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Here’s a sneak peak at another patchwork project I’ve been pecking away at for a long time. I’m feeling the need to finish these bedcovers lately, so hopefully I’ll have more to show you soon.

This patchwork pattern is a modified version of an Amy Butler design (Patchwork Duvet Cover) from her book, In Stitches. It started out as thrifted clothes I picked up on one trip to the Goodwill in Charlotte. Here’s an early pic:

I decided this print (below), though I liked it, had too much white to work in the design, so I used fabric paint to darken the white to a kind of purplish brown color. You can see the result in the first photo. It’s a watercolor-type paint, so it doesn’t change the “hand” (the feel) of the fabric much.

The oval appliques will go on a light green background when I finish the last few. I tried laying them out on white (top photo) but I didn’t think it worked so well. What do you think?

Every town has its own thrift store scene strengths. I love cruising to see what kinds of clothes, craft fodder, and crazy stuff are available. For the most part, the thrifted clothing here in Hannover is not a strength, though I’ve found some cashmere sweaters just asking to be made into scarves.

Vintage textiles are a whole other story. There’s a place here called Fairkauf that’s like the department store of thrifting, with four entire floors of stuff.

My favorite is the floor of household goods, much of it embroidered tablecloths, runners, hankies, plus all-cotton (mostly white) bed linens. The collection of china and dishes is nothing to sneeze at either. I’ve been dreaming up a new quilt and snapped up some of these things with it in mind. I couldn’t resist the cherry placemats, though (not part of the quilt plan) and the bird fabric (also not for the quilt). It’s just asking to be over-dyed, don’t you think?

Below is a “commode” we bought to go next to my work station in the dining room. It holds the printer and scanner (when is someone going to design some more attractive computer equipment?). We were looking at some cheap something at Ikea or whatnot and I thought I could do better. This solid wood, glass-covered, dovetail-drawered baby was only 30 Euros! It also happens to go really well with our dining room furniture.

Next up is a candelabra I got at the Flohmarkt (fleamarket) on Saturday. I really like the lines, though I wish it had more candle holders. You need a lot of candles to light up your life in January here. I can’t complain for 5 euros, though! I’ve been wanting to go to the Flohmarkt for a long time. It was pretty cool, lots of interesting stuff, from furniture and antique toys to books and ancient dentistry tools. As you see, I restrained myself.

If you, like me, are a thrifter, you must must read this post by Blair Peter of wisecraft about torturing her husband via iphone thrift photos. It’s hysterical and inspiring. And besides that, she has a great blog with tons of other inspirations.

4 Comments on Adventures in Thrifting: Germany Edition, last added: 1/21/2011

These hand warmers began life as perhaps the most expensive children’s underclothes known to man.

Figuring out the right gear for the weather in Germany has been an ongoing education. When my three-year-old’s kind, dear kindergarten teacher told me he needed undershirts, I listened. He needed not just any undershirts, mind you, but silk-wool undershirts, from a boutique. I can’t even bear to tell you how much I paid for them.

Meanwhile, it’s very un-German of me, but I haven’t been able to kick the big ol’ energy-wasting American dryer addiction. Maybe there’s a 12-step program I can enroll in and by the time we leave here I’ll have cleaned up my act. Dryers do exist in Germany, but it’s much more common, regardless of income level, to use a drying rack. I do this some but not enough.

Sadly, this is what happened to one of the costly silk-wool undershirts:

Gasp! All those Euros gone to waste! I couldn’t handle it becoming just a doll shirt, and my daughter had been asking for a set of hand warmers. So I broke out the Kool-Aid (brought from the U.S.) and dyed it, using roughly these instructions.

If I had it to do over, I’d probably use one less packet of Kool-Aid to get a slightly lighter color, but oh well. It’s done. After that I just cut up the middle of the shirt and trimmed the top down so that the arm-piece of the shirt became the thumb-piece of the warmers.

I used an old T-shirt to line the arm warmers and finished them off with blanket stitching. Voila! You could certainly make a similar pair with a shrunken sweater, using the underarm corner as the under-thumb corner.

4 Comments on The Golden Fleece Hand Warmers: Underwear to Outerwear, last added: 1/21/2011

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to learn some new “more exciting” vegetable dishes, even if the kids won’t eat them. I figure more interesting veggies will mean more veggies eaten, at least for me (though hopefully my husband will eat them too). After all, nothing tastes very good if it’s just nuked in the microwave. And my kids tend to try new things when I’m eating them, especially if I don’t serve it to them or try to make them eat it.

So, I’m looking to one of my favorite blogs, 101 cookbooks, for inspiration, and for some reason her cauliflower recipes are just calling to me. Ha ha ha! No, but seriously, she makes cauliflower seem so delicious and fascinating.

I tried this recipe the other night, though I have to admit I did the lazy-I’m-not-going-to-the-grocery-store-again version with ginger paste (rather than fresh) and no chilis (not easy to find here), thinking the kids might eat it if it wasn’t too spicy. My six-year-old ate one bite after being bribed with a Skittle. She didn’t like it, but I’ll try again. The three-year-old wouldn’t touch it. I thought it was really good, though, and so did my husband. Since I had no chilis, I sprinkled a little red pepper flakes on top. I went really easy on the salt, but needed to add a little more. The difference between the slightly salted and properly salted versions was like, totally decent vs. totally delicous. I’m always trying to cut salt, but sometimes it’s necessary.

One thing that struck me about the recipe—–I had never thought of slicing cauliflower rather than cutting it in chunks. It’s so simple but really it makes the whole dish so much easier to cook and eat. So much more appealing, too.

I also finally broke down and bought Mark Bittman’s tome How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. It’s so huge (perfect e-book possibility, methinks,but it doesn’t seem to exist in that format), but chock full of good stuff to try. The author of 101 cookbooks, Heidi Swanson, has a book coming out in the spring—yay!

0 Comments on Spicy Cauliflower as of 1/1/1900

I started this dress for my daughter way back in September, during kids clothes week challenge hosted over at elsiemarley, one of my favorite blogs. The idea of the challenge is that for one week you’re supposed to spend an hour a day doing some kind of work on your sewing projects for kids. I did work on the dress every day for a week, but I didn’t get so far, and since then have been pecking away at it for a few minutes at a time. Finally my daughter said, “Why don’t you just give it to me for Christmas?” Ummm….okay. She’s six.

This was my first time sewing anything much with knits. The free pattern is from the blog The Train to Crazy, which has lots of other great stuff as well. It’s a really cute pattern—–the trickiest part is getting the waist elastic done properly, which requires zigzag topstitching, gathering, and elastic placement, all at the same spot. Mine is definitely not perfect in that area, but you know, it’s knit, it’s a playdress, and who cares. I’m sure you can find other mistakes if you’re looking, but please, don’t look that closely. I don’t think my daughter will. Sorry I can’t show a picture of her in it since she hasn’t seen the finished product yet.

I got the fabric from the local stoffemarkt (fabric market) in Hannover, which comes through a few times a year. It was a good deal, and I have the mirror image of the dress already cut out and ready to go, if I can get motivated. I didn’t end up being in love with the color combo. I think I might like the mirror image more.

I read up on knits before starting: good tutorials here and here. It boils down to using the right stitch (according to your machine), a special knit needle, and a fabric stabilizer. I couldn’t find any fabric stabilizer in Hannover, so I used a lot of regular old starch, which worked fine. It definitely made a difference in the ease of sewing. I have a very basic Necchi sewing machine, which has a few stitch options which are great for knits. Love that machine. If you live in Charlotte, NC, you can buy one at Himebaugh’s. They are so nice there.

2 Comments on Go-To Dress, last added: 12/8/2010

The kids decorated this bag together the other day for a friend’s birthday. It’s a shopping tote that zips into pouch-shape so you can store it in your purse and have it handy. Here in Germany pretty much everybody has re-useable totes because you have to pay extra for grocery bags.

The bag comes from dharma trading, which has a ton of other bag options for very reasonable prices. I think you can get some blank totes at Michael’s, too, but maybe not the lightweight zipper kind like this. The kids used Sharpies because we couldn’t find our Tee Juice markers, but I would recommend the fabric markers because the colors will wear better.

Here’s the back:

I thought it turned out really well.

What with the dropping temperatures and snow I’ve been drinking a lot of hot tea. There is plenty of rooibos tea here in Germany, and in fact they have a blend of rooibos and caramel that is awesome (can you get that in the U.S.?). But I haven’t found any rooibos chai, which I’ve been craving. I’ve made my own blend before, but I lost that recipe, so this time I tried this one, with modifications.

Obviously, I used rooibos rather than black tea, but I upped the dosage to 2-3 TB to make it stronger, since rooibos can be a little weak. I also added some black cardamom (and when making the second batch had no green cardamom left) and subbed fresh nutmeg for the allspice. I had no anise, so I left that out. I used fresh orange peel rather than dried. It turned out really well. I didn’t realize that the ginger is what gives it such a nice bite, so if you want spice, use plenty of it. I used fresh ginger, but I’ll have to make a big batch of a dried version recipe so I can have the tea whenever I like.

Let me know if you see a rooibos caramel blend in the U.S. so I’ll know if I need to stockpile it before we leave Germany.

In Germany, Christmas celebrating and shopping begin before Thanksgiving, since they don’t do Thanksgiving here. And the Christmas markets (Weinachtsmaerkte) are where it’s at, not the mall.

German Christmas markets are like little wooden villages built inside the pedestrian zones just for the Christmas season. The markets are made up of actual wooden buildings, complete with roofs, windows, and live greenery. Vendors sell food, gift items, and gluhwein (a hot alcoholic drink) or eier punsch (egg nog). There are also carousel and train rides for the kids. It’s great to have something festive to do just when the weather is dropping to freezing temperatures.

We traveled to a special Christmas market the other day, held at a castle not far from Hannover. At Schloss Bueckeburg they call the Christmas market Weinachtszauber, or “Christmas Magic.”

This is a shot inside the castle. Love all that ornate detailing on the ceiling and the chandelier. All kinds of lovely things for sale: colorful cashmere scarves and sweaters, leather bags and ornaments, decorations. You should bring your magic wallet to the castle, though, because the prices are definitely fit for a king.

Below is a picture of an outside booth, where they were selling antique fencing. Cool, eh? Especially if you wanted to start your own cemetery.

It was freezing so we kept going inside and back out again. Above is a vintage organ with moving figurines on it. So fun. In another area, dancers demonstrated a traditional German dance in their lederhosen. We also saw, flitting about here and there, angels in white sweaters and massive petticoats, sometimes accompanied by St. Nicholas.

Sunday we also pulled out our advent wreath, and the kids have enjoyed lighting it every night and singing an advent song.

Slowpoke has gotten a couple more positive reviews, from Booklist :

“Pearce’s succinct text will amuse emerging readers with her only slightly exaggerated references to the hectic pace of modern life. Ritchie’s fluid, cartoon-style illustrations are equally adept at conveying the story’s speedy absurdities…and its more relaxing moments”

and from School Library Journal (scroll down after clicking on the link).

Also, I just found out that Slowpoke now has an Accelerated Reader test (you have to enter the title into the search feature to see it).

Last week, I did a Skype author chat with Carver Elementary School in Florence, SC. It was really fun. The students are third-graders and had all read Slowpoke ahead of time. Their teachers helped them compile questions about the writing process. I missed being able to interact in person with the kids, but it was a good experience. The learning goes both ways with these kinds of things, and it’s always great to hear from readers. I’d like to do more of them in the future. For tips on hosting a Skype author chat, check out this article. If your school wants to host me, please contact bettyasmith (at) bellsouth (dot) net and put “author visit” in the subject line.

The picture above is me on the big screen in Carver’s library. Special thanks to librarian Debra Heimbrook for working with me on this inaugural Skype chat.

I finally finished this scarf from the cashmere/ silk yarn I bought at Tuesday Morning. It ended up being more of a scarfette, but that’s what I get for doing absolutely no figuring before starting. I can totally live with that.

For those of you who are knitters, I used a seed stitch. No brainer.

When it came time to weave in the ends, I couldn’t find my yarn needle. Story of my life since moving. I happened upon a craft shop when I was out and about. I didn’t know the word for yarn needle, though, and I realized when I began explaining that I must sound like I was looking for a knitting needle. I stopped to think a moment and then said, in German, “I knitted a scarf, and then…” here I pantomimed the hanging strings, then said, “Now I need to…” and pantomimed weaving in the threads.

The two shopkeepers burst into uproarious laughter, then offered me a yarn needle for free. I was pretty pleased with myself for not being afraid to look like an idiot. It’s all about getting my point across, right?

This scarf is so soft I’ve been wearing it a lot. Plus I love the color—-orange brightens up our gray weather. My daughter rubbed it against her face last night during story time.

I’ve been trying new recipes, trying to get inspired to cook again. I really lost my cooking mojo after a long period of food sensitivities with my son (thankfully now he can eat anything) and then moving here to Germany, where the groceries are so different. Well, they’re not soooo different, and the quality is great, but it’s sometimes hard to make the recipes I was used to making.

I really liked this soup, and the hubs gave it a thumbs up. I thought the kids would really dig the orange color and slurp it down, but they weren’t into it. I’ll try again with them. The combo of spices works well: obviously ginger but also cumin, ground fennel, cinnamon, allspice, dried mint. I like orange veggies, which are kind of sweet, complemented by savory flavors, and with onion, garlic, and the added citrus hint (lemon juice), this had a really nice complexity.

A few notes:  as the recipe states, it is quite a thick soup. I like a thinner soup texture, though, so I think next time I would crank up the spices a little and water it down. I accidentally cranked up some of the spices already, having used the 1/2 tsp measure for a few of them—-I must be getting old, I could’ve sworn it was the 1/4 tsp. Oh well, it didn’t seem to matter. I also used nutmeg instead of allspice because I didn’t have it. The recipe was forgiving. I didn’t measure the lemon, either, and used one lemon and one lime because that was what I had. I don’t know if that’s more citrus that it called for, but since I’m a citrus-lover, it didn’t matter.

You can get the recipe here (along with lots of other Moosewood recipes). Also, if you haven’t discovered the cooking blog 101cookbooks, that’s another great place to go for inspiration. She does some amazing things with vegetables.