April 2008 Archives

Because I've been posting every day for the last few weeks and have been go-go-go on crafty things, Kumi's 21-month celebration date almost passed right by me.

At 21-months, she is a mighty chatterbox -- but only at home. She's a very shy girl, we've discovered and she takes her sweet time to get comfortable with other folks.

We've been seeing this face a lot lately:

Her second birthday is quickly approaching and I'm seeing glimpses of the crazy tantrums that everyone talks about. What's great is that she's still easily distracted and any mention of Elmo will quickly put a halt to the tears.

Along with the squawks, I've noticed how much she's spending time with imaginary play. She seems to tell herself stories all the time and there's a bit of sassiness that's totally delightful. Every day I hear her commanding her little crew of dolls: Sam (MF's childhood ragged doll), Pippi (you can see her legs poking out in the photo above), bear-bear (below) and the most excellent Bonita (an awesome doll with HUGE sunglasses and a fro).

Such a fun age. Friends with older kids tell me that it keeps getting better and it's really hard to believe. It gets better than this???

On a side note -- remember the failed necklace concept? You can see my slightly improved version hanging from the chair in the picture above. Still workin' on it...

I adore cookbooks. I adore all books, really, but books about cooking really make me happy. The funny thing is, though I've always collected cookbooks, it wasn't until a couple of years ago that I really started cooking. Back in my childless days I ate out way too much and the kitchen was a sad and neglected place. Plus I always had the excuse that the kitchen was too small -- it barely fit me and MF at the same time!

A child alters everything of course, and one of the things we quickly discovered was that eating out was no longer a pleasant experience. So out came the dusty pots and pans, the utensils that looked mysterious and dangerous to me, the unfamiliar packages of various uncooked food groups. And the cookbooks.

At first I was timid. I only tried the easiest recipes that required the least number of ingredients. I asked MF over and over "Is it OK? Is it overcooked? Do you like it?" Slowly but surely my confidence grew. I started sharing my dishes with friends and neighbors. I stopped counting the number of ingredients and relished the challenge of a complex recipe with dozens of ingredients instead.

I still revert to the no-fuss-cook-it-in-15-minutes dishes on days when I feel haggard (which is often, I admit), but I genuinely love cooking now and don't find it so intimidating. The cookbooks above are the ones I've had the most success with so far and they are:

How to Cook Everything - My go-to reference for literally everything.
The Splendid Table's How to Eat Supper - The lettuce wraps!
Nigella Express - The most amazing chocolate-chocolate chip cookies ever!!
Barefoot Contessa Family Style - Pretty much everything from this book is delish
Jamie's Dinners
Celebrating the Pleasure of Cooking I got this one for free when I used to work for Pottery Barn HQ and it's a fun book to read and cook from.

Back in March, we went to Indiana where Kumi got to spend quality time with her relatives. One of her favorite things was a plastic bead necklace from her Grandma. You know the kind -- its multi-colored beads snap into one another so you can make bracelets and necklaces. Unfortunately, Kumi loved to chew on the little snappy beads, and the little buggers had 'choking hazard' written all over them.

While making clothes for Kumi, I started to accumulate lots of little scraps and had the idea to make a necklace out of fabric. Brilliant, right? I would make them large enough so they wouldn't be a choking hazard and even if she chewed on it, I could toss it in the washer. It would be tactile, motor-skills enhancing...What's not to like about the idea?

So it turns out that I am inept at product design. I had this concept of interlinking cloth 'beads' and whipped up a couple to see if it would work:

Not so much. Linking them together left no option for linking other so-called beads...

The elastic bands are the kinds you can find at drugstores. Maybe I need to put them on both sides? If anyone has suggestions, I'd be so grateful. I will continue tinkering with this and will post updates!

I am quasi-bilingual. I can understand about 80% of spoken Japanese, read at roughly 4th grade level and write at about kindergarten level. I want to teach Kumi Japanese, but I always forget to use it. I think, dream and basically exist almost entirely in English so it often slips my mind that I actually can speak another language. Thank goodness we Skype with my mom every day and at least this way Kumi gets daily exposure to proper Japanese.

The other day, I remembered that I'd gotten some stencils from Daiso (so cheap!) and thought it might be fun to make Japanese flashcards for the basic phonetic alphabet. I added the illustration using watercolor and the paper is from a lovely watercolor notebook by Moleskin. Above are the first three I worked on tonight. Only 45 more to go!! Wow, that sounds like a lot. Maybe I should switch gears and do the English alphabet instead...

**My mother (hi mom!) just informed me that the first letter on the left is incorrect. Darn those $1.50 stencils (for all 48 letters)...back to the drawing board.

These are the clothes I've made so far from the fabulous Japanese book.

This latest ruffled-sleeve top may be my absolute favorite.

I made it last night, and it's been the most difficult pattern to decipher so far. I made many, many mistakes and had to re-do the sleeves about 5 times. And the back button loop? It was such a pain, I almost gave up...

But Kumi likes the girly, bubbly blouse a lot and was happy to model it for me as always.

We had a few hours yesterday with nothing to do and gray weather outside so we hauled out the cookie making supplies and made alphabet cookies. While Kumi busily changed Pippi's diaper about a million times, I made the dough and popped it in the freezer. Then I lured Kumi with the cookie cutters and rolling pin and the rest can be seen in pictures...

Here's the recipe (I modified a very basic one that came with the cookie cutters)

6 tablespoon butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
11/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

1. Mix softened butter and sugar in a bowl.
2. Add the egg and vanilla to bowl and mix.
3. In another bowl combine flour, baking powder and salt
4. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture a little at a time. Blend until smooth.
5. Pat the dough into a ball and wrap in plastic wrap or waxed paper. Put dough in freezer for about 15 minutes or until firm to the touch.
6. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C). Place wax paper on cookie sheet.
7. Roll out dough on a floured surface until it is about 1/4 inch thick. Use cookie cutters.
8. Place cookies on cookie sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes. These puff up quite a bit, so leave a couple of inches between each cookie.

These are very buttery and addictive, a little like short bread cookies. I ate the entire alphabet by myself last night!!

Remember my stamp project? Well, here it is.

I went ahead and started with the apple design -- it was surprisingly easy. I've also managed to finally partake in Illustration Friday since I thought this week's theme of "primitive" fit this very amateur attempt at stamp-making. Kumi and I had a lot of fun stamping. We got red tissue paper and created a custom-made wrapping paper:

Then I had to see what it would actually look like as a wrapped gift, so I found a box and some ribbon and voila. I like!!

A few years ago, I got this chair for five bucks via Craigslist:

Due to an unfortunate incident involving a husband that shall not be named, the top portion of the chair broke:

Also, because we strapped on a booster/high chair thingamabob onto the chair, the countless spillage and sticky food particles removed some of the paint:

The gross booster/high chair thingamabob has been thrown out (yay!!). Now I need to fix this cute little blue chair. I just got wood glue and I'm thinking of making a thick firm pillow that will serve as a booster seat. I'm posting this so that I will actually do it. Otherwise, the chair will sit in the kitchen corner as is for decades...

I haven't been showing much of my drawings lately, have I? Here's a little illo I did last night. Kumi is WAY into her Pippi doll right now.

There's something so refreshing and sweet about the color lilac, I think. Especially when it's lilac linen. I made this dress from a pattern I modified a bit and kind of screwed it up. It was my first attempt with a zipper, and though that part went well, the whole dress ended up being way too big for Kumi.

Here's the dress looking cute and petite:

And the lovely detail of lace and linen...

But here it is hanging off of Kumi like a potato sack. Don't let the pictures fool you -- these are the least potato-sacky looking photos I was able to take.

Ah well, she'll fit into it next year. On to the next project!

Few things in the world are as cute as a little girl saying "yummy yummy!" I have a hard time coming up with varied and nutritious snacks for Kumi and most of the time fall back on cheese and Elmo crackers (the power Elmo has over Kumi is so astounding...the crackers could taste like dirt and she would probably eat them happily).

Few things are as discouraging as a little girl saying "yucky yucky" and it happens more than I'd like to admit. I'm trying to flex my snack-making muscles and have been coming up with a few successes lately.

The classic strawberries and milk combo. Simple and delicious!

And this is a heavy-hitting snack with veggies AND fruit. It was a huge hit with Kumi.

1 apple, chopped
1 baked sweet potato, chopped
5 or 6 mini carrots sliced up
1/4 cup golden raisins
small handful of currants
1 tpsp butter
1/4 cup orange juice
1 tsp cinnamon

1. Bake sweet potato for about an hour.
2. Braise the apple and carrots with butter for about 5 minutes over medium high heat.
3. Add raisins, cinnamon and orange juice and cover. Simmer for about 10 minutes
4. Add chopped sweet potato and cook for another couple of minutes.
5. Let cool and serve. Yummy yummy!

For the first time ever, we had Kumi stay with a babysitter while she was AWAKE. OK, so technically that's not true since she's stayed with family and a couple of friends. But all the previous people have known Kumi since she was born. V has only been in the picture for about two months. And the thing is, she was totally fine. In fact, this is what they looked like when I called out "It's OK, honey, I'll be right back".

It was a very "Yeah, whatever Mom," moment.

An hour later, I came back and she was happy as a clam. Happy to see me, but only to say "There's Mommy!" and she immediately resumed playing with V. I guess I've been a bit overprotective.

It's been a great day. In the morning before the babysitting experiment, Kumi and I did a little painting. She was quite adept at handling the brushes and paint and she only doodled on the table once.

She had a grand ole time while I planned the week's menu. It's something I've become obsessed with these last few months. Every Sunday, I sit down and plan out the menu for the entire week. Then I do a big grocery store run the same day and try to stick to the menu religiously. So far, it's worked out great. There's so much less waste and we're saving a bit of money too.

Oh, and here's my little artiste's work:

When I was little, I remember making stamps out of potatoes and thinking it was the coolest thing in the world. It would be a good rainy day activity but I have a niggling feeling that potatoes and a 21-month-old may not be the best combination.

So I thought I'd make some of my own stamps. That's a linoleum block up there with a squiggle by Kumi. The white blocks are supposed to "cut like butter" -- let's hope that's true. I want to make large stamps that will be easy for Kumi to hold, but I haven't quite figured out all the mechanics of it. As for the designs...there will definitely be an apple. She can't get enough of them and wants me to draw apples all the time.

Why not just buy them, you might ask? What fun is that??

I'll let you know how the project turns out. We have plenty of rainy days so there may be a lot of stamping going on.

I love this fabric. I got it about a year ago and I first used it for some owl pillows I designed. You can see it a bit in the photo below.

Kumi really liked the ties on the shoulders...and quickly discovered that sucking on them would be delightful. The pattern came from the same book as the camisole top and was actually much easier to make.

Check out the crazy way the Japanese print their clothes patterns. See why it took me so long to figure it out??

Tantrums are becoming more and more frequent around here. Kumi is very securely attached to me and often refuses to do anything unless I am holding her hand, sitting beside her. Needless to say, it's challenging to get anything done.

So I felt incredibly productive when I was able to wash all the floors and vacuum this morning. Lucky for me, Kumi LOVES to clean. She calls it "keening".

While we were cleaning, she came across Book One of the journal I keep talking about. "Cuuute," she said, flipping through the pages. My daughter. So much like me.

I was able to sew another cute little top while Kumi napped today. I'll show you tomorrow! Right now, I have a date with my honey to watch Battlestar Galactica Season 3 on DVD. For those of you who know me, I am a die-hard fan of the show. To give you an idea of my utter geekiness when it comes to BG, I have listened to EVERY podcast commentaries and have watched all the deleted scenes. I'm pretty sure I cried when season 2 ended.

Here are a few more pages from Book One. This was around Halloween -- I was trying to figure out costumes for Kumi and we went to a pumpkin patch with some friends.

Hello! Has it really only been one day? I feel like I've crammed several weeks into 24 hours and the dark shadows under my eyes tell me that I need to stop feeling guilty if I don't fold laundry at midnight.

I completed my first project for Kumi's spring wardrobe. I give you the camisole top (or as the Japanese call it, "kyami-toppu"). I got the pattern from a fantastic Japanese book. The only stickler is that my Japanese reading comprehension isn't too hot, so I had to guess on a lot of things. But the illustrations are superb in the book, and once I figured out how to trace and cut out the pattern (I'll show you a picture of this madness later -- I'll be making lots from this book, I'm sure), the rest was pretty easy.

Cute, huh?

By the way, I'm fully aware that my blog archives are still acting strangely. Between play dates, laundry, cooking and deciphering Japanese sewing books, I just had to let some things go...you've got to choose your battles, you know?

I mentioned that I keep an old school journal with watercolor illustrations. I'm embarrassed to admit that I never put together the all-important baby book of Kumi's first year. To make up for that, I thought I would record her second year with this handwritten/drawn chronicle of her development. The first book is from August 2007 to the end of November 2007. I'm now on book two, and I'm noticing a definite slowing of pace. I was full of enthusiasm throughout the first book and you can really see the difference in the illustrations.

Admittedly, the writing is very underwhelming in both books...by the time I can scramble a few minutes to jot something down, I can barely keep my eyes open and I can't remember the seven million adorable/annoying things that Kumi did. So each entry tends to be a laundry list of things we did in a very dry, uninteresting way. But the pictures are kind of pretty! Here are some of my favorites from the early part of Book One. I will post some more pages a little later. It's getting close to midnight and I still need to fold laundry...

As I consumed vast amounts of my homemade challah bread today, I thought about all the fabric I have languishing in one of our closets. I've been pulling out my sewing books again and am itching to get a project started. So I took a handful of material and tossed them in the washer and dryer.

As a rule, I am a monochromatic dresser myself. I like black, white, gray and blue (jeans, to be precise). Not too exciting. But for Kumi, I feel that a splash of pattern is necessary to go with her colorful personality.

I folded up the fabric nice and neat and now the cutting begins. Stay tuned for updates on Kumi's spring wardrobe.

The husband suggested "Challah Back" for the title (as in "Hollaback Girl", that popular song by Gwen Stefani). It's nice to have such an involved and supportive husband...

Anyway, last night I was gripped by a sudden need to bake. So there I was, kneading and pounding dough at 10pm. I didn't realize kneading bread was such a workout. After half an hour, I was sweating profusely and smearing flour all over my shiny face. By the time the bread finished baking, it was close to 1am.

It was worth it though. The challah loaves came out lovely. Golden and thinly crispy on the outside, soft and moist on the inside. I loosely followed the recipe from this book.
The recipe called for 7 3/4 cups of flour but I only used 6 cups.

Here's another beauty shot -- the key is in the egg/milk wash just before placing the loaves in the oven.

It's absolutely scrumptious with strawberry jam - yum!!

It's been such a social week! Music class, play date, a fun get together with a neighbor involving radish sandwiches...now I'm exhausted and I'm off to bed. But here are a few fashion-y images for your viewing pleasure...I'm mulling over Project Number 3 and think I might try something like the apron dress. That seems appropriately spring/summer-ish, don't you think?

Alright, I'm starting to make some headway and am actually understanding some of the code that had me stumped. As you can see, my very plain but totally customized banner is finally up. Now I just need to delete some extraneous info and rearrange a few things...

I hate to continue to bore you with my computer unsavvy-ness, so I've included a photo of our Friday night meal. Yes, every Friday I make sushi. From scratch!! Granted, I buy the fish and merely slice 'em up for the nigiri (the ones with the raw fish resting on little rice balls), so maybe "from scratch" makes it sound too grandiose. The California rolls, however, require some manual labor and are not the easiest things to make. But they are definitely fun to roll.

I've discovered that making sushi at home is surprisingly unstressful and cost-effective. For 1/3 of the price of going to a restaurant, I can get great raw fish (tuna, yellowtail, salmon) and other assorted sushi ingredients (grilled eal, marinated mackarel, imitation crab) from Uwajimaya, our local Asian market. It does take a couple of hours to make, but I've been doing the sushi thing for about 4 months now and I'm getting faster at rolling and slicing. And really, what could be better than edamame and sushi on Friday nights?

I'm taking a break from my blog coding woes right now and decided that I would rather talk about my sewing aspirations. You see, I learned how to use a sewing machine from my mother when I was a wee little thing. However, I had a tendency of starting projects with great enthusiasm but never really completing them.

I want to change that.

So. I studied a few sewing books and tried my hand at the handmade clothes craze that's sweeping up the DIY world. My results have been lackluster at best.

I had these lovely wool fabrics that I wanted to use before the weather turned too balmy (turns out I had nothing to worry about. It's now April and gusts of icy winds are blowing the cherry blossoms every which way). I basically made up a pattern and this is what I ended up with:

Here is a detail shot of the flower that took me forever and a half to make. I think it's rather preppy-chic and very cute, but the husband thinks it looks too 1970s.

Undaunted, I attempted clothes project number two. This time I envisioned a flirty spring blouse with ruffled sleeves. I had a small bit of peach cloth that my mom had sent me and figured it would be good practice. Again, I made up a pattern and out of sheer laziness, decided to extend the bias tape (which I made myself, I might add -- no wonder I was so lazy afterward because making the bias tape was some serious work) so that the blouse could be tied instead of buttoned. Here it is.

And the back view:

The husband dubbed this one "Girl, Interrupted". Much wittier than my "2008 Hospital Garb Collection".

Clothes Project Number Three is stewing in my mind right now. I will keep you posted.

It's almost 1 am and I am still trying to figure out Movable Type -- but I think I'm getting closer. At least I got the basic stuff to kind of work. I tell you, it's been a week of coding conundrums...must go to bed. Here's a little illo I did a while back...

I love watercolors. The pen will always be my first love, but I've been smitten by the lush and forgiving nature of watercolors lately.

When it comes to painting, I'm an impatient person. I want results right away and I can't stand making mistakes. I'm not normally like this and sometimes I wonder if I've avoided painting for so long because it brings out my less endearing qualities. But watercolors, they are so gentle and kind and vibrant. Even the mistakes look like intentional swaths of color. This one below was full of "oopsie" moments (apparently I say that a lot since I hear Kumi muttering her version "oopie" all the time)...but I'm happy with the end result. I heart watercolors.

OK, so I know that the blog is looking weirder and weirder each day. For the life of me I can't seem to get the Movable Type template code to do what I want it to do. The first time I installed it, it took me months to figure out. Now that I'm trying to upgrade, I'm sure it'll take me several more months before I get it to look the way I want it...sigh. There must be an easier way...

We have one of those ginormous IKEA shelves in what we affectionately call the playroom. The room is intended to be a formal dining room, but we don't have a real dining table so it naturally became the dumping ground for Kumi's toys. One of my ongoing projects is to organize this shelf so that it doesn't look like a cluttered junkyard.

The biggest eyesore and the bane of my existence was this:

A large flat screen monitor that we never use. Unfortunately our closets and extra storage spaces are completely full and I can't fit the thing to hide it away. And there is that off chance that we might actually use it. So my solution? A monitor cozy!

I absolutely love this fabric. It's from a Japanese textile company and I had just enough to make this cover for the unsightly monitor. It was really easy; all I needed was one long rectangular panel and two triangular sides. I was able to sew it in less than an hour!

Here is the shelf in its entirety. You can see the fake stove top I tried to make for Kumi on the lower right. I wish I had a before shot, because the shelf has come a long way.

So the blog design is still generic and I've only gotten around to fixing one page of my out-of-whack website (and was only able to fix it with the help of my talented husband). Maybe it's because all I do is make pancakes. Lots of mini-pancakes.

And then I use cookie cutters to make them into cute shapes:

And then I repeat this over and over almost every day. I actually think Kumi is sick of pancakes but they are so darn adorable I can't stop myself...besides, these are made with whole wheat flour and very little sugar, so they are relatively healthy. If you can't tell, I'm big on using whole wheat flour.

In other news, my ear infection is much better and I can hear again. Thank goodness because from all the things I read online, I could've DIED from an ear infection. For someone who has a tendency toward hypochondria, this was terrifying. Have I told you about my skin cancer incident? No? Well, it's long, involved and totally anticlimactic (naturally I didn't have skin cancer) so I will spare you.

Whole Wheat Mini Pancakes

I eyeball everything so this is a very approximate recipe.

1 cup of whole wheat flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 tablespoons sugar
1 egg
1 tablespoon melted butter
1/2 cup (or more if you like flatter pancakes) of milk. I use nonfat, but any kind of milk is fine

1. Mix all the dry ingredients together
2. Add egg -- this is infinitely more fun when you allow your toddler to crack the egg
3. Add melted butter (I microwave the butter for about 30 seconds) and milk and mix together
4. Melt a little butter in a non-stick pan. I find that if I don't do this, my first batch gets all gunky. You won't need to butter the pan after the first batch.
5. Drop dollops of the batter into the pan. A tablespoon makes the perfect little mini-pancake. Cook for about 1 minute on each side.

If you are crazy like I am, use a variety of cookie cutters to create sweet little pancakes.