Happy Campers

I've been on vacation all week, and it has been so great! I love my job, but I also love my life, so a little break now and then is very welcome.

D and I went to Yosemite on a whim. Well, sort of. We were going to go to Sequoia but at the last minute changed our minds and went to Yosemite. Fortunately, we found a camp site (the last one available!!) and set up shop.


The first thing I noticed was how quiet the campsite was. Aaaah, serenity now. The second thing I noticed was THIS in the next campsite over:

SO JEALOUS!! Someday....Anyhow, despite my jealousy we had a wonderful time.

We made some yummy supper (it's called "supper" when you're camping, fyi) over the fire:

relaxed a bit:

And made our coffee and tea. Do you love my little Goodwill kettle?:

We did a little hiking and a little bicycle-riding through the valley. The weather was warm and summer was barely hanging on by a string. I would like to go back when there is a little water in the "falls." :)

Although not captured on film, mostly because I have already exhausted the s'mores discussion, there were many s'mores enjoyed this trip. Because, camping just ain't camping without s'mores....or jiffy pop popcorn, but that's another discussion.

Passionfruit

I love my sister very much, but MAN am I jealous of her passion fruit vine! I hope it's written in her will for me... Remember how obsessed I said I was with them? Lucky for my, her vine is huge and prolific.

If you've ever wondered what a passion fruit actually looks like, here it is.

the outside:

the inside:

If you've never tasted one, they're tart, the pulp a little slimy, the seeds a little crunchy, and oooooh so good and you can get one at my sister's house. Her address is.... just kidding.

Plus Macarons

(that's supposed to say "more macaroons" in French)

I'm always pretty awesome about thanking my friend for doing my taxes in a timely fashion. Last time, I thanked her in November, so "repaying" her in September is like - Whoa! I decided that it might be a nice, unexpected surprise to give her something a little indulgent, yet consumable. It's the new black.


Paulette kept calling me back to buy more macarons, and I thought this the perfect occasion. Oh, and Blue Bottle Coffee, of course. I had to keep them in the trunk of the car to keep myself from eating them during the 4 hour drive home. Ooh, they were so beautiful and tempting!

(She, by the way, ALWAYS completes my taxes on time. I could learn a thing or two from her)

20 Minute Tee

I have been wanting to do this for a while now. I keep buying shirts with the hopes of "embellishing" them, but never really get around to it.

So, I bought this shirt last week for this purpose at Banana Republic and embellished it this morning in about 20 minutes. I have ADD, so I was really in the middle of another project when I thought, "Hmm, a 1" strip of leftover fabric. I'll bet this will make a nice little flower on my shirt." And so it went.

Two cream-colored flowers and a yellow, because I'm all about green and yellow these days (eventhough we're approaching fall - and since when do I care about this?!).


The awesomely blurry self-portrait. I still have to wash it, so hopefully it will be nice and wrinkly and lay a little flatter. You like?

Oh yeah, today's my birthday. I hear 26 is a tough age...

New Favorite Thing: Macarons

There are some rare occasions at work that we are overstaffed. So, in the event of overstaffing, you can put yourself on a list to get "called off". First on the list, first to get called off. You don't get paid, but you don't have to work either! :) I liken it to winning the lottery...

So, I was called off yesterday and with my free afternoon, I walked down to Hayes Valley to score me some macarons. I thought about it, and within a 1 block radius, there are 3 different places where you can procure such beauties. There's La Boulange, Miette, and Paulette.


These are from Paulette. The colors were so vibrant and beautiful! I bought a lemon and a passionfruit. I am obsessed with passionfruits, so I'll buy anything with pasisonfruit in it. They were both SO scrumptious - fluffy and soft on the outside, juicy and tart on the inside.

I gotta learn how to make these bad boys. They're definitely my new favorite thing.

Letterpress Class

I recently took a letterpress class in the Mission (this is my new favorite blog, by the way). It was kind of awesome and when I have a giant house with a crafting studio, I'll probably buy one (maybe).

The class was geared towards people who want to learn more about letterpress and those who might one day want to buy a letterpress. I was just going for general interest.

Ever wonder why letterpress cards are so expensive? They're a lot of work, that's why! And you couldn't really ever make your own letterpress, because most of the work involved requires you already have the letterpress. It would be easy to show up and crank out your own cards, because all the hard work has been done in the set-up.

Anyhow, there were about 7 of us, and we each submitted a design for a "business card" (I don't have a business, so I made a "calling card"...except I didn't put my phone number on it, so maybe it's just a "hey look at me!" card, or "oh, hey, yeah, I have my own card....jealous?" card). Whatever....we all submitted a design, and they were all combined into 1 8.5 x 11 plate. We letterpressed (not sure if that's the correct verb) them as one and cut them out.



So cute, right? I was inspired by Kate's awesome cards, but I needed more information on mine.


(my photos have been rad lately, I know...)

Nicey Bicycles!

Ok, I have to explain this phrase. "Nicey bicycles," is something that my friend's foreign exchange student used when he really liked something. It sort of stuck, and oh, how I love this prhase (clearly, since I went as far as to embroider it on a pillow).

Remember that bicycle I free-hand "drew" with my sewing machine? Well, with the purchase of our new sofa, I was inspired to turn it into a pillow.

I made the seat red to match this guy:

Are you a little bit sick of the white cross? Well, this white cross was the original prototype for the quilt. But, as you see, it's much bigger than the one I end up using. And so it hung on my inspiration board until this week...when I decided it would be the perfect "pimiento" on our new "olive" sofa.

So the pairing of the bicycle and the cross were unplanned, but I think they are a perfect little pair adding the pop we needed.

I even put zippers in them! I conquered the zipper again!!

Jamming at Eat Real

The Eat Real Fest was awesome - a foodie mini-mecca.

It was HOT, so we thought it only appropriate to sample some cold beer. How rad that they served the tastings in a mason jar?


The jam competition was fierce. Actually, I have no idea, but there were about 50 other peach jams, so mine didn't stand a chance. Next year, I'm making my pickles, fo shiz.

the competition table

The canning exchange was a little lame, mostly because everyone participating decided (before I got there) that you should do a 1:1 trade with another canner. Here, you take one of mine and I'll take one of yours....instead of putting them all in a "pot" and if you bring one, you can take one. So everyone sort of stood around the hay bail waiting for someone to budge. Eventually, someone said, "Well, I'll tade you your peach for mine." Which makes me giggle a little. I suppose nobody who brought lavender quince preserves wanted to go home with plain ol' peach. I wouldn't either. So, next year I'll up the ante and bring something a little more exotic and trade-able. I did end up with someone else's peach jam, a pineapple mango chutney (woot!), and a peach-raspberry jam. So silly.

the swapping goods

The food booths were *awesome.* Check out this little unnecessary treat I indulged in - a souped-up s'more.

Hello! We watched this guy pull our mozarella right in front of us. It was still warm!!

A pickle platter

And a gazpacho cone (in my opinion, the greatest snack of all time).

Probably one of my favorite days living in the Bay Area.

To Market To Market

Today begins the Eat Real Fest in Oakland. D and I are going on a special date to the Foraging and Canning Exchange where I will be trading off these jars of peach jam for (hopefully) something a little more exotic....or something savory. We have enough jam in this house to last us a decade or more!


I used the Perfect Peach Jam recipe in the Ferry Plaza Cookbook. And the recipe says it will take about 1 hour, but it took me about 3. So, I will probably just stick to the Certo recipes from now on (wham, bam, throw in some pectin and boil, thank you mam!). The jam I made is quite delicious, but if you gotta life to lead, maybe this isn't the recipe for you....lucky for me...

There is also an ice cream social tonight (which I wouldn't miss for the world, especially on this particularly hot day). And over the weekend there seems to be tons of cool stuff going on. Depending on how tonight goes, I may try to go for a few hours before work tomorrow.

See you there? Toodles!

In a Pinch Notecards

My good friend just got engaged! Yay! So I made her these little notecards until the official "invitation suite" arrives. Because you never know how soon you'll need some joint stationery.


I made 2 (very sophisticated) variations.


I'm probably breaking all kinds of wedding etiquette. Although, I do know you're not supposed to use a joint monogram until after you're married - but that's all I know...and if nobody else knows, who cares?

The envelopes and cards (and inspiration) are from Paper Source. The fabric is from Purl. I might be a little bit obsessed with Paper Source these days. Maybe when I change careers again, I'll be a greeting card designer...*sigh*

Pretty [Yucky] Cake

See my beautiful cake?

This was a dry, awful, cardboardy, took-one-bite-and-tossed-it-in-the-garbage cake. But boy was it cute. :)

Rekindled

Finally starting something new...


we'll see if I have the momentum to complete it in a timely fashion.

Frogs and Snails...

...and Necktie Onesies... that's what little boys are made of.


(and double-decker bus onesies with matching burp cloths)


My friend is having a new baby soon, so we have to make sure he's well-dressed when he arrives.

Welcome to the world, little man!

The NEW New Favorite Thing

Shishito peppers.... yummmm!

They're a Japanese pepper that are generally mild, but about 1/10 are hot. Not too hot, but you'll need a drink of water to cool yourself off.


We like them....a lot. Can you tell?


We tried our hand at making them ourselves. Not too shabby! Just tossed them in some olive oil and cooked them over a hot pan, tossing, and garnishing with gray salt.


I could probably eat these all night. Next time you see them on a menu, I recommend you give them a go. (You can get them at the Alembic in San Francisco if you're really curious)

Lemonade Quilt Complete

Here is the finished product, and me gusta mucho!


I big-zig-zagged all the seams, as an experiment. And while I like the way it looks on top, it looks even way cooler on the back against the charcoal linen.


Speaking of which...I used the lightweight linen on the back as an experiment also. Peapod was closed all week, so I had no choice (well, ok) but to use what I had on hand, and the linen was the only thing I had that was wide enough and that "worked" for me and this quilt. It would have been the perfect size, except for the large rectangular chunk I cut out of it for another project. No problemo - and so the birth of this patchy little surprise on the back. In fact, it would have looked lame without it - so everything's worked out in the end.


I've busted some stash, kept myself busy, maybe made some wedding decor (who knows?), and I'm feelin' satisfied.

Now I need a real lemonade.

My New Favorite Thing

I went to the Goodwill to drop some stuff off, you know, because we're trying to downsize? Well, I accidentally spotted (pun!) this, and couldn't leave without it! Do you just love it?!

I don't really even drink coffee, much less tote around a giant carafe of it. But say one day I do, won't I look great doing it??

31.5

D has a late December birthday that is always a bit difficult to A) celebrate properly and B) separate from Christmas. So, we decided that we would try a new tradition of celebrating his 1/2 birthday.

I made him a carrot cake using this recipe and it's pretty heavenly if I do say so myself. I also got him a mandoline (the slicing kind, not the musical kind). I can't wait to have potatoes au gratin and all things julienned!

Happy 31.5th (?) birthday, D!

Grillin' Like a Villain

D is my grillmaster.


We bought a big bag of eggplant at Berkeley Bowl (the REAL Whole Foods) for $1. D doesn't even like eggplant, but he grilled me the entire bag. Is he not the greatest?

Amazing how many veggies I can take down once they're grilled. I dipped them in a little lemony, garlicky, yogurt sauce (Greek style) & I don't think they even lasted 3 days. Yipes. Oooh, so good. Can't wait to go back.

Inspired Stripes

Someone said these magic words the other day, "lemonade in a mason jar" and immediately, I wanted to build our entire wedding around that very image. Whether or not that actually happens, I was inspired to make this quilt with those colors (the green is the mint sprig in the lemonade, duh...or maybe it's a mojito).

I've been in a stripes phase, and I'm not sure I'll get out of it, but I can't help but feel like my quilting has regressed a bit. Whatever, I like fast, simple projects. I still need to find a proper back for it, but surely I will show you the finished product.

Doesn't it make you want to sit on it with a big ol' icy lemonade? Aaahhh.

Miss Maile is Two!

This little stinker, lover of "toffee" and "popo titis" (coffee and a purple blanket called titi), had a birthday last weekend.

She got a new birthday outfit to wear when not in her birthday suit...so that means she probably won't wear the outfit most of the morning.

I made a simple little skirt with matching appliqued Old Navy shirt. I replaced the belt on these Old Navy capris with the same coordinating fabric. Muy cute-a!

Happy Birthday Maile!