Craftberry

Eating in Taiwan

2011-03-28T14:55:00.000+08:00

I was about to start posting some of my Hong Kong and China pictures, but I realized I still have tons more for Taiwan. So here we go...

At first I was a little intrigued by all the different flavours of chips, so I tried these Grilled Basil Chicken Doritos. I still prefer the cool ranch chips from my childhood, but these were okay. I'm not a big chip person, so after I tried these the intrigue was gone and I didn't need to try any others (until I saw blueberry potato chips in China). Now on to the real food!

I have to say I wasn't really familiar with Taiwanese food growing up. What I mean is I grew up eating Chinese food and Taiwanese food, but to me it was just food. I wasn't aware that so many of my favorite dishes were Taiwanese until I started craving them in Shanghai and couldn't find them except at Taiwanese eateries. I love food. Good food. Taipei night markets are fabulous places to get your eat on. But the city is full of tiny noodle shops, dumpling shops, dessert shops....There're also TGI Friday's, Macaroni Grill and Swensen's if you miss the taste of America, but I did not.

Let's start with some classic Taiwanese food shall we?

Pork chop rice bowl with some pickled vegetables....mmm, I'm getting hungry.

Chopped stewed pork belly rice (滷肉飯) and some stir-fried greens

Wonton noodle soup isn't necessarily, but the green vegetables with the sauce is very Taiwanese style.

I don't know what this is called. I believe it's made with rice flour, steamed in a bowl and flipped over. In the middle is meat and mushrooms. It's delicious.

Yonghe Soy Milk (永和豆浆) This was not the best Yonghe dhou jiang breakfast, but it's the only one I have a picture of. Yummy....who wouldn't want potstickers for breakfast? My mum doesn't eat this stuff, but if I was up early enough on weekends I'd go out with my dad to get some of this tasty grub.

Grass jelly with adzuki beans and taro and yam balls from Meet Fresh. Meet Fresh is a Taiwanese dessert house franchise. They have shops everywhere in Taiwan which pleased me to bits. I went there nearly every week for tofu pudding in peanut soup or adzuki bean soup with sweet rice balls. I really missed this stuff when I was in Shanghai.

One of many visits to Meet Fresh. I love this place!

Tofu pudding in peanut soup

Cuttlefish soup (魷魚羹) and sliced bean curd with sauce.

Beef Noodle Soup (牛肉麵) Taiwan-style

Taipei has awesome bakeries and it seems like there are two on every block. I ate a different bun or cake from breakfast everyday until I got sick of them.

One of my favorites. It's a sweet bread baked in the shape of a nerf football. In the middle is some sweet crumbly buttery stuff and raisins. We like to call it bomb bread.

Another bakery

The rest of these are pretty common foods that aren't unique to Taiwan.

Necks and tongues. Don't worry, the rest of my pictures are far more appetizing.

Dumplings!! These are boiled. Also hot and sour soup.

Dumplings!! Little steamed ones (小籠饅) at dinner with relatives. I ate most of the dumplings.

Sweet potato vendor. I don't really like them, but I like the carts.

More dumplings! Potstickers at Ba Fang (八方), another franchise I love. I always got a bowl of hot and sour soup with my dumplings. YUM!

There's this tiny little dumpling cart at the night market near the hospital. My mom had read in a local paper that this dumpling cart was highly recommended, so we checked it out. I'd always seen a long line of people patiently waiting for cheap dumplings, but I had never tried it. While the dumplings are cooking, they wrap the next batch.

Tada!

My sack of tasty tasty dumplings. Too bad I didn't know how delicious these were until my last weeks in Taipei. The filling is mostly cabbage, with some shreds of carrot, scallions, and a few tiny dried shrimp. and also probably a good deal of MSG. I know this because I made a point to try to recreate these when I returned to the US. Well, I did try to recreate these, and I failed. I wish I had a few of these right now. I'm so hungry. Mmmm....

Little hot pots (火鍋)

Some savory bread-like yummies

Unfortunately the popular way to make coffee here is the instant way. I got used to the 3-in-1 instant mix with coffee, creamer and sugar, but I can't really call that stuff real coffee. It took me a while to find coffee beans, but I finally found some affordable beans at Carrefour. Yay for French supermarket chains!

A steam bun shop. You'd be surprised at the all flavours

Getting my chocolate and brown sugar buns from the steamer.

This is a cafeteria. These great because I could help myself to seaweed, stir-fried mushrooms, and fried chicken (my usual cafeteria fare). And it comes with a soup. If you chose to eat there, you have to dump your leftovers into a slop bucket next to the rubbish bins so the city can collect the food waste.

There you go. Hope you're hungry now. I am!

My Daily Creature Habit

2011-02-17T12:05:00.000+08:00

I was lamenting the realization that my confidence in my drawing skills has dwindled over the years. Especially when I remember how much I used to love to draw and paint as a kid.

In college I took a drawing class and LOVED it. So I took another drawing class which turned out to be not so great. The class was less about drawing and more about art and abstract ideas. I remember a boring class discussion about ordinary movement or motion verses extraordinary movement. I don't recall what our assignment was, but I do remember a class trip to the cinema to see The City of Lost Children because it had good examples of extraordinary motion. Huh? My school transcript tells me that I withdrew from the class (an extraordinary motion?), so we will never know how I would have done with the remainder of the class, probably not enough drawing for me to be satisfied. Somewhat related, I also signed up for a yoga class only to withdraw the next day when it was explained that we would have to write essays. What? I switched over to Tai Chi Chuan, where instead of writing essays we practiced Tai Chi. Me, satisfied.

When I was doing my crafting thing in Seattle, I made a brief half-hearted attempt at creating something every day. Well, turns out my craft of choice (sewing) is very time consuming and difficult to churn out completed pieces daily that you want to show the world. A few weeks ago I read this Design Something Every Day post on Smashing Magazine and decided this is the exercise I needed to get myself drawing again. I decided I'd draw a little bit every day, and it would be fun. I call it A Creature A Day. It's an assortment of characters, so far all digitally produced, but most of them have started out as pencil and paper sketches. It's a good way to warm up prior to doing "real work", and hopefully by the end of you the year the quality of my creatures will have improved. Come see my daily creatures!

Scenes from around the hospital

2011-01-27T08:38:00.001+08:00

I spent a good deal of time at a several hospitals in Taipei, not as a patient, but as family of a patient. My mum had surgery to correct a heart defect a little more than a year ago, so I was there for the post-surgery recovery, follow-up appointments, and rehab therapy. I even got myself checked out while I was there since I couldn't (and still can't) afford to do it in the US. So, this issue I have with my heart skipping beats turns out to be a common heart valve defect that for the time being requires no treatment. Yay! I've noticed it's definitely exacerbated by stress and alcohol. Ah, well, alcohol I can control, but stress, that's hard to control especially in this economy. At least I saved myself a good deal of money by seeing doctor in Taiwan.

Looking down at my 24 hour heart monitor...each of the wires lead to electrodes stuck to my chest. It was not comfortable, not ideal for sleeping.

In Taiwan the burden is more on the family to provide day to day care. Nurses check on patients regularly, dispense medication, check blood pressure and that sort of stuff, but if you need to vomit or have trouble getting to the toilet, that's why you have family stay with you to help. If family is unable to stay, they can hire a caretaker to stay with the patient at the hospital, help them eat, help them bathe, etc. Since they're basically living at the hospital, carers usually wash their clothes in the bathroom. We shared a room with another patient and her carer. This caretaker will never know that I posted her underwear on the internet.

We also shared a room with another woman and her live-in carer, a young woman from Southeast Asia the family kind of adopted to take care of the woman who appeared to be in poor health. I'd noticed that the girl was of a different ethnicity, but called the patient "Ma" and spoke a different language when she was talking on the phone. When the family came to visit, they would call the girl "little sister". And then the family would leave to go home, while the girl stayed to care for the woman. My mum explained that sometimes families "adopt" girls, often from poorer Asian countries, into the family to care for someone disabled or in chronic poor health.

This it the pail for food scraps in the patient kitchen area. Taipei collects kitchen waste for compost or pig feed. Even at self-serve restaurants you'll find a bin next the the trash to collect leftover food waste.

this belongs to another patient. she'd been in the hospital for 3 weeks.

A chair folds out for sleeping

this was a great hospital. the doctors and nurses were fantastic. we'd been to a few, but this one was by far the best...and one of the more expensive, but still hell of a lot cheaper than any American hospital.

patient watching telly in the lobby. he probably has a four person shared room; crowded, but completely covered by the National Health Insurance, whereas the more private rooms are not.

small bakery shop in the lobby. at meal times the table next to it sells meal boxes for about US$2-3.

The hospital cafeteria was undergoing renovations, so patients were given meal boxes. this one looks like fried fish with rice and vegetables.

if a croissant mated with a cupcake...

the brand new rehab center

view from somewhere high

Taiwan Storyland

2011-01-11T10:25:00.001+08:00

Since I had several months to spend in Taiwan, I had been looking for fun (and quirky) things to do in Taipei. One of those places was the Modern Toilet Restaurant, which was a toilet bowl of fun. Another place I really wanted to go to was Snow King (雪王) Ice Cream, where you can get ice cream in flavours you've never imagined, like beer, mustard, and various meat flavours. I don't know if those are tempting, but the guava and custard apple flavours sound scrumptious! Unfortunately I missed out on visiting Snow King due to several reasons; it was winter, no one wanted to go with me, and it's location was not convenient for me. The only time I was in the Ximen area where it's located was to visit the toilet restaurant, but I didn't learn of this little ice cream shop until later. Hopefully I will find myself in Taipei again to try that wasabi ice cream.

Across from the Taipei Main Railway Station is this little gem of a museum called Taiwan Storyland (台灣故事館). It's not so much a museum in the usual sense with exhibits behind windows. It's a recreation of life in Taiwan in the 1960s. I dragged my dad to see it with me because this was the time period of his youth in Taipei, which I know he's pretty nostalgic about. He almost didn't go in because the admission price is slightly high in Taiwan dollars, about US$6, but once we were inside I think he was pleasantly surprised. He'd point to an old wooden food cart and say, "When I was a boy, we used to buy snacks from a cart like this." It was nice to have that personal touch.

This entrance is at street level, but the museum is several levels down. It's arranged like a small village with store fronts, alleys and even fake trees. I wish I had some better photos, but it was quite dark inside.

dad looking at candy and snacks in one of the shops

I used to have a scooter just like this. It was awesome.

classroom

shaved ice shop

we snacked on some grass jelly and ayu jelly shaved ice

dental chair...yikes

home of a well-to-do family in 1960s Taiwan

dining area

If you're ever in Taipei, I'd highly recommend a visit to Taiwan Storyland, especially if you or any family members lived in Taiwan during the 60s. It's well worth the admission price, cheaper than going to the cinema.

Tomb Sweeping Day

2011-01-08T10:57:00.000+08:00

Last April I was in Taiwan during the QingMing Festival (清明節), which isn't so much a festival, but a holiday when people gather with family and visit the graves and shrines of ancestors, pay their respects and tend to the grave sites. You may perhaps have heard of Tomb Sweeping Day, which is what it is commonly called in English. If I recall correctly my family observed Qingming Festival at home when I was a child with food offerings placed before photos of my grandparents as a sort of homemade shrine. This was my first time observing it in Taiwan where it is a public holiday. I won't pretend to know much about the holiday since I've spent most of my life in the USA, but if you want to learn more about Qingming Festival, you know where to look.

My paternal grandparents are buried in a cemetery near Yangmingshan National Park, which is a lovely area known for its hot springs.

Burning spirit money for our ancestors and dieties

Some tombs have been emptied and abandoned for whatever reasons, and some haven't been looked after.

My maternal grandfather is interred at this mausoleum for veterans

A family preparing their shrine

incense and candles

This furnace used to be used to burn spirit money, but it's been sealed off probably due to air pollution concerns.

Lest I leave the impression that this holiday is morose and sad, it certainly can be, but more often it's a time to gather with family. It's also a time to celebrate the arrival of spring by spending time outside. Indeed, I got the impression for many it was something like a family reunion picnic at the cemetery to spend time with ancestors.

Hello again!

2010-12-28T15:48:00.000+08:00

Shilin Night Market

2010-06-24T21:36:00.000+08:00

One thing I miss the most about Taiwan is the night markets. After we left the National Palace Museum, we took a bus back to the MRT station and walked over to Shilin Night Market, one of the larger more well-known night markets. We hit the street portion of the market first which is mostly clothing, shoes, accessories and other non-food goodies.

There was a slightly odd variety show on a stage outside...

All the food stalls are housed in here...most of it is closed during the day, but at night it's crowded with locals, tourists and students.

everything from bubble tea and smoothies to fried chicken and omelettes, not to mention the more tradition noodle soups and stinky tofu.

We saw a few places had a seafood dish that looked good. We picked a place to sit down, and we're handed the order form...

Challenge: neither my brother or I can call ourselves properly literate in Chinese. I can read a few characters here and there, but that doesn't really help to read this menu. A woman stood at our table waiting for us to take our order, so I just asked her straight, "What's that seafood stuff out front?" She told us and pointed to it on the order form. We ordered our two little bowls of seafood. Yay! It's always a relief when I can get through a situation like this without having to reveal that I'm actually a foreigner, and I can't read.

I wish I could blog the smell of a really pungent stinky tofu. Sometimes it's fried, sometimes not. This stuff pictured here actually wasn't that stinky compared to some others. In my experience, you can pretty much always smell a stinky tofu vendor before you see it. And the it seems like the stinkiest ones seem to be the most popular. When I smell some stinky tofu, I always want to say, "好臭!" (It stinks!) to which my dad likes to respond, "好香!" (smells good!)

oyster omelette

I'm actually not quite sure what this stuff is.

National Palace Museum

2010-06-10T23:39:00.000+08:00

Hey all! Sorry for being so quiet, but I am in China right now, and this site is actually blocked over here. I can still get to it (obviously), but my connection is often slow and choppy. I post more frequently over on my tumblr because I don't have to write anything. I'm a bit behind over there, too, because I've also been having trouble getting to tumblr. What was most annoying was every time I tried to access a tumblr page it would automatically get hijacked by a Chinese search engine and redirect me to search results for tumblr. Ack! Drove me nuts! So then I cleared my cache, which worked to get rid of the search results, but also meant I had to re-log into to tumblr, which I haven't had to do in many many months, and I really wasn't sure which email I had used to log in, and finally, my VPN funked out and I haven't been able to get a 'good' connection until today to access my 'blocked' sites. Oh, bother!

Anyway, in other news...these pics are from a trip to the National Palace Museum in Taipei back in December. It houses an impressive collection of Chinese artifacts and artwork, some of them quite ancient.

A very drably dressed tour group...

There's a nice garden, too...not sure why I included the picture of the garbage man though.

We were pretty high that day

2010-05-01T22:08:00.000+08:00

As you may notice there is a Christmas tree in the photo. Have I really been here 6 months? Not much to say about these photos. Short story: my brother and I went to Taipei 101 one slightly cloudy day in December. It was once the world's tallest building until it was surpassed by a very tall pointy thing in Dubai. The lower levels house some very posh shopping and eating. It's a great view from the top...lucky we could still see quite a bit despite the clouds.

Sign in the ladies toilet requesting they please don't squat (because we ladies know it just makes a big mess).

This is Taipei 101's enormous tuned mass damper which helps to reduce the swaying of the building during earthquakes and wind.

Chi Nan Temple

2010-04-24T22:21:00.001+08:00

Back in December, my dad took us up to see the beautiful Chi Nan Temple (指南宮). We rode the MRT to Muzha and climbed the "1000" steps to the temple. We didn't count the steps, but if I recall correctly it took us about 20 minutes of swift stepping to reach the temple. It was late afternoon on a Thursday, very few visitors. It was humid, but peaceful, and the air smelled like Osmanthus flowers. definitely worth the climb.

You can see Taipei 101 in the distance, at one time the tallest building in the world.

Snake Alley and Longshan Temple

2010-04-20T14:55:00.003+08:00

The evening after our visit to the toilet restaurant back in December when I first arrived in Taiwan, we headed to Huaxi Night Market, also famously known as Snake Alley. At Snake Alley, if you desire you can eat snake, watch a live snake being gutted, as well as drink a shot made from the snake's blood or bile. Or if you'd rather not have snake, maybe you'd like some turtle, or perhaps imbibe a drink made from the turtle's blood. We watched a woman cut a soft-shelled turtle and then serve drinks made with it's blood. Hey, tasty, eh? No, we didn't drink any blood, and the snake people don't allow you to take pictures. That's cool, I don't need to keep pictures of a live snake being skinned.

But we did try some snake soup... It's meant to be more medicinal than palatable. If you're after a tasty hearty bowl of soup, this is not what you want. People eat this stuff for it's supposed therapeutic properties. Snake Alley is a covered "market", and I found the atmosphere to be a bit seedy, kind of like a tunnel filled with neon signs, snake wranglers and massage parlors.

I much prefer the normal outside street markets with plenty of good food. This is pigs blood soup, much tastier than the snake soup.

This is a place where you can pick what you want, and they'll cook it for you. I like to take pictures of local people doing normal everyday things, like having dinner at the night market after work.

We happened upon a street procession and followed all the commotion to nearby Longshan Temple. I'm not sure what was going on, but on the left side of the picture below is the carriage-type vehicle everyone was following.

Hello Again!

2010-04-17T17:45:00.005+08:00

Hello, I'm back! I've got some Taiwan posts coming up, but those take longer because of all the pictures and descriptions. So I thought I'd post some crafts :). I've had quite a bit of down time the past few months where I've been kept away from my little computer here. In situations that require waiting, I come prepared with anti-boredom, namely a book and/or a crochet project. (You can see what I've been reading here. ) May I present to you Ernie and Totoro! Also please excuse the shitty photoshop job on Mr. Ernie up there. I hate to post a blurry boring photo, so I jazzed it up a bit. Yeah, it's sloppy, whatever.

I only brought one skein of blue yarn with me, which was just enough to make most of this Totoro pattern without his tail. Since they don't sell this particular yarn here, Totoro will have to wait until I return stateside to be truly complete.

I'm leaving Taiwan in a few weeks, and I wanted to use up some of my yarn stash. I had just enough orange yarn left to make this ernie glasses holder. Pretty funny, eh? It's an easy pattern. I did quite a bit of it while simultaneously riding a stationary bike in front of our tv. (It makes the workout go much faster.) See the lamp below? I love that lamp. It came with the apartment. It has a dimmer switch, too. I think I might miss that lamp.

Tasty Shit!

2010-02-02T00:10:00.001+08:00

You've all no doubt heard about a toilet-themed restaurant somewhere in Asia, where you sit on toilets and eat food that looks like poop out of bowls that look like toilets and urinals. I'd already been in Taipei for a few days before I realized, hey...let's go to the toilet restaurant! Dad didn't know what this "toilet restaurant" was, but I think he was pretty amused when we got there. The Modern Toilet restaurant is located in Ximending, an area known for its shopping and youth culture. All I was expecting was a little blob of chocolate ice cream in a tiny squat toilet, but what we ordered turned out to be big toilet bowls of shaved ice covered in ice cream, candy, fruit, cookies, cereal, raisins, jelly and syrup (brown chocolate and yellow fruit syrup). I think the red in the chocolate toilet is supposed to be blood because of what it said on the menu...shit with some blood.

We didn't order any food, but it did smell good. You can see above in the background people eating from some other toilet bowls. They've also got some urinal drinking glasses. Unfortunately it's not visible, but they also ordered something that came in a bedpan. I suspect it was probably a tasty and yellow beverage.

One of the bathroom sinks and toilets.

Even the lamps are shaped like poo. The place was not busy when we were there. They weren't seating people on the upper floors, but they did let me go up to take pictures. The guy even turned on all the lights for me.

Walking around afterwards we passed through an alley that was nothing but tattoo parlors....it was called Tattoo Alley. At one point all the people walking around started looking younger, hipper, more tattooed, and with crazier hair. It reminded me very much of Japan. This picture is not representative of the hipsters and hairstyles of Ximending, but it's all I got. Just compare it to the people in my previous post, and you'll get the idea.

At The Market

2010-01-13T00:34:00.004+08:00

Greetings and Happy New Year! I've been in Taiwan for five weeks already. What! Already?! It's the start of a brand new year, and I figured I'd make an effort to start updating again before everyone forgets that I have this little blog. Come back, my friends! Come back! So I've got a backlog of items I want to share, so let's get started shall we?

I love markets. The Ballard Farmers Market in Seattle is a favorite of mine, as is the Salamanca Market in Hobart, Tasmania. I like supermarkets, too. Oh, and German Christmas markets. Anyway...Our local daytime open market consists of a few long alleyways lined with vendors selling plenty of food, produce and meats, as well as cheap clothing, kitchenware, and makeup among other things. It's crowded pretty much every day, especially when the unlicensed vendors are parked all the way down the center of the alley (below). Police stop by the market for regular checks, but by the time they arrive, the vendors have folded up and disappeared into their various hideaways in storefronts and nearby alleys, alerted by some signal unseen by my eyes. I've seen them fold up their umbrellas and wheel their carts away in a matter of seconds. Within half a minute, the alley is clear (above) for the cops to make their walk through. I once saw a vendor get caught. He didn't seem too miffed about it though, just disappointed. The cop gave him a citation and probably assessed a fine, that's all. As soon as he left, the vendor went back to selling his goods.

Guavas are in season (above, right). The picture below (left) is of various fish cakes, meatballs and tempura. The bottom right photo is a chicken vendor. That's our half chicken he's chopping. The black blocks in the front are blood cake. Typically it's made from pigs blood and sticky rice, but since this is a poultry vendor I'd guess these are likely made from duck blood. I can say I don't care for it because I've actually tried it. I do, however, like plain "blood tofu" (more on that later). Somewhere out of the frame were some fresh (live) chickens in cages. The food is certainly fresh.

vendor selling fresh clams, prawns and crab

During Winter Solstice people eat small dumpling balls made from glutinous rice flour called tangyuan, 湯圓 (literally soup ball). You can find them plain in traditional pink and white colors, or as larger balls filled with red bean paste, peanut, or sesame paste. In the winter it's common to eat them in a nice hot bowl of sweet soup. They're eaten year round (especially by me, oh yes), but it's the traditional food to eat during Winter Solstice. During the summer I like to eat them cold with grass jelly or shaved ice.

Here's a quick walk through the market at a somewhat not too crowded hour. The sound is not that great, but you get the idea. All the shouting is vendors trying to sell their wares.

In addition to the daytime open street market, there is an evening market a couple blocks away that starts around 4:00 in a covered marketplace. These evening markets are different from the famous night markets, which I will share in a later post. The evening market is entirely food; plenty of meat and produce, some cooked food and baked goods. We come here to buy sugar cane smoked chicken and leafy vegetables. Have a look at the variety! Can you name that many leafy greens? I haven't touched broccoli since I arrived on this island.

That's it for now! See you next posting!

Small Eats

2009-12-16T14:57:00.013+08:00

Mmmm....this will be the first of many posts on food. Taiwan is all about street markets and 小吃 (small eats). Portions are small, which is perfect for snacking, or you can make a meal of it by ordering several different dishes. The dishes above are a cuttlefish soup and sliced vegetarian chicken - (It doesn't taste or look like chicken. That's just what it's called, though I have had some surprisingly convincing mock meats here before). Dried cuttlefish (or squid) is reconstituted in a water/soda solution which gives it a different taste and texture from fresh cuttlefish. Don't knock it until you try it. I love this stuff, and it costs less than that can of high sodium Cambell's Chunky in your pantry.

That's dad checking out the other dishes. That's not his man-purse, it's a shopping bag. Taiwan has a plastic bag ban, it's a loose ban, but it only really affects us when we go to the supermarket. If you don't bring your own bags, you have to buy one from the store. No big deal, I'm happy to use my own anyway. All the street markets, small shops and food shops still use plastic bags though, so there's certainly no shortage of extra plastic sacks at home when you need them. I'm also happy to report that garbage collection is pretty similar to what it was back in Seattle; recycling, food waste and rubbish. Yay! Our building has a refrigerated room where they keep the food scraps bin. One day I'll document this, but let's get back to the food.

A woman making steam buns. Boiled dumplings and the tray of dumpling condiments; soy sauce, sesame oil, vinegar, garlic, pepper sauce...

This was a noodle soup place we stopped at. No frills, no menu, just soup. Then you just stand right there on the sidewalk or street side and eat it with everyone else. And when you're done, put the bowls in a bucket and the spoons in another, easy.

Airplane Crafts

2009-12-14T11:47:00.007+08:00

I'm in Taiwan! I arrived about a week ago after some stressful issues regarding travel visas, plane tickets, finding storage for my car, packing up, moving, and among other things, a failed attempt at obtaining a Washington drivers license. The grumpy woman at the DMV could use some customer service training. Well, all that is done, and I am now getting somewhat settled in my new home for the next few months. The plane ride was long, but I easily passed the time, nearly 24 hours, from Seattle to San Francisco to Tokyo to Taipei by crocheting a turtle and heart for my mom. I left Seattle early Thursday morning (many thanks to the wonderful James and Aileen!). The entire trip to Tokyo was daylight, so I didn't feel the need to sleep...not that I could have slept much. I don't think they could have gotten away with any less leg room in coach. My knees touched the seat in front of me, and I don't consider myself unusually tall.

This was only my second time making amigurumi, so I was still quite slow. But I did manage to finish both the turtle and the heart before I landed in Taipei, which was all that mattered anyway. During the first week, I made a second turtle with different yarn. Cute, eh? The pattern is free here.

In other news, I have some more photos that I will post when...um, later. I'll be in Taiwan for several months, so that should keep things pretty interesting. My etsy shop is closed for the time being :-( In the meantime, I've started taking a picture (when I remember to) at the top of every hour of what I'm looking at. It's an experiment; we'll see how long it goes, but for now it's kind of fun for me to document some mundane everyday activities that normal don't normally get photographed. You can view them here. It's not live blogged because I don't have a mobile phone, but I'll upload the photos daily.

Meaty Christmas

2009-11-03T14:43:00.005+08:00

Anyone need some Christmas cards? My Meaty Christmas cards are in the shop now! Oh, and if you want some, don't procrastinate. I'm planning on leaving the country come beginning of December.

My shop is getting bare, must restock! I've got errands to run tomorrow and a custom bag to finish. Hopefully soon I'll have the shop restocked with crafty goodies. I got my hands on another Holly Hobbie bed sheet...which means I'll be able to make some more Holly Hobbie tote bags! Unfortunately, I made up that bag as I went and didn't keep a pattern for it. Not a big worry, just kind of a pain. I'll have to do more work with the tape measure than I care to, but it's cool.

My First Amigurumi!

2009-11-03T08:20:00.002+08:00

I finally learned to crochet! I was visiting friends in Ohio last week and spent a good deal of time with my friend Becky's crochet books. Thanks, Becky! It took a while, but I finally figured it out! I'm happy to have a craft that's easy to travel with. I've tried knitting, but haven't been able to stick with it long enough to finish anything except a tiny ipod case. Making amigurumi suits me better because the projects are small, and they turn out so flippin' cute! I made this little fella from this free pattern. Mine's blue because I love blue penguins. I saw some when I was in New Zealand and Australia...see, they're not much bigger than the one I made!

Handmade Nation

2009-10-22T11:16:00.005+08:00

I went to see Handmade Nation two weeks ago. If you're not familiar with the documentary, check out the trailer below. I highly enjoyed it! That's the director Faythe Levine on the right. If you'd like to see it, it comes out on DVD in November. Go craft! :-)

Autumn Projects

2009-10-01T09:58:00.003+08:00

Working on a few a more things for the shop...

Another cute bag!

2009-09-25T11:26:00.005+08:00

I made a new bag! What do you think? Isn't it cute? Should I make more? The pattern is from KeykaLou. I totally love it! I don't usually carry purses, but I think this one is adorable.

I ♥ Red

2009-09-21T02:59:00.009+08:00

I've been accumulating quite a list of etsy finds. I'm always finding wonderful things on etsy and new blogs to follow. I decided to start sharing my own etsy finds on a somewhat regular basis. Plus it will also give me something to write about when I don't have much to post. As you've probably noticed, I haven't been posting much lately. Apologies! My mind has been elsewhere... I just noticed that three of my finds are fruit-themed, which was not my intention. My intention was only to pick red things. What can I say? I like red, and I like fruit :-)

Pup & Pony Press :: Love their super cute letterpress cards! :: Apple Letterpress Card

Lulu Bug Jewelery :: Silver jewelery with charm :: strawberry necklace

Made With Love By Hannah :: Hannah makes some fun prints for her skirts. I have my eye on several of them. :: Apple Pickin' Skirt

Circa Ceramics :: I like this bowl :: Red Bicycle Bowl

Christy Studio :: I need a new messenger bag, preferably in red. This one's more like a large purse, but it's simple and has a long strap. I like. :: Red Messenger Bag

Summersville :: Screen printed fabric and some cool things made with them :: Red Houses Sketchbook

Harvest Fair

2009-09-17T14:53:00.005+08:00

I have actually forgotten about my poor blog. I will be posting more regularly starting...soon. That's the plan. Last week I went to Seattle Tilth's Harvest Fair in Wallingford. It's about a 3 mile walk from the house, and it was a gorgeous day! Not a cloud in the sky, and a bit hot. I went because I wanted to learn more about urban gardening and raising chickens. Yes, one day I will have a yard, and in that yard I will compost, grow fruit trees, herbs and veggies, and raise some chickens!

I wasn't expecting the fair to be so big. It was really good! I met Marlo M who's the organizer for our etsy team, very cool. Always nice to meet fellow local crafters!

Need some peppers? What kind?

Chickens! I've been intrigued with the idea of raising chickens for a while, but after talking to some chicken owners at the fair, I really want some! To be clear, I just want a few hens for eggs and as pets. I am an omnivore, but I won't expect anything from my chickens other than fresh eggs...and to eat the bugs from my lawn (pretty please). Oh, this is just my observation, but kids seem to love chickens. Seriously, they like to chase them around, pick them up and hug them like teddy bears. See below, it's a fairy princess trying to hug a chicken.

Seattle Tilth offers a city coop tour every summer and classes on raising chickens in the city. Yay! They also have classes on raising goats if you're so inclined. I am not. What do you think of this little bird? Ain't she a beaut? I don't know much about chicken breeds, but I recognized this one right away as the kind I've had in a traditional Chinese soup. Yeah, the first time I had it, I was a little disturbed, but I soon got over it. Gray chicken meat with black bones is probably one of the tamer things I've eaten.

SVC Wayzgoose

2009-09-04T07:43:00.003+08:00

Seattle's School of Visual Concepts hosts a Wayzgoose every year at the end of summer. They open up their letterpress studio for curious guests, there's equipment and art to buy, and most exciting of all, the steamroller smackdown!

Steamroller Smackdown: Local artists and design firms will be challenged to produce a giant poster, printed in the SVC parking lot, using a two-ton steamroller as a press. Prints will then be sold to the public by silent auction.

I took lots of pictures, so get ready!

Steamroller press! If I had a steamroller, this is what I would use it for.

Inking...

Checking out the letterpress studio...pretty cool. I'm going add 'Take a letterpress class' to my shopping list.

...and blocks for sale.

Looking down from the Fitch poster, and AIGA group checking their print.

I think this is the Starbucks group. Cool stuff! I had a good time! Now go and design something :-)

Holly Hobbie Tote Bag

2009-08-27T14:51:00.005+08:00

I just added this tote bag to the shop. I love how it turned out. I want to keep it, but I have too many bags. I'm trying to organize my fabric stash and use up some of my scrappy bits...because I have a mess of fabric scraps. After making my first bed sheet skirt, I had some oddly shaped bed sheet scraps left over. I kind of made this bag up as I went, but it turned out so well! I had to do some strategic cutting and piecing of the fabric because there wasn't much of it left. I like this simple bag. If I find some more awesome bed linens, I'll make some more. I'm kind of missing the Strawberry Shortcake sheets of my youth.

More Tinys

2009-08-26T13:01:00.002+08:00

I'm nearly done with tiny pouches for now. I only have a few tiny zippers left in odd colors. Hmmmm....what to make next? The wiener dog pouch is for myself. Does anyone who knew me at university recognize where this fabric came from? Hmmm? I won't go into detail, but it's from a piece of clothing I've had for years, but couldn't bear to get rid of because of the little dachshunds. I ♥ dachshunds.

Tiny Zippy Pouches

2009-08-23T08:30:00.004+08:00

New Tiny Zippies in the shop! Aren't they cute? I had a small stash of various colored zippers that had been sitting around for a while. They were just asking to be turned into tiny zipper pouches. Once I find my stash of D-rings I'll make some pouches that you can attach to key rings, fobs, clasps... I have a few more tiny pouches to add to the shop, then it's on to the larger pouches and perhaps some more boxy bags. The shop is pretty sparse, I know. I'm working on it!

Urban Craft Uprising

2009-08-22T10:54:00.015+08:00

Sorry for the lack of posts! I've been having some troubles with my laptop :-( It appears the fan needs to be replaced, repaired or cleaned. Hmmm....so in the meantime, I only use my laptop until it reaches a certain temperature before the fan kicks on, which seems to be an hour or so, longer if I rest it on an ice pack. it's low tech but it works. And doing any flash or video is a problem. sucks sucks sucks!

Anyway, this is way late, but three weeks ago I went to Urban Craft Uprising at Seattle Center. I had a fabulous time! So fabulous, I didn't leave for three hours! I didn't take many pics, but I found a few on flickr. The picture on the left is from a felting workshop by the lovely ladies of Feltique. Well hey! That's me! (look for the white hat) I've never done any felting before, except by accident when I tried to machine wash my wool sweater in college. Um, so needle felting is very cool and terribly addicting. I recommend it to anyone, especially those who like to poke and stab things. See more photos here.

See the apple I made!

I also sat in on a kansashi fabric flower workshop by Diane Gilleland. It's a great way to use up small scraps of fabric. There are some more pictures on her blog. Hey! I'm in some of those pictures, too! (in white hat)

There were so many wonderful things I wanted to buy! There's so much amazing talent out there. Unfortunately, I'm still on an extreme budget diet, so I was not able to purchase much. I did allow myself two small purchases though, a sketchbook (from ex libris anonymous) and some flavored salt (from Secret Stash). I actually did need a new sketchbook, and I got attached to this penguin book. I think it suits me :-) It's made from an old children's book. I love it much. and flavored sea salt...YUM! I humored myself and only bought a small vial. Afterwards, I spent the rest of the day wandering around Seattle Center, checked out the Arab Festival, got a kebab, found a spot under a tree and relaxed. It was good.

It's HOT!

2009-07-30T09:47:00.004+08:00

We're in the middle of a freak heat wave here in the northwest. Generally I don't complain about the lack of air conditioning in these parts because for the most part the summer days are pretty mild. But the last few days have been in the upper 90s, and today was the hottest day EVER recorded in Seattle, a scorching 103°F. I know it gets much hotter in the southern states, but there's plenty of air conditioning to go around down there. Come to think of it, it gets this hot in parts of Australia, and most of the hostels I stayed in did not have air conditioning either. At least now I don't have to sleep on a plastic covered foam bunk mattress in a tiny room with 6 other backpackers. So glad for that! And visiting Shanghai in August was much worse heat-wise. So...I try not to complain too much, but this IS the hottest day here on record, ever. And it's probably 90°F inside the house. It's a strange sensation to find your toothpaste warm when you go to brush your teeth, or the dish soap, or the lotion.

What better time to enjoy some chilled drinks than on a hot summer day? I made some Strawberry-Basil Iced Tea. Yummy! Thank you Martha Stewart! I didn't follow the recipe exactly. I adjusted the ingredients based on what I had, which was 4 tea bags, half pound of frozen strawberries, and fresh basil from my garden. I put the tea bags in a glass jar and let it sit in the sun for a few hours. I also halved the sugar, as I do with most recipes. It was a good decision because the tea also took on the sweetness of the strawberries. It was good! I'm out of strawberries, so I'll have to find another drink to make tomorrow. Going to be another hot one!

New Tomato and Mushrooms!

2009-07-29T10:18:00.004+08:00

I have a tomato and mushroom to add to the shop! Sorry for the lag in posts. I took some pictures today, but they didn't turn out that great. I was trying to avoid going up to the loft to take photos because it's just so hot! Tomorrow may very well reach 100°F, and most of us Seattle folk don't have air conditioning. I would love to take the pillows out to a big green lawn and get some pics (perhaps inspired by the shrooms in this post), but I don't believe we have any green grass around here these days, only yellow. Oh well, maybe some day.

I made a smaller version of the tomato. This one is the same size as my Angry Blueberry. I didn't have enough red to make a large one, so I shrunk the pattern. Heehee! I quite like the size of it. I did a test wash of the blueberry to make sure I can label it machine washable. It was a tight squeeze to get it through the door of our front-loading washer, but it washed up perfectly. Yay!

I made the button mushroom first. What do you think? I think it turned out well for my first try. Generally first tries turn out rubbish, but I don't think I'll be altering this pattern much at all! This is actually made of pants material. The body is twill and the gills are corduroy. So if I ever find myself with a load of khaki and corduroy pants, you know what I'll be making...

Guess I didn't get a good picture of the red mushroom. Here's a shot of the underside. I shortened and widened the stem to make it more super mario-ish. Hopefully I can get some better pics tomorrow and add them to the shop. Only two items left in the shop as of today. Yikes! Time to bust a move!

Cat on a Tomato

2009-07-29T08:16:00.003+08:00

Over the weekend, I was sitting on the couch having my morning coffee and toast. I had my plate sitting on top of the tomato next to me when Ava came hunting for crumbs. She loves bread. If you leave a loaf of bread or package of cookies out on the counter, be assured that pretty soon there will be a hole in the package and chunks of your food missing. There were a few instances when I came home from the store with groceries, dropped them inside the front hall while I ran to fetch the mail, and in that minute while I was at the mailbox Ava had already burgled my grocery sack and found the bread or seafood. Thanks to plastic, she doesn't get very far, but I do like to watch her try! She's also bitten into bags of tortillas and dried soba noodles. Maybe she loves carbs just like the rest of us.

So back to the tomato...Ava stepped onto the tomato looking for my toast. In the many months since I created the big tomato, neither of the cats has ever ventured on top of it. I was thrilled to pieces when Ave discovered how comfy the tomato was! She stopped looking for my toast and curled up and went to sleep. Awww...

Captain Phil!

2009-07-14T05:19:00.002+08:00

I met Captain Phil over the weekend! He was doing some promo for Deadliest Catch and Alaskan Brewing Company, so I hopped a bus and went to meet him at a local supermarket. heehee! It's silly how excited I was to meet a crab fisherman. I'm usually completely starstruck around famous people (not that I meet tons of famous people, but I've met a few)...but he was super cool and very nice. I totally would have bought some brew, but money's tight these days ya know.

I've made another giant food pillow! It turned out well, but it still needs some tweaking. I'll try to get some pics and post it soon!

Hello, Boxy!

2009-07-04T12:29:00.005+08:00

First one's in the shop finally! The rest should come quicker. I'm starting on some more tonight! Whee!!

Chinese Pumpkin Cake

2009-07-03T02:32:00.002+08:00

If this picture looks familiar to you, it's because it's from my one of my trips to China. During a trip to Xiamen, we stopped in a teahouse for tea and some pumpkin cakes or 南瓜饼 (nangua bing). Just a few days ago, I had tried my first fried pumpkin cake at the hotel breakfast buffet. It had been sitting on the hotplate for a bit and was no longer crispy, but since I'd never had them before, I didn't complain. It tasted like a fried mochi, orange in color, slightly sticky, chewy and filled with red bean paste in the middle. mmmm.....

Well, that plate of cakes in Xiamen a year and a half ago was the last time I had Chinese pumpkin cakes. I've been craving them enough lately to attempt to make them myself. It took me a while to find a good simple recipe. Most recipes use wheat starch, which can be found at many asian grocery shops, but apparently not the local Chinese supermarket I patronize. Not to fear, I used regular wheat flour in place of wheat starch, and the little cakes still turned out pretty awesome to me.

150g pumpkin, steamed until soft (I used Japanese kobacha squash)
150g glutinous rice flour
50g wheat flour or wheat starch
30-60g sugar (I used less sugar because the bean paste is already very sweet)
plus
1 can of sweetened red bean paste

Easy. Mix the pumpkin, flours, and sugar to make a dough. The texture should be like play-dough. Add a little water if it's too dry. Roll the dough into little balls. Mine were maybe about 3cm, definitely smaller than a ping pong ball. Flatten them, spoon a small amount of bean paste into the center. Then pull the edges of the dough together to wrap the bean paste in the center. Now they are ready for cooking! Some recipes say to steam the cakes, but I prefer them fried, so I tossed them straight into the frying pan with a good layer of oil. No steaming required. Fry a few minutes on each side until they are crispy and browned. Done!
Easy peasy. They're delicious, much better than the ice cream mochis I tried to make the other day. I didn't bother photographing those because it was such a sticky mess of rice flour dough, corn starch and melting ice cream.

Before and after frying. Oh yummy! I fried a few to eat immediately, and I stored the rest in the fridge to be fried when I want some more later. Love the colour of the dough. I used half of a japanese kabocha pumpkin, steamed, mashed and mixed into the dough.

I think it's worth the time savings to use bean paste from a can, though I do find it much too sweet. To compensate, I halved the sugar in the pumpkin dough. perfect!

Three Little Cubes

2009-07-02T06:30:00.004+08:00

I wanted to wait until I had some of these in the shop before I blogged them. But I finally determined last night that the dimensions are not quite right. I love the cube size, but the opening needs to be bigger and the zipper a little longer. So, this cube project is on hold until I order my next batch of zippers. On the other hand, I do have the supplies to make some longer boxy bags. They'll be just like these little cubes, but longer.

The pink elephant cube was the first one I made. Turned out well for a first try, eh? The interfacing wasn't heavy enough, so I made another one interfaced with fleece (the polka dot one). Hmmm...the fleece gives it a nice quilty feel, but it doesn't give the cube much shape. I do however love how the polka dots look with the red. I'll have to make some more with this fabric combo. Lucky I have a whole duvet of this stuff! I think I finally got the interfacing right with the blue cube. YAY! On to the next step!

My Garden

2009-06-21T06:43:00.007+08:00

Our small yard sadly isn't much conducive to vegetable gardening. Since we're renting and hoping to move soon, there's no point in digging up the the owners' nicely "landscaped" yard. The yard is only about the size of a small bedroom, so I don't know that "landscaped" is the right word. Plus we don't cut the grass much, and it looks pretty unkempt most of the time. And a good portion of the yard is a pile of dressed up rocks meant to cover up a drain or hatch or something possibly mysterious. Regardless, it looks nice, but it's not a great space to plant food.

But...we do have a west facing balcony with lots of sun. My plants seem to be doing well in the sun. I always plant basil and tomatoes, but this year I'm also growing mint and strawberries! I got a bunch of fresh mint for a dollar at the farmers market, stuck them in some water, and waited for them to root. I just planted them, so we'll see how they grow. I should have a mess of mint in no time since mint is pretty much like a weed.

Basil! Organic sweet basil and lots of thai basil. I tried to grow thai basil last year but they all started rotting even though my pots had drainage holes on the bottom. Here's a tip that's helped me; put some rocks in the bottom of the pot before you put the soil in. It helps with the drainage so that the soil doesn't turn into a swampy sludge at the bottom of the pot. I harvested some rocks from the pile in our yard, how convenient.

Once again, the thai basil were all rooted from pieces I brought back from a phở restaurant or from cuttings from the asian supermarket. Easy peasy, stick 'em in water and watch them root!

I have two kinds of strawberries, one seems to be producing better berries than the other. The other berries look like they didn't get pollinated, since all they produced were tiny red fruits that are smaller than a pencil eraser. I wish I could plant these in the ground so they could spread... I recommend trying a fresh-picked strawberry straight from the plant while it's still warm from the sun. Yummy! One day I'd love to start planting lettuce and potatoes, too...and also some Chinese vegetables. When I was little, my mom used to plant all sorts of vegetables; I remember snow peas, tomatoes, chinese greens and corn! The corn was small, but it was so fresh! but there was a problem with deer coming in the night to eat our corn right off the stalks. ah, memories.

Lastly, this is how long the grass was before I cut it. It's hard to tell, but it went up to my knees. Oh, and did I mention that I cut by hand? I mean to say, I cut the lawn with a pair of scissors. We don't own any grass trimmers or yard clippers or anything, and I wasn't about to use my dwindling savings on yard tools. So one day, I spent a pleasant afternoon outside with the compost bin and a pair of scissors trimming the grass. Our yard is so small, it actually didn't take long at all, maybe an hour. I enjoyed it. I'd do it again.

Zakka Basket

2009-05-31T09:21:00.006+08:00

After many weeks on the waiting list, I finally got to check out Zakka Sewing from the library. I made this little basket for my clothespins today. Aw, isn't it cute? I'd been keeping them in a plastic bag with the intention of finding something cute to keep them in. It was easy...took less than an hour to make. I made it from two old pillowcases I had in my stash and some quilt batting.

My Weekender Bag

2009-05-30T08:37:00.005+08:00

I made another Weekender Bag! This one is number three, after the first and the second. I'm sure this will be the last one for a while. It is a lot of work! This one's for me because I want one for myself, too. And I'll get to use it when I go back to Akron next week!

I had wanted to put some pockets on the inside, but at this point I just want to be done with it. All I have left to do is to sew in the lining, which by the way is some hot pink denim that was 50% off at Joann's. The main fabric is fromAnna Maria Horner's Drawing Room collection. I love it! It's one of my favorites. I couldn't afford to make the whole bag with Drawing Room fabric. According to the pattern, it requires four yards of fabric! Twelve feet of fabric to make one bag, plus five yards of interfacing and stabilizer. I actually had quite a bit of fabric left over because I'm extra thrifty when I cut out the pieces. I'd been looking for a cheaper home decor weight fabric at Joann's, but they didn't have anything that looked good with my fabric. Luckily I found this pink denim that was even cheaper and looks pretty good I think. Nice, eh?

This is what it looks like on the inside. Sewing through all the layers of fabric is the most difficult. I only broke two needles this time, not bad.

The Library

2009-05-30T08:16:00.003+08:00

I had some time downtown last week, so I went to the central library. Definitely very cool. I am a fan of libraries, especially this one. I found the craft books section fairly easily, read a few magazines, perused the internet. It was raining that day, so it was a good day to be hanging out at the library.

My what big salmon you have!

2009-05-28T12:10:00.004+08:00

After our morning in Ballard, we went to Gas Works Park, previously seen in this post. By this time, it was definitely getting hot, but we all had a nice walk about and/or relax in the grass. In the evening, we made a trip to Whole Foods for some shopping and a light dinner before my parents headed back to their hotel to get ready for their early morning flight.

We are a family that loves to eat crab! On the east coast we had blue crab. I remember getting them fresh somewhere near D.C when I was little. They'd come with a big scoop of Old Bay seasoning, and we'd take them home, steam them, and spread some newspaper on the kitchen table and dig in. Here, we dig in to dungeness crab! They're bigger and more fun to eat! The last time the family was here, we bought two fresh crabs and cooked them at home. This time dad got us two pre-cooked ones which my brother and I heated up and chowed down on after our parents left. Num num num! and the carnage in the compost bin...

The next day we went downtown and made our way to all the outdoor shops; REI, Feathered Friends, Columbia, and Patagonia. Somewhere in there, we stopped at Whole Foods for lunch (we love Whole Foods). Oysters were one dollar each. We tried to buy just two of them, but the guy said, "I'll just give them to ya." So we each got a free oyster! Then Tom wanted more, so he ordered six more. It was a bit much.

After lunch we went back to Pike Place to look at salmon again. Oh, we do love our salmon. You just can't get it this fresh in Ohio. Copper River salmon was still too expensive, so we just looked. We were also nervous about ruining a $30 piece of salmon if we did buy some.

smoked salmon...which we happily sampled. so good!

We felt defeated by not finding my brother some frozen king salmon, and also because he couldn't try some Copper River salmon. So we got a piece of fresh king salmon for dinner, and experimented with some new cedar planks. I also made apple pie, but it took so long to make, it didn't come out of the oven until 11:30pm. Oh well, it was good for breakfast. It was a lovely little mini-holiday with the family.

Fisherman's Terminal

2009-05-28T04:59:00.006+08:00

On Sunday two weekends ago, we went to the Ballard farmers market. There wasn't too much in season that I usually buy. I can only eat so much brussel sprouts and asparagus. I can't wait until berries and cherries are in season! We were mainly looking for fresh frozen salmon, which I had definitely seen there the week before. My brother wanted to take some back to Virginia with him, and he wanted the kind that was fresh frozen and vacuum packed. Alas, on this day we didn't see much frozen salmon. So we then headed to the nearby Fisherman's Terminal, where I read that you can buy good fish. I'd never been there, but I've been wanting to check it out because I love the Deadliest Catch, and some of the boats on the show are moored here. The monument below is the Fisherman's Memorial.

We had a fresh fish lunch at Chinook's, which had a great view of the boats.

The Sea Star was on a few episodes of the first season of the Deadliest Catch. You can tour the boat for $10 or visit the gift shop on the boat for free, which is what we did. Two crew members were working in the shop, one of which I recognized from the show :-) We didn't do the tour, but I would pay money to tour the Northwestern boat though. I was still kind of excited to see one of the Deadliest Catch boats, even though it wasn't on the show much.

More big fishing boats...

Alas, again...no luck on the frozen salmon. I'd see signs in Ballard pointing to Loki Fish at the Fisherman's Terminal where you can buy flash-frozen fish straight from their boat, exactly what we wanted! But they were not there that day either. hmmm, out fishing perhaps? I do want to go back and find them because I love the idea of buying fish right off the boat from the people who caught it. I remember buying fresh fish and chips from a boat in Hobart, Tasmania...mmmm, so good.

Afterwards, we made a trip to Costco to get some Copper River sockeye salmon that we had seen there day before. at $19.99/lb, it was ten dollars cheaper than every other place. We were just there the day prior, but we didn't buy any because we were going to be out all day away from a fridge. So we went back the next day to buy some, and it was gone...all of it. Completely gone, like it was never even there. ~~Boo...salmon fail.~~

Okay, so I guess that week was the very first Copper River salmon of the season, so it was all expensive and everyone wanted some. I just now got back from Costco and got some for $9.99/lb. Yippee! Salmon for dinner.

Pike Place

2009-05-23T02:10:00.003+08:00

After we returned from Bainbridge Island, we walked to Pike Place from the ferry terminal. Pike Place was crowded! We just happened to be there during the Seattle Cheese Festival, which was a delicious event to happen upon. We tasted some cheese, most of them were of the pungently tasty variety. With the perfect weather, cheese festival, cruise ships in port, and general weekend crowds, Pike Place was hoppin'. There was plenty of fish being thrown at "the place where they throw the fish", aka Pike Place Fish Market. Copper River salmon season had just started; I think the first catch had just arrived the day before, according to the local news. The season only lasts 3-4 weeks, and foodies go crazy for this stuff every year. From what I've read, salmon from the Copper River in Alaska is fattier and tastier than most other salmons, and from what I've seen, its colour is more pronounced. I'm yearning to try some, but I just can't afford it this year. At $30-$40/lb it's quite pricey, though apparently a bit cheaper than last year. I think a good smoked wild Alaska king salmon is one of the most delicious things on earth...yes, even better than bacon (and, better for your heart!) So I'm really curious to see how one of my favorite foods can taste even better than it already does.

Mmmm...dungeness crab. I like those, too. See this is the reason I wanted to move here.

Bainbridge Island

2009-05-22T04:26:00.004+08:00

My parents and my brother came for a visit this past weekend and the weather was perfect! They all arrived Friday evening. Saturday morning we headed downtown and took a ferry to Bainbridge Island. My dad expressed a slight concern that we might mistakenly end up on a boat to Canada without our passports. We were assured that Bainbridge Island is indeed not part of Canada. The ferry ride was about 35 minutes and affords great views of the city and Mt Rainier. I always have trouble photographing the Mountain. It doesn't show up well in photos. You can see it in distance in the photo above. I had to "enhance" it to make it visible.

So, um, it's pretty apparent in the next photo that my camera lens is quite dirty. Just ignore that...this is Bainbridge Island from the ferry.

From the ferry, you can walk to Winslow which is where all the shops and restaurants are. We checked out the farmers market, where we met the mayor of Bainbridge Island. She was very appreciative and friendly when my dad told her the island was really lovely...then he asked her where we should eat for lunch. Some people on the ferry had recommended a good place that was by the water... so we asked the mayor, and she directed us to Doc's.

I only took two pictures on the island. Here we are waiting for out table. We didn't do much, just wandered and ate. Halibut and chips, yummy!

This excursion actually reminded me a lot of New Zealand in many ways. The climate, the town, the water... The ferry ride was very reminiscent of a ferry I took in Auckland.

City from afar. You can see the giant cruise ship in port.

An Evening with Bret and Jemaine

2009-05-15T11:32:00.009+08:00

I went to see Flight of the Conchords at the Paramount on Tuesday night. Bret and Jemaine were in fine form. I haven't laughed so much since I went to see John Hodgeman several months ago. I love these guys! As you can see, I had awesome seats. Close enough to see the little rhinoceros on Bret's guitar.

Bret, aka Rhymnocerous

Jemaine, aka Hiphopopotamus

Nigel, the cool cellist

Arj Barker opened

Sugalumps. That's Jemaine sharing his sugalumps with someone in the first row.

Angry Blueberry Dress

2009-05-14T01:34:00.007+08:00

I've been thinking I should revisit my giant fruit project. The big ottomans are quite cumbersome to ship, and I've been wanting to try them in smaller sizes. Everyone should have some giant fruit in their home! I just need to package it better, and also to develop patterns for sale. But first, I need to try some alternate sizes.

So, I had this dress... My roommate Joanna had gotten this dress at a thrift shop a few months ago for $1.00. She didn't want it anymore and offered it for my craft stash. A few days ago, I looked at it and decided it should be turned into a semi-large blueberry, and that the blueberry should be strongly emotive. I settled on Angry.

I turned out bigger than I expected. It's about half the size of it's larger fruity siblings. I completely winged the ruffly bit at the top. I just sewed random pieces into a circle and trimmed the edges. Looks fairly blueberry-like, no? It'd be pretty boring without the face though.

Making the face...and that's the remainder of the dress after all the pieces were cut, the carcass of the dress if you will. The fabric is a stretchy knit, which makes for a nice soft pillow. No portion of the dress was wasted! All the remaining fabric was incorporated into the stuffing. I'm thinking of making this a regular reoccurring project, maybe add some to the shop! Would anyone buy a pineapple made from a one dollar pair of pants? Or lemon from a sweatshirt? Hmmm, me thinks my next project will be emotive fruit.

Something for my laptop

2009-05-12T08:33:00.003+08:00

I made a sleeve for my macbook! Look how purdy! It turned out surprisingly well. Usually my first tries don't turn out so well. I've been wrapping my laptop in a pillowcase or whatever soft thing I have at my convenience whenever I need to travel with it. I didn't feel like working with zippers last night, and I wanted to get off of the computer, so I decided to whip up this little lovely. Can't wait to use it!

The Wallet Shop

2009-05-05T13:26:00.005+08:00

Well, it appears that I've been busy! I've sold my hippo wallet (Yippee!), and I've already made another plus two Amy Butler wallets. I actually made three Amy Butler wallets, but I goofed on one and it turned out sub-par. Sigh...it sucks when you spend so much time on something and then you mess it up by cutting something you shouldn't or sewing something on upside down or things don't match up like they should...oh well. It's a learning process.

So yay! Also, check out Carrie and friends' jewelry at Triple Dip! Help support our crafty friends!

Woolgatherer

2009-05-05T12:45:00.006+08:00

Some of you may remember the Fiber Party from a while back. Well, this past weekend we got to see our contributions in it's final form. We went to see a multi-media dance performance by our friends at Manifold Motion. I obviously don't have photos of the actual performance (which was pretty damn cool), but they invited everyone on stage to check out the set after the show. Joanna and I helped make some of the long ropes that hang from the ceiling. Visit their website for photos and videos of past performances.

Fresh Wallets!

2009-04-29T06:57:00.006+08:00

Okay, so I've finally put some things in the shop...just two though. Haha, I didn't realize it would take so long. I think my computer hates me. Well, I have to leave for class soon, so I'll put the rest in the shop tonight or tomorrow. I'm still waiting on some supplies so I make can some cute zippy pouches.

Ooo...look at the new juicy wallets! The floral Anna Maria Horner wallet turned out super yummy I think.

Wallets coming soon!

2009-04-23T08:31:00.003+08:00

More wallets!!! I actually started these a few months ago before I got side-tracked on other projects. Yesterday I decided to finally finish them. They seemed to take forever to finish... I do my cutting and ironing on the kitchen counter because I don't have enough room in my craft "room" downstairs. So I'm always running down the stairs to sew, back upstairs to press, and back down stairs....ugh. One day I'll have all my stuff in the same room, or at least the same floor.

Anyway, it's been a while since I've made these, so I took my time with them. And I think they are my best yet! the happy hippo wallet is my personal favorite. I may have to make more of those.

I nearly forgot to attach the labels again. I need to get used to this. So, anyone want a wallet? They'll be in the shop soon!

Experiments in walletry

2009-04-20T13:09:00.006+08:00

I tried out some new wallets this weekend. I'd seen some cute wallets that that didn't have top-stitching, so i thought I'd give it a try. Top-stitching isn't fun, and I've broken many needles doing it. The yellow wallet has top-stitching around the snap tab, but not around the rest of the wallet. I don't know...I think I prefer it with the top-stitching. Also, I had some problems with the cheap snaps I used, so I don't think I'll be using those again.

Anyway, not wanting to deal with zippers and snaps again, I decided to try a business card wallet because I actually need one. I'm quite pleased, though I'll have to make them a tad wider because it's a tight fit for the cards. See my new cards? They're the free ones you can get from vista print. I'll get nicer cards later, but for now the free ones will do. My other motivation for getting them was to get extra points so I could buy a house in myFarm on facebook. I know. Dork! I kind of wish I had gotten points for Mafia Wars instead because I'm short on special weapons. Haha! Oh, well. I'm trying some more card wallets tonight. Maybe I'll have some more to post tomorrow. Ciao!

More cats, less crafts

2009-04-14T13:58:00.003+08:00

I just had to share this quick snap. I just came downstairs and found the kitties recreating my blog header in real life. Heehee! Please excuse the mess.

Cute Things

2009-04-14T11:44:00.003+08:00

I meant to post this earlier, as they were too cute not to share. My friend Becky made these wonderful little creatures for me for my birthday! Cute cute cute! I love them all!

I don't mean to be heavy on the Nemo pics, but he tends to hang around me more than Ava does. And sometimes I just can't help snapping a photo. Aww...

A few days ago Nemo and Ava were fighting around the living room curtains. As usual, Nemo got himself stuck in the curtain...like so.

But...on Saturday Nemo got stuck again and this time managed to yank the entire curtain down and pull the screws out of the wall. we had to patch the holes back up and run to home depot for some wall anchors to put the curtains back up. yeah, it was a pain, but it was pretty funny. Also, sometimes he likes to sit on my toilet.

Orange you glad for a new post?

2009-04-14T09:41:00.005+08:00

Boy, it's been a long time since I've posted anything. Well, I've have had nothing to post. That's the reason. This past weekend I did try making my first clutch. I even put a label in it! I just wanted to see how it would look, as this one is not worthy enough to be offered for sale. Normally I'd put the label on the outside of the pocket, but I had already finished sewing the pocket before I remembered to sew the label on. It didn't turn out exactly as I had imagined, but kind of close. The polka dots are from a duvet I found at the thrift shop. I've also seen the same duvet actually used as a duvet in a house we looked at. But I think it works jolly well as a purse.

I also managed to make a handbag last week for a friend's birthday. I shipped it a week ago to japan, so I'm going to go ahead and post it and assume she's not going to read my blog. I just put the wallet in for scale, but they look good together, eh? The wallet was actually one of my practice wallets, so I didn't mail that.

Hmmm, this orange lining is becoming a theme of mine. Thanks to Becky for donating some orange bed linens for my fabric stash!

I won some fabric!

2009-03-19T09:46:00.005+08:00

I won some fabric! It arrived today in a little package from Japan. Two japanese fat quarter pieces from Miss Matatabi, also on etsy. I hope to get back in the craft cave soon and start crafting again.

Salt and Pepper Please!

2009-02-23T05:01:00.005+08:00

I was browsing etsy today looking at salt and pepper shakers. Not looking to buy anything just yet, but maybe later. We're nearly out of salt, and one of the cats accidentally broke my Capitol Building salt shaker a while back. So now all I have is one single phallic Washington monument shaker. Handmade shakers can get pretty pricey, but there are also a plethora of very cute vintage salt and pepper shakers out there. The owls pictured are vintage, but the other three are handmade ceramic shakers. These make me wish I had a kiln and some clay in the garage. I haven't stepped foot in a Target in months (because it's not within walking distance), but I doubt you'll find anything there as cute as these! Well, maybe you might, but it won't be as awesome.

House of Craft

2009-02-21T09:38:00.012+08:00

My labels finally arrived today! I wasn't feeling the pink splashberry logo I had before, so I went cute. I just ordered a small batch because these are my first labels. I figure I can always change them later. These labels are kind of weird because they are really light and they feel like paper. They're cellulose non-woven washable labels. Next time I'll try some cotton fabric ones and compare. Yay! Now I can start crafting again...right after I send out a few more résumés. Blah, it seems pointless, but I have to do it.

A few days ago, I tagged along on a house hunt again with Joanna. Saw some cute ones, including this one which we dubbed The Amy Butler house. It had a wonderful little craft room! I want a big desk like this, but for moment the craft cave is too small for such a table. There was evidence of craftiness everywhere. Check out the Amy Butler fabrics in embroidery hoops on the wall and on the ottomans...and on the beautiful bird mobile in the baby's room.

These are from the house we both loved, but the price was just beyond affordable. It's since been snatched up anyway. The house is green on the outside and looks pretty much like this miniature.

The Little Green Bin

2009-02-17T06:41:00.004+08:00

It's a gorgeous day today! I just stepped out the door and found this little food and yard waste bin greeting me. Yay! I think it's cute. But that's because I'm used to our neighbors giant 100 gallon bin. Our landlord doesn't have yard/food waste pickup because it's a subscription service, but our neighbors do! They have kindly been letting us put our food scraps in their giant yard waste bin. It really cuts down our amount of trash because we can also throw paper towels and pizza boxes in there, too. The city has extended food/yard waste collection and now we have our own bin to use! After recycling and composting, our regular trash is pretty light. I'm so glad. I used to take the used coffee grinds home from work to use for my balcony garden. At first some people thought I was stealing coffee, and then they thought I was just silly for taking home trash. And after a while, my co-workers would offer me the used coffee grounds before they were thrown out. I just thought it was a big waste to throw it all away. But this is america, and that's what we do here. We waste things.

A Little Bit of Purse

2009-02-16T10:47:00.007+08:00

I made a purse, kind of. It's a sample piece to test out my pattern. There's no lining or pockets yet. I just made it to make sure the shape was right. Seems a tiny bit small, but I think it works. It actually holds a lot for its size. I'd also like to put some purse feet on it when I make them for real. If you notice, the handles connect to the body differently on each side of the purse. I'm not sure which way I like better.

Incidentally I'm out of this Kleo fabric. So you won't be seeing it for a while.

Pirate Chef

2009-02-15T16:49:00.005+08:00

I made some things for the kitchen for Noel's birthday. I had a hard time deciding on what fabric to use. I was hoping to find some chemistry-themed fabric, but I don't think such a thing exists. So the least girly thing I could think of was skulls. Plus I figured some black and white skulls would look pretty fresh on some pot holders. I'd been wanting to try making some of these for a while.

I also think every kitchen wizard needs a chef's hat. I had to make a practice hat because I had trouble understanding this tutorial. Plus, I have to admit I wanted a hat for myself, too. See the end of the post for my own chef's hat. I'm very happy with it.

It's pink, and it has a bow.

Anna Maria Horner

2009-02-14T07:14:00.003+08:00

Now that I've made Amy Butler fans out of you, please check out fabrics by Anna Maria Horner. I ordered some of her fabrics last month, and I love them. I have yet to cut into them though. It's so hard to cut something so lovely. In more prosperous times, I would love to make some curtains or reupholster the cat chair with some of this fabric. She has some patterns coming out soon, one of which is the fabulous Study Hall Skirt.

More crafty posts this weekend...I promise. I just ordered some fabric labels, and they should arrive next week. Yay!

Rainbow Bread

2009-02-14T06:54:00.004+08:00

11th Jan 2009
Originally uploaded by [wingnut]

The rainbow cakes reminded me of the rainbow bread I used to see at Kmart. Twenty years ago, I would have absolutely loved some rainbow bread. There's also a place in New York that sells rainbow bagels.

This reminds me of the time the school cafeteria served green chicken patties for st patricks day. It was a terrible idea.

Like Velvet

2009-02-13T03:36:00.014+08:00

Milk, BLUE VELVET (2)
Originally uploaded by jleighb

I've been craving cake like mad after my post about the red velvet cookies. Well, our local supermarket doesn't carry red velvet cake mix, which is fine. So I looked up some red velvet cake recipes and the majority of them use two bottles of red food coloring to get that color. Eww. I don't know why red cake that tastes vaguely of chocolate is so appealing to me. Well, there are a few recipes out there that use beet root to get the red effect. I may try one of those recipes in the future. For now, we don't even have a cake pan or muffin pan, so I don't even know why I'm looking at cake recipes.

If you don't like red velvet cake, how about a blue velvet cake? I generally don't find blue an appetizing color for food (except blueberries), but this actually looks good to me. I think good photography helps.

Don't like blue? How about orange? or green? The last one is supposed to be a red, white and blue cake, but it looks more scarlet and gray to me. All these colors have kind of put me off cake a little bit. well, now I'm craving more of a carrot cake.

I believe the source of my cake cravings has been the Cake Wrecks blog. Check it out. It really gives me a laugh.

Golden Gardens

2009-02-10T15:36:00.004+08:00

Last week the weather was so nice, Joanna and I went to Golden Gardens to get some fresh air. I love that the beach is so close. And you don't have to go far to see mountains.

This dog that's jumping was the definition of scrappy. He was chasing the other dog around the beach, leaping, barking, then he would come sit by a person for a little bit before running off again. Well, the other dog was on a leash, and this little guy chased the other dog (who's named after an Ewok) in circles around us, wrapping us in with the leash several times around. It was awesome.

Red Velvet Sandwich Cookies

2009-02-09T05:59:00.003+08:00

Red Velvet Sandwich Cookies
Originally uploaded by Bakerella

Generally I like to bake everything from scratch, refusing to use boxed mixes. But these look soooo goood! I also don't buy a lot of foods with artificial coloring in them, but I do love that red velvet cake once in a while. Even if you make it from scratch, red velvet cake has tons of red coloring in it. Several artificial colors are derived from coal tar, if that helps you understand why I don't like them. I suppose a little coal tar for the sake of beautiful cakes is permissible. So I think I may have to make these cookies. Plus they go so well with the new blog colors. Find the recipe at Bakerella.

Also, for a similar cookie in pumpkin, try Pumpkin Whoopie Pies. I've made these before, and they're delicious.

Luggage Tag and Zippered Pouch

2009-02-09T03:54:00.006+08:00

Every fellow traveler needs a fun luggage tag! I made this little set for Aileen's birthday, a zippered pouch and luggage tag out of Amy Butler fabric. I don't like calling them pouches, but I'm not sure what else to call them. I love this fabric, and it photographs so well.

I almost got the pattern to line up at the seams! And here's a shot of the back of the luggage tag.

Blog Maintenance

2009-02-07T18:20:00.005+08:00

Hello! I'm changing the blog template...because I can. I thought the three columns were getting cramped. I'm having some troubles, but it's late so I'll try to finish tomorrow. I know the theme doesn't quite go with the blog. Why the red couch you wonder? I like the layout, but I'm planning on changing the images. Also, I have to change some of the coding and add all my widgets again because the template is not a standard blogger template. Ugh...not quite as seamless as I had hoped. so in the meantime, apologies for the lack of navigation. None of the buttons work. Thanks for stopping by!

UPDATE
I fixed a few key things, but I'm still trying to figure out why the time is showing up at the top of the post instead of the date stamp. And I don't like the red boxes over in the right hand blog archive. And I'm not sure why the Subscribe To box is so big. I'm such an amateur at this. And I need to come up with a new header graphic. The red couch and feet are nice, but it doesn't make any sense for this blog.

The good thing about the new layout is that now I can post larger pictures! Check it out in the last two craft posts! Looks good, eh?

Some more zippered pouches

2009-02-07T09:26:00.005+08:00

Zippers arrived yesterday! I didn't buy a whole lot, so we'll see how long they last me. I also need to order some fabric labels this weekend....more stuff.

Here's one for size reference. They measure about 7 inches across. I want to try out some different sizes, but I only have 7 inch zippers for now.

Yellow and pink linings

Etsy Love/Buy Handmade

2009-02-07T05:27:00.011+08:00

I've been accumulating quite a list of favorites whilst browsing the interwebs. Things I love and might want to buy if and when I ever have some extra money to spend. I thought I'd share some of favorite handmade things at the moment. This is a continuously running list, so I'll probably do this again when I have enough for another faves post. Or if anyone else finds cool things, please share! There's so much out there, it's overwhelming. I encourage everyone to buy handmade. I mean, look at all the cool original stuff out there! Most of this is stuff I found on etsy, but there are few things I came across on flickr or in magazines or other blogs. As you can see, I gravitate towards cute. And I have a thing for mushrooms.

Rabbit and Chihuahua Shoes. Am I silly for loving these shoes? Though the chihuahuas look more like tasmanian devils.

Green Suitcase. I ♥ this suitcase! The shop has some wicked suitcases and bags.

Toadstool Skirt, Forest Skirt, Fruit Skirts I love them all!

Cute cow key fob

Laser cut jewelery. A different take on chandelier earrings...sweet, eh?

Mushroom Camera Strap. I don't have as SLR camera, but I want one and I want it to hang on this strap.

Mole and Mushroom pocket mirror

Rock star plate. Sarah Cihat refires thrift store plates with new designs.

Ceramic pig planter. So much better than a chia pet.

Wiener Dog Necklace. I found this in a few shops. I will own it one day. I actually noticed it a while back in one of BK's portraits, and was happy to come across it on etsy.

Lobster T-shirt. Need I say more. It's a lobster shirt.

Amy Butler Sophia Bag

2009-02-06T07:36:00.004+08:00

Another Amy Butler bag to report. I'm nearly done. I just have to hand sew the interior lining. Hand sewing is a pain, but it's something I can do while watching tv. The inside of the bag is red (thrift store bed sheet) with four pockets. I had to use a navy zipper, because that's pretty much all they had at the store. The longer the zipper, the less colours seem to be available.

Here's a look at it outside with the lovely power lines. The dots turned out a bit crooked, which makes the bag look like it's leaning, but I still like it. I made the underside of the handles red, which I think was a good decision. I love this bag. I love the shape of it. It's quite large, too.

This was pretty similar to the Weekender Bag to make. It took me a little less time to make because it's smaller. But it's still very time-consuming. No wonder handmade handbags are so expensive, because they take so flippin' long to make. I don't know how many hours I put in to this, but I'm definitely learning.

Three Little Pigs

2009-02-05T04:27:00.004+08:00

I finally cut into my Three Little Pigs fabric last night. Hmmm, it does get quite wrinkled when I flip it though. Well, I am plumb out of zippers, and as such I am unable to make any more until my new zippers arrive. Then maybe I can finish the wallets I started a few weeks ago, too. I'm hoping for a zipper delivery tomorrow! Also need to look into getting some fabric labels...and find a better place to take pictures.

Fiber Art Party

2009-02-02T05:33:00.004+08:00

On Saturday we went to Keely's house to help make some materials for Manifold Motion. They needed some extra hands to make some art for their upcoming performance. Check their website for more info on Manifold Motion. The project was to make long crochet chains of fabric and yarn in shades of green and brown.

My contribution.

Luggage Tag

2009-02-02T05:00:00.003+08:00

I attempted some more luggage tags last night. The other one I made is not worth showing. I was trying to attempt something new, but it didn't turn out right. I guess I just have to make lots of them to tweek the process and hope they'll turn out right eventually.

This is the back. Hippos!

New Thing

2009-01-31T04:52:00.003+08:00

Just a quick post, as I'm nearly out of food and want to get out to the store. Luggage tags! Becky sent me some inspiration a while back, and I'm just getting around to making some. I made this one last night. It's just a prototype, but it turned out okay. Sorry the picture kind of sucks. It's kind of crooked and the stitching is messy, so it's probably better this way.

Fresh Fabrics!

2009-01-27T03:01:00.005+08:00

Here's another fabric post since I don't have much else to post. I've started a couple projects, but I don't like to post things until they're finished. Small steps, because I have lots to do! One thing I must do is shop for some health insurance. Shopping makes it sound fun, but it is certainly not. It feels like I'm shopping for a car at the junk yard. That's all I'll say about that. I don't want to turn this into a rant about things-that-piss-me-off because I certainly can. So, moving on....fabrics.

Just a few pics from my trip to the fabric shop last week. They had a food section that I found pretty amusing. Above, we have some berries, citrus, some corn and bananas. And below...let's see, I think that's squash, mushrooms, broccoli, parsley, cucumbers, blueberries and beans. They also had other foods; junk food and wine...but the fruit and veg was so fun and colourful, I had to share.

They also had a good selection of wizard of oz fabrics. I believe this was in the movies section. I wonder what a dress would look like made with this.

Fabric Love

2009-01-23T12:18:00.005+08:00

My fabric arrived today! That was fast. Yay!! Look how pretty and so nicely packaged. The thing with nice fabrics is that it's so hard to start cutting it. So the top right pic is all my new fabrics! It doesn't look like much, but there's probably about 12 yards of fabric in those two stacks. I also have a few duvets and bed sheets stocked in the craft cave (my office). All I need now are some solid black fabric and some zippers.

The package made it here in one piece, but barely. The fabric was busting to get out!

This is not a very good picture, but this is the japanese fabric I got at pacific fabrics the other day. It's a nice linen/cotten blend and I can't wait to use it. It's the three little pigs! How cute is that? Next time I visit japan I'm definitely checking out some fabric and craft stores. But who knows when that will be given the current economic situation.

I never did post updated pictures of the craft room. So...this is the current condition of the craft cave. Messy and cramped. You can see why we call it the cave. It's so small and dark. Even during the day it's pretty dark. Actually, this picture was taken in the afternoon. I have to bring in an extra lamp to have enough light. It's also the coldest room in the house, so sometimes it's hard to go work in there, the dark, cold, tiny "craft room".

And yes, I keep my bananas in the craft cave. The temperature in there is just right for banana storage. I also keep potatoes in the there.

Random cat picture...Nemo says cheers

Fabric Reload

2009-01-20T15:00:00.009+08:00

I've been running low on fabrics, and had been putting off going to the fabric store... mostly because neither of my fabric shops is a walkable distance. Alas, I finally had to go because the fabrics I wanted were 50% off at Joann's and the sale was ending. Alexander Henry fabric at 50% off! So, I really wanted to get some more of this Kleo fabric which is the flower fabric on the left. But they were out of that, so I got some Koto fabric instead, which is the gorgeous asian-themed fabric on the right. Then I headed to my favorite fabric store, Pacific Fabrics and used my gift certificate for more awesome fabrics. Thanks B! I don't have pictures, so I will post them later.

Today I did a bad thing and ordered more fabric off of etsy. There are some big discounts on certain fabrics. Many shops having sales before the fabric company hikes up the prices next month. So....I finally ordered my first Amy Butler fabrics. Yay!

The four on the right are all from Amy Butler's Daisy Chain collection. And the fabric on the left is Anna Maria Horner's Centerpiece from her Garden Party collection. All of them gorgeous, and should last me quite a while.

And while I'm at it, here are some other fabrics I have my eye on. I want to make another Weekender Bag for myself, but I haven't decided on the fabric. Ikea is too far, so I'm still deciding. I have other things to do anyway, before I make anymore stuff for myself. Two fabrics I'm considering are these japanese imports by Echino. Cute, eh?

Also in the mix is this Anna Maria Horner on the left. I forget what it's called, but I love it. The fabric on the right is just another fabric that I want. It's not heavy enough for the Weekender Bag, I just want it for my stash. It's another Amy Butler design. All these beautiful fabrics make it very hard to stick to my second hand fabric ideal.

Actually, I still use a good deal of recycled fabrics. I have a few shopping totes made from bed linens that i mean to post shortly. And I started on some wallets. stay tuned.

New Year Projects

2009-01-17T13:52:00.005+08:00

Chinese New Year is coming up soon. It will soon be the Year of the Ox (Cow), so I wanted to make some cow crafts. Since I missed the boat on christmas gifts, I wanted to send out some chinese new year gifts. I'd been wanting to try making some shopping bags, and I thought some cow print bags would be some fun gifts to make. They turned out to be pretty simple to make.

Top view...I used a Target plastic bag as my template. They hold the same as regular plastic bags, but much more stylishly.

I added a snap to my latest version, so you can roll it up if you want. The polka dots fabric is another thrift shop find. It's from a duvet.

I made a small zippered pouch for Kate in japan. I'm going to hope she receives her package before she reads this post.

More Wallets...

2009-01-16T03:45:00.002+08:00

I made some more wallets. These are actually at least a month old. I just never got around to taking photos. and these photos are pretty terrible. I just hadn't posted any crafts in a while, so I thought I'd post some quickies. The black one is ikea fabric and the hello kitty is from a bed sheet I found at goodwill. Nothing much else to say about that. I will have to set up a space for some proper pictures soon.

Some short videos....

2009-01-07T17:22:00.003+08:00

Since I didn't have a blog on my first two trips to china, I didn't get to post these. One of my favorite things to do in China is to go to a local park and watch the locals. This was at the Temple of Heaven park in Beijing in August of 2006. People congregate in different areas and play games, dance, exercise, play music...

China: Music in the Park from craft berry on Vimeo.

Dance lesson in the park

China: Dance Lesson in Park from craft berry on Vimeo.

This is from my last trip to Shanghai in December 2007. It's like a playground for grown ups to do their exercises. I especially like the guy on the ski-type machine at the end.

China: Shanghai Park from craft berry on Vimeo.

I think this was near Xiamen about a year ago. We took a mini-taxi, which is pretty much like a three wheeled motorcycle with a small shed on the back. It just fit the four of us.

China mini-taxi ride from craft berry on Vimeo.

Free Stuff for the New Year

2009-01-02T02:42:00.005+08:00

I was out on my weekly short drive yesterday to fill up my gas tank and go to the craft store. Since I started driving my car only once a week, I haven't had to put gas in my car since the beginning of October. And I still had half a tank left! No secret to it: plan ahead and combine your car trips, walk or bike when possible (for me, if it's less than 1.5 miles I grab my ipod and walk), and ride the bus. Of course, it helps if you live in the city where things are close by.

The reason I was filling up was because my supermarket gas discounts were expiring. I was driving around looking for parking when I came across some free furniture. Obviously I couldn't fit all of it in my prizm, so I snatched up a chair, a green vase, and a side table. I should have tried to fit in another chair. Greedy.

Just the day before, I was thinking how I'd love to work in our loft, but I needed a small table. The ceiling is low and it's accessed by a ladder, so I found myself wishing we had an extra IKEA LACK table sitting around. And then I found this on the street. Tadaa, the tomato loft office.

Kitty Stories

2008-12-28T05:45:00.006+08:00

Ava and Nemo have provide a few camera-worthy moments recently. I popped in a Harry Potter movie the other night and started making a pair of pajama pants. Pajama pants are one of the easiest pieces of clothing to make, and you don't really need a pattern. But I was lazy and the pattern was only a dollar.

Both of the cats love crafting. They come visit me when I'm working in the craft cave, and they like to hang around when I craft in the living room. Ava especially likes to sleep on my creations, as evidenced when I made my bed sheet skirt. In the future, things for my shop (if I ever get around to adding more items) will be cut in cat-free zones, namely the loft for larger pieces and my desk for smaller pieces. No offense to ava and nemo, but some people are strongly allergic to cats, and I can't be shipping items that ava has been sleeping on, however cute it may be.

this is Ava looking for something to eat in the kitchen.

Yesterday Nemo came bounding into the room very strangely. He was walking kind of weird, jumping around and looking behind him. I thought he was just playing until I saw a big piece of poop hanging from his butt. I caught this video of poor Nemo trying to alleviate this discomfort before Joanna put on some gloves and removed the dingleberry for him. I took a disinfectant to the floor afterward.

Nemo and his butt problem from craft berry on Vimeo.

Hey Mr. Snowman

2008-12-26T12:20:00.004+08:00

I was out shoveling snow a few days ago and ended up playing in the snow. Here's my little snow neighbor. Aw, ain't he cute?

Protecting the house. He has since fallen over completely. Check the previous post to see how unhappy he was with the rising temps.

I went out to Greenlake Park again. It wasn't as magical as when I went during the big snow over the weekend. a little more slippery, a little slushier, less skiers this time. I didn't plan on walking around the whole lake, but I did, all three miles. It was dark by the time I started heading home. Glad I'm not the only night snow walker. There were still plenty of people walking.

Cheers! Later!

Non-Christmas

2008-12-26T09:35:00.012+08:00

Christmas this year was a non-event. The winter storms have pretty much overshadowed the holiday cheer. I broke down and bought the cheapest instant coffee yesterday and the cheapest half and half, so at least I had a christmas morning coffee. It wasn't too terrible. Unfortunately I accidentally got fat-free half and half, which isn't really half and half at all. It's just skim milk with thickeners and artificial coloring. It should really be called half and cream substitute.

This was what christmas morning looked like outside our door.

My books arrived two days before christmas! I'm considering it a christmas present to myself. well, the top one is at least. the rest of them weren't exactly on my wish list. And one of them is Essential.

I was in martha stewart mode today. I made a batch of ginger spice cookies and cooked up some potato and bacon soup, all from scratch. This was my christmas dinner.

A friend of my parents invited me over for christmas dinner, but they live half an hour away. I don't feel comfortable driving that far until I get my car fixed, especially with the streets covered in snow and slush. I'm bummed because I'd really rather be there right now instead of blogging about my boring day. Sigh, chinese food would have been so goooood. My soup was good, but it's a pretty sad holiday dinner. Joanna's here, too, so at least I'm not alone. So, it was a disappointing christmas, but at least I have plenty to keep myself busy at home.

My snowman is melting. His carrot nose fell off. He looks so sad.

It's a Winter Wonderland!

2008-12-23T03:14:00.016+08:00

i've had nothing to post of late. That's not to say I haven't been working. I'm stalled on a few projects because I haven't been able to get to the craft store because of the snow. I thought I had left the crazy winters behind in cleveland. Now that I don't have to drive in the snow, I'm actually enjoying it. It's so pretty! seattle doesn't usually get this much snow, so this snow has been a big deal. Yesterday I ventured out for a walk to Greenlake Park. The skiers were out in force.

Snowmen!

I was starting to wish I had some cross country skis, too.

From Greenlake I walked to Safeway to buy some things for baking. Luckily I didn't need to buy milk. They said they haven't had a milk delivery for three days. Also, the hot chocolate shelves were near empty, too.

The wind picked up and it really started to snow on my way home from the store. So glad I don't have to drive in this.

It's good to be home.

Our street a few hours ago.

Looking out the front door and balcony.

View from the balcony on two different nights. The one on the right is from two days ago. I like how it looks like we live by a strip club. Blue christmas lights...why? The other one is from this morning. As you can see, none of the cars have moved.

Amy Butler is Awesome

2008-12-15T13:25:00.004+08:00

I finally got my library card yesterday! I'm more excited than I should be about such a minor accomplishment. Yippee! I wrote down 14 books from my to read list and headed to the library. None of the books on my list were available of course. It’s free, so I’m not complaining at all. It’s like health care in Canada. You have to wait a while, but it’s free. If I want it sooner I can pay money for it. anyway, so I had to choose my books the old fashioned way, by browsing the stacks. I came home with four books, one of which was a book on craft businesses. I didn't realize until I got home that there was a section on Amy Butler in it about how she started her business! I love Amy Butler! She inspires me, and might I mention again she's based in Ohio, near Columbus! I'm an even bigger fan after watching this. She and her husband didn't take out any loans for their business. Also, Amy appears to be very tall.

At least I won't be tempted to get Amy Butler bedding, considering I don't even have a bed. One day I will own furniture, just not quite yet.

I like my potatoes pink

2008-12-04T15:10:00.003+08:00

Things are still pretty boring. I'm taking a break from crafting so I can work on my actionscript skillz. Not going so well....I very far behind. So, sorry that I have nothing to post except for the pink potatoes I had for dinner. I went crazy with the spuds last week. I bought several pounds of potatoes at the farmers market before thanksgiving; blue potatoes, gold potatoes, fingerlings, and a few pinks. They mashed wonderfully. Yummers!

Fabrics I can't afford

2008-12-01T09:45:00.007+08:00

When I started sewing over the summer I was determined to use as much second hand or recycled materials as possible. And I'm still determined, but goodwill is more expensive here than it was in Virginia and Ohio. I used buy bedding and tablecloths for $2, but here they've been $4-$7. There are a few other thrift shops close by I have yet to check. I bought a skirt at a St Vinnies somewhere in New Zealand for NZ$2. I would love to find things for $2.00 here. No such luck yet. So sometimes it's actually cheaper to buy new fabric, especially if it's on sale.

I found my new favorite fabric shop. Pacific Fabrics is only two miles away and they have a giant fabric selection. Prices are a bit higher than Joanns but they have a better selection. Plus this place carries Amy Butler and Joel Dewberry, and Joann's does not. I was checking out the home decor fabrics and found some cute ones. Kawaii! Notice the price in the top photo, $17.99/yd. Now I am way cheap. I try not to pay more than five or six dollars a yard, lol. But these would make adorable wallets though....hmmm, maybe. Don't mind my thumb...I left it in for scale.

This one's from japan. Can't you tell.

The Gnome Chomsky Effect

2008-11-30T05:50:00.005+08:00

I'm looking at silk-screening supplies. I was hoping Joann's would have some so I could use my 50% off coupon, but they don't. I've been wanting to add silk-screening to my craft stash for a while, but the budget hasn't allowed it. Where's a Pat Catan's when you need one? In the past I've used a cheap method involving an embroidery hoop, glue, sheer curtain material and a rubber spatula. Here's a tutorial. It's time consuming, but you can't beat the cost savings. This is the method I used for my dog pillows.

Lately I've been wanting to try to print my own fabric. You can print custom fabrics at Spoonflower, which is wonderful! But it's still beyond my price range...plus i'd like to do it myself. Mostly because I want some garden gnome fabric. I love garden gnomes. I've been looking for a pocket sized one that I can take on my travels, but I haven't found one yet. If anyone finds some please let me know! I'm inspired by my pajamas. I also lurv those garden gnome plates. Want!

Pike Place at Night

2008-11-27T04:08:00.007+08:00

I took the bus downtown for my class last night. I left an hour and a half early so I could have some time to use the computer lab to work on my assignments. But the office was locked when I arrived. WTF! So with no place to sit and wait, I went back outside and wandered a few blocks toward Pike Place. It was a lovely little night scene. Half an hour later, I was able to get in to my classroom.

Weekender Bag #2

2008-11-25T15:34:00.005+08:00

Happy Birthday Carrie! I made another Amy Butler bag for my friend Carrie in Arizona for her birthday. It's the same pattern as the bag I made for Becky, but with different fabric, also from IKEA. This was the fabric I bought last month after dropping my mom off at the airport early in the morning and the waiting four hours for IKEA to open. See My Silly Sunday post. The interior fabric is standard home decor fabric from the fabric store.

The bag has a removable false bottom piece that sits inside the bag to give it more support. The pattern instructions say to use quilter's template plastic, but I found these halloween placemates in clearance for $.60. They were the perfect length and thickness. And they cost a quarter of the price for the template plastic. For the previous bag, I had used one of those flexible chopping boards. I'm a bargain shopper.

Feeling Blue

2008-11-18T14:35:00.003+08:00

My food reflects my mood today. I was feeling sooo angry, frustrated, and sad the whole day. Very blue. Please save us from these depressing times, Mr. Obama and Co.! Yesterday I went to the farmers market. It's potato season! I usually buy Yukon Gold potatoes at the supermarket (I don't like russet potatoes), but they have such great potatoes at the farmers market, so many kinds. I got a mix of yellow and blue potatoes to try. I wanted to try some mashed blue potatoes. I peeled them because the skin was pretty thick. The mashed potatoes turned out a lovely lavender color. Next time I might try blue potato salad.

I only learned recently that you should not store potatoes in the fridge because it causes the starch to turn to sugar. So unless you want sweet potatoes, just keep them in a dark place away from heat.

Wallets!

2008-11-14T03:56:00.006+08:00

I made two wallets yesterday! They came out pretty well, although the flowered one is a bit crooked. I had some sewing machine issues and a few mishaps with the snaps, but they turned out well. My machine has trouble sewing straight through all the layers of fabric. I hope I can amend this. You can definitely tell they are handmade. I don't know if this is a good thing. I'm thinking of selling these for $20-$25 until I get better at making them. Then maybe I can push it up to $30 :-) Any thoughts? So, who wants one? haha! No seriously, let me know if you do...

I've taken a liking to the polka dot fabric, so I may make more of those. It's a home dec weight fabric, and it feels a bit sturdier. But my sewing machine doesn't like it much. The red fabric is actually left over bed sheet pieces from my tomato ottoman. Actually, I think I may switch out my apples and pear wallet and start using this polka dot one. I likey! Funny, I was never the girl with lots of purses and wallets. I used the same trusty ugly velcro wallet for five years until not too long ago. I have to study for my class tonight, so I don't think I'll be making any more until the weekend. Thanks for looking!

My First Cold in Seattle

2008-11-13T05:15:00.004+08:00

I've got a bit of a cold, so I whipped out the cold meds. But I don't have a runny nose so I'm laying off the alka-selzer for now. Just a sore throat and headache. You might remember the pills I bought in Japan. I still don't know what they are for, what's in them, or how much to take. But the picture on the box looks like it's for headaches and throat aches. They took care of my aches when I had the flu in Japan, and they don't knock me out or get me high like American drugs. Maybe it's just aspirin, I don't know. But they were expensive so I hope there's something special in those pills.

I made myself some chicken noodle soup. Ingredients: Water, chicken, carrots, celery, onion, bouillon, noodles, salt. The chicken is local, and vegetables and bouillon are organic. Feed that cold. Better than Campbell's.

Joanna makes green smoothies. Ingredients: Apple, banana, carrots, broccoli, spinach, protein powder, ice.

We got out the juicer and made more fruit cream. I wish I had a better picture of the fruit coming out of the machine. It looked like poop. We call it fruit poop, in pineapple and berries. We didn't used bananas this time. It would have been funny to say "This shit is bananas!"

Consider the Afterlife of Garbage

2008-11-11T03:00:00.006+08:00

I saw this on 60 minutes last night. It's about how so much of our e-waste gets shipped to asia for poor peasants to "recycle". Even if you drop off your outdated electronics for recycling, they still may end up in places like this. I knew this was happening, but I'd only seen pictures. This area of China really has become a wasteland, and it's very sad to see. The video is about 13 minutes.

Watch CBS Videos Online

And while I'm on the topic...here comes my periodic greenie post. I want to make everyone aware of the giant island of garbage that is out floating out in the Pacific Ocean. Quite literally, there's a place in the Pacific where currents have collected floating trash to create a massive patch of garbage roughly twice the size of Texas. Read about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch on Wikipedia. Here's something from NPR or just google "garbage island" for more info. VBS.tv has some good videos about it.

one more thing, and this is probably not as interesting. But it involves two of my favorite smart people, so I thought I'd mention it. I became a fan of Michael Pollan's after reading Omnivore's Dilemma two years ago. It changed the way I thought about food and the food industry. Barack Obama cited in a recent interview an article Michael Pollan had written about US agriculture policies.

"I was just reading an article in the New York Times by Michael Pollen about food and the fact that our entire agricultural system is built on cheap oil. As a consequence, our agriculture sector actually is contributing more greenhouse gases than our transportation sector. And in the mean time, it's creating monocultures that are vulnerable to national security threats, are now vulnerable to sky-high food prices or crashes in food prices, huge swings in commodity prices, and are partly responsible for the explosion in our healthcare costs because they're contributing to type 2 diabetes, stroke and heart disease, obesity, all the things that are driving our huge explosion in healthcare costs. That's just one sector of the economy. You think about the same thing is true on transportation. The same thing is true on how we construct our buildings. The same is true across the board.
For us to say we are just going to completely revamp how we use energy in a way that deals with climate change, deals with national security and drives our economy, that's going to be my number one priority when I get into office, assuming, obviously, that we have done enough to just stabilize the immediate economic situation."

I made some more stuff

2008-11-09T07:52:00.002+08:00

Pumpkin cheesecake! I used this Marbled Pumpkin Cheesecake recipe. Except I used a store-bought crust because it's easy, and we don't have a proper springform pan anyway. Very easy and very delicious! Just mix all the stuff and pour it in the crust. It would be even better with some whipped cream. I think I'll make this again.

Neue Tasche 2

2008-11-09T07:25:00.007+08:00

I also made another bag. The one I'm using now is far too large, and I can never find anything in it. I had this Alexander Henry fabric that I wanted to use, but hadn't decided on what to make with it. This is the same pattern as the one I made for Joanna, Burda 8235. I had to add another layer of interfacing to make the bag a bit sturdier. For Joanna's bag I had used home dec fabric which is much stronger. I was too lazy to add interfacing for the strap, so the strap feels flimsy compared to the rest of the bag. Oh well. The lining and strap are navy blue, don't really match, but I didn't want to buy additional fabric. So I used this navy blue bed sheet that I had in my stash.

John Hodgman and Friends

2008-11-08T03:32:00.006+08:00

When I woke up yesterday morning, I had no idea that by evening I would be going to see John Hodgman and meeting the man himself at the end of the night. And that he would offer me a sandwich and cheesecake. My friend Rachel had heard on NPR yesterday that John Hodgman would be speaking at Town Hall that night. She gave me a call, and we both purchased the $5.00 tickets, soon to be sold out. For those you who do not watch the Daily Show or listen to NPR, you will know John Hodgman as the PC guy from the Apple commercials. Indeed, he is "a famous minor television personality" and general expert of all things.

It was a very entertaining and funny night. I haven't laughed so much in a while.

As a bonus, we were treated to informal performances by Harvey Danger/The Long Winters members, Sean Nelson (on the left) and John Roderick (on the right). The guy in the middle is a singer from New York, Jonathan Coulton. I remember going to see Harvey Danger in Cleveland about ten years ago. I can't believe it's been ten years. This is John Roderick about to play a musical solo on a piece of paper.

We waited about an hour (I think) afterwards to get our books signed. We were at the very end of the line, hungry and tired. They had brought out some food right as we got to the table. John was very cordial, shook our hands, sat for pictures and offered us some cheesecake, pho or sandwiches. We were so hungry, rachel and I both snatched a sandwich and left pretty happy.

Weekender Bag

2008-11-05T15:36:00.006+08:00

First off, let me just say...YAY FOR BARACK OBAMA!!!! I had class until 9pm, so I had to settle for web updates. I heard the end of Barack Obama's speech on the way home. What an exciting time for this country! It will be nice to have a president I can respect and admire again. Yay!!! Okay, back to the blog. Becky just got her birthday gift from me, so now I can post it. It's Amy Butler's Weekender Bag! I'd been pining for the pattern for several months before I broke down and purchased it from etsy. This bag was a challenge because so much of sewing is new to me. But I enjoyed making it, and I'll be making more. I really want one for myself!

The toughest part was the cording. I broke about eight needles trying to sew through all the layers. No joke. The other challenge was deciding on fabric. I couldn't afford the fabric I really wanted. Amy Butler fabric runs about $15 a yard, which is fine for a wallet. But this bag uses rougly 3-4 yards of fabric. Plus two yards of interfacing. so I went with IKEA fabric, which turned out well, I think. It's a very large bag and holds a lot of stuff.

This is from the Amy Butler site. check it out, there's lots of good stuff. And she's in ohio!

Election Day Distractions

2008-11-05T07:43:00.003+08:00

I'm seriously distracted today. I spent about two hours looking for jobs this morning. But now I can't concentrate. I'm so excited because it's election day! I went and got my free starbucks coffee today and now I'm wired. I have my Flash class tonight, so I need to go study. It's also distracting having my piano so close to my computer. I really like the piano song in the starbucks commercial, even though they clearly got their "inspiration" from Girl Effect. So I was trying to find out who wrote it because it sounds like Yann Tiersen, the guy who wrote the Amelie soundtrack. Turns out it's a guy named michael montes, who also has a song in a camera commercial you may have seen. It's a very easy song to learn, this took me about five minutes to figure out, thanks to youtube. I don't know if it's supposed to be this fast. This was right after I had my coffee.

Piano Test from craft berry on Vimeo.