Japanese pillow

Japanese pillow
Originally uploaded by Hayley a.k.a. Prism

This is from a pattern book that Mom P has and she and I made together as a sewing lesson. I remember most of the lesson I think. Really I should go buy me a nice cutting board and a better rotary cutting blade for a lot of my crafts, as it was immensely useful.

She did most of the flower appliqué, with clear thread of all things! (I should order some, it's NEAT!)

Anyway, I really liked doing it and if I had any taste for design would do more things like this. One day I suspect I'll have a house where I decorated it beautifully with things I made like this. That or it'll look like my bedroom does now (I should clean, not craft, but only one of these appeals). Ugh.

Raspberry Chocolate Wrist Warmers

Raspberry Chocolate Wrist Warmers
Originally uploaded by Hayley a.k.a. Prism

These are some wrist warmers I made. they're not 100% identical, but the larger problem was the yarn. Debbi Mumm Traditions. I 'd been warned but I did it anyways because I loved how the original designer of the pattern's turned out. Needles to say mine wound up nothing like that.

But as it turns out- Ri wants them, so they shall be hers.

I may one day make another pair but I feel pretty foolish wearing them. Maybe when i'm skinny one day.

Crochet case

Crochet case closed
Originally uploaded by Hayley a.k.a. Prism

A long time ago I made a knitting needle case (I'll post about that soon), and it didn't turn out exactly as I would like. The answer is - use a 2nd piece of fabric as a liner. All comes out quite well then. This one is for my crochet hooks and I googled around at different patterns before arriving at this one. It's a fat quarter and I left it whole because I like a longer flap on mine. I think it looks neater. Just some scrap ribbon I had lying around as well.

It holds all the hooks I have, which is an entire Boyle Crochet Master set (hey, I got it half off), which came in such an ugly red faux leather case I decided this was much better!

The pocket is short enough that I can get the tiny lace hooks in and out without stabbing myself (they are sharp as it turns out!), and the large pockets to the left are for other tools (if I ever put any in there), or I could sew extra hook pockets into it as needed. Right now there is no spare space but I can't see why I'd ever need more hooks than I've got!

Crochet case open
Originally uploaded by Hayley a.k.a. Prism

My First Amigurumi!

Golden Snitch
Originally uploaded by Hayley a.k.a. Prism

So I learned kind-of how to crochet a long time ago, and then found a reason to try and really learn it! Amigurumi!

Apparently I am going through a "cute thing" phase of my life that I don't see ending any time soon. The pattern for this Golden Snitch is on Ravelry, I made it out of cheap Red Heart I had lying around. I think it turned out pretty well!

I'm keeping this little guy, he's on one of the shelves of my wall now instead of on top of my webcam.

Yoga Socks

Yoga Socks
Originally uploaded by Hayley a.k.a. Prism

"Easy Peasy Yoga Socks" - Available on both Google and Ravelry (free! You'll probably notice a lot of my patterns are ones I found for free - at least for now).

The yarn I got at Knitch in Atlanta (I so want to go back!) and is Trekking XXL in Color 153. I have leftover yarn (a decent bit but I dont think enough for another pair? maybe?) out of the skein.

That said be wary of the sizing and how you cast off on this. The original designer doesn't include a gauge and her definition of "average" must be tiny! I added to 48 st. for cast on, and found that I wound up with a distinct top and bottom because I have a fat leg. I did Elizabeth's Zimmerman's sewn cast off which is what made it too tight. The pattern does call for a ribbed bind off w/ extra stitches - so that for next time for sure. I mistakenly thought the sewn would be stretchier.

And no, that is not my foot. That is S's foot.

Fingerless Gloves

Fingerless Gloves
Originally uploaded by Hayley a.k.a. Prism

These I finally finished this year (earlier in the year though), long after they were promised. These are fingerless gloves for S, made out of black yarn but with the pattern for "Hooray for me gloves!" (Google and Ravelry will lead you to it).

They were my first project in sock yarn which I have later learned to love, but this yarn was a bit rough for my tastes after I got ahold of some other fingering-weight, and black was hard to see! S likes them though and they work for her - so that's all that matters. She's modeling them here for the blog.

Tiny Fox Sculpture

If you haven't figured it out by now, the sudden flood of posts isn't that I did tons of crafting in October (okay, well maybe I did, but not THIS much), some of these projects have been done for a while (varying from a few weeks to slightly over a year), and I just now got around to photographing and dealing with them. Finding that Flickr will tie into Blogger has made this IMMENSELY easier as long as I chop it up into one project per post and edit in additional photos later (and go back and add tags, shame that Flickr doesn't support that). So hopefully I will catch up soonish!

That said, here is the fox sculpture I made inspired by things on Deviant Art and the octopus. He however, is of my own design and mine. I need to make more of these (I bounce between different crafts far too much) , this one I gave away to T.

Tiny fox - Front
Originally uploaded by Hayley a.k.a. Prism

Tiny Fox - Back
Originally uploaded by Hayley a.k.a. Prism

Altered Tins

Knitting Tins
Originally uploaded by Hayley a.k.a. Prism

So, in the quest for knitting stitch markers and such, which I will post about later, I had gotten relatively unhappy with the quick & dirty little pouch I had sewn to hold my knitting accessories (and getting the idea to craft for my knitting turned into many projects as it turns out).

I found some $1 tins at Micheal's for gift cards, but they were ugly (but flat as Altoid tins no longer are, and no mints to toss out wastefully!). So i picked up some scrapbooking paper and some mod podge and went to town, adding some finishing touches on one with my silver and gold paint pens.

Two seems to be enough for now, but more may ensue later (depending on how sane I feel like being).

Tiny Octopus Sculpture

Tiny Octopus Sculpture
Originally uploaded by Hayley a.k.a. Prism

A little octopus I made using a tutorial on deviant art, painted with acrylic and baked with a wire to be a charm! Innit cute? I gave him away to S.

Recipe box tabs

Recipe box tabs
Originally uploaded by Hayley a.k.a. Prism

So I had a recipe box that had a set of dividers that didn't exactly work right for me. They weren't high enough, and there weren't enough of them. Somewhere on a blog online I saw these cute things for modding notebooks as recipe books. Much fiddling with open office and my printer later, I made these!

Mom's Typewriter is the font if anyone wants to know.

Obishori Cloths

Obishori Cloths
Originally uploaded by Hayley a.k.a. Prism

Mostly because I'm a big dork, but not enough of a dork to want a cartoon character on my napkin ala the children's ones (only ones I've ever seen). I found a set of washcloths at Target on sale, a soap container for $1, and S had just inherited a serger. A few purchases of thread later and Tada! 2 fit in the soap case. Now if only I would remember to actually..oh...cook.

My First Softie!

Corgi Softie - pattern and result
Originally uploaded by Hayley a.k.a. Prism

Because yes, I need another hobby.
I made this guy out of craft felt and thread (regular and embroidery). The quarter is included for scale. I was really happy with the drawing, disappointed with the result so I'll be giving that way and trying again some time.

I didn't account for what would happen when he was turned so next time I just may not turn, just have a small edge with outside stitching.

Catching up - again

It seems I constantly fall behind on this blog! This is the first of 2 catch up posts as this one has been sitting in draft a while. So first, two bentos that have been made. I had been out of town some lately and busy at work a lot so not much cooking going on but here we are.

Bento #10
For this one I made beef soboro, and I was getting really sick of sticky rice, so I made whole wheat couscous instead. Edamame completes the lunch. It's not super filling, so warning (inverse of bento #6 perhaps).


SparkleFox's Rating 4/5
Beef Soboro from Just Bento -4/5
Tips: I used beef that was too fatty for this, so I drained it. Unfortunately that means the whole thing wound up a little too dry once I mixed it with couscous (you'd have the same issue with rice). Next time I'm going to get a leaner bit of beef and not drain it. As a note, I left out all the "optional" parts of cooking the couscous, litterally just water and grain - no butter or salt as I figured the soboro would have plenty to make up (and if I'd done it right, it would have).
Couscous - 4/5

Overall - 4/5
Edamame does take up a lot of space for what it is, this bento is one that could safely use a snack for my workday and not be too much food like Bento #6.

Bento #11
Breakfast bento! It's not that interesting, except I got around to decorating it! I found some Fox Run alphabet cutters on clearance at an overstock store, as well as pancake molds (silicone ring type). And some nice sprinkles of the shaped kind that I'm sure will appear later.


SparkleFox's Rating 5/5

Apple Maple Chicken Sausage (Favorite, found in the nice meats section of your Harris Teeter if you are lucky).
Pancakes - use recipe on back of Bisquick Box.
American Cheese
Shirred Egg Muffins with Onion and Green Pepper. - 5/5

I've done a variation of egg "muffins" like these that didn't make it into a bento, they're incredibly simple and really wonderful. Basically stir up some eggs just like you would for scrambling them, add some salt and pepper, and then start throwing ingredients in. This has green bell pepper and onion, I have also done sausage, onion, and green chili pepper which was superb as well. Stir it up, throw it into a silicone muffin pan (or silicone muffin holders), and cook at 350 degrees F in the oven until cooked. When done they will be moist, and the top may be wet but they will be slightly browned on the edges and a little fork in them will let you know they're done.

Overall - 5/5
Tasty, and decorative, and filling. Probably not very healthy though. oh well.

Moving on on the craft front -
I finished A's Harry Potter Scarf. I gave it to him immediately after I finished it as I was doing it while playing D&D. I have started E's Potter Scarf in Air force colors, pictures of both below.


For my trip to dragon con a little crafting was in order for goth-dressing purposes.
I ordered a mold off ebay and made these. There are several photos as I try to close up.


I then made these using the same thing - a ribbon necklace and a necklace with a setting. I had to make another rose just for the setting and didn't notice the green on it till I was already wearing it. Oh well, goths dont have to match. They are all roses although the photos may be too dark to show. (I got the setting at Micheal's and it had another clay cameo in it, which J helpfully demolished for me). And then I got a set of beads that screamed "earrings" so I did the simple task of putting them on french hooks.


So other than that - The room is an atrocious mess. I did go to a store called Knitch in Atlanta courtesy of a friend (we'll call her MB). I got my first pair of addi turbos and I see why people like them, as well as some lace-weight wool and some fingering weight wool/nylon. The former for a shawl, and the latter for yoga socks. I did try to start the yoga socks and frogged them out after realizing quickly they were way too small. The pattern I was using had no exact guage listed - so went back to the drawing board there. Turns out adding 6 stitches gave me the right size and I've made some more progress.

I also have an account at Ravelry now for those who may be interested in patterns/weights/colors/brands etc etc of what I do. However all the "blogging" will go here. I'm mostly using it as an online notebook right now, and plan to continue that. My user name there is "Prism".

Long time no post

I know, behind on the posting, by a lot.
So, I have to update you guys on Bento #10 (and then I fell out of the bento habit and need to get back into it), and the 2 craft projects I have finished, as well as all the cleaning crazyness. But, that's for another post. Here are some more cooking reviews of things I have made recently.

Honey Chicken Salad - SparkleFox's Rating:4.5/5 (My version, not theirs!)

This comes from Southern Living 2006 Annual collections, however it is apparently availible online for free at Myrecipes.com

However, I have modified it - because noone in their right mind would put that many calories/much mayo in a salad. At least nobody *I* consider sane. So the modifications I have for a better salad are-
More celery
More cranberries
More pecans
All of that is to taste.

Go to 1 cup not 1.5 cups of mayo, and I used 1/2 regular Hellman's, 1/2 reduced fat hellmans (I use the same 1/2 1/2 mixture for my other chicken salad). Cuts your calories in 1/2 and the salad is still quite moist enough for me. I didn't actually even use all of it.

The "Other" Chicken Salad: SparkleFox's Rating: 5/5
While I'm at it, another chicken salad recipe that I have used before I found this one is to have red seedless grapes either concord or chopped in 1/2s in the salad, chicken, apple cider vinegar (add after mayo to right taste, i tend to add a tiny bit of mayo, then a little vinegar, and work up so it's right), salt, pepper, 1/2 regular mayo 1/2 full fat (ratio, not measurement, this is all to taste), walnuts, and celery. Very tasty.

Sausage Egg "Muffins": SparkleFox's Rating: 5/5
Source: All Recipes

This is an EXCELLENT recipe! No photos, I used lean sausage and a key here is to DRAIN WELL. It was even okay leftovers. I got 8 muffins not 6 out of 1/2 the recipe but I was eyeballing the peppers and onions and probably added more than they have measured. Obviously brush your teeth after this one!. It's also very savory by itself, but is plain enough you could dress it up with salsa or whatever blend of spices you prefer.

Chicken Cordon Bleu II: SparkleFox's Rating 1/5
Source: All Recipes
For a top rated recipe, perhaps I did something terribly wrong here, but boy did this not turn out well. I ate most of it but what I froze I may just throw out instead. Of note- I made 1/2 the recipes.
First- I found it pretty hard to wrap the things up so the cheese wouldn't fall out. But this is ok and forgivable, better chefs than I probably could have done this better.
Second - I cut the butter I think in 1/2 of what was called for (I made it a while ago) and it was still too greasy. What the hell are these people thinking?
Third - I don't agree with the choice of Paprika here after tasting it.
Fourth - Cream as a sauce on top of a dish this rich is not cool. I wound up using very little on the first one and skipping it after that.

Needless to say, I'll be looking for a different Chicken Cordon Bleu recipe if I bother trying again. My current stance is the microwave kind can't be much unhealthier for you than THIS and they're way tastier!

Last Week's Cooking

So last week before I went out of town, there were 2 more recipes that I tried.
Here's how it went.

Huge Cookies!


Yote wanted cookies, so I decided to make him some. I used real vanilla not imitation vanilla extract for these, and I think it made a HUGE difference. They really do taste a lot like bakery cookies, and I found that storing them in a tight container they didn't get too hard. If I had put a piece of bread in there to keep them moister that would have worked too. The only downside here is how HUGE the cookies are (Soda can included for reference). For the record, the dough if you aren't terrified of the raw egg in it, is absolutely the best.


It may be my (crappy cheap) oven, but contrary to the reviewer's comments about needing to shorten the cooking time, I needed to lengthen it by several minutes.

SparkleFox's Rating 5/5
Big Fat Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie From All Recipes.com

Greek Restaurant Whole Wheat Bread
Unfortunately no photo again. I have to get better than that.

I was fairly disappointed really. I used non-fast acting yeast and converted the times per the books instructions, and I also note I don't use parchment paper but silicon baking liners.

Problems:
1. Even cutting the time to the "low" end of the conversion, I let the bread rise much too far on the first rise, so it came out very big, but a little too dense and flat in the end as the second rise didn't go as far. The crumb wasn't bad otherwise.
2. The bread was fairly bitter. That may be how wheat is supposed to be, but I was already disappointed in the density so this did not make me any happier.

I am considering trying this one again, adjusting my rise times, as #1 may have caused #2. I may also need to make a slightly firmer dough for the spreading vs rising on the 2nd rise.

Overall I'm not sure this recipe is really worth a second try for the bread itself, but I do think I will just for the learning.

SparkleFox's Rating 2/5
This one came from A Passion for Baking by Marcy Goldman.

No book rating yet, this is the only one I've tried. I will say, I have never seen a book so exacting in it's instructions of how whatever must be done "just so".

Bento Mania

H sent me a lot of bento stuff from Japan at my request, and I have fallen in love. The dangerous thing here is the amount of money I could (and have already) spent on supplies. I will make future posts about what tools I have and like, and what I've improvised. Anyways, you might notice that I start listing around Bento #6. I did not take photos of Bentos 1-5. However they weren't that interesting, and did not include recipes you won't see posted here for later ones.

You can check out the pictures of the bento goodies I got and some of the in-cooking progress at my flickr account. Anyways, here's the photos of bento #6, which was intended for lunch and 2 snacks for a long day at work.

Bento #6

Chicken Teriyaki (extra sauce in the pigs), Steamed Zucchini, Carrot Kinpira, Steamed Rice, Chocolate for the main meal. A pear, and an egg with dijon sauce for the snacks. The chocolates (not shown) I found at Harris Teeter for the Starbuck's, the other was mailed from Japan (Ghana Lotte Black), however the local Japanese market sells it as well I found out. Links to everything are below in the ratings (this is the new format of how I will always post).

Sparkle Fox's Rating: 4/5

Chicken Teriyaki from Just Bento- 5/5
Carrot Kinpira from Just Bento - 5/5

Tip: Make as spicy or not spicy as you like by adjusting the pepper. Watch out for how oily it is though, it CAN stain your bento/lunchbox if you are not careful!

Starbuck's Passion Chocolate - 4/5
Ghanna Lotte Black Chocolate - 5/5
Dijon Sauce - 4/5
Recipe: Stone Ground Mustard (I use the german named kind), and a SMALL amount of light mayo (Hellman's).

Overall - 4/5.
If you think I packed too much food. You're 100% right. Not all of this was eaten, so 4/5 on the actual lunch for that.

Bento #7

A hurried lunch. Edamame, Steamed Dumplings (from Grand Asia), leftover carrot kinpira, leftover steamed rice, and dumpling sauce (purchased) in the piggies. Can't say there was much cooking going on here.

SparkleFox's Rating 3/5

Ok in a pinch, but the dumplings/sauce didn't go well with the kinpira. Too much bread overall between the dumplings and the rice. Although points for me for making the irish flag. :D out of japanese food. I'm already damned, may as well have fun with it.

Bento #8

No photos of this bento. It was a pretty pathetic one because I was in a hurry. However, I'm listing it here because I learned a couple of useful tips from it. #1. Fruit can take up way too much room in your bento if you aren't careful. I packed some apple slices for this one and that definitely took up too much room for how much you'll wind up eating. Fruit if it's not dense /small should go to the side. I have used pineapple/banana/kiwi with better luck. #2. The Teriyaki recipie from Just Bento DOES NOT SCALE WELL. I tried to make more the night before for 2 people to have a large dinner and it did not work out right. This had the leftovers of that and it was VERY dissappointing compared to the first time I made it.

Bento #9

Shrimp (cooked with a little soy sauce), stir fried zucchini and onion, chopped up banana, and onigiri with ebi furikake.




Sparkle Fox's Rating 4/5
No recipies, this is a very simple bento that was leftovers from dinner last night. Cooking Cute has an onigiri tutorial if you don't know how to do that, google works as well. Don't know yet how to make the banana's not brown, but they were still tasty. Also still working out how to do eyes/whiskers etc out of nori. I have cutters for ham/cheese etc but they won't work. Debating a nori punch. If you know how that doesn't involve wayyy too much time with scissors, please let me know!

Tips: I used wax paper to hold the bananas away from juice, this worked very well and was a better use of space than the shaped side-dish cups I have. I see why the paper cups are popular.
Onigiri that is not nori-wrapped will break apart when re-heated when you try to eat it. That was fine in this case, but lesson learned.

That's all for now, next time more interesting stuff and recipes, promise. I'll be doing 1 lunch per post as well in the future.

Fun and Frustration

Catching up on all the bento entries will come shortly.
For now, a few thoughts on other things.

I will be linking all the recipes or sourcing them for everything here from here on out, regardless of the rating.

My other thought is, I need to find a good personal recipe organization system.
There are like 50 billion recipes online, all in different websites, not to mention the ones I make up, come across scraps of paper, or the over 120 cookbooks in our house (and they don't even span all the food types I like, there's nothing there for Korean, and nothing really printed after 2000 except for a handful so little fusion or new food).

This is driving me crazy because I have no way to search all of these at once, and no good way to organize them all, nor any way other than writing in the cookbooks themselves what I thought of them or what I changed. Which only solves it for the physical cookbooks, unless I start printing everything out on recipe cards (which I may do). But that wouldn't solve the searching bit, and even then most of the websites I know of don't have the greatest searches either. Admittedly once you've been cooking 20 years, you probably know just where to find your favorite recipe for most common things. I'll update here if I come up with a system that works.

No update on all the crafting projects, it's been a busy couple weeks and all, and not much cooking gone on.

Hayley's reminder list -
Post all the bento stuff in 1 big entry.
Write up about the wheat bread recipe and the cookie recipe.
Find an organization system!

Catching up all at once.

So, for anyone looking for the couple of posts that were here before, I've changed the nature of the blog. I dont intend to post about the things I originally thought I would. Instead I have decided to make this blog about the things I like to create. That includes at times artwork, knitting, coooking (learnign to rather) - my latest thing for bento boxes, and anything else that along those lines.

So to sort of catch up all at once.
I am currently working on the knitting needles - A harry potter scarf in raven claw colors for Panda. I'm 5% done with it at best and Need to get on it.

I am also currently working on a rug, on 2 knitting nancies (spools as some call them). One of them a store bought embellish knit for the smaller yarn, and one I made of clay and nails (photos to come), for the larger. I still have NO idea how i'm going to sew it together when I'm done, there's a methodology to it but it's only in one book i know of for like $30 on amazon. I may get it anyways. That and I'm not sure I'll actually finish this one, it's taking FOREVER by hand to do the I-cord.

I owe, lots of people lots of crafts, i'll come up with that later.

I'm also working on a meditation pillow, if i can ever figure out where to go with it (photos forthcoming). I'm good and stuck on it. I think i screwed up entirely. But it's a little late to back out now.

And, for the cooking, I recently made

Strawberry Muffins - (SparkleFox Rating - 3/5 stars.)



They came out not exactly the texture I'd really like in my muffins, I think next time I will try a different recipie. They still taste okay, but they are too moist on the outside and too dry overall.

Lemon Poppy Seed Pound Cake (SparkleFox Rating 4/5 stars)

This was a test run, I will be making it again for him but with sugar glaze. Very lemony, not really "my" preference, but he liked it, and it's his birthday in two weeks. The texture is fine, a little bit dry, but that is because of the container I put it in I think. Next time I will use a different one. I also think the sugar glaze will help.



FireWine Shot (SparkleFox Rating 4.5/5)

There was also an experiment with booze, to make a drink called Firewine. It's got nothign to do with wine and is entirely a reference to something from a Planescape game. It looks like this when it's done.


It consists of spicy ginger beer (get the good stuff, it's hard to find here though), Goldschlagger, redhots, and a cinnamon stick. It's actually very good, but it's very much a "boot to the head".
And there we go. Not exactly an intro, but, long enough for now. I'll get the rest up here later.