sewing room update

As soon as we were back from vacation, I started fall cleaning the house. (anything to conquer jet lag, right?)

It feels so good to clean each room from top to bottom and get rid of clutter. And, I finally paid someone to clean our wooden blinds for us (best *investment* ever!).

I also got around to cleaning out my craft room (see the original post about this room here). It was fun to go through my old treasures and find some long forgotten purchases. It was also a great reminder that I don't need to buy more craft supplies any time soon!


I rearranged my bookshelf to fit more fabric and more yarn and hung up the two doll quilts from DQS7 and DQS9.


Here is my room again going counterclockwise around from the door.


I added these pegs a few years ago and they have been great for organizing my bags of projects. I couldn't find a long board, so I bought two and painted them white (from Michaels). I like having the bins of yarn out in the open now so I have a visible reminder not to buy more yarn! The quilt hanging on the door was made by Jessica for DQS7 - I love the bright, citrusy colors she used! I love having something not made by me hanging in here for inspiration.


I painted this dresser green to add some color to the room. If I had to do it over again, I would probably go with teal instead, but it's too late now. I store office supplies, computer supplies and random cables and chargers in here.


I rearranged the cubes in my expedit shelf and got rid of the wooden storage boxes on top leftover from my scrapbooking ephemera days. Now I've dedicated a few more cubes in the shelf to yarn and fabric. Above the bookshelf is my new doll quilt from Emma. It matches my room perfectly and I just love it. You can read more about her process here.


Here's my sewing/computer desk area. If I had more space in here, I would have added a taller cutting table for rotary cutting, but there's just no room for another table so I will have to make due by hunching over while I rotary cut. The mini bookshelf came from our kitchen after we added the pantry shelf and stores my stationery collection, pen collection and more books.


On the final wall I hung a set of pictures from Iceland and an Icelandic sheep poster above my weaving loom. Jon thought I was crazy for wanting to hang a picture of sheep butts on my wall, but the sheep butts crack me up, so they're on the wall to stay!

Pantry Upgrade (or Why we no longer face avalanches when opening our cupboards)

We have a pretty small kitchen in our house and right now a kitchen remodel is neither in the budget nor wise in this economy. Our cupboards were packed to the gills and we had trouble finding things or even remembering what we had in our cupboards. We'd been wracking our brains to come up with a new way to add storage to our kitchen and when I saw this post by Amber, it finally dawned on me that we could add a hutch at IKEA to this one nook in our kitchen for extra storage. Before our pantry upgrade the nook had a tiny bookshelf for our cookbooks, our pan rack and the kitties' food dishes.


After looking online at IKEA, I wasn't able to find to a hutch that we liked, so we settled on getting this Billy bookshelf. Then when we got to IKEA, we found this Hemnes bookshelf with doors and decided to go with this option instead. The Hemnes shelf was more expensive, but it's made with real wood and is versatile enough to be used in another room in our house should we ever decide to remodel the kitchen or move to a house with better kitchen storage.


Ahh...much better! Ever since finishing up this project, we've spent a wee bit too much time staring at this cabinet and smiling. :)

We culled our cookbook collection a bit to fit on the shelves (we both have a fondness for collecting new cookbooks) and the cookbooks here are books that we use frequently. As you can see, our main cooking interests are smoothies, canning, bread, japanese food, vegan/vegetarian food, and baking.

For dry pantry storage jars we used:

1. Burken lidded canisters in the large and medium size for dried beans, nuts, fruit, grains, seaweed, pasta, and sweeteners.

2. Anchor Hocking 1-Gallon Glass storage jars for white and wheat flour, rice, dry cat food and oatmeal



3. Pint and Quart Mason Jars for everything else that was too small to put into the Burken jars.

I typed printed the contents of each of the jars on paper, trimmed the tags to size and attached the tags to the jars with clear tape to label each jar. We can easily peel off a label and make a new label if we ever have to switch around the contents of the jars.

Now that we have freed up so much space in our cupboards, it's so much
easier to keep everything organized and within reach. It's exciting to
cook again because we actually have an excuse to open up the new cabinet
and pull out a jar of food to use. We definitely should have done this
sooner!

P.S. That bright green binder on the bottom shelf is my organized recipe binder seen here.

catching up

I spent Sunday catching up on life around our house. Now our pantry is stocked, laundry is finished (and put away!), soups are stored in the freezer and my head is clear and ready for another week. It feels good to get things accomplished.


I made the most delicious loaf of Mediterranean Olive, Sun Dried Tomato and Walnut bread from The Joy of Vegan Baking. So delicious! I'll share the recipe later this week. The second favorite recipe I made was the Pickle Soup from Love Soup...so yummy!


I started working on my failed Ravelympics project again. It's coming along much better now and I hope to have it finished by this weekend.


Jon and I have been burning the candle at both ends, so it was nice to have a day to get caught up on things and relax before the start of another busy week.

on fire...literally

Jon was in a cooking mood on Saturday night, so he pulled out The Joy of Cooking and got to work preparing double-fried french fries (with potatoes and sweet potatoes). I heard him clanging around upstairs for quite a while and he yelled downstairs to say that the first batch of the fries came out great. Things were quiet for a while and then Jon yells "I need some help up here."

Next time I'll know that when Jon says "I need some help up here," he really means, "FIRE!" How sweet of him to spare my nerves by calmly asking for help.

Jon was beating down flames from a small grease fire with a kitchen towel. He had waited until he had doused the fire with corn starch and flour and smothered the big flames before he yelled for backup...yikes!

After vacuuming, scrubbing, mopping and airing out the kitchen and the stove, Jon still wasn't ready to give up on his fry cooking adventure. He finished deep frying the french fries and made these adorable little cones to serve the fries in (aww!).

Our little snack was a delicious treat and a great reward for mad firefighting skills.

our exciting life...

Jon and I have been going back and forth about purchasing a breadbox (I know, the exciting things we discuss...). Shinji likes to jump up on top of the fridge and chew through our plastic bread bags, so we normally have to put our bread in the fridge (ew) or in the cupboard. When I saw this breadbox at Target last week I *almost* bought it, and once Jon and I went back to the store together, he totally wanted it, too, so we picked it up.

In honor of our new bread box and lack of bread in the house, Jon made these two really cute loaves of Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day bread. It was such a nice treat to come home freshly baked bread after spending the day working at my internship.

In other carb-loaded news, we found a local pizzeria that makes three different types of vegan pizza. Since switching our diet, I've really been missing the ability to order a takeout pizza (not the actual pizza itself...cheese and I are not good friends), but just the idea of calling up a restaurant and ordering a takeout pizza. This pizza was so tasty. It was topped with pesto, walnuts, garlic, tomatoes, broccoli and red sauce and was absolutely delicious! We will definitely be ordering this again.

One other item that magically appeared in our Target cart on Friday was the Super Mario game for the Wii. While I was diligently working all weekend, my sister and Jon played Mario for hours on end. They made it to the halfway point of the game this weekend and now their seat outlines are permanently imprinted on the couch. :)

it's not Christmas unless there's a home improvement project in the works

I've got two weeks off of work for Christmas and New Year's. It's the perfect time to relax, watch Christmas movies, catch up on my reading list and enjoy time with family, right?

True to form, Jon and I got it in our heads that these two weeks would be the perfect time to work on a little home improvement project. We're tackling our basement and sprucing the place up and cleaning it out. Things are moving along and we should have everything finished by the end of next week. I'll have lots of before and after pictures to share then.

In the mean time, I have been working on this Simple Yet Effective Shawl by Cosmicpluto
knits at night. I purchased this fingering weight yarn from Oiyi's new
etsy shop, ATD Crafts, and it is so lovely to work with. I am trying very hard to resist the urge to invest in a spinning wheel and start a new hobby. I have a feeling that 2010 will be turning into the "use what I have year."

I also received a lovely package from my Holiday Traditions Exchange partner, Carrie. She made these cute little twig star ornaments and pine scented bags for me. I used them to decorate the little Christmas tree in my office. Now everything smells pine scented and Christmasy.

End of May Hat & Handspun Scarf

I finished up the End of May hat on Monday night. This project was so much fun and I'm officially addicted to stranded knitting. I've got lots of yarn left over, so I will be making the matching mittens to go along with the hat.

Here's the details:

Pattern: End of May Hat by Zig Zag Stitch

Yarn: Berocco Ultra Alpaca

Needles: US4

Size: Large (next time I will do the smaller size and use size 3 needles)

Notes: I guess I had some gauge issues with this hat, because it turned out a
tad too big for my head (width and lengthwise). I remedied the
situation by tossing it in the dryer for 10 minutes. The hat fits much
better now and doesn't cover my eyes when I pull it down all the way.

Rav link: craftr's End of May

I've been trolling Ravelry for fun colorwork patterns now that I can officially add colorwork as one of my knitting skills. I discovered SpillyJane Knits through a Ravelry ad last year and now I'm ready to take the plunge to make up some of her cute mitten patterns. My favorites are the Swedish Fish Mittens and the Carrots and Beets Mittens.

Before I stock up on fingering weight yarn and tiny needles, I plan to make the Chevron Love Mittens with this Farmer's Market Kit that I bought last winter. It hurts me a little to wind up these cute little hanks of yarn into balls, but I've got to bite the bullet, right?

I also finished this scarf made out of the handspun that I bought last Saturday. I based it loosely on the Noro Striped Scarf pattern.

Here's the Details:

Yarn: Handspun by hands + notions (130 yards of wool locks, silk and alpaca)

 Takhi Sedona in off white (2 skeins held doubled)

Needles: Size 10.5

Pattern: Cast on 17 stitches. K1p1 alternating between 2 rows of natural yarn and 2 rows of handspun yarn, slipping the first stitch of each row.

Size: 5 inches by 84 inches

Notes: The Sedona yarn was really great to work with. It's a nubby thick worsted and really soft. I'd definitely use it again. Now, I think I'm a little hooked on handspun yarn. I will be desperately trying to keep myself from picking up another hobby. Wish me luck!

Rav link: craftr's Handspun Scarf

• • •

We had a very productive day at our house! We cleaned it from top to bottom (including the fridge!) and we put up all of our Christmas decorations.

Bring on the hot chocolate and Christmas tunes on repeat for the next month!

Weekend Project: New floor

After living with a carpeted office for two years, Jon finally ripped it out and we converted it to IKEA laminate flooring. This new floor is much better suited to life with two kitties with minds of their own!

The whole process was fairly painless. We managed to get the floor all laid out within two hours.

Then we had to make an emergency trip to Lowe's for some new quarter round molding because of gaps next to the wall.

Jon finished up the project yesterday afternoon and now we're waiting for the custom door to be built before we can call this room finished!

while I was away

in no particular order...

• I watched Jon learn lots of new knitting skills. So far he's finished his first scarf and is working on a set of handwarmers, Dashing.

• I worked on my NaKniSweMo.





Here's the progress on November 30,

and here's the progress today. I'm hoping to finish the sweater up by Saturday.

• I successfully cooked my first Thanksgiving dinner for Jon's family (turkey and all) and sewed these napkins for the table.

• I found the perfect stuffing recipe for said Thanksgiving dinner: Sourdough stuffing

• I finished up the semester (well, about 98% finished)

• I watched and was inspired by Craft in America

• I saw an incredibly inspiring, deaf percussionist, Evelyn Glennie, perform with the DSO.

Now, I've got a month of free time and a long list of projects to do and books to read. Hopefully I won't be taking long breaks again any time soon!

painting: before & after

I spent the past two evenings painting and fixing up our guest bedroom. I'm getting the room ready for the new quilt that I'll be making from the blocks from the virtual quilting bee, Common Threads, that I'm participating in.





Ever since we first painted this room, I've never really been happy with the color. I've been plotting a color change for quite a while and finally painted the room last night. The old color was Buxton Blue and the new is Sierra Hills (both from Benjamin Moore).





Here's the after picture with our temporary duvet. We normally use this in our bedroom for the winter, so this will work in the guest room for now.





I pulled together a few of our favorite photos from our Japan trip and made a photo collage above the bed. I'm glad to have some pictures hanging up in our house that remind us of our trip!

Next up, I've got to make curtains for the window, a runner for the dresser, and, of course, the new quilt for the bed.

Merry Christmas!

It wouldn't be Christmas around here without Peanut Butter Bon Bons.

Here's the recipe for this festive little treat we make every year:

1 cup Peanut Butter

1 cup Butter

2 cups Confectioner's Sugar

4 cups Rice Krispies

12oz package of Chocolate chips or bits

Melt butter and add peanut butter. Stir until melted on low heat. In a large bowl mix Rice Krispies and confectioner's sugar. Pour in peanut butter mixture and mix with hands. Form into 1 inch balls and place on waxed paper. Refrigerate until firm. Melt chocolate bits in double boiler or microwave. Dip half the cookie in melted chocolate. Place back on waxed paper and refrigerate until chocolate hardens. After dipping in chocolate, they can be dipped into colorful sprinkles, chopped nuts, etc.

first big snow

Other than shoveling our driveway and sidewalks, we enjoyed our first big winter storm inside today. Catching up on some Battlestar Galactica episodes (Jon is very proud of getting me hooked on a sci fi show), making Thai Chicken Pizza, knitting and embroidering. A wonderfully lazy Sunday!

our wood pile for next summer's bonfires

back to reality...

Jon and I have been mia lately, partly because of our mission to re-read the first six Harry Potter books before the final book comes out on July 21, and partly due to this lovely little kitty. Thanks to the wonder-drug/cat pheromone, Feliway, and lots of cleaning, we now have a calm cat and our sanity back. Thank goodness for science!

Because we were so obsessed with taking care of the cat and cleaning our house, we both kind of neglected our garden. I went outside to look at it this afternoon and was amazed at how big everything (both plants and weeds) had grown. We really are going to be able to eat lots of veggies later this summer...I can't wait!

And, our flowers are filling in nicely this summer. Some coleus (my favorite):

and big, beautiful hydrangea blooms:

And finally, this afternoon we got our first Thursday edition of the Oakland Press. A few weeks ago I was coerced into buying a 15-week subscription from an amazing adolescent salesman who only needed TWO MORE subscriptions before he won some fabulous prize. I caved under his amazing sales capabilities. He is going to make one excellent car salesmen in the future. This comes as a big disappointment to me because my Persuasion and Propaganda class in college was one of my favorites. I guess I need a refresher course!

Jon, on the other hand, has this amazing ability to avoid any and all forms of door to door salespeople. In less than five seconds, he is able to turn off lights, close blinds and yell our our secret “child-salesperson approaching” codeword to warn me of the impending guilt. Next time I think I'll follow his lead and run and hide when I hear the doorbell ring!