belle epoque

I’d like to tell you that for the past few days I’ve been wildly organizing my craft closet and making Christmas presents (explaining why I couldn’t blog about them). But I haven’t. Nope. I was late to a particular party, but once I got there, I couldn’t leave. What party, you ask? The Twilight Series, that’s what. On a whim I bought the first book and then all I did in my free time was read read read until I was done.

But I am controlling myself and not buying the second book until I get enough crafty things under my belt to *deserve* a reading break! I made a good start today, but as most things are still in progress, I’ll show you a little something I made with the leftover scraps of bigger projects

Inspired by Erin’s made using the pattern at The Purl Bee. It took almost no time- the babysitter (yes! we have a babysitter! hurrah!) took HMB to the park and when she came back, there was something new to play with

It is a hit. And of course now I want to make one for every baby of my acquaintance!

No, not aliens. In the process of cleaning out my craft closet (very daunting, still not done), I found so many Unfinished Objects! And even finished ones I forgot about! So, new rule chez belleepoque- no starting a new project until one in the big pile is finished. I realise this means I’ll never have *fewer* projects to work on, but at least I won’t keep generating piles of unfinished ones to put in bags and hide in the closet.

To that end, witness this pair of pachyderms

They were sitting there, one all stuffed and just needing ears and eyes, the other all cut out and ready to go- SINCE LAST CHRISTMAS! I can kind of see why I stopped where I did, since it took two evenings to do the hand-sewing required to finish them, but still. Thankfully the two littles they were intended for are still young enough to want them (glad they aren’t clothes!). I’m not sure what new project this entitles me to- perhaps I can do an exchange: two Wee Wonderfuls elephants from Last Minute Patchwork & Quilted Gifts to start on my Wee Wonderful Doll?

And now, the winners of the De-Stashing Giveaway! I used the Random Number Generator to pick out 3 commenters- 11, 20 and 22! Which would be Earthchick, Rachel and Kristin! Congrats ladies, I’ll be e-mailing you to get your mailing addresses shortly, then putting together some boxes of fun for you!

I will probably have to do another one of these giveaways as I continue my cleaning, so stay tuned!

I’d prefer mists and mellow fruitfulness, but poor HMB seems to have caught her very first cold so we’ve got a lot of sneezing & snarfing and not much snoozing around here the past few days.

Luckily I went a little crazy in the kitchen and made two big pots of soup at the same time the other night, so there was plenty to eat that can be quickly heated up in between sessions of calming down and distracting a sick baby.

I’ve made one of these before, and the other is new to me, and they both (hurrah) came out delicious. The one on your left is Zucchini Parmesan Soup, and on the right is Beef and Sweet Potato Stew. The stew is inspired by the one in the FABULOUS book Apples for Jam. Mine is different enough that I don’t feel bad about sharing the recipe here, but I highly recommend buying the book. It is so inspiring and beautiful.

Without further ado, the recipes!
Zucchini Parmesan Soup
3T butter
1tsp olive oil
1 lb Zucchini, diced
1 small onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced or crushed
1/4 t ground nutmeg
2 cups chicken broth (or veggie broth)
1/2 c heavy cream
1/4 c parmesan, grated
1/2 c carrots, diced quite small.

Put butter and oil in a large pot over medium heat until hot. Throw in zucchini, onions and garlic and cook, stirring frequently for 10 minutes. Add the nutmeg and broth and bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer. Simmer for 5 minutes (check to be sure the zucchini is nice and soft, if not, keep simmering until it is). Puree half the soup in a blender or food processor (I just ladled out half of it and pureed the stuff in the pot with my immersion blender). Return all of soup to pot, add carrots, cream and parmesan and simmer, stirring frequently (so the cheese doesn’t stick to the bottom) until the carrots are tender. Serve alongside some salt and pepper. Yum!

Beef & Sweet Potato Stew
4T olive oil
1.5 lbs stew beef, cut into 1.5″ chunks
1 onion, diced
2 T butter
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 bay leaf
1/2 cup marsala wine (or regular red if you have some on hand)
1 8 oz can tomato sauce
3 cups beef broth (or hot water if you haven’t any broth)
1 medium sweet potato, peeled and cut into similar size chunks as your meat.
Heat oil in a big, heavy pot until nice and hot. Brown the beef over high heat until it has a nice color on all sides. Put in the onion and cook, stirring until it is golden and soft. Add the butter and garlic and cook for a minute or two. Throw in the wine and let it cook down all the way. Add the tomato sauce, broth and bay leaf and bring to a boil. Cover then lower heat to a simmer. Simmer for 1.5-2 hours (go closer to 2, it will be yummier), stirring every so often. Uncover, add potato chunks and cook for another 30 minutes, until tender but not total mush. If you like, add a handful or so of egg noodles in the last 8 minutes of cooking time, otherwise serve with noodles, potatoes or bread! YUM! It is sort of a sweet/savoury thing, but so simple and comforting on a cold evening!

Remember! Today is your last chance to comment on this post to be entered in the De-Stashing Giveaway!

I must say, all of your comments on my confessions post are spurring me on to great heights of giving away, and I already feel more inspired! I am particularly excited to come up with crafty uses for the tiny baby food jars piling up since HMB started eating actual victuals. Since I’ve been busy cleaning up the craft room, I don’t have any big new projects to show you. But I have made some more ribbon straw flowers, big and little:

And I am sorry to say I don’t remember how I came across the recipe, but I made these

They are like a cross between a less bad-for-you dutch baby and no-special-pan-required popover. They were easy and tasty and not too sweet, but made me wish I was having a dutch baby or a popover, so… maybe I need a popover pan.

I also think I forgot to crow about being the one to win Michelle’s giveaway! I may have to wear this pincushion as a bracelet it is so cute.

I am SO EXCITED about Hillary’s Kit, Chloe and Louise doll patterns! I could definitely make one of them without buying any new supplies, so they’ve moved to the top of my list after I finish other unfinished stuff(I have this fantasy of making a rag doll with an entire wardrobe, quilt, pillow and other accoutrements for HMB, then putting it in a little cardboard trunk to give her when she’s old enough to appreciate it- when would that be, do you think?).

And finally, I never linked to the three lovely bloggers who won in my PIF Exchange– do check them out because they’re great, and also participating, so if you’re lucky enough to comment on their PIF Exchange posts, you’ll get something fun! So, congratulations and thank you to Lisa of The Bunny Log, Mary Beth of Love Running Deep and Vonnie of Blotted Copy Book! Hurrah!

Thank you so much for jumping in on my giveaway from the last post! Thanks to your comments I’m already feeling encouraged to go in there and get organizing. I think I may have to pick more than 3 winners too, so stay tuned. Remember that post will be open for comments until Monday, September 22.

Now on to the title of this post. I am a huge admirer of Cathy of California. The wonderful Susan introduced me to her at Maker Faire back in 2007, and I continue to be blown away by her beautiful vintage and vintage-inspired work. Her use of color and texture is so spot-on and perfect (those burlap mushrooms! divine), I’d love to be able to see the world through her eyes for just a few hours. I visited with her for a few minutes at Renegade SF and was kicking myself later that I didn’t get one of her Vintage Flower Looms. There’s something so yummy and candy-like about those straw flowers. Well, I finally got my act together and got my hands on one. Because she’s awesome, she threw in some extra treats for me too

You can see her professional flower brooch in that picture. Of course I had to make one myself immediately! And then another for good measure

I think they’d be so cute for Christmas ornaments! Or on hair clips, or… the possibilities are endless. And they are so fun and soothing to make, too. I see many in my future… I know I’m supposed to be de-stashing but of course now I want more colors of ribbon straw (or the contemporary equivalent, plastic raffia). But I shall try to control myself and use what I have until I really *need* more…

Ok, you guys are too sweet– thank you so much for the offers of hand-knit sweaters for Miss S and suggestions for idiot(aka me)-proof patterns to make one myself. We’re very spoiled girls!

When I pulled out the denim for my skirt, I also came across some grey knit fabric I bought at the same time to make a maternity version of my favorite wrap dress. Which project also fell by the wayside back then due to pregnancy fatigue and malaise. But hey, now I can fit into the original again, and it does that figure magic that wrap dresses do so well, so how about one for fall? Then it came time to search for the pattern, in the craft closet of DOOM. Seriously, it is a disastrous and pitiful scene, rather like a graveyard for half-finished and abandoned craft projects. I found the pattern (finally) and made the dress

I’m not as thin as I was back in the day(aka April 07), and I used heavier knit which meant I should have faced the bodice like the directions said instead of fully lining it (whoo, that’s a bulky waistline there), but it is comfy and wrappy and so I will wear it anyway.

I also came to the conclusion that, along with stopping with the peanut butter cups, some serious de-stashing must occur pronto, in addition to finishing or chucking the half-finished bits and pieces in that closet to make way for more focused crafting. After the past few weeks of creating with abandon, I’m feeling disorganized and sort of blocked (this may be because I looked in that closet). There’s so much inspiration out there, and I have so many supplies, but I just don’t know what to do next. HMB needs fall/winter hats for her rapidly expanding noggin, it’s never too early to get started on holiday gifts, but…nothing really feels that exciting.

This is where you come in: when I went to the post office today I picked up a few flat rate priority mail boxes to fill with crafty odds and ends– good ones, I promise, decent sized lengths of fabric, strands of beads, packs of notecards etc. And I will send them off to some of you, my faithful readers. If you’d like to be in the mix for this giveaway, please either comment and let me know what crafty projects you’re most excited about right now (if you have links or photos, go ahead and link to ‘em!). Or if you like, blog about it and then comment here with a link to your post. I’ll leave the comments open until Monday, September 22, then randomly pick 3 commenters to each get a box ‘o’ fun–if possible, I’ll try to make your box contents match up with the project you’re working on. I hope you’ll join in and help inspire me to make way for new projects!

So, now that it’s starting to get chilly around here, I’m thinking HMB needs some more sweaters. Any of you amazing knitting/crochet folk have a yen to knit/crochet a baby sweater but no recipient in mind? I would do it myself but I would probably finish it in time to give it to HMB when she has a baby, if ever. I’m a crappy, ADD knitter and that’s all there is to it. If you’re interested, drop me a line at belleepoquewhimsy [!at!] gmail [!dot!] com– we can work out appropriate trade/barter/payment details. Alternatively, if you have a favorite Etsy shop, or other source for a handmade sweater, please share!

Or you know, if you want to encourage me, you could also tip me off to absurdly easy baby sweater patterns made of chunky yarns that knit up really fast. She is just over six months so if I’m making it I’m probably looking at a 9-12 month size…

And because I can’t abide a post without a picture, voila Miss S in her one sweater (not handmade)

I’ll be back tomorrow, hopefully with some things to show you that I’ve actually made myself! Happy Sunday.

You know how it is when you’re trying to eat healthy? If you’re like me, you make sure there’s no junk in the house. And then proceed to scrounge together whatever you’ve got to make something delicious and forbidden. Homemade Peanutbutter Cups? Yes, please!

I found out about this recipe over on A Friend to Knit With. They are ridiculous. And so easy. And who doesn’t have some chocolate chips and peanutbutter on hand all the time? I sort of futzed with the recipe to my detriment– I actually like a bigger ratio of peanutbutter to chocolate, but ended up using too much chocolate in the cups to start with and throwing everything off. Anyway, if you’re feeling baaaad, I highly recommend making some for yourself. To mitigate the total self sabotage, I immediately brought these to one of HMB’s classes to share with the other kids (well, moms really, since kids Miss S’s age don’t really do food). Well, after trying one to make sure they were ok.

They’re ok.

Regarding less guilty pleasures: the very cool Linda tipped me off to Goodreads- I am really, really in need of good book recommendations, so it came at just the right time. I do wonder about social booksharing, only in that I actually read quite a bit of embarassing stuff (trashy books, hooray!), and I probably wouldn’t put those on there ’cause I got a rep to protect (very serious and scholarly, dontcha know), but we’ll see. If you’re a member or you join and would like to be my friend, I’d love it- I think you can search by e-mail so look for belleepoquewhimsy (!at!) gmail (!dot!) com

You were all so generous with your encouragement of my drawing! I promise I wasn’t fishing, but your comments really made my day.

You know how sometimes you just need a muffin, or some kind of warm home baked goodness? Usually for me that same urge accompanies the cupboard being bare of common muffin ingredients. Yesterday was one of those days, but I went through the pantry to see what I did have, then went to the internet to see what kind of yummy muffin I could make with it. And so voila

Maple Pecan Muffins. They are DELICIOUS and totally satisfying. If you make them (and you’ll be so happy if you do), don’t skip the cinnamon sugar topping- it makes the whole muffin experience. I think these would be so good with warm apple cider or a spicy chai or latte. You know what I wish I had? A friend to have elevenses with. Of course HMB is good company, but she’s a few months away from being able to eat baked goods and enjoy sitting down over a cuppa. I love living in a city, but I have this suburban fantasy of having a really nice neighbor who might come over and join me for muffins and a bit of a chat (perhaps about this week’s episode of Gossip Girl?). In lieu of that, thank you for coming by for a virtual muffin and I hope you have a wonderful day!

Drawing is very definitely not one of my strong suits. I do, however, spend a lot of time wishing I could draw, and my mother, who is a beautiful artist, has spent quite a bit of time trying to teach me. The best I’ve ever done is on spontaneous line drawings of flowers, when they’re sitting slap in front of me.

Taking initiative from the amazing Bethany, I’ve kept holiday gift ideas in the back of my head since about July (when she was making strawberry-lime jelly for gifts already!). We’ve taken HMB up to the beach for a few weekend afternoons and I’ve been thrilled anew at the crazed heartiness of the orange nasturtiums that grow wildly everywhere around the cottage. They are totally profligate about where they drop their seeds, which gave me an idea. I collected a nice big mound of dried nasturtium seeds and decided that I’d divvy them up, make cute little envelopes (designed and illustrated by me) and send them off to friends who have yards for the holidays. Gardening is also not one of my gifts, but here in Northern California, I’ve had success pushing nasturtium seeds into crappy soil around February to get lovely flowers by mid-March! I think they are similarly idiot-proof in other climes, just need to be planted a bit later.

Anyhow, last time we were there, during a very brief HMB nap, I plucked a stalk of flowers, buds and leaves

and set pen to tiny hotel pad of paper to make the illo for the seed packets

Keeping in mind that I am not good at drawing, I am pretty happy with it! Now I just have to figure out how to trace it onto watercolor paper and paint it orange and green. Then scan it again and shrink it, then work out the text and layout for the seed packet labels. Ummm…well. One thing at a time! I will show you the finished product should it materialize. In the meantime, this is a good time of year to collect seeds from the annuals in your garden to share with flower-loving friends during the winter- they are always a nice reminder that spring will come again.