Rugelah

Last night I tried my second attempt at making rugelach. The first try came out really delicious but lost form during baking due to too much jam. This time I added less jam and it came out much better. The only problem was that I forgot how much a batch makes (4 dozen) and I decided to double it....

Holiday Season

I decided to try out making my own holiday stocking this year so I could have one in non traditional colors. I found a cute pattern and only modified it slightly. The modification was to add an edging under the cuff which you can sort of make out in the pictures.
First I cut the inside fabric, the outside fabric, and the batting.

This is the first time i've tried to do the traditional quilting stitch over everything to keep the batting in place, and I started with a simple box pattern, maybe next time I can try a more complicated pattern. I'm very happy with the way it came out too!

And voila! the final product

Night Photography Take 2

I still have a few more things to work out, such as more manually adjusting the shutter speed.

I got a wireless shutter release to fix the main problems from last time, but I forgot to bring it out with us, so we had to make do with the self timmer.

The light turned out fairly eerie in the long exposure pictures. These pictures were taken at about 9 or 10 pm, it was pitch black out, but the photos looked like it was dusk. I even tried using the hood on the lens but that didnt do anything.


The lincoln memorial photographs well from upclose though when the shutter speed could be fairly fast.


Then I brought out my new toy, the fish eye lens. I bought a pretty cheap lens extension for this, so the photo quality isnt all that great, but still kinda neat.




Then when we were just packing up and about ready to go home, peter spotted this creepy guy:

I just made my first dress! NBD

I just made my first dress. Its not amazing, but its wearable! I was in the fabric store today (my favorite place) and I saw the dress fabric section and figured why not. I bought a fabric that I surprisingly like since Orange is involved, and we all know how much I despise the color orange. I followed this pattern. My favorite part are the functional pockets.




There are two things I may do to modify the dress though. 1. Add straps. 2. cinch the high waist a little bit to add more of a figure.

Time Saving Techniques For Quilting #2

You may recall that I offered a tip back in the winter for quickly sewing and cutting triangle pieces for an ocean waves, or pinwheel quilt.

I've come across another time saving tip with the same outcome, however its less motions, so I feel like its a little bit easier.

1. Cut 2 squares 6 3/4" One dark, One light
2. Sandwich them together front side facing inward
3. Draw vertical, horizontal, and diagonal lines in pencil (shown below in blue)
4. Sew 4 lines 1/4" on either side of the diagonal lines (shown in red)
5. Cut along drawn lines (shown in blue)
6. Voila! 8 identical squares with only 4 lines of sewing!

Gardening Apartment Style!

I bought this little window garden today at target! I planted aster, cornflowers, and dwarf sunflowers. Cross your fingers and hope they sprout (if for nothing else, to prove peter wrong since he's already referred to them as "the next victims")

Passover 2010

I began my passover cooking tonight for tomorrow night's Seder.

I started attempting making matzo balls from scratch. They seemed to be fine till I cut one in half to taste. My whole life my dad has made jokes about "matzo bombers" but until now I didnt quite know what he meant. The centers were so dense that they could not possibly float. It was terrible. I made a second batch to much more success. (no pictures)

I then made a cappucino/chocolate/cognac roulad. Its one of my favorites.

The leftover cappucino whipped cream was a great dessert with strawberries

I will make more tomorrow, but my final dish for the night was chocolate chip meringue cookies. The first instruction to making these cookies is Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and then turn it off. So for the next 12 hours the cookies are hanging out in my pre heated oven. Cant wait for morning when they are ready!

Just a Drop of Color

I decided to have a little photo shoot tonight in my apt. The lighting isnt great, and I still need to get a remote shutter release, but I made do with what I had and am happy with the results for a first attempt at this. This was a two person art project. I stood on one side of the room with the camera, and peter stood on the other dropping dye into a champagne glass of water. Here is what I have:

First try with Green and Blue Dye

Second try I managed to capture the splash back from the drop of red dye! That was part of my goal, so even though its not completely in focus I was pretty happy with myself

We branched out to yellow which I think works the best since it is so light and lets the light through

Even after we were done and the dye had sat for a little bit it was still really pretty.

Does Your Sewing Machine Do This?

Mine Does

Lost Party!

I had big dreams for this lost party, but due to the snow that night most people did not end up coming, so I scaled the plans back a little. Alan, Joe, Kate, and Puja made the trek over though because they are awesome:)

First off, we had Dharma Initiative Beer:


There was also water and Peanut butter. Water, because not everyone wanted beer, and peanut butter for Claire, and how she finally got some when the hatch was open.










































There were of course cupcakes with The Numbers on it.



My favorite part was the cake with the picture of the island frosted on, and a matchbox airplane crashed into the island.



Now compare that with the actual island:



Pretty good right?

Cant wait for the rest of the season, and maybe a few more lost parties along the way!