wordium

Ending radio silence

2010-12-13T22:49:00.000-08:00

The lack of posts does not mean a lack of crafts, cooking, or grammar fixing--in fact, there is more of it than ever, now. I have been so busy with grad school applications and most recently, an elopement! I haven't even started Christmas cards, which is a total shock to me. Presents and cards are going to be late this year!

Placemats, Part I

2010-09-12T00:01:00.000-07:00

I always forget how time consuming it is to use fusible interfacing, especially to multiple large pieces at a time. In the time it has taken me to iron on 4 pieces of interfacing to 4 pieces for placemats, I could have sewn in all 4 and maybe finished one or two entirely. Although it's been a while since I used sew-in interfacing, too, so maybe I forget the drawbacks of sew-in.

Here is the front of what the placemats will look like:

While we were in Portland for the Labour Day long weekend, I went into the Pine Needle Quilting Shop in Lake Oswego (apparently the "hoity toity" neighbourhood of greater Portland; we thought the downtown area looked like Whistler) and found some Ducks fabric. They had some placemat kits, and I thought it would be fun to make a set for Ben's Aunt Sandy, to bring up next Thanksgiving. The lady helped me put together a placemat kit with Oregon fabric, although her version had the left panel using Oregon fabric that faced to the left, which I didn't realize until yesterday. Luckily Eddie's was having a sale today... rather, unluckily for my wallet, since I found this pattern, and then decided to get fabric for it, too.

GRE

2010-08-12T10:39:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is Friday the 13th. Hello, GRE, at 12:30pm! I will surface at 4:30, hopefully not too smushed. And then I need to start grad school applications, and begging for reference letters. Gee, this year has gone by quickly...

On a related note, I learned this week that to get into the US armed forces, you have to take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery Test. There appears to be a standardized test for everything, and textbooks to match! I am waiting for the standardized test for preschool kids wanting to get into Kindergarten. Oh, and the textbooks to help them study, of course.

(I think that test would have to go something like this: "You put your left foot in, you put your left foot out...")

mmm, cake.

2010-07-15T23:36:00.000-07:00

Here is a rare occurance: I wrote out an actual recipe, with timing and measurements. But this slightly altered Betty Crocker recipe has become my current favourite basic cake recipe---it's simple, and while very tasty by itself, you can add anything to it to make it more interesting. I dedicate this post to Tessa and Ifi, because they said words that made my heart flutter: "It's so yummy! Can I have the recipe?"

San's Betty Crocker's Silver White Cake
Prep: 10 minutes (yeah, right). Bake: 45 minutes. Cool: 1 hour 10 minutes.
Servings: ~12. Pans: 13"x9" rectangle, two 9" round pans, or three 8" round pans.

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups cake flour
1 2/3 cups sugar
2/3 cup butter
1 1/4 cups milk
3 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp almond extract
5 large egg whites

Directions:

Heat oven to 350 F. Grease and flour bottom and sides of pan(s).
Beat everything except egg whites with an electric mixer on low speed 30 seconds. Use a spatula to scrape the bowl, then beat on high speed for 2 minutes, scraping the bowl occasionally.
Beat in egg whites on high speed for 2 minutes, scraping the bowl.
Pour into pan(s).
Bake times:
13"x9": 40-45 minutes. 9": 30-35 minutes. 8": 23-28 minutes
Bake until toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean, or when cake springs back when touched lightly in centre.
Cool rectangle in the pan on a wire rack. For rounds, cook 10 minutes, then remove from pans to wire rack and allow to cool completely.

Variations that I have done:

Chocolate glaze: Cover pan with a chocolate glaze. ...I bet this would be deadly with a ganache.
Blackberry chocolate: fill layers with blackberry filling and cover with chocolate glaze or chocolate buttercream. Make sure the blackberry filling is not liquidy, or else you end up with what looks like a beheaded cake. Behold:

Cinnamon swirl: sprinkle (okay, I mean dump) a bunch of cinnamon on top of the batter before baking, take a chopstick and swirl the cinnamon around. After cooling, cover it with a simple powdered sugar icing. Here is a quickly taken, phone-quality photo:

Ones that I have thought about, but haven't tried yet:

adding dried fruit, especially raisins and pineapples, or mangoes!
pumpkin cake!
apple cake!

Some notes:

instead of cake flour, substitute 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (not self-rising). This is the original recipe, and I haven't tried it, to be honest. I bought some cake flour a while ago to make a birthday cake with this recipe, and it turned out so well I didn't want to mess with it, and bought more cake flour to have around.
instead of almond extract, use vanilla extract. Mmm vanilla extract. I love the almond flavour in this, because it gives the cake itself some character. Also I don't normally give it 1 tsp, I give it 1 tsp and a little tiny splash. This is me cooking, after all.

small world

2010-07-06T23:29:00.000-07:00

Ben and I were both born in Vancouver, but didn't meet until we were in university, 18/19 years later. But imagine this: my mother, who has been in the hairstyling industry for over 40 years, used to own a hair salon, and Ben's parents, having lived nearby for a year or two when they moved to Vancouver, both had their hair done at that very salon! Not only that, but after they moved to a different neighbourhood, his mother liked her stylist--one of my mom's employees--enough to keep going back. I wasn't born yet, and my mom took a couple of years off once I had been born, so I don't think Ben and I met as babies, but it's still boggling to me. It's a small world after all!

Kitchen Gadgets

2010-06-28T23:20:00.001-07:00

Yesterday my rice cooker got a little bit of blog attention, but it's not the first fancy kitchen gadget I've discovered I absolutely love, nor will it be the last! Here are some others that I've come across, since I started cooking for myself while having a real paycheque, to the joy of the kitchen store owners.

on Rubber-Ended Cutting Boards
As a rule in this household, our plastic cutting boards are used for meat, and the bamboo ones are used for vegetables only. In a pinch, since we frequently live more slovenly than I would like to admit, the plastic cutting boards are dual-purpose, here-this-board-is-clean-just-use-it backups, but generally not. When we moved down and were setting up, we basically lived in an IKEA showroom, and nearly all of our cooking utensils were gloriously "Swede." But cheap plastic cutting boards warp a lot when used and washed over and over, and we ended up with a convex board which would spin and leave trails of chicken juice all over the counter, whenever I tried to prepare dinner. This irritated me to no end; I broke down into countless swearing fits while trying to chop chicken. Since I picked up an OXO Good Grips cutting board with rubber on the ends, this has not happened. The plastic is thick enough that it won't warp for a much longer time, and the rubber on the ends keep the board still. I probably still swear while cooking ("Ahhhh shit I burned my chicken!"), but at least not at the cutting board.

on 3-cup Food Processors
I forget why I bought my Cuisinart 3-cup Mini Prep food processor, as I got it a very long time ago, and rarely used it. But then we started doing "Nom Bowls," which is a variant of the home-made Yumm Bowl, and I also started experimenting with chicken marinades. Now I use it so often that the lettering on the buttons are completely worn off, and unlike many other items in the kitchen, it never has enough time to let dust settle on it. Mostly, I use it for chopping up nuts and beans, and the 3-cup size is perfect for the 2 of us; very likely I will break it down long before there are 3 of us. I had been toying with the idea of getting a larger one, so that I could also grind up vegetables for yummy soups, but the last time we visited Vancouver, I made some Nom Sauce in my mother's 14-cup food processor, and it is seriously a pain to clean all the parts involved. Not so with the 3-cup! We're literally bonded by blood, those little blades and I.

on Citrus Juicers
My mother also has an electric citrus juicer which is apparently older than both my brother and me, which is extremely easy to use, and very efficient. I think it's similar to this one, only it was made in the 70's and therefore will last much longer than that one will. But if I had not picked up my manual Chef’n FreshForce Citrus Juicer, I would definitely consider getting one anyway. As it is, I love that citrus juicer. Lemon halves go in, juice comes out, and the things that remain are unrecognizable as anything but plant matter.

on Silicone Spatulas
Though I used to only use them for baking, silicone spatulas are fantastic for everything else, too. Plastic cooking tools have been one of many banes in my few years thus far, and the prospect of eating little plastic bits in my scrambled eggs is never appealing. There are many silicone spatulas around in my kitchen, in various sizes (little silicone spatulas are better in my food processor than the tiny plastic scraper it comes with), and my current favourite has a very nice stainless steel handle. Some day I am going to add this silicone-coated thin metal spatula to my collection, and perhaps I will know nirvana.

on Cherry Pitters
My most recent acquisition was this OXO cherry pitter, which I used on Sunday to bake a yummy cherry pie. As a side note, said pie was made in a glass pie plate, which I also required recently, and though this is no revelation to me, it is a far cry from the metal pie tins that come with the frozen shells I buy (I am lazy, okay). Given that I can't ever have fresh cherries, even organic, pesticide-free ones, without having my lips, tongue, throat, and occasionally gums (??) swell up, cherry preparation requires cooking, which generally includes pitting. But until this weekend, pitting cherries meant cutting them in half and digging the pits out with my fingernails, resulting in itchy, red fingers. It finally dawned on me that I could buy a specialized tool to help me with this, and what a difference! A pound or so of cherries, minus fresh ones set aside for Ben to steal, pitted in no time. Mmm, pie.

There are likely others I could add to this list, like my rice spatula, which is perfectly shaped for fluffing and serving, and there are more I have my sights set on, like the cookie dough scoop I always look at and invariably decide against buying. But doubtless I could continue on in this vein for a very, very long time.

Miso Chicken

2010-06-27T23:07:00.000-07:00

Miso Chicken is an experiment I tried out a long time ago, which didn't turn out quite so well. I thought I might have posted it anyway, but obviously I am wrong, since I can't seem to find it in my archives. I tried it again today, with some modifications, and the results were significantly better.

Miso Chicken for 2:
- 1 chicken breast, cubed
- 1 heaping tablespoon of miso paste
- 2-3 tbsp rice vinegar
- dash of salt
- dash of mirin
- water
- 2 fresh green onions
- 1-2 garlic cloves
- olive oil for cooking
- pinch of powdered ginger
*If fresh ginger is your thing, then I'd do that instead--we never have any around, and I doubt I would use it fast enough to warrant buying a whole root, so it would be rather wasteful for us to buy some.

Mix the miso and vinegar together, until there are no clumps of miso paste left. Shake in salt, mirin, and add water so that there is just enough to cover the chicken. Let marinate for a while.
Wash and chop the green onions, yum. Crush the garlic, then heat up the oil and garlic together. Pour in the entire miso+chicken, add the green onions, and sprinkle the powdered ginger on top. Cook until the chicken is done, and the water is evaporated enough for the miso to be paste-like once again. Serve over rice, with steamed green beans.

Speaking of rice! I got this little baby a few weeks ago, and I am completely in love. It was a present to me, from me, using up an Amazon gift card I redeemed with my Aeroplan miles--it only took a mere ~5 round trip flights between YVR and SFO to get a $50 gift card. But I love my rice cooker! We've done white and brown rice, I've made congee in it, and it all turned out beautifully. It has a fantastic timer function, especially wonderful since brown rice takes a million years to cook, and we aren't usually home until 7pm as it is. Now I set it up in the morning, and by the time I'm home and preparing dinner, rice is already done! Rice consumption has doubled, if not tripled, since we got one.

Ben commented that it is very Asian of me to have the apartment smelling of rice, which it was when we got back from running errands this afternoon. I guess the miso chicken recipe adds to that thought! All I need now is to start cooking Chinese soup (I think it's a broth?) all the time, and I'm sure my grandparents would be very proud of me.

Moving, gack!

2010-06-02T21:03:00.000-07:00

Until we came to California, I lived in one house my entire life. My parents bought a newly built Vancouver Special in 1979, when my brother was only months old, and they live there to this day.

When we moved, it was relatively easy, despite the distance--we did a road trip down the coast, and filled the car with important items we didn't want to bring by air: computer equipment, video game consoles, Ben's guitar, etc. Those we put into storage, and when we flew down later, we brought our personal affects via plane. Setting up the apartment was more fun and exciting than hard work (although there was hard work and elbow grease involved in assembling our classy IKEA furniture), since we had to get everything brand new.

Last June, we moved into a very nice 11th floor apartment, and though the move was grueling (and I feared for Boris, my faux piano), we were excited to be there, and adjusted quickly to the horrors of having a gorgeous view. However, apartments in high places come with high price tags, and with much consideration (not really) of my contract's end in November, living there for another year seemed like an unintelligent decision. Plus, given all the stuff we have, a 2br apartment didn't seem like a bad idea. Using the wonders of Craigslist, we found a somewhat nice apartment not far from where we were living, and were set to move this last Memorial Day. I write these lessons we have learned, the hard way, about moving.

1. Cleanliness is next to Godliness

If moving from an apartment building owned by a large corporation (e.g., Avalon) to an apartment owned by private owner, either request that they have the place professionally cleaned, or else hire professional cleaners yourself. When we went to pick up the keys from the owners, one of them was there, ostensibly cleaning up and doing some paint touch-ups. The idea of having the place properly cleaned never even entered my mind. That changed when, every time I went into the apartment, my throat would get itchy, and my nose and eyes would start watering. I spent the first week of June in a veritable allergy coma. It wasn't until this past Saturday, when we had finished mopping the entire place (the 2nd bedroom had to be mopped 3 times, and we also swabbed the walls), that I could finally go home and not feel like I needed to leave to breathe.

If professional cleaners aren't an option, or you are like us and have already moved in and started cleaning, and hiring cleaners seems futile, then pick a place to conquer. Ours was the bedroom--we moved out all of the boxes, unpacked what we could, mopped the floor and vacuumed the rug twice, cleaned the windows thoroughly, and had the air purifier going with the door closed. The bedroom became our sanctuary. We spent one night doing no moving tasks at all, and instead just sat in the bedroom on our computers, and my allergies didn't make a peep.

Also, the air purifier seems to work fairly well, at least for dust, and a little bit for odors.

2. Don't underestimate how much stuff you have

This is actually something we learned during our move last year, when we rented a smaller truck and figured we could move the rest of our smaller things in our car. This was true, but we ended up doing at least 3 trips between apartments. This year, we made sure we had a ton of boxes, and packed up as much as possible to load into a slightly bigger truck. We did still have to do some trips, but it wasn't as painful, and we turned in our keys midday instead of midnight. We've both become a fan of freecycle.org, as I posted a listing for our empty boxes and had 3 replies in the course of 24 hours.

3. Curtains are fantastic

Our apartment is one of six, and one of four on the second level. It's a very small building right off of a somewhat main street. There are some nice trees right outside, which give us a little bit of privacy from people across the street, but that's about it. When we moved in, the living room had curtain rods, but neither bedroom had any. This didn't seem like a particularly big deal, until we tried to sleep the first few nights without curtains on the window, and discovered that the tree outside does not shield the bedroom from the orange glare of the street lamp right outside. So much for sleeping! I taped a bunch of bags to the window, until we got our curtains up.

This kind of makes me think of that TLC Life Lesson: "When buying a house, make sure you save money for drapes."

4. Floor cleaning

In the three Californian apartments we've had, we've had linoleum, carpet, granite, ceramic tile, and now bamboo hardwood flooring. As such, I have collected a plethora of cleaning supplies, my favourite being nearly anything made by Casabella. Our third broom is a Casabella, and my wonderful, amazing sponge mop is also Casabella. Do you need to mop? Don't skimp on a crappy mop.

When it comes to soaps, I'm pretty much covered, too.

Linoleum = Pine Sol.
Granite = Granite Gold; that stuff is amazing, just make sure you get the mix right, or else it will streak.
Tile= Either of the above.
Carpet = Foley's for spot cleaning, if I had bothered to buy any.
Hardwood flooring = Murphy's Oil Soap. That stuff is also fantastic, but you do have to make sure the dilution is just right, as well. I tested this by doing two small patches on the floor behind the toilet: one with just water, and one with a diluted mix. Because how often do you look behind the toilet? Also, it smells so good.

I'm not sure what kind of typical flooring is left to deal with, but if there's a soap for it, I'll get that to mop with, too. Anything to avoid having feet so black from built up dirt, just from walking around your apartment. Yes, it was that gross.

5. Screen doors

Did you know that screen doors can be very filthy? Ben spent at least an hour cleaning the screen doors and rail with a dirty rag, and the water went from colourless to black. YUCK.

6. How to wash the walls

After telling my mother about my allergy problems, she suggested we wash the walls, and I brushed it off as a silly suggestion. Who washes walls? But considering that the previous person used the 2nd bedroom as some sort of meditation room, complete with incense, we decided it was worth a try. We took a (relatively) clean mop, and a bucket of clean water, with a very little bit of lemon castile soap mixed in, and used that to gently swab the walls. Turns out that we wash walls, and we aren't the only people to have done so. I'm not sure that it really helped, and that room still stinks, but after wall washing and triple mopping, it is actually starting to be livable in there.

In retrospect, these are basically all about cleanliness. Possibly we are very picky people who enjoy clean apartments, especially compared to whomever lived there before--given the state it was left in, obviously it did not bother them very much. I don't think it's too much to enjoy the luxuries of good hygiene, but given the amount of work we have done so far with this place, I feel like we might as well have moved into a small house!

Mother's Day Craft Carnival

2010-05-07T09:37:00.000-07:00

I submitted my post from yesterday on my Mother's Day card + towel roll cover to the Craft Critique Mother's Day Craft Carnival, and it's currently listed there amongst some very cool Mother's Day projects. Check it out!

Here are some of my favourites from a quick glance: a very cute little hat (and a more stylish card than mine), a dish towel tutorial that seems like a good reason to finally use my gathering foot, tea and a card--which is what I did the first time I made a Mother's Day card, and a purse made with fabric and crochet--now that's a combination I could get into! Not that I need more projects...

Happy Mother's Day to moms everywhere!

Mother's Day!

2010-05-06T12:12:00.000-07:00

Mom, do NOT read this blog post! I MEAN IT!

The Paper Source is currently having a Mother's Day card competition on Facebook. Submissions are closed, and the winners are going to be chosen by popular vote, so I don't have my hopes set too high, but you can vote for my submission on Facebook, and I can always dream. I didn't have a whole lot of time to make it, since I was away (visiting my Mommy instead of crafting for her) for the end of April, and didn't spend a lot of time thinking about it. In any case, I do like my card a lot, and it's currently on its way to Canada.

Materials:
- A2 foldover card in PS Poppy
- vellum paper
- paper in PS Blossom for the mum petals; PS Beet for the mum center
- vine ribbon by the yard from PS for leaves
- my favourite American Crafts rub-on letters -- this one is "Molly" in charcoal. I love these letter rub-ons.
- VersaMark ink
- Zing! embossing powder in blush
- Paper Source mum (as in, chrysanthemum) stamp

One of my main problems whenever I make a card is with the background; plain paper is too boring for me, but patterned paper is too busy and takes away from the main decoration. For this card, I stamped mums semi-randomly over the paper with VersaMark watermark ink, used a heating tool to darken, and fit the coloured flower directly over one in the background--you can kind of see it (maybe) if you click on the full version. It's like my mom standing out amongst other moms, hey! Metaphors.

While I was visiting, Mom actually decided she wanted a (badly needed) electric kettle replacement for Mother's Day, so now my brother owes me $20. But I had already thought of something I wanted to make for her: a towel roll cover. My mom usually sleeps with a hand towel rolled up to act as a neck bolster, to alleviate pressure on her neck while lying down. I think normal bolster pillows are too large for this purpose, and the nice thing about a towel is that you can just wash it and get a fresh one whenever you want. Plus, when she travels, she can grab a towel from the hotel washroom to use, or from my linen closet when she visits. I thought of making a nice cover for her, that she could wash just as easily as a towel and pack easily when she travels, but felt nice and silky and looked pretty.

Et voilà‎!

A towel roll cover amongst my messy work space. Roll up the towel, roll that up in this cover, then use the elastics at the ends to secure the cloth in place. I didn't think of taking a picture of it in action, and I didn't photograph the illustrated instructions I drew, and now the entire package is somewhere between here and Vancouver, sorry!

Construction of this was quite simple: cut two pieces of pre-shrunken, easy-care cotton fabric 15" by 17" large, and two pieces of elastic about 7.5" long. Baste the elastics as a loop, to the right side of one long edge, with raw edges matching. Sew the 2 pieces right side together using a 1/2" seam allowance, and leaving a hole for turning. Turn out, poke out the corners (FYI pointy chopsticks are great for this purpose), iron, then edge stitch all around.

Edge stitching is my new favourite technique--I don't bother slip stitching turning holes, and it looks so clean when I use my edgestitch foot.

The labels are really old--I got them when I was a kid, and my mom found them recently, so when I left Vancouver, I left with that package, as well as the Olfa mat and cutter she doesn't use any more. I would love to get more, so if anybody knows of a good place to get nice, woven labels, please let me know! Seems like the ones I can find online are either printed, or can only be ordered in multiples of 100.

Apricot Chicken

2010-04-13T21:47:00.000-07:00

Here is another chicken recipe I tried out and really liked, but didn't write down. I didn't even measure amounts, so there's no way I can replicate it exactly, but I assure you it was delicious.

- 1 chicken breast, cubed
- ~1/4 cup of white wine
- salt + pepper, to taste (to me this is a few shakes of salt, and a couple turns of the pepper mill)
- ~1/4-1/3 cup apple juice
- 4-5 dried apricots
- small handful of dried cranberries
- onion (minced) and/or sweet pepper (chopped)
- garlic powder
- dried parsley

Marinate the chicken in wine, salt, and pepper. Chop the apricots into thirds; heat apricots and cranberries in apple juice until it simmers. If using onion, add them at this point. Add chicken (don't pour in the wine) and garlic powder. When chicken is mostly cooked, add the pepper and parsley. Cook until the juice is almost all evaporated, and everything looks nummy. Make some cheesy parmesan toast for starch. Eat!

On the craft front, I finished a cotton scarf in a knitted lace pattern a while ago, but I've been getting confused on what makes a good blocking pin. I picked up some pins today from my favourite yarn shop, yay! So I'll be blocking that tonight... probably on the sofa, which is currently the only free surface, as the desk has my sewing machine and iron, and our "dining table" is covered in fabric from various projects (not just mine, though!). But we'll see how well that goes. Currently, my only decent spray bottle is outside in my bucket, underneath a bag of potting soil. Hmm...

From the desk of Sandra Ewing

2010-04-12T18:59:00.000-07:00

Whenever anybody asks me for my last name, I spell it out for them--I don't even bother saying it. If I'm in a store, and they want to look up my name to see if I'm in their database, I just hand over the debit card I'm going to pay with--they can read it for themselves, and hang on to the card to charge me.

I'm not exactly sure when I started doing this, but I suspect it was in high school, when I was discussing a volunteer opportunity over the phone, and the lady asked for my name. "Sandra Yuen," I replied, oblivious to the aural turmoil it created on the other end. "Could you say that again?" she asked, and I obliged. "Sandra Yuen." When I reported to the volunteer office later that day, I noticed that she had written on a piece of paper, "Sandra Ewing?"

Saying it letter for letter doesn't always fix the problem, either: I say, "Y, U, E, N," and I see them writing down "Why" and then stop. And then they realize they made a mistake, and they change it to "Wuen." I have had to make clerks stop and really look at what was written, and still they thought they had it right. "No no," I would say, "It's Y-U, not W-U." "Yeah, that's what I wrote, I don't understand the problem." "You've written W-U-E-N." "No I haven't--OH."

Many people who read my last name, but have no idea how to say it, eventually come up with their closest guess, with "yen," "yoo-wen," and "y'wen" being the most common mispronunciations. Plus two for effort and creativity, but sorry, no dice. "Yoo-wen" might be the closest, except that's two syllables, and the name is meant to have only one. Think of the name "Ewen." A "Ewen Yuen" would be teased mercilessly, growing up.

My mother and I have had discussions before where we figure that "Yune" or "Yoon" would have been better romanizations, as they would provide far less confusion when reading it aloud. Neither of those are particularly attractive spellings, however, and they don't exactly apply the nuances that exist in the pronunciation of my last name. It might be better if I could write it out as "Sandra Yueⁿ," but it might be difficult to indicate that on the census form. Or any form.

"Yuen" isn't a common last name compared to many others in China, but it isn't rare, either. In Mandarin, it would be "Ruan," and in Vietnamese, it's the surname "Nguyen." Some interesting information on the character, 阮, can be found on this page. If you know how to read proper romanizations of Asian languages, the Cantonese section is relevant for my last name.

Sylvi Berninasdotter

2010-03-26T21:49:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow, at approximately 9:06 AM, I will be 24! I've discovered that there is no lack of "Birthday deals!!!" down here, and since March 1st, I have acquired makeup from Sephora, a 20% discount from Green Planet Yarn, which is my favourite yarn shop, and a 25% discount on fabric from Eddie's Quilting Bee, which I have visited nearly every week this month, and for good reason--Sylvi:

I finally bought myself a sewing machine! Much research has been done since Christmas, and for my birthday, I finally settled on the Bernina Activa 210. It's the simplest (and cheapest) of the lowest models of Bernina machines (not including Bernette), and I felt very out of place during the Bernina "Eddiecation" class I took at Eddie's Quilting Bee. It was a class to learn the ins and outs of your Bernina, and all around me were women with sewing machines that must have cost at least $1500-$2000--but I think I bought exactly what I need, and the class went through the basic stitches of the machine, which are all going to be very useful.

Bernina manufactures a bazillion different specialty presser feet, which are all listed online. Since I bought my machine at Eddie's, I got that Bernina class, but I also get 10% off on fabric for a year, and more importantly, 20% off of presser feet for a year. There is a possibility that I have already bought two: the #2 overlock foot, and the #10 edgestitch foot. Feet aren't exactly cheap, but man those two are awesome already. I imagine that by the time that year is up, I will have amassed a small army of feet.

This was my second project with Sylvi--the first being new placemats which I forgot to photograph. This tiny little dress is made using a pattern from Leila and Ben, and I find that I actually really like the PDF. Not just this pattern, which was extremely simple, but PDF patterns in general--no messing around with tissue paper, worrying that it will rip, and realizing that you will never reuse that pattern because you basically snip it to shreds while cutting your fabric. Our printer is currently out of commission, so I sent it to the nearby Kinkos/FedEx Office to get the pattern printed, and it worked out extremely well.

Side story: when I went to the FedEx last Friday to pick up my prints, having submitted my files online, I just happened to run into the dress recipient's father! I was still kind of sick and we couldn't go visit the newborn, so I at least got some preview photos.

Anyhow, PDF patterns = good. I'll be buying more of them in the future, I think. I like the idea of having a digital version that I can re-print and chop up without keeping the extra sizes to tape on at a later date.

Kumquats and Cashews

2010-03-03T00:17:00.000-08:00

I actually took a photo before I began nomming on this one, to make it a more difficult post to put up, but apparently that proved ~~too difficult for me.~~ to be just fine, thanks! But here is the text, anyway:

Kumquats and Cashews and Chicken, oh my!
- 1 chicken breast
- ~10 + 2 kumquats
- ~1/2 cup cashews, unsalted
- 1/2 cup apple juice
- < 1/4 cup white wine
- salt
- dried parsley

1. Let cubed chicken soak in juice, wine, and salt.
2. Grind cashews, set aside.
3. Remove seeds from 10 kumquats, allow the tiny food processor to mash them to a pulp. Some extra apple juice may be helpful here.
4. Slice remaining 2 kumquats, remove seeds, and set aside.
5. Mix together kumquat mush and cashews. Try not to eat any, but fail because it smells so good!
6. Place chicken into oiled, heated skillet. Note: normally when I make marinades fresh, I dump everything into the skillet together. This time I only placed the chicken into the pan, and unlike the failed lemon chicken recipe which I did not post, this one did not taste like wine.
7. Add kumquat-cashew mixture, cook until chicken is done, and the sauce is paste-like.
8. Add kumquat slices and stir a bit more.

I served it with parsley flakes on top, rice, and a nice salad. You may ~~pretend~~ see that there is a photo here:

It ~~may appear eventually~~ was totally here all along! The almond-plum is probably my favourite experiment so far, but this is a close second a long with apple chicken. I should turn these into a book some day.

Goodbye, Olympics

2010-03-01T01:24:00.000-08:00

After years of preparations, two weeks of city-wide madness, and 14 gold medals (!), the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver have come to a close. It felt like an age in coming, and it went by in a blip. It was surreal seeing shots of my hometown splashed about on NBC, and I daresay I will miss seeing TourismBC commercials between now and our next trip to Canada. But this is not what I want to say.

Blogs are about opinions, so here is mine: the closing ceremony was hilarious, and I loved it.

Being not only a Canadian, but also a Vancouverite, I may be predisposed to approve of whatever shenanigans they decided to come up with for the "less formal" ceremony--especially in the heady wake of what was a fantastic, well-fought hockey game (what else would we expect from a game of NHL all-stars divided only by the 49th Parallel?), which was won by Team Canada. (Wooo!)

But, from the mime "fixing" the fourth column, to the amusing monologues mid-ceremony, to the crazy "WTF?" dance of inflatable Mounties, giant beavers, floating moose, two-man "canoes", plaid-clad lumberjacks, and "fluttering" maple leaves, the underlying theme of it all seemed to be about poking fun at Canadian stereotypes, and playfulness. Rather fitting, after the "come play with us" theme during the closing ceremonies of the Torino games in 2006.

Really, that last part of the ceremony was worth the wait, despite delayed coverage on NBC, and despite having to listen to the grating presentations from various NBC commentators. I really got a good laugh--and I'm sure many other Canadians did, too. We are proud of our amusing stereotypes! And anybody who might be appalled or unimpressed by the seemingly comical display (especially after Beijing, which, we were told numerous times, was amazing, so amazing, oh my so amazing!--I am looking at you, Costas) perhaps needs to be told, "Don't take yourself too seriously, eh?"

Accidental Yarn Review

2010-02-26T21:28:00.000-08:00

I am totally obsessed with making bowls! And felting them! I meant for this post to be just a photo that I uploaded yesterday, but I got distracted. So if you're interested in reading about me geeking out on yarn, then you're in the right place.

Crocheted bowls are super easy, very fast to make, and I've been testing out different types of wool yarn for the felting process. I have an awesome spreadsheet tracking yards per ounce of wool and cost per yard, because I am a total geek! And I love spreadsheets!

Here's my current list of wool, all in worsted weight:

Merino wool

O-Wool Classic (7 cents/yard)
Shepherd's Wool, from Stonehedge Fiber Mill (4 cents/yard)

Highland wool

Cascade 220 (3 cents/yard)
New England Highland, from Harrisville (5 cents/yard)

Wool

Nordique, from St. Denis (5 cents/yard)
Classic Wool, from Patons (2 cents/yard)

My least favourite was the Harrisville New England Highland. It was a nice colour, and it looked nice when I crocheted it into a bowl, but it smelled funny and felt coarse. Then, after felting, it went completely shaggy--that was the first time I've ever had to clean my washing machine after using it.

Cascade 220 was the other highland wool--excuse me, Peruvian highland--and I had a similar post-felting cleanup experience. I'm certain that I didn't get all of it out, since the next batch I felted had little red bits floating around. But despite the cleanup, it barely took 20 minutes to felt (most of my tests required at least 40 minutes for felting, though I wasn't timing very religiously). Overall I was actually impressed with the final product, as the bowls have a nice weight to them.

Nordique from St. Denis was my first non-Michaels/non-Jo-Ann wool purchase, so I am rather partial to it. It took forever to felt, however, and I'm not even sure it felted entirely, since the stitches are still visibly separate. I bought a couple of balls in the Aubergine colorway which was a beautiful amethyst shade, but I'm not sure I would pick up much that line again.

Since I started going to a bunch of smaller yarn shops, I have become something of a yarn snob. I refuse to buy anything that has a lot of acrylic in the mix, because I think it feels too crunchy. I love working with yarns made from natural fibres, because not only do they feel better and they look better. And I like the idea of supporting a local yarn shop--my current favourite being Green Planet Yarn, in historic downtown Campbell. I could never see them carrying Patons Classic Wool, but I have to be honest: it felts really easily, and the bowls look great. I have no idea where the wool comes from, and I have no idea if their manufacturing process is ethical or whatnot, but it's a pretty decent yarn for felting, and I actually quite like it. But I am trying to be snobby! Oh, what a dilemma.

The merino wools I listed first, but have left for the last, because I liked those two the most. The O-Wool took about an hour to felt to my liking, but the bowls looked great. It didn't shrink as much as the Cascade 220 or the Shepherd's Wool, but the felted wool is nicer to the touch than the Cascade 220. At $14/hank, it was definitely the most expensive, so although I like it very much, I'm not sure if I would buy it very often.
(As a side story, the first skein of O-Wool I bought was from the DK weight Balance line, which is 50% Merino, and 50% Cotton. Only, I didn't realize that fact until much later, and I eventually gave up trying to felt it. "Ben, this wool refuses to felt! I don't know what's going on!")

Last but certainly not least is the Shepherd's Wool. This has got to be the softest wool I have ever felt. Ever. I just felted the bowls from that test, so they're still drying on the counter--we'll see if they actually make sturdy bowls (my comparison point is currently the Patons Classic Wool), but I'm not sure if I care. The first time I worked with a carefully wound ball of Shepherd's Wool, I was cuddling it up to my cheeks. The Pacifist Knight is made of Shepherd's Wool (not including his face, which is actually SWTC Yin in Harmony, the only skin-coloured yarn I could find), and he is pretty cuddly too. Green Planet Yarn has a "sale" where for any one purchase during your birthday month, you can get between 20%-100% off of that purchase; I fully intend on going as soon as I can in March, to build up a Shepherd's Wool stash. Then it will be bowl-a-bonanza.

The Pacifist Knight

2010-02-25T23:19:00.001-08:00

Meet my hero, The Pacifist Knight.

After discovering all the cute amigurumi figures listed on Etsy, I wanted to try making my own! During one of our many foraging trips to Borders, and armed with a coupon and a mission, I picked out a bunch of amigurumi books to peruse, ultimately settling on Creepy Cute Crochet.

I had actually bought this book before, as a gift, because I liked it, but ultimately returned it because it seemed inappropriate to give a crochet book to a recipient who did not crochet at all (in my defense, the contents of the book suited her well, anyway). But despite my obvious underlying desire to own the book myself, the reason why I bought it the second time around was because Ben wanted me to make him a knight.

And so,

The Pacific Knight was born. In the book, she recommends fashioning a sword out of felt, or perhaps out of clay, but I don't have felt in the right colour, I wasn't interested in using more wool to create the felt to fashion a sword, and I don't want to get into yet another craft, so I have no clay.

Then Ben got it in his head that no sword was necessary, since our little knight was a pacifist. I'm not sure if that means he resolves problems, or if it just means that he doesn't get involved, but either way, the chocolate lolly I bought Ben for Valentine's Day made a fitting addition to his photo.

Almond Plum

2010-02-17T20:12:00.000-08:00

So here is another chicken recipe; I am going to start calling these my cop-out blog posts, because they're easier to write up than a craft post. No photos needed! Anyway.

1 chicken breast
1/4 cup white wine
1/4 cup water
1 tbsp honey
a pinch of salt
a bunch of almonds (very specific!)
2 plums, not too ripe, cut to 1" pieces

Combine wine, water, and honey until the honey is dissolved. Cube the chicken and let it marinate. Grind the almonds until fairly fine; I used my little food processor and it worked great. I mixed in the almonds just before I started cooking, and dumped everything into my skillet with a bit of olive oil. Add plums once chicken is mostly cooked, and let everything simmer until the liquid is gone. Then be like me, and completely forget about vegetables! We're nomming this one right now with a carrot, half an onion, and cilantro rice, and it's really good! Now I need to go stop typing and keep eating.

Honey Garlic Chicken, and, a sale!

2010-02-06T20:13:00.000-08:00

One of my bowls sold on Etsy! Apparently it sold last night, but Etsy didn't see fit to tell me until this afternoon, which means I can't send it until Monday morning. But it'll be very nicely packaged and ready to go, before then! Later tonight, or tomorrow, I'll have to list the other bowls I finally managed to photograph--I made a few amethyst coloured bowls; it is February, after all.

Tonight on the menu is honey garlic chicken and rice. I found a recipe at Christmas that worked really well, but I never wrote it down, and I can't seem to find it any more. So, I'm trying a new experiment today, which I will actually write down. But we will see how it tastes. The chicken is marinating in it now, while the rice cooks, and it smells pretty good so far.. of course, it is basically swimming in garlic. Noms...

Honey Garlic Marinade (good for 1 chicken breast)
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup water
2 tbsp honey
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp rice vinegar
3 garlic cloves, minced

Rice vinegar is starting to be one of my favourite marinade additions. Have I mentioned that yet? It makes me wonder how horrible it is for my health.

Apple Chicken

2010-02-02T19:40:00.000-08:00

Here is one of my classic dishes: apple chicken. I've been making this delicious one for a while, and as usual, I, er, never have the sense of mind to write it down, but it needs to be posted all the same! Works great with rice or bread.

Ingredients:
- 1 chicken breast
- 1 apple (washed but not peeled)
- 1/2 onion (I prefer sweet onion, though yellow or white are both fine)
- ~2 cups apple juice
- ~1 tsp dried basil (honestly, I just shake it in until it looks good)
- ~1 tsp vinegar (I use rice vinegar, although vinegar can be left out entirely)
- salt, to taste

Directions:
1. Cut the chicken into cube or strips, whichever you prefer. Allow chicken to marinate in 1 cup apple juice, salt, basil, and vinegar.

2. Cut the half onion into 8. For the apple, cut into very thin slices. I usually use an apple corer (dropping in some lemon juice when the corer is halfway in will help keep it from browning), then cut the apple into fourths, and slice each quarter carefully.

3. Cook the onion and apple in ~1/2 cup of juice, until partially tender and the juice is evaporated. Remove from heat (placing it into a temporary holding plate works).

4. Warm the remaining juice, add chicken and marinade, and cook until mostly done. Add in the onion and apple, and continue cooking until chicken is well done, and juice is mostly evaporated.

5. Serve, and nom!

Today I'm trying out a new mango chicken marinade, one that involves red wine and orange juice. We'll see how it turns out.

etsy

2010-01-31T20:36:00.000-08:00

I've been talking about wanting to list items on Etsy since I first discovered it, and I've finally mustered up enough courage to do so. A few items are listed, just to start--I'm trying to be both realistic and optimistic at the same time, but maybe I'll get noticed by somebody!

http://wordium.etsy.com

Christmas Advent Calendar

2010-01-21T12:00:00.000-08:00

Apparently, I uploaded photos of my Christmas advent calendar project, but I failed to mention them on my blag. The Paper Source card contest completely took my attention, and lately, I've been spending a lot of time knitting and crocheting and felting, so it seems as good a time as any to post these photos, finally.

Ta-da! Twenty-five little baggies, Christmas style. The numbers are cut out of recycled felt, using the Red Tag Sale alphabet set for my Cuttlebug, and putting them through my Xyron sticker maker. For the bags themselves, I used a fat quarter I found at Jo-Anns, which I had bought originally to cover buttons, to use in a felt ring advent calendar, like this one I found on Etsy. But then I realized, advent calendars are fun because there is chocolate contained within!

Chocolate and goodies! Those are some magnets I found (on Etsy, again) featuring images from Portal; I put the cake magnet in day #25, because I really wanted cake at the end. Every day had a chocolate and a magnet or a Jibbitz for our Crocs.

In case you were wondering, one fat quarter is not enough to make 25 bags that are 2"x3" in size. But when I went back to get another, after I ditched the button idea, I couldn't find another, and they didn't have any bolts of the same, so I instead dug through the remnants pile and found some nice silk.

The colour seemed to match, and it didn't require waiting the half hour it usually takes to get fabric cut. Having never worked with silk, though, I wasn't expecting it to fall apart as easily as it does, so there was some hacking involved to get it to stay. Even then, I'm not sure these bags will hold up very well to abuse; I cut them too small to do any sort of seam finishing on the inside. But they did the job, and now they are packed away nicely, in the Christmas box.

Sweet and Sour Sauce

2010-01-18T19:19:00.000-08:00

A recipe for Sweet and Sour Sauce.
Ingredients:

1/3 cup white or rice vinegar (Note: rice vinegar gives better results)
4 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon ketchup
1 teaspoon soy sauce
2 teaspoons cornstarch mixed with 4 teaspoons water

Preparation:Mix the vinegar, brown sugar, ketchup, and soy sauce together and bring to a boil in a small pot. Mix together the cornstarch and water, add to the other ingredients and stir to thicken.

(If desired, you can add 1 green pepper, cut into chunks, and pineapple chunks as desired after adding the cornstarch. For a thicker sauce, increase the cornstarch to 4 teaspoons while keeping the water constant.)

I've been experimenting with chicken marinades and sauces lately, and I thought it would be good to start posting some of them. After doing a quick search for sweet and sour sauce, I found this one online, which worked out pretty well. We normally have 1 large chicken breast between the two of us, though, so even though I made a full batch of sauce, I only used half. It worked really well when cooked with onion, sweet pepper, and fresh pineapple. Noms!

Yarnwork

2010-01-16T22:14:00.000-08:00

My last post was on the 17th, so this appears to be right on time?

In the suitcase my mom left me at Christmas, alongside packages of Canadian Smarties, leftover cross stitch fabric, floss, and patterns, and slippers too warm to wear in this balmy climate, was a roll of crochet hooks.

Being totally obsessed with felted bowls I've seen on Etsy, I bought some yarn and made some little bowls, none of which are photographed. In the interest of experimenting with felting on my own, I subsequently bought a skein of 100% wool, and that endeavour turned out extremely well:

Those are just single crochet spiral bowls, with my favourite new technique: an adjustable ring. The bowls didn't take long to make, and felting them was pretty easy too.

I've also decided I'd like to take up knitting (because I need more craft hobbies, apparently), although to less successful results.

Bit of a rocky start, there. Muscle memory made knit stitches fairly easy, so that first cm or so is just garter stitching. When I was little, Mom would help me cast on, and I never figured out how to purl, so those need some practice. I'll get there.

Since it is 2010, I've decided on a fairly decent and reasonably attainable resolution: to make as many gifts as possible this year, instead of spending tons of money buying stuff. Felted anything is probably a good start; crocheting is fast and easy, as is felting. Once I get my knitting up to snuff, I'll have an even better skill set for being successful. And once I finally get myself a sewing machine of my own, oh ho ho! I just need to find one that's both suitable and affordable.

I'm not sure if this is really a resolution, or if it's just a good excuse to spend a ton of time crafting.

Winnar!

2009-12-17T22:54:00.000-08:00

I got a call yesterday from the Paper Source in Palo Alto. That holiday card contest that I absolutely had to do? I won!

And there it is. It features a freshly baked gingerbread couple, but oop, someone's leg has been bitten off! Following rules, I used only materials one could find at a Paper Source:

Basics:
- 5.75" square folded cards in Pool
- square cards in Eco-White (30% post consumer waste! Better than 0%)
- glitter paper for envelope liners
- 6mm satin ribbon in Pool
- VersaMark ink pad for the background

Gingerbread people:
- this cute couple
- VersaMark ink pen for inking
- white embossing powder
- silver paper for the baking sheet
- vellum for the parchment paper
- little gems

Adhesives:
- Zots (gingerbread people, ribbon detail)
- Xyron sticker maker (ribbon)
- glue

A lot of time was spent agonizing over what sort of paper or pattern would work best on the background, and I eventually just tried out pressing the VersaMark pad on the card itself, which turned out much better than I expected, especially after using the heating tool. For the gingerbread people, the lady was inked using the pad, but her poor little husband (or S.O., or friend; I don't want to assume) was inked with a VersaMark pen--excepting his mouth. Using the same pen, I gave him his rather unhappy mouth, and embossed them like that.

My favourite part of this year's card is definitely the vellum paper that I ripped to resemble parchment paper. That, and the greeting on the inside, which was inspired by a Kate Spade card I saw on display at a card shop on University. I had already planned to write, "Wishing you a tasty Christmas," but this was better:

I printed it on vellum using my current favourite font, Alte Haas Grotesk, and it's secured by four Khaki snaps, to match the gingerbread people.

The only thing that's missing from this post is a few pictures of the mess that I created while making this card, and about 20 others which were mailed to friends and family. There was excess cookie "dough" everywhere, glitter, punched off corner points... and of course, a bunch of little gingerbread man feet everywhere. Messy.

But it was all worth it! I wasn't expecting to win, but I'm really excited. I meant to make a post with my holiday advent calendar, but that's going to be postponed! That's how excited I am! Now I have to figure out what I will do with a $50 gift card to the Paper Source. Somehow I don't think that will be difficult at all.

Thumpa Thumpa

2009-12-10T17:13:00.000-08:00

My little heart goes pitter patter as I read this article:

The 32 Most Commonly Misused Words and Phrases

I will admit I have used "alright" in the past, but not likely for any sort of formal document... although that is a poor excuse. Occasionally I have to stop and think about "stationary" versus "stationery", but at least I stop to think about it. "Could of" is one of the things that drives me mad, as does "whose" and "who's", but look, look, look!

19. Literally- If you say “His head literally exploded because he was so mad!” then we should see brains splattered on the ceiling.

Thumpa thumpa. <3 <3 <3 I could, like, literally die because this list is so good.

December

2009-12-08T17:56:00.000-08:00

Frequent posting is aparently not my forte. But fear not, a new block of carefully proofread text has arisen from the depths. And since I last posted, something great has happened:

I won! With a total of 50034 words, I completed a barebones novella. It's going to need a lot of work, still, before I could even consider letting someone else see it, but hey, I finished NaNoWriMo for the first time in four years.

What's more, today I sent off the last of my Christmas cards, which is momentous since I started working on them in October. After making about twenty cards, I sent them off to friends and family, keeping one for myself, and giving one to the Paper Source for their card contest, which I may have mentioned previously. The two people who were there when I submitted it were pleased with my card, although I don't think they would have let themselves come across as anything but impressed. I meant to mention that the vellum paper is supposed to represent parchment paper, but it didn't occur to me until afterwards that it might not be obvious. In any case, I thought that idea was brilliant.

Since Saturday, I have found myself to be in temporary possession of a sewing machine. My ultimate goal is to create a Christmas advent calendar, which I'm working on for sure, but this is what I spent most of my Sunday doing:

A tea cozy! I followed a pattern I found on the Rusty Bobbin, which worked extremely well. Materials I used:
- iredescent flocked taffeta (fabric.com)
- cotton batting (also from fabric.com)
- beige broadcloth for lining, which I found in the remnants bin at Jo-Ann (I'm finding lots of useful bits of fabric in there)
- baby blue piping

I only bought half a yard of the taffeta, and I have bunch left over, so I'll have to make another tea cozy for the next teapot I want to get (a smaller pot for just me). The one pictured above also fits right over my glass tea kettle, so I might make a third to cover that and keep it clean.

So far in my advent calendar, I've made up to 10 bags. The idea is to have 25 little cloth baggies that we can fill with goodies, and put up one every day. This project is on hiatus until I can get new thread, however, since I've just about run out. That isn't necessarily a bad thing--bags 1 through 10 have been made using blue thread on white cloth. I don't think anybody is going to complain. I should be done before Christmas, at least, but we'll see about my speediness in posting about it on here.

Upcycled Shims

2009-11-17T22:42:00.000-08:00

According to the e-mail my manager received recently, I've been working for exactly one year as of today! That means it's been just over a year since I moved south, having left my cozy, rainy homeland for near-daily sunshine. Although it's odd to be wearing only two layers instead of three (plus a water-resistant shell), I don't regret moving because of the weather.

And most certainly, I don't regret moving because of the shopping. Not only is Amazon.com far superior to Amazon.ca, but there are so many stores here I love to visit! It took me a while, however, to discover the Paper Source. <3 Their stores are always full of fun things to look at, and of little crafty knick knacks that make me want to drain my bank account. In short: an effective business model.

The most recent thing I discovered from the Paper Source, however, that I absolutely love, actually cost me no money at all: a Paper Source brochure!

Ta-da!

Here it is, disassembled. As fun as it is to browse through, I'm not going to order personalized cards, and I'm not getting married yet so I'm not interested in ordering invitations. However, I do love flipping through it. And when I'm done with it, apart from making mini envelopes (which will have to be another post on its own, some day), the intact pages are the perfect size to use as Cuttlebug shims.

And once again, ta-da!

I shan't deny that I absolutely love my Cuttlebug. That's probably slightly because of brand loyalty ("My PlayStation can kick your GameCube's butt any day!"), and I have to admit that the only other manual die cutting machine I've tried is the Epic Six. But my Cuttlebug (and its suction rubber bottom) can kick your Epic Six's butt any day! But I've had a lot of fun with it, and I fully intend on continuing this trend. So to find perfectly sized paper shims that look nice was a very exciting discovery for me. As the picture above shows, they're just the right width.

Any time I'm doing something that doesn't involve the standard embossing folders or dies, which is actually pretty often now, I grab my pile of brochure leaves and slip them in as necessary. They're thin enough to give a little bit of extra pressure, but can get fairly thick when piled together--I don't think I've used an entire brochure yet!

one more thing

2009-11-16T09:53:00.000-08:00

I forgot to add this in my last post, because I forgot it existed. That is how horrible it is: I can actually succeed at putting it out of my memory. At least, that's what I'm going to pretend.

peek (v): to glance, to look at briefly. "She took a sneak peek at the new merchandaise."
peak (n): the extreme, maximum, vertex, acme. "She was at the peak of her career."

As you can see, "peek" is a verb, whereas "peak" is a noun. The latter is not so unique that it can be, um, verbified, like, "Hey, let me Google that."

So therefore, this is completely unacceptable: "Let's start off this blog post/tutorial/news article by taking a peak at what's actually going on here."

Argh! I see it so often, too. I am terrified that one day, it will be standard to use "peak" instead of "peek". I hate it so much, it makes me want to stab my eyes out.

Not Proofreading This Post

2009-11-10T16:13:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I wonder if anybody even bothers to proofread any more, online or offline. Proofreading takes extra time, yes. Proofreading requires thought, yes. Proofreading is boring, yes. But proofreading is good!

Blogs seem to be especially bad with this, since they already carry a "this just came from my head, seriously" type of essence. But they don't need to sound like that all of the time. This especially goes to people who manage public blogs. Shame! It's not enough to write a post, run the spellchecker, and then click "Publish." Their are many things that due knot got fixed unless yew seas them when you've proofreading!

Spelling errors and grammar mistakes usually make up the bulk of these very easy-to-catch items, but the ones that really irk me are the ones that are obviously side-effects of an edit. The incorrect tense that went with a different phrasing. The incomplete word that used to begin or end a sentence. The phrase that is repeated at least twice, maybe more, but written differently each time. It's obvious to me that you took the time to re-edit the sentence. But did you read it after you "fixed" it?

I'm not talking about small errors, like easy typos, where one letter is replqced by another, or where the order of charcaters gets a little scrambled. I'm talking about obvious mistakes that you can catch just by doing one read-through. When you publish something that is obviously not proofread, it says to the reader, "I didn't read my own article, why should you?"

And if you're going to argue that "replqced" and "charcaters" are obvious, well, you were looking for them, weren't you?

Cuttlebug Letterpress

2009-10-22T22:29:00.000-07:00

Recently, while shopping online for a Cuttlebug storage binder, I discovered the L Letterpress from Quickutz--it's basically DIY letterpress, at home, with just a die cutter/embosser. It looks very impressive! (har har, I wonder how many other craft bloggers have made that pun) The kit itself isn't out yet, though it should be soon, as "late October/early November" is basically now.

My ProvoCraft Cuttlebug, however, is not an Epic Six, so I'm dying to find out if I can get the L and use it without having to buy another die cutting machine. I really love my Cuttlebug; I've had it for a couple of years now and it's very reliable. Considering that I can use nearly any brand of die in my Cuttlebug, I'm going to guess that it's compatible--all that really matters is, will it be too wide, or too tall?

Very likely, I will end up getting one of these, although I will probably wait until it's actually released so that I can read reviews by real crafters. I couldn't help but do some frantic online searching, however, and I did come across the idea of using the Cuttlebug and embossing folders as a makeshift letterpress, however, and I wanted to try it myself. Combined with the fact that I recently took over Ben's abandoned camera, my endeavours required some bloggin'.

There's a video available on instructables.com, which involves cutting the embossing folder, but I didn't feel that was necessary--most of my embossing folders are the A2 size, so they're patterned, and it works just to flatten the folder.

For a shim, I used some felt, cut to size. I started with 2, which provided adequate cushioning for a couple of presses, but I had to add 1 after that, and ended up with four sheets of felt underneath.

You can kind of see my layers:

B - cutting
paper
inked embossing folder
B - cutting
felt (just scraps in that photo above, though, from testing)
A - block

For ink, I just used some stamp ink that I've had around forever. Not being much of a stamper, I don't have much ink.

Yeah, that's about it. There's a black pigmented ink pad that I found when I was moving things around, but I didn't get around to trying that one. I also tried out my Marvy Wet Looks markers, but that didn't turn out too well:

The ColorBox inks weren't bad, especially the little Chalk cat eyes. The dye ink was okay, but not great--I used it for the present, below:

Overall, I think it worked out fairly well. I could definitely see myself trying it again, although I think I need to pick up a rubber roller, and some more ink, or some paints. The ink came off fairly easily with stamp ink remover and a paper towel. The paints for the L Letterpress are more oil-based, though, so I'm not sure how that would make for cleaning the embossing folders.

Don't be surprised if I end up getting the L, assuming it works with the Cuttlebug, or at least some of their printing plates and inks. I would be extremely surprised, though, if the L wasn't compatible with the Cuttlebug and the Sizzix, or any other basic die cutter/embosser on the market.

delicious_club

2009-10-16T15:02:00.000-07:00

Two years ago, Ben started the "Delicious Club", which was basically a method of marking good restaurants in different areas, done through Google Maps reviews. There was a whole categorization scheme that he set up based on price and dress for each restaurant, which he outlined in a Google Doc, but right now it seems like Im the only person actively marking restaurants. I'm trying to mark all of the restaurants I can remember that I love, but that basically means that there are only places down the west coast. There are a few old ones on the east coast, from one of his friends, but not many.

Doing a search for "delicious_club" will point out delicious restaurants on Google maps:

View Larger Map

Birthday Card

2009-10-06T22:39:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, I picked up a copy of Paper Crafts, a magazine I'm amazed I haven't found until now. It's a fairly small glossy, but it has some cute ideas, and I've already incorporated one for this year's Christmas card design. Combined with the workshop I did at Paper Source, there is a lot less design experimentation and a lot more card making this year. But while I'm really excited about my Christmas cards, I don't want to post them until they're sent out! Ever since I started making them, they've become like mini-gifts to people I care about, but don't get to see very often.

But I would like to start posting cards that I've made, or am making, so here is one that was fairly recent. This birthday card was made for Ben's aunt in Arizona. Usually the cards I make are for people I know personally, but this would be the first I've made for someone I've never met. This is significant, since I normally set out to design my card based on its recipient. Now that I think about it, I write in the same way, too--I can't tell a story unless I know the main characters well. But even so, I went fairly generic:

From Craft projects

Supplies:
- 3" x 5" card
- iridescent paper (likely from Bazzill, but I can't remember)
- EK Success flat edge punch: swiss cheese
- Cuttlebug cake die shape
- foam squares, glue, 2 sided tape

When I bought the punch, I thought they were just bubbles, but that's how I did the edging--think champagne bubbles? The cake was chocolate with vanilla icing, and the stand matched the card backing. I'm never a fan of gluing little parts together, as I always seem to get glue everywhere, but I liked the way it turned out, overall. Inside I stamped "Happy Birthday", fairly simple, and on the back, my usual made-by-me stamp.

Speaking of custom stamps, I am seriously thinking of doing that stamp making workshop so I can turn my robot into a reproduceable image.

Brushes

2009-10-04T11:45:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to post about the Brushes app (http://brushesapp.com/) available for the iPhone and iPod touch. At $5, it's a bit more expensive than the normal app available on the iTunes store, but it's well worth it. It's a fairly lightweight application that seems like a simple finger painting application on the surface, but it has many interesting features.

1. Different brushes
There are 3 brushes that are available to "paint" with, and I'm not sure if it's merely a different brush type or if it's supposed to simulate a different paint type, but I can tell that they're different. I won't pretend to know a lot about art mediums, so I will leave it alone. You can also change the size of your brush, from 1px in diameter to 64px. The same goes for the eraser.

2. Colours
That's right, "colours", with a 'u'. The app uses "Color", but I'll forgive the author since he includes the entire spectrum of RGB colour choices, with varying transparencies to choose from. A little colour picker lets you find a colour you've already got on the canvas.

3. Layers!
How awesome is that? Four little layers to choose from, to move around, fill with colour, merge, or delete. You can also import one of your photos as a layer, even awesomer!

4. Zoom
Just like any other iPhone/iPod Touch application, pinch to zoom in or out. I discovered this after a few paintings, and it makes a big difference. This is very obvious.

5. Brush stroke log
You can undo and redo nearly any brush stroke you've painted during the session, and even better, you can download the image as a Brushes filetype, and use the viewer available on their website to turn it into a movie of your painting, from start to finish. I imagine this could make for some very interesting movie art.

6. "Connect"
In the corner of the Gallery, they give you a little wireless/RSS-type icon, which gives you a URL to try, if you're connected to a wifi network. This is how you download your paintings either as .png or whatever format the Brushes file is in (I haven't tried it yet).

My paintings, so far, are in my Picasa album, and I hope to add more to my fine portfolio. Here are a couple of my favourites:


From Brushes

The left is the first painting I did, the right is one I did after I discovered you could zoom in. It makes a suitable iPhone background image.

I have to do this!

2009-10-02T18:23:00.000-07:00

The Paper Source is having a holiday card contest which I have to enter. I have to!

I've already got some supplies for Christmas card making, thanks to that card workshop I took yesterday night. I came home with a fairly hefty bag of stuff, I'm (not really) sorry to say. But the card contest rules state that the card must be made with 100% Paper Source materials! That means I have to go back. I have to!

The card workshop was fun, although it was a little odd for me, going by myself and being surrounded by middle-aged female teachers and/or domestic engineers. There were so many alpha types there, it was scary. "Me me me, oh yeah I know that, me me I I I gimme gimme."
I wasn't particularly impressed with any of the cards or techniques they showed us, since I'd already had experience in most of them (stamping, embossing, using a sticker maker, glitter and glue, punches), but it was kind of nice to be able to play with their materials hands-on.

The one thing I did find impressive, however, was the envelope liner templates. They're extremely simple--you cut nice paper to the shape of the template, and glue it into a matching size envelope. I've never used liners before, but they look awesome, and they only take a minute. I feel the need to also get the envelope template kit so I can always have matching envelopes. I have to!

Another thing I liked quite a bit, but had used before, was the embosser + plates. I can emboss papers with my Cuttlebug as it is, but the specialized embossers can be made into custom designs, and they have a more refined look to them. I have to get this one eventually. I have to!

One of the most amusing things of the evening was the impatient husband I saw as I left at 9:30pm, waiting in a car outside the store.The other really amusing thing was the way one of the instructors showed us how to deal with excess glitter or embossing powder--"You just flick it, like this," she said, and flicked the sparkles onto the ground. ! I would never be allowed to do that at home, anywhere.

Overall I was happy with the workshop, I came home pretty hyper. I'm seriously considering doing their make your own stamp workshop, though it's longer and more expensive, and seems more involved (a challenge!). I think it's about time I turn my classic robot drawing into a stamp... I have to!

Police Blotter

2009-09-22T14:27:00.000-07:00

Occasionally I like reading the police blotter notes that the San Jose Mercury News posts online. I found them by accident in one of my Google Reader feeds, but occasionally they can be somewhat entertaining. Normally most of them seem fairly tame. Out of this past weekend's, however, I found this:

3500 block of De La Cruz Boulevard, Sept. 13 A man broke into a church on two occasions. The first time, he took cash and the second time, a Bible. Both thefts were caught on video. The pastor confronted the man and he was arrested.

Who steals a bible?

Another one I remember reading was much earlier in the year--somebody grabbed a couple bags of groceries out of some lady's car while she was unloading it. That's got to say something about the economy.

PC Stitch Pro

2009-09-16T18:38:00.000-07:00

About a month ago, I bought PC Stitch Pro (Amazon link). The software isn't perfect, and lacks things like keyboard shortcuts, but their pattern printing is pretty good. I'm not so keen on embroidering a photo, which seems to be their selling point--and it can turn photos into stitching patterns-- but it's fun to do pixel art that will become a cross stitch pattern complete with symbols and matching DMC floss numbers. This was my first pattern edited with the software:

Robots, naturally! Robots in love. It turned out well enough, and I really like the heart, which is outlined in double-flossed backstitches. Unfortunately it's been so long that I'm out of practice when it comes to other stitches, like the French knot. These little robot buddies are supposed to have red and green status indicator lights, but I can't get my knots to knot. A lot of practice is required, and I suspect a lot of practice will be forthcoming. My current project (or I should say, one of my current projects) is stitching out the logo for Ben's team at work, "Faster Google". They have a shiny red racecar, and I've already got a pattern printed from the image he sent me.

Edit: Ben thought that I had stitched a pair of Whos from the Grinch Who Stole Christmas.

Beatlemania!

2009-09-14T17:57:00.000-07:00

I have a multitude of Beatles songs stuck in my hea.

Last Wednesday (09/09/09), the entire Beatles collection was re-released, having been digitally remastered. To coincide with this eventful day, The Beatles Rock Band was also released. Ben and I got a chance to try one of the earlier games at a friend's place, and found it extremely entertaining. Living in an 800sqft apartment, however, with only one bedroom and two small closets, however, have made daunting the idea of purchasing a video game that required at least one plastic guitar and a plastic drum set. We already have one real guitar out (plus another under the bed), and a real piano. But who could possibly resist the Beatles?

We found ourselves at our local, western-themed Fry's, standing in front of the "special edition" set ($250) and the "value edition" set ($140). Having a "Beatles" drum set and a plastic replica of Paul McCartney's guitar has always been one of my life goals--alas, we have the simple set and $100 still in our pockets.

Since we picked it up on Thursday, we've played at least once every day. This includes our trip up to visit Ben's parents in Berkeley, where we got both of them to try it. ("I can play this on a real guitar!") I've discovered that I pretty much suck at "guitar playing", my singing is passable, and the drum set is fun. My next experiment is to see how well I can play without drumsticks--bongo style?

Sitting in an English garden, waiting for the sun
If the sun don't come you get a tan from standing in the English rain

(Edit: bongo Rock Band doesn't work so well.)

Affect vs. Effect

2009-09-04T13:55:00.000-07:00

Recently I sent out a survey related to a study I began at work, looking at blogging and microblogging behaviours. The study actually started as a secondary topic, the primary being a design/display project for the summer, to display IBM-related tweets. The goal of the study was to find out how microblogging and blogging practices interact, if at all. When I was going over the open-ended answers in the survey, I noticed that I had written this sentence:

If you both blog and microblog, how has your use of either tool affected the other?

At first, I groaned inwardly--what utter mortification! Did 300 people just see a huge grammar error? Is it not an "effect" that I'm asking about, and not an "affect"? Should it not be, "[...] how has your use of either effected the other?" But comparing "effected" and "affected", the former doesn't look right either.

Now completely confused, it's time to turn to Google to do the work for me. A suggestion is given for "define: effected"--"Did you mean: define: affected?" Accepting the new search yields this as one of the answers:

affect - have an effect upon

Ah-ha! Hello, confusing near-homophone! And now I remember a simple rule, which is often broken:

affect = verb ("My blog will affect my microblogging habits.")
effect = noun ("My blog has an effect on my microblogging habits.")

So it seems that my original sentence was correct, and there was no need to second-guess myself. Yet despite the simplicity of separation, the two words are easily confused.

For a longer (and probably better) explanation, check out Grammar Girl's article on this very topic. More confusion can be supplied by Randall Munroe.

Panda

2009-09-02T18:25:00.001-07:00

I found this panda pattern somewhere, but I can't remember where. Originally, he had a bunch of bamboo around him. I started it to keep myself busy during the flight to Vancouver at the end of July this year, but I decided to finish it before I left, so I could give it to Mitch. She has a thing for pandas. But as neat as bamboo is, I didn't think it added anything interesting to the pattern, so I give you "Fatty Panda Eats a Timmy's Maple Doughnut".