Under a blue moon

5.31.11

I'm not much of a breakfast eater.  I generally make myself a cup of tea and then a while later I might have a piece of toast.  And I only do that because all the nutritional pundits claim your metabolism will grind to a halt if you don't eat something for breakfast. 

Since we had a houseguest this weekend I wanted to have something on hand so that when we got up in the morning I could wave my hand in the general direction of the kitchen and say "have at it."

I figured a quick bread would be suitable.  I made Nancy McDemott's pear bread as adapted by Smitten Kitchen.  

Pears are tricky.  They are like avocados in that you have to think ahead to when you want to use them and buy them a few days ahead of time.  Otherwise they are rock hard and flavorless.  I also don't know if Bartlett pears are the best baking pears.  They were okay but the bread wasn't as peary tasting as I wanted it to be.  It did smell heavenly while baking but it could have been zucchini bread or persimmon bread for all the pear flavor it had.  

I understand that the flavors of the bread develop over a couple of days so I'm hoping that in a day or two it wil be the pear bread that I was envisioning.  

Now if we only had a coffee maker I would be the perfect hostess.

 

5.29.11

Another tutorial.  I'm on a roll here.  This one was inspired by a case of mistaken identity.  I saw this picture and thought what adorable hot pads.  When I looked closer I realized they were actually coasters but I was smitten with the idea of making hot pads.

I decided to make mine out of vintage linens.  You could use old tablecloths from the 40's or 50's.  These happen to be made out of tea tray cloths from that era.

The biggest challenge I had was finding heat proof cloth for the batting.  I wasn't sure if regular old batting would work and didn't want to test it out.  Then I was wandering through IKEA and spied an ironing board cover.  Perfect!  The heat proof pad was separate from the cover and it was only $4.99.  

Here we go:

Step 1-3

Gather your materials:

Fabric and trims.  I used wide rick rack and some cotton crocheted lace.

Heat proof fabric  - either from your fabric store, or in a pinch from an ironing board cover.

Cutting mat, straight edge, scissor and rotary cutter (Tip:  If you are prone to cutting cardstock with your rotary cutter do yourself a favor and put in a fresh blade.  Ahem).  

Step 4

Cut out two 9 1/2" squares of fabric (Note: You can have the pattern on both sides of the hot pad - in this example there was only a printed image on one end of the tea tray so the other end, or side, is plain) and a 9 1/2" square of heat proof cloth.

Place the heat proof cloth against the wrong side of one of your fabric squares.  Baste together (keeps it from shifting around when you are sewing the layers together).

Step 5

Line your rick rack or trim up to the the right side of the other square of fabric, up against the edge. I find that the jumbo (5/8" wide) rick-rack turns out perfectly if you line it right up against the edge and baste it just slightly under 1/4" away from the edge.  

Step 6

Place your two pieces of fabric right sides together and sew using a 1/4" seam allowance, leaving a 4" opening.  Trim the heat proof fabric as close to the line of stitching (to get rid of some of the bulk at the edges).  Remove your basting stiches from the heat proof cloth.

Step 7

Turn your pot holder right side out.  

Step 8

Sew about 1/8" in from the edge of the fabric to close the opening and finish off the pot holder. 

Friday's Favorites

Flickr Favorites

• Oooooh sparkly!  I can't pick out just one thing from Tiny Galaxies' shop so I have to link to everything.
• Does anyone have any of the Persephone books?  I'm tempted to do a subscription and have one lovely book after another delivered every month.  You can even choose which books you want.
• Ha!  
• I thought this was clever.  For those of you that might have an aversion to glitter (you know who you are :-) ).  Here - you can order the empty shaker bottles.
• And we are back to sparkly.  I think I need this star projector for my room.

Have a most wonderful weekend everyone!  If you are the US enjoy your three-day holiday!

5.25.11

Do it yourself cupcake liners.  I saw this picture and had to try it myself.  I couldn't figure out how to download a template from that site so I googled 'cupcake liner template' and the first one I clicked on came with all kinds of dire warnings about malicious code so I quickly shut it down.

One can't have malicious with ones pretty, lacy cupcake liners.  It's just not right.

Then I figured I would just start cutting and see what happened.  No template required.  I used a regular cupcake liner as a guide and a little double sided tape to hold things together.  These liners don't have a bottom - just a little lip around the bottom edge. 

I figure you get two or three per doily (depending on the size of your doily).  Let's say you get two from each 8" doily and if a package of 20 doilies is about $5 that is 12.5 cents a piece compared to about $1 a piece for the laser cut ones.  

Oh and here is the cupcake recipe I used - only I left out the pastry cream (for lack of time).  The frosting (or is it icing?  I never know which one is correct) was easy and tastes great.  I just dipped the cupcakes into the pan and gave it a little twist.  I let them dry for about 15 minutes and then dipped them again.  The cupcakes puff up when you bake them but then flatten out nicely when they cool.  

 

5.24.11

Last weekend was spent just puttering around.  Aren't those the best weekends?  

We can't do our usual annual gardening since the deck (where most of the gardening takes place in pots) will be under construction in a few weeks.  No sense planting a bunch of stuff just to have to store it behind the house for a month.   I did get some double petunias and put them in a pot on top of a stump.  That stump is actually holding up a new Mimosa tree.  You can see the wire.  I figured it might as well be decorative as well as functional.

The other area - the driveway circle - will require a lot of landscaping but we have to wait until that is finished too.  

Here is a picture of the driveway (looking down towards the street).  That scruffy stuff in the foreground is the top of the circle.  It slopes down towards the street.  We are going to put in a natural rock retaining wall at the low end so the planting area (which is about 28' by 45') can be leveled out.  Then a focal point (the crab apple) will go in the middle with various flowering and fragrant plants around it.  

I did plant one thing in one of the pots on the deck.  A tomato plant.  We don't have any areas that get prolonged amounts of sun during the day except for the deck.  So I figured I would try growing a tomato in a pot and see how that goes.  

It is a Brandywine.  I picked it because after spending half an hour looking in the tomato aisle at our local nursery I got overwhelmed and it said it was heirloom and Amish.  Good enough for me.  We'll see how it goes.  

One thing I don't want to have to deal with are those ugly horned worms.  I have taken preventative measures.