy's one-piece union suit

Sadie's Parisian inspired two-piece suit, top and shorts.

Liddys in her union suit, holding her nose underwater

Okay! I sewed swimsuits!

The girls picked out this fabric and I think it's super cute. Kind of a French circus thing. We just saw Kooza and I think they were very inspired by the costumes. I could write a ton about sewing these, but for the sake of brevity I will just say, try sewing swimsuits. It's really fun (for the most part) and, like sewing underwear and lingerie, the material conforms to your body, so fitting isn't really an issue. The issue is really sewing with the fabric and your machine, which is really not bad at all if you have the right tools.

These have not been in the pool yet, so I will let you know if wet conditions cause any problems. Also, the smaller girls were super easy to fit, the eldest doesn't like tight clothes at all, in any form. I tried to make to hers roomy, but it is a swimsuit, you know? I think she will probably wear the top and shorts set more than her one-piece suit, but who knows.

Sewing these, there were moments of happiness, swearing, boredom, wondering why I am doing this—and ultimately, total pride. Seeing them run around in these makes it worth it already. I was almost crying at the cuteness.

Tips and some info:

• I used a stretch needle. This is mandatory, I say. It makes sewing these so easy and if you don't you will be tearing your hair out and possibly smoking and swearing and getting drunk.

• You don't need a serger, for the side seams you can use a straight stitch and the other areas I used elastic—which you can put on with a big zig-zag. I did use my serger for my side seams, however and it was lovely.

• Here' s a great method of sewing on the elastic. You sew it twice, similar to binding, only even easier. I put elastic on the arm, neck and leg openings, except for on Liddy's suit (last photo) Sadie's pants and Delia's skirt hem—there I just used a zig-zag.

• I lined these suits with nude swimsuit lining and am really happy I did. I guess you don't have to, but it gives the suit more body and heft and just feels like a better garment to me.

• I used no patterns, just traced the girls' favorite fitting ballet leotards for a guide, added extra for the elastic (I used swim elastic, 3/8") and about 1/4" extra on the side seams. For Sadie's shorts, I traced a pair of leggings.

• I ran out of fabric and I am bummed, because I want a matching suit now. To make all these suits I got (I think) about 1 1/2 yards of the stripe, a 1/2 yard of the white and coral pink solids, and 1 1/2 yards of the lining. I wasted some messing it up and used pretty much all of it.

• My first attempt at Sadie's suit the bottom wasn't cut big enough, so I cut it off and made another in the solid pink and stitched it back on. That way I didn't waste the top. So, don't scrap the whole suit if one area is too tight or too big.

• I got all the fabric here locally at RCT, including the special swim elastic and needles. They are awesome.

eating lunch while standing and some links

Here's my favorite fast food lunch. (One that isn't leftovers from dinner the night before.) It's instant miso soup (I'd like to say this is homemade miso soup, but this is my fast lunch, so I'm not going to pretend I make it all from scratch. But I have before. With mixed results. I think I like the saltiness of the instant miso soup too much.)

Anyhoo, I use my favorite instant miso soup, frozen dumplings (I found wonderful frozen kimchi dumplings and instant miso soup at Uwajimaya), and then whatever veggies and mix-ins are in the fridge, like spinach, baby bok choy, grated carrot, and sometimes egg, or tofu—then I add hot chili sauce. I eat this very often. Sometimes I add noodles. I can make it in about 4 minutes, I just boil water and pour it over everything. I defrost the dumpling in the microwave for 2 minutes while the water is boiling. The only thing is it's very low in calories, which is awesome, but adding protein is pretty important, otherwise I get tired and grumpy in a few hours. Baby likes this, too. Minus the hot sauce. The older girls are not interested in the least.

Lunch has always been a challenge for me. It's my least favorite meal by far. I usually just wish I could skip it. Most days I just eat the crusts of the kids' grilled cheese sandwiches. Can't stand to see wasted food, which means I am a human garbage disposal.

If you have a favorite super fast healthy(ish) lunch, please feel free to leave it in the comments.

Unrelated to all of this-

• There is still time to enter the handmade squirrel contest over at The Brooklyn General store. There are really good prizes, so I'd check this out for sure.
• The newest issue of Mix Tape is available, and it's a special kids issue. Very cool.