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Sewing Plans, with a Purpose!

Oh dear… It’s been a while.

In explanation – math. Out of my league but its kinda too late to drop the class and we haven’t gotten grades back so I’m not 100% sure I’m failing yet math.

On a happier note, I’ve made a sewing plan.

It seems like everyone is doing it right now. Trendy for the week, I guess.

But for me it’s prudent, because not only does my current math headache end on Tuesday, but I’ve got a four-day weekend coming up, which means sewing time! Especially now that I’ve cleaned the room and can actually walk through it.

My blog posts are perpetually behind, so you probably won’t see much of these for a while, but I felt like putting it down on “paper” anyway.

fabric

So the final sweater is coming soon. I’ve shown you magenta, and beige, and now its finally time for plum. One of these days soon, as finally its sweater weather. At least in the mornings!

AliceHatter-handslink

One of my mini cosplay plans has always been Hatter from the Syfy mini series Alice.

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Mostly just because I have the perfect fabric for his shirt. I’m thinking an Archer. Here’s hoping I’ve got enough fabric!

I’ve got most of the other things too, except the hat, which is actually the best part, so I’ll have to keep a lookout.

fabric

Another Nettie of sorts is up as well, but this time, a t-shirt. My favorite black thin t-shirt is dying, probably due to acid holes that I’ve been ignoring for nearly a year and a half. And I’ve got lots of fabric left over from my Hershey chocolate Nettie, so I’ll be replacing with that!

fabric

My blue velvet and lace dress hasn’t been touched since the last time I posted on it. But I’ve got a “red carpet” event coming up, so if it turns out, that could be up instead of my go-to ready to wear dress. Needs to be danceable though, so that may be a drawback.

fabrics

Seamster’s Dandelion dress was a recent purchase, so I’ve got plans to use this lovely green lace and the grey fabric I made my Aurora skirt from to make up a cute version. I’ve heard I need to muslin it well first though, so I’ll be a good little sewer and start there.

My TARDIS and Susan costumes are still in the works, so those are added to the list as well.

Whew. Does anyone have any tips on photographing just plain fabric? Because it’s pretty darn difficult.

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Foodie Friday #7

It has been a long week. I’ve still got a backlog of creations to tell you about, but there was this thing called school… and math homework.

I was dutifully working on the problems throughout the week, like a good little student. It left little time for post writing.

But I have been making some stuff… still gotta eat, right?

Math makes me hungry anyway.

This weekend I made up some baked tofu, using this recipe… it was good, but not nearly as good as when I last made it. This time the texture was off, since I made more in the same pan, so it didn’t cook as well. Make sure you leave enough space for the moisture to bake out!

They’re making a good insert to grain salads, though. Something about the extra vegetables that gives extra taste.

There also was a banana bread make… supposedly. I didn’t have any eggs, and I used almond flour… it flopped out of the pan in a mush. It was a delicious mush! But not very appetizing. I ended up eating it for breakfast for half the week, which was a nice change from my normal oatmeal.

Last night I roasted up some peppers and tomatoes! Set the oven for 425*F, waited 20 minutes on the tomatoes, 10 extra minutes on the red and yellow peppers, and another 10 minutes for the green. Haven’t tried any of it yet, but the smell was absolutely fantastic!

I also made miniature welsh cakes, using Sorted’s recipe. I’ve made them before, and I’ll make them again! I forgot to fake the self rising flour this time, but they came out well anyway, even puffed a bit. I needed snacky food since I’m away from home this weekend and won’t have access to a car to get breakfast tomorrow, so I needed to make sure to have something tasty to make it through the morning!

And since I haven’t posted anything this week, I decided to take a picture of the miniature cakes! Would you believe that even with every light in my kitchen on last night, I still couldn’t get a better picture than this?

welsh

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Foodie Friday #6

Have you ever been one of “those people?”

You know, the ones that grocery cashiers hate? The ones that have an entire cart full of… bulk bin and vegetable items. Basically meaning that though your cart looks deceptively small, it’s going to take almost twice as long to go through all of these items. And on top of it, your handwriting isn’t exactly legible?

It’s all the Sharpie’s fault, I promise.

Last Friday, that was me. I think I spent twenty minutes at the bulk bin section of Whole Foods, if not more, and got very small quantities of spices, and some fruits and veggies. And olives from the olive bar… Actually my only scanned items were peanut butter and potato chips. (After all the bulk foods I needed some junk). So most of what I made this week came from that haul.

I made salt encrusted sesame seeds to spice up my bento lunches. And then I salted some peanuts and pumpkin seeds. And then used the same method to make lightly candied peanuts. I just used sugar and a little bit of salt instead of all the salt. They were all delicious.

I also made gummies again, and this time they even worked really well! I ‘borrowed’ orange juice from my roommate, so really, this cost me about a dollar and it made two pint jars packed with gummies.

Chai concentrate was on the menu, made with the small amount of spices I got from Whole Foods. Most of the recipes called for cloves, which Whole Foods was out of when I visited. I decided to just ignore them, and my concentrate is still pretty good! I bought a couple of cardamom pods and some black peppercorns, combined it with some ginger cut like coins, a cinnamon stick, and five cups of water. I simmered that for about thirty minutes, then added 10 tea bags for about ten minutes, and then I let it cool a bit. Added some sugar, heated until the sugar dissolved and cooled and jarred. I’ve been using coconut milk as creamer, and it needs a bit of added sugar as well, but it makes a delicious cuppa. I’ve been using about four parts hot water, one part concentrate, a dash of sugar and some coconut milk for the perfect treat.

Earlier I also decided to make sauerkraut. And when I say earlier, I’m not sure whether it was sometime two weeks ago or the week after, post-writing up my Foodie post early. I had bought this head of cabbage with this intention and then didn’t follow through for almost a week. Then I celebrated finishing homework early by massaging salt into cabbage. No one ever told me I was normal… I followed this procedure set up by the Kitchn, but I didn’t have a big enough mason jar. I did have a bucket, though, and I used a ramekin as the tamping device. My sauerkraut turned out crunchy and tasty after about four days of fermenting. And I’ve been enjoying it immensely ever since! The recipe did make a lot for a single person, but it will keep for forever in the fridge, so that’s good!

See you next week!

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Foodie Friday #5

Short number of makes this week… Largely due to homework.

I can’t wait for homework to be finished forever… but then I have to worry about deadlines. I’m not sure which is better.

So anyways, I made a batch of my favorite cookies ever. Chocolate with white chocolate chips. Technically I got the recipe from my mom, and she got it off the back of the Nestle white chocolate chip bag. I’ve really been getting from the internet here.

Now, I mentioned that this is my favorite cookie recipe, right? I’ve made it at least five times in the past year, and each time it has come out differently. I’ve found that if you don’t have a mixer, it’s really best to let the butter soften naturally. I’m a big proponent to softening in microwave, but often some parts of the butter get melty and others stay fridge cold and that just won’t work well for this recipe. Three of the past five times I also found that I didn’t have enough wet ingredients to mix in the dry… So follow the instructions even if you don’t want to. Trust me… it’s better.

My other excursion this will was making tortillas. They’re not pretty and they’re a bit stiff, but they’re tasty! I used this recipe, so I could use up some more sourdough starter and coconut oil. I always forget to use the coconut oil when I’m reaching for oils, since it’s in a jar and not a pour bottle. So I used some here! The tortillas are quite good, especially with some nice spices and cheese to accent the contents! I made them at the same time as the bread, so when the bread rose the final time, I started frying the tortillas, to give you a time-frame.

And bread update: This week the bread dough was soft and gloopy and smooth and wonderful… And now I’m wondering what I’ve done wrong in the past. But suffice it to say, I’ve been loving my grilled cheese sandwiches!

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Foodie Friday #4

The all important bread update: I obtained bread flour this week. And I used a recipe… For the most part. And yeast. I got yeast.

What really happened was that I determined that I was unwilling to wait on purely sourdough bread to rise… Meaning days. So I finally tried it with yeast, and added some bread flour and all purpose along with the wheat for good measure. All in all, a dough that rose and a bread that is only a little crumbly. Finally, a bread I can cut into slices less than an inch thick!

This week I also tried a bunch of new things.

Like smashed potatoes! Success! I’ve been looking for some lunch related sides that I can freeze in order to reduce time in the morning. My schedule has worked out so I only have early classes two days a week, so on those days I’m less likely to want to prepare lunch. Hence easy pull from freezer options! So smashed potatoes were up, since I had just bought a bag of little reds, and I was in a crush-things mood. Otherwise known as an avoid looking at homework mood. I seasoned mine rather simply, salt and pepper, and this Mrs. Dash everything type spice I found in the cabinet. The apartment I’m living in has collected a variety of food items over the years that have been left by previous tenants. Some, like the spice cabinet, are nice additions, since my spices of choice range in the number of 5, and others are not… Don’t ask me about the freezer. I’m still shuddering. Anyways, the potatoes are delicious, easy to reheat in the microwave, and a nice addition to my lunch arsenal. If I keep this up, though, I’m going to need to source slightly bigger potatoes. These were walnut size, and reminded me a bunch of the “You can’t eat just one” Lay’s campaign.

And gummies! Less of a success. I managed to make something resembling gummies quite well. I tried to use this recipe, but with fruit puree instead of juice, but then I stopped measuring… Which is likely why my gummies are not exactly room temperature friendly. They don’t melt or anything, but they taste like mush. Sweet mush nonetheless. Much better straight from the fridge. Also, I tried rolling some room temperature ones in sugar, like another tutorial suggested… That time they melted. It was almost like the sugar dehydrated them, by releasing the “juice” from the gummy. I ate them anyway, but they were too sickly sweet and liquidy to consider even vaguely gummies at that point. I’ll have to try freezing some, seeing how that one works, but all in all, this was a nice treat, and next time I’m stealing some of my roommates orange juice instead. Trying juice only.

And cookies… I made some cookies. This recipe is pretty good! I’ve tried it before and liked it, and when I next get the hankering for traditional chocolate chip cookies, I’m sure I’ll use it again!

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Subtle Cosplay Thursday – Briar Rose

Introducing a new Thursday installation!

I’m planning that every other Thursday I will be posting a subtle cosplay outfit. Of closet cosplay. Or whatever you would like to call it.

I realized recently that I have more or less neglected my subtle cosplay page, though I’ve definitely worn some inspired outfits. And, being completely honest, my momentum of the moment in posting is mostly due to a large backlog… That will run out at some point.

Since I started grad school, my project-ing has mostly been relegated to work avoidance… like the math homework I’ve got due tomorrow…

But one thing I can do regularly is subtle cosplay.

So I’ve decided to alternate between Design Donnerstag and Subtle Cosplay Thursday.

Presenting the first cosplay:

briar

Aurora, or to be more specific Briar Rose, from The Sleeping Beauty

necklace

I handily used my new grey circle skirt, topped it with a  cream knit shirt. I added a black cardigan, to simulate her black corset.

ring

In my hair there is a thin black headband, but honestly it somehow blends with my hair. I also used my Claudia owl ring, and wore an ivory necklace which has a rose carved in it. My grandmother gave it to me, and it is the most delicate and lovely vintage necklace I own. Or rather, second to the first necklace she gave me.

shrugWill this continue? I don’t know, but I certainly like the idea of Subtle Cosplay Thursday!

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Foodie Friday #3

(This was first published yesterday for about an hour and a half… But I refuse to make the same mistake two weeks in a row… So it’s reappeared for real today!)

So I’ve now completed my first two weeks of grad school, and in an effort to save money I’ve mostly been taking lunch into campus with me.

Over the summer I picked up some lunch supplies, meaning more dishes. I like kitchen supplies very much. So I found a nice thermos, for soups. It’s been too hot for soup.

I also picked up a nice, though largish, container, which has been nice for random pasta dish leftovers. And tapas like stuff. Helped out by silicone cupcake molds for spacing and separating.

But what I really like so far is my bento box. It’s not terribly pretty and I found out the hard way that it wasn’t leakproof. And I don’t even make the super pretty bento. You know the ones that look like pandas and Hello Kitty and are so sweet they hurt? I don’t make those… mostly because I don’t have the supplies or the will to obtain those supplies.

However, I like the structure of bento lunches. They’ve got easy to understand guidelines on how to put together your box and they are good for eaters like me. Aka those who like to eat little bits of everything instead of a lot of one thing. I’ve technically been eating the same stuff all week, but I’ve been puzzling them together in a variety of ways. Here is the site that helped me put together my bento plan for the semester: Just Bento. But simply using the guidelines half carbs, quarter veggies, quarter meat has been fantastic, and I (most of the time) don’t feel like snacking. Before lunch yes, but after lunch no.

It’s full of fun information, and lots of different ideas for filler items. I haven’t used any recipes from them yet, but these cabbage rolls, sweet veggie confetti, stir fried cabbage, and this kale-bacon-potato recipe sound delicious. This week my main filler items were cherry tomatoes from the farmer’s market, sauerkraut, and refrigerator pickles.

In fact, the refrigerator pickles were fantastic enough to share more about them! I think I may have well established my love of the site The Kitchn. I had bookmarked it a few months ago, but I never got a cucumber from the store. Fast forward a month and a half and I have an ugly overripe cucumber sitting in my fridge. My roommate was doing a mini fridge clean and pulled it out of the crisper and wrote a note, saying “Bad?” I knew at that point I needed to either use it or trash it. Originally I planned to put it in mini quiches, but as I was searching for a recipe for those, I re-stumbled upon the refrigerator pickles recipe. I eyeballed the measurements, since I was working with a smaller amount of ingredients late at night, and most of the silverware was dirty. I then actually forgot about them for a few days, at which point I found them and added them to my box. So delicious! The “quiches” turned out well too, though they ended up more like mini omelettes. Eggs, milk, and cheese do not a quiche make.

And a bread update! I made another loaf! This time it cooked all the way through, and even looked fairly pretty. Excepting the bottom of the loaf, that wasn’t so pretty. Still dense though. For some reason my dough just isn’t rising. I was hoping not to need to use yeast in my bread recipes, but it looks like if I want something even vaguely fluffy, the starter needs some boost.

 

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Foodie Friday #2

Another week, another Friday… And it looks like posting from my phone needs some work… So hello Thursday! I’m continuing on anyways…

This Friday is the first after starting grad school… I very much enjoy the classes, but at the same time I love the weekend freedom.

So this week I made some pralines. Pralines are delicious, and I’ve always wanted to make them, but I don’t often buy pecans, which are the staple of the candy for me. So when I went to Trader Joe’s this week, I picked up a pack of roughly chopped pecans. Then I read the recipe from the Kitchn, and I realized that it needed milk. Pralines would have to wait until after the orientation shenanigans, since I had run out last week. I’m not much of a milk drinker, and I drink lactose free milk when I do, which is much too expensive to use in recipes. Finally I was able to make the pralines, and they turned out lovely! I think I may have stirred a bit too long, though, since by the time I dropped the last few they were pretty much already crystallized. But pralines are definitely on my To Make Again list.

The Kitchn also has a lovely soft caramels recipe, which I highly recommend. Too tips for this though: Don’t make while its rainy, my second try turned out hard yet sticky due to a wrong temperature and the humidity. Also, learn what temperature your thermometer counts as boiling. Mine actually reads boiling at 97*C, so everything I make has to reach a slightly lower temperature, which could really mess up candy recipes.
I don’t have an update on bread making yet, but stay tuned!

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Foodie Friday

Remember how I told you I’ve been cooking a bunch? I’m thinking that Foodie Friday could become a regular thing, just in time for the weekend. That way you (and I for that matter) can have inspiration to try new things over the weekend!

Last week I went crazy over bread. I went a bit crazy on the bread front.

I started by wanting to make really good pancakes. While surfing the internet I read about “overnight” pancakes, where you make the batter the night before and let it do the fermenting-sourdough kind of thing. Reading through some Google searches, it looked like there were a variety of opinions on how to make these. Some involved baking powder, baking soda, and yeast. Others said recipes with baking powder would work, and those with baking soda would not because the soda is used for a more immediate rise. I didn’t feel like going through the hassle of the powder or soda. I also didn’t have buttermilk. Or much milk at all. So what I did instead was take a standard pancake recipe and remove the egg and leavening agents and add yeast instead. It ended up more like a wet dough as opposed to a batter. I dutifully put it in the fridge, and in the morning I globbed the dough into a pan. It took some flipping to get it to a pancake shape, as I had to keep squishing it flat in order to cook it, but it was certainly delicious! I even have some in my freezer for when I’ve just eaten too much oatmeal. Or wake up late. The latter is more likely.

Sourdough bread has always been a favorite of mine, and it has eluded me for years. I tried twice to make a sourdough starter, three and two years ago, and both failed epically. So I was determined this time. I found this picture post on the Kitchn, as well as this post on Pinch My Salt which is in reality for the bread recipe, but has links to her starter adventure. I successfully made a starter, which I was super excited about, but did not make a successful loaf. There was a whole gob of uncooked dough at the center, which I scooped out. The rest of the bread seems destined for crouton/cracker-esque status. Now that there’s an enormous hole. But I’m trying again this weekend, so never fear!

But while I was waiting for the starter to work, I also made a half batch of the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day dough. It gave me two loaves. One was ugly and dense, since I didn’t know exactly how to shape a loaf. The other was pretty and still awfully dense. It didn’t rise much in the oven, and  I’m not certain that I let it rise enough the first time anyway. Maybe its because I baked it on a normal baking sheet, and without the steam container. It was the first time I used the oven in this apartment, and I was just happy to make the bread itself, without the fancy bits. Maybe next time.

I’ve cooled off a bit on the bread since then, but weekly, I’ll be trying the sourdough until I get it right!

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Catching up!

Last time we spoke, I was making socks.

Scratch that, I succeeded at socks. And actually right now I’m working on another pair.

I’ve been working on stuff since then, but slowly. And at the same time quickly. I seem to have made a lot of stuff, but for some reason it just seemed to come out of nowhere. Blog posts, however, did not.

Individual posts should be coming up soon for these, but here’s a snapshot of what I’ve got:

teaser

teaser

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And a few more that aren’t quite completed or photographed yet.

I’ve also begun Christmas presents early… as in the aforementioned socks. I know that most people say that and then promptly fall off the wagon, but I’m a woman on a mission… Objective: finish gifts before November, or at least before December. That really means before finals season. I wish I could show you what I’m working on, but then I run the risk of ruining what little surprise they’ll have left.

Cooking has also come up recently as a thing. I’ll admit, I love to cook and bake and candy-make, but rarely do my concoctions turn out pretty, or appetizing to people other than me, or at all. For instance, the last bit of bread I made turned out tasty, I guess, but dense… Having now watched the video on how to actually make a round bread loaf, I think I’ll do better next time.

Knowing that I’m not a food blogger, and that I have no interest in becoming one, I think I’m going to start occasionally highlighting recipes that I’ve used or want to use. Making food can be cheaper than making clothing and yarn stuffs. And therefore I’ve been doing quite a bit of that this summer, so I’ve already got plenty of fodder for these posts.

Well then… talk to you soon! Err… sooner than the last time I posted.