waxy pin

Little Hungry Bear Child Size Book Bag Tutorial

Finally, here is the book bag tutorial promised long ago.  

{click on photo's to enlarge}

Cut a 8" x 9" rectangle of fabric for the pocket.  Fold over 1/2" of the top of the pocket and steam press, fold over again and press again.  Topstitch 1/16" away from the edge of the folded pressed hem at the top of the pocket.  Topstitch another row of stitching 1/2" away from the edge.

Fold over and steam press 1/2" of fabric on the bottom and sides of the pocket.  Topstitch two rows of stitches along the edge of the pocket on the sides and bottom of the pocket.  Stitch the first row 1/16" away from the edge of the pocket and the second row of stitches 1/4" away from the first line of topstitching.

Trim away the extra fabric of the little hungry bear iron-on applique close to the edges of the image.  Iron on the applique onto the front of the pocket.

Press a 16" long piece of 1" wide bias trim in half lengthwise.  Fold and pin the pressed bias trim around the hungry bear applique as shown above.  Press the pinned bias trim at the folded corners.  Start topstitching 1" away from the top where the ends of the bias trim fold one behind the other, so that the bias trim remains loose there.  Topstitch along the outer edge of the bias trim.  As you are stitching you will be able to fold the end neatly behind the beginning of the bias trim and sew over it.  See photo below.

I ended up gluing rick rack around the edges.  You can sew rick rack on if you prefer.

 

Cut a 16" x 28 1/2" rectangle of fabric for the body of the bag.

Fold the bag fabric in half, and place the topstitched pocket on the bag so that it is 3 1/2" away from the fold and 3" away from the top edge of the bag.  Pin the pocket in place.  Open the bag fabric up and topstitch the pocket in place following the topstitching you have already made on the pocket.

Once the pocket is sewn on, fold the bag with the right sides of the fabric together and stitch a 1/2" wide sideseam and bottom seam with a small stitch using heavy duty thread.  Finish the seam edges with a zig-zag stitch or overlock stitch.

 

Make the gusset at the bottom corners of the bag by first matching the sideseam to the bottom seam so that the corner makes a triangle as shown below.  Sew through the fabric while the seams are matched so that the stitching side of the triangle is 3" long.  Stitch over the new stitching again and then follow with a line of zig-zag or overlock stitching.

Repeat making a gusset at the other bottom corner of the bag.  There will not be a sideseam to help you match the center of the side of the bag to the bottom seam.  In this case place the bag flat on the ironing board and press both sideseams flat.  Use the ironed crease made on the side of the bag where there is no sideseam to help you match the side of the bag to the bottom seam to make the gusset.

This is how the gusset looks on the outside of the bag.

Cut two 17 1/2" long web strap handles.  Pin along the top edge of bag on the right side of the fabric.  Make sure the handles are centered and are not twisted (I always end up with my handles pinned wrong).  Stitch the handles in place.  Zig-zag or overlock stitch the unfinished top edge of the bag.

Turn 1 1//4" of the top edge of the bag to the inside, make sure the handles are lying flat against the fabric.  Topstitch 1/16" away from the folded edge through the fabric and the handles.  Follow with another row of topstitching 1" away from the folded edge.  

You are done!  

Hand the bag off to the closest child along with a small stack of books. 

Plum & Almond Torte

 

This was a huge hit over at our friend's house about an hour ago.  It is based on the recipe I made up some time ago for butter and almond cake with chocolate glaze.  Instead of using chocolate glaze as a topping I baked fresh sliced plums into the batter and used whole wheat flour instead of all purpose.

The original almond cake with chocolate recipe turned out really good, but it was crazy rich and heavy.  I also was not totally wild about how the chocolate tasted with the almond cake, the bitterness in the chocolate brought out the slight bitterness from the almond in the cake.

So, I have been thinking about ways to improve it since then.  Fresh fruit seemed like a good companion to the almond cake, and I love how plums look and taste when they are baked into a cake.  I have been hoarding a little pile of plums dedicated just to making this new version of the almond cake.  I was a little sad that I had to use all of them, but I lucked into some really good nectarines today, so the next almond torte will have nectarine slices on top.

 It should be a no brainer to me by now, but I am always really surprised by how good baked goods taste when they are made with whole wheat flour, so don't be tempted to substitute a different flour.  The 10" springform turned out to be a really good size for this cake.  The torte turns out just tall enough to make very nice slices for company.

I can imagine fresh nectarines or cherries on top would bake up very nicely too.  

 

Plum & Almond Tart

yield: 1 - 10" cake

1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted over low heat, cooled to room temperature

1 cup sugar (organic sugar tastes great here)

1 - 8 ounce can Almond Paste

2   Eggs, at room temperature

1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

3/4 cup Whole Wheat Flour (do not substitute regular flour here) (we like this flour) (and this flour is great too)

3 Large Plums, sliced thinly

Apricot Jam to be used as fruit glaze. 

Additional softened butter & graham cracker crumbs for preparing the baking pan.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.

Butter the 10" springform pan generously and line with a parchment paper circle.  Butter the parchment and dust the bottom and sides of the pan with graham cracker crumbs.

Put the almond paste and sugar in a food processor and process until the almond paste is cut into very fine crumbs.  Add the eggs one by one, running the processor on low speed between the addition of each egg.  With the motor running, add the melted butter in a slow stream.  Add the flour 1/4 cup at a time, pulsing after each addition.  Make sure the flour is completely incorporated into the batter before scraping the batter out of the food processor into the prepared springform pan.  Smooth the top of the batter and arrange the slices of plum in two circles, one circle inside the other.

Place the cake pan on the middle rack in the preheated oven.  Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour 15 minutes.  The torte is done when a toothpick test has a moist crumb clinging to it and the crust and fruit are a deep golden brown.  Heat the apricot jam in a small saucepan until it is bubbling.  Time the heating of the jam so that it is hot shortly before the torte will be removed from the oven.  As soon as the torte is out of the oven, quickly brush the top of the fruit and cake with a thin layer of the bubbling apricot jam.   

Slide a knife carefully between the side of the torte and the side of the pan all the way around the sides.  Open the springform and remove the form.  Allow the torte to cool for about 10 minutes.  Once the torte is cool, carefully remove from the bottom of the pan by sliding a serving knife underneath the cake and moving it onto a serving plate.  Cut into 16 slices and serve with creme fraiche or a small spoonful of whipped cream.

For a recipe for whole wheat biscuits with orange icing click here. 

A flying whale, a bear with a bowtie and a bird with a crown

Sea Bird   15 1/4" x 15 1/2"  

Cotton fabrics & canvas, cotton string, grosgrain & bias ribbons  

Whew - I just finished this fabric painting that got started last week.  A lot of handstitching and love went into making my own humpback whale, a subject which has been on my mind for a few years now.  Two falls ago I did a fair amount of reading up on humpback whales and made several drawings, but could not figure out what to make.  It is weird that at certain times of the year the same subjects and images return, as if they are waiting there.

I still need to press it, back it with linen and find the right frame.  Then it will be going into the shop.  (Still working on getting the correct frame for this). I may be opening a separate shop just for dolls and artwork, in which case this fabric painting will be headed there.

Bear with a Yellow Bowtie  acrylic on cotton canvas

Or Bear-Cat?  This is a fluffy strange one, I was thinking bear while painting but somehow cat ears got painted on.

These two paintings showed up at the end of my brush a few weeks ago.  I have no idea what to do with them.  Any suggestions? 

Crowned Bird  acrylic on cotton canvas

little miss houndstooth

This is who I have been working on lately.  She is a first cousin once removed of the little boots crew.  But somehow she looks a bit like the Piglet.

The back of her head turned out too flat, so the next one is going to have more rounded side head pieces.

I'm pretty happy with the faceted oval vintage glass buttons I ended up using for her eyes.  The next one will have her clothes sewn into her body, no more fiddling with fitting super tiny clothes.  She told me that she wants a pair of good shoes though, nothing sewn into her feet.  I can't blame her, it would drive me wild not to be able to get my shoes off too.

Deep Sea Diver Cat

William Beebe on an expedition to Guiana in 1917. Source: Descent: The Heroic Discovery of the Abyss by Brad Matsen Author:  New York Zoological Society (now known as the Wildlife Conservation Society) you can find the original Wikipedia entry containing this image here

I got hooked on reading about Dr. William Beebe last spring.  Dr. William Beebe was a well known naturalist and adventurer who wrote very engaging and entertaining accounts of animals and his adventures trying to get to see them in the wild.  Deep Sea Diver Cat is based on William Beebe (he even looks a little bit like him) during the time that Dr. B was walking around the ocean floor in a Divinhood.  (If you scroll down on the Divinhood link you will find a picture of William Beebe wearing the Divinhood).  I did not make his diving helmet look exactly like the real Divinhood he actually wore, because Deep Sea Diver Cat is actually a prototype for a sewing pattern.  I wanted to use techniques and materials that are readily available to the home sewer, so I had to eliminate many details that would have made it difficult to turn into an easy to use pattern.

I spent a fair amount of time digging through the online blog of the History of Diving Museum, it is such an amazing place that we are definitely going to visit next time we are in Florida.  Many thanks to the folks at the museum for writing and creating such a thorough and educational site!

 

His boots have straps and working buckles.  I wanted them to look as much as possible like the real thing.

 Yes, all these years later Dr. Beebe led an intrepid hermit pattern maker around the internet, the back rooms of a library and a popular Coney Island destination on some thrilling adventures in historical digging.  More on that later.

 

Biscuits, Pants and Fashion

A whole wheat biscuit I made last night.  Buttery and delicate, they fall apart into delicious crumbles.

At 10pm last night all I wanted to do was get my hands on a can of Pillsbury cinnamon rolls.  It was pretty late to go to the store, so I decided to heavily tweak the Better Homes and Gardens Biscuits Supreme recipe instead and add an icing topping.  The only flour we had in the house was whole wheat, otherwise I would have used all purpose, but they turned out so good that I would definitely make them again with only whole wheat flour.

My biscuits were pretty messy looking.  I didn't want to bother with the biscuit cutter, so I just evened the dough out and cut triangular sections which were moved apart to different stations on the cookie sheet.

Whole Wheat Butter Biscuits with Orange Icing

1 cup            Whole Wheat Flour

1 1/2 tsp.     Baking Powder

1 tsp.            Sugar

1/4 tsp.        Cream of Tartar

dash             Salt

tiny pinch of Cardamom and Nutmeg

1/4 cup        Butter, salted (1/2 stick)

1/3 cup        Milk (whole milk would taste good here)

2 Tblsp.        Melted Salted Butter, for brushing over the biscuits once they are done baking.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Put the whole wheat flour in a medium bowl and sift in the baking powder, sugar, cream of tartar, salt, cardamom and nutmeg.  Stir together well.  Cut the butter into small dice, dump into the bowl with the flour mixture and continue cutting the butter into the flour until the lumps of butter are the size of small to medium peas.  Add the milk all at once and stir just until the dough holds together.  Turn the dough out of the bowl onto the parchment paper lined baking sheet.  Pat the dough gently to press it to an even 1/2" thickness.  Cut the dough with a round biscuit cutter and set each biscuit slightly apart on the parchment lined sheet.  Bake 450 degrees Fahrenheit, for 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned on the bottom with only a slight color to the top.  When done, remove from oven, brush a little melted salted butter on top of each biscuit and put a spoonful of orange icing on top.  Makes about 6 large biscuits.  Serve warm.  Enjoy!

Orange Icing

1 1/4 cup        Powdered Sugar

1/8 tsp.           Orange Extract

1 Tblsp.           Orange Juice

1 Tblsp.           Milk

1/4 tsp.           Vanilla Extract

Stir all ingredients together while the biscuits are baking.  The icing should be a little thicker than a thin glaze.  Add more milk as needed to adjust the consistency.  Once the biscuits are out of the oven, spread a dollop of icing on each while they are still warm.  Eat immediately.

 ********

Don't laugh at me but I got some new pants from here.  I figured since they know how to make bras (which are incredibly technically difficult to make - I have tried to make my own many times, bags of bra making flops are hiding in my studio) they ought to be able to do a good job of making pants or at least sourcing good fitting pants.  The pants showed up yesterday, in a very plain bag with just the store initials on the outside, and yaay they fit very well.

Alan and I are addicted to Project Runway, so we limp along between new episodes by watching reruns of previous seasons.  It has definitely been interesting this season.  I am rooting for my four favorites:  Kimberly, Viktor, Olivier and Anya.  While waiting for the biscuits last night I noticed Megan and Scott are having their own fantasy Project Runway competition, which I have been giggling about ever since, especially because Alan had suggested a few weeks ago that he should make an apron entry for Amy's new Tie One On theme.  He might be getting cold feet now, I'll have to figure out how to get him to play along, it would be so much fun to both have aprons entered.

 

Flower Trees

 
I made several of these as tabletop decorations for the Coburg Quilt Show.  I didn't end up needing them, and had them tucked off to the side of one of the trunks on the table.  I really loved how they turned out, they were super easy to make.

You can see the 7" foam Christmas tree form off to the right that was used as a base.  The foam tree was covered with polar fleece in the same color as the silk flowers.  Even the bottom of the foam tree has a layer of polar fleece on it so that it stands up nicely.

I had a ton of the same silk flowers around that I had bought on sale.  Each tree has roughly 20+ flowers on it.  I cut each flower stem with pliars so that each flower had about a 1 1/2" stem at it's base.  Then all of the flowers were pushed through the polar fleece and into the foam until it felt secure.  Some of the flowers needed a little bit of glue around the stem to stay put.  The flowers should be a loose bloom so that they can be crowded together around the foam tree form.  The only place where it got tricky was near the top of the tree form where there just wasn't a whole lot of room anymore.  I ended up using glue there and angling the stems downward so that as each flower was pushed into the foam it didn't end up interfering with another flower that was already there.

I like how you could make flower trees in completely different color schemes, depending on what silk flowers you end up buying.

And yes, we had a big anniversary around here yesterday.  We are very smug about it, patting each other's backs.  

Alan gave me two plants I have been admiring, and the night before he gave me the plants I made the drawing for his card while thinking about the same plant.

For our 20 year victory lap we ate a delicious meal at a restaurant we reserve for special occasions since it costs a small fortune to eat there.  At the end we realized we had eaten pretty much the same meal we ate on the first night of our honeymoon. 

Little Hungry Bear Scrapbook Tutorial

Download Little Hungry Bear Scrapbook Tutorial

{the PDF should download quickly as I had to compress it in order to make it less unwieldy - unfortunately this sacrificed the image quality}

Little Hungry Bear Iron-On Appliques are in my fabric shop now

As if the internet really needed another scrapbook tutorial I went ahead and wrote out my own version.

Yes, a tutorial for one of my favorite ways to use Little Hungry Bear Appliques.  17 pages of complete instructions for making your own Hungry Bear Scrapbook like the one pictured above.  

I hope you find some new tips and tricks.

I also have him ironed onto the front of my main sketchbook {see photo below}.  I love that he is keeping me company while drawing and thinking.  Whenever I pick up my moleskin there he is begging me for something tasty to eat.  It is very hard to resist his good mannered begging.

You can find the directions here for making the moleskin sketchbook cover you see below.

 

I also love to see him adorning a pocket front, 

which is where he is going to be in the next tutorial for the child size book bag.

A Brass Bowl and Upcoming Tutorials

Can you tell how much I love this bowl?

I picked up the brass bowl above while hunting around in the local thrift stores for metal items which could be used to display my tiny shop stuff at the recent Coburg Quilt Show.  I love to look at the petal shape of the rim all the time, so I put it in the living room next to the chair we sit in to read the paper or sip hot drinks.

During the past few months while this blog was severely neglected, I did manage to read a couple of books which I ended up loving totally and completely.  I also went on a serious netflix binge.  It was an information overload, some of which kept me awake at night thinking over and over it.

The books and documentaries will get listed in another post. 

I have been busy crafting away (many mistakes and curses later) to post several tutorials here.  The light around here was awful today, the sun just came out late this afternoon after all the pictures were already on the computer, so most of this tutorial will look like it went through some heavy handling in iphoto.  Be prepared for some freaky color, dim subjects and strange contrasts.

I am hoping the Little Hungry Bear Scrapbook Tutorial will be finished and posted tomorrow.  All the pictures are done, etc., so now it is a matter of writing and reworking.

You can find the Little Hungry Bear Scrapbook Tutorial here.

More tutorial's are also in the works:

*Child Size Book Bag   *Merry Holiday Bunting

*Gingerbread Christmas Ornament   *Sailor on the Paisley Seas

*Gingerbread Joy Pillow   *Tree Skirt

I hope you all are well out there.

Please note items crossed from this list will not be appearing as tutorials at this time.  I am sorry, but I am a little worn out from writing and creating them.

Happy Tuesday!

You can find two more tutorials here and here.