Cookies!...

...my son's new favorite word. I got myself together last week and made gingerbread cookies. I used the Martha Stewart recipes for Gingerbread Snowflakes and Royal Icing. Unless you are actually making 6-inch snowflakes its a huge batch of dough. I only cooked up the first third and still ended up with 14 cookies. The rest is packed away in my freezer. I made half the icing recipe and had plenty left over. I had forgotten how much of the Gingerbread flavor comes from molasses. This recipe called for a full cup.

Here is the dough just after mixing. It really looks like nothing more than a pile of poo.

Shaping the cookies took some practice. My first attempt ended with dough that got too warm and had to go back in the refrigerator. The recipe says to chill for one hour but I would strongly suggest waiting several hours or overnight. It  is much easier to shape the dough when it is super cold. I also used a piece of saran wrap over the dough so that I didn't have to add so much flour to keep the rolling pin from sticking. I found that rolling the dough as thin as I could get it ended up with the most defined snow flakes after baking.

I took this little box of goodies to a moving party on Saturday. They were much appreciated.

I don't have any cute pictures of S eating these cookies although he has had several, but we took him to a friend's cookie decorating party on Saturday evening that produced some great photo moments.

Oh, and a special "Thank You!" to my in-laws whose early Christmas present made this year's cookie adventure possible. They got me a Breville toaster oven because my apartment oven is almost useless.

I hope you all enjoy the pictures!

Stuff and Things

Wow! So Etsy is really keeping me busy, though I'm not exactly sure with what. I joined a couple of teams, Creativity Rocks! and South Bay, which of coarse means lots of reading posts and supporting my fellow crafters. My store was chosen this last weekend to be featured in the Creativity Rocks team (my name was drawn from a hat). Of coarse I didn't feel ready for this kind of attention and spent a lot of time taking pictures, posting items, and throwing something together for a banner. The banner stopped being horrible and became rather nice once I discovered the editor in Picasa. Here's what I came up with:

I like this but it feels a little jarring somehow. I also have a friend who is putting something together for me to look at tomorrow. I imagine his will be much more slick but hopefully in the same vain. I hope to be able to use the same image for this blog as well so check back to see the new look. I also built a few treasuries. Oops! was especially fun.

Projects: I recently made a list of all the works in progress that I have stashed away and its getting quite long, but I have completed a few things. Here are some photos:

This cute little scarf is actually completed and listed in my shop. Yay!

Here is another completed project. I reworked a necklace that I made for a 20's themed wedding. It originally hung down to my knees and got wrapped around my neck several times. This one is a choker. I think I'm going to keep it as I really like the glitzy clasp.

I'm in the middle of this yarn wreath. It will have crocheted poinsettia's when it's done.

That's all the pictures I have for now. I hope I can get over my addiction to Etsy and actually get back to making (and finishing) things soon.

Burning Man Costume...

= EL wire fun. Shortly after my last post in August, my husband mentioned that a coworker was looking for someone to help him with an EL wire costume. For the old-school crafters out there or those who are not big nerds, EL stands for electroluminescent. Here's the wiki article. Crafting with it is like crafting with glow necklaces except the wire is thinner, more flexible and stays where you bend it too. It also requires a source of electricity to glow. With a cheap switch you can then make it blink at different speeds. Its great fun to wear. It is a bit tricky to manipulate.

I discussed details with my new client and it turned out he had a couple of pieces he had put together the year before but after a weak of sand and sun in Arizona both pieces were a jumble of wires and cloth and had lost any hint of pattern. So I pulled everything apart and got started on remaking them. My client had a Chinese inspired robe that I simply tried to accentuate with the EL wire. I ran the wire around the collar and the bottom hem as well as down both sleeves and around the hem of the sleeve. Finally I added a braided belt. It turned out looking like a EL wizard. Here is a not so great picture:

Unfortunately the pictures in the dark did not come out at all. I'll have to figure out how to take those low, low light level shots next time.

The second piece was a shiny pink button down shirt. it was so thin that the EL wire was completely unsupported,. I added some interfacing to the back and that let me build a pretty cool design on it. Here's the piece in progress:

The design was a riff on the Red Lightening theme camp banner. Here is the original.

For those who haven't heard, Burning Man, is a week-long, crazy, creative dance party in the dessert. San Francisco is home to many attendees and I hope we will get to go next year.

My Etsy Shop

MIA for more than a month...what a travesty. After my last post I was determined that my next post would be about opening my Etsy shop, and then life happened. I got commissioned to work on a Burning Man costume for my husbands co-worker; I ran away to Atlanta for nearly two weeks and my son and I have been battling a cold for almost a week. Yikes! I have 2 or 3 posts still rolling about in my head about all these things.

But now that I'm back...Ta Da! Here is my Etsy Shop!

I set everything up and posted a couple of items. I have a couple more that I need to take pictures of and post as well. It will have more than baby items; I like to make things for adults too. I just talked to a friend who does graphic design and he's agreed to put together a banner for me (Thanks Jonathan!). This shop should look very professional in a few days...which just goes to show you can fool anyone with a little attention to detail.

Here is my first listing:

That's all for now. See y'all later.

Elegance

I went to the library last week looking for George R. R. Martin's "Game of Thrones". Unfortunately, they only had 5 copies with 25 holds on it. Not interested in waiting so long I went searching for something else to read. I picked up this book because I found the cover fascinating. Elegance is a trait I frequently strive for but rarely feel that I have achieved. As a stay at home mom, my wardrobe has slowly disintegrated to jeans, T-shirts and tennis shoes. I try to blow dry my hair everyday but forget make-up. I pulled this book by Kathleen Tessaro down and skimmed the back cover. The story of Louise Canova rang a bell, so I took this book home and devoured it in 2 or 3 days. I enjoyed the transformation of this character from sad, lonely housewife enduring unhappy relationships so that she can feel secure to stupid, shallow divorce and finally to empowered, balanced woman. It was a delightful ride. This book was published in 2003. Current sensibilities may be distressed by the lead character's cavalier attitude toward excessive spending that is clearly beyond her means. The lessons, though, still ring true. I  found the chapter titled "Negliges" particularly apropos. The lead character's muse, Madam Dariaux, reminds us of the importance of dressing for the bedroom. Although I have several negliges, they are not suitable for actual sleeping and only come out for special occasions. Most nights I pull on my husbands flannel pants and an over-sized T-shirt...very attractive. This book has motivated me to find some options that fulfill both roles, comfy and flattering.  I am looking forward to picking up more of Ms. Tessaro's books. I would recommend this one to anyone who would like to feel more elegant or who needs some reminders on how its done. Louise Canova is sure to ring bells for you too. As for "Game of Thrones", I picked it up at the bookstore and I'm finding it a bit slow. Perhaps the TV series has spoiled the books for me.

Dahlias...

I'm so excited to share these photos. My husband fell in love with these flowers on our European tour in 2002. That may sound a little ostentatious; we were really just kids bumming around with backpacks. We made no plans and drifted through France, Italy, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Our last stop was in Amsterdam, we had just gotten engaged in Interlaken, Switzerland (a story for another day), and we were giddy with love. We wandered around the city reveling in the canals and the liberal mindset of the city. One morning we got up looking for something to get us out of town and the front desk recommended Floriade. Floriade is an international flower festival. Its held every 10 years and just takes up acres and acres of land with beautiful gardens, there were interactive gardens, cultural gardens, statue gardens and many others. But there were also two or three acres of dahlias. They were amazing. They come in a huge range of colors and shapes.

Friday afternoon, on the advice of Heidi at 101 Cookbooks, we went to Golden Gate Park to see their dahlia display. Its just off to the right of the Conservatory of Flowers.

Our favorite was this crazy flower. H thinks it looks like a Dr. Seuss tree:

S had a great time too, though he seemed a little disappointed that we couldn't go inside the fence.

My First Sweater

I've been working on my little white sweater for a week now and I'm really enjoying this pattern. The base stitch is very similar to the one I was using previously and had to undo but between each row of V-stitches is a row of single crochet and single chains that works as a foundation for the garment. I imagine these rows will give the sweater a more structured shape.

Here is the finished back, and I am almost done with the right front piece as well. The pieces are a little skewed in one direction but blocking should take care of this. I'll post more as it comes together.

Sanborn County Park

I love hiking in Northern California. Almost every weekend we go out and explore a new trail. This weekend we rambled up the John Nicholas Trail in Sanborn County Park. Actually, if you're looking at the map we were a little south of the park. We walked a  mile and half from the parking area on Black Road to the Lake Ranch Reservoir. It was hot today, close to 80 degrees. We were so glad not to be on the east coast today which has been boiling away for almost a week now, but I did appreciate my new shorts and enjoy a cold glass of iced tea when we were done.

There were several gorgeous views under the tree canopy today, but my favorite was one I couldn't get a picture of and probably would not read as well without the motion. Its been dry here and we watched a shower of golden leaves catching the sunlight as they fell a hundred feet or so into the ravine below. It was just magical, like something you would see in a movie. I frequently get that feeling when we are walking in the woods here, as though I am walking through a scene from a fantasy movie or book; just breathtaking.

The little streams passing under the path were fun too. My husband had a great time teaching our son how to throw rocks into them. I just wish he was going to be the one on the playground when S starts throwing rocks at other kids.

Frogged Again

And here we go again...frogging this yarn for the 5th time. For the uninitiated, that means pulling out all the pretty little loops that you have spent hours painstakingly repeating so that you are left with a ball of yarn and nothing to show for your efforts. 

I picked up this pretty white yarn at a Micheal's sale. It has this shiny accent thread that seemed perfect for a bridal piece. Wouldn't it be fun to make things for brides? I got three balls for a great price so I wanted to do something complex. So far I've only done scarves and baby blankets (and one pair of fingerless mittens, but they turned out to be super easy); I was looking for a challenge! I decided to make a shrug or a sweater, and boy has it been a challenge. After five attempts I just hope I can make something work before the yarn falls apart. The most recent iteration, shown above, had a beautiful base stitch and was coming along nicely except that I got confused by the pattern and ended up with a lopsided back and arm holes. Maybe it could work for someone with one particularly bulky arm and one thin stringy arm but I don't know anyone like that so back to the drawing board.

The problem seems to be that I am not an especially good hooker. The patterns I've been following use "standard" abbreviations and don't have any images to compare your work to so you have no way to see if you are headed in the right direction or headed toward a train wreck (and frogging, lots of frogging). So after deciding to pull out all those pretty stitches I went back to the crochet mags I've been collecting for the last few months to find a pattern there. Fortunately these seem to be aimed right at my skill level. The instructions are clear and include stitch diagrams and diagrams that show the shapes and dimensions of each piece and how they are put together. I like pictures. I decided on the Arboretum Cardigan from this summer's Interweave Crochet (not planning to do the flowers but we'll see). It even seems to have a similar base stitch to the one in the picture above. 

Wish me luck. I'll post some pictures when I make a little headway.