Quilt Action

Hello – I know it’s been months. It’s been months since I’ve written here because I’ve been so busy! I’ve been busy crafting, living and working. I also decided to take a break from my commercial crafting ventures and focus on making things for friends and family. Since I work full time, I don’t have that much crafting time, and I wanted to be able to put friends and family first when it came to making stuff. It will take me a while to post pictures of the things I’ve made over the last 6 months or so, but here’s a start.

I’ve been working on this quilt since a few months before my friends’ wedding in August 2008. I picked the fabrics and chose a design, but it took me quite a while to get to cutting, and sewing (and picking apart and re-sewing). Eventually, I got some help making my quilt sandwich from friends during Quilt Sunday at the Workroom. I finally just finished the quilt over the long weekend and was able to give it to them yesterday! It was so nice to be able to finish such a big project and have it appreciated by my friends (even though it was 18 months late!)

Cleaning out my closet

A whole bunch of awesome local crafters are clearing out their stashes to sell at thrifty prices, at the Workroom this Sunday. You may know that my craft shelf is a bit out of control, and so you might imagine that my fellow crafters also have a penchant for buying too many craft supplies on a whim or when they see a dreamy fabric or yarn and imagine a zillion possibilities for projects, or rounding up all sorts of collectables from yard sales from here to Montreal. Now is the time to take advantage of their (my) regrets. There will be a lot of good stuff: all sorts of craft supplies and vintage wares including (but not limited to) paper ephemera, vintage dresses, handprinted fabric remnant packs, buttons, findings, jewellery supplies, vintage fabrics, yarns & more!

So:
Pure Rummage Trunk Show
Sunday October 18, 2009
Noon-5pm
the workroom
1340 Queen Street West

be there!

oy – silence

So the wunderkind has returned from the Great White North… a while ago. The trip was great and since then so much has happened! I’ve got a new laptop, and although putting my photos on my computer is ridiculously quick with the SD card reader, it took a while for me to transfer my photos to flickr because our wireless didn’t really work and the days kept flying by.

Some highlights from my trip:

Nature!

Friends!

Family!

A big fish!

Wunderkind in the Wunderkammer

I apologize for the blog-silence. I don’t really have much of an excuse aside from the fact that I’ve been working a bunch and when I get home the last thing I want to do is listen to my loud PC hum at me while I wait for programs to load.

This weekend I am headed to the GWN (The Great White North!) to visit my parents. Contrary to popular belief, Whitehorse, Yukon, isn’t snow-covered year-round. In fact, it is often warmer there during the summer than in the rest of the country. The heavens must have heard that I was on my way and decided to start the rain this week, with no plans of stopping. I was hoping to spend a bunch of time on my parents’ deck in the hammock, reading or crocheting, but it looks like I’ll probably be doing that from the comfort of the couch in the living room instead. My dad sent me an MMS message to show me what awaits my arrival, this was taken on the back deck, when it was 32 C in the shade:

One of the other things I’d like to do, rain or shine, is collect wonderful Yukon-ey stuff for my big city friends (it’s true, they exist). Some need (I use this term interchangeably with WANT) things for their collections of natural curiosities, and others for crafty endeavours. One material that is so hot hot hot here is antlers. One could argue that this trend has passed, but I don’t think it ever got big enough to be played out (comments please?)
Check out this cast-ceramic version of an antler chandelier by Brooklyn-based designer Jason Miller. Here it is in an amazing AT house tour:

Vintage antlers are pretty popular too, especially in a flea-market chic decor. I spotted this set, used as a hat rack, in a vintage shop on Queen W near Roncesvalles (hard to see is the 90$ price tag).

So, any other requests for cool things from the Yukon? I will be taking photos of the airport (?!?) for Craig, picking up antlers for Sarah & Becky, and a little bit of everything for Chris.

Cherries – Clafoutis

I was inspired by the cherries I bought at the City Hall Farmer’s market a few weeks ago to figure out some kind of nice dessert to make with these juicy fresh fruit. I brought a bunch home and ate some, then pitted all the rest. I made a few turnovers, with limited success. I kept the rest of the pitted cherries in my fridge for a few days only to find out that pitted cherries don’t keep, even in the fridge, even if you mix them with lemon juice. OOPS.

I really wanted to make this fancy-sounding French dessert, clafoutis, to bring to the Workroom for Quilt Sunday. I looked up recipes on the internet, and found some really simple ones, and really complicated gourmet ones. In the end I pretty much free-lanced it, based on this recipe from epicurious.com.

Clafoutis sounds fancy, but is really a rustic dessert from the Limousin region of France. Traditional clafoutis uses un-pitted cherries, the pits then give an almond flavouring to the cake as it cooks. Since I was bringing this dessert to friends and strangers, I wanted to keep it easy to eat, and avoid having people choke on pits or have to spit the pits out in public. I added ground almonds to the dough, hoping to get a more authentic flavour. The cake itself is pretty much just pancake dough.

Here is my recipe:

• 1 pound of cherries, the darker the better!
• 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup of ground almonds
• pinch of salt!
• 4 large eggs
• 1 cup of milk (I used soy)
• 1/2 cup of sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• pit a pound of cherries – I cut them in half with a paring knife and used my thumb to push out the pit. The original recipe says to toss the cherries with corn starch and sugar, but I didn’t have any corn starch. Then, in order to avoid having the cherries soak the cake, I roasted them in the oven on a cookie sheet at 200 F for about 45 mins while I prepared the rest of the cake.
• pre-heat oven to 325 F. generously grease a rectangular pan (or any shape you like). I used a large pyrex dish
• mix the dry ingredients together (flour, almonds, salt) in a medium bowl
• mix the wet ingredients together with sugar (eggs, milk, vanilla) in a large bowl
• pour the dry mixture into the wet mixture and stir it up so there are no lumps
• pour the mixture into the greased dish
• drop the warm cherries evenly throughout the dough. Don’t mix!
• bake for 30 mins, then take out and sprinkle the top evenly with granulated sugar then return to the oven for another 20 to 25 mins until the top is golden brown.
• cut into slices and enjoy!

Karyn took a much better photo of my dessert!

Photo Friday – Water

I had decided to do a photo friday on my own a while ago, but I guess there’s very little original thought these days and a group of bloggers is also doing a photo friday. Slim Shaney kindly commented on my last post inviting me to join the others.

This week’s theme: water
My friend Jenny’s toes touch the ocean for the first time in New Jersey. A little late night detour during our trip to NYC in the summer of 2007.

My feet in the water right before nearly being drowned by a rogue wave in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

Beach in Bucerias, Mexico.

Photo Friday: getting to know the neighbourhood

(yes, neighbourhood has a “u” in it when you live and spell in Canada)

So last week was super super busy! I finished moving, then there was Canada Day, then wedding prep for my friend’s wedding. I did manage to take some time for a photo stroll with a friend of the groom, Craig MacBride. Shortly afterward I put him to work helping me with wedding prep, scanning old photos of the bride for a slideshow.

There are some interesting things in my new hood.

Then Sunday I went to Trinity Bellwoods Park for a nice crafternoon, chatted and crocheted, and enjoyed some iced tea from tealish, which was nice and refreshing.

Craft destination: Stockholm

Last summer was Japan. Next I’d really love to spend some time in Sweden. I probably won’t be able to make it until next fall, 2010, but until then, I’ll peruse the photos in this great guide to Stockholm’s crafty places from craftzine.com‘s Travel Crafty series.

A basket of trim for sale at Folckers, by Sabrina Gschwandtner, craftzine.com

I love vegetables

It’s true. As a child I didn’t love all vegetables, there were some for which I had a particular disdain, like onions. Now I can’t say I LOVE onions, but I don’t hate them. As a vegetarian, I think it’s important for me to eat all vegetables.
Living here in the “South” – relatively anyway, I grew up in the Yukon – I relish going to farmer’s markets and buying super fresh produce and baked goods. I just moved to a new apartment in a new neighbourhood, and I’ll be close to the Sorauren Park Farmer’s Market, yay!
Now that the municipal workers strike is on, I won’t be dashing down to City Hall for the regular Wednesday Farmers Market. However, I went a few weeks ago and took some shots of delicious veggies in the bright sunlight.


I apologize for the relative silence on this blog these days, but as some of you may know I moved and had a job interview and I’m helping my friend get a few things ready for her wedding this Friday.

Sewn coasters in action!

As promised, but slightly late… here are some action pics of my cute sewn coasters from the coaster swap. After a long day of selling my clutter in a collaborative yard sale with my friends (and eating delicious baked goods) I needed a cold drink. We headed for the Party Zone in the LCBO which is where you’ll find pre-mixed cocktails so that you can start the party pretty much the minute you exit that place.
I was excited to break out the new coasters this weekend for the first time! Don’t you think they look really cute with the glasses, the pink pomegranate martini and my faux-wood tray? I also purposely included the Canada Dry club soda in the pictures as a cultural reference point. And in case you had any doubts, my friend and I managed to polish off the bottle of pom-tini in about 1.5 hours.ery