happy thanksgiving!

and it sure was a happy thanksgiving indeed! last tuesday night, i drove bunkins to pittsburgh to pick up the jimster because he was just recovering from the flu and no one wanted to give his sickness a ride to nyc. so, as his big sister and as his bunny nephew (jimmy calls himself uncle jimmy to bunks! hahhahaha), bunks and i volunteered to haul him back to ct. well, turns out jimmy was swimmingly fine by the time we got to pitt. bunks spent the night in jimmy's room and had a field day playing in his boxsprings. unfortunately, no one got any sleep that night.the next morning, with jimmy and bunks in tow, i continued our travels home to ct. (in just one week, bunks has driven to durham, pittsburgh, and ct! poor bunny!) one of us always sat in the back seat to keep him company and he was much more calm. at home, bunkins would spend the days in the kitchen with us and the nights in my bedroom. his favorite place to keep warm (my rents keep the house fairly cold) is behind jimmy's butt at the kitchen table!mom cooked up a feast every night! we had turkey, ham, lobster, and steamed fish! for dessert, i made pumpkin pie squares! mom had made a pie with half a can of pumpkin, so i used the rest to make pie squares since we didn't have crisco to make a proper pie crust (i don't approve of frozen crusts like she does, sorry). and since i was home, i took the opportunity to take some pics of this baby animal series of cross-stitching that i made my parents to help them decorate their bare walls. (i grew up in a very white house. not white as in caucasian, but white as in all white walls!) this series lines the long wall leading to the kitchen door. the first that i made was a pair of baby tigers because dad loves tigers. the 2nd was a pair of baby brown bears because i went to brown university! go brown bears! (actually what i liked most about the bears was the little dab of purple in the violets next to the left bear!)

both of these flank a pair of baby elephants. this was the biggest project in my book of baby animals cross-stitching, and we all know i love "big guns" projects, so of course i had to do the most complex one!too bad you can't always zoom on the pics by clicking them. i don't know how to make that work more consistently on this page. trust that the details are intricate (i'm a fiend for detail)!

craft-wise my weekend was very productive as well! i finished applying hem glue to the unfinished edge of the pink ruffle on my refashioned sweater so that the silk would not shread to bits. i finished another batch of holiday birdie ornaments (the post on this will be next, so stay tuned!). i hit up joann fabrics on black friday (i can't buy clothes because of the pledge, so how else am i to spend my money?!) and scored tons of cute flannel for christmas presents (!!), a whole new set of bobbins (lan graciously gifted me her extra sewing machine so i gave mom back hers this weekend and of course i needed my own gear!), tons of elastic for $0.89 per yard (!!!), a set of make your own fabric covered buttons (!!!!!!!), and an amazing gift tag craft punch (!!!!!!!!!!). i "borrowed" some paint chips from the hardware store and made over 50 gift tags just to "test it out." hehehe. it's amazing. i've always wanted one, and it was 40% off at joann's! joann's is probs my new fav store and they have one in falls church, va too!!

hope you all had a great thanksgiving! bunks is certainly glad to be home and spent the night hopping around the condo in glee!

durham, nc!

i'll be adding durham to my list of "must repeat-visit" cities! bunkins and i made the journey down friday morning and it only took 4 hours, with minimal traffic! bunks was less than thrilled. here he was at the start of the journey, terrified, huddling in his litterbox (gross, man!):and here he is after the journey. notice he didn't touch his beloved veggies at all. or move!but no worries, because we set up a home for him in erin and henry's guest bedroom (complete with his zebra doormat!)and he had a blast exploring the room all night (including pouncing on the bed to hop around while i slept). oh, my bunks...while bunks explored, erin and i checked out the local thrift craft store, the scrap exchange! it had more than just fabric and knitting notions and was stocked by distributors of random industrial leftover goods, store closings, and donations. heaven!!!the front of the store had tons of blue bins filled with these random industrial notions. you could fill one of these plastic bedsheet packaging bags with all the stuff you could jam in it for $3.75! erin and i scored some really interesting fabric scraps (one i will mat and frame for art in the dining room!), canvas (to make tote bags!), and parachute fabric to make lan's boys their christmas presents!in the back of the store was the fabric and "notions" section. they had tons of fabric, ribbons, buttons, beads, sequins (!!!!! i bought a ton because i have never successfully found loose sequins on sale for cheap and here i found 700-900 for just $0.75!), bias trim (so i don't have to laboriously make my own!). eeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!! so exciting!here's all the stuff i scored for less than $30! the yellow fabric actually has metallic stars on it. jimmy ended up stealing the space jam pj shorts before i could give it to nathan, so i'm going to make nathan another pair. it's so ridiculous!we went to a really authentic thai restaurant for dinner friday night. henry and erin belong to a csa for seafood and we had the freshest fried flounder sandwiches for lunch (erin's cooking!) and shrimp scampi for dinner (henry's cooking!) on saturday!!! and on sunday for brunch, we went to dimsum and the dimsum was fresher than the dimsum in the dc area!!!!! erin and i created a crafting storm saturday night where she sewed baggies with which she was planning to wrap holiday presents while i worked on a christmas present for mommy. (pics will not be posted until after christmas, since she gets my blog updates as well!) i had so much fun and it was great to be able to go somewhere without having to find someone to watch bunkins! i will most certainly be back!!!

if you want to destroy my sweater, pull this thread as i walk away...

so after signing my "no shopping" pledge, seeing my huge pile of donate-able clothes, and unsuccessfully spending my gift card at anthro (no money was going to be exchanged so it's not considered cheating! and anyway, nothing fit), i realized i had to resort to refashioning some of my old clothes if i was to plan on staying clothed throughout the day. you laugh, but at 5', nothing fits right.

so, i took this crewneck sweater from zara's whose crewneck was too high and made me look like a boy, and hacked it off!i then resewed the edge of the collar so that it wouldn't fray, and together with this striped scrap fabric and an old pink silk scarf...i made this collar!here's a closeup:essentially i made a long 1.5" wide ribbon with the stripey fabric and added 1" pleats all along it (i put my perfectionism to good use!) and then added a ruffled strip of the scarf. i wisely cut the scarf along the side hem so that at least one side wouldn't fray, but allowed the other side to fray so it would be less feminine. the collar gaped open initially until i made tucks at select places throughout it. the middle of the collar had an ugly seam on the pink ruffle from me having to join 2 shorter pieces together, so i put a pearly button in the middle to hide it. here's the back.my favorite part about this sweater is the juxtaposition of the manly striped fabric with the girly pink silk and also the architectural-ness of the pleats versus the flowy ruffles! i love intricate and minute details (hence why i also love math), so of course i made coordinating faux button plackets! also with pleating and ruffles of course.and the dressform was sooo useful! i was able to pin things to it and finish the product without having to constantly try it on to see how things lay. it saved me from getting stabbed all the time.

bunks and i are packing up for a trip to visit erin in durham, nc this weekend! i hear there's a thrift fabric store that's similar to "knittin' kitten" of portland, or!! and yes, you read that right, bunkins is coming with, but not to the fabric store of course!!

senior field hockey shirts and a dressform

last night the field hockey team got together for an end of the season team dinner. the kids were cute and made presentations about the seniors and the coaches. then, the coaches made some speeches about the seniors and standout performers. we put together a gift bag for each senior and my contribution, of course, was personalized sparkly tshirts! the front had "(name of school) hockey 2010" because the seniors are the class of 2010. i used the freezer paper stencil method which worked amazingly well despite the tiny font and i used pearly white fabric paint. the white blob is where the initials of the school were. trust that it looked cute and neat!and on back, i handstitched their last name on top in white jersey and machine sewed jersey sticks and an ball, both of which were beaded! this girl's shirt had her nickname because her last name is so long. with 6 seniors, i had to speed up the process as much as possible!
the last piece of fantastic news- perhaps the most fantastic news- is that this weekend i scored a "tiny grasshopper"-sized dressform for $50 from craigslist! i say tiny grasshopper because most dressforms go down to a size small, which is too big for me, my mom and sarah, the 3 more frequent benefactors of my crafting frenzies. actually, i rarely craft for myself, but i might as well start sometime. usually dressforms are $229 regular priced and rarely go on sale cheaper than $100. after holiday presents, i am going to start putting it to use while i test out my "twinkle sews" book! (yes, i bought it for myself. blush. i couldn't wait until christmas.)

lemon poppyseed pound cake + cute bundt tin - poppyseed = cute lemon pound cakes

this saturday lan invited me to a family dinner with her in-laws and we had a true vietnamese feast. naturally, my contribution was dessert. since ryan was going to be in attendance at this dinner, he was the limiting reagent and thus i had to make some sort of pound cake. (yes, i'm very proud of my chemistry reference in that sentence!!!) i used the lemon poppyseed pound cake recipe from the joy of cooking, but of course, the boys were weirded out by the poppyseeds so i left that part out. lan had this tin with super cute mini bundt molds that i just had to test out. here they are fresh out of the oven:unfortunately the mini bundt molds were so small and had so many angles and corners that the cakes got stuck!!! robert, lan's husband who is a brilliant engineer, froze the cakes so they would shrink. then, following the advice from the joy of cooking, we had to bang the bundt tin against the countertop until finally they all popped out. isn't that great advice? bang and dent the counters until the cakes are unmolded! hahaha. it was worth it though because aren't they cute?!?!?!? robert's family is not big on dessert, but everyone asked for seconds (we served each cake in quarters)!lan shared the pictures she took of the boys on their birthdays in the dart gun jerseys that i made! naturally long is the one who is aiming the gun AT the camera. hehehe. and that's the limiting reagent himself on the far right!

why, tonya harding, why???

last monday, my knees were seriously bruised from an fc ceviche soccer game. i had joked that if the injuries held up, i could easily be nancy kerrigan for halloween. and without fail, i was still bruised by halloween so nancy kerrigan i was! i added panels of taffeta to a short flared skirt i used to wear back in college to resemble a mini ice skating skirt and paired it with a sequined clubbing top i bought in miami with sarah during one of our spring break outings. i also made a sash that said "why, tonya harding, why???" and cut out ice skates from some cardstock and slung it over my shoulder attached to a shoelace. of course i forgot to take pics while i was out, so here are pics from when i got home. i had colored on my bruises with a marker to accentuate the bruising but washed it off before i got home, so imagine my right knee as being blue and purple.

bunks found all this halloween hullabaloo to be absolute nonsense, so he napped while i got ready. and last night i was intending to make brownies for the last jv field hockey practice of today, but didn't make enough, so alas, more for me! these are cheesecake-less and still decadent!

i, helen, pledge that...

look at the cool post i found on another blog!

i, helen, pledge that i shall abstain from the purchase of "new" manufactured items of clothing, for the period of 2 months (ending dec 28). i pledge that i shall refashion, renovate, recycle preloved items for myself with my own hands in fabric, yarn or other medium for the term of my contract. i pledge that i will share the love and post a photo of my refashioned, renovated, recycled, crafted or created item of clothing on my blog, so that others may share the joy that thy thriftiness brings!

signed, helen!

i’m gonna do it. no more shopping for clothes!!!!! wahoo!!!!!!!!!!

(and then i can save and splurge on something cute from the after christmas sales!!!!)

a crafty crafting table, rugs for the price of .27 rugs, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and a vintage oven

this weekend mom and dad visited and seeing the lack of table space in the dining room, dad constructed a crafty craft table for me out of a kitchen cabinet door (leftover from the set of cabinets that had to be removed from the breakfast counter construction) and 4 wooden railing spindles!! the only disclaimer he gave me was that i was not to apply any pressure to the table. hahahahhaha. eventually i will utilize the 2 cans of black spray paint i have sitting around to doll up this crafty craft table!

the bottom of the table is actually the front of the kitchen cabinet door. it's painted white because andrew and i were in the middle of priming the door for my parents to then paint white when we realized we were painting one of the extra doors! oh well, now it's primed for spray painting!

in the rules that came with the condo i live in, i have to cover 80% of the floors. at 1275 sq ft total, that's a lot of rugs; to be exact, 1020 sq ft of rugs (more than the entire floor space of the first apartment i rented when i moved to dc)! big rugs range in price from $180 to $1000. i'd have to buy about 20 rugs, which would mean i'd be spending upwards of $3600! my solution: sew together 2 ikea rugs! this 1st set involved the ubiquitous dark brown and beige ikea rug that costs $17.99. mom and dad sewed them together along their lengths with dark brown embroidery thread. i actually have 2 more of these rugs, not sewn together, flanking the bed in the master bedroom! (at $17.99 each, how could you turn these rugs down?!) this second round of sewed rugs dad and i completed this weekend and it sits right in front of the breakfast counter. the rug i had before was really old and stained, so off i went to ikea and acquired 2 runners for $25.99 (more expensive, i know, but i really can't have 6 of the same rugs around!). here's the back of the rugs sewed together:and here is the front side! luckily dad and i are both perfectionists (so is mom!), because look at how the stripes matched up perfectly!!! today is liane's bday, so in honor of this momentous event, i baked her some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies! here they are cooking in the oven: and here they are all pretty and wrapped up. liane stresses the presentation of things, so this is pretty fancy for me, considering i usually gift treats in ziplock bags! you might have noticed from the baking cookies pic that my oven looks aged. and aged it surely is! when we bought the condo, we were told that the oven was replaced in the 1980s. yet when the inspector went through and checked everything, he reported that the oven never was replaced and in fact was from 1964, the year the building was built!!!

deluxe coconut chocolate chip coffee cake, a reading bunny, and awesome swag

this post is going to be very varied. let's start with the dessert i made for tonight's dinner with clara's nanny family! deluxe coconut chocolate chip coffee cake (i kid you not, that's what joy of cooking calls it)!! i had started mixing all the dry ingredients together, when lo and behold, i ran out of sugar. it was 9:38 pm. giant closes at 10 pm sharp. i call clara in a panic, thinking i could bribe her with fancy wine from my boss in exchange for some sugar. no response. i panic some more. i grab my wallet and sprint through the underground parking lot system that connects my building to giant, grab some sugar, sprint to the registers, and exit giant at 9:45 sharp. not bad, not bad, considering i did used to run track. hehe. this is the cake before going into the oven:here's the end result. recipe called for 50-65 min, but at 40 min, it already smelled a little burnt, so i took it out. hope it tastes ok!!!

so i think i caught your attention when i said that i have a reading bunny. well, i do. he reads books by ingesting their pages, including the covers. how he got to the bottom cover, i'm not sure because the book was lying on the bedside table. i was so embarassed to carry the book around that i bought a new copy at my school's rummage sale yesterday for 25c! but the best find from the rummage sale is an $1800 christian dior clutch for just $45!!!!

little birdies and space jam shorts winner!

this thursday i am going to have dinner with clara and the family for which she is a nanny. there are twin 4 year olds: harrison and audrey. you can't just show up at a little kids' house without a gift, so i finally was able to put this amazing little birdie pattern that i found over at spool, a fabric store in philly that has a blog, to use!! spool's pattern lacks wings, so i made my own template and added wings to both birdies. i also shrank the pattern to 75% its original size. harrison's birdie has the same fabric as andrew's ducky shirt and audrey's birdie has hot pink taffeta on the top (lined with white jersey knit because the taffeta was see-through) and the light pink with white polka dot fabric, that i used for the flowers on mommy's mother's day shirt, for the bottom. the birdies were then plumped up with polyfill. i hope they like them!!!

and great news! i have found a very worthy winner of the space jam shorts: nathan from my fc ceviche soccer team!!! congrats!

space jam pj shorts up for grabs!

back at the knittin' kitten, the thrift craft store in portland, andrew picked out this absurd flannel with a red plaid and "basketball playin' bugs bunny" pattern on it (think space jam, the michael jordan and looney toons bball movie of 1996!). since his bday was oct 16, i decided to start making a pair of pj shorts with the fabric early (we know how i tend to finish my projects late). the perfect pattern was found in weekend sewing, a sewing pattern book by heather ross that has quite the diverse collection of sewing patterns! (i actually bought the book to send to my friend erin on her bday in late october, but seeing as i couldn't resist the pretty pictures, i bought myself a copy as well!) i used a shoelace from an old pair of cleats as the drawstring and some 3/4" elastic for the waistband. the backside: andrew has since decided he wants to find himself on his own, so one pair of size adult medium (30-35" waist) space jam pj shorts up for grabs! my bro jimmy has called 1st dibs, but he's got a 28" waist, so if someone else who wants it has a slightly bigger waist, it's all yours!

on another note, my friend ave saw the last post with the cheesecake brownies and proposed that i bring some to her friend's dinner party this evening. so i made another batch and this one came out even better (aesthetically, at least)!