July 2008 Archives

Just a quick update because I need to go to catch up on some sleep now that birthday celebrations are all over. Kumi is two!! Where the time goes, I will never know. Above is a dress I made for her birthday -- a summer dress from a super easy pattern in a Japanese craft book (I'll post the details later). It turned out to be quite a sexy little number. She takes her job as my clothes model very seriously, this girl. She turned her back to me, struck a pose and commanded me to take a photo of the back of the dress. No joke. This is the resulting shot:

On her actual birthday (yesterday), we had a mellow and incredibly fun day. We started out the day with presents, and Kumi delighted in tearing the wrapping paper off savagely. Then we had a lovely vanilla cake with whipped cream and green sprinkles (her choice).

She really liked it.

We then headed out to Bainbridge Island. After a 20-minute ferry ride over, we arrived at the ultimate destination: the aquatic center. Here, the three of us played and swam for several hours and I'm pretty sure Kumi thought she was in heaven. MF even attempted the rope swing -- what a man. Here she is in her new teddy bear "flotation device" from Grandma and Grandpa. She LOVES it.

My little girl is growing up. These last couple of years have been phenomenal -- now that she can express herself in quasi-full sentences, communication has taken on a whole new level of complexity. A lot of the guesswork has been taken out, but I still need to decipher a fair amount, and this often leads to meltdowns of extreme proportions when I get it wrong. At the same time, she seems to grasp and express the indescribable concepts of love and empathy and her sweet gestures and words surprise me frequently (a stroke on the cheek, a whispered "I love you", an offering of her toy when I look sad).

I can also tell that her imagination is blossoming and she spends a lot of time telling stories to herself.

It's a wonder to watch, but it also has the downside of bringing frightening things to life. For the last three weeks, she has refused to sleep through the night, sobbing that "maybe dark is scary" and at some point in the wee hours, you can find me lulling her to sleep by singing the ABC song over and over and over...

Happy Birthday, Kumi. May the year be filled with an abundance of swimming and love and friends and light. Here's a shot of MF being good-natured while Kumi tries to shove her finger up his nose. As an aside, I made the green shirt for his birthday, which was a week before Kumi's -- it was very difficult and I had to re-do the collar FOUR times. Anyway. This turned out to be a longer post then intended. Must go.

Here is evidence of how much your children observe and emulate you. I was making flour tortillas the other day and had given Kumi a little ball of dough to play with. After futzing with it for awhile, she placed it carefully in her play pot, and ran for her Garfield camera. "I need to take pitchers!" she exclaimed as she turned the pot this way and that. I laughed and laughed and she was so pleased with herself she took some more "pitchers".

Of course, it's also a little disconcerting that she thinks it's normal to take pictures of homemade meals. I realized that I may be spending too much time documenting everything I do and not spending enough time just enjoying life.

It's really summer in Seattle right now and I think I need to take some time to bask in the sunshine with my family. I'll be back in a week or two or three...I'll have lots to share when I get back.

Despite the lack of illustrations and crafts showing up on this blog of mine, there's a lot happening behind the scenes. MF's and Kumi's and a good friend's birthdays are just around the corner and I recently completed a fashion illustration assignment. I just can't reveal any of it yet, so I am forced to inundate you with one of my many breads.

This one was from a couple of weeks ago; a lovely light wheat bread that came out perfectly (thanks Prue for the tip on flour!). We're talking chewy and slightly crunchy crust combined with lusciously soft and springy crumb. Total yum.

I've had a number of successes since then: a baguette-esque creation (though I nearly burned down the apartment with that one. It's apparently very important to clean out your oven before turning the temperature up to 500 degrees), a multi-grain wonder, some hearty raisin breads, flour tortillas...and tonight, I made pita bread from scratch. I used this recipe. Homemade pita bread is surprisingly easy and delicious! I also made some hummus, which was 100 times better than the store bought kind.

I love my stand mixer. I constantly hear its siren calls to bake more, more, more...and I am too weak to resist. Oh, I hear it now, begging for chocolate cupcakes.

Remember the $3 coffee table I bought at a garage sale? It was in sorry shape, covered in candle wax and glitter, full of sticky tape residue.

For weeks, the table sat outside our back door, awaiting its transformation. Oh sure, I eagerly sanded it down the first couple of days, but sanding is very hard work, I quickly discovered. And the weather was just too nice or not nice enough or a pie needed to be baked...the truth is, I forgot about it.

What I really needed was a talented and indefatigably industrious mother who happened to be visiting during the month of June. Before I could say "there's this table..." my mama was fast at work, sanding and staining away. Here she is, my new-to-me coffee table, glorious in her American Walnut veneer.

Kumi's dollhouse rests at perfect height on this little beauty and many happy hours are spent giving all her Ava dolls baths and potty-time (Kumi names all her dolls Ava for some reason).

Thank you Mama. Without you, the table probably would never have stepped foot inside the apartment again.

I really really wanted to make small cheesecakes, so I modified an Ina Garten recipe and made it mini. I tend to get a little OCD when I get an idea into my head and I just could not get the image of miniature blueberry cheesecakes out of my mind. These li'l ones were baked in 3-inch spring form pans and were absolutely delicious, though they took forever to make.

Here's my modified version that yields two 3-inch cheesecakes if you're up for some marathon baking:

Blueberry Cheesecake

Crust
1 cup graham cracker crumbs (I used Trader Joe's Cinnamon Graham crackers, but if you use less sugary graham crackers, add about 1/2 tablespoon sugar)
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Filling
16 ounces cream cheese at room temperature
3/4 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons sour cream
1/2 tablespoon grated lemon zest
3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoons blueberry preserves

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Combine graham crackers, sugar (if using) and melted butter until moistened. Pour into springform pans. Using your hands, press the crumbs into the bottom of the pan and about 1/2 inch up the sides. Bake for 8 minutes. Cool to room temperature.
3. Raise the oven temperature to 450 degrees.
4. For the filling, blend the cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with paddle attachment on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Reduce speed of mixer to medium and add eggs and egg yolk, mixing well. Scrape down the bowl and beaters as necessary. With the mixer on low, add sour cream, lemon zest, and vanilla.
5. Add blueberry preserve and mix for about 30 seconds. The filling should have a marbled effect. Pour filling into cooled crusts.
6. Bake for 15 minutes, then turn the oven temperature down to 225 degrees and bake for another hour.
7. Take the cakes out and let them sit at room temperature for about 2 hours or until completely cooled. Wrap and refrigerate overnight.
8. Remove the cakes from the springform pan by carefully running a knife (the hotter the better around the outside of the cake. Leave the cake on the bottom of the springform pan for serving.
9. Sprinkle on a few fresh blueberries for added oomph and enjoy!

It's been really quiet around here, hasn't it? Aside from Fourth of July celebrations and birthday gatherings and crazy amounts of cooking and baking, there's this project that kept me busy into the wee hours of the night for well over a week.

Here she is, the Kumi doll and her 2008 fashion collection:

She measures about 10 inches tall (a little more if you include the pigtails) and I made her as a gift for Kumi's best girlfriend Aya. I've mentioned Aya's obsession with purple which is why the Kumi doll comes with three purple dresses. The colorful fabric is from Aya's mama when we worked on a different project. The little jeans are from an actual pair of old jeans I had lying around with a split side seam, and the frilly sweater is from a pair of socks I never wore. The lilac party dress is from the stash I got from my mom -- I believe it's real silk dupioni. The other clothing items were made from fat quarters and fabric I bought a few weeks ago.

Can I just tell you how much fun this was?? I wanted to make itty bitty clothes forever -- I just couldn't get enough of the instant gratification and the cuteness of the diminutive clothes. Why are things so much more adorable the smaller they are? I was able to sew each little outfit within half an hour and really, the designing part is what took the longest.

I'm happy to report that Aya was delighted and was especially fond of the purple dress with the white flower buttons.

I'm making an Aya doll for Kumi's birthday, which is in a few weeks. So much fun.

And without further ado, here is the fashion show...

And here are the girls gorging on cherries with their purple shades.

Yesterday, Kumi turned 23 months. It's actually getting hard to keep track of the months at this point and when people ask, I just say "almost two." I love her intense concentration in the photo above. She's watching Elmo on the ipod, but you'd think she's listening to economic forecasts on NPR. And really, could anything be cuter than a toddler in oversized headphones?

The main developmental difference I've seen in the last month is that Kumi's ability to string together words to form a sentence has improved dramatically. Today I realized that we had a full conversation about Elmo using the potty and needing a follow-up diaper change and I understood every word. There's a lot of Elmo love around here.

This beautiful dress is from our relatives in Japan. I recently found out that my Japanese relations check this blog regularly -- hi everyone in Hyogo and Chiba!

Here Kumi is sporting the jaunty ladybug rain boots from Bachan. Too bad that the weather's been scorching hot every since she got them. Peering from the background are portraits of Kumi painted by the same doting grandparent.

You may have noticed the absence of her signature two-pig-tailed hairstyle...her hair is so wild and unruly, there is no rubber band, no barrette, no cute animal-themed clip, no hair band and absolutely no brush or comb that can tame it.

Oh, but those curls. What would be the point of harnessing them?

Happy July, all! Friends are coming into town for the Fourth of July weekend, so things will be quiet around here again for a few days.