A little while ago I had to put my pride aside and admit that I was never going to get around to coding up my own blog. Fortunately, Nils is a fantastic programmer and made this blog for me. What's also fortunate is that he knows I like to change things, and knows I'll never settle on a background or layout, so he made it pretty easy to change... so I'm in the process of changing it :)
EDIT: Since no one actually reads this, I'm not
bothering with testing layouts on an internal site. You get to see the
mess I made! Perhaps I'll fix it this weekend.
My basil was getting a little tall (above is trimmed) so I tried to make some pesto. Unfortunately, it was pretty bad... but look how pretty the leaves are!
And now, the story of a pot holder: Yesterday, after a lovely afternoon out with a new friend, I made a quick stop at the craft store and picked up a bit of fabric and some fixings. Some time ago I picked up a yard of fabric in a ridiculous rooster pattern. I didn't know what I was going to use it for, but I found a cute pattern for a pot holder in Amy Butler's In Stitches: More Than 25 Simple and Stylish Sewing Projects.
The rooster fabric looked pretty good with some solid red, and some black and white polka dot fabric, so a few grommets, some bias tape, and some batting later, I was set to start on what I thought was going to be a quick project.
As it turns out, I 'm not terribly good at quilting. I spent a good 5 hours making this damn pot holder because I spent so, so much time fighting with the tension on my sewing machine and ripping out seams. I tested everything first, but as soon as I moved to the real thing everything seemed warped. I love the sewing machine but I don't know how to use it very well yet.
So after many frustrated hours, I forgot to take WIP pictures. Here's one just before I sewed on the bias tape around the edges. The directions call for making your own bias tape but I was lazy and bought some plain black. It worked out fine and was easy to work with.
The above photos show the front and back, pretty much finished. I added a grommet and sewed a few stitches where those pins are to keep things in place to finish it off. All in all, it took way too much time to make a single, glorified pot holder. That said, I have enough fabric to make another one, and enough newly acquired experience to cut down the time to something more reasonable. I learned how to quickly quilt squares by using masking tape as a guide, and a little something about thread tension. It was a good use of time overall ^^
Now I just have to use it... I'm going to cry the first time it gets burnt on the stove :(
Glögg is mulled wine. In Swedish and Icelandic it's Glögg, in Norwegian and Danish it's Glřgg and in Finnish and Estonian it's Glögi. Or so I'm told. All around, it's a pretty nice addition to the holidays. My mom has made it in the past, and I've had it at many a Swedish Christmas party, so this year I decided to try my hand at it a few weeks ago. Good news! It's easy!
Here's one of many, many recipes you'll find. The main ingredients seem to be: wine, port, cloves, cardamom, cinnamon, and sugar. I halved the following recipe (which my mom had written "good" next to about 18 years ago.. so it must be):
Swedish Glögg
4 liters (or, one gallon) Burgundy wine.
1.5 liter plus 1.75 liter Port wine (approx 1/2 gallon Port) Port is a
sweet red wine and you can look for domestic types Port, not necessary to buy
Portuguese kind.
2.5 dl(approx. 1/2 cup) brown sugar
1/2 package figs (approx. 5-6 figs)
peel from two oranges
50 cloves
6 cinnamon sticks
1 tsp cardamon seeds (peel and remove black seeds from inside)
Put figs, peel, cloves, cinnamon and cardamon seeds in cheese
cloth.
Note: Since you don't want these bits floating around, you'll need to make a loose bag with the cheesecloth. I'm not sure what the usual method is, but I closed up the cloth by folding over the edges a couple times and sewing them with a needle and thread.
Heat up 1 liter wine and brown sugar and let sugar dissolve, without
boiling wine.
...forgot to take a picture -_-
Add remaining Burgundy and Port wines to mixture and place cheese cloth
bag in pot.
Let this simmer until warm, do not let mixture boil.
Seriously... don't let it boil.
Leave Glögg in pot overnight with spices, fruits.
Pour mixture back into bottles the following day.
Some of the liquid will evaporate.
I added a little bit of brandy afterwards to give it a little something extra. I've seen recipes that add vermouth, vodka, everclear, aquavit.. it seems to be a matter of taste. There you have it!
..and all together now: Swedish Glögg
4 liters (or, one gallon) Burgundy wine.
1.5 liter plus 1.75 liter Port wine (approx 1/2 gallon Port) Port is a
sweet red wine and you can look for domestic types Port, not necessary to buy
Portuguese kind.
2.5 dl(approx. 1/2 cup) brown sugar
1/2 package figs (approx. 5-6 figs)
peel from two oranges
50 cloves
6 cinnamon sticks
1 tsp cardamon seeds (peel and remove black seeds from inside)
Put figs, peel, cloves, cinnamon and cardamon seeds in cheese
cloth.
Heat up 1 liter wine and brown sugar and let sugar dissolve, without
boiling wine.
Add remaining Burgundy and Port wines to mixture and place cheese cloth
bag in pot.
Let this simmer until warm, do not let mixture boil.
The jacket marches on! After a bit of consultation with my mother over Thanksgiving, I'm back home and back to work. I'm still unsure about a few steps in the pattern (Burda
7880 "Historic Dress 1888"), but overall things are shaping up nicely. It needs all sorts of ironing to get some of the poof and wiggle out of it, but here's the progress:
Beyond the jacket, I'm revisiting shoes after my brother requested a pair for Christmas/his birthday. I painted a pair in 2005 that I loved, but deteriorated quickly due to my poor choice of materials.
After that, in 2007, I tried another pair with fabric paints and a random black marker I had on hand. Even though the fabric paint was hard to work with, it kept it's colors nicely. The marker, however, ended up smudging all over the place (no suprise there) and I'm only now getting back to them to try and salvage what I have. I'm starting by painting all the white space with white acrylic paint to try to make the shoes look cleaner. As you can see, there's an obvious difference between the wite paint and the "white" canvas.
These aren't the shoes for my brother, but rather an attempt to fix an old pair and try some better materials before I start on his. Hopefully I'll get these done soon!
Q and I have been working on Victorian/Steampunk/Fabulous outfits. I don't really know how to sew, so I'm relying heavily on the expertise/past mistakes and lessons of Q. This past weekend was largely spent standing around in the local Jo-Ann's. They're having a sale which made it the perfect time to buy some patterns and fabric.
The pattern (Burda 7880 "Historic Dress 1888") on the right is my goal. Pink is not. As it turns out, you don't simply walk into a store and get handed the appropriate fabric in the colors you want. Much of the fabric I picked up was either too expensive, too narrow, too short of a supply, too hard to work with... too something.
Eventually, after much consulting with Q, I left with some lovely grey with soft stripes (Edit: it's herringbone!) for the over skirt and a pretty blue-ish fabric with a leafy pattern for the jacket. I still need something for the underskirt.
I was probably overly cautious when cutting out the fabric pieces because it took ages. About three hours of work resulted in a a couple nice stacks of pieces.
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