In Which I Conquer the Scones, and Other Off-Topic Quick-Takes

My blog description says quite clearly that Don't Forget the Avocados is not a food blog. However, the time has come, the walrus said, to talk of other things. Of ships and seas and sealing wax, and cabbages and... scones.

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I generally cook and bake rather well (to misquote Mrs. Elton from the movie Emma, "My friends say that I certainly know how to make a cookie"). However, success in two areas of baking has historically eluded me. My first problem is with scones. They just don't turn out. The recipe will say to add "enough" cream. I add cream. But how much is enough? How much is too little? In the end, my scones have always tasted of baking powder or had an unfortunate texture. This is very sad, particularly when the failure of a scone is accompanied by the loss of the perfectly good chocolate chips or dried cranberries that I put into it.

However, recently I was inspired to try again.

And, hooray and hallelujah, the oven light has shone. My scones now turn out. They are delicious. They are moist, blueberry-y and nice. Here is the lovely recipe. I don't bother with the glaze (I think it would make them too sweet, anyway) and I definitely follow the advice of grating the frozen butter. I also put a bit more cream in than specified in the recipe.

The Anniversary of the Sewing Machine in 7 Quick Takes

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When I was a little girl, I liked asking for comparative data (“Daddy, if a tiger and a bear had a fight, which would win?”). I remember querying my mother as to which items she would rescue from our house first if the house was on fire and all the people were safe. In addition to photo albums, she was going to save her sewing machine. It is a Pfaff, and had been a significant investment when she was a young bride.

Sewing machines are fabulous things. Become fluent in the use of one, and you need no longer feel yourself at the mercy of wearing whatever this year’s fashion trends happen to provide, or of suffering with the fit of whatever trousers are closest to your size. 

Today, on the anniversary of the day that French tailor Barthelemy Thimonnier patented the first functional sewing machine in 1830, let us rejoice.

When the Bread Knife Meets the Foam: 7 Quick Takes (Volume I)

I’ve been following several excellent blogs that do “7 Quick Takes” on Friday. Those bloggers are all Catholic, but for fun, I am going to do it too even though I am Lutheran. 

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1.

There is a certain rocking chair that has been part of my family for some time. It is special because of its size: it’s good for short women who would like to be able to rest their feet on the floor while sitting. Tall people, for whom the furniture of the world is an easy fit, will probably not understand this (you should see my toes dangle if I sit on my couch without a bunch of cushions behind my back). My mom spent many an hour sitting in this special, helpfully-sized rocking chair as she tended to various babies. In its earliest manifestation, the cushions were a rather ugly mustard color.

Look to the far right for the rocking chair.
As you can see, my sisters and I were quite
excited that it was Christmas!

My mother soon re-covered the cushions in blue.

When I moved away for a teaching position, my mom gave me the chair. By this time it had acquired a new, rosy material. However, it had also aged considerably—not only was the fabric worn and faded, but the original cushions, despite the freshening-up layer of batting, were no longer of much use in supporting anyone’s behind. I decided that I would have to refurbish it if I wanted to be able to rock my baby in comfort.

I'm afraid this picture is fuzzy, but you get the idea.

Step 1: Go to the fabric store. While in the fabric store, play phone tag with my mom to consult her on the best foam and batting. Purchase fabric, 4 inch foam, and two bags of batting.

Step 2: Be intimidated by the project and make other things instead. Make cute little felt baby shoes, for example. Make felt animals. Make a felt quiet book. Spend time on Pinterest looking at other, non-rocking-chair-projects that could potentially be made.

Step 3: Decide that I need to finish the rocking chair before certain houseguests arrive, because my apartment is not large enough for a large strip of four-inch foam plus houseguests.

Step 4: The only way to cut the thick foam turned out to be with a bread knife. This worked reasonably well, except that each cut was pretty permanent—you can’t trim foam with a bread knife. That is why not all of the cuts are 100% straight.

Step 5: Cover the shaped foam in batting and hand-sew the batting down. Lay the new cushions on the fabric and trace covers. Sew the fabric covers. Try the covers on for fit, and readjust as needed. Sew the covers shut. Voila! It’s not bad. I won’t point out the flaws, in case you can’t see them in the picture. I’m actually quite proud of it.

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2.

Speaking of quiet books, here are two of the pages. You lift the flaps and see little forest animals.

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3.

Speaking of cute baby shoes—these are the ones I made. I got the pattern HERE.  I also want to make the darling, ruffled little version that is found HERE.

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4.

Speaking of babies (which relates to pregnancy), I had to take the nasty 3-Hour Glucose Tolerance Test this week. You have to fast for it. They draw a little vial of your blood, feed you 100 grams of sugar (in the form of a red, “fruit-punch flavored” drink), and then draw your blood every hour for three hours. I don’t think my blood sugar got back to normal until at least the next day. Basically, all I wanted to do was lie in bed and feel weak. Remind me never to let my children eat nothing but candy until midday! Fortunately the results came back as healthy.

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5.

Also speaking of babies, I have noticed a sociological phenomenon. The inexpensive baby garments are almost all exclusively blue or pink. Even the ones that branch out into brown or purple are clearly intended for a single gender, excepted only by yellow outfits with ducks on them (and, to be fair, a few green ones with frogs). Baby girls’ clothes have mice, bunnies, and kitties on them. Baby boys’ clothes have bull dogs, bears, crabs, and footballs.

Yet, the more expensive, posh baby clothes (a good percentage of which are crafted from organic cotton) are much less gender-specific. Why do common folks emphasize the gender of their babies while the upper class apparently enjoys baby garments of cream, red, or vibrant multi-hued strips?

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6.

I’ve heard people say that should another economic depression arise, Americans won’t know how to make-do like the older generation. They certainly won’t know how to make clothing out of flower sacks like our ancestresses did.

However, I have been on Pinterest, and I know what the modern equivalent of a flour sack dress is. It is a garment “up-cycled” from a parental T-shirt. There are apparently a lot of babies and toddlers running around in clothing made from their parents’ T-shirts. Actually, I’ve been going through my husband’s old T’s with an acquisitive eye.

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7.

Is it OK if I want my (on the way) baby to look bald? All the babies in my family had such fair hair that you couldn’t see it, and that is what I am used to. Babies with luxuriant hair confuse me because my brain does not believe that people acquire visible hair until the age of one or two. I will definitely not be buying my child one of THESE:

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Happy Friday! To see other people's posts, go to Conversion Diary. I recommend quite strongly that you find and read the posts about scorpions. They are pretty hilarious. 

The Wee Bunny (and Some Hedgehogs)

As I continue to play with felt and to download innumerable pictures and patterns as inspiration, I've found two rather adorable little creatures that are quick and easy to make. The patterns are available for free. See the pictures and links below.

One of my planned projects is to make various little animals (and perhaps fairies/gnomes) with wee felt houses to live in. I'm inspired by a tutorial at Rhythm and Rhyme. My little hedgehogs and bunnies might require a similar home. Perhaps an old (felt) tree stump? On the other hand, I am also playing with the idea of making a Noah's Ark. The littler hedgies might find themselves aboard ship, if I can figure out how to make the bigger animals somewhat to scale. We'll see!

Meanwhile, here are the hedgehogs. You can find the pattern that I used HERE (note that instead of using hearts for the prickles, I fringed strips of felt). 

And here are the rather adorable bunnies. I found that if I printed the pattern out at a miniscule scale, the bunnies are actually much cuter and their bodies look less awkward. Find the pattern HERE. I also used ordinary stuffing for the tail (I rolled the stuffing into a ball and sewed through it with thread until it was firmly held in place).

Happy felting!



An Update and Some Felt Owls

Dear friends and readers,

Perhaps you have noticed the sudden silence of this blog. The truth is that I have been seized by crafting fever. Instead of writing, I have been sewing and (ahem) pouring over little felt animals on Pinterest. After much thought, I have decided that little felt owls and handmade leaf babies are intrinsically related to stories (my husband thinks that’s a stretch). Therefore, rather than leave the blog silent, I will be sharing some of my handiwork until my brain refocuses on fiction. I have been drafting a few patterns for little toys and will be sharing them as I go.

Here are a few of the latest efforts:

A future Christmas Tree Ornament (part of a series of woodland animals)

Little Leaf Babies and their Leaves

More Christmas Ornaments: Sleepy Owls