Lots Going On!

There is a lot going on around the shop and life lately. I have been so busy between crafting, Fabulous Pants, gardening, and watching the World Cup. I have been uploading items to the Fabulous Pants shop lately. I finally have the olive filigree pants uploaded to the shop. I have to say that I am really in love with this fabric. It is a very beautiful tone of olive, and the border on this sari is really quite stunning. I am hoping to get my costuming done for Chaos Wars quickly so that I can move on to another pair of pants for the shop. I am thinking about starting on another pair of purple pants, but there are also some red and raspberry fabrics that are also calling for my attention. It is hard when you are surrounded by such beautiful fabric to pick the next one to work on.

On Friday, I met up with the lovely Dreah, and we worked on making some pickles. It was her first time pickling, so it was a fun experience. We made a sandwich slice style pickle, and I think I may really like these as they have a slight sweetness to them. The brine has both brown and white sugar in it, giving it a real depth. There is also mustard seed and celery seed in the brine, which are also favorite spices of mine. I cannot wait for them to cure, so I can pop them open and try them out. I did not find the pickle crisp in time, so hopefully they are not too soft. We did soak them in ice water for a while, so hopefully this mitigated this a bit. I wished we had more time that day to do the full three hour soak, but that just was not possible. We would have been canning long into the night had we followed that.

On Sunday, we had some culinary goodness. We started the morning off with crepes and World Cup soccer games. I had mine filled with Nutella and bananas with chocolate sauce in one and homemade apricot jam in the other. Dusted with a little powdered sugar, it was a delicious way to start off a day. I am a big fan of crepes, and they are not as hard to make as people make them out to be. I make my batter the night before or even the morning of if I have enough time to let it sit for a hour in the fridge before it is time to make them. I like to spike the batter with some amaretto liquor for a great overtone to the crepes. Perhaps someday I will make a tutorial for making them.

We then moved on to a great pizza! I think it was one of the best pizzas we have made to date. I used a ball of the lean bread from the freezer for the crust. It works out well and is really convenient. We used store bought sauce, and I hope to change this soon. I have a recipe from one of my canning books that I would like to try out. I hope that it is a sauce we like because I would love to find a sauce that we really love that I can make rather than buying sauces that we just find okay. Once I find a recipe I love, I will share it.

Today I am hoping to make some actual progress on my newest 25 yard skirt. I have been "working" on it for a long time. Today I need to actually work on it... that is if World Cup does not get in the way too much. I hope to get my arrows repaired during the game and get them packaged up for shipment for Chaos Wars. Also, I want to get my new belt design started. I want to test it out at Chaos Wars before introducing it into the shop. I am taking some balcony garden pictures and will have them posted for you all tomorrow.

Chocolate Pinstripe Pants

I know that I promised garden pictures, but lately it has been too cloudy for pretty pictures. I will however share this picture of the chocolate pinstripe pants that I listed yesterday in the Etsy Shop. I like the variety that this new listing gives to my shop, and if some of my new pairs of pants will photograph well in this location, I am sure I will use it as a back drop again. I am currently editing the pictures for the olive filigree pair that I showed a few days ago. I hope to have that finished by the end of the England v. Algeria match. Once they are finished they will be up on Etsy. Once the clouds clear, I will take updated pictures of the balcony garden for the Monday edition of the blog. Also, I have a canning date today, so look for pickle pictures next week as well.

Updates

Baking Updates

Lately the cakes are going gang busters! It makes me joyful and thankful that I have started jogging for exercise. If I had not started that, I am sure it would be a sad state of affairs. This was a lemon layer cake that I found the recipe from, yet again, the wonderful people at Cook's Illustrated Magazine. For this recipe, I had to make lemon curd for the filling. It was interesting to work with eggs in that kind of concept and to get experience in cooking with out cooking the eggs as a separate element in the whole package. There is nothing worse than cooked pieces of egg in your curd. I also had to learn to make a seven minute frosting variation for the frosting. That time I did cook the eggs on the fist try, so I had to take another stab at it. The frosting turned out rather meringue like. It was delicious, and also worked well in the small cake halving territory of things.

Bread making has been rather so so. I have been trying to make the San Francisco sourdough recipe from my Peter Reinhart baking books. The loaves are turning out with a good crust but way too dense. I am wondering if I need to cast off my "purist" dream and do his mixed method with both starter and commercial yeast. I will try that once I return from a trip I am going to take and post those results here.

Garden Update:

The peas finally decided it was too hot for them and turned yellow this weekend in the pleasantly warm weather. I pulled them out of the trellis and planted a few more bean plants. Hopefully they sprout and catch up with the rest of the pack soon. I tried soaking them to give them a faster germination rate, so hopefully I helped them along. The tomatoes are crazy this year. One has grown out of the cage already, and the flowers are blooming away.

I found some aphids trying to attack my tender and small herb plants, so it is back to the soap spray regiment to rid myself of the pests. I am glad that I happened to catch them early. There were few of them and not the large swarms that I usually find later when the damage is already done.

The zucchini plants seem to be really happy this year. One plant already has four small zucchini and this other larger one:
I also tried some of the radishes from the box in a pasta salad this weekend. They were great. Just the right amount of hot and not very burp educing. The other plants are trucking along and looking rather happy. I even noticed a new little shoot in the zucchini plant box from a replacement cucumber that I planted when the other one started to die while I still had hope for a cucumber season. I guess I should not have given up so easily. This shoot is rather shaded by the now large zucchini plants, but one can always hope for it to shoot up and claim its own place.

Shop News:

I took several shots of the new pairs of pants at the end of the week. Here is the olive filigree pair in a rough picture. I may have to take some more pictures of this pair today as I am not sure the ones I have will be good enough. I am also awaiting a few new supplies to start some samples of new projects. I cannot wait. What about the old projects I keep saying I will complete? Well I am still working on them actively. After a "rewiring project," I can now work on things at night. Our apartment, while awesomely spacious and full of electrical outlets, is a challenge for being able to plug in a light by the couch in the middle of the room. It creates a trip wire which is bound to inspire an accident. This weekend we ran the wire for a large power strip under the side of the area rug ending behind the couch and bookshelves, so now I can have light to work on things in the living room when we are watching the television or movies without cords running everywhere. This also hides all the laptop cords as well, making the room look much more pulled together and less chaotic. I expect my productivity to increase quite a bit with the new light for working.

Life News:
This weekend, Dan and I cut the cable... literally. We decided that we no longer wanted to pay for cable when most of the television we watch is over the air, PBS, or available on line for free. Why pay for something that is free right? We have fully signed on to Boxee and Hulu for most of our television as well as using a new high powered antenna in our front office window. I have to say, the picture is amazing; the HD looks better without the cable. I know that sounds bizarre, but the picture quality is better due to it not being compressed down by the cable company. My PBS cooking shows have never looked so good! I am also hoping that this increases my productivity as well since I will not be a slave to my want-to-know addiction to the 24 hour news cycle. Cutting the cable means no 24 hour cable news. Already I am feeling a bit lighter.

I also found my new running shorts solution over the weekend. I am going to try out my new running skirt! I will let you know how it works out for me in tomorrow's installation of the blog. For today's goals, I want to get my jog done, make up some baby shower gifts, hem some pants for a friend, start back on my personal black skirt, go to dance class tonight (really actually go), and work on some falls or the belt when I get home. Lots to do and hopefully with fewer distractions I will get it done!

Shop Progress

Yesterday was surprisingly productive, partly due to the rain storm that did not arrive. I was getting ready to go out for my walk, and I saw what seemed to be impending rain clouds. I checked the radar and decided that it was too risky, so I went into the studio and set to work. While the rain did not show up until later it must have inspired my African violet to bloom. Spring showers and May flowers and all.

In this burst of productivity, I tried to get some pictures of the chocolate pin stripe pants in our blue stairway. There was just the right amount of light, but I could not get the pants to fit right. They fit much better before I started loosing weight, so I guess I will have to figure out how to model these or break down and get someone else to model them for me. I may have a few fitting ideas up my sleeve, so that I can get them uploaded to Etsy without them looking too weird. I would say, though, that these pants are great for someone a bit bigger than myself. They are also great for a business casual setting.

I have been working on these wonderful olive filigree style Jakarta pants. I really love this fabric. It is an unusual fabric for me to pick, but it just looked so great I had to have it. Here they are just after I finished sewing them up. I will have to wait for a sunny day with low wind before I can photograph them and get a listing up on Etsy. It is, as I have mentioned before, rather difficult to photograph these fabrics. They often times will look washed out or the embroidery designs will not show up on the photograph. Full sun seems to be the only solution to this. I am rather shocked to see how well this fabric photographed just in the craft studio. It is pretty close to correct for the color and the embroidery actually comes through.

I also settled on the final motif for the bottom parts of the elephant and peacock belt. I drew some flower doodles that I make often and satin stitched them in and also added fern stitch for the vines. I have one finished and another one started. There are three more to be done, and then all I have left is some mini tassel making for the elephant's tails and decorations for their mirrors. It will be rather intricate once finished. I am almost there on finishing this, and I can't wait to reveal it to you all. First, though, I need to buy more floss for the tassels. I can't seem to estimate exactly how much I need. I am keeping notes if I ever get crazy enough to make a belt like this again.

I got so many things done that I could not believe there would be time for a personal project, but there was. I worked on a 25 yard skirt for myself. I have the black fabric all cut and began serging the edges tonight. Today I am going to work on the stitching of the tiers and the gathering stitches. If I am lucky, I can get the first two tiers tied together before I leave for tutoring at 826 and class at Fat Chance. Here is to hoping I am as productive today as I was yesterday.

Belt Progress

The belt has been making some progress. I sat down yesterday and started on the final group of hand stitched embroidery. I am doing a double feather stitch in the gold color of the elephants and other designs on the belt. It is turning out quite well, and I am very pleased with myself and how even the stitches are turning out. I guess all the practice with hand sewing over the years is finally paying off.

I hope to finish up the feather stitch today. Then I need to trim the tassels and sew the belt all together. It is turning out so well, and I am loving it. Will I make one for myself? Doubtful. I think this is destined to be a one of a kind belt due to the many hours of thought, labor, and love that went into its making. Throw in the fact that I cannot get the yarn that I made the tassels out of anymore, and you have a one of a kind piece. While I could replicate the embroideries again, I could never make the same kind of tassels for this. A big part of the design for this belt was inspired by those yarns. I cannot wait for it to all finally go together and be the show stopping belt that it is meant to be!

New Hairfalls - Lime Green and Black

After long last, I am finished with the lime green and black hairfalls. I have been slowly working on them since October, and recently found them again in the yarn drawer. I got them out and began working on finishing them while watching movies and television over the past few evenings. The are now up for sale in the Etsy Shop. They are a really fun set, and one of my most full sets that I have ever made. A total of one-hundred strands of braids are in the pair. I am thinking about making one-hundred per pair a goal of mine from here on out. It seems like they are fuller than the average pair and look spectacular. They looked so good that I have already started a new pair to work on, a short set in red tones and black accents. I find them quite calming to work on while spending time watching my favorite shows.

Finding this lost project and finishing it up makes me want to finish up the belts that have been languishing in the shop for a while. I want to dig into the new products and fabrics I just bought so bad, but I think that finishing up the belts should be a priority. Part of me wonders if I drag my feet on these because secretly I want them to stay here forever. Perhaps deep down I want them to be my own and to not actually sell them. I am going to try to satiate this need for something of my own by finishing up a personal choli then setting to work on finishing up a belt today. After yesterday's house cleaning craziness, I want to sit at the machine and wind down. Perhaps the deep clean of the kitchen can wait until tonight or tomorrow. Crafting inspiration is here, and I intend to capitalize on it!

Pineapple Sauce

Yesterday I somehow managed to get up early and get down to work on some projects before heading into the city for tutoring at 826 and dance class at Fat Chance. One of the projects I got finished was making a pineapple sauce out of the remaining pineapple from our Easter brunch. One thing that I have always loved is banana splits. My Grandma always made them for me when I would stay over at her house during the summers. They were one of my favorites next to her incredible chocolate malts! I decided recently after looking at the toxic yellow offerings for pineapple topping at the grocery store that I should try to make my own. Luckily I had some recipe guidance to go off, and after a long 30 minutes of stirring the mix at a boil. I had three half pints of pineapple sauce to my name. I am going to have to resist opening them until I get the strawberry sauce made later this spring or early summer when the strawberries are better. Needless to say, the ice cream maker is going to be running full tilt once the sauces are in place and bananas will be a weekly purchase.

I also have been slowly finishing up a set of long lime and black hairfalls. I have been kicking these around for a while now and wanted to finish them up. They should be completed soon, and I hope to get them listed in the Fabulous Pants shop early next week. While my falls still pale in comparison with those of Bastet, I try my best to live up to her craftsmanship and style. I also received my fabric shipment. The fabrics are even better than I thought! I cannot wait to dig into them on Monday. I may have to start on the weekend though since they are just so stunning. Right now my floor is filled with a beautiful piece of batik from Indonesia from which I am making a personal choli. There are two distinct sections to the fabric, and I would like a choli out of both the dark and the light section. The light section is a good three fourths of the fabric piece, and the dark section is the other fourth. It has taken a long afternoon of fiddling with the pattern pieces, but I think I finally have a plan that I can agree with that uses this small piece the most efficient. In other words, the pieces actually fit. I hope to get that mostly cut and ready to go as well as working on learning some new skills on the serger today. I am trying to do the "medicine" of learning in between the "sugar" of projects I want to work on. Hopefully it motivates me to take this serger task on full force this time.

I am planning a quiet weekend at home working on personal projects and relaxing a bit. Things have been such a whirlwind lately that I think a weekend spent stitching on a project or braiding some more falls would be a welcomed change. While I love being social with friends and going out on the town, I am truly a homebody at heart. I think I need to honor that a bit more this weekend and avoid the lure of more high impact social activities. I hope you all have a great weekend whatever the tone you decide to take is!

Tiny Little Dresses

Lately the sewing machines have been busy working on my niece Claudia's birthday presents. While I worked hard, I yet again underestimated this project. It was a fun project, and I used a pattern from Butterick for the clothes and dolls. I, however, did not follow the directions for making the dolls from this pattern. They wanted you to use buckram for the dolls and clothes, and I just did not feel like getting involved with buckram again so soon after the bra project. I instead just used heavy duty interfacing as much as I could to make the dolls and clothes stiff like the paper dolls they emulate. I loved putting all the outfits together from past costumes of my own. There are pieces from my Belegarth outfits as well as many of my dance costumes on those cute little dresses. In keeping with the theme of using up things from my stash of left over fabrics, the only thing I purchased for this was the jewels for the crowns and the fabric for the Dorthy style dress. That one was too cute to not do, so I had to go and buy some blue and white checked fabric.

The dolls have stands to make them stand up, and the clothes attach to hook and loop tape that is located on both the outfits and the back sides of the dolls. The only thing I was not too happy about what how the one doll's face turned out. The lighter felt was less dense, so the markers bled a bit more than I liked. That resulted in me needing to "even out" the lines which meant a more heavy eyeliner and larger lips than I had planned. I hope that she enjoys them as much as I enjoyed digging through the stash and finding beloved fabrics to use and pass on in this way. Each one let me reminisce about past sewing projects and just how far my skills have come.

Today I am awaiting the fabric shipment that I have made for Fabulous Pants I am going to have some new items in the shop hopefully in the next few weeks. I am embarking on a new product line, so wish me luck and check back here for details. Now, I am off to do some personal sewing. I am getting tired of the same old cholis that I wear to class. I think it is time that I whipped up some new ones! Personal sewing can be so fun! Also, it helps to keep me occupied enough that I will not be waiting by the door for the post to drop off my hopefully large box of cloth!

Life Returning to Normal in 3 - 2 - 1

Life has been pretty hectic over the past few weeks, and the lack of blogging is on of the results. Certain things, though, kept in motion. The Aerogarden is really taking off. While I am slightly concerned that the thyme plant is going to eventually get choked out by the dill and basil, overall the garden is thriving. The outdoor plants however are stunted. I believe my over zealousness started that part of the garden too early. The patio is still not getting much direct sunlight, so the plants are languishing. The zucchini have gotten a few leaves, but the cucumbers are doing nothing. The beans are also stalled out. The peas, however, seem to be pretty happy. They are slowly climbing up the trellis and are very full with leaves. I hope that they are at least happy. My tomatoes are still inside as well as my peppers. I also had to restart more beans. The two that I planted outside are the only ones to germinate. the others just went bad. The new ones look rather healthy, and the largest ones are going outside into the box today. I am afraid that if I leave them inside any longer they will slump due to not having a pole to wrap around. Hopefully they do not stall out too much themselves. Needles to say, there is a lot of gardening that needs to be done today. I also want to redo my chives into their own pot as well. It will be nice to eventually redo the herb box. I just need more sun on the balcony. Hopefully the time change will start to have an effect sooner than later.

So over the last two weeks I have been rather busy getting ready and performing at Rakkasah. My friend Christine came the last weekend in February, and I had a wonderful time with her. We went around the city and saw all sorts of fun things including the Chinese New Year Parade in San Francisco. It was an action packed weekend. All the fun though came to an end when I dropped her off at the airport. I quickly came down with the flu and was out of commission for a week. It was stressful as I was looking to have that week for costuming and completing all the sewing I had to do before the show, including redoing the bra pictured here. I loved this bra the first time I made it, but it had some flaws that needed to be fixed. This second time around I could not be happier. It even has me considering making coin bras for Fabulous Pants! I also had to make another 25 yard skirt. It looked like I was sewing up mummy bandages in the sewing room. The white underskirt was beautiful with my other skirt over. It looked like a beautiful petticoat under the main skirt. I think I will be using this combination for many a show! Now if only I could figure out the ruffle foot on the machine... it would have made this project much easier. It would also open up the possibility of me adding 25 yard skirts to the shop. Let me know if there is interest in either the skirts or the bras! I would be happy to open up the creativity to those items if they are something you all have a desire for.

Now I am off for that gardening and returning to some of the normal mundane tasks that have been ignored over the show prep. There is cleaning to do and books to balance.

Fabric Sample

Quick little posting today as I have lots to get done in a short time. Thursdays are my busiest day of the week, and they have recently gotten busier with show prep for Rakkasah and the student salon at the studio. I also still have my tutoring time at 826, so there is a lot to do before I head into the city. Last night I finished off a pair of pants that were ordered. It was really nice to get back to making pants. I hope that I can spend more time on that in the coming days, as I have some great fabrics that are awaiting transformation. This pair was a wonderful red that faded into a slightly lighter tone. I called it red swirl.



Look to the Etsy Store in the coming months for more new pairs to appear! Till then, I am off to watch some dance video and work on cleaning up the house a bit. There are also some curtains to be made in attempt two for 826. All in the next two and a half hours! Yikes!

First Cold of the Season

I have come down with my first cold of the season. While I have been trying to ignore and deny it, today I can no longer do that. I am sick, and while not miserable, I wished it was not the situation. There is a lot that I would like to accomplish, but I am going to try to take it easy this time. I usually go full steam until I physically cannot do things due to feeling way to ill, which usually results in a prolonged version of the illness. This time I am trying my hardest to take it easy and nip this in the bud. I just have a hard time taking things easy unless I feel ultimately miserable.

It is the end of the terrace garden as well. I hoped it would be able to last through the winter, but the sun has changed its course in the sky and no longer shines on the balcony. The plants are also racked with whatever fungal or bacterial illness they received in the year, so most have died or on their way to that end. The only real producer on the balcony was the tomato plant, which was wind pollinated. I guess there are just not enough insects to do the job. Next year I will know and make up for them with the use of cotton swabs. Today I am going to work on taking down the lattice work and remove the plants and dirt for disposal. I wanted to get this done either today or over the weekend before the first fall/winter storm rolls in early this next week. I am also going to move the herb box into the house now that it has stalled due to the lack of sun. I hope it will do well with the morning sun coming in through one of the living room windows. I also am debating moving the lemon tree in as well. It also does not get enough sun, and I would hate to lose that. The jasmine is quite happy right now as is the rosemary. I need both a trellis for the jasmine to shape it onto and a larger pot for the rosemary since it has gotten so large again. I hope to leave those two outside unless there is a frost warning.

I did get around to photographing the Black and Gold Vine Sari pair down in the front courtyard. It proved to be a great spot for taking photos. I got over my shyness with doing this, and it turned out that few people actually noticed me. The few people that did were more worried about messing up my photos than being annoyed that I was doing it. The ease of taking photographs in the enclosed area was wonderful compared with the photos I took on the patio at the old apartment. There was less wind, so it took me only 15 minutes to get good shots versus the hour it used to take me at the old apartment. It was pure joy. Here is one of the product shot sets I took:



I am also going to work on some things in the shop if I feel up to it. The chocolate pin stripe pants are coming along well, and it would be great to get them finished up for photographing and listing next week. More likely, I will be working on a pair of green and black hairfalls I started. It would be awesome to get them up early next week as well. I think they would be a great addition to someone's Halloween costume for this year. Well I think the sore throat needs a cup of tea, and the laundry needs to get started. Off for some low impact activities.

Photo Session, New Listing

Today I am finally going to bite the bullet and try out the front courtyard for pants photos. I have that wonderful pair of new black vines hanging in the studio, and they need to find their way into the Etsy Store and into a new home. It will be very different taking my pictures on street level, and I have decided to change from using a choli in the pictures to a nice shirt instead. I hope they turn out.

I also have finished up taking pictures of that second red work embroidered tin. I love the thistle style pattern on this one.



I also worked on taking pictures of this one and yesterday's box with a vignette setting. I used some of my own embroidery and sewing tools in the scene, and I am quite pleased at how it turned out.



I am going to get this one listed up in the store as soon as I am done here. Then it is off for the photo shoot in the front entry garden. Finally I hope to either work on a pair of chocolate pin stripe pants in a poly cotton blend, or sit on the couch and work on a set of Halloweenish hair falls. It all depends on how I am feeling and whether or not this cold starts to take a stronger hold on my sinuses. I hope to sew rather than braid now. I would rather work on the falls tonight with our television viewing. Right now we are working through the National Parks series by Ken Burns. It has been really interesting. Well I guess I should be off for my close-up!

Finally Focused

Yesterday was truly focused. I got a lot accomplished in the time I was working on things for the shop. I cleaned up the kitchen, put away clothes, picked up the house in general, and then set to doing shop things. I finished up that pair of black pants that I was dragging my feet on. They look great. Here they are after the final ironing before taking pictures of them.



I hope to take pictures of them today and list them up either tomorrow or Thursday. I tried to take a close-up of the fabric for the blog, but it is a bit blurry.



I always love how this fabric looks and feels, but it is horrible to try to photograph. I am going to work out using the front garden of this building this time. I hope that the neighbors don't mind, so I will see today I suppose.

I also got those red work tins finished off.



I am working on some new photography for them this time, including a vignette style with some sewing accessories to make it more visually interesting. It may also help people envision how I use them myself. The sunlight patterns have changed since we first moved into this apartment, so it is hard to get pictures in full sunlight now. I am going to try using the lighting in this apartment and see if I can use that and editing to get good pictures for the store. I did get one really good picture of a tin before the sun dipped behind the building.



I hope to have the rest of the pictures taken today and load this onto the Etsy Store sometime this afternoon. I am also headed into the studio to work on a pair of chocolate pinstripe pants and cut out a pair of olive colored sari pants as well. Lots of inspiration now that I have my focus back! I am headed off to work!

Lots Going On

You would think with fall in full swing that things would start to calm down, at least that was what happened in the last two years. This year has been exceptionally busy. Having Annie around is only a small piece of the puzzle. I think the newer bigger apartment requires more cleaning than the last one. It is more area to cover. Also the jam obsession has contributed to this all quite a bit. I am also getting back into baking quite a bit. My first pumpkin pie came out a true success, again due to Hubert Keller's pie crust recipe. I feel the pounds adding from this all butter crust, but I think it is so worth the extra walking I need to do for the pieces of this crust!



Plus, I am very happy to say, the early start on the Christmas sewing is nothing to sneeze at. Less pulling of hair this winter will be a welcomed change. The shop is also busier, with more orders this year than last year, especially in the custom work area of things. I am truly happy and blessed with all the hub bub of activity lately.

On Wednesday I had lots of appointments to make, mainly a dental one and a hair cut. I promptly fell asleep after eating lunch on the couch, so that day was chalked up to not much done. Thursday was mostly spent working on some computer and office work for the shop as well as tutoring for 826 Valencia. Friday was a fun filled day of showing Annie's brother around the city. We went for Dim Sum in the Richmond district and then wandered around Golden Gate Park. We took in one act at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival and also visited the Glass House to look at flowers. My favorites were definitely the orchids and the special exhibit on edible plants.



Saturday was a low key day. Dan went to code camp, and I worked on cleaning up the kitchen as well as making some wrapping papers for the shop. I have not sat down and done that for a while, so it was good to restock the supply. We then took off for the Pacific Pinball Expo and had some great hours of pinball games. I especially liked some of the older Gottlieb games from the 1940's and 1950's. There seemed to be fewer machines this year, but it was still a really good time. I just wished there would have been a Circus Voltaire for me and a Junkyard for Dan, but we cannot always get the machines we want when you are borrowing from collections of willing people. Sunday I went and collected items for a potential custom order. I am waiting to hear back from the person who requested it. We also worked on cleaning out the Aerogarden. I decided to finally shut it down after the pump failure. The plants were still quite healthy and producing fruit, but I wanted to take a break from having it up on the counter.

Today I got orders ready to ship out as well as a care package for my sister. I also shipped out the pants that a friend made and wanted me to fix for him. It was a busy packing day before the postal worker got here. I also listed up the last pair of maroon and gold sari wrap pants.



I really loved this fabric, and it seems like people like it as well. I just wanted to let you all know this is the last pair in this fabric, and I can never get that fabric in again. So, if you are a lover of these pants like I am, go and snatch them up now before this last pair disappears! Today I am off to put the finishing touches on a pair of black pants as well as those redwork boxes. If the weather is good, I will get pictures taken and load them up for sale this week.

End of Major Jam Production

Annie and I have finally decided to call an end to the major jam production for the year. After canning another 24 jars of jams and jelly this last session, we both came to the realization that we cannot eat and give away this much jam in a year. Therefore, there is only one more canning session for jams left this year due to my want for caramel apple jam. I am really excited about that one! We tried our hand at jelly for the first time, and while not totally clear due to only doing one pass through our "jelly socks" and squeezing for extra juice, I am still quite proud of the product. We chose to call it natural unfiltered jelly, which is kind of silly because jelly is supposed to be clear, but the tasty product we made cannot be beat! I would like to think Dan's apple picks are most of the reason why.

We started with six pounds of rough chopped apples, leaving the skins and cores intact. Next, we cooked the apples with some water. Meanwhile, Annie and I finished off her preparation of the pear and pinot noir jam.



It was quite tasty! We then moved back to the apple jelly. After the cook time was up, we placed the cooked down mush into a pair of clean nylon stocking. Now, you may be scratching your head at this, but there is a perfectly good explanation. I am somewhat cheap, and the jelly bags you can get at many stores are just a bit to expensive when I am trying to be extra thrifty, so the stockings and high necked faucets work just as well as the expensive jelly bag set ups.



The most important thing is to make sure your socks are clean. We washed this pair of hose before cutting them up and placing the food inside. We then hung them over catch bowls and went to get some lunch.





From there we took the collected juice and added our lemon juice and sugar and cooked it all down.



We canned that and moved on to the plum and the peach that I had prepped the night before. All in all we had 24 half pints at the end of the day. I was proud of how much we did in the little time we spent canning. I guess we have our system down now.

Today I hope to get some time in behind the sewing machine. The call of my knitting has been a strong distraction lately, but it is not part of my Christmas sewing or my Fabulous Pants sewing, so I really need to leave that off till at night in front of the television. The black pants will be finished if it kills me today. I am also planning on finishing up this pants repair for a friend's pair of pants. While cool pants, the seams that the sewer used were way too short, so there are lots of little repairs for me to try to fix up the seams. I am taking most of it to the serger. I also want to make a killer fall meal tonight since the weather is so cold. Today was the first really cold morning, so I am even debating washing the quilt for the last time this season and getting out the down comforter. Hum... I think I need to make a pumpkin pie while I think about it. Test out that crust mojo and see if it is still here!

Welcoming Fall

Yesterday I kept waiting for the heatwave to hit that was supposed to move into the area. Luckily, though, the sea breeze kept the heat over the Oakland hills on the other side of town from us. The house stayed delightfully cool for my fall housecleaning madness. I cleaned all surfaces. There was dusting of bookcases and tables, wiping down mirrors, polishing plates (Yes we have to polish our plates due to a reaction between the silverware and stone wear.), cleaning of bathrooms, and laundry in the machines. It was a whir of activity and a banishment of dust clouds. I kept the one last remaining good flower in the arrangement as a last hint of summer in the house. Today, it is still delightfully chilly despite blistering temperatures across the hills. I enjoy bay side living.

The only thing that did not get tackled is this:



I intend to get the desk mess in order today. Entropy is a hard force to fight. Just when you think you have it beaten down, it shows itself somewhere else. It will be great to have a fully cleaned house and work space. Today I am hoping to finish off a pair of pants and perhaps more handwork on a belt. There is also a matter of dessert to be made since the temperature is not hot again. I am looking to make a chocolate pie that I saw in my latest Penzey's Catalogue. It looks really yummy. Hopefully this will also be the end to my crust issues I have had as of late. I will report back to see if a new recipe and method worked better this time rather than the disastrous results I have been having lately. The red work boxes are being made, but are not finished yet. More on those soon. There is also the possibility that I will abandon all this to go and get some more tools for clay working. I am working up some new contraptions in clay and hope to have those out for all to see soon as well.

I am going to get down to work on this desk thing... hopefully it doesn't take all day!

Seeing Red

I seemed to get a lot done yesterday. I made salsa, red food. I worked on my cross stitch, red floss. I went to Long Now to hear about kinetic art, red theater seats, and today I tasted the salsa, too sweet. This got me seeing red. I spent a lot of time working on the salsa yesterday to only mess up one thing. I did not cut the sugar amount in half when I halved the recipe. I guess that is what happens when you should have really eaten lunch but waited until your canning was complete.

Overall, I got some really great pictures though. I loves how red these tomatoes are. They were super ripe, so it made for easy slipping of the skins.





They were super fragrant and wonderfully juicy. I did not have to squeeze them at all for extra cooking juice for the vegetable mix of peppers and onions.



The cooking went well and did not take up much time. Like I said, all was well except forgetting to cut the sugar in half. After all the work, I only ended up with two full pints and one filled three quarters of the way, so it had to go in the fridge.



This takes me to what I am going to do to fix the problem. After some quick consultation with Dan for some ideas, I have decided to get four more pounds of tomatoes from the market on Sunday and make another half batch with out the sugar. Then I will open up the jars and pour them in and bring the mix back up to boiling for a few minutes. Then it will go back into clean jars and into the canner for reprocessing. Hopefully this works out for a better salsa. I also found that there was no heat to the salsa despite adding three full jalapeno peppers, seeds and all to the salsa. Now, I am not a big spice person, so this was a real shocker to me. I am going to add three more peppers to this half batch, and hopefully we will get some heat back into this.

Today up in the Etsy Store I am listing some new red gerbera daisy hair flowers. I really like them. They are a beautiful crimson shade with dark brown to black middles. They also have the same sturdy silver bobby pins for maximal placement possibilities.





Today I am determined to sew up a new pair of black sari pants for the store. I have had them cut out for a long time, but I have been too busy with canning and housekeeping to get to them. Today is the day. I also have the last of the tent adjustments to make at 826 Valencia. Hopefully I can squeeze in some muffin baking as well. Tomorrow I will post my thoughts on the Long Now talk from last night. For now the thoughts are still marinading.