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My Sewing History

Obviously I haven’t been baking much. It’s all about sewing these days, and that doesn’t lend itself well (for me, anyway), to stopping much for photographs. In an effort to try this blogging thing again, I’ve decided to participate in something called Sew Thinky Thursdays, put on by Emily at Mommy’s Nap Time.  She poses a question for the sewing/blogging world, and those interested answer the question in an effort to get to know each other better. I’ll start with that, and then see if something clicks and I can find something to talk about on my own in the weeks ahead.

The first questions Emily posed:

When did you start sewing? Tell us a bit about your sewing history. When did you realize you were really hooked? 

I didn’t start sewing until I was 43.  I did a lot of cross stitch and needlework, various crafts (stained glass mosaic, paper crafts, photography, to name a few), but never sewing. My mom sewed when I was a kid. In fact, she made all my clothes until about third grade. I hated going to the fabric store with her – I had no ability to imagine the clothes in any fabric other than was pictured on those paper envelopes, and it felt like we’d spend hours and hours in the fabric store. BOR-ING.

In high school, when everyone else was taking home ec, I wanted NO part of it. I took typing and other business-related classes (but for the life of me I can’t remember any of them but typing). Somewhere around 2005, my mother-in-law gave me a sewing machine. How nice was that?! But nothing inspired me enough to even take it out of the box.

Fast forward to 2010. I was living in northern Washington state. It was dark and cold, I didn’t have a social life, my creative juices were stagnating, and I got invited to a baby shower. I decided I wanted to make a quilt. No idea where that came from, but I was determined. Since I had just about three weeks, I decided on a rag quilt. I got a lot of help from some friends online and a few YouTube tutorials, and I made this:

I was hooked. HOOKED.  We eventually moved back to Portland, but not for another two years. Sewing pulled me through those dark, lonely days. And it keeps pulling me through my days – I work long hours from home, I can’t get out of the house much, and I don’t know what I’d do without sewing to keep me going. Reading some of the other bloggers that have been participating in this link-up exercise, apparently I'm not the only one that finds sewing a form of therapy.

Nesting

We're decorating our rental. The landlord offered to paint before we moved in, but I need COLOR and I want to pick it out myself, so we made an agreement that he would pay for the paint if we did all the actual painting. So we started with these area rugs.


Pretty wild, right? But after living in a staged house for the last year, we were ready for something more "us." (That's Maude sneaking under the table.) Then I found this set of curtains at Goodwill. 96" (Ikea) curtains, $7. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with them, but I figured for $7 they'd make a great addition to my slowly growing fabric stash.


I ended up deciding to put them in the kitchen. One thing led to another, and the kitchen ended up lime green. The dark brown is going on the metal interior garage door and will be mixed with unsanded grout to make a magnetic chalkboard. The lighter brown is on two walls in the living room, and the cream is everywhere else.

I sorted through my fabric and found several scraps that would make up a nice table topper or wall hanging.


I sketched a few possibilities, but I have sooooo many projects in my head that need to get out, not to mention the few that are already started, I realized I didn't have time overthink it. Inspired by the theme of "improvisation" at last month's Portland Modern Quilt Guild meeting, I decided to just DO IT. I gave myself 60 minutes to see how far I could get without measuring or planning ahead. The idea was to just keep going. This is the result of one hour.


After two hours and some seam ripping, I declared it finished.


It measures 17"x18", so I'll probably add another inch to square it up and use it as a table topper. I've still got all those other fabrics to use -- napkins, pot holders, or...? --- plus the majority of the Goodwill fabric -- I only used the top 18" of one panel for this valance. I still need to hem it a couple inches and shorten the width, but I love it.


I'm pretty satisfied with my little improv experiment. I've got an almost-finished mini-quilt, something that never would have happened if I'd designed it to death.

On to the next project!

Happy Birthday, Oreo!

My first crack at baking since we moved from Bellingham to Portland about two weeks ago. I had to work downtown for about a week, and on one of my breaks I wandered over to Sur La Table. (Poor me, right?) I'd already planned on making the cupcakes -- but I wanted a coordinating liner, and I knew I'd be able to find something there.

Five days later I walked into The Decorette Shop and found an entire WALL of cupcake liners.

Since I'd already gotten some nice ones at Sur La Table, I just rejoiced in the fact that this supply is only eight wonderful, walkable blocks from my new home.

The first step was separating 26 cookies. I twisted a few, but Oreos aren't in my Top 5 Cookies list, and I didn't have the finesse necessary to prevent a cracked top. So I got out the paring knife for the rest of them. Broke a few tops in two, but kept all the pieces, figuring I'd handle them carefully and piece them back together, or just get lazy and stick shards of them in the top of the icing.

I quartered 20 more cookies and folded them into the batter.

I wanted a more uniform frosting application, so I had to dig around in the garage for one of the several "CAKE STUFF" boxes. As I was contemplating piecing the Oreo tops to make wholes, or just going the lazy, shard route, Eric walked by, saw all the pieces all over, and said "Ooooh, a puzzle!" Bonus.

I piped pretty cream cheese frosting rosettes on them (only to smash them with the oreo tops), and sent them on their way.

The box I got at The Decorette Shop was a tad too small for the 26 I made, so darn, I had to keep six.


I have Pinterest to thank for the desire to make these. The recipe is here.

Oh yeah -- I did in fact buy a box of Birthday Cake Oreos. I love cake, we know that. I'm not a huge fan of Oreos, we've established that too. They were okay. I used about 10 of them in this recipe because the bag of Double-Stuff Oreos had only 20. I don't think they affected the taste of the cupcakes that much, but on their own, they were just mediocre. A little too artificial tasting for me. I found a more detailed review here, if you're curious.

My New Therapy

My baking posts have become almost nonexistent. I still bake birthday cakes for faraway friends, but I've discovered quilting and haven't looked back. A lot more expensive than baking, but a much more satisfying creative outlet for me. Maybe my blog needs a name change?

Quilts of 2011

9-1-1 Steak

Eat.

Crock Pot Granola

One of my default desserts is Greek yogurt with granola, sometimes with fruit. We're both reading labels more and more lately, and since it's next to impossible to find granola in the grocery store without sugar, I decided to make my own. In the past I've made it the traditional way, on cookie sheets in the oven, but inevitably I always burned it. Then I stumbled upon this blog post about making it in the crock pot, so I tried again. Success!

2 1/2 cups oats
2 1/2 cups seven-grain mix
1/4 c. coconut
1/4 c. dried apricots
1/4 c. chopped almonds
1/4 c. raw sunflower seeds
1/4 c. raw pumpkin seeds
a few scoops of ground flax seeds


Add 1/4 c. melted butter (or nut butter -- I'll try almond butter next) and 1/4 c. honey and stir.


Add to your crockpot and vent with a chopstick (or a wooden spoon or something). Be sure to stir every half hour or so -- definitely if you can smell it, you should stir it.

The original recipe says to cook it for three hours, but I've found even two hours can burn it. This time I cooked it for two hours and left it in the hot crock pot, turned off for another hour, and I still got some burned bits.

Edit: I forgot to mention, the granola won't seem "done" -- it will still be kind of chewy while it's warm. It will crisp up after it cools. The first time I made this I cooked it way too long because it seemed as if it wasn't cooking. Also, if you want it to clump more, you'll need more honey than the 1/4 c. stated in the recipe. Play with it!


Next time I'll cook it for two hours and take it out immediately to cool.

What I like about this recipe is that it's so easy to change. Just take a walk through the bulk aisle and grab what sounds good.

Blissful Bread

Yeah, yeah, we all know I love bread. I mean, I really love bread. Years ago I started baking it -- sandwich bread, French bread, ciabatta bread...one Christmas I made panettone for all my friends and neighbors. I made it by hand until I developed wrist problems. I got a KitchenAid and kept going. Something about bread...the meditative process of kneading, the way it warms my home with its scent and warmth, it exudes goodness. That sounds ridiculous, but I'm not a poet and I can't think of any other way to put it. It makes me feel good -- to make it, to eat it, to gift it.

Eventually various health reasons halted my excessive consumption of bread, and in turn, my production of it.

On my way home from the Oregon coast on Sunday, I stumbled upon a tiny bakery in the town of Philomath. I was with my friend Anita. We stepped in the door thinking we might find lunch, and we were immediately blasted with hot, humid air. But it was just a bakery. I say "just." The minute we walked out I knew I had to go back with my camera.







I've been thinking about this blog post for three days. I've already written way more than I intended -- I'd hoped to capture my feelings in my photos, but I think I was too distracted.

If you're interested to learn more about this bakery and its baker, check out this six-year-old article from The Eugene Weekly:

Rising at Sunrise; Baker Bill Hotchkiss feeds more than the body.

It's the fourth article down on the page. After reading it myself, it explained a lot about the comfortable energy that saturated that kitchen.

Almond Joy Pound Cake

I think one of my favorite parts of baking is the creating. Coming up with combinations and executing them successfully. Not that this idea is so original, but you don't see it very often. My dad's birthday is this weekend. He's a fan of coconut, so I came up with this because it's something I can mail. Next time I'll add more coconut glaze, but otherwise it's perfect.

Now all I can think of is translating candy bars to cakes.

Here are the recipes I used.

Cake recipe is here.

Glaze recipe here. (And what looks like a yummy scone recipe.)

Ganache.

Choppin' Broccoli

I'm so bored of broccoli. I mean, b o r e d. It's available all year round, so it's kind of a staple. A fallback veggie, I guess. Eric started roasting it a few months ago, and that's good. But I found another version of roasted broccoli on Pinterest recently and decided I had to try it. Why? Because it had just five ingredients. If it's not something I'm baking, that's pretty much my basic rule for cooking. (I guess it's a good thing Eric does all the cooking.)

You will need:

• broccoli
• salt/pepper
• olive oil
• lemon
• Parmesan cheese

Cut up some broccoli. The original recipe calls for making sure the broccoli is DRY before adding the oil. I forgot that step. I'll try it next time if I remember. Toss the broccoli with olive oil (I only had canola, so that's what I used), salt, and pepper. Slice a couple heads of garlic, toss them in too.



Bake for about 25 minutes at 425° . When it comes out of the oven, add the zest of a lemon, lemon juice, and some grated Parmesan cheese. I only had cocktail remnants of a couple of lemons, so I maybe used half a lemon. If that. The original recipe called for 1/3 of a cup of cheese. I didn't use that much because I wanted to keep it as healthy as possible.

Toss. Eat.

This stuff was so good I forgot to take a photo, so this is all you get.





The little brown bits? Delicious, crispy garlic! I cooked just two large heads of broccoli, but I should have made at least four. Eric wasn't thrilled with the whole thing, but I LOVED it, and when he goes to Portland next time, I'm going to make a ton of this for myself.