Blanket

Earlier this summer I found out a good friend of mine from high school and her husband were expecting a baby girl! I was surprised and thrilled by the news. She is the first of my high school friends to become pregnant and I am so excited to be able to meet her daughter someday soon.

Unfortunately for me, they live on the other side of the country, but I wanted to do something for her and her baby girl. (She is expected to arrive any day now!) So I set out to make a blanket.

Now I have never made a baby blanket before. In fact my only experience with sewing outside of disastrous projects in girl scouts was to make a t-shirt quilt. (A project that took three very large rooms, days of work and not a few swear words before it was finished.) The lesson I had learned from that disaster was to keep it simple.

My plan was basically to sew two pieces of fabric together with quilting in the middle, can't get much more simple than that right?

I did a quick internet search for my usual crafting go-to's like Jo-Anne's or Michael's, but all of them were quite a significant drive away. I looked a little closer to home and found Sew Modern. It is a cute, bright little store with tons of beautiful fabric. I was nervous at first that in such a small store I would stand out as a non-craft-doer and be ridiculed by the staff. (I have issues...) But the sales people were incredibly helpful, friendly and non-judgmental. I dug deep into my brain for old crafting terms such at 'yard' 'embroidery thread' and 'batting'.

Here is what I came home with: A yard each of a pink and a pretty light green egg pattern fabric, a yard of cotton batting, and white embroidery thread. I already had on hand needles, pins and white thread from a sewing kit my mom thoughtfully put together for me when I went off to college. (Thanks mom!)

Since I got one yard of everything I didn't really have to cut anything. I just ironed the pieces before I put the two fabric pieces face to face so that the 'pretty sides' were together. (So when I turned the whole thing inside out later it would have the nice sides facing out.) Then I place the batting over both pieces and pinned three of the sides of the square. Then I got to work sewing.

Did I mention I don't own a sewing machine? I don't. So it took quite some time to get around the edge. I used a back stitch, (which I didn't know was called a back stitch until I did a quick internet search just now) all the way around on three sides and most of the way along the fourth side. It took quite a long time is far less regular and straight as a sewing machine would make, but has that cozy home-made look. Then I turned the blanket inside out.

When I turned it inside out some of the corners got bunched up with too much fabric. My solution was to turn the blanket inside out again, snip off the corner of fabric closer to where my stitches were and then turn the blanket right side out again. Problem solved. I then sewed up the hole that I had used to turn things right side out. This was by far my favorite step, because it started looking like a blanket instead of like a hairy thing with pins in it.

However, it needed something to hold all of the pieces together. Otherwise it would have that loose duvet-inside-a duvet-cover feeling instead of that secure quilt feeling. So I ironed the blanket again, and got out my white embroidery thread. (And after a quick trip back to sew modern, my embroidery needle, oops.) I marked out regular points across the quilt and sewed little knots. It turns out I was doing my own version of a "French Knot" to make little dots of white across the blanket and hold everything together.

Then I tried my shaky (and tired) hand at some real embroidery. Now I used to do cross stitching under the watchful eye of my grandmother, but I don't know if I had ever embroidered anything before. But it was important for me to add this little message to the blanket for the my friends and their new baby. I attempted a stem stich, marked out my pattern with a pencil and went to town.

I'm pretty proud of how it all turned out. While I don't think that you could possibly confuse my blanket with one bought at the store, I think that's part of it's charm. It's not-quite-square edges, weird made-up stitches and newbie embroidery show the love that went into making it. Congratulations Petra and David I'm wishing you the best. Happy Holiday's and Happy New Year!

~Claire Out

New Recipe- Shepard's Pie

Over the past few months I've been enjoying trying out a few new recipes for Mike and I to share. It has been a fun way to expand my culinary horizons and a chance to improve my basic-at-best cooking skills.

I don't know why I picked out trying to make Sheppard's Pie, it isn't something I grew up eating, and I never really order it out. Maybe it's the winter months and I'm was yearning for something hearty? Maybe I read too much English literature (aka meat pie propaganda)? No matter the reason, I was determined to try to make this English comfort food.

A Sneak Peak at the Finished Product

So I turned to my trusty friend, the Food Network website for some recipes. I ended up adapting Alton Brown's Shepard's Pie Recipe. His version left out the pie part of the pie (which is probably more historically accurate, knowing Mr. Brown), but I wanted to have a crust of some kind on the bottom. I just used frozen pastry dough rolled out and put into oven safe bowls. Did I mention I was going for individual Shepard's Pies? (Is that the plural of Shepard's Pie? Weird.)

I also substituted ground beef for the ground lamb (which may make it more of a Cowboy's Pie then Shepard's) and a dash of soy sauce and tabasco for Worcestershire sauce. I also made about a third of what the recipe called for, hoping to achieve something more appropriate for two people.

My lovely assistant making the mashed potatoes.

The Filling

Assembly In Progress

It turned out pretty well. It was rich, comforting, and hearty. Half a bowl was enough for a filling dinner for me, and I was able to enjoy the rest as lunch the next day. If I were to attempt individual pies again I would probably go with a large muffin tin instead of a cereal bowl.

As a newbie to Shepard's Pie I was pleasantly surprised by the excellent meat to veggie ratio.

The crust was still a little doughy when it came out of the oven, but that could easily be fixed by a little pre-baking before adding the filling. I also wouldn't make the mashed potato's as smooth on top. I might leave a few more edges so that they could brown up in the oven.

I feel pretty good about my first foray into meat pies. Perhaps I'll revisit this again some time before the winter is over. Mmmm comfort food.

~Claire Out

Calendar Girl

Do you know how days can sometimes get away from you? Some days I am too busy to stop and think, and sometimes I am too tired to even really get out of my pajama's and engage the world. No matter the situation, I find I occasionally go to bed feeling like I wasted a day.

Let me tell you, that is not a good feeling.

But I've been doing something for the last several weeks that has really helped lessen the number of wasted days.

It all starting when I was browsing around on the internet and I stumbled upon this page. Basically it describes Jerry Seinfeld's key to success; which was to use a big wall calendar and put a big 'x' on days when he wrote and simply not break the chain of x's. He credit's his success to working every day at writing comedy.

Now, let me temper the above statement by saying that when I think of huge success stories, Jerry Seinfeld isn't the first person to leap to mind. And I don't think that hours put into something is the only factor in creating success. I do however, know one of my biggest weaknesses in general is consistency, and this seemed like a great technique to help me with that.

The first thing that sprang into my mind when I read this was that I should apply Seinfeld's calendar technique to a work out plan. Then I found this website about a man who was applying this with a slow-building work out routine. So I started slow (really slow) with a routine that looked like this:

1 Push Up

1 Sit Up

1 Squat

5 Jumping Jacks

1 Minute of Walking

And I've been added something small every Sunday since. Nothing overwhelming, nothing intimidating, but very very easy to commit to. It is so easy (and short) that I can find time for it on the busy days and get up the motivation to get it done on the lazy days. Right now my daily routine is looking like this:

3 Push Ups

3 Sit Ups

3 Squats

3 Calf Raises (on each leg)

4 Minutes of Yoga

10 Minutes of Walking

15 Jumping Jacks

A bit more of a commitment, but since I've been increasing by such baby steps, I haven't been able to psych myself out.

However, being the overachiever that I am, I wasn't able to leave it at just a work out. I wanted to improve my writing too. So I committed to writing something every single day. It can be for the blog, in my journal, or for some other creative endeavor. The best thing to come of this commitment is that for me writing is no longer sacred. The conditions no longer have to be perfect, I don't have to wait for the muse to descend, I just write. If it isn't good, that's okay for now, but at least I'm showing up every day.

The other thing that popped into my head as an activity for the calendar plan was my Italian. You remember my Italian? Well I had been plugging away at it, but only intermittently. Basically everyone in the world agrees that the best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself. My progress has been pretty impressive since I started working at it ever day. I'm amazed at how much is sticking in my brain since those neurons have no time to fall out of practice.

When I was devising my calendar plan, this is when I came up short. There was no way I was going to divide up each calendar square into thirds... I needed to give myself one more thing to do each day. (Please tell me I'm not the only person who's brain works this way? Even Numbers < Odd Numbers.)

I thought about my activities so far. Physical body, check. Creativity/self-expression, check. Intellect, check. Then it hit me. It was all about me. Surely I could allow one thing a day to be about someone else.

So I went back to something we'd focused on at my elementary school, "Conscious Acts of Kindness". The beauty of this requirement is it can be really big or really small. Some examples I've done so far include, donating some old clothes to charity, picking up trash that wasn't mine, and making dinner for Mike and I to share. My very favorite part of this challenge is that it makes me spend part of every day thinking about what I can do for other people. This is the aspect of my day I look back on with the most fondness when I'm going to bed. How can I feel like I've wasted my day when I know I did one kind thing, no matter how small?

Being truthful here, I have totally broken the chain once already, but I'm back on the horse and I haven't given up.

I love having something to do with my days beyond my work, my friendships, my routine. I go to bed each night knowing I've done something with my day.

And let me tell you, that is a good feeling.

~Claire Out.

Tree in the House!

Ta Da! I'm making my triumphant return to blogging! (Maybe not triumphant, maybe more like embarrassed from being away so long. But the important thing is I am back, and writing.) Hurrah!

To get you all in the holiday spirit, I'd love to show off my beautiful, zero dollar, christmas tree.

I was give this six-foot beauty by my good friends Leah and Chris. I helped the newlyweds pack up the truck as they struck off across the country to the exotic land of Arkansas. In the flurry of moving they offered me their christmas tree that they had to leave behind. (Score!)

I had always been skeptical of fake trees, having had fresh cut trees growing up. We have some great family stories surrounding the ritual of cutting our own tree down. Traditionally, the smallest person in the family was dragged several feet through the mud while trying to 'help' carry the tree. I believe my brother, mother and myself can claim the honor of tree surfing at one time or another as the other family members (crazy with the christmas spirit) heave-hoed the tree back to the car, which was always uphill. Always. With precious memories like that, how could I ever even consider having a fake tree?

My First Christmas Ornament

Unfortunately a bank account like mine has prevented me from buying my own fresh tree for the past three years. I couldn't justify the expense of buying a fresh tree in L.A. when I had a beauty waiting for me when I went home to my parents house each year. But I always missed having a tree to help get me in the holiday mood.

Then Leah and Chris bestowed the greatest gift, the gift of Christmas Spirit. I set up the tree last weekend and decorated it with all of the ornaments from my childhood that had been waiting patiently in a box since I moved out.

I can't believe I was so down about fake trees. What a snob. I see the error of my ways every time I find myself starring happily at the tree in my living room. The only thing missing was the smell. Which is why I bought this from the local grocery store.

Every time I walk by, I stuff my face among the needles and give a big whiff. Ahhhhh Christmas.

Mike and I also purchased our first ornament as a couple. (Awwww) It's a dragon.

Rawr.

I think it's perfect since we're nerds. Skyrim gaming, Hobbit reading, Dungeon's and Dragon's playing Nerds. Nice.

I'll leave you with one last look at this beautiful tree.

What have you been doing to get in the holiday spirit?

~Claire Out.