Excuses, Excuses & a Unicorn!

I'm even further behind on my November softie ornament-a-day challenge than ever right now, though I have a plethora of excuses and other things I've been doing over the last few weeks, some of which I will now list off: exercising (did I mention I ran a half marathon earlier this month? I did.), acute softie burnout, Thanksgiving cooking/eating/recuperating, watching Boardwalk Empire and The Mindy Project (because I am clearly gangster while remaining witty and feminine, duh), and um, other things, like...oh yeah, working a full time job and maintaining successful personal relationships with friends and family. There is just so much on my plate, both metaphorically and right next to my week-old pumpkin cheesecake. Yum! Life! 

However, you know what they say: "if you aim for the moon," blah blah blah. I'm commending myself for even coming this far. I mean, I've made 19 softie ornaments in 28 days. That's still pretty good, and if I don't praise myself for my many minuscule achievements, then who will (other than the people from whom I fish for compliments)?

 This is our Thanksgiving meal, just to prove to you how immersed I was in eating and recovering from the holiday. It's hard to get back on the crafting wagon after the gluttonous food orgy that was this T-giving, but I managed. I think I took this photo in the aperture setting instead of auto setting. Brilliant! 

 This is a poor photo of the most recent sugar skull ornament. I like it OK. 

I made these snowflake ornaments because they're so easy peasy that I can stitch them in the car. Once again, multiples! It's the best way to get several done in a row. I have big plans to make another one, as you can see by this loose flake. 

 This is my proudest and happiest softie achievement of late. I started this project over a week ago on a whim as a gift for my friend Justin, but I screwed up and sewed across its face, so another friend Kate helped me by cutting out the bad seam last night. I mess up all the time, yet don't own a seam ripper, for anyone looking for an inexpensive gift. 

A few words about this unicorn: I cut out the head shape and then stitched the eyes first, and they were just perfect. I used my narwhal technique for the horn, and I blanket stitched the bottom piece on to make it truly 3D. I'm just having a love affair with this unicornament (I just now thought of that. Wow. Again--just brilliant.) I mean, look at that rainbow mane! And it's perfect for my friend. I can't wait to give it to him! 

Do you watch that show Adventure Time? Me either! That show is totally for stoners! This ornament was loosely inspired by my favorite character, Lady Rainicorn. One critique I'll say is that I could've added a blue piece in the mane, to pick up the blue in the eye, but I didn't think I'd have the neck space. All in all though, super softie success!   

The Softie Challenge Continues

Just to update you, I have been keeping up with my self-imposed softie ornament-a-day treadmill with great aplomb, especially considering this week's momentous election and a trip to Cirque du Soleil, which both cut into my crafting time. 

Here are the finished sugar skull ornaments from November 6 and 7. I decided to switch back to some owls after completion. 

Again, I worked in multiples to knock out a few owls for November 8 and 9. I finished them this afternoon. 

 

I love these kind of muted, rustic colored felts, but I think I'm boxing myself in with the owls, and just doing the same sorts of designs and color schemes over and over. I wanted to bust out and do some more bright and/or zany-looking ones. 

Did I succeed? I like this little guy so far. I did it so fast, it was like doing a quick doodle, but with felt. The weekend should give me some good long swathes of time to really work on some details and more time-consuming projects. Will advise! 

Veggie Harvest Stuffin' Squash

People like to be outraged that all the Xmas-mania is starting too early. "Halloween just ended!" they say. "What about Thanksgiving?!" I saw a newspaper cartoon in which a turkey is confronting Santa about backing off the turkey's month. Why are you so excited about your imminent doom, turkey? It doesn't really make sense. 

During a recent post-Halloween cold snap, I wanted to remind myself of T-giving and modify a stuffed squash recipe I make to more closely resemble a dish my mum used to cook for me and my sister. I kept thinking about sausage stuffing (or "dressing" for you Southerners), but I don't eat or cook a lot of meat. By incorporating thyme, rosemary, dried cranberries and faux sausage (I used a vegan Field Roast sausage in apple & sage flavor. You're welcome, turkey!), I tried to capture some fall flavors. The end result was pretty delicious and definitely homey and comforting—perfect for a chilly autumn evening. Here is the recipe. It takes a little more than an hour to make, and yields two cozy servings. It's also vegan if you omit the feta. 

Ingredients

Acorn squash

Olive oil

½ cup white quinoa

1 cup water or broth

Half of an onion, chopped

1 cup sliced mushrooms

2 ears of corn, in husk

2-3 cloves garlic, minced

2 Field Roast vegan sausages (or any fake or real meat crumble you desire. Or leave it out. Do what you want!)

Rosemary

Thyme

Dried cranberries

Feta (optional)

Paprika (optional)

Cayenne (optional)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Slice acorn squash in half with a huge knife. Scoop out seeds, and set seeds aside if you want some extra crunch. Brush olive oil on cut sides and “bowl” of squash. Place in oven cut side up for about 45 minutes to an hour. Check on it after 45 minutes, and remove when tender. Turn oven to 350 degrees, and set corn in husk directly on rack for 30 minutes. (I roasted the corn in a separate convection oven, but you could put the corn in along with the squash at 350, then remove corn after 30 minutes and turn up heat to finish cooking squash.)

Place quinoa and water/broth in pot and add some salt. Bring to a boil, then cover and turn down heat to simmer for 20 minutes or until quinoa is fully sprouted and liquid is absorbed. While quinoa is cooking, heat 2 tablespoons of oil in sauce pan on medium and brown the sausages. Remove to paper towels, then add a little more oil if necessary and sauté onions and mushrooms. Turn heat down a little and add minced garlic and about a ½ cup (more if desired) chopped dried cranberries. Chop up cooked sausage and add to pan. Use a sharp knife to carefully scrape corn kernels from cob and add to pan. Toss to incorporate.

 Turn heat off. Finely chop as much thyme and rosemary as you want (a couple tablespoons, probably, but be careful because too much rosemary can overpower a dish easily and make it taste “soapy.”) and add to pan. Toss to incorporate. When quinoa is cooked, add to pan and mix it all together. 

For crunchy roasted seeds, remove as much squash innards as possible from seeds and rinse in a colander, then dry. Toss with a little olive oil, salt, pepper, paprika and cayenne. Place on cookie tray and roast at 300 degrees for about 10-15 minutes, tossing once halfway through.

When squash is tender, remove from oven and scoop quinoa corn sausage mixture into the bowls of the squash. Top with feta crumbles (if desired) and spicy roasted seeds. Stick a piece of rosemary in it and pretend you're fancy. Happy Fall!    

Some notes: Again, I have a small convection oven, so I used that and the oven, since there's a lot of roasting going on here, but I think it could be manageable to do it all in the oven. To speed things up, you could roast the corn ahead of time, use a can of corn, or skip the seed step completely. Other suggestions I would have would be add sage, swap diced apple for the cranberries, add pecans or walnuts. Go crazy. Just make sure there's some nice textures and a bit of sweetness. 

Handmade Holiday 2012 Kickoff Craft Challenge!

This year, I was even more pumped about the holidays than ever! I had vowed to put off my excitement until October 31 had come and gone, and on November 1, I had my first Holiday Craft Night for the impending Handmade Holiday 2012. Yay! I started out with holiday ornaments, and after nearly a week of daily crafting, I decided to challenge myself to create a softie ornament for each day of November.  

Day 1: This is Jimmy the Fox. I found a great piece of very thin, rust colored corduroy in the remnants bin at JoAnn's. I love the texture and look of the fabric, but I've found it frays and tears easily. Oh well. This fox was inspired by a locket my friend Bekah gave me. Bekah says, "Foxes are the new owls."

Day 2: But owl ornaments are in my Handmade Holiday roots, man! I wanted to make an owl from the corduroy as well. This one is called Hoo-boo, and I tried to make him look more expressive with eye brows. Success level: modicum. 

Day 3: Perhaps because I started my holiday crafting so close to Halloween, I started working on a sugar skull design. I don't particularly love sugar skulls, but what I do enjoy about them is that the design possibilities are pretty endless. They're colorful and they can incorporate needlework and wool felting. Also, if I was to make an attempt to sell something, I think a lot of people would buy these, just judging by how many chicks I know that dressed up and painted their faces dia de las muertos-style for Halloween.

Day 4: I think people like to be reminded of Halloween during Christmastime, also, like in The Nightmare Before Christmas. I loved embroidering the flaming diamond on this one's forehead. This is the one I'll probably keep for our own tree. 

Day 5: I decided to make another fox. This one is called Winky, because she's winking. I think she turned out superior to Jimmy, but it's still very difficult to have decent craftsmanship with that delicate fabric, dang it. 

 Day 6: A good way to churn out several softies in a row is to work in multiples. My least favorite part of making these skulls is cutting out the skulls, shaping the lower jaws and cutting out eye holes, so sitting down and doing those jobs on two ornaments was very satisfying. It freed me up to then focus on just the colorful design elements once I completed the grunt work, which makes working on them much more fun. Just a little ways away from having these two complete, and if I do it today I'll be one up on my month-long challenge!

The first six days of this grueling challenge beg many questions. Will I be able to keep up this breakneck pace of crafting? Will I crumble under the weighty pressure of the looming holidays? What further demented designs will spring forth from this maniacal mind?? Stay tuned to this enthralling blog to find out! 

Better Photo of Christmas Tree Alien!

Surprise! I DO give a crap! I know you were silently begging for it, so here it is: A better photo of Christmas Tree Alien! For those of you who may be thinking, "This isn't a very good picture either," allow me to offer a retort: I only said I might post a better picture of Christmas Tree Alien. Lower your expectations or you're dooming yourself to a life peppered liberally with disappointment!

Christmas Tree Alien is a leftover breed of semi-immortal aliens that landed on Earth many thousands of years ago. He's part gen (ultraterrestrial, core-dwelling, wish-granting beings that become invisible and then speak to chosen ones like myself, guiding them to fulfill their destiny in the universe) and part something else. His ancestors helped organize the ancient arrangements of massive structures that form the magnetic vortex through which his and other kinds landed here on Earth. He is charged with managing those arrangements so that one day his kind may return, and this he does from the clandestine locale of our Christmas tree, Olivia.

And I gotta say he's doing a really great job.

Handmade Holiday Continued!

Fuck it. I love Christmas this year. I spent my Sunday crafting silly ornaments and making holiday confections while listening to a playlist of festive holiday music with my boo, and it was SO AWESOME.

Curling up on the couch with a felting needle, watching Labyrinth. Wrapping gifts I know the recipient will love and laugh about and think about the years of friendship attached to it. Meow-singing along to carols I don't know the words to. Powdered sugar everywhere. Giggling. Christmas rules. You just have to kind of make it your own.

And here I thought the first post-Boardwalk Empire Sunday would be a massive disappointment.

These are the easiest holiday treat to make in large quantities and they offer a satisfying combination of salty and sweet. For these reasons I will now share with you the instructions for preparing them.

First you need a bag of small pretzels, red and green M&Ms, wax paper, and chocolate and/or white chocolate flavored bark. It has to be the chocolate BARK, so look carefully. Melt a few squares of bark in a glass cup or bowl in a microwave for increments of 15-30 seconds, but don't completely melt it, because it helps to have a little malleability to it. Spread pretzels on wax paper and spoon a small dollop of melty bark on each one. Stick an M&M on each and let cool.

Make pretty bags by wrapping one end of a small box in shiny wrapping paper. Slip the box out of the unwrapped end. Crease the sides of the "bag" and reinforce the seams with tape. Fill bag with chocolate pretzel treats, adorn with ribbon and deliver to friends. Feast on smiles.

I just love these little owls and each one has a different character to me. This one is kind of a spunky, little baby owl. He hasn't really learned the ropes yet, but the wiser ones I made previously will help him out. Hopefully there are many more owls to come because my friends seem to like them a lot.
To top our mini tannenbaum, Tobi wanted a starfish. I love Tobi's felty requests. Sometimes I unload my growing collection of craft supplies and I just stare at the rolling mountains of felt, misshapen balls of brightly hued raw wool, and tangled spools of string and yarn and become immobilized by the very lack of creative boundaries. Then Tobi swoops down on his frazzled heap of girlfriend and gives me a little project to tackle, and suddenly I have a vision, direction and a constant source of encouragement. Thanks, Tob.
Now stick with me here, people. My boy also wanted a little a Christmas tree alien, and like I said, I feel no less than compelled to oblige all of his Christmas crafty desires. Let's critique this photograph: It's too dark and a little blurry. Maybe one day I'll give a crap and post a better one.
Here she is: Olivia. Some of the gifts beneath her are even real.

Handmade Holiday

It's been a while, followers. I've spent my blog hiatus thinking about how to take better pictures of my creations with my new camera (which is very mysterious to me), wondering whether to start completely over with my blog or get a URL, and moving. But the holidays have catapulted me into a crafty wonderland, so I could neglect my little blog no longer.

In the past, I’ve found the holidays abhorrent and completely full of shit. Red paired with green is a visual monstrosity, driving within a 30-mile radius of the mall becomes a rage-inducing disaster and don't even get me started on the music.

But since last year, I changed my mind. Not about red and green or my fourth quarter shopping center boycott, but about celebrating the Christmas season with unbridled zeal. See, the holidays cry out for crafting—be it in DIY décor, handmade gifts or creativity in the kitchen—and boy, do I love crafting.

Here are two cute owl ornaments I sewed and felted for our new tree, which we call Olivia.

This one is an onion ornament. The Onion show commercial kept coming on, and for some reason, that seemed like a good idea for an ornament. I'm not sure about this one. Maybe I'll make some other veggie ornaments to go with it.

Happy Holiday Crafting!