With These Hands

All handmade by moi. I am proud, can you tell? This project took me many months. Lots of projects have come and gone here and there and in between, but finally, finally, I completed it this past Saturday.
When I first came across craftgrrl, this post about a handmade book was one of my very first interests. I knew I wanted to do something like this for Matt. It’s all made with craft felt, DMC thread, a few beads, and cardboard for the inside of the pages.
The cover is my favorite part as it stars much of our Little Face, with his sneakers, our most valued sweatshirt, and of course, Green Bear!

And now, onto the pics.

Oh, but first, for reference…sweatshirt:

Sneakers:

Green Bear:

Cover.

A monkey, complete with banana tree.

An alligator and a happy nighttime tiger.

A turtle in a tophat. A hippo in a hot tub.

A circus elephant alongside a walrus on an iceberg.

Back cover.

Little Face checks it out for the first time!

February 27th, 2006 ★ 3 Comments »

And I’m not usually for the whole cozy thing or anything, but letting this sweet gal of a phone swim around my bag amid the nail files, brush, change, putty knives, and sporks, well that’s just not right, so here she is all tucked in her new little nest. Clicky the RAZR to see!

More views that so messed up the flow of the “movie”, but were important enough none the less:

I tried to make the white “flight pattern” stitching as much as a continuous line as possible, which was tough to do with the lining and flappy part. She still looks cute though.

Made with:

(all scraps)

black twill denim
purple cotton
wool felt
dmc thread

February 24th, 2006 ★ No Comments »

Continuing in bags, Mike put in a request for a new messenger. His old one had worn out its welcome a long time ago. He chose a star to represent and I got to work.

I did the 2 interior pockets, one for utensils and one for a cell or glasses case.
Also on the front exterior under the flap there is an outside pocket.

Fabric is gray twill for the outside and a red nylon for the inside linings.
I embroidered the star on with felt and DMC thread.
Bag has sturdy interfacing throughout.

This was the first bag I made like this, I used a pattern to cut the pieces but then used various online tutorials to actually put it together.

He likes it!

February 23rd, 2006 ★ 1 Comment »

I belong to a fabulous online craft community. It’s part of Livejournal and oh lookie, here is it now.

I’ve met lots of nice online friends and one in particular asked me if I wanted to do a birthday gift swap. Her b-day was on the 11th. Always interested in gifts
(who isn’t?), I agreed and set to work on KK’s while at the same time thinking that I’d do something similiar for my sister Cindi.

I had the idea of bags/purses from the very beginning. I had this easy tutorial that I found recently and decided to go for it.

The black bag is canvas and the blue bag is twill. Both bags have interfacing and each kitty applique is 100% wool felt and is hand embroidered by moi.

And here we go with the pics:

February 13th, 2006 ★ No Comments »

As always.
But not feeling like doing anything. I hate that, when I’m not motivated.
By the time dinner is all done and Matt is in bed, I’m so tired and just ready to veg.
Birthday presents will be late (but that’s normal!) and it looks like Matty won’t be enjoying his felt book until his 2nd birthday. Yikes.
Must get on the ball here.

That being said, I’ve just spent time on craftster looking at the tutorials for more ideas. I’m a glutton!

But I am really glad I found this label tut. I might try this instead of the whole silkscreen process I had my mind on.

February 9th, 2006 ★ No Comments »

Somehow over time Mike has become the maker of our yummy buttermilk pancakes. It used to be all me, but rather unceremoniously I’ve passed the flapjack flipper over to him. And he does not disappoint. I attribute this to his skill as well as the recipe we use.
More Cook’s Illustrated love here. And the buttermilk really, really makes it, so don’t scrimp and substitute with anything.

2 cups buttermilk
2 cups (10 ounces) unbleached all purpose flour
2 T sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 large egg
3 T butter, melted (you can use salted, or un, your preference)

Whisk dry in medium bowl, set aside.
Whisk egg and melted butter together, slowly as to not curdle the eggs.
Add egg and butter into buttermilk. Stir to combine.
Make well in dry ingredients and pour buttermilk mixture into it.
Mix very gently with spatula. DO NOT OVERMIX, it will toughen up your pancakes.

Lightly oil pan and heat over medium.
Add 1/4 cup of pancake mixture to pan. Give first side about 3-5 minutes. (Watch for bubbles, they’ll tell you when to flip.)
Flip and give second side about 1-2 minutes.
Serve with butter and syrup if desired.
In between batches, you may need to lightly oil again. Don’t over oil!
This recipe yields about 16 4 inch pancakes.

Here they are in all their yummy glory!

February 3rd, 2006 ★ No Comments »

I’ve been making homemade pizza for quite a while.
It’s always tasted good, but somehow not really lived up to what I thought was a totally awesome pizza.
We used to purchase our dough from our local pizzeria. (So cheap, like a buck, which is so awesome.)
This worked for a while, but then we came across a recipe in our Cook’s Illustrated. Now this recipe was for calzones, sure, but it worked so well for pizza, that I adopted it as my standard pizza dough recipe.

4 cups (22 ounces - it’s best to weigh) bread flour
2 1/4 tsp yeast
2 tsp salt
2 T olive oil
1 1/2 cup hot water (from the tap is totally fine)

All dry goes into the mixer with a dough hook, then slowly add the water and olive oil.
Allow to mix for about 10 minutes (on low).
Dough should be a cohesive ball.
Remove from mixer, place in bowl that is lightly lined with olive oil (my preference) or cooking spray (ew).
Cover with saran wrap and put it aside in a cool, relatively dark place for at least 1.5 hours.
When you go back to it, it will have tripled in size. Cool!
I split this huge dough ball up into 4 smaller balls.
Each one makes a medium sized personal pizza. Thin crust.
Now to bake, make sure you have heated up your stone for at least an hour. (At 500)
Place rolled out pizza dough onto parchment and place in oven, on pizza stone, for 6 minutes.
Take out and do it for all 4 crusts.
Now, since we’re only 2, I take 2 of the prebaked crusts, wrap them well, and place them in the freezer for another night.
The other 2 will be dinner now.
Take the prebaked crust and add to it whatever you like, cheese, sauce*, mushrooms, meat, whatever. The thing to keep in mind though, since this is thin crust, don’t make it too heavy. Keep your ingredients to a minimum, you want the crusts good flavor to come through and to not be broken or soggy.
If you’re adding fresh tomatoes, which we do often, seed them first, so their water content has been decreased.
After you’ve added your ingredients, put the pizza back in the over for another 7-8 minutes, depending how crispy you want your cheese and crust.
And there you have it.
Sprinkle with fresh or dried basil if desired and you’re good to munch!
It will be the best pizza ever, seriously.
Just look!
(I am circular-pizza challenged for sure!)

*Here is my homemade sauce recipe. It’s based on Giada DeLaurentiis’ Everyday Italian simple tomato sauce.

1/4-1/2 cup olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
2 medium carrots, diced
2 celery stalks, diced
5 cloves garlic, minced (or pressed)
2 cans (28 oz) crushed tomatoes

Heat olive oil, add vegetables.
Add tsp each of salt and pepper.
Cook veggies for about 5 minutes.
Add crushed tomatoes.
Lower heat to simmer, cover.
Let simmer for 1 hour.
After one hour, remove from heat, and using stick blender (preferred method), blend sauce to marinara consistency. (You can do this in a blender too, in batches.)
There you have it.
Simple, delicious, healthy tomato sauce. And it goes great on the pizza.

This recipe will yield quite a bit. It freezes perfectly and it’s wonderful on any pasta.
For extra flavor and creamiess, take 4 cups of the sauce, add 1/4 cup of heavy cream, 1/3 cup of freshly grated pecorino romano cheese, and stir over very low heat.
Add pasta and fresh basil and serve. Delish!

February 1st, 2006 ★ No Comments »