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Little Lamb & Bird Pincushion!

Are these not the cutest!  Laurie over at Old School Acres had a contest and I won one of her incredible creations.  Then she threw in a pincushion with one of her signature birds too!  I am so happy to receive such a wonderful package.  I've admired Laurie's work for quite a while now as she has been participating in the pincushion challenge.  (Yes, I'll be putting up a new theme soon for all you who have been asking!)

You can see all the goodness that Laurie is working on at her blog -- she's been working on some adorable owls lately -- or you can purchase some of her goodies for yourself at her etsy shop.

Thanks again, Laurie!  I love them!

(Oh, do you see Mud (aka BuggaBoo) trying to sneek into the photo?  She's my grumpy but lovable old lady kitty.)

Vacation Read -- Anybody Out There?

VACATION READ ALERT!  Anybody Out There? by Marian Keyes is just the right thing to take on vacation or read in the backyard while sipping lemonade (or a marguerita!)  I picked this up right before we went on vacation and I was so happy with my choice.  If you aren't a fan of chick lit -- you haven't read Marian Keyes.  (I haven't found any chick lit that I can stomache other than Keyes -- but I adore her books.)

Read it when you are in the mood for something light -- I think you'll like it!

Also by Keyes:

• Watermelon
• Last Chance Saloon
• Angels: A Novel
• Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married
• The Other Side of the Story: A Novel
• Rachel's Holiday

Most of these are about different sisters in the same family -- so it's kind of fun reading them all!

Getting Caught up on my Book Reports

The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu is an excellent novel that illustrates what the American Dream has become for so many.  Caught between his homeland which he fled and the US where his hopes seem to be out of reach, the main character -- an immigrant from Ethiopia -- struggles to make a life for himself.  Many other issues come into play.  With the introduction of his wealthy white neighbor we see the contrast between the races and classes at the time of regentrification in his neighborhood.  It seems that there is no place for him.

The book is well written, concise and a quick read.  I highly recommend it.

Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife by Sam Savage is a book that I never would have picked up on my own, so when Pete suggested that I read it, I was skeptical.  A novel about a rat?!?  And while it definitely is a novel narrated by a rat, there is more to this strange book.  Firmin -- being a rat and all -- can't  communicate with the world at large and yet he is higly literate and lives in a used bookstore voraciously reading all the books he can.  Eventually he comes to live with a like minded man who lives atop the shop -- a failed writer who is a drunk takes in Firmin. 

The novel is funny in a dark, sad sort of way.  And I'm not sure what lesson I learned from reading it, but I'm glad that I read it.

The Road

Wow. 

This was an extremely powerful book and I hardly know what to say about it.  I guess I could start with the name of the book, huh?  It's The Road by Cormac McCarthy.  And yes, Oprah did choose it for her book club -- seems a very strange choice to me.  I've read several of Oprah's picks and while some of them are very good books, none are like this.  Then again, I'm not sure I've read a book like this before.  Sure there are other post-apocalyptic novels out there -- Cat's Cradle and Oryx and Crake come to mind (both excellent, by the way) -- but this book is so sparse, so bleak.  The writing reflects the landscape that the father and son traverse.

Not much happens in the book, so I'm not going to try to give you a plot summary.  Instead I'll leave you with my experience reading the book.

I started this book last night and didn't sleep well at all because it was so disturbing, and yet I awoke this morning and was compelled to finish the rest of the book in one sitting.  At the end I broke down in hysterical sobs -- it's that moving.

BTT -- Foreign Language Books

Deb chose my question for this week's Booking through Thursday!  Here's my question:

I had an idea for a BTT question when I was taking a peek at one of my bookcases yesterday and spotted my old copy of the Aeneid in Latin sitting there. Maybe this question has already been done—but if not… Do you have any foreign language books and if so can you (still) read them?

Well, as you can see, I do have a copy of the Aeneid from my high school Latin class -- 4 years of Latin with Sr. Irene.  While I did take Latin -- what I really wanted to take was French, but I was on the honors "college prep" track, so I was out of luck.  I could probably muddle through reading this, but I'm sure I've lost a lot of the vocabulalry.

Later in college I decided to take German.  One of my Aunts and some cousins lived in Germany and I thought I could learn it well enough to speak to them in German -- never mind that they could all speak English perfectly well!  I didn't have a whole lot of room for electives, so this only lasted one semester.  My German textbook is long gone, but I think my mom has copies of the books that both my Aunt and one of my cousins have written about my famous uncle Rudi Dutschke.  I wish I could at least read German so that I could read their books.

Then I changed my major to English Lit , took an Old English class and fell in love!  The basic intro wasn't enough, so I took a grad level class in the language.  I believe we used A Guide to Old English and I know it's around here somewhere.  Me and dead languages -- a perfect fit! 

Later when planning to attend a friend's wedding in France I bought a few books and taught myself enough to get by.  And I'm sure Pete has some of his Swedish books -- he took quite a few classes in Swedish language and literature in college.

But by *far* my largest collection of foreign language books in the house is my massive collection of Japanese craft books.  I've actually tried to learn Japanese online, but haven't gotten too far with that.  So while I can't read them, they are very inspirational to look at!

Green Tea Cookies -- Yum!

Well, we finally finished up that batch of chocolate chip cookies, so last night I made some of the Green Tea Sweets that I was telling you about.  They are very much like a matcha flavored shortbread, but much less fussy to make.  The butter and egg yolks gives them a very rich flavor which is lightened considerably by the fresh green tea flavor.

One note on my cookies -- I didn't have a cute little leaf cookie cutter, so I used what I had.  I needed something small-ish and without a lot of apendages that could lead to overcooked cookie parts.  The cookie cutters I ended up using are probably twice as large as what I needed.  This was confirmed when I only got a bakers dozen out of the recipe instead of the 25 cookies it is supposed to yield.  I just cooked them a bit longer -- maybe 5 minutes -- and all was well.  I like the crispier edges though, so I'll pick up a small cookie cutter before I make these again.

They were quick and easy to make and I highly recommend them!  The recipe is here at Lovescool.

Welcome to the world TJ!

Here's a photo of the little guy that I made the quilt for. He arried Sunday morning bright and early (well, if you call 7:18AM early like I do!) So I'm an aunt once again! When I asked Maddie what she thought of her new cousin after we went to visit him, she said he was cute -- yes he is!

Joel Dewberry Fabrics

The Joel Dewberry fabrics are up on the Westminster Fabrics site. There are so many that I love, but the one pictured here really stood out for me. I cannot wait to see this fabric in person!

Peonies

It was an awful year for the lilacs, but whatever the lilacs dislike, the peonies must love.  Our two peony bushes are looking incredible this year!  The pink one is blooming now. . .

Almost open. . .

Open!

But you know what they say about peonies -- the ants love 'em!  I guess there is nectar on the buds.  They seem to leave the flowers alone -- but look at a bud on the bush that hasn't started bloomin yet. . .

This makes my happy that they are located at the back edge of the yard and nowhere near the house!

I get a little thrill everytime I look at it!

I've been looking for one of these for awhile now.  No luck at garage sales and eBay prices were a bit too much -- especially after you calculate shipping .  So this weekend when we made a trek out to Sandwich, IL for the Sandwich Antiques Market, I had it in the back of my mind to keep a sharp lookout.  Lo and behold near the end of the day I found one (maybe Pete spotted it first -- although he didn't quite know what it was before this, so I'm not sure.)  The price was *so* right -- and Pete didn't mind hauling it all the way back to the car -- so now it's mine!!  I *love* it!

Here's what I know about it -- it is a Stommen Bruk Hamar sewing cabinet made in Norway.  Here's the sticker inside the lid:

And here's what it looks like opened:

I don't know that much about these sewing cabinets, but the seller thought it was probably from the 50's.  She got it at an estate sale.  The web is surprisingly devoid of information about these cabinets.  If anyone knows anything about them or the company that made them, I'd love to know more!

Chocolate -- Real Chocolate!

I recently won a contest over at Candy Blog for my participation in the "Keep it Real" campaign. Cybele sent me a wonderful prize -- a gift certificate to Chocosphere.  I used a large portion of it to purchase these fancy chocolates.  I'm starting to branch out into the world of single origin chocolate, but I also purchased a few wacky things.  One bar has seeds in it?!?  And I had to buy a couple of pistachio items -- I love pistachios but I don't think I've ever had them combined with chocolate.  Reviews to follow over at the Chocolate Blog.

I also finished three books since my last book review post, so those will be up soon!  Here's what I recently finished reading:

• The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu.
• Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife by Sam Savage
• Anybody Out There? by Marian Keyes

Green Tea Sweets!

I've been wanting a recipe for Matcha Cookies for ages -- probably since I first saw the lovely (yet expensive) cookies from Lovescool / Amai Bakery.  I've been reading this blog for a good long time and have been quite tempted to purchase the Tea Sweets. 

Now I am excited to say that Kelli has posted the recipe for the Green Tea Sweets!!  It's right here.  And I even have matcha powder in the cupboard.  Oh!  If only I hadn't just baked a batch of chocolate chip cookies last night, I'd be whipping these up this afternoon!!

Bag Experiment

So much going on -- I've been MIA because Pete got a new job and we decided to squeeze in a quick vacation before he started. (Very relaxing, but now I'm trying to catch up on work -- you know how that goes!) And in addition, my sister is about to have her baby. She's been having contractions for a few days, so I'm thinking it could be any time!

But there has also been crafting. I got it in my head that I wanted to make a nice quilted bag with a flap -- sort of messenger style. So I got out some fabric and started sewing. Now I admit, this may not be the smartest way to do things, but I like to learn by doing and so I dove in. First I quilted the fabric pieces:

I like the squares, but next time I think they need to be on an angle. THe straight up and down lines made the corners awkward -- the bag wanted to "fold" at the quilting lines instead of the seams. Hmmmm. . .

I also made a proper lining complete with pockets which worked out fine:

I used straight of grain binding around the top edge. Since I was feeling lazy at this point -- and because I knew that this wasn't going to turn out exactly as I wanted, I cheated and machine sewed the binding instead of hand stitching it on the inside.

I love the handle -- and the stability of the quilted part of the bag. The flap is another story -- I thought it should be softer, so I used a different batting and didn't include any interfacing -- not such a good idea.

So all in all, I learned a lot from making the bag and I'll take what I've learned and make another. It was a fun project at any rate!

Garage Sales

Right now Pete is between jobs (although not for long -- yeah!!) and we've been trying to enjoy his "time off".  One thing that we've been having fun with is garage sale-ing.  For the last two Friday mornings we have hopped in the car as early as we can get ourselves out of bed, stopped for some coffee and gone off to the sales.  There have been quite a few in the area and some treasures have come home with us. 

Up first is a really nice enamel box (that is until I dropped it on our tile countertop and chipped the enamel off one corner -- c'est la vie -- at least it was only 50 cents.)  And this Pyrex dish had to come home with me for only $1.00.  Maddie also got an old toy phone at this stop -- they gave it to her for free -- sorry no photo.

At another yard sale I picked up this fabric.  I love the cursive writing one!  They had big bins of fabric and were selling each piece for only 25 cents.  Great deal!

Today this trio of cross stitched gingham aprons had to come home with me.  I can hardly ever resist aprons at garage sales -- they are always so inexpensive!  Here is the detail on my favorite of the three:

You can see the hand stitching on the backside of the apron -- I think almost the whole thing was made by hand. 

Some books were also purchased at 25 cents each (Night & Under the Banner of Heaven).  And probably the best deal was the Mamiya C330 that Pete found (a very cool old camera) for only $15 (well, $20 -- but we talked the seller down to $15!)

Even with the $15 camera, I don't think we spent over $20 all together.  Not bad for two full mornings of fun!  We're very happy that Pete has a new job, but sad that our short-lived Friday morning ritual is coming to an end.