christmas hedgehogs! but only x4

oh bloggy, how i have neglected you!

as you can imagine, life's been CRAZY these past few weeks. at my school, the juniors disappear on internships for the month of january, so technically last friday was their last day of the quarter. testing-apalooza! which means, i have to prep them for tests, write the tests, corner all kids who avoid test day to take the tests. thankfully all kids have been cornered, except one elusive one. i'll let the school deal with him.

so finally, last week on thursday night, i started my christmas hedgehogs. my goal was to make 5 that evening: 4 for my friends in the math dept, 1 for pammy with whom i coached field hockey this year. but alas, only 4 were completed. no hedgehog for pammy this year, or for anyone else. i'm just too busy. in my haste to finish them, i also forgot to take pictures! emily sent me a picture of hers. they're from the matsutake blog post titled "if marie antoinette had been a hedgehog." they're supposed to have 3 or 4 tiers of ruffles, but em's only got 1. it looks like a ridiculous skirt. hehe. i'll have to make these again next year, and the math dept will get last year's christmas birdies! finally, all will be back on track! sorry, friends.

thanksgiving treats

i'm not really a fan of turkey, so the highlight of turkey day for me is the dessert (i think the highlight of every meal is dessert hehe). this year, jimmy's gf baked us an apple pie, so i couldn't bake yet another pie. therefore i made carrot nut bread.

unfortunately the 1st round of baking left the inside still wet. (i was lazy and forgot to test it with a toothpick since the outside looked browned already.) the 2nd round of baking couldn't bake through to the inside because then i started feeling sleepy and didn't want to forget to take the bread out of the oven so i quit halfway through. still underbaked. 3rd round, turkey morning, i rebaked the bread yet again and success! the inside was done! however, as a result, the bread ended up a bit hard. well, rock hard. oops. we still devoured it of course. i convinced the whole fam to come to philly this year, hehe, so to send my 'rents off on their trip home, i baked them pumpkin spice bread. this turned out a beauty. it was super moist inside! i added raisins, walnuts, and cranberries. it was delicious. i'm a fan of spiced things, i've learned!

chocolate oat bars

from "joy of cooking"! sooo ridiculously amazing! take a look at the inside:

nice soft layer of chocolate, while on top the chocolate layer is more firm. i must make them again, seeing as i still have half a can of condensed milk leftover. hmmm...

happy bday emily!

yesterday, my fellow new math teacher, emily, turned a perfect square. not 16, not 36, but the one in between. hehe. emily, remember, has a serious sweet tooth, so i promised her a new type of cupcake for her bday (she's sampled a lot of my desserts by now). with 2/3 of the can of pumpkin leftover from the pumpkin bread, and seeing as we're deep in the heart of fall, i decided that pumpkin chiffon cupcakes would be perfect for the bday girl. that is, with cream cheese frosting of course. chiffon cakes involve a lot of egg whites, quite like angel food cake. doesn't it look so fluffy?

historically, i am not the greatest decorator of desserts. sure, they're tasty, but they usually look hideous. not this time! mom got me a frosting gun with 5 or 6 different tip options, so i decided to test it out. since emily loves flowers, i did a swirl of frosting on each cupcake, resembling a rose.

of course i ran out of cupcake wrappers, so i baked the rest of the batter in a loaf pan. hello massive cupcake loaf (in the bday girl's own words)!

i decided to frost that sucker too:

hehe. this one i saved for me!

fh mouth guard pouches!

so apparently i miscounted and really there are 24 girls on my jv fh team. 24!!! what did i get myself into? the girls are great though, despite the fact that they frequently lose their mouthguards. sigh. at the championship game of the jv tournament, one girl even ran off the field after the start of the match, hunting around for her mouthguard. we played down a girl for a minute! i almost had a heart attack. naturally, i took it upon myself to put an end to this nonsense. each girl is getting a mouth guard pouch with her name on it! (note: i used iphoto and blocked out the school's acronym before the " '10." no worries, i'm ocd enough to know not to print things off-center!)

the material is from jimmy's high school graduation gown. grad gowns are huge. thus, lots of mouth guards bags can be made! i freezer paper stenciled the logo on with fabric paint. the side stitching includes french seams, where the ends of the fabric are tucked into itself. these bags will not fray nor will they come apart. the girls have NO EXCUSES now! i made a double draw string for the top so they can close the pouches to keep out the dirt from their nasty sports bags. the material is real thin, thus allowing the mouthguards to dry too! after i made the first 6 (3 at a time), i decided to start a mass production line.

it was quite efficient. i popped out the 2nd 6 in no time! 12 more left. perhaps i'll finish them this weekend...

for the new baby mama. heart from bunks

when lan visited 2 weekends ago, she mentioned that lori's baby shower would be this past weekend. the fam had been trying to convince me to join them on a family biking trip in dc and my friend michelle had been trying to convince me to see her in her play (she plays the lead!), with 3 fantastic reasons, i was in. yet ANOTHER road trip to dc (did i ever really leave?)! now lori is my friend for whom i made the mei tai. however, bunks had yet to present his gift to the unborn babe, so he put his cage cleaning food provider to work. (sigh, he's such a slave driver.)

"weekend sewing" has this adorable baby boy shirt (kai's shirt) and pants (the huck finn pants) that i'd been dying to try out. for the shirt, i used the same light blue uber-wrinkly cotton blend that i used for the bodice of lan's heidi dress. i hate how wrinkly it is, but i figured boys can tolerate wrinkliness. hehe. the black actually has skinny white pinstripes and is of a stiffer 100% cotton fabric. i didn't want to make an all light blue shirt, as it would look like pj's, so i added the black for the collar and front pocket, and made the huck finn pants from it as well. i topstitched the light blue fabric with black thread and the black fabric with light blue thread. (yes, i'm meticulous. are you surprised?) the best feature of this shirt:

i learned how to make buttonholes with a sewing machine!!! eeee!!! sooo much easier than hand binding the raw edges when i do it by hand. usually it takes me an hr to make 3 buttonholes. think of how many men's shirts i can make now!!! here's a view of all of them. beauty, no? i know nothing about sizing for babies (remember how jeremy's son's fc ceviche jersey was way too big for him?), so i made an adjustable waistband for the pants. the elastic (hidden underneath the light blue basted x) has 4 buttonholes and a button, so that lori could expand the pants as her babe grows. i know, i'm brilliant! (ok, maybe the pattern called for this feature...) i have no normal wrapping paper, so i stuck with my usual brown paper packaging (tied up with string! yay sound of music reference!)! it was sooo good to see you lori!

bake-a-palooza

bunks hates when i bake. he smells goodies in the air, yet never benefits from the situation at all. first up was chocolate chip cookies that i overbaked for my jv field hockey girls for their trip to the jv tournament (which we won!!!). they were super duper crispy, yet still chocolatey.

lan and her fam came to visit halloween weekend, so i made red velvet cupcakes, their favorite! pretty aren't they?

lucky humans, but poor bunks! to add to his misery, he is currently shedding, which i imagine is fairly itchy for rabbits.

ROAR!

in full costume!

jv league tournament champs!

the jv field hockey girls that i coach won the league tournament today!!! undefeated, then we won the championship game! we didn't let a single goal go by us!! i am so unbelievably proud of them!

off to make 22, that's right TWENTY TWO, glam mouth guard pouches for them as an end of the year gift. T-W-E-N-T-Y-T-W-O!

happy halloween hannah!

friend becca has the most adorbs 2.5 yr old daughter, hannah. yay h's! for halloween, becca and hannah decided she'd be nala, lion princess.

so saturday morning, becca and the cutie hannah came over. We used 2 in wide elastic and made a headband, around which we sewed thick fuzzy felt. I made ears, stuffed them, and attached them onto the headband, while becca made tons of pompoms from fluffy chestnut colored yarn. then becca sewed the pompoms onto the headband as a mane, while i sewed a long tube for the tail and a simple skirt stuffed with tulle inside to make it fluffy. hannah insisted on the princess aspect of the costume so i sewed on some glittery tulle on top of the furry skirt to glam it up! then, i sewed the tail onto the elastic waist band of the skirt. hehe the tail is rather long on the little girl!! scary lion? nah, i think she's pretty adorbs!

apple cockaigne

mom and dad visited last weekend, as usual, and brought me tons of fresh apples for baking. so i baked an apple cockaigne. next time i plan to halve the sugar topping, as i found it to be way too sweet.

they call me dr. bunkins...

bday cookies and cake

for my 2 favorite boys! yup, october is coming up, and since i no longer live near long and ryan, i figured i'd shower them with gifts this past weekend when i hung out with their family at the beach. they had tried my gingersnaps during their visit to philly on labor day weekend and loved them, so i figured i'd make them their own batch of gingerthins, which are essentially just skinny gingersnaps. (i also wanted to try something new, since i make gingersnaps for the rents so often!) the dough looked like poo, although the cookies were tasty.

too tasty. i ate so many of them that the kids didn't end up with as many as i had hoped. oops. for their cake this year, i baked a marble ring cake and kept the chocolate icing on the side for everyone to add as they liked. long loves chocolate and ryan loves vanilla (but rather dislikes things that are too chocolatey), and since they were sharing their bday celebration with me this year, the timing was perfect for a combined cake. marble cakes are fun to prepare, as you alternate between spooning white cake and chocolate cake into the cake pan. happy birthday, boys!

the mei-tai

my dear sewing friend, erin, works for a patternmaker, meg of sewliberated.com, who published a fantastic pattern for a mei-tai, an asian baby carrier/baby sling that has become all the rage amongst babymamas these days. meg's is particularly strong in that inside the panel, the straps are crossed as an x, thus providing more support than standard mei-tais, whose straps end at the panel. i had been waiting for the perfect excuse to make one...

now lori, my former colleague for whom i hemmed those jeans, is preggers. (in fact, those were her preggers jeans i hemmed!) lori is the perfect recipient for the mei-tai for many reasons: 1) she's short, my height, and thus an adjustable baby carrier would be ideal for her. 2) she appreciates more natural organic things. and 3) she's asian! yippee! i selected this thick cream woven canvas with thin white stripes for its simplicity and sturdiness

and the penguin flannel because her kiddo will be a winter baby! you might remember the penguin flannel from mom's christmas pj pants last year. i had just enough for the main panel of the mei-tai. (i love when things work out perfectly like that!)

mei-tais have long shoulder and waist straps for securing the carrier onto the babymama's front, back, or even side! they're "one-size-fits-many," so babydaddys can partake in babywearing too. the front pocket was supposed to be a stuff sack for the entire thing but since i used such thick fabric, the pocket will be just a regular pocket.

here's my mini mannequin donning the mei-tai:

(i thought about trying it on for the post, but then when bunks turned out to be the only "baby" i could carry in the mei-tai, i figured you'd all think i was weird... so mannequin will have to do the honors. hehe. bunks, you're off the hook!)

blondies

no, i didn't dye my hair blonde (what a sight that would be!), but on saturday i did bake some butterscotch brownies, otherwise known as blondies. i added chocolate chips (of course!) and some shredded coconut. emily, a new math teacher hired with me, also has a sweet tooth, so she got half!

current mood:

in sewing denial. feeling swamped. tired of mathing.

sigh.

i'll be back, tim gunn, i'll be back.

i'll make it work... (until tomorrow night!)

patron saint of fabric

i hear there's currently no patron saint of fabric hoarders. upon my death, i expect you, my friends, to petition that i be canonized as saint helen, guardian of fabric. oh what's that you see to the left of the fabric shelving in my coat closet? oh yes, and add patron saint of shoes to my resume as well.

oh, me too! me too!

dad: "i'm hungry, let's see what we can find to snack on in the fridge."
bunny: "did i hear snack? and fridge?" dad: "kinda in the mood for carrots. where are they? in the veggie drawer?"
bunny: "carrots? veggies? oh, me too! oh, me too!" fortunately, bunks hasn't learned to recognize the sound of the veggie drawer of the fridge in philly yet. hehe

a tasty meal!

after hitting up whole foods, the only non-convenience store grocery near me which is also ridiculously expensive, i decided to cook myself a lavish meal: steamed turbot topped with scallions, pepper, dill, ginger and a mix of olive oil and soy sauce; steamed yu choy with oyster sauce, and brown rice. aside from the fact that the turbot was really flaky and didn't hold itself together that well as i transferred it from the steamer to the plate, the meal was decently pretty! and tasty! don't think i've changed. tonight's dinner: back to frozen ravioli! yay!!

shirt #3 for dad

3 weeks ago, dad challenged me to make him 2 shirts in 4 days because he had been doing business in dc and was counting on mom to visit that weekend with his clothes for the following week in tow, but we weren't sure if she was able to come or not. loving any challenge, i took it on! however, then mom showed up, so i never ended up finishing the 1st of the 2 shirts nor did i even start the 2nd one. apparently dad is convinced that he makes better decisions while wearing the white with grey stripes and the light olive with cream stripes shirts that i made him in the past, and thus he wears these 2 shirts weekly. clearly he needs more to spice up his wardrobe, so last night, after having finally settled into my philly apt, i decided it was time to finish the shirt that i had started! (it felt so good to get back in the groove after a 2.5 week hiatus!) and trust me, the shirt is a beauty! first off, i used a sharpie and created a label from twill tape for the shirt. i like how basic it turned out. and, twill tape is soft so it's not as obnoxiously scratchy as many store-brand shirts' tags! secondly, i took pains to make all the stripes match this time. see in the pic that's 2 above how the striping continues perfectly across the front of the shirt, despite the break for the button placket? and check out the cuffs: (cute new bedspread, isn't it?) and the shoulders! on the other 2 shirts, i kept forgetting to line up the stripes on the shoulders with the ones on the sleeves when i was cutting out the fabric. however, this time, i remembered! meticulous, no?? i love the color combination in this shirt. it's my fav so far!

happy bday to my bunks!

my little trouble maker turned 3 this tuesday! unfortunately i didn't get to spend it with him as i was away at a conference on how to teach ap calc. boo! but, i did get to spend the week at my godparents' house! my godmother is the master of all crafts. there are crocheted blankets galore, quilts, clothes she made, stuffed animals she put together! she has this beautiful beautiful metal singer that works like a charm! and finally, this week i figured out from whom i learned my fabric obsessive ways. (shhhh, secret.) she and mom definitely are my crafty heros!but, it's bunkies' day, so let's focus our attention on him and him only. i got the little bugger a basket woven from his favorite brand's hay. $11 bones, this basket. ridiculous! but anything for my bunks!it's so small that he can't fit in his big butt! i think he's tired of his bday present now. i gave it to him early, in mid july. he doesn't really touch it anymore. sigh. happy bday my picky boy!

ever wonder what a non-cook eats for dinner?

instant korean noodles! and, to make matters worse, dad's in town! it's not a bad thing that he's in town because i love his company. however, dad is also a relative non-cook. he's a worse non-cook than me, hehe, as he can concoct sufficient dishes (sufficient in that they will feed you and not give you food poisoning, and you might get all the nutrients you need, minus the protein component since he's essentially a veg). i'm the best non-cook though because all my dishes come from instant this or instant that, and sometimes i have even given myself food poisoning. sigh. since i've just been lesson planning and sewing all day while he's out at work, it's been my job to contemplate dinner. but just contemplate, since he always helps me make it and laughs at how incompetent we are. the noodles are actually little tubes! apparently the koreans think they've invented this new noodle that cooks faster because the inside is hollow. i was sold on the fact that this is a "hearty rice noodle soup." i heart hearty meals, hehehhee.

today is the big move day. so, bloggy's profile location has been changed to philadelphia, pa! YIPPEE!

happy bday julia!

julia, my former roomie, celebrated a bday july 31st! julia's bf, marcus (he's absolutely hilarious), lives in brooklyn and she misses him lots. also, she has NO wall hangings in her new place. so, i took it upon myself to help her out with her decorating and her missing her bf situations. enter the ork poster... ork posters are these hipster maps of cities where the different neighborhoods are delineated, with the names typed in goofy font. i've been dying for an excuse to get one, but haven't had any good excuses (isn't that usually the case for all my purchases?). i cut out a heart from a paint chip swatch (which i hoard from hardware stores for my gift tag craft punch!), and rubber cemented it onto the glass right where marcus lives. i used rubber cement so that julia could move the heart if marcus ever moves in brooklyn again (he's in his 2nd brooklyn neighborhood). if he leaves brooklyn, they're on their own for mapping out his new location, hehe. of course i got myself a dc one (grey background with white font), now that i'm moving! happy bday julia! i'll miss you when you're off to haiti to do relief work!

isn't she noble?