Before I get into showing off some neat stuff I made, I have to show off a couple of neat things my dear friends made and gave to me. Talea made me a knitted apron. This is exactly the kind of kitsch I adore the most, and since picking up stitches is the bane of her existence, receiving this made me feel super special!

I also think this deserves a couple of detail shots. My giant 8 month pregnant tummy in the first shot doesn’t really do it justice. Pink is hands down my fave colour, and in my (not so humble) opinion brown is the best compliment to it. Also, how cute is the wee white ruffle on the edge?! Love this, though I am a little terrified to get it dirty and actually wash it, I will because that’s why she made it. Thanks Talea!

Another handmade gift that totally killed me this year I got from Brigitte. I’ve wanted to sew like her since high school when she’d whip up a new flawless dress for herself before a party, alas I am not there yet. She, along with everyone else who has ever seen it, is both taken aback and enthralled with my 70s kitchen. I used to hate it, but I’m learning to embrace it, and it really does look fab in food photos.

Here we go, my stylin 70s apron, if I could marry it, I would. I love that it’s constructed in such a way that I can just tuck it up and wear it over my baby belly!

I was going over the list of stuff I want to make this year and was thinking about all the rad gear and treats I made last year when I wasn’t blogging. So many snazzy little treasures only seen by a handful of people. The handful that got to see them are a fantastic group mind you, but I figured this was my last chance to post these pics before the parade of ’09 begins. I’ve already knocked off 2 pairs of socks and I’m 1/3 of the way through my second pirate mitten. They are not at all in order, more like the order I thought of them (influenced heavily by the order in which I found the photos).

(l-r): Tanisha/May Birthday Cake, 101 Designer One Skein Wonders Herringbone Scarf

Tanisha and I are just a couple of weeks apart so we usually celebrate our birthdays together. The cake is layered chocolate and vanilla, just like us! The scarf was for a BFF’s brother’s Christmas gift this year, last year I gave him a few hundred Rocket candies and he was much less impressed than I had hoped. He loved this scarf though, thankfully!

Chris’ Star Trek: The Next Generation Peeps

Another Christmas gift here, this is some of the bridge crew of ST Next Gen, which we both grew up with and both still adore (maybe a little too much). Jordi’s visor was the biggest pain in the butt. I got the pattern from Kimberly Chapman‘s site.

Try not to be too jealous, but I got a long-coveted Kitchen Aid stand up mixer for Christmas this year. 😉 I’ve wanted one since I was a teenager and my mother got one for her birthday, I made my very first torte in it and most of my first attempts at baking were done with her mixer. This is a new style, where the head tilts back instead of going up and down on a slider, and the bowl screws into the base instead of hanging from arms. This one came with the bread kneader, the whisk and the paddle mixer.

I’ve mostly just been looking at it, with all the leftover baking from Christmas it really hasn’t made much sense to actually take her for a test drive just yet. Until yesterday when the husband machine ran out of sugar cookies and nothing else would satisfy his snacky craving. Here she is in all her shiny glory whipping up a new batch.

My old mixer was a Sunbeam, and it wasn’t really a bad mixer at all, it’s just that for the amount of baking that happens around here the issue of the bowl not being that big and the way the beaters snapped into the mixer part was almost too much bother and I ended up mixing most goodies by hand with my giant mixing bowl and wooden spoon. Naturally, this gave all the treats coming out of my kitchen a very ‘homemade’ look, which is fine but it’s so nice to churn out some snazzy looking cookies in less time than my old ones!

(l-r): rolled out and ready to go, fresh from the oven

So far these cookies are all she’s made, these sugar cookies I’ve been making for over a decade from my Good Housekeeping Cook Book. The biggest difference between the cookies made with this mixer and the same cookie made by hand is how smooth and easy to handle the dough is. I’d much rather roll out doll that doesn’t want to fight with me and actually get an even thickness to the batch.

This year’s cookie exchange was full of Christmas cheer and a decent mix of ethnic, traditional and weird cookies – it also came with a head over heels surprise. First, the cookies! I made melomakaronia, a traditional Greek Christmas cookie, the usual sugar cookies and what Good Housekeeping refers to as ‘window pane cookies’. The melomakaronia wasn’t half as difficult as it usually is for me, every time I’ve tried to make them in the past they are hard as hockey pucks – one year we frosted them with black icing and gave them away as coal. This year, however, I learned the trick to them – a trick you’d think my very Greek mother or aunts would have let me in on by now.

My Melomakaronia

The trick is to soak the baked cookies in a mix of boiled honey and water before you sprinkle with ground almonds! Next time I’ll use brown sugar instead of refined sugar and molasses instead of honey, that should make them richer and thicker and you know, Greeker. The window pane cookies were essentially just the usual sugar cookies cut into circles with a smaller design cut out of half of them, jam spread on the solid half and then topped with the other half. They look nice and complicated but they’re super easy.

I was just going to jump back into blogging and totally gloss over the fact that I haven’t posted anything in 10 months, but since this blog is a little different I’ll make a quick intro post first.

My last blog was mostly crafty, a tiny bit personal and lived on WordPress. This blog uses WordPress software, but is hosted on my new domain. Yes, I am so very domestic it’s true! I take far too many photos of my crafting and my baking and my kids and my friends and life in general, though I will likely only be posting photos of my crafting, baking and friends here.

I’m starting this up again mainly because I want to keep track of my progress in different crafts and to have a record of all the neat stuff I make. Mostly I love to knit, but I also like to play with cross stitch, embroidery, paper crafts, sewing, jewelry of all kinds and random things like lipgloss and modeling clay. Sometimes I’ll do some ‘extreme crafting’ like recovering chairs and tables, or my sister and I will make a fabulous mess with glitter. This year I’m making an effort to make something from scratch for every occasion, and with baby #3 ready to arrive any time now I’m sure it’ll be a challenge!

I used to run a website about celebrating independent culture and the DIY spirit, where I’d interview all sorts of interesting folks and then write about them. I want to keep a piece of that alive here with wee sections for interviews and book reviews. I just finished Handmade Nation, A Year of Mornings and I’ve been knitting my way through 101 Designer One Skein Wonders, there are a handful of errors in those patterns, but they are all super cute and most of them are really quick to knit up.

57. December 19 – Christmas Tourtiere

56. December 12 – Blueberry Pie

55. December 5 – Almond Ganache Tartlettes (no photo)

54. November 28 – Nutella Pie (no photo)

53. November 21 – Peanut Butter Banana Pie

52. November 14 – Mint Chocolate Chip Pie

51. November 7 – Lemon Meringue Pie

50. October 31 – Chocolate Cookie Cake Pie

49. October 24 – Orange Pie

48. October 16 – Peach Ginger Pie (no photo)

47. October 10 – Apple Bottomed Chocolate Pudding Pie

46. October 4 – Chocolate Coconut Cream Pie

45. September 26 – Peach Pie

44. September 12 – Brownie Pie

43. September 5 – Butter Tarts

42. August 29 – Blackberry-Apple Pie

41. August 21 – Ginger-Pear Pie with Almond Crust

40. August 14 – Blueberry Honey Pie

39. August 7 – Smores Pie

38. August 2 – Banana Ice Cream Pie

37. July 29 – Raspberry Custard Pie

34, 35 & 36 July 25 – Apple Caramel Pie, Frozen Key Lime Pie & Triple Chocolate Pie

33. July 18 – Peppermint Pie

32. July 11 – Mud Pie

31. July 4 – Satan’s Choice Pie

29 & 30 June 27 – Cherry Pie & Pumpkin Pie

28. June 20 – Maple Syrup Pie

27. June 13 – Chocolate Peach Pie

26. June 9 – Spaghetti Pie

25. June 6 – Chocolate Espresso Pecan Pie

24. June 6 – Chocolate Strawberry Pie

23. May 30 – Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

22. May 30 – Brownie Bottomed Chocolate Apple Pie

21. May 23 – Coconut Cream Pie

20. May 15 – Pineapple Apple Pie

19. May 9 – Pineapple Pie

18. May 2 – Banana Cream Pie

17. April 25 – Mango-Strawberry Tarts

16. April 18 – Strawberry Vanilla Pie

15. April 11 – Grasshopper Pie

14. April 4 – Frozen Peanut Butter Pie

13. April 4 – Chocolate Cherry Pie

12. April 4 – Applesauce Custard Pie

11. March 28 – Key Lime Pie

10. March 21 – Chocolate Pudding Pie

09. March 14 – Nectarine Pie

08. March 6 – Chocolate Strawberry Custard Pie

07. February 28 – Potato and Cheese Pie

06. February 21 – Chocolate Cinnamon Tarts

05. February 14 – Strawberry Pear Pie

04. February 7 – Quiet Plum Pie

03. January 31 – Cheese and Onion Pie

02. January 17 – Chocolate Mousse Pie

01. January 10 – Apple Pie