I urge you all to run RUN and get you a pie maker. I LOVE these things. I made a...um...not quite chicken pot pie thing last night for dinner...SO SO yummy! I say not quite, because being a vegetarian, obviously I wouldn't be sticking chunks of dead chicken in my pie, right?? :p (Sorry, this is the picture that looked the least like it was from a 1970's Reader's Digest cookbook, lol!)



Anybody want a recipe..ish?


Not-Chicken Veggie Pie


Gluten flour
Bouillon seasoning (I used this mushroom seasoning ....very yummy stuff! Available in Asian shops. They also make an Aloe Vera seasoning that's pretty yummy too)
Nutritional yeast


Potatoes
Carrots
Frozen peas and Corn
Bell peppers
Cheese
Cream cheese
Salt
Pepper
Garlic

Pastry (I usually take the easy way out, and use frozen puff pastry, but you can make whatever you like)


Mix gluten flour with plenty of water...if you add too much and it's just mushy or soupy, just drain it or press it a little, to make it firm enough. Too firm, though, is pretty horrible, imo!

Bring water to a boil with seasoning and yeast in it....you want this strong and brothy, to flavor the gluten. Chop gluten into small pieces 1/2" or so, and drop them into the boiling water one by one, so they don't glue themselves together. Boil for 10 minutes or so, til the middle is cooked (no more rubber inside). You can also make bigger chunks, and just increase the cooking time a little. Drain.

Chop potatoes into 1/2" chunks, boil til mostly done, toss in the bell pepper cut into same size chunks, and the peas and corn. Finish cooking it all together. Drain.

Add cream cheese and grated cheese to taste, as well as the salt, pepper, and pressed garlic. Add in the precooked gluten chunks, mix altogether, and fill your pies!! I use my handy dandy mini pie maker but you can make it just as well in the oven, in any size you want. Enjoy! :D

Moving SUCKS!!

If anybody out there has been wondering why I dropped off the face of the earth, well, it was because I was in the middle of moving. And in this case, moving didn't just mean pack up one house and land in the next. Nope. It involved painting, sanding, floorsanding, repairing, etc etc etc. Ugh.

I'm only halfway finished. So far, we have ripped up the carpet and sanded the floors in all the main rooms, and painted most of them. We still need to paint all the trims, cupboards, extra rooms, re-lay a kitchen floor, and redecorate, cause we moved from a house a 3rd of the size of this one, and we don't have enough stuff to fill this one comfortably! Can't say I am crying too hard about the redecorating part, anyway. :D

Here's the preview, as you walk into the house. You can't tell, but all the walls inside have been painted a nice, subtle, creamy offwhite. That hideous, revolting yellow you can see on the sides is what the color USED to be, in most of the house!
























On the bright side, here's my new sewing room!! All to myself!! No sewing on the floor, or off the kitchen table, or down the side of the bed!! Woohoo!!

I am a noodle fiend..

I love noodles, all noodles, in soup, fried, baked, as spaghetti, whatever. I ordered a noodle stirfry in a food court, watched the old Japanese guy making it, and came home and tried it myself. It actually came out BETTER than the takeout, if you can believe!

I typed up one of my vague, random recipes here. (If Ellenade is reading this, she might recognize the chopsticks!)



A handful each of any suitable veggies (broccoli, carrots, onions, any Asian greens, bean sprouts, bell pepper, etc etc), cut into bite size pieces

Hokkien noodles from the cold section in the supermarket. These are precooked, and just need warming.

Fried tofu pieces (I made my own here, but the premade fried tofu pieces in the store are great, too)

Vegetarian oyster sauce

Soy sauce


Boil a deep pot of water. I put everything into a metal colander, except the sauces, drop the colander into the pot of water, give it a stir to mix it all into the water, and then leave for one minute, til the veggies are barely wilted. You COULD just put it all in the water, and then drain, too, but I usually do a single person at a time (prepare one while the other is cooking), and keeping the water going works for me.

Pull out, drain for a minute, and drop into a hot frying pan with a couple tablespoons of oil. Throw in enough oyster sauce to thoroughly coat the noodles and veggies (I think mine came to about 1/4 cup), and a good splash of soy sauce; toss well, and serve!!!

For one person, this could take five minutes, with a little organization!

Tuesday has thrown down the gauntlet, and I have accepted. The challenge is ON!!! Okay, so, maybe not quite that aggressively. At least, not on my side. Cause I know she is going to kick my bootay! :p So, I am just viewing this as a friendly little game, where we are going to interpret that gorgeous red and white Dior dress into something actually wearable!! Woohoo!

I went into the city today to Kinokuniya, which has a HUGE Japanese section, and had a browse, and saw a pattern in one book that looked awesome as a starting point, so I put it on hold....and we're off!!! :D

I was talking with a friend about translating those Dior dresses into something wearable, and remembered these pics I have saved from way back. It's some random dress my SIL found on eBay....BEAUTIFUL!

Tough choices....

Okay...so...serious consideration here.....which do you think I could get away with wearing on an everyday basis? Seriously. Cause these are SO FREAKING GORGEOUS, I would NEED to wear them on an everyday basis.


Dior Spring 2007 Couture Collection. Of course.

Lotus

I was in a Lotus swap. I REALLY love lotuses (is that a word?). Here are my contributions...

A wooden trinket box, made the same way as the geisha and dragon boxes, but little larger, prob about 8"x5". I really loved the look of this one!


A purse...I've never used these kinds of handles before, and they are a BITCH to sew, imnsho, but I don't think I did TOO bad. I got the fabric a few years ago, at a shop that has since closed after 20 years, and I have been hanging onto it, too scared to cut into it, cause I love it so much, but decided to bite the bullet and just go for it, since it was so perfect for this swap, and it wasn't doing any good just sitting in the pile (yes, pile...my fabric organization is pretty much nil..*ahem*.) The lining is a pink cotton, with a slightly slubby texture. It's actually bigger than it looks in the pic. For some reason, it came out looking a lot smaller than it actually is?? I have no idea why.


Okay, this was an experiment, and NOT one of my better efforts, but my swap partner loved it...which either means she REALLY loved it, or she wasn't all that enthusiastic about my other stuff. Obviously, I hope it's the former.

It's an origami lotus I had seen somewhere else, and decided to attempt myself. Um, yeah. I had to stop trying to fix it, cause I was wearing out the paper, and just send it. NOT one of my more successful experiments.







This was also an experiment, though a bit more successful. It still came out a little plain, though, but I couldn't think of a workable idea to jazz it up...I was thinking of bordering in gold stitching, but that looked wierd, and beading didn't seem to fit in, either...so I just left it. Oh, well. It's a notebook sleeve, with a notepad slipped inside. Freehanded the pattern, painted with acrylics and textile medium, and outlined with an archival permanent pen. I should have have done a bit more variations in the lotus colors.

I am no longer a virgin. A serger virgin, that is. That one-night stand back in '02 didn't count. This is True Love, and this is forever!!!

I have been wanting a serger for-EVER, and I finally just went out and got me one. This baby:
A Janome 744D. AKA, the COOLEST little doohicky in the UNIVERSE!!

I had it for a month or so, too chicken to bust it out, but finally did it, and whipped out two tops (Burda 8361 , for the curious). OMG. WHY WHY WHY did I not get one of these YEARS ago!! I knew they were the shit, but I DIDN'T REALLY KNOW!! All that wasted time! Wah! I am now spending all my plotting and planning time running through my stash, trying to match ideas and fabrics, to come up with outfits that will not need the touch of the sewing machine at ALL, so I can just whip things out on my NEW SERGER! :D

Oh, yeah, the tops:

We will ignore the fact that apparently I have forgotten the art of a pleasant smile, and am glaring at us like a she-witch.

It's an Icky Thump...

Duelling guitars and trumpets! Bagpipes! Skeleton suits!! All wrapped up in an obscure reference to a British tv show!!



Yes, folks, Jack and Meg have finished recording, and their new album is due in JUNE!! Or sometime thereabouts. :D I AM IN HEAVEN!!!!

I am not making another wristlet for a LONG time..

Yeah, so in the Sweatshoppe swap, out of 10, *6* people picked wristlets..two of them were the pink and orange polka dot one already shown, so I'll spare you:

Of course, I promptly made one more for another swap, along with this notebook cover...which I made from a Japanese pattern, with no instructions. :P

Magical metal clay..

Okay, so I finally went to a PMC 1-day course. O..M..G...This is THE MOST AMAZING STUFF EVER INVENTED!!!!!!!!! I am SO IN LOVE WITH IT!!!!! :D :D :D :D


Okay, I know they are kind of..boring..but I wanted to take advantage of having the kiln right there, and leave the class with a bunch of things I could actually use, like the little dangle charms to add to my jewellery clasps. And I didn't want to waste the whole class trying to perfect the perfect piece, and maybe coming out with nothing, like I saw some of the other people doing. Besides, I suck at clay modeling, so I knew I could spend HOURS trying to do something fancy, heh.

But aside from all that, this is the COOLEST STUFF EVER!!! :p :p :p Now I need to go blow all my money, and order a full set up to do it all myself. :D

Not quite totally Japanese hairpins...

I promised these Japanese hairpins to someone, and they were supposed to be made with vintage kimono fabric. When it came to it, though, I ended up using recycled Indian silk, cause, well, I didn't WANT to use the kimono stuff. :p I think they came out just as fantastic, though....

I used a Japanese pattern, though, so they are a *little* Japanese! :D

Dragons go with geishas, right?

I did this huuuuge swap, a Sweatshoppe swap, and I picked to do two sets...wth was I thinking??? That was 10 items...and then I signed up for 4 other swaps as well...ouch!

Hennyways...I made two more trinket boxes for it. Both done with the same techniques as the other geisha box. The geisha one has the same lining as the other one, too.

Ooh, and Tuesday gave me my first comment!! :P Nice to see you!! :D

Geishas are where it's at...

I was in a Geisha swap. I bought the trinket box, and then painted it, first with acrylics for the base, and then decorated with watercolor pencils, pen, and silver foil.

The inside is lined with re-purposed Japanese silk paper.













I also made a little purse. Outside is silk, with an inset of vintage kimono silk, and then line with a synthetic that just happened to match perfectly. The pocket is just attached at the sides, but not the bottom, like a little bag. I was really happy with how it turned out. I swear it is NOT crooked!! :P
















I also sent along a little hairclip, also from kimono silk:



I was quite proud of my contributions. :D

I figured out why I love swaps...

If you haven't noticed, most of the stuff I make seems to be destined for swaps. I thought about that, and figured out why.

I love to make stuff. I like to sew, I like to make jewellery, I like to try new techniques. But in true crafter style, I am a hypercritical perfectionist of my own work, so I HATE HATE HATE having to ever see it again! I can see every single little flaw, every single little mistake I ever made in the creation of the thing. I can see each missed stitch, I can see how I should have chosen that other fabric, I can see where that crease I accidently pressed in won't completely press back out. So I shove it to the bottom of my cupboard, and never look at it again.

The cute little bag here is a perfect example. Looks nice, right? Not all THAT homemade, etc, right? You would be happy to stick your money and lipstick in it, and take it out around town, right?? Not me. I can see the wrinkles I couldn't press out, I can see that I couldn't get my stupid presser foot around the zipper edge, cause I am still too much of a noob to know how to do that professionally, so I had to handstitch all around it, inside AND out; I can see where my stitching line wobbles, etc etc etc.

But, also in true crafter fashion, I LOVE other people's crafting, and totally appreciate the work that went into it, without minding any flaws whatsoever, because I know it just adds character! Solution: swap!! I get something nice from someone else, that I can appreciate, and love, and I get to make something, but never actually have to see it again!! :D It's a win-win situation!

Anybody remember Shrinky Dinks??

I recently rediscovered this stuff again. I am in love. I need to order the 50 pack from the Shrinky Dink website. There is some fricking awesome stuff out there made from this stuff. Way better than my little tries (made for yet another swap, coincidently.)

Blue October...

...is filling all corners of my Shuffle lately. Euphoric is a word a friend used to describe the dude's voice. I agree. Check them out HERE.

EVERYBODY knows who the REAL Dread Pirate Roberts is!!!

Yepp, another swap....Anybody who loves the Princess Bride is okay in my book!

Stole the idea off the net for the picture and words, and then handpainted, and covered in vinyl. I was so busy trying not to immortalize any fluff or threads or anything like that off the dump that is my sewing floor, that I forgot, and immortalized all it's wrinkly glory. Sheesh.

I smell gooooood....

A Christmas swap...I made yuuuummmyy sea salt and sugar scrubs, with cute little bead tassels. Salt is coconut and spice, sugar is something called Karma Rose. Whatever, they smell gooooood...

I also made a little Christmas card to go with it..

In return, she sent me the most awesome handmade, to die for, soaps: