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Cookbook Giveaway

Holly — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 22:40:29 +0000

I’m interrupting this craft blog with a little non-crafty giveaway: my husband’s new cookbook! It is available at bookstores now, and he will be promoting it tomorrow morning (Monday) on Good Morning America! So please tune in between 8:30 and 9, and leave a comment below if you’d like to win the book. Of course I’m biased, but it is a great book. My husband is the national food editor for The Associated Press, and the basic idea of the book is using high-flavor ingredients to do the heavy lifting, instead of complicated techniques. I’ll pick a winner Wednesday morning.
For extra chances to win, do any or all of the following:
_ let me know that you are a subscriber to my blog
_ let me know that you are a subscriber to my husband’s blog
_ give me an idea for a cooking/eating/kitchen-related craft or sewing project. We’re probably going to be giving away some copies of the book as Christmas gifts, and I’d like to make a little something to go with them

UPDATE: There’s still plenty of time to enter the giveaway. Here’s his appearance on GMA:

A present a week, Week 8

Holly — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 00:19:07 +0000

Something new for this week’s entry into the “present a week ’til Christmas” challenge at Works in Progress. I won again last week, bringing my total to three out of the six weeks I’ve entered! At this rate, I will have to make even more gifts to keep up with the new fabric I’m winning!
Instead of sewing or felting, this week I finished a photo gift using the digital scrapbooking skills I’ve been neglecting for a while. It used to be my biggest (only?) hobby, but gradually I turned to more hands-on sewing and crafting. Here’s a sneak peak, and once again, if you don’t have the address to the “secret” blog where I’m posting all my gifts, just leave a comment below.

Embroidereading

Holly — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:07:52 +0000

I am a bit bashful about posting this project: my entry into the “Embroidereading” contest at Checkout Girl Crafts. The rules called for embroidering a poem, either something you wrote, a quote from a favorite poem or song lyric or a child’s poem. My original plan was to have my son write something, but he had no interest, so I wrote this little snippet based on something that first struck me when I was very little. I love fall, and fall foliage, and I’ve always thought that leaves being blown down the street by wind look like a bunch of runners just starting a road race.

I might give this to my sister for our birthday in October since she likes to do a lot of fall decorating. But it feels a bit strange to give someone a poem. What if they don’t like it? My son asked me to read it to him, and when I told him about how I think the leaves look like a road race, he said, “Me, too!” And told me he liked the poem and that we should keep it. So maybe I will! I so rarely make anything for myself.

I’ve never done much embroidery, and it probably shows.

A present a week, Week 7

Holly — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 13:36:55 +0000

I fell behind on keeping up with the “present a week ’til Christmas” challenge at Works in Progress, but I’m back on track this week. If you’ve thought about joining the challenge, you might like to know that the odds are rather good. I’ve won twice already! (The prize is a half-yard of fabric, and the winners are chosen at random)

If you missed my previous posts, please leave me a comment if you would like the address to the “secret” blog where I’m posting these projects so my friends and family won’t see them. Hopefully I have kept up with the requests, but if you haven’t heard from me, please give me another chance!

Coming up soon, pictures of the two dresses I made to wear to the wedding we attended last weekend. I think I went against most the advice I got here and didn’t add the flounce to the flowered dress, but it still looked nice. In fact, I may wear it to another wedding tomorrow.

Staycation Activities

Holly — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 14:13:02 +0000

I’m on vacation this week, but my husband is working so I’m hanging out with my almost-six-year-old son. Yesterday, we took a bus into Boston and went to the New England Aquarium. It was great, though I think he enjoyed the free fountain outside just as much. I made a list of fun projects for us to do, so I thought I’d post some of them here.

Hot Rocks: (pictured above) We tried these a few days ago and they were a big hit. It was pretty neat to hold the tip of the crayon against the hot rocks and watch it melt. The colors got muddy pretty quick so the final result is not quite as vibrant as I imagined, but still a fun activity.
Find a rainbow in the yard
Needle felted stars
Gigantic bubbles
Treasure Stones/Dinosaur Eggs

(Just a note, it drives me crazy when my fellow journalists invent words by substituting one syllable with something that doesn’t fit at all. “Staycation” works ok because “Stay” rhymes with the syllable it replaces. But I recently saw the word “Bravolebrity” apparently meaning “a celebrity on Bravo.” UGH)

A present a week, Week 5

Holly — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 13:06:48 +0000

Here’s a sneak peek of my entry for Week 5 of the “present a week ’til Christmas” challenge at Work in Progress. Once again, if you’d like to see what I’ve been up to, please leave me a comment or email me and I’ll send you a link to the “secret” blog where I’m posting these projects so my friends and family won’t see them.

Flounce or No Flounce?

Holly — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 19:51:17 +0000

I am almost done with this sundress, just need to insert the side zipper and hem it. The pattern is Burda 8071. Should I add the flounce around the bottom hem, or just hem it? (And yes, I do plan to get different shoes)

Vindicated, and panicked

Holly — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 16:53:00 +0000

After suffering two blows to my confidence in sewing for myself (the ill-fitting/ill-fated hand-dyed top and the matronly top), I finally had a long-harbored secret wish come true yesterday: a stranger in the elevator complimented something I was wearing, and I was able to say, “Thanks! I made it myself!”

Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures, but it was very simple skirt I made last summer out of some random fabric my husband had leftover from a food photoshoot. But it was very nice to get the compliment given that 1) the stranger who made it was a very smartly dressed woman and 2) I don’t think a stranger has ever complimented any of my store-bought clothes like that.

I also need some advice. In two weeks, we will be going to a big wedding in Washington, D.C. The groom is a fairly big-shot celebrity chef. The festivities include a barbecue lunch and poolside dinner at a nice hotel. The invitation says “summer casual,” but I have a feeling that what I would wear for a “summer casual” event here in New Hampshire would not quite fit the bill. Before we got the details, I had plans to make Simplicity 2724 (the version on the lower right, out of a very pretty faux silk charmeuse), and even made a muslin out of a sheet, but now I think that’s too dressy.

But I’m at a loss. I do have a few yards of Anna Maria Horner’s Little Folks Voile in Garden Berry

and a Burda pattern for a sundress (I can’t find it online, but it has shoulder ties, a gathered bust and slightly A-line, short skirt). I think that MIGHT work for the BBQ, but I’m not sure. Anyone have other suggestions? (head to the mall?)

A present a week, Week 3

Holly — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 06:00:31 +0000

I’m really glad I decided to participate in the “present a week ’til Christmas” challenge at Work in Progress . For those who are checking out my projects there, I have two new gifts posted. Here’s a sneak peek at the latest:

If you missed my earlier post and want the address to the “hidden” blog where I’m posting the gifts so my friends and family won’t see them, leave me a comment and I’ll send you the link.

Farewell Friends

Holly — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 13:49:51 +0000

This was a goodbye gift to our wonderful friends who moved to Washington, D.C., last weekend. We miss them already, and my eyes welled up this morning when I read my friend’s Facebook update quoting her not-quite-3-year-old daughter saying, “When are we going to Concord New Hampshire?”

I wanted to make them something that would remind them of Concord, so my first thought was a picture of the Statehouse, where our boys often played together on the lawn after shopping at the nearby farmer’s market. I took a picture of the Statehouse and then downloaded a picture of my friends from their Picassa web gallery and combined the two in Photoshop.

I could have stopped there, but wanted to give the image a more artsy look, so I used a tutorial I found in a Photoshop book to turn the image into a pen-and-ink sketch/watercolor. That process was rather lengthy, though I saved most of the steps in an action so I can use it quickly in the future on other photos.

I plan on writing up a tutorial on how I put it all together, but basically I printed multiple copies of the image, cut out several layers and stuck them on top of each other using double-sided foam tape.

Miss you Jess, Peter, Jasper and Josie!