Yesterday I did get some things accomplished. I got a bit more sewing done, and I was good and started in on the house cleaning again. While the cleaning did not get totally finished, hey there was a hockey game and parents on the phone, I did get some things cleaned up. In this time, I also managed to get an apple pie made. It turned out pretty good, with the exception of being too watery.



I made a Dutch pie for the first time, and I really like it. I have always loved streusel type toppings, and this seems like another great application of it. I did not use enough tapioca this time, so I had my opposite problem, too runny. Lately I have been using too much of the tapioca and my pies are too gummy. I am hoping to find tapioca flour in the future to avoid the small gummy ball texture and more evenly distribute the thickener across the filling. Well keeping it short today in the hopes of getting more sewing done. Hopefully today proves to be a bit more productive in that area.

My bread making skills have been steadily improving as I get more and more practice with the methods. I was really proud of this first attempt at French bread. It turned out to be more like Italian bread though as the loaf was too large and not a small diameter like a baguette. After the second rise, I knew it was too big!



It was still very good and came out of the oven golden brown!



I did not slash the loaf deep enough, so it expanded out of the side, however it was still delicious. I think I will be working on this more and buying bread less. The pan was also wonderful. The bottom of the loaf was really crusty, just like from a bakery. It also released the loaf with out any extra butters or oils. It popped out with out any fuss.

On Friday, Dan and I did something that we never do. We went out and bought the newest thing on the day it came out. We got ourselves new Droid phones! The last time we got new phones was when we got our first phones in 2003. It was a long time coming, and I am really happy to have a new smart phone. There has been a huge learning curve, but I am catching on very quickly as the user interface is really easy to figure out. Usually we wait for things to get older and almost ready for new models to come out before buying, but for once, we treated ourselves. That actually took up most of our day on Friday. Then, we both started to feel a bit sick. We spent all of the rest of the weekend feeling a bit awful and working on the house a bit. We reordered Dan's office, and I did the same to the sewing room. Most of it remained the same, but I switched up where my desk and storage shelves are. My desk is now in a cozy nook sheltered by the shelves of supplies and fabrics. The sewing area remained the same as it was working well before. Now, though, I can actually get the bins of fabric off of the shelves with out any tricky maneuvering or yelling. The only bad thing about the arrangement is that I am looking at the electrical panel for the apartment. All in all though, a good switch.

After the weekend of rest, I am off to a roaring start today. I have already gotten banana bread made and out of the oven, the whites and bed sheets laundered, and some light pick up around the house done. I hope this reordering of things continues. I would like to get harp playing back in the routine, and I am going to try to start that again today. I hope to add it to my Mondays, Wednesdays, and Friday schedules. Well I am off to sew since I am feeling the urge to finally complete the first Christmas project and move onto the next sewing one. I am also hoping to get some light housecleaning accomplished today as well. Wish me luck on the cleaning and that the crafting does not fully take over!

I made a cake this week from scratch. I usually don't put in the effort on cakes for some reason like I do on other things. Lately, that has been bothering me. I have been trying to remove a majority of the premade and box foods in our diets, and I have been feeling much better about my cooking skills and food choices as of late. Part of my hunt for better food has involved looking through old issues of Cook's Illustrated that I have but never was able to cook out of due to time issues. I really love this magazine as it takes a more scientific method approach to cooking and improving recipes. In my searching through for a dessert this week, I found a recipe for applesauce cake found in their September and October issue from 2006. It was a little bit more work than a mix or packet, but the results were really that much better. I decided to take a page from Jane Brocket's Blog and take a picture of my cake on a fancy plate.



The china only gets used on special holidays, but I have to say that looking at cake on this dessert plate makes me think I should crack them out more often. China just makes everything look better.

Today I am going to work on jogging again and also hit the choreography. I have gotten mid way through the tough opening of the song and look forward to the free flowing part that I seem to have in my head already. I am excited and think today will be a very productive session, and hopefully, I did not just jinx myself! I am hoping to finally get the shirring foot to work this weekend. I am going to work on trouble shooting with Dan to see if he can figure out what I am doing wrong. He is a wonderful sounding board and usually finds the obvious things that I seem to always miss in these situations. I really want my skirt for the start of level 2 at Fat Chance Belly Dance next week. While I could have had this skirt done last week if I would have hand gathered it, I really want to learn to use my machines for these things. It will speed up any projects that are similar in the future. Here is to hoping for a successful day.

The English muffin experiments were more successful on Friday. The new recipe worked better for me and also worked well being halved. The other recipe did not work very well when halved to begin with, so trying to force it into success was going to be difficult. This time I think the kneeding went well via the Kitchen Aid, but I still must have added a little too much flour. There were not as many nooks and crannies as I would have liked. I did decide to try cooking them on our large cast iron griddle. I think that this worked out much better than using the small griddle that I used before. I could get more muffins on at one time, and if I had been more patient in allowing the iron to head up evenly, I think the browning would have been even more even than it was. Here they are all lined up:



I also had a wonderful time at Needle in a Haystack for my Blackwork class. It was taught by Lucy Barter of the Royal School of Needlework. I learned a lot, and even though my work from that day does not seem to show it off as well, I stitched for a good four hours. It was a great class, and I recommend any classes taught by Lucy highly. She was delightful. I learned about shading techniques and also tried my hand at working on linen. I have never had the guts to work on an even weave fabric and usually use Adia style cloth in my cross stitch and embroidery projects. I do have to say the results of stitching on cloth is beautiful, but I think I would resort to using a magnifying glass in the future. It is very hard to look at the threads and find the holes between the weave when you are staring at a piece for more than five minutes. I am surprised that I did not lose a contact. This was my humble attempt at the dragonfly design she provided us with:



Here is a close up of the stitches:



On Sunday I decided to celebrate the Spring Equinox by buying some early season strawberries. I got a good deal since there were not that many people at the market due to the overnight rain and morning winds. They smelled so good that I could not pass them up. Now I need to come up with a dessert I can make with them, so they get finished before I leave for the Vegas Trip this Friday. They looked so pretty, I had to take a picture.



On the plate for today is the start of a new, more intense exercise program. After trying on clothes all Saturday and finding that my bottom does not seem to fit into clothing as well any more, I am back to the treadmill. I also want to add in weight training and some yoga. I am going to also try to do this five days a week. I hope that I can keep committed to it. I am also working hard on finishing up the embroideries for that belt. The faux shisha are coming along, and I am dreaming of some other embroidery stitches I now want to add around the belt. I think it is going to be a knock-out when I am finally finished. I also found a great new set of music while at dance class on Friday. I am pretty sure I have my music picked out for the show, but I don't get the cd until Wednesday. I guess I will be choreographing in the airport! :) Well lots to do before this trip, including getting an appointment with my hairdresser. I need to call her.....

You can see some really interesting things when you look out our windows onto the Oakland-Alameda Estuary. Yesterday I saw a pirate style ship sailing along.... well motoring along actually. They were headed up wind and had the sails down, but it still was neat to see motoring along.



It was a nice thing to cheer my otherwise dismal day yesterday. I had a really bad headache the whole day, so not as much work got done as I would have hoped. Also, my attempts to practice with the shirring foot resulted in much frustration as the machine quit gathering the fabric for some reason. I must have had a dial set wrong. I decided to give up and watch some basketball and tried to work on the belt. I did make progress on the belt, installing more faux shisha as well as covering more rings.

Today is starting out much better. I packed up the tutu and other things for Claudia's birthday as well as some pants I took up for my sister. I also have started some English muffin dough that is rising currently. Bread is the newest cooking obsession that I have, and after a great streak of beginner's luck, lately things have not been going so well. I think that I am both adding too much flour as well as over kneading all the doughs in my Kitchen Aid. Today I did things like set timers and refuse to add more flour when it still looked "too sticky." We will have to see what the results are going to be once I get through the first rise. I find making bread to be rather satisfying, even if it does not turn out. My white bread always seems to work from the recipe that I have from my Grandmother on my Dad's side. It always turns out perfect event hough I had to cut it down from the four loaf full recipe. She was feeding a farm, so I can understand that, but with just Dan and I, four loaves is over kill. Sourdough has been a flop as of late, but I am also determined to iron out the wrinkles on that and figure out why my sourdough is not really ever sour. English muffins lately were really dense, and I blame over kneading and too much flour on that one. I will have better data on that after today's batches. I am also trying a new recipe for those to see if this one works better for me.

Laundry is also coming along, and after this posting, I am determined to get that shirring foot working again. So much for getting that skirt done for class tonight, but at least I am not going to let myself give up on learning how to use it this time.

This weekend I am attending a class on blackwork. I am really looking forward to finally learning how to do this technique correctly. Currently, I cheat. With true blackwork, the front and back of the embroidered fabric look the same, so you have to plan your runs and make sure you know where you are going. I have two items in the shop currently that have my attempts at blackwork, but, luckily, you cannot get a peek at the backsides that are not as perfect as the fronts.





Both tins are available for sale in the Etsy shop. Hopefully I can add more designs after I take my class. Oh and those hair flowers, I hope to have them listed now on Monday. Due to the headache they did not get completed. I am working on getting that all in order today as well. So much to do and so little time before bread is done rising and class at Fat Chance is calling.

Yesterday was more productive than I thought it was going to go. As soon as I had finished up my "rah-rah" posting yesterday about all that I was going to accomplish, Erik wrote to ask if I wanted to get lunch. I, of course, can never turn down the opportunity to get lunch with someone. I figure he will be back to work again soon, and my fun lunch dates will go away again. I quickly went down to the gym and got my two miles in and then got ready for the day. We went out for a really nice burger in Emeryville. I was worried about getting the tutu materials and the housewares run done, but Erik came though. We went to the craft store and got me the tutu materials. I worked on that yesterday, and I am close to completing that today.

I ended up doing the housewares run today. I also treated myself to some of the herb plants that I am missing from the great scorched earth war against the fungus from a few months ago. I have the plants currently in quarantine to prevent any white flies or anything getting into the good plants. I learned my lesson on bringing in new plants with out treating them for issues first. Here they are after a good dosage of fungicide and pest soap.



I purchased mint, oregano, thyme, and a dill plant to join the sage, parsley, and chives in the box. The basil is doing well, but I need to take off some leaves that are not looking so hot. Hopefully that will also make the plants grow better with bigger leaves as well. I have really enjoyed this small box gardening, and it is always nice to go to the window and just cut what I need when I need it rather than having to buy it. I hope to plant the new plants into the box tomorrow.

I am also working on my sourdough bread experiments today. After some great beginner's luck, I have hit quite a bumpy road with this baking. I first started out with the Joy of Cooking and her recommendation of making a starter with commercial yeast. That worked for the first couple of time until my starter collapsed due to a war with the very strong natural yeast we have in the Bay Area. I started a natural starter, a rather scary process for me, and then used the Cook's Magazine recipe for sourdough. I had really consistent results for bread with their recipe, but I ended up with loaves that tasted more like white bread than sourdough. I am now working on a little booklet Dan found on the internet, but I seem to have my technique off, so the loaves taste a bit better, when they actually bake up. Today I am working on just going back to rustic hand formed loaves and will work on the bread more before trying to put it into pans again.

So for the rest of the day my goals are the tutu and more work on the belt. I also want to work on some of the gimp graphics I started last night for a new on line project to be launched soon. I will fill in the details when that is all finished up. Housecleaning is also something I would love to accomplish, but it may be a bonus for today and pushed off for something to do tomorrow. Remember I am trying to be more realistic with these goals.

So I am totally unmotivated today. I think I am going to blame it on the new arrival into the household, our new tv. It is a large tv and it is like a small movie theater screen in our small apartment. I love it, but it takes the motivation to do things right out of me. I suppose the numerous messes left behind by our new bundle of joy are not helping matters either. The apartment is kind of hard to navigate, and the new boxes to the box piles are a bit disappointing since we were getting so close to being "box free." Needless to say, I took the opportunity to take the weekend off and do things like lazing around and watching the big tv. (Do you see a trend yet?) I did also do some good and productive things. I finished off the special order last week, which took a load off my shoulders. Now I am just going though my normal anxiety of wondering if the pieces I made are going to fit correctly. I measured many times and cut once, so hopefully Norm's steadfast advice will come though again.

I did do some productive things over the time since my last entry. On Wednesday, I spent the day with a friend. I meant to get the sewing totally finished on that day, but it was great to see Erik and hang out. Being over at his place is always an adventure, and I am never sure what projects we will end up doing, but they are always fun. This time, hydroponics. I think he was inspired by my window and Aerogarden the last time he was over and wants in on some of the home gardening fun. He, though, admitted that he is not good at remembering to water plants, so hydroponics seemed like the logical conclusion for his engineering mind. Engineers, you gotta love them! We, read he with my moral support, also built a soil moisture detector. It was amazing to watch him just put it together out of his imagination and a little internet help.

Thursday was my usual try to get things done in the morning with tutoring in the afternoon. I ended up getting all the cutting and a bit of sewing on the custom order done that day. Friday was the frantic, "This needs to get out the mail TODAY!" sewing session. I am proud to say that it got finished. I just wished my need for pressure to get anything accomplished habit would change. I guess I have always been a pressure person, so it may be a long time coming. I also went to Fat Chance for dance on Friday night instead of Tuesday. I just did not feel up to going on Tuesday, and it was nice to have the option of going on another night if I wanted to go but not on the particular night I was used to going. Options are great.

Today, I am hoping to get myself off the couch after writing this and into the gym. We will see how this works out. Big tv is pretty neat and also may be lonely if I leave the apartment. I also wanted to get a ton of baking done. Hopefully I can get some banana bread going after jogging and some peanut butter chocolate chip cookies accomplished today. English muffins may have to wait for tomorrow. I also want to get my sister's pants hemmed and Claudia's birthday present planned and the list of items needed for it written out. Once all that is done, I am going to settle in for some tv viewing and some hand sewing on that cross stitch belt that I mentioned months ago. Yes, it got put down again and forgotten. I would really like to get the embroidery done on that and get the belt finished this week if at all possible. The weather, being like it is, will actually help, since I find my best hand sewing occurs on rainy days. This week is supposed to be all rain. Pictures of baked goods to come tomorrow. Till then, I plan to stay dry and cozy with a cup of tea. Off to the gym for me now though!

The weekend was a good rest and well needed break of the normal pace. Instead of going out and doing a bunch of things, Dan and I mostly stayed at home. We meet up with a friend for lunch on Saturday and did some grocery shopping, but that was it. The weekend was also suitably rainy and crappy, so it was not a surprise that we hid indoors. I took the opportunity to get some organization done in the office area. I have stacks and stacks of different crafting magazines that I kept for the projects. I have decided to go through them all and rip out the projects and get rid of the adds and place the projects into organized binders. These magazines are chock full of adds, and most of the pages are going into the recycling bin instead of taking up room in the office. It was, in an odd way, relaxing to pull apart magazines, hole punch, and place the articles into binders. I also decided to work on my cross stitch frame. Currently the dowels that hold the fabric did not fit well through the frame holes. I also had to thread one side on first and then the other side of the frame, so it was always hard to get the fabric lined up well. I decided to get out the last scrap of sand paper we had since we "gifted" most home improvement supplies in our move and sand down the dowels. I am now wondering why it is that I did not do this sooner. It was much easier to work on getting the fabric not only centered but also taught with the ability to move both sides freely on the dowels. Hopefully this will make me get back to work on the cross stitch design in there that I have been working on for years. It is an "off time" project that I pick up and drop off when convenient. Also over the weekend, I cleaned up some of the piles on my desk. In doing so, I found the brochures for the Afghanistan exhibit that Dan and I visited over the holidays this winter. I will take pictures today and show them off tomorrow along with talking about the exhibit. What an oversight on my part to not share sooner!

Today is a delightfully rainy Monday. I love rainy days, and most of my love for them is the added focus I seem to have on those days. We don't get many rainy days though, so I find myself wandering more often then I would like. I have a ton that I need to get done, and today I am determined to get it all done in a timely manner.

On the plate for today:
I really want to get back to jogging. Hopefully the treadmills are back in working order this week. I have decided that while the elliptical is better for my hips, I really do like jogging on the treadmill better. I also need to get the special order finished today. There is so much work to do, but I MUST get it done today.I also want to get the photographs for tomorrow's post compiled and edited. As a bonus, I hope to get some peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies in the oven. That is all I am going to put up for goals. I want to meet them and perhaps get to exceed them. I am also going to continue the magazine purge tonight with my evening television viewing. Hopefully I can get this purge done this week. Ok, lots to do and I really want to achieve my goals, so off I go! Pictures tomorrow, I promise!

I know that it has been a few days again since I wrote, but things have been pretty busy around here. I was contacted by a dance colleague and wonderful customer of mine, Ashley Lopez, who is both a dancer and instructor in San Jose. She needed a new pair of custom pants, so I have been of line working on making some tailoring adjustments and crafting her perfect pair. She picked out her pair from a new fabric I had in stock but had not made into pants yet. It is a beautiful raspberry sari fabric that she chose, and I am sure it is going to look killer on her.



I still have enough fabric left for one more pair of pants to be made if there are any takers out there.

Friday was a great day. Dan took the day off from work to decompress while I finished up the pants. We had tickets to see Kodo that night up in Marin. We went up and saw another wonderful show by them. Saturday and Sunday were filled with the usual domestic things, cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, and the like. Monday I spent out fabric hunting for another new special order. I found the perfect fabric for the client, and I am going to muslin up the piece to day to see if there are any adjustments that need to be made before I move onto the actual garment sewing. Yesterday was spent running around the city looking for a new pair of knee pads for dance class. I ended up finding ones I thought were perfect, but they did not end up fitting over my calves. Oh well, such is life. ;) I guess I am back to the drawing board with that one. I also got some supplies for the household yesterday as well as my Valentine's Day cards. I need to fill them out and get them in the mail, pronto!

On the list for today, I need to get these cards filled out and mailed first. Second, I am going to work on this pattern and hopefully get the muslin cut out today and perhaps sewn. I am still working on my now very late Christmas gift for Da, so that also needs to get worked on some today. Other than that, I want to try my hand at baking baklava. I will take pictures to post tomorrow for you all. I hope it turns out! I also need to order new bulbs for the AeroGarden. One is already burned out. Bummer I know, but I need to keep the now thriving garden happy. Well lots to do and so little time. Pictures hopefully tomorrow!

I find it hard to believe that I am writing about Christmas gifts when the weather outside is determined to be summer. It is a sunny 70 degree day out in Oakland, and to be honest, I kind of miss winter. When I confessed this to my sister on the phone today, she assured me I would get my fill of cold weather when I come to visit her on the other side of the country in Delaware this month. I am sure that I will be happy to be back to the sun and warm once I have been away.

Today I wanted to just wrap up all the other presents I made this year for people. Here are all of the less cute, but still fun presents I made for the adults of the family. By no means did I make stuff for everyone, we did buy a few things, but a majority of the presents this year were handmade by me or purchased from other handmade places.

For my sister, I made her some Scrabble tile pendants. I went to a wonderful art store to pick out some Chyiogami papers. I did not realize how big the sheets would be, but I had to have two of them none-the-less. I think that some other projects can be made out of the left overs of the paper. Here are the tiles while they were drying:



It looked like I had some sort of odd science experiment going on. I thought that by putting some glasses over the tiles as they dried, I would prevent any dust from landing on them and being in the glaze. I really enjoyed making them and can totally understand why there are so many sellers out there. It was a fun, quick, and satisfying project. Here are my six finished tiles:



I also wanted to keep them covered to make sure that any errant glitter from the project I did for my Mom would not interfere. I made a candle holder project from this year's Martha Stewart Holiday magazine. I am always a sucker for her holiday issues, and this was no exception seeing as it boosted having a ton of handmade gift ideas. One that I really liked was this project that involved copying a picture into several sizes and placing it into the candle holders. You then were supposed to take glue and a fine tipped bottle and squeeze it on to cover the black parts of the image then sprinkle on the glitter.



Here they are getting ready for their glue bath. I found that the small tipped applicator bottles did not work well with the thick glue I bought, so I ended up painting on the glue. It worked out well, but the holders took forever to dry. By the time they would have been ready for their close-up, I was snatching them up to pack them for shipping. Sorry there is no finished shot!

For my sister-in-law Kathy, she wanted one of the burned velvet wreathes I made for my Mom and Beth. Luckily, I still had some of the materials left over. I found this project also courtesy of Martha Stewart a number of years ago. I finally got up the nerve to make one and bought all the materials and made all the rubber stamps. When it came time to do the actual project though, I made it for my sister for Christmas a few years ago. When my Mom's present that same year did not turn out, I cranked out another one for her. I was hoping to have the next one I made finally be mine, but I ended up making it for Kathy. Thank goodness I over bought on material the first time due to reading the directions wrong. I hope I have enough to make one more for me. Here is a picture of the one I made for Beth originally, but Kathy's looked almost the same:



I think that the next one of these will also be the last one, unless someone wants to purchase it from me. ;)

The last gift that I made that got out on time is the scarf I knit for my Grandmother. This is one of the first things I got done actually. I of course did not take any finished product pictures of this either, but here is it when I first started:



This was the first thing that I have ever knit. It is the "My so called scarf" pattern, and I really like how it looks. I am thinking about making one for myself too with some yarn that I bought at the same time. It is the same yarn just different colors, more purples and dark blues than this.

Well today I am going to try something new, free quilting on my machine. Since it does not have a stippling foot, I am kind of intimidated with this process, but I am going to give it a shot. I also have bread to attend to. I hope that it turns out. More tomorrow.