Monday, July 23, 2012

My Studio is a Mess. But it's MY Mess.


 I haven't been working on much lately. I had this dress that I'd originally bought as a Halloween costume (as tempted as I am to put an apostrophe in Halloween, I'm too lazy to check whether the spelling I'm using is ACTUALLY correct, but it probably is, which is disappointing), when I went as Laura Ingalls Wilder. It was a bit... conservative. So, since my New Year's resolutions to lose a bit of weight have completely backfired, and since all my available funds have gone either into my car, or my new apartment, or books, or whathaveyou, I thought altering a dress would save some money over buying one. Turns out I did it perfectly, but the dress didn't actually fit in the first place. But I'll keep it on hand, in case the stress of the inevitable autumn fulfills my resolutions for me.

In other news, it is exactly one month until I move to Vancouver and everything changes. So, whenever I'm in my studio, I wonder what's going to happen to it once I leave, and that's stressful so I've mostly been quilting upstairs. I was all motivated yesterday thinking if I quilted a row a day I could be done in seventeen days! Then I remembered I still have the borders to do, but it's POSSIBLE.


 I've also nearly finished my proposed engagement present for Erin and Andrew! I'm hoping since she doesn't mind spoilers on TV shows, that she won't mind me putting this up a little early. My worry: Andrew's head looks so much smaller, and therefore my artistic sense says that the whole thing is unbalanced! But Erin just has more hair. All it needs now is a little varnish.

Which I found in a cabinet that I always assumed was empty! Yay!

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Red Current Jelly, Wasps, etc.

 Spent another lovely weekend in Alma. But of all the beautiful things to photograph, I chose this infuriatingly hardy wasp.
 Most of the crafting and cooking this week has been done by my mother, rather than by me. She suggested we check out a tour of Little City Farm in Kitchener, which provided a ton of life-inspiration. I would love to live their life, but I'm also not quite ready to settle down just yet. Enough, though, that I helped pick a few red currants off of our bush, so my mom could make her famous red currant jelly. It's maybe not known outside of the house, but it should be.
And we've got a new dining tent for our family camping trip later this month! It's laughable how easy this thing is to put up, especially compared to the last one.

In other news, I've found a place to live in Vancouver that looks just perfect, and have booked my plane ticket for August 23rd. I'm also scared shitless about the whole thing. Coming up this week: second installment of First Aid Training, an interning session, and Willie's homecoming/birthday/graduation party!

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Food!

I also forgot to mention that one of my two favourite brothers got me a subscription to Fine Cooking for my birthday! He tells me that I should keep cooking because I'm good at it, but cooking with recipes off of the internet is too much for me. I have to think of something I want, THEN look up a recipe, and then go through the entire thing in my head before making it and I still never trust that it's going to work. About a quarter of the time I'm right, and it doesn't.

I really want to edit cookbooks. It would be so awesome that I assume it would be too competitive to get into that line of work right away. I AM transcribing a cookbook at the moment,  but it's from the 1800's so it's a little different, and I think the recipes will have to be heavily altered. However, if society collapses and everyone loses power, I'm the only person I know who will still be able to make a mean soup. I just have to find out what a gill of water is. So there.

 But anyway, things are completely different with this magazine. I know everything's probably delicious, and I know how to do the recipes to make sure all the times line up so nothing burns while I'm chopping carrots. Or something.

SO! I aim to make beef rendang sometime soon, but so far I've made red curry turkey burgers and fresh asparagus pesto. 

 Toppings for the burgers include lime mayo and a cucumber-shallot-coriander mixture with rice vinegar. Rice wine vinegar? Who knows?!
 Dirty plate because I was too hungry to photograph my first one. This is why I don't write for my cooking blog anymore.
 Yay pesto! It's full of pine nuts, which are unfortunately quite expensive. On the other hand, this stuff is delicious, and completely worth it.
I've got to remember to get the camera out before I put things away, though.