One Year

Today is my one year anniversary.  Can you believe it?  Clearly I haven't been wearing my boggie shoes enough.
We had a bit of the "do we exchange gifts" debate and I sort of thought that something needed to happen to mark the year but nothing too serious, cause we aren't very serious when it comes to things like this, and nothing to big and elaborate cause that is not really us either.  So of course I turned to etsy.
Apparently the first anniversary is paper which was a least a place to start my search.  Since we moved last March my guy has become a bit of a farmer.  Well as much of a farmer as a city boy can be with a big back porch and plenty of squirrels to shake a fist at.  He is already talking about starting his seedlings for next summer which led me to this.

The gardening paper pot maker.  It is super cute and makes these great little pots out of recycled newspaper that you start seedlings in and can go straight into the garden once they are ready.

Cake Craft

Well I wouldn't say it was a piece of cake, although really it wasn't too bad.  This is my practice birthday cake, no not my birthday but the birthday cake I will be bringing to a birthday gathering.
The simple vanilla yumminess (aka the cake base) was inspired by a angry chicken post and can be found here.  The icing came from smitten kitchen, do you all know her? cause if you don't you need to check her out now. Be warned that you will get very hungry reading her site! 

The icing is made with sour cream and chocolate.  Given the current state of affairs with egg recalls and my lack of wanting to deal with an egg based icing this seemed like a good choice but I wanted to check it out first.  It is lovely.  Not too sweet or tart and I used low fat sour cream (because that is what my guy bought when he went to the store) but you couldn't tell and I will use it from now on.
Confession time: the icing called for corn syrup.  And for the first time in my life I bought corn syrup.  I don't usually cook with stuff like that but as my dear friend Mary would say, well after she said "get over it", sometimes there are recipes that this stuff is meant for.  I think icing might be a good example and so there is now a bottle of corn syrup in my house.  It was the smallest one I could find but it is still huge and will be there for a very long time but I guess that is okay because the stuff lasts forever right?

You Have To Eat All Your Vegetables Before You Can Have Dessert

I took Friday off from work to have a super 4 day weekend, because as my boss put it how often do you get a 4 day weekend.  I was planning on sewing the whole day away.  I wanted to make a skirt, make happy birthday bunting for Ms. Chloe who just turned one and work on this new quilt square I just saw a tutorial for on-line.  But then I had a moment of responsible crafter: you have to eat all your vegetables before you can have dessert.  In this case dessert equals all the new projects I want to do that look all pretty and shiny because I haven't started them and the vegetables well those are the heap-o-projects that need to be finished.  So I was a good girl and pulled out Amelia's quilt.  I bought new backing material because you may remember last time I tried to finish up it didn't go so well.  I also decided that this quilt wants to be tied and not quilted.  After three failed attempts to quilt it (twice by hand and once by machine) and a lot of time picking out quilting gone bad I came to accept that it was a tie quilt. 
I got it all tied off and of course realized there was not going to be enough fabric to do a rolled edge...Why are these things never simple?  and so I am now making binding so that one day, one day with a little luck before she goes to college I may actually finish this quilt! 

Some Goals

I have been trying to figure out how in the heck to fit in all the things I want/need to do into this crazy world of mine.  Between work and home and various projects it can be hard, oh and did I mention I am drinking less caffeine now?  Why am I drinking less caffeine now you ask: the simple answer is that I have been drinking way too much caffeine since birth, really I blame my father and his fancy oh so yummy coffee machine for this.  There was a brief 6 months when I went cold turkey but that is a distant memory.  So my goal right now is to drink one, that's right one cup a day.  After that morning "get your butt in gear girl" cup of coffee it is no more caffeine for me.  So far so good, although I do find my brain a wee bit fuzzy in the afternoon, at moments like you know now...
Anyway, I was telling you all about my attempt to fit everything into the mere 24 hours there is in a day.  And let me stop here and say I really have no clue how in the heck folks with kids do anything.  I have a very selfish list of things to cram into my day and I still can't.  But in an effort to keep trying to cram it all in I thought I would share it with you and then when you see me clearing not doing my best to accomplish these goals, or more likely trying to sneak an afternoon cup of joe you can yell at me, nicely.  And yes if you are going to yell at me do it sweetly after all I am trying to kick a caffeine habit here.
So here are the goals I have going on right now

• Do a bit of apartment cleaning every day so you don't have to do it for a whole day later.  So I have been trying this out after reading something (sorry for the lack of article reference here I have no idea where) about doing small bits each day.  What I have been doing is spending the first 15 minutes that I walk into my apartment doing some piece of housework (full disclosure usually I pee first).  I vacuum, or do 15 minutes worth of dishes or sort the laundry or clean the bathtub.  So far so good I have a far cleaner apartment and far less angry long cleaning days.  The next trick is getting my guy to adopt this.
• Project Make My Pants Fit (PMMPF)- somewhere along the way I gained some weight and now my pants don't fit.  Actually I know exactly when it happened but I shall not speak of this here, however, PMMPF is well underway which means the gym 4 times a week after work.  This may not seem crafty but if the gym thing doesn't work it means a lot of clothing altering later so you know it kinda fits.
• Sew more stuff in general
• Sew more clothing for me but because grown up clothing scares me a bit ease in with some kids stuff
• Blog more- which unlike this post means take more pictures, which usually means during the day, AND download the darn things to the computer so that I BLOG MORE.  This should not be that hard and yet...
• Start finishing up some of these lingering projects I have around the house- seriously
• Do more crafting that scares me- ok so sew more stuff for me and really blog more fit here.  There are a ton of creative things that I am excited about but I don't know maybe I am waiting for the moons to align just right but I just can't quite get past my "ohh that looks fun but hard" phase to telling you all about the amazing thing I tried that didn't quite work.
• Get my etsy shop back up- or stop beating myself up that it isn't
• Make more stuff for good causes.  there are a ton of charities out there that I want to make stuff for and get all of you to make stuff for

So that is the list for now- oh and I should add don't drink coffee in the afternoon but I feel we have covered that

Cottage Cheese Pancakes

I have always thought it somewhat amusing that most craft blogs turn to food at some point but I guess it makes sense. Most crafters like to create and make things and food fits into that.
I have been thinking a lot about childhood comfort food. Probably because I just read angry chicken's blog front to back and she talks a lot about feeding her kids right. And maybe some of it is because my mom has been having a hard time lately and that make me think of those old favorites dishes she use to make us when we were having a hard time.
I have no idea where she got the recipe for cottage cheese pancakes but I do know that I am glad that I know it and can share it with all of you.
Cottage cheese pancakes are light and fluffy and you don't really notice the curd of the cottage cheese once they are cooked. What you get is a pancake that isn't doughy. You can eat them with syrup but I eat them plain.


1 egg
1tbsp of cottage cheese
a smidgen of flour (maybe a tsp if you have to know the exact amount)
a pinch of salt
**One egg makes about 3 pancakes

Separate the egg so you have the white in one bowl and the yoke in another. Beat the egg white till it peaks. We aren't making a meringue here just a soft peak. (As a kid this was always my job. And somehow I managed to inherit the best kids whisk of all time which I still use, and I am now hoping my sister won't be jealous I have)


Combined the yoke, cottage cheese, flour and salt. I use whole wheat flour because it is what I always have on hand but as kids it was white flour and I am sure gluten free stuff would work too. As my mother tells it the flour is just there to help things stick together. Having accidentally left it out once I can say she wasn't lying- it still works but things get a bit messy and less pancake shaped.
Fold the whites into the cottage cheese mixture. This isn't supper fussy folding just make sure you don't mix it to well and undo all that egg white beating.
Cook on a greased skillet until golden brown. They can be a bit hard to flip but rest assured they are still yummy even if they break apart.

Out of Order

So you can all tell that A: blogspot and I don't always love each other and B: I started this post a wee bit ago only to try to just publish now so go here which is really just one post away to see the kick ass placemat tutorial I just posted (even if it thinks I wrote it in July)

Britex Fabrics: oh my

On our recent trip to San Fransisco I got to wander around a magical, albeit a bit pricey, fabric store extravaganza: Britex Fabrics. My very cool guy found it in a guide book and was kind enough to drop me off at the front door for what turned out to be an hour and a half of wandering and petting. I was like Alice in the rabbit hole and thought I was there a mere 30 minutes. To be fair there are 4 floors of goodness!
The top floor is all reminents. I pawed through the racks organized by fiber content and fell in love more then once. I feel I had some majopr restaint and only bought what I felt I couldn't get back home easily and some major yardage of a lovely print that was on sale.