Ivy Arts

Mollie from Mu-Yin jewelry has outfitted me in style this holiday. So much so that she’s offering anyone who reads this blog a 5% discount at her Etsy store. Mention “Ivy Arts” in the notes to seller and you will receive a PayPal refund for the discount. (Offer excludes shipping).

My husband asked what I want for Christmas and I said I wanted Mollie’s jewelry. Once again, I’d like to give accessorizing a try. Well, next day he said he was getting me something else so I placed my own order later that night. A pendant, a ring and a bracelet. I had shopped for everyone else and thought I deserved a treat.

I loved this mostly Etsy Christmas*, no malls and everything came right to my mailbox. (I did give the mailman some cookies for his trouble.) Oh wow, my list was so long. My only complaint with my Etsy purchases is that they came so nicely wrapped that I hated peeking in them before I gave them away!

Great stuff was had from
Girlscantell – awesome screen printed placemats
chiecarroll – beautiful digital photographs
thepuzzleman – wonderfully crafted puzzle in a box
2dy4 – irreverent humor
woodeyeglass – painted and sandblasted glassware
papersilly – lovely journals
mixedspecies – wacky stuff
morganstreet – luscious body butter and soaps
youstinksoap – Super lip balms
markmywords – cocoa stirs
cebehandknits – gorgeous soft scarf

kids stuff
yellinmoon – fabulous girls cape
hullabalooboutique – flirty skirt
littlelily – darling pinafore dresses
pdxbeanies – chic beanie hat
justkiddn – cute booties
moderncharm – fun headbands
born2beewild – rockin’ onesie
theplaidgiraffe – cool t-shirts for boys

And some amazing presents for me from

muyinmolly – gorgeous wire wrap jewelry
sparksfly – whimsical illustrated prints

* I do have to fess up to a few gift certificates and two childrens toys that were not handmade. I tried my best but I couldn’t make 100%.

Notice there are no ornaments on the bottom two feet of the tree. Every time the small boy took one off, it got put up just a little higher. Can you see the little white cat under the tree?

Below is another example of “more” by my little cookie helpers. The cookie count now is 23 dozen and though I clearly don’t need any more, I still have one more recipe to try that uses almond paste, mmmm. Congratulations to cookie challenge winners, Frances of HomemadeOriginals (who wrote a nice blog post about it, thanks) and Jodi of FromMuddyWater (who I hope receives them in Canada before the new year).

I’m not usually this attentive to the weather but it’s unusual to get a foot and a half of snow (that’s about half a meter to you metrically inclined folks) in a week. It’s been colder and snowier already that it was the entirety of last winter. This is a week ago. We had another 6″+ snowfall yesterday. This is now. Pretty.

I’m talking about Christmas cookies (the ones above are Lemon Pecan Slices). So far I’ve used 8 sticks of butter, have baked 15 dozen cookies and have another double batch of gingerbread dough in the fridge ready to bake. And I still don’t have enough. More is better. Almost always. But definitely true of cookies.

(Note: The big boy helped me decorate and clearly he understands more is better.)

Another 6″ yesterday…. before it turned to rain and now ice. I love New England.

The courthouse steps quilt with the ribbon border has been delivered at last! It was a wedding present for my sister-in-law and brother-in-law who where married in May. The center is a Michael Miller Eiffel Tower print to commemorate their Paris engagement. The steps are their springtime wedding colors – green and purple. Cathy – machine quilter extraordinaire – once again did a fabulous job with a variegated thread in yellow to green and a pattern called “Joust”. And how about that ribbon border, eh? I think it absolutely makes the quilt. In the end, it was well worth the effort. (I had a really tough time getting these pictures, they’re not very good, apologies.)

Yesterday about 12:30pm, when the flakes first started to fall.

Only about 6-8″ here. Boston got hit a lot harder. And there’s another storm coming on Sunday.

I’ve tried a few oatmeal breads lately as a change from the wheat/white that I’ve been making. One was a Buttermilk Oat bread with oat flour and oat bran and then I found an Oatmeal Sourdough roll recipe that I made in a loaf with my sourdough starter. (I was happy to find another recipe to use the starter with. I’ve been feeling slave to the sourdough lately but I refuse to let it die. This one was excellent and not as heavy and chewy as traditional sourdough.)

Anyway, lovely, delicious taste for both of them. Texture turns to crumb after a day. The culprit, I’ve found, is lack of gluten in oat flour but I’m surprised that neither recipe mentions it. In defense of the sourdough recipe, I did substitute a bit of oat flour for the all-purpose. I’m wondering if using bread flour (which has more gluten than all-purpose) will work or if I need to add wheat gluten. Ahh, the beauty of baking is that most mistakes are edible. I will continue experimenting.

Once again, quilt math kicks my ass. And this time it really shouldn’t have. So, so obvious and I missed it. I counted ONE square when I should have counted TWO triangles. I have twice as many triangles ready to go as I need. Good news is that I’ve only sewn half of them (so that makes exactly what I need, ironically) and just pinned the rest. Bad news is that I was counting on twice the number of fabric combinations in the design. I think I need to press them all open and see how the blocks will look. Next quandry… should I sew the triangles I’ve already pinned for the border or use the fabric in another way. [Tim Gunn help me! I need to Make It Work.] That leads to another calculation of border lengths, etc. How did I get myself into this? I have a perfectly lovely pattern to use and still I’m butchering it with my abominable math skills. Grrr.

(I used to be an intelligent person before I had children. I lost my brain somewhere in the first pregnancy and it hasn’t come back. I miss it.)