Spring is coming, so I made a wreath

Season change and right before they change I start to anticipate and feel them coming. Fall starts to arrive in August for me, and by September 1st I celebrate all things fall. No matter that officially date of a season, I know when the weather starts changing.

SPRING

I can feel it in the air here, the birds are becoming raucous the sun is a bit brighter so in anticipation to mud, planting and my birthday I made a grape vine wreath. I replaced the branches I had placed on there a year ago and it looks very happy.

The process wasn't a hard one, I went to Michaels for some thread and came back with the thread, an embroidery frame, a grape vine wreath (I've wanted one forever), two keys and a bunch of fake Provençal flowers. Michaels is a dangerous place, especially with coupons.

I made my flowers, a bunch of them, chose the ones I wanted and stuck the flowers on and attached a ribbon so I could hang my keys.

It turned out lovely.

Pulled Work Embroidery

For my mothers birthday I created a small center piece for her tea table. I had a small piece of linen that was just asking to be used.

I packed up the piece and mailed it before I remembered I didn't take a picture after I removed the pencil outline and nicely ironed it. But here it is just missing the pulled corners which are pictured at the bottom of this post.

I wanted to play with pulled work so I used this tutorial for my edging, i didn't have enough fabric to follow the whole hem, so I blanket stitched all around and left the fringe.

Blanket stitch and pulled work

It turned out lovely, especially as this was my second time trying pulled work. I found a bird cage at thegraphicfairy.com that I inspired my middle 

I would love to put this image on a piece of wood for my own house. The bird cage base is embroidered using an medieval detach button hole stitch found here it was fun and easy to follow and do, and the cage itself is using a Portuguese stem stitch tutorial found here

In all four corners I added this sunburst, the tutorial I found here was for a hole line of the sunburst in a row. But I didn't think it would work for my piece, plus I was running out of time. I should mention that the tutorial isn't in English but the pictures are all you really need.

Fabulous 30min Meal

Valentines day was a low key for me, my boyfriend had to work and I wasn't feeling inspired but the next day I made one heck of meal. It was so good that I will be making this for my 3 year anniversary  in July. Its also a pretty low cost meal #win

I failed to take a picture, but the recipes I use have enough to give you an idea

Menu
Herb French Green Beans
Rice noodles
Garlic Parmesan Roasted Shrimp recipe here

Delicious right?*

All I did was steam the frozen green beans (aldi's) with an Italian herb salt I found in Hoboken, NJ

Soaked and cooked the rice noodles

Prepared the Shrimp as instructed

Then tossed the shrimp with the rice noodles with some more olive oil and BAM done in 30min!

*this image is taken from damndelicous.net to entice you to visit their page and try out their recipe

Cooking for fewer then fifteen

A great thing about growing up in a large homeschooled family is that cooking and housework is apart of the curriculum, the impossible thing is you learn to cook easily for fifteen but cannot cook for two.

Its been seven years since I've lived with my parents, four years of which I cooked for one person and the last couple I have been struggling with cooking for two. Now it would seen that cooking for a small number of people isn't such a tall order but preparing small portions, so that only four servings come out of one meal, has never looked right or just seems to be a waste of time. 

Why prepare twelve cookies when forty-eight would make the next cooking excursion so much faster. Slice and bakes.

Why only cook two chicken breast when cooking six would result in not having to spend so much time making the next meal?

During the four years of solo cooking I never had to address these questions, yes I needed to share a fridge with my roommates but I was always the one that cooked. I shared but cooking from leftovers is an expertise of mine. I've had some delicious meals which I cannot recreate because it would take having the same exact leftovers in the fridge when I created said meal. Whats different now? Well now I am cooking for two, both of us have a say in what we eat and one of use doesn't eat leftovers well. Something economy is fixing, but I need to alter my cooking so there isn't so much food. So what have I done to fix my habit of over cooking? Well for starters, I volunteer to cook for others so that I can cook large portions. Parties, people with sick loved ones are a few examples. The thing habit I have adopted is trying new recipes that other people have created for small numbers.
Plus I have challenged myself to make my monthly food expenditures comparable to when I lived in Minneapolis and shopped at a recycled grocer but also focus on sustainability and health. I don't want to buy cheap because its cheap, I want to spend my money wisely so that my vegetables and meat do not come from mass farms.
It shouldn't be hard I do live in the Garden State, but keeping the coast low will be because the East Coast is a frightfully expensive place to live.

My favorite meals so far have been 
Cilantro-Ginger Haddock, 
with kale chips and ferro.
The Kale chips are very easy to make, baked at 400 with seasoning and light dusting of olive oil until almost dry (15min) then put under the broiler until crips (3-5min) 

Sriracha Chicken

 This was a 30min meal and I used the full 3tbs of Sriracha and honey. Next time 2 1/2tbs will be fine. Paired with steamed frozen peas and beans and jasmine rice. I use a salt seasoning that I found in Hoboken, NJ and it makes all the vegetables I have ie peas in to something delicious.

 and this delicious Black Bean Lasagna

oh man, this layering of black beans (I didn't add the pepper but added a corn salsa instead), cheese and avocado was easy, simple and heated up real well as left overs.

I don't own a microwave, so I use the oven and it always adds some crispness to any leftover lunch :) 

French Craft blog, inspiration and French practice

As I was meandering around Pinterest I stumbled on La Bastidane she has created some amazing embroidery pieces as well as fairy dolls, they're just adorable.

I must say this I cannot wait until I fully comprehend her full story, if you go to the bottom of her website you will see her publications and the craft fairs she has participated in.

Christmas projects from 2014

I have been embroidering more then sewing lately. But just before Christmas I finished some sewing projects to give as gifts. I made hooded towels for my 6 nieces and nephews

The three to the right side
Blue Bird
Pink Dragon (incomplete in this photo)
Green Caterpillar 

Below left
Anna from Frozen Cape

Below right
Darth Vader (incomplete, the final product had thick white lines outlining the visage)

The towels were fun and quite surprising easy to do, once I sat down that is. For my mom I made and quilted an owl, I wasn't sure of my ability to bind the square so I brought it to Christmas incomplete, but she liked it and the hand quilting turned out fabulous.

2013 failed. 2014 still time!

I failed at my 2013 challenge. It wasn't a good idea, and I learned from it.

1. Final semester of grad school is busy.
2. Moving and crafting don't mix well
3. To blog you've got to have a functioning computer
4. You can't post your craft if its a birthday present and suppose to be a surprise!

I haven't stopped crafting, I just stopped blogging. But I believe I will try to blog again because the internet is the one place I haven't lost my computer data, as of yet. For example, last night I had the urge to visit the blog which inspired me to draft my own patterns in 2008. But I couldn't find it, nor could I remember anything googleable regarding the blog. German, english, knit, sew and photography bring up 200,000,000+ search results all of which were not the blog I wanted.

I spent 3-4hours googling, the most successful being when I had my boyfriend google in german. I found these blogs I want to explore more,
http://madformod.wordpress.com/
http://allures-und-couture.blogspot.com/
http://sonea-sonnenschein.blogspot.com/
http://schurrmurr.wordpress.com/

It wasn't until I visited the now gone Xanga.com for my old blog did I find a reference to sew-mad.blogspot.com. Thanks to Xanga letting me have the wordpress version of my posts.
sew-mad.blogspot.com is now frauvau.blogspot.com .
And news flash! She had a toddler!! Guess it has been a few years.

So thanks to my blogs, I can find reference to those things I have forgotten or lost due to electronic failure. YAY!