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I started exploring other blogging platforms a couple years ago.  Last summer (July 2008) I settled on Wordpress for a food-specific blog that I started and then in October I decided to start posting my crafting adventures there as well.  Clearly most of my neighborhood here has stopped posting too, since I don't get weekly updates nearly as often.  Bookishbiker's departure announcement reminded me that I never came back to make my own announcement.  I wanted to make sure that I was happy with the new blog before committing to the switch and I wanted it to have a decent amount of content before I mentioned anything.  The best of intentions...

If you are still interested in reading my adventures in crafting please visit Anotheryarn Crafts, and if you are interested in reading my adventures in cooking (focused on using my CSA veggies) please visit Anotheryarn Eats.

It seems I've taken to posting monthly.  I will need to work on being better about that.

I finally finished sewing my bag of the summer -- just days before September.  I started it way back in June, about a week before my vacation; but about 2/3 the way from completion my sewing machine started making a horrible noise.  So I decided that was Life (or something) telling me to put away working on the bag and start doing all that other stuff on my list to prep for vacation (you know like get the house clean, have clean laundry to pack, make sure Dog is set for his kennel visit).  When I got back I took the machine in to the shop and they tried to recreate the noise with absolutely no luck so it came back home with me.  But of course I still thought it was making that awful noise when I worked on the bag, it must have had something to do with sewing through 4 layers of canvas instead of 1 layer of corduroy like they did at the shop.  Anyway, earlier this week the bag was staring at me and I decided I was either going to finish it or thoroughly break my machine trying.  All in all I spent part of 4 different days working on this bag (one of them I was even helping a friend learn how to make her own tarot card draw-string bags).

The pattern is Wasp Bag from  Machen/Machen and it's free :)  I didn't totally follow her instructions, partially because I envisioned the straps and horizontal band differently than she did and partially I just mixed up the order of process to suit me (I made the straps last for example - oh I also did the interior pocket differently) but I loved the shape and am happy with the bag.  It was my first time installing a magnetic snap and the first time I put a zipper ala Creative Little Daisy's Zippered Pocket Tutorial (of course I changed that a bit too, making the pocket a loose stand alone pocket just stitched in at the top).  This was also my first time using fusible fleece interfacing; I felt it was a little bulky around some of the seams but I like the shape and relaxed body it gives.  Nothing bugs me like a clear outline of purse contents in a flimsy fabric purse and so far the interfacing keeps this at bay.

I bought the purse-body fabric almost two years ago (at JoAnn's when they had a nice 45" canvas section), meaning to make a small messenger bag out of it - but then I found my go-to, very PNW Overland bag that was exactly the size I wanted and had many of the features I wanted as well as marked down because it was a discountinued colorway and my nearly signature lime-green.  So I was happy when I saw the wasp bag pattern and realized this fabric would go great.  The straps are made from leftover green canvas bought last summer at Ikea for a summer picnic blanket (that project, sadly is still waiting to be finished).  I wish I knew the name of the blue lining fabric (a quilting cotton) so I could buy more of it since I love it.  The orange polka-dot fabric was some scrap fabric hanging around.

According to my Ravelry project page I started these Charade Socks in August 2007.  Yikes.  That said, socks are my whenever-on-going-travel project and so do not get high priority in the knitting queue most of the time.  And I had to knit about 2.3 socks to get 2 socks (I had to rip out 3 to 4" of the first sock because it was too small and dense).  Also, I am very happy to learn that when I mostly knit on a sock it only takes me about 1 month, I cast on sock number two on June 19 and managed to get a measly 2 inches (if that) done during my six hour flight.  Anyway, I plugged away, knitting just a few rows a day here and there.  Last weekend when we went camping I was just starting the gusset and somehow during those 4 days managed to knit up to the toe.  Wow!  I actually needed to tink back 6 rows due to knot believing I'd get anywhere near that much knit and not bringing the needed info (sock #1 foot length and the toe shaping instructions).  So I finished up the toe earlier this week and just wove in my ends today.

 I hate weaving in ends.  I'm also pretty crappy at doing so, but muddled through it.  I do have to say it was a lot easier when I stopped using the large blue plastic tapestry needle and started using the smaller, bent tip Chibi needle. For some reason sock #2's stitch pattern has a lot more definition than sock #1.  Hopefully it will even out once I wash and wear them.

It has been almost a month.  I've composed several blog posts in my head, but haven't gotten around to posting them.  And now I'm approaching the task of rebuilding my iPhoto library due to a hard drive crash & burn.  I have back-ups, albeit, not in the most 'get it up and running' friendly format - I fear lots of importing is in my future.  And then there is the pesky problem of figuring out where I put the external hard drive with all of my documents on it.  And wondering exactly how much I am missing between my last back-up date and now.  We've had two hard drives die on us within the last month or so, luckily the first didn't contain any essential info that could only be found there (we hope - it mostly held music, which is also on TheHusbands laptop).  Needless to say we've come up with a more comprehensive, less end-user-initiated plan.  Anyway, a run-down:

I went to my cousin's wedding.  There was a bit of family drama (which seems to be the case when you know, you get lots of family members together).  The wedding itself was gorgeous and reminded me of something that you might see chronicled in a wedding magazine.  She had a great florist, oodles of orchids (yes orchids) and convinced her dad to build her lots of stuff, like the structure for the ceremony, 50 + boxes to serve as containers for the table arrangements and other things like the huge bamboo topiary things next to the ceremony structure.

A cat has started meowing around our house (it even tried to dart in the door when I went outside one day).  Dog is going nuts-- absolutely bonkers trying to get the cat.  Which means every so often we hear a loud crash that indicates our dog's head or paws have hit the glass window in the door.  We still aren't sure if he wants to play with it or eat it (I'm leaning towards "ohhhhh squeaky toy" which starts as play and ends as *chomp*).  My apologies to all my friends with cats, I love kitties, but they are not safe in my house.  I'm glad I have friends to visit where I can visit with kitties.

I have the best husband in the world.  He brought me my nectarine from the fridge instead of scarffing it down and going "nah nah nah I ate your nectarine".  Because I am a doufus who never thinks to eat fruit until someone (cough TheHusband cough) is eating fruit in front of me.  And he patiently leaves fruit in the fridge trying to be nice and not gobble it all up.

I am crafting, sort of.  I'm in the middle of an ironing board project that will not end.  And I really want it to because I'm itching, simply itching to buy some Amy Butler fabric to sew a cute summer dress.  I'm also working on several gifts that cannot be mentioned until I know they have been received.  Speaking of gifts, today I learned of the 8th baby that I know who will be born this year.  With all these babies I will never manage to knit myself a sweater.  Not to mention there are 3 babies born last year and I never managed to make a gift for them.  I just cannot keep up.  (We shall not speak of the baby blanket for the 2 3/4 year old).

Fauxmiddlechild alerted me to the existence of Epicurious's Seasonal Ingredient Map.  It seems pretty cool, although it isn't quite matching what I'm actually seeing at the Farmer's Market.  For example swiss chard isn't listed, and supposedly Washington State has produce during March but Oregon State is dormant-huh?  She was lamenting that she was unfamiliar with seasonal produce.  I want to say, don't feel to bad about it.  The supermarket culture of the past who-knows-how-long has separated us from this knowledge - so unless you are a gardener (of the edible varieties) this stuff is no longer common knowledge.  I'm still trying to get a handle on such things in my new locale (previously I was a lucky duck who got the excess from Mom's garden). 

Farmer's Markets are a good guide (if yours doesn't allow trucked in stuff like the one near our old house- no FM in the Midwest should ever be able to sell kiwis or mango or pineapples, I'm still irritated by it).  Of course some vendors have things like large greenhouses up their sleeve and I think that confuses things, I know I was confused when I saw cucumbers two weeks ago, before I had even seen strawberries.

I'm really excited that we finally were able to subscribe to a CSA this year (I've been wanting to since I learned of their existence like 9 years ago; of course previously we moved every summer and would just get the overabundance of our parents gardens so a CSA didn't quite fit our life).  We had to subscribe/join in early April and even then a couple farms I contacted had already filled all of their subscriber slots.  And due to the crappy "spring" we haven't gotten a share yet, my fingers are crossed it will happen soon.  I've been toying with the idea of taking a picture of our weekly shared bounty.

I also have 4 plants on my patio since this is a want-to-garden year in my want-to/no-way gardening cycle (so far I have a year where I attempt to garden, which is generally a bust wrt to all but a couple hard-to-kill houseplants, followed by a couple years where I say "nope" to gardening and then a lust for gardening hits again).  I planted a spearmint plant, an italian parsley plant, 3 basil plants and a 24" window box of nasturtium seeds that have been kind enough to actually sprout (they are about 3" tall now with 2 leaves each).  Since I haven't killed anything yet (in the 3 weeks I've had the stuff planted) I'm considering adding a rosemary plant and maybe some radishes or lettuces.

A few notes on food The post was getting too long so now it is just about chard.  And hopping onto the chard bandwagon.  In the past few days I've seen mentions of chard on Finny Knits and Domicile  - and these blogs are in my non-food folder of Bloglines. Last week, looking around for suggestions on what to do with that bunch of rainbow chard in the fridge, I was directed to this Swiss Chard Tart recipe from Mario Batali.  I was looking for a more substantial (and just different) recipe than my usual Sauteed Tender Greens from The New Best Recipe (served with the grain of the day, perhaps with a side of bean protein of some type).  It was between this recipe and quiche with chard, and I just wasn't feeling like making a pie crust (so lazy) but then I weighed my bunch of chard and discovered it was about 3/4 lb.  Oops.  So I used the Mario Batali recipe as a guide and did the following:

1 bunch swiss chard (about 3/4 lb)
olive oil
1/2 onion
2 cloves garlic
handful fresh flat leaf parsley
2 eggs
salt
pepper
1/2 cup finely grated fresh parm
1 square "artisan" roll turned into bread crumbs - a couple big handfuls

Preheat the oven to, um, 350F. I gave the swiss chard a nice cool soak in the clean sink, removing any bits of sandy dirt.  Then I lightly shook the water off the leaves (you want a bit of water clinging*) and set them in a colander and started the chopping process.  I removed the stems and set them aside (no way was I throwing away that pretty color) and cut the leaves into short ribbons.  Then I cut the stems into small pieces and set them aside.  I cut my onion into thin slices and crushed my two cloves of garlic.  I minced the fresh parsley.

I grabbed my big 12" saute pan and threw in a couple tablespoons of olive oil.  I added the swiss chard stems and the onions and cooked until nice and soft.  Then I added the garlic and sauteed until it was fragrant.  At this point I threw in all of my chard leave ribbons and covered the pan.  After a minute or so (sorry don't remember precisely) I stirred the chard and covered it again.  When the chard looked nice and wilted yet still a bright green I tossed the parsley in, stirred then dumped the pan contents back in the colander to drain and cool. In between the onion/chard cooking I was making bread crumbs and grating parmesan and oiling my 9" pie pan.

I cracked two eggs in a bowl and beat them, adding some salt and pepper as well as a couple tablespoons of the parmesan.  Then I sprinkled a good handful of breadcrumbs (perhaps up to 1/2 cup) in the oiled pie pan.  I also stirred the veggies to help drain and make sure it was cool.  Once I was satisfied the veggies were cool enough to not cook the eggs I dumped them into the eggs, gave it a good mix  cover the veggies in egg and dumped it all in the pie pan.  I smoothed the top, sprinkled with another handful of bread crumbs and then parmesan.  I popped it in the oven for about 30 minutes (until it looked golden and like the eggs were cooked in the middle).

Wow.  Typing this all out it sounds horribly complicated but I swear it wasn't.  Though it did make a few more dirty dishes than I prefer.  Anyways it was quite yummy and not very eggy at all (when I started I wondered how it was different from quiche, but it turns out the eggs just coated the veggies as opposed to the mostly custard with some veggies of quiche).

*While the recipe above instructs you to boil the chard for like 10 minutes, according to TNBR swiss chard is a green that does not require blanching before the final cooking.  They say that the water clinging to the leaves will provide enough moisture for wilting (along with the oil in the pan).

For the past 9 years I've lived in places where I do not have curbside recycling pick-up.  Luckily I've always had access to a recycling center of some sort.  However many recycling centers/containers are designed for those with curbside pickup.  For a long time we've made do with multiple paper bags to hold all the recyclables.  It got messy and cluttered.  When we used a single trash can we had to sort into bags before walking it to the recycle center.

Long story short I have settled on this solution:  wire shelf on casters from Bed, Bath & Beyond (not quite the right size but at 1/3 the cost of perfect-size shelf it was close-enough), and hanging bags from s-hooks.  I just had to sew the bags - I planned on using canvas but then I was walking through Ikea and saw the big blue bags and remembered how people (like Africankelli) were re-fashioning them into other bags.  So I bought one big blue bag hoping it would be enough for two smaller bags.  I grabbed my seam ripper and ripped out the bottom and side seam as well as the handles.  I cut the side piece in half, then determined how big my bottom of each bag could be and cut two bottoms from the original bag bottom.  I cut the long straps in half for two sets handles plus cut the short straps up to attach d-rings for hanging.

These two bags hold so much more than the one bin that fit on that shelf plus I'm not worried about rogue liquids weakening paper bags.  The handles are also much more comfortable than when I carried a very full paper bag. Success for less than $30.  The added bonus is that it holds the washcloths and hand towels I keep at the door to wipe muddy, wet Dog paws (and legs and belly and back and tail) and the top functions as a landing strip for mail and keys and such when we walk in the door.

I have a lot of fears.  And they keep me from far too much too often.  Okay, that sounds a little drastic, and it isn't quite that drastic.  In college I used to joke that I had a high sense of self-preservation when I wouldn't jaywalk across the 5 lane road that separated my dorm from the rest of campus, of course by my junior year of crossing this street daily I had no problems crossing half-way in between the two crosswalks or waiting in the median for the other traffic direction to clear.

But I really didn't mean to go all deep with this post.  I just took a little dip into one of my sewing fears - invisible zippers (and ruining lovely fabric).  I've had intentions of sewing a couple pillow covers for the two extra pillows that didn't really have a home (but would look nice on the office futon if covered).  I found the fabric last fall and even measured and cut it out.  Pillows. Four seams.  Except, being me, I had to make it difficult.  I used contrasting fronts and backs and I wanted a zipper so it would be easy to remove the cover for washing.  And a regular zipper would look odd along a seam and I didn't want a designated front and back so that meant using an invisible zipper.

I've been wanting to tackle invisible zippers for a while now - except I couldn't find much instruction on how to insert an invisible zipper.  Tutorials abound for the regular zipper (despite the fact that every sewing reference book I've seen has instructions and instructions come with many regular zippers).  I didn't have any manufacturer's instructions with my purchased invisible zips.  Luckily I had one invisible zipper tutorial bookmarked and I did remember reading another set of directions somewhere.  Plus I realized that I might not like the pillow covers as originally envisioned but the fabric would make a very cute doll-sized quilt if the pillow covers failed.

So I jumped in... and finished the pillow cases:

They aren't perfect, and they don't fit perfectly but close-enough counts this time.  I also finally got around to clearing the futon and covering it with my old chenille bedspread and placed the teddy bear my grandmother made for me on it.  I should make the teddy a new collar though.

(side note: it turns out that I did this project about 3 weeks ago and it just took me that long to clear the bed to be photograph worthy)