deschampsia's blog

Lace hat

My little girl demanded a new hat this week, “all pink!” Apparently last year’s color block hat is no longer satisfactory. The only pink in the house was the hot pink leftover from the previous hat and I just couldn’t face a solid hot pink hat; lace was the answer. Of course, it couldn’t be that simple, oh no. After reviewing my pattern treasury, “The Ultimate Sourcebook of Knitting and Crochet Patterns,” by Reader’s Digest, the only lace that caught my eye was diamond lace. Only, diamonds don’t really want to go in the round. They sort of jog around, as noted in, “Sock Innovation,” and make poor choices for in-the-round knitting. I debated about this for a while and poked around on the net. A WordPress blog page from J.Marca from 2008 finally pointed the way and inspired me to give it a try. I deviated from his pattern where I thought he’d missed the jogs but by then I was immersed in the project and there was no going back. Over two days I knitted this up and wrote down the pattern for posterity (ahem). Now if I could just get the girl to wear it in the daylight so I can take a photo I’ll be happy.

Lunch Bag

Last year we found the perfect lunch box for my son: easy to carry, easy to clean, and big enough to hold a Sigg drink bottle and a small food thermos. Unfortunately, the bag was made of cheap materials and disintegrated by the end of the year.

So for this year I copied the previous box in Cordura with a lining of Thinsulate and vinyl, colors chosen by my son. I think it came out pretty well. I wish I'd cut the vinyl smaller or found a thinner material since it has a few bubbles on the inside, but who will know?

Busy needles

While fighting yet another cold, I finished off my one handle string bag pattern and made up a couple of newborn hats! It is very satisfying. I edited up the patterns and now I just need some better photos and I think I'll put them out there for others. Woo!

The string bag is an attempt to re-create my favorite string bag from Edinburgh. The wide strap is soft and comfortable on the shoulder, good for a long carry from the store. The newborn hat was inspired by a little had made by Yenhen (my aunt) for a couple of babies expected this summer. They were so fun to make up I should make some more in pink!

Tax bemusement

Common wisdom says that owning a house is a great way to save on taxes. I've generally considered that idiotic, since instead of paying the tax man you pay the bank interest instead. Savings is a very distorted subject, clearly.

But I recently projected my next year's taxes which will be minus $15,000 in mortgage interest and property taxes and Turbo Tax says I will owe an extra... (drum roll please)... $1,500 in taxes. Yup, that's right, I paid $15K to the bank and the local taxes for a whopping 15 hundred dollars in federal tax savings last year.

Either Turbo Tax is whack (a distinct possibility) or Americans are getting screwed by the American dream.

The will and the way

 

Setting Limits with Your Strong-Willed Child : Eliminating Conflict by Establishing Clear, Firm, and

I'm on another run of reading parenting books, attempting to wrap my brain around my son. I love some of the books I already have, but I clearly do not have all of the tools I need.

The latest inquiry is, "Setting Limits with your Strong-Willed Child." It covers a lot of the same territory of P.E.T. and "Your Spirited Child," with a slightly more traditional angle.

My frustration when I read these books is that I already know most of what they have to say, but I wonder why it doesn't always work. And today, just now, I realized that the difference is between actions I want my children to stop and actions I want them to do. Stopping my kids from throwing food or jumping on the couch or any other thing is mostly a no-brainer: Firm limits, quick action. But how do I enforce the need to taste food on a plate, to make a bed in the morning? That is where things always break down, with threats and arguing and consequences that are more punishment and less relevant.

Maybe this book will give me a clue?

Yum

Blood Orange Marmalade

What? You didn't do the marmalade from MS Living January '09?

Make it hot

3 Mar 2009

I confess, I make my own hot pads. I like mine just the size of a hand and not too thick and making them is the only way to get them. I should have taken a photo of the ten year old ones I threw out, but they were just so ... so... sad. Worn and torn and stained with holes worn through the middle. It was time for new ones. 

The colors are obviously from my quilt stash, but they sure are cheery! It takes just about a fat quarter to make one of these, so I could have splurged on a more sophisticated color set.. naw.

Dilemma solved

At long last I both started and finished Michael Pollan's "Ominvore's Dilemma". WHEW! Here's my review from Goodreads: 

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
Wow. It is hard to find the words to describe this book, but there is no doubt that it is a pinnacle of all that Michael Pollan has written before and a major force in the beginning of the 21st Century. It draws a peculiar parallel with the work of Kellogg, who he references, at the beginning of the 20th century, a radically different way of looking at the food we eat.

My flippant reaction to the book is "never eat corn by-products." The follow on is finally understanding the big Cargill sting that took up the Wall Street Journal front pages for months at the end of the 1990s, just what it really means that the cartel of big corn buyers was being accused of price fixing. While trying to explain the food we eat, Pollan reveals one of the great mysteries of the end of the 20th century, the endless supply of American corn and the slow end by debt of every independent farmer that grows it, the vague hand waving of legislators over "farm subsidies", and the growth of the mega grocery store and the unfathomable isles of products that fill it.

This is a book that should be required reading for high school and college students and on the must read list for every concerned and thinking American. Pollan makes his bias very clear and is stunningly even handed and thorough in his research. At the end of the book I am left with far more questions than answers and a deep hunger to see what a new Presidential administration will do.

View all my reviews.

House building for fun

The Gingerbread Architect: Recipes and Blueprints for Twelve Classic American Homes

My latest book acquisition arrived today and I am so excited. Last year we designed and built a gingerbread house using the instructions from "The Professional Pastry Chef" and it was much more complicated than I had anticipated. Not hard, just complicated. Planning a design for even a simple A-frame house was very tedious, making sure everything would line up and the roof would overhang and everything. Then decorating: what candy to buy, how to use it effectively. It came out cute, but doing it again was daunting.

I'm not blown away by any of the designs I see in this book, but I am impressed by their thoroughness. They've planned out the steps, day by day, into reasonable chunks of work; they list exactly the ingredients and candies you need to recreate their designs; they list alternate ideas and decor, how to adapt the style, and pitfalls they had with certain designs or decor choices. And I was impressed with some of their creative use of materials, particularly decorating with upside down ice cream cones for trees and green rice krispy treats for shrubberies. 

All in all, I feel a lot more sanguine about tackling this holiday item with this book in hand.

Craft of the day

22 Nov 2008

This is the first time I use the lustre powder and I'm very happy with how it came out; nice and pearly. These are favors for a kids party. Unfortunately, I only have one ball mold, so I'm doing it in small batches, but it turns out that I can make a 1/2 cup hard crack syrup in my butter pan just fine.