Ginger Bread

My family has had a gingerbread competition for two years in a row now, and when I was planning this year's design, I had to find a recipe that I thought would work. I used this recipe, and got...

It was kind of the recipe's fault, and kind of mine. I tried to use margarine. Out of a tub. Huge no-no for buildings. 

On the bright side, this stuff was delicious :)

Christmas Hotpad

Gather Your Materials:

around 2 sq ft of cloth (this is a great pattern for scraps)

1/8 yd batting (or more if you want a thicker pad)

One of my family members found this great piece of cloth for me. Mr. Nicholas' momma loves butterflies - and when is the last time you saw a butterfly Christmas pattern?

Step 1: Measure your cloth and batting.

Use another hot pad to measure out how much cloth you'll need. Don't forget to double the size of course :) You don't necessarily have to double the size of the batting, depending on how thick you want it to be. Since I bought the cheapest batting in the store, I decided to double it.

Step 2: Stack your cloth.

You want to have your two pieces of cloth (right sides together) on top of the batting. This is very important. Layer both pieces of the cloth on top of the batting, or things will turn out wonky and your batting will be outside the hot pad :)

Step 3: Make your loop (optional)

You know how some hot pads have a little loop you can use to hang them up? If you want to include that in your hot pad, cut out a 2 inch by 5 inch strip of cloth.

Sew it right sides together across one short edge and the long edge.

Trim your corners. It will be nearly impossible to get a nice, sharp corner if you don't get these very close to the seam (but of course you don't want to cut your stitches either!)

Turn right side out...

And iron flat (pretty :) Here's where you find out if the cloth you're using can be used for a hot pad or not. If the heat ruins the cloth, you should probably find something else to use it for! Unless you're one of those people who hangs hot pads on the wall that you don't plan to use?

Here's what not to do: (even though it looks like it makes sense!)

Instead stick your look between the two pieces of cloth. Pin the little guy if you need to make sure he stays in place. In this photo you can see again the order of your stack:

Step 4: Sew everything together, leaving a 2 inch gap.

Step 5: Trim the edges & corners.

Step 6: Turn right side out.

If you did it right, all the batting should be inside the hot pad. It works better that way :)

Step 7: Iron & close the hole.

To close the hole, sew the gap closed a little in from the edge, after tucking everything in. That may look weird at first, so just keep on sewing around the whole pad when you're finished closing the hole, making a nice border around your hot pad.

Step 8: Diamond Quilting. (optional)

I guess you could technically stop here and have a plain hot pad, but I like the ones that have the diamond quilting. Start with a big X from corner to corner, and then keep cutting  halves to get nice diamond shapes.

Step 9: Cut your threads and use :)

Purty, right?

21 Before 22 (Mr. Nicholas)

1. Learn the art of fishing.
2. Catch my first fish (stingrays don't count)
3. Do most of the reading for every class. (Don't want to say all...that's impossible.) 5/11/11
4.Use my gift certificate to Chez Panisse. 5/24/11
5. Get my hair trimmed (for the first time in 6 years) 1/30/11
6. Purchase a bottle of alcohol! And get my ID (so I can prove I'm 21. Ridiculous.) 2/19/11
7. Own a (the) Little People CD! 1/29/11
8. Eat more vegetables. (Yeah, Cassie). And fruit.
9. Be nicer to random strangers so they're not scared of me (I think I just look angry to other people).
10. Find clothes that suit my image (present a more adult image of myself).
11. Learn to sew.
12. Read more for pleasure than for school.
13. Tame Lady Grey.
14. Get better at Chess.
15. Try to enforce the idea of "biracial" more (I'm neither black nor white, people).
16. Watch more than one movie in a day.2/11/10
17. Go to the Berkeley Pier.
18. Do some at-home exercises (push-ups and sit-ups)
19. Floss every night!
20. Find more excuses to use Draino (that stuff is pretty intense). 11/6/11

21. Continue to refuse to get drunk.

This is Mr. Nicholas' 21 before 22 list. He actually turned 21 back on December 21st (21 on 12/21) and we just now got around to writing this, but it was fun so it's ok. I love these lists :) I stole the idea from Elsie though, so just nobody get mad at me :/

Tunisian Crochet Zelda Tapestry

I didn't make this, Mr. Nicholas did. But it's pretty amazing, so I'm sharing anyway :) Project page here.

Isn't he good? This is Tunisian Crochet - I haven't even learned how to do this yet!

Inspiration Book

When I took the perfumes class with Lori, she talked about keeping a notebook of all the perfumes you've made and what you think of them, etc. etc....

And I don't make a lot of perfumes, but I do make a lot of other things, so I decided to put everything in a small "inspiration" book.

So this is where I keep things I want to try, make, or whatever. And also comments about what I think once an item is made. Here's a glimpse of a couple pages where I found a couple items of clothings I want to try to sew/knit:

Cranberry-Banana-Walnut Bread

So I'm pretty sure this is the best loaf of bread I've ever made.

Except for the part where I was worried about a soft spot in the middle and re-baked the rest of the loaf, only to leave it rock hard and inedible.

But before I ruined it, it was amazing.

And I had a loaf that my mom made from the same recipe, which was equally amazing.

Here it is (and see the recipe here):

Before I decided to make this one, I considered this one instead...if anyone makes it, be sure to let me know if it turns out better.

Cranberry Spice Jam

Yikes, I suck. Please forgive me?

Here's something else I made for Christmas: Cranberry Spice Jam. I was already buying cranberries for Cranberry Vodka, so this is what I used the rest of them for.

The recipe is here:

Cranberry Freezer Jam

I don't need to give you directions, because that's what the link is for :)

But I suggest going with the spiced version. It's super yummy. We gave a lot of it away, but I have two 16 oz jars of it reserved for us. We're a little greedy :)

For Christmas Nick's grandmother gave me another jam recipe, some jam jars, pectin, sugar, and fruit to make more jam. I love my family :) (I like to claim them for my own. Nick doesn't know. Don't mention it to him, k? Awesome, thanks).

So you'll be seeing more jams soon :) But here's the Cranberry for now:

MMmmm six cups of sugar :)