While sewing, it struck me that craft projects in books and magazines are always named. Usually the name is cutesy or a pun or as empty as the name of a new subdivision development - "Squaredy Pants" or "Moondance" or "Keepsake Vintage Heirloom Nine-Patch." I thus proposed to my sister that I give my sewing efforts a better, more loving name, like Ralph. She did not like this choice, so I proposed Chrissy, which she also vetoed before suggesting Raoul.
Raoul is like a Sudoku puzzle gone wrong, where you realize halfway through that something has gone horribly astray, but it's too far back to try to fix. But rather than toss it in a recycle bin like a Sudoku gone wrong, I persisted in sewing.
In the end it looks okay, as long as you stay a respectable distance from it.
So my mom didn't want to display her birthday present on the wall, and suggested sewing it into a pillow. I counterproposed a table runner. I bought some green fabric and stole some pieces from my mom's fabric stash as well. I started by sewing some more braided strands and once finished realized that I should have actually planned out how I was going to lay the design out. Measuring anything probably would have also been a good idea. Anyway, here's the finished project, a little uneven and a number of problems that I don't feel like really drawing attention to, which may or may not include poor centering, uneven spacing, a failure of the finished project to lay flat, a lack of symmetry, a torn piece of fabric, and some wavy quilting. Sorry, Mom. I meant well.
the front:
the back:
while wandering the baking supplies aisle at Kroger, I saw the most remarkable thing.
A can of bread.
On the first trip, I passed it by, but when we came back another day, I convinced my mom of the necessity of picking up a can.
Brown bread (with raisins) is clearly a versatile product. You can bake it, toast it, or microwave it. Serving recommendations: with cream cheese, with PB&J, and most suspiciously, "flavored cheese spreads topped with luncheon meats."
and, mmmmm, look how appetizing it is when you open the can:
and look how it maintains its shape like a log of cranberries:
the taste?
straight from the can: not very good.
toasted with butter: better - a spongy dense bread.
covered in cream cheese: actually kind of nice. but perhaps slathering cream cheese on most things would be tasty...
so I whipped together a little Christmas gift tonight - a pear pincushion. the fabric is from JoAnn Fabrics - yardage with eight horizontal stripes of different prints on the same piece of fabric. so a lot of product from seventy-five cents of fabric. I have enough fabric to make a second pincushion or maybe third, if only I could think of whom to offload the surplus stock to.
I gave my mom her Christmas present early, despite her requests otherwise. I made a table runner, based loosely on a picture of the Run with It table runner in Denyse Schmidt's Quilt It kit. the color scheme is inspired by the leaf fabric - a mix of solids from the stash, plus a few vintage and Japanese prints.
here's one of my mom's craft projects that I am enjoying while home for the holidays - a lovely patchwork quilt from maybe the 70s. the colors are great, but one thing that is hard to appreciate from the pictures is that it is all polyester. (my mom corrected me to note some velour blocks.) it feels...incredible.
I've had this Christmas cactus for a decade, during which time it has bloomed perhaps three of the years. but this is one of them!
a bit of a spoiler, as the potential recipient of this gift might see it on the blog in advance of Christmas. on one side of the family, we are swapping a gift, so I made a snow mum pillow from this pattern. there is no pillow form in it yet - it will be easier to pack that way.
I made red velvet cupcake with cream cheese/chocolate chip filling and cream cheese frosting. A true health food.
so I made cupcakes to take to work tomorrow.
when my sister came to visit, she gave me some tasty pear butter she made (misleadingly, pear butter contains pears but no butter). I wanted to use it in some baking.
So I decided on some gingerbread cake with pears in it, with a pear buttercream frosting. The pear was a bit subtle in the frosting, so I also added a few drops of orange extract.
when I told my mom of my plans to make them, she suggested I make something that people would like, like chocolate cupcakes.
gingerbread is an acquired taste, and I am not a huge fan myself, but I think that they are pretty tasty nonetheless. something to put into the holiday rotation for sure.
