Saint Lucy's Day and Lucia Buns

So, after the whole Saint Nicholas visit, the next tradition we have is the visit of Saint Lucy. No, we're not Swedish, but it's still so much fun. The youngest girl in our house dresses in a white gown, and wears a wreath of greenery in her hair. Maggie is old enough to carry the tray now, so it's her turn^^

And I have my recipe for my special breakfast rolls. Don't they look tasty?

Christmas Lucia Buns Recipe

2/3 cup hot water
1/4 cup dry milk
1/2 stick butter, cubed for melting (little pieces)

1/4 cup sugar
2 1/2 tsp yeast

1 egg + egg yolk
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cardamom
3 cups all purpose flour

oil
1 egg white
raisins

First combine water, butter and dry milk.
When the mixture has cooled to bathwater-warm, add the sugar and the yeast. Allow it to sit for 5 minutes (it's a good time to seperate that egg)

Add egg and egg yolk, cardamom, and a cup of flour.
Mix well, then add the salt and the rest of the flour a bit at a time. Knead (play-dough time^^) for about five minutes, then oil the surface and cover with a towel.

Wait 45 minutes, or until the dough has doubled.

Punch the dough down, then divide the dough into 20 equal parts. Form each part into ropes about 6 inches long.

Put two ropes in an x shape on a greased cookie or baking sheet, then curl/roll the ends up towards the middle. Repeat for all the remaining bits. Allow the buns to rise for about 30 minutes.

Remember the egg white? Mix that with a tablespoon or so of water. Put a raisin at the center of each arm/curl of the bun (4 for each bun), then brush the buns with the egg white mixture.

Bake at 350 F for 15 - 20 minutes. They are done when they are golden brown. The picture has a couple that are a bit too brown, but that's what I get for spending too much time gathering greens. Best eaten warm; and they keep well in the fridge.

Election Day

You know, we're pretty lucky in this country. Voting for who we want in charge, the ability to remove them if they turn out to be bad leaders, the right to complain. Of course some people take that right a little too far, but there you have it. Maggie thinks this whole business is getting out of hand. She's not sure who's running for what other than president, but she's pretty sure name calling isn't nice. I tend to agree. See you at the polls, and no, I don't want to know who you voted for^^

All Souls Day and Baked Pumpkin Doughnuts

My family celebrates? All Souls day. Not sure celebrate is the word I'm looking for, but it'll do. Much like Obon in Japan, All Souls day is a way to remember everyone who has died, and to pray for both their happiness in the after life and that we might see them again after our death. Most people don't believe that the dead come back on this day as ghosts to visit like Obon, but I'm sure there's some who do out there somewhere. It's a pretty quiet, but international, festival; unless you celebrate it in Mexico. There they call it 'the Day of the Dead' and it's like a funeral, Halloween, and Mardi Gras all rolled into one. I have never heard the more widespread All Souls day be brought up on the news, but I think the world has heard of Day of the Dead. Crazy, right?

Many cultures have a fondness for round themes when it comes to the departed. Both Buddhists and a variety of Celtic folk stories say ghosts like round foods like rice balls and cakes. What else would I make then, but my baked pumpkin doughnuts? Here's my recipe, which is oil and butter free and full of spiced pumpkin goodness^^



Doughnuts
1 small can pumpkin
1/2 cup honey (or 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed, and 2 TBSP extra milk)
1&1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon cloves
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon allspice
2&1/2 cups self rising four
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk


Glaze
6 tablespoons or so cream cheese
1/2 cup powdered or confectioners sugar

Mix the pumpkin, spices, and honey together in a bowl. Add the flour, milk and eggs and mix some more. Dough should be thick, slightly thinner than peanut butter. Spoon into greased doughnut pans (I got mine from Wilson's Cake decorating supplies. The pan is like a muffin pan, but doughnut shaped!)You can also use muffin liners and make muffins instead.

Bake at 350 F until a toothpick comes out clean, about 8-10 minutes for the doughnuts. DON'T overcook them; if the bottoms get more than slightly brown you'll end up with dry doughnuts, and that's bad^^

Mix the sugar and cream cheese in a micro wave safe bowl. Then, nuke it for about 30 seconds. Drizzle over slightly cooled doughnuts. Best eaten warm of course, but you can microwav the about 30 seconds and they'll taste fresh baked. Keep them in the fridge for over a week; they freeze well too as long as you don't glaze them before you freeze them. Makes about 18

Halloween

Happy Halloween!Hope you had lot's of fun, lot's of treats, and no bad candy!



Crochet spider pattern will be available at my shop again next year!

Halloween Costumes

On the one hand, yukata make great Halloween costumes. On the other, I hope nobody freezes. There was frost on the ground this morning! Here are two new yukata; a lovely purple and green combination with one of my pre-tied obi, and a sakura (cherry blossom) one for a Madame Butterfly costume. Both future owners are apparently very sophisticated young ladies; I know I wouldn't have gone as an opera character at eight years old!

Honeycombs and Busy Bees

Today I finally finished my 'MCAT' afghan. It looks like a golden honeycomb, or maybe a benzene ring complex. My geek is showing^^ I started the thing over a month ago while I was studying for the MCAT, but I ran out of the brown yarn and had to track down some more. Nothing goes together as well as books and crochet, except for maybe music and dancing. I think I'll add this as a made to order item in my shop. It's super warm, and just the right size to double as a giant shawl!

Of Boys and Fish

So, yukata are pretty fun to make, with all those nice straight lines. Hemming them is a breeze^^
I always like tuck a little extra something in with my yukata. Usually it's a hair accessory or a small pouch. But what to give a little boy? A fish^^. I hope he likes it!

The Last Rose of Summer

Summer is officially over, and yet my rose bush has decided to re-bloom. It usually blooms in the spring, so maybe the cool weather we're getting has something to do with it.







Plus this pink yukata and black obi set are finished and in the mail. I hope it gets to her before the 27th^^

Shibori Tie- dye.

So, my latest children's yukata order is made of this lovely faux-shibori.



What is shibori? Shibori is a Japanese tie-dying technique, typically done in blues on white, but other colors are also used on occasion. This is not your 'I made a rainbow t-shirt at camp' kind of tie dye though. The fabric I used doesn't look like tie dye at all, does it? Well, it's not, because it's fake shibori made through fabric printing. However, it could be made through shibori methods. Each dot would be tied off to prevent the fabric from absorbing dye. Really good shibori can have thousands of tiny little dots, each tied off separately to produce patterns and motifs. Varying the sizes and shapes of the tied off areas make different designs, square and round shapes being the most common in shibori. At one point kimono made with certain patterns of shibori dying were considered as formal as a tuxedo in western Europe, because it could take weeks of work making all of those tiny dots!

If you would like to see pictures of someone's modern shibori work, or you live in California and are interested in learning how to make your own, visit Susan O'Fennell at Oriba Shibori She also has some cool links on her blog as well^^

Mini Kanzashi

So, I finished this batch a while back, but with the MCAT coming up I have been seriously lax in posting what I'm up to. Not that many people would notice if I skipped posting for a couple months, but there you have it. Maybe I'll show you how I make them if there's enough interest ^^



Which one do you like best?

Fences and Cakes

So, me and William (who keeps sneaking in and out of the house with out me reporting it; he got here right before my birthday, and will be leaving the 21st)finally got around to taking down the fence. You know, the one that got completely smashed by the tree branches during that mongo storm May 29th. So, we unscrewed, clipped, and chainsawed our way to victory. And firewood for the winter^^

I also was commissioned to bake this cake for one of Rosie's friends. Three boxes of cake mix, three frosting tubs, two things of fondant, and three hours of decorating...

Cosplay Costumes

I just finished this Rurouni Kenshin Cosplay kimono. I can't wait to see my customer in full gear^^

Granny Square Queen (AKA the Calculus Blanket)

I realized I hadn't posted my finished Granny Square blanket. It ended up being 47 + edging rows around. I call it my calculus blanket, because I started it right before that summer class from (insert name for unpleasant afterlife area here) and finished the day I took my final exam. It's probably the reason I still have fingernails left^^

Pumpkin Patch Amigurumi and Dragonfly Yukata

These are my latest goodies. The first is a pumpkin patch set. I made some of these last year, and they were really popular (even my grandmother wanted some^^)You can find them at my Etsy store!



And this is my latest men's yukata order. The buyer sent me the fabric from http://bugfabric.com/, which was a lovely grey-blue with a slight gold under tone. The pattern had dragonflies and water patterns all over it. The only problem was the person who cut it was sloppy and cut it crooked. I hate when they do that; it ends up wasting fabric.

Fourth of July

Two days in and I'm already praying for it to stop. What genius came up with mini-summer semesters? I'm doing a weeks worth of work every day.
In other news, happy Fourth of July to all my American friends!


Projects I have done for said holiday;

DAIKIN Festival.

Every year the DAIKIN company in Huntsville puts on a huge festival. The company makes a variety of plastics, but the festival includes dances, balloons, and free food. Once again, I didn't get a balloon ride; the lines were literally over a hundred yards long for each balloon. I did however, dance some really ridiculous looking dances, and ate way too much yakisoba and ice cream....



I also made this sunflower Kanzashi today. Maggie wore it to the festival, and it was a good thing I sewed it to a hair elastic; she danced really hard^^

http://www.flickr.com/photos/morichansgarden/7284006306/in/photostream/

Handmade lace

Today I finished up over six feet of hand crocheted lace. Would you like the pattern? I made it up myself, though I'm sure there are similar ones out there. Let me know and I'll e-mail you my version^^ This batch will probably end up on Etsy; I was going to edge something with it, and than decided to do something else. It's become a regular habit for me. But since I almost never use patterns, I pay the price^^

Chinese food, the easy way^^

Today I made sweet and sour pork. You might think it would be hard, but the rice takes longer than anything else^^ Want to know how to make your own? Here's the recipe, according to me...


Pork, chicken, turkey, whatever you want. 1-1 1/2 pounds
1 egg
1/2 cup cornstarch

1 can pineapple
1 bell pepper
a couple carrots

Sauce
juice from can of pineapple
1/2 cup rice vinegar
several dashes soy sauce
a couple good squirts of ketchup (the secret ingredient ^^)
a couple tablespoons cornstarch

First up, cut the meat into 1 inch cubes. Dump the egg and the cornstarch into a bowl with the meat. Stir

Then, cut up the pineapple, carrots, and bell pepper. You are trying for pieces about half the size of the meat. Do not throw away the pineapple juice; you are using it later! Double the veggies, or add something else like broccoli, if you are feeling like being healthy^^ I've seen people substitute the meat with tofu, but I wouldn't suggest it. I like my meat to be meat, and my tofu to be tofu^^

Dump meat into cooking pan on high with a little oil. Stir every minute or so; don't want it to burn! While you are doing that, make the sauce. Just dump everything together, and mix.

When the meat is done (cut open a piece and inspect for pink. No pink? It's done)dump the veggies in and stir. Cook for a minute or two, then add the sauce. Once the sauce is thick and coating everything, it's done. Serve the whole mess over rice, and people will start telling you to open your own restaurant! Makes about eight servings, and it freezes well too^^

Pseudo Irish lace and bamboo dilemmas

I am working on this pseudo-Irish lace shawl/veil/hijab/shawl. I call it pseudo, because I am sewing the motifs to a open weave cotton fabric as opposed to making my own net. It's still taking forever; it took two days just to crochet the lace trim.



Also, I have these segments of bamboo William cut while he was here. Not sure what I'll do with them, but I'm sure they'll be cool^^



Also, who wants to play spot the wacky things on Heather's bookshelf?

Recycling and Other News Part 2

Today I finished the recycled yarn project. It ended up being a shawl/wrap, but Maggie still thinks it's a baby blanket. I guess you could use it as one, but since there are no babies here I don't see why we will.




Also, my pond is so cover in pond pads you could walk across it with out getting one's feet wet. To bad they don't have pretty flowers like lotus or water lilies. I'm not sure you can eat them either...



I'm also thinking about teaching a crochet class. What do you think?