Babies, Babies, Babies!

This little one is making me exhausted and I will blame him/her for the lack of posts lately! Every time I sit down to post, my brain turns to mush and I can’t think straight. I figured I should give an update in the baby department since it’s been awhile and some of you might have been wondering.

We had an appointment with our doctor today and everything is going well. We had an ultrasound and are scheduled to have one every week from here on out due to the fact that I have gestational diabetes. I don’t think I mentioned that before. So far it’s been fine and manageable. I have to test my blood and eat less desserts and carbs than I normally would but overall it’s not a problem. The one hitch though is that it could make for a big baby and so the ultrasounds keep track to make sure our cute little baby doesn’t turn into monstrously huge baby.

As of this coming Friday we will have 4 weeks left (unless I go early or late). But the big question is: a boy or a girl? Will it look like me or like Andrew? The ultrasound technician said baby already has lots of hair!

(Those are baby pictures of me and Andrew up there, and yes, I look like a boy.)

–c.

Rainbow Dog

With all the Christmas gifts we’ve been posting, you may have thought we have been neglecting this little baby of homemade goods but don’t worry. We’ve been busy!

I still have the crocheting bug (to be honest, it’s just the easiest craft to do when I’m sitting in bed or away from home without access to my other projects). I really wish I knew how to knit! A couple people have generously offered to help me learn which I’m very thankful for. One of these days...



In the meantime, I made this crocheted dog (similar to the one I made before for my niece Layla) but with different colors.

This one is also not as long, which I think happened because I did my single crochet different on the one I made before. For Layla’s dog, I stitched in only the back loops which makes for a stretchier stitch. I also used different yarn for this one. Layla’s dog was made with Caron Simply Soft, which is 100% Acrylic, but still soft (hence the name). But for the new dog I used Red Heart Classic, which is also 100% Acryclic but pretty stiff and not so soft. However, it does hold it’s shape nicely. I’ve always had an aversion to Red Heart because it’s so synthetic that it actually squeaks when you crochet with it. But I guess it makes for a more durable toy and is super cheap.



-c.

Christmas Gifts 2009 - Round 5

My 5-year old nephew Falcon and my 2-year old niece Arwen are both obsessed with superheroes. So this Christmas I decided to make them their own superhero capes. My brother-in-law has nicknames for them; Falcon is Manboy and Arwen is Peanut. Turns out that these nicknames also work out to be pretty appropriate superhero names too!

I came up with a logo for each of them. Peanut was pretty simple and straight forward, but Manboy was a little more of a challenge. In the end, I think they both worked out well. I designed them on the computer then printed the patterns onto Heat n Bond Iron-on Adhesive paper. I ironed the pattern onto pieces of felt, cut them out, adhered them to the cape, then sewed around them for reinforcement.




I looked around online for some cape pattern ideas and ended up with a fusion between this blog post and this pattern. I’m no expert seamstress so I was delightfully surprised when they turned out better than I expected.




Here is a strange action shot of the two of them with the capes on:



–c.

Paris, October 2006

–c.

Pain à l'Ancienne

Bread is the staff of life. You can filter that through a religious lens if you want, but if you don't it's just as true. Virtually every civilization dating back to when the Fertile Crescent was still fertile had some form of flour, water and leavening agent that they mixed together. It's the food of foods. It's so simple yet so complex. It's an art form and while I'm not quite at this point, there are a lot of people out there who can get pretty metaphysical about it.

Crystal is always telling me to post about my bread baking but for one reason or another I never have, until now. It's exciting, I know.

Many years back I had an epiphany that I could actually make this stuff so I bought yeast for the first time and I've been at it ever since. My failures far outnumber my successes but that makes it all the more intriguing. I'm on a mission to make bakery-quality breads in a home oven. It's quite amazing how much there is to learn, both through reading and good old fashioned trying.

Picture below is my first attempt at Pain à l'Ancienne. I need to work on shaping this kind of dough but overall it turned out really good. (And, as Crys will tell you, I almost never say things turn out "really good." There's always room for improvement.)





I'm not just saying this as a cute way to wrap things up but I seriously have some dough proofing that I need to start shaping so I'll stop here. I'll continue to share what I've learned. I could go on for hours. I love bread.

-a.

Philippines, 1983

Taken in Pangasinan (where my mother is from) on my first trip to the Philippines when I was 3 years old.

–c.

Christmas Gifts 2009 - Round 4

My parent's Lazy Susan got real lazy and stopped turning so I made them a new one for Christmas. I actually remembered to take pictures of the process too, which is rare for me. As any rational person would do, I'm going to post the pictures in chronological order.


*I used cedar. Why? No particular reason. I've just never used it before.


*The tongue and groove joint is a bit annoying to make but worked well here.


*This is after it was glued and clamped.


*I made my own jig to cut the circle. You can buy them but that tends to cost money so I just improvised.


*A nice 24" circle.


*This groove is for when you spill the gravy. It becomes a gravy moat.


*I used a combination of dye and stain, then four coats of satin polyurethane so it can withstand the rigors of the Lazy Susan life.



For the bottom I cut out another circle of MDF and painted it white. I purchased the hardware (the metal/ball bearing/rotational part) at a local woodworking store called Cleveland Tool & Cutter, which is my new favorite store, and store name. And no, they don't sell T-shirts, I looked.

Overall I'm happy with how it turned out. I've never made a Lazy Susan before, let alone cut a circle out of wood. Let's hope it keeps on turnin'.

-a.

Christmas Gifts 2009 - Round 3

Remember the little crocheted mushrooms for our baby that I posted about a little while back?

For Christmas, I made a big blue mushroom for our niece Layla! The red ones are the ones I made for our baby. I put them in the picture so you can see the size difference. Also, instead of stitching circles onto the cap I followed the original pattern and sewed felt circles on instead. I think I actually like the felt circles better!



I’m still hoping to one day make a BIG mushroom, but that will just have to wait.

–c.

Christmas Gifts 2009 - Round 2

This past October my sister had her 4th baby, a little girl named Phoenix! For her Christmas gift I made her a little quilt, which was technically the first quilt that I have ever completed.




I started a quilt for our baby a few months back, but have yet to finish it. The one I made for Phoenix is a lot smaller than the one I’m making for our baby and it turned out to be a good learning experience. I almost tore my hair out a couple times, but overall I’m happy with how it turned out. I’m confident that I am now better equipped to handle a larger quilt next time around.

I made this quilt out of flannel and though in the pictures it looks good enough, it’s by no means perfect. Honestly, I don’t really know how to sew too well and half the time I’m just improvising as I go along. There are plenty of puckers and bunches in places, but oh well!

Here are some detail shots:




-c.