Pumpkin Spice

Tra-la-la!
I have created Cake!
It is a Pumpkin Spice Cake, made by me. I dont think I've ever made a cake from scratch all on my own though I've done my fair share of cake-mix cakes, so this is new. My cake is leaning to one side though like a Tower of Pisa, and I've filled it with frosting to try and hide this. That's the magic of frosting, it's like baking white-out for your mistakes. This cake is for a Halloween Potluck at work today for lunch. I am scared because I have no lid to put over it to protect it so I'm improvising with an upside down mixing bowl. What are my chances of putting this in my car, battling the crazy morning traffic of stop-go-up-La-Cienega-crazy-swerve-turn-onto-Slauson and this poor cake remaining unscathed? Maybe like 6%. Say a little prayer for my cake.

I Desire You, Heather Bailey

I was looking through my printed out collection of patterns from different online sources, and happened across Heather Bailey's Bitty Booties pattern I came across some time ago. I decided to visit her website and discovered her new line of fabrics, Freshcut! It's gorgeous, so colorful and, well, fresh! I absolutely desire them all, and must order soon. Her entire blog is goreous as well, and it's totally inspiring. Her projects are amazing, and I am rendered speechless wishing I was more advanced at the sewing so I could tackle some more difficult projects that have rewarding finishes. See her site here

Bleh

oh cramps:

i hate you - go away

I love my sewing machine now that's it's running so smoothly!
I worked last night on !Christmas Presents! and wish I could post photos, but then the !Christmas Presents! wouldn't be suprises when the time comes. I'll keep documentation though, and post after all presents have been revieved as a record of the crafting. Just know this - they are lovely and happy and I have having a splendid time in my craft room. I already long for the weekend for more time to work on !Christmas Presents! I need to make a trip to the fabric store, but it's too far to do at lunch and too trafficy after work....

Yums

Last night for dinner I cooked Plantains. David made some chicken and rice and I fried up my sticky sweet delights, and we feasted. I've never tried to make them before, and it's actually super easy. Yum yum yum so sweet and delicious!

Bunny

Big Footed Bunny got her dress completed this weekend! When I finished sewing it, it turned out to be a little too small, the shoulder straps wouldn't wrap all the way over her shoulders on accound of how full I stuffed her ;) So I improvised making little button snaps to connect the front to the back and I think it came out really cute. I made the dress out of a pillow cover from an old bed set, and I love the way I got the ribbon flowers to work on the dress.
Saturday morning David made me Hello Kitty Waffles!They were delicious and wonderful and my tummy was so happy. I got lots of projects going this weekend and I am excited to complete them and start more. Kristen came over to knit while I embroidered and we had tea with wonderful pumpkin bread that she baked. She is leaving on Wednesday for her vacation in Malaysia. I can't wait to her about her adventures. Kristen, you better bring back lots of pictures and things for us to marvel over.

Happy Kitchen

I left work this afternoon and went to Marina Farms, my most favorite produce market where I can buy locally grown food. It's small and friendly and stocked high with beautiful fruits and veggies of all colors in rows of rainbows. (Not to mention Tastes of Summer and Black Currant Tea, as well as many flavors of licorice including raspberry, watermelon and green apple, as well as Violet Crumble bars for my sweet tooth!) I bought a few things and headed home to start dinner. I did the dishes first, then oiled 2 sweet potatoes and put them in the oven to bake. I've got some fresh broccoli cut and ready to go in the steamer, and my half cup of rice waiting for cooking. It's so nice and fullfilling sometimes to prepair a really simple dinner, knowing the food is fresh and healthy. Baked sweet potatoes sound so good right now, and I can hear them sizzling away in the oven. My kitchen is happy, it will be happier tomorrow after it's cleaning, but for now this is the best I can do. When I've got some dinner cooking after a work week and I know David Michael is on his way home, and Elwood is laying sideways on the carpet showing off his belly and flexing his fatty paws doing the make-muffins-in-the-air-thing, and I know there's 2 days just for me, just for me to endlessly puruse my craft books and get a couple projects in, I feel so content and warm and rosy. I think it's good to dewll on these moments cause they're rare. Time to go check the mail, hopefully some good Netflix arrive and maybe a letter from Grandma Joy.....

Tra la la

Good morning!
I am enjoying black raspberry tea and milk with sourdough english muffin, all toasted with butter and fresh honey (from before mentioned Dad's honey extractor) ready for a fabulous friday. The most fabulous part of it being it will soon be over and I'll be back at home for the weekend! I plan to stay home, attend to some long-overdue cleaning, and some extended crafting! My sewing machine is going to get a dusting/cleaning/oiling and then be back into production. Yesterday after work I went to Pearl and bought tons of felt in all colors to finally attack the Softies book. I plan on making Mrs. Green Tea and possibly the little pink cake. And possibly the cute little pink doggy. Hooray for 2 days off every week!!!!

Happy Feet

Look at these happy little slippers I knitted up for myself last night! That is a complete lie, fooled you. I bought these at Target! So soft, so warm, made in China. But they are really cute with little buttons and I wish I could knit some. I am too busy with the embroidering right now. I tried to make an outline of Christmas gifts yesterday, who gets 'em and what they'll be and it was tricky and maybe a little overly ambitious. But I'm going to try. Some people will be getting presents in January that's all ;)

PS. Don't miss the Elwood foot in the corner, what a show stealer! He is the biggest ham.

Chain Gang

Last night I learned to do a chain stitch. It's so simple that I don't know why I never tried to do it before. AND I learned it out of one of my Japanese craft books by looking at the pictures. Yeah! I am embroidering a tote bag as a gift, and I did it til my fingers were raw as the canvas material is not so easy to pull that little needle through. We watched The Hoax last night as I stitched and David Michael ate popcorn. I want to sew/craft my Xmas presents this year, so hopefully if I start in October I can complete the majority of them this way. I love giving presents, it's the best!

Things In My Parent's House That I Like

Resurrected Roadkill
My 5th grade Vikki Vale photo.
The Baby Wall. (Clockwise, starting in the upper left corner: Laurel, Maddy, Amy, Ari, Julianne, Lindsey)
A honey extracter. Bet your dad doesn't have one of these.
These candles are made by bees. (Ha-ha!) Bet also that your dad can't make candles!

Pumpkin love

We drove to Lompoc Friday night so we could join Dad + Justin for some free golfing at Avila Beach. I gave it a try, I played the first nine holes, hacking the ground along the way. I had a couple good swings, but left shocked at just how hard it is to whack that little ball into the air.

After golf, we went to the Apple Farm to meet the rest of the family for dinner, and collect Halloween pumpkins. We also saw some ducks with puffys on their heads.

White Out

OK I couldn't handle the orange anymore - it was starting to make me not want to post. Good while it lasted. I am starting to wonder if I will get a halloween costume together this year, I haven't made any progress on even thinking about it. Maybe after I find my perfect pumpkin I will be more excited. Will Mr. Mayor Pudding get a costume? He says he hasn't thought about it either. I would like to roll him in yarn until he's just a ball with feet and ears sticking out. And a tail. Waving back and forth, ever so displeased.

In My Belly

So I have made 2 delicious dinners 2 nights in a row that I am proud of. A rump roast - bacon - beer stew on Wednesday that is oh so delicious. Agata gave me this recipie and I'd stashed it away all summer and now that chillier weather is setting in it was just the thing. You have to cook bacon, yellow onions, tomatoes, garlic, rump roast, dark ale, salt / pepper / thyme / rosemary and yukon gold potatoes for 2 1/2 hours for delicious chowing. Then last night I made a medditeranean tuna casserole. This was also awesome, and only took about 40 minutes (prep and cooking). Thin sliced red peppers, tuna, olive oil, flour, whole mik, wide egg noodles, artichoke hearts, salt / pepper all cook happily together for 20 minutes. I loved it and even though I halved the recipe I still have leftovers I'll probably eat tonight before setting out for Lompoc. We are going for the weekend, David and dad are going to play golf at Avila, and we will visit the Apple Farm and maybe get a pumpkin!!!

BFB Lives!

Well she's been stuffed and sewn up and her little bobble tail attached, and now all she needs are her clothes! I've cut out the material for a dress and a pair of short pants for Big Footed Bunny. She has been a challenge and needed lots of touch ups at the seams but she's here, and Elwood sure hates her. He's tried to attack on 2 occasions when BFB tried to make friends, and he dissaproves that she gets to sit on the couch with us at night. In the words of Elliot Smith, he's just a jealous guy.

May All Your Days Be Circus Days

Too much has been going on - I haven't gotten to post at all.
Last weekend was my Dad's uncle Cliff's funeral and I met the family at Forest Lawn Memorial park for the service. Cliff was a really awesome guy and it was very sad and I shant discuss much of it here, but will mention it was one of the best services I've ever gone too with an excellent speaker, and Dad made this amazing flower arrangement you see here. He's very amazing.On Sunday I went to Agata's house with Lindsay Kristen and Tammy, and we crafted the day away - Crepés & Crafts! She made us delicious crepés with Nutella and rasperries, blueberries, blackberries, strawberries bananas mangos! I was full of delicious fruit and chocolate. I brought my new Softies book, and Agata made this adorable whale out of an old sweater. I am finally making Big Footed Bunny, and boy is he a trickster to sew - you have to be very careful and he has a lot of curvy tricky bits to get through. I got his basic body done though.Lastly, last night Lindsay Christine and I attended THE CIRCUS! Circus Vargas set up in the parking lot of the Fox Hills Mall across the street from work, so we made a circus date. It was such a good crappy time. We were harassed by clowns weilding big balloons, and got to see dogs and cats do tricks that amazed. There was plenty of Mexican techno music and blacklight leotard costumes complete with butt-capes. I had a splendid time.

Elwoods New Homemade Toy

So I (meaning david the third part of this blog always lurking never posting) couldn't sleep on Sat. so I made a new toy for Elwood. I can hear the high pitched eeeeks of cuteness that will be coming from Lindsey when she sees this.

Chiquita Chandelier

Wowee Wow wow, I saw this amazing chandlier on Craftivity this morning and was excited. I would hang it in my dining room with Mr. Jinx below for the ultimite effect. I do love me somes bananananananananas.

>Thrifty Dutch designer Anneke Jakobs has created something wonderfully ‘a-peeling’ with her recycled Chiquita Chandelier. Created while a student at the Utrecht School of Product Design, the eco-luxe chandelier consists of cut out banana shapes from ten Chiquita cartons that the designer rescued from the streets. All of the chandelier elements are secured with desktop paper fasteners. The chandelier is for subtle ambient lighting only, but we are most impressed by the designer’s creative use of castaway materials for an upscale, brand-subverting object.<

My Favorite Neighbor

Last night we watched this wonderful documentary on Mr. Rogers. He is a beautiful, wonderful man. I highly reccomended it, especially if you used to watch this show when you were a kid. I almost cried when he was reunited at an awards cermeony with a handicapped man who appeared on the show when he was a little boy and they sang together, "I like you just the way you are". It had been years since he's seen this little boy, and you could tell how delighted he was so see him again, and that Mr. Rogers really cared deeply about everybody. It's a little long, especially at the end when they included some uncut interviews and old documentaries, but it's great nonetheless. It's narrated by Michael Keaton, who apparently got his start working on the set of the show. Weird, but awesome. Did you know his mother knit all those sweaters? That is truly amazing.

Oh, Donna

I'm really proud of my newest recycled-record-journal. It's made from an old Donna Summer album, and it has 2 flaps for the cover, one with her die-cut with a great lumpy edge along the top of her 'fro, and a second one inside with her in an amazing white dress. The inside has swirly-twirly orange/brown/gold marbled paper, she's a super-hottie! I'm posting it on Etsy tonight.

Mouse Torture

David rigged up this toy for Elwood - it's a cardboard tube with one of his furry mice inside in the very middle tied with string. There's no way his tiny arms can reach all the way to the middle of the tube, so though he may try, he usually ends up fuitless, pushing the tube all around the living room with his head, eye pressed up inside the opening. When he exhausts himself doing this, he falls alseep still peering in with sad eyes, in love with the mouse.

October!

I've given the blog an October-Halloweenie makeover to be festive with the season. Will I get a pumpkin this year??? There's no where to keep it when you don't really have a porch and the outside of your building is a common area you can't keep anything in. I suppose it could be an indoor pumpkin, just for me. David-Michael is not so big on the holidays, but he usually humors me. He did get me a little tree last year for Christmas wich I loved very much, so maybe we can have baby pumpkins. The apartment has fallen into dirtiness as I've had no interest in cleaning lately, and I've let all my craziness accumulate around us. I know the urge to tidy will come and then I'll smite down the dirty and put the suffering on every surface, but for now, all I want to do is read blogs, read my books, draw pictures and play with my sewing machine.....

A Posting for the Tiny!

Here's another old journal entry, this one's for you, Tiny. Could it really be 6 years since then?

March 2001

Yesterday in Nick Taggart’s drawing and painting class, around hour 5 Jessie Bishop and I went crazy on the couch on the sixth floor, laughing hysterically. We stole the tiny clay grey shark hanging from the ceiling by it’s tail on a piece of wire. I almost started crying we were having so much fun. Jenny McLean walked by in amazement saying that shark had been hanging from the ceiling since she started school there four years ago. I broke it by accident, and we just kept laughing.

This weekend was David's 30th birthday - I took him out to Arnie Morton's Steakhouse downtown, it was so fancy and delicious. They do a visual presentation of the menu, and I was saddened by a lobster on a plate that turned out to be alive, it looked at me and I was sad.

On Sunday I went with Christine to see Across The Universe - it's directed by Julie Taymoor, which is why I wanted to see it. The story isn't amazing, but her visuals are, and the songs of couse are good, there was a Janis Joplin-like character I loved, and I had a good time watching it. I can't belive how many songs the Beatles wrote that are so great, and it's cool to see them evolving with the politics and conditions of their times.