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I was quick enough on the email that I got to be a patten tester for some upcoming Wee Wonderfuls pattern cards. I took my job very seriously ;) and here is the result.
Meet Ferdinand:
I'm not a fan of the embroidered eyes (I like the button look but didn't have any buttons). Other than that, this was a fun, hand sewing pattern and came out great! I'm guessing the pattern cards will be for sale shortly; check here for details.
When I was doing my egg dyeing experiments earlier this week it occurred to me that I should take notes on what I did because 1. someone might ask 2. I would forget 3. if it actually worked, I might want to try it again. "Three" hasn't really panned out but since "one" happened, here's what I can recall.
For all: hollow out eggs. Use a safety pin to make a small hole in the top and a slightly larger hole in the bottom of the egg and use your lung power to blow out the egg contents into a bowl (I have a photo of this--I will not share). Carefully dribble water into hollow egg, shake and blow out again to rinse. Then refill with water so the eggs won't float (nifty trick for ya). Make innards into frittata while you are dyeing shells.
Blueberries: about 1/4 cup (or less) frozen b-berries in about 2ish cups of water. Toss in a few tablespoons white vinegar and your eggs. Boil until your water is running out (about 30ish minutes). Let soak/cool overnight--or take out if you are happy with the color. Rinse. I took the egg out after the dye cooled and let the fabric go overnight.
Onion: Same as blueberry but use the papery, colored skin of a large yellow onion torn into small pieces.
Tea: Put 3 Lipton tea bags in a container. Add about 2 cups boiling water. I'm not sure if I added vinegar... (gently) toss in egg. Soak for about 30ish minutes
Coffee: Make yourself a cup of coffee using your french press. Enjoy. Refill with boiling water and some vinegar. Add egg and use plunger to keep submerged overnight. (I think fresh coffee grounds would work better but why waste? Part of my goal with this was to actually use/eat the food and not waste perfectly good food. This didn't seem possible with the tea and blueberries)
Beet leaves and stems: Don't bother
Beet bodies: Peel and thinly slice 2-3 beets. Add about 2 cups of water and your eggs. Boil until beets are tender. Remove beets with fork, cool, add to yummy beet salad. Watch out for pink pee. Using remaining red water, toss in some vinegar and continue to boil your egg for another 30 minutes and let it soak for a good while. The beets turn things an amazing shade of pink which, in my experience, promptly washes off.
Cajun seasoning: Take leftover seasoning packet from bean soup mix. Add boiling water and egg. Soak overnight. Be disappointed with result. (Martha suggests using turmeric but, again, I was trying to avoid wasting food--the gross Cajun seasoning packet was headed for the trash)
For the fabric, I tore a cast off white, flannel sheet into about 18 inch squares and added a square with each egg (except the coffee, no room in the press). The samples shown have been rinsed and dried but not really washed. I expect the color will be nearly gone after a washing--maybe I will investigate how to actually set dye. The fabric did help keep the eggs submerged through the boiling, filling the eggs with water helped but wasn't quite enough.
That's it.
On a separate note, we got a federal tax refund (woo hoo) and I hit submit on the e-file so that's all done. It's a good feeling to have the taxes all wrapped up for another year.
Because I don't want Sonja to fall out of her seat! Click to enlarge the photos and see the labels...
Photo with no flash (and no light):
Photo with flash:
This is pretty much the most "science" I've done since finishing a B.S. in biology oh (oh my gosh!) TEN years ago. Hmm, let's not talk about that...
Yellow onion and tea are my favorites. Unfortunately yellow onion is crushed on the other side due to some rough handling.
Stay tuned tomorrow for the interesting (to me anyway) fabric dyeing results, potentially the amount of my tax refund (fingers crossed everyone) and my thoughts on being a highly valued pattern tester for Hillary of Wee Wonderfuls fame (I can pretend she picked me for my skills, not just my freakish blog stalking and instantaneous email. Right?)
Some egg and fabric dyeing experiments a la Martha:
Blueberries:
Tea:
Coffee (for drinking and egg dyeing):
Onion (surprisingly effective):
Beets in the back, tomorrow's dinner in the front:
You can tell I'm not a "real" crafty blogger because these photos are far too real--dirty stove and all. Not nearly enough styling. And (gasp) I used the flash for every photo. That seems to be a no no in the crafty blogosphere.
The tea dye (and dinner) seemed to work.
Full results tomorrow...
Our big weekend accomplishment? Starting (but not finishing) our taxes.
In more crafty news, I'm working on a dress from a thrift store skirt.
And a little quilt (because everyone's doing it)
One thing I did finish is this lunch bag. Mr. H is teasing me about my lunch box fixation. It's almost out of my system...
Yes, it's a contact paper covered paper lunch sack. So it's reusable. Good idea or no? Well, in any case, another view:
And in more exciting news, my blog addiction is a good thing as I was one of the first to email Hillary and now I get to be a tester for her new pattern book. Very excited about this one. Wish me luck!
Hope you had a good weekend!
P.S. From the look of this post, it appears the theme for the weekend was "brown." Hmm, must use more color.
Well folks, you leave comments telling me my kid is adorable and guess what you get? More Biscuit!
I know I've mentioned before that one thing I'm reasonably anal about is Biscuit's diet. My obsession with her eating balanced meals is made infinitely easier by the fact that the kid will usually eat pretty much anything that isn't a potato. While sitting high on my horse earlier this week I decided to run a very scientific experiment about food preference. I figured it would be evidence of my incredible parenting that my child loves asparagus and other nutritious fare.
To conduct said experiment, instead of my usual technique of giving all veggies followed by carbs then dairy and a fruit dessert, I laid out a multitude of delicious food offerings on her tray. Clockwise from left: oranges, bran and fruit muffin, egg and chard frittata thing, asparagus, cheese, turkey, cottage cheese, water. Kind of random but it's what we had on hand.
I sat her down and prepared to document her consumption.
And she started with.....the water.
Followed closely by large forkfuls of the cottage cheese
She could not be stopped with the cottage cheese and ultimately resorted to eating it with her hands so as not to miss a single curd. But before that:
Next she tried a micro bite of the delicious muffin my sister in law made
And then she realized, hey, there's an orange here. I love oranges. I throw fits to get oranges.
With the oranges neatly dispatched, back to the water
You still with me? Because I find Biscuit's food preferences absolutely riveting but I imagine I'm pretty much alone in this. Except maybe my mom. Hi, mom. Did you figure out the computer with dad in India and all?
But anyway, with her thirst quenched, the muffin tossed aside in disgust, and the cottage cheese removed for safety she went for the cheese slice. Apparently she has inherited my distaste for Swiss cheese.
Since the cheese sucked she went back for a closer look at the tasty muffin.
I guess she wanted to know what was inside
Things started to go downhill fast. She was fussing and smearing food and threw her water. Notice the untouched eggs (typically one of her absolute favorites) and the lonely asparagus. After some convincing, she ate most of the turkey slices
And then I gave up. I didn't know at the time but I don't think she's feeling great and it turns out she's been off all week. A few teeth coming in, an upset tummy and a heck of a lot of whining and not eating. What excellent timing to become a food photojournalist. Consider me off my toddler eating habits high horse.
Hmm, maybe mopping is in order...
I know I'm not the only one who, rather than keeping my child safe from germs, runs for the video camera. I should probably let you know that she just spilled these Cheerios. It's still gross but it's not as though they were sitting on the floor for a week!
And, just because you can never have too many funny toddler videos, a bonus of Biscuit saying her all time favorite phrase in the world. BIG TRUCK.
Biscuit and I have a nice little tradition of going to the Farmers' Market on Saturdays. We've been doing this for a few months now. When we have time and the weather is nice, we walk over. Otherwise we hop in the car. Once we get there, Biscuit rides in her stroller and greets the strangers with a forceful, "HI!" and gobbles up fruit and cheese samples. Well, except last weekend when she ran around and had a screaming fit when I wouldn't let her eat an orange peel. But I digress.
We have our routine. A quick loop to check out the offerings and then we hit our usual spots. The guys on the end who recommend which oranges are best each week (lately it's the navels). The teenage kids who sell apples but are always eating chips and drinking soda at 8 a.m. The fellow with the tent where we get carrots, potatoes and onions. The "cheap" booth at the other end for cauliflower and squash over the past few months and now asparagus for $2 a bundle. The cheese lady (who is also a Craft Mafia member proving what a very small world we live in). The mushroom lady. The weekly $1 bag of "ready to eat" kiwis. It's all gotten rather predictable in a very nice sort of way. 
Usually we head home to make a fritatta/quiche thing with the chard, onion, cheese and mushrooms. This weekend we jumped back in the car and headed to San Francisco for the afternoon followed by dinner at my parents'. Turns out Biscuit doesn't like carousels. Oh well.
The post I've been trying to write since Friday isn't working out. I know what I want to say but can't quite get it down on "paper." Ah, such is the life of a crappy writer with a blog.
So I'll summarize.
Lately I've been trying not to worry about rejection and just put myself and my stuff out there. I joined the local craft mafia. Did a show. Sent an idea to a magazine. And I'm thinking about opening an Etsy shop (not that brave yet). And you know, I haven't been published nor have I sold a ton of stuff but I also haven't had any bad experiences. And people are so nice and so encouraging.
Mr. H is also getting out there. Last week he submitted an article idea to his favorite magazine and lo and behold they wrote back in a matter of hours and asked for an outline! How cool is that?
I guess I just wanted to put in a good word for taking the plunge and getting out there. Speaking of which, my dad is off to India this week. Have fun dad! Take good photos!
Ok, that's it. Hope you had a great weekend!
P.S. Photos are of a few Easterish projects from last week. Chicken from a Martha Stewart pattern and bunny lunch box from a photo seen here.
I got to spend an hour at the park this evening hanging out with a friend (and the kids) and I probably bored her to death with my recap of Sellout Buyout (she asked, I swear). But I do want to record my thoughts about my first foray into selling my stuff. Overall, it was a lot of work and I didn't make any money to speak of but it was a lot of fun and I'm glad I did it.
Notes:
