Tutorial and Pattern: Cloth Napkins 5 Ways

Remember that cloth napkin project I've had going on all summer? Well, it's finally done, dammit. I mean, dangit. Done. O-V-E-R. 40 napkins complete and folded and stacked neatly in a basket in our kitchen awaiting dirty faces and greasy hands. Bu-bye paper napkins. Fare thee well.

BUT, I thought you might like to start your own personal cloth napkin project--so I whipped up a little tutorial for you that covers the five styles of napkins I made:

1. The basic, no-frills napkin (see original post here and here)
2. The sweet and simple rick rack variety (original post here)
3. The pretty ruffled one (original post here)
4. The bossy "EAT" applique napkin (original post here)
5. The embroidered vintage happy face napkin (see below)

The tutorial includes step-by-step instructions with a few illustrations, and patterns where necessary. You can pick it up right here:
DOWNLOAD NAPKIN TUTORIAL
Also, I was thinking, I am going to do my very best to put up several tutorials between now and the holidays--to do what I can to support all of you in making and giving your own handmade gifts. Handmade is important. It means more--but I don't need to tell you that, do I ? My dear clever readers know exactly where I am coming from--I'm sure of it. Anyway, so the napkin tutorial is the first in several more to come over the impending weeks as the holidays bear down upon us all--because someone on your holiday gift giving list just may be in need of some cloth napkins--whether they know it or not. And a couple more things I want to point out--like the final two napkin varieties I made to finish up my crazed napkin project...yes, these vintage-inspired happy faces that I embroidered onto the corner of some linen napkins. Sweet, non? And also, easy-peasy because I did not finish the edges so all I had to do was sit on my arse with embroidery hoop, needle and napkin and embroider away while the autumn wind rampaged outdoors. And yes, the embroidery pattern for these is in the tutorial, if you care. (and I think these may be my favorites of all the varieties made--these and the "EAT" ones)And finally, remember those yellow ruffled napkins I made earlier? The 70's tux looking ones? Well, here they are revisited with a more sedate and modest ruffle in white on white. And this was EXACTLY what I was aiming for when I decided to do something with a ruffle. Much more demure and lovely, much less like a 1970's prom tux and polyester prom dress cast aside in a pile on the floor of a cheap motel. But hey, if you like that sort of thing--by all means, make those ruffles bigger because I included the ruffle measurements for both of the napkins in the tutorial.
Oh, and if you want to see more photos of the napkins for reference--find them all here.

Aw shucks...

I guess I need to accept the Kreativ Blogger Award that Threaded Basil has sent my way. Gee. Do I have to give a speech? Because I hate public speaking. Anytime I have to speak in front of people my immediate impulse is to crawl under the nearest table, desk, podium, whatever--and deliver my speech from there. In fact, when I had my oral exams for all my senior work in college, I asked the array of professors before me if I could just sit under the table and address their questions from under there. Yeah, they didn't let me. And I have to admit the other thing I get uncomfortable with is public praise. It's the Minnesotan in me. We are not down with public praise here in the mid-northern reaches of the U.S. I mean, you do what you do and that is good enough, goll-darnit--you don't need anyone to point out how well you might be doing what you do. Anyway, all my issues, not yours...

I see there are rules I must abide by in accepting this award, but it does not, apparently involve public speaking afterall--juts public blogging, which I can do from the top of desk with no desire to crouch beneath it...so yeah...in accepting this award, let me share 7 things about me that you might not know:

1. I once wrote about 300 pages of a novel...still lurking in the recesses of my laptop somewhere to this day...
2. I plan to design a doll someday that is based on a Miro painting I saw in the Tate Modern
3. It makes my day when I pull up alongside a schoolbus in the morning and I can wave to all the little kids looking out the windows and they all bunch up around the window willynilly and start goofily waving back at me
4. I love to eat peanut butter on saltine crackers
5. I sing to Neko Case at the top of my lungs when driving in my car
6. I once had a job where I managed the man who would become my husband (and then one thing led to another, and you know how that goes...)
7. I dream of owning some land in the far northern reaches of beautiful Minnesota and turning it into a camp for friends and family with tents on wooden platforms, an open air kitchen, and an old clawfoot tub set out under the sky where you can take a bath by the light of the moon...

And also, here are 7 blogs I highly recommend to all of you (which does not include those blogs I have lately been writing love notes on this blog--but to be clear, I still ADORE those blogs too...):

1. Just Something I Made
2. Art Nest
3. Handmade Charlotte
4. La Maison Boheme
5. Tollipop
6. Bluebird Baby
7. Whisk Kid

And for those of you who I have just nominated and pointed out the uber-coolness of your blogs, well this is what you now need to do (unless you have already been tagged for this activity before, then I would add a clause that says you can gracefully decline...but it is all up to you, really):

1. Thank the person who nominated you for this award.
2. Copy the Kreativ Blogger logo and place it on your blog.
3. Link to the person who nominated you for this award.
4. Name 7 things about yourself that people might not know.
5. Nominate 7 Kreativ Bloggers.
6. Post links to the 7 blogs you nominate.
7. Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know they have been nominated.

And finally, I would like to say thank you to dear Threaded Basil for being such a supporter of my blog and for making this moment possible. Really. Thank you. Goodnight everyone.

New Blog Banner

New blog banner alert. I was so sick of the old one I wanted to vomit everytime I saw it-- I mean, I love those Babies on a Stick but the photos was so moody and gray. So, in the interest of less stomach upset, I finally got around to swapping it up for something more colorful and happy. Thank goodness that is over with!

Here is the banner I chose not to use. I thought maybe it was too busy...what do you think? Should I have used this one as my banner, perhaps?Also, I realized while making the little plush letters in the banner (fabric scraps are brilliant for this, if you care) that one could insert little magnets between the layers of of fabric and batting and you would have colorful little plushie letter magnets...now I guess I will have to do a tutorial on how to do that at some point. I mean, they would make a lovely gift for some lucky little one (or just for you in the event you love the alphabet as much as I do and want your own set of plushie letters...). Next weekend perhaps?

Recipe: Not-Quite-So-Fried Chicken

This was our farewell to summer meal--featuring all the foods you love summer for the most (what's not pictured is the strawberry shortcake we scarfed down for dessert--I think both Beeper and Mr Beeper had seconds on that).

In the past, I have not made fried chicken all that often--even though I ADORE IT and it is probably on my top 10 list of fave foods. Why you say? Well, because you have to cook it in a frying pan, with lots of oil and hot grease, and you have to stand over all that splattery hot grease for quite some time while making it and that sort of grosses me out and then I feel like I have to change clothes before I can even eat dinner because who wants to smell like a short order fry cook? Those are my issues anyway...
But then I figured out through the adaptation and trial of many fried chicken recipes, that you need not smell like a cheap diner at all if you want fried chicken--and no, my suggestion is not to simply go to KFC. You can make DELICIOUS fried chicken right in your very own oven--okay, maybe it is not so fried because you are making it in the oven which means it is technically baked, but I think this still tastes like fried chicken--or just as good as.

If you must know, the tastiness secret is the seasoning and the parmesan and the buttermilk. Intrigued? Salivating maybe even? Well, here is the recipe: DOWNLOAD RECIPE
And the best thing is that you can also use this fried chicken breading on boneless chicken breasts or things--or even cut those up into strips and make chicken fingers for the kiddies and serve some sort of sweet and goopy dipping sauce on the side.

AND, that divine breading? Well, double those ingredients and save half in the freezer so you can whip that out and have a fried (but not really) chicken breast or leg on a whim, whenever you feel like you need a bit of fried chicken that is more baked than fried but still tastes fried.

Two-Faced Friend Kits--In My Shop

Perhaps I've gone a bit overboard with the Two-Faced Friend offerings...what with the dolls, the patterns, and now this--a Two-Faced Friend Doll Kit. I've assembled 5 of them and they are all in my shop now--4 girls and 1 boy (because who needs more than 1 boy anyway--one is more than enough to go around).
You say you'd like to know what comes in such a kit? Well, let me tell you since you have expressed an interest:

• Pre-cut fabric pieces, including pieces cut from some of my favorite vintage feedsack fabrics, body pieces cut from recycled materials (white cotton sheets), and flannel to fully line the doll
• Coordinated vintage buttons
• Vintage rickrack trim
• Wool felt shoes, dress embellishments, and hair
• An embroidery design for the face(s)
• Fully illustrated instructions for sewing your doll together
• Lovely packaging made from recycled grocery bags

This is a limited time offer though because I really am not in the kit making business but thought it might be kind of fun just this once...and also, these sorts of feed sack fabrics do not grow on trees so don't get your hopes up you'll be seeing the fabrics around the Beeper Bebe shop in lots of other guises...I don't think so. I am such a fabric hoarder you're actually kind of lucky they made their way into these kits. It was quite painful cutting into them--but I did it for you. Because I know whoever purchases one of these kits will appreciate the lovely, one-of-a-kind nature of these feedsacks...Anyway, enough about feedsack seperation anxiety. I'm just hoping someone out there might think these kits were a good idea...anyone?

Toy Crafting Crush

I know, I know--it was less than a month ago that came forth with my sappy blog crush confession for Sweet, Sweet Life.  Call me fickle if you will, but I choose to believe I have room enough in my heart for BOTH Sweet, Sweet Life and Matsutake.  Besides, they are totally different blogs--Amy 's blog is full of happy, diverse discoveries each day, while Katie's is full of her own fantastic wooden toy designs and snarky commentary on her domestic life.  I do LOVE THEM BOTH.  But, I digress because what I really want to tell you about is Katie's toys, her blog and her Etsy shop.  Well, let's allow the photos to speak for themselves.... 

I mean, c'mon.  How can you not love her work?  It manages to feel both modern and vintage at the same time.  And I am not the only raving fan, since Martha invited her to be on her show a while back to share how to make her paper mache pull toys (see the tutorial here--on Martha's site).  

And then, on top of all her toys that are so good they make you want to gather one of each up and hoard them all for yourself in your own workshop, she also does these FRICKIN AMAZING crafty tutorials on her blog.  Like this play stove...

...or these sweet little Where the Wild Things Are looking creatures made from cardboard toilet paper tubes (reduce, reuse, my friends)...

...or this hedgehog pencil holder she somehow envisioned rising out of an empty plastic sodapop bottle...

I mean, it is mind blowing, really, what Katie is doing over in her neck of the woods (which also happens to be near my neck of the woods since she too lives in Minnesota).  Oh, and did I mention she also designs her own sewing patterns?    I may have to make one of these squirrels for a Toy Society drop now (even though I hate squirrels because they ransack our garden and gnaw holes in our compost pail and burrow in  the attic of our house--buttholes--but somehow when I look at Katie's squirrel design I suddenly ADORE squirrels and want to go  bring them a bucket of  unshelled walnuts or something and then I want to make one of these for myself and cuddle up with it at night...)

Are you crushing on Matsutake as much as I am yet?  Well, go find Katie's blog here, and her Etsy shop here and by all means, enjoy yourself.   After discovering Katie's blog, I read it straight through like I was reading the current issue of a magazine from cover to cover--so settle in with a cup of tea and some cookies or something because you may be sitting in front of your computer for a while.  (And, Amy?  I still totally dig you--really).

Children's Books: The Spider and the Fly

I love Edward Gorey and this book is so Edward-Gorey-esque. And while I would not read most Edward Gorey to my son as it is a bit too macabre for a 5-year-old's inquisitive and hyperactive imagination, this we can do. And also, aren't most kindergarteners fascinated with the macabre naturally? They always want to look at other people's scrapes and cuts (especially if there is blood) and love spooky cartoons (hello, Scooby Doo, superstar of the elementary school set). So, when I found this book, I knew it was perfect for Beeper --and me. The book is The Spider and the Fly by Tony DiTerlizzi, and is closely based on Mary Hewitt's original version of the poem written back in 1829 to serve as a cautionary tale to her own children to guard against, well, bad people and their wiles, I guess. Tony's main inspiration in illustrating the book was classic Hollywood film noir. And the illustrations are the superstar of this book--chock full o' darkly realized detail and clever renderings of the spider's world. The spider is indeed dapper with a Clark Gable moustache, dressed in a quilted smoking jacket and fez, his feet propped languidly upon a dead ladybug serving as a footstool. And the poor, ill-fated fly? Well, she is a dragonfly fashionably outfitted in flapper-like attire wiht a posie parasol--alluding to what will be the source of her eventual demise (vanity).The book is simply laden with clever details like the beetle roasted with an apple in its mouth served up as dinner, the fretfull ghosts of insects-past lurking in the background of most photos, trying desperately to warn the poor dragonfly (one bug holds and tellingly points to a copy of The Joy of Cooking Bugs in one scene from the book), and the classic old Victorian house with a light in the topmost window only (Psycho, anyone?).As in the original poem, there is a dark ending to the book, if that is the sort of thing that puts you off--I mean, dark in that the dragonfly does end up well bound to the spider's web, not dark as in the spider gets a hacksaw and gorily butchers the dragonfly and then enjoys her with a lovely Chianti and some fava beans. I happen to believe the book is a great entre into a conversation wiht your kids about using judgement and trusting your gut about people--even if that conversation only last 30 seconds before they ask if they can watch the SuperFriends on DVD again now, and also that they have to poop.

Oh, and I should mention that The Spider and the Fly was a Caldecott Honor Book. You might like to know that.

My Very First Pattern and Dolls in my Shop--NOW

Now this is a really, really big deal for me personally, so take a deep breath and stay with me here. I just completed the creation of my VERY FIRST EVER Beeper Bebe pattern designed for sale. Can you believe it? Should I pinch you? Should I pinch myself? Shall we just high-five and do a little booty dance like football players are always doing in the end zone after a touchdown? Whatever the case, let me tell you ALL about it...

Well, the pattern is for my Two-Faced Friend dolls--if you do not know what that is, well, it is like two dolls for the price of one since the doll is different on the front and back sides (see loads of photos of them here). The pattern comes with complete, step-by-step instructions with illustrations (!) for those who are reading-comprehension challenged and also because all those really cool Japanese plushie books do that and so I thought I'd jump on that bandwagon. It also comes with FULL-SIZED patterns for both a boy and girl doll. So, in mathematical terms: 1 pattern = 2 different dolls (or 4 if you count the front and back sides of each doll). If you go ahead and buy the pattern, I will send it to you in a PDF format direct to the convenience of your own email inbox and you can just print it right out on regular old printer paper and off you can go on your plushie-making adventure with no need for scanning or enlarging too-small pattern pieces. And also, it comes with the embroidery designs for the faces. Yeah, I'm totally serious. Get your own pattern right here in my shop.

And on a side note, holy-schmoley it takes a buttload of time to create a pattern with illustrated instructions. I am pretty sure Beeper thought his mama had forsaken him over the long holiday weekend as I worked deliriously trying to finish it. I may well be served with divorce papers by my lovely and patient husband yet too. This is the price you must pay to make a pattern, dear readers, so keep that in mind as you consider whether to buy a copy for yourself--marital harmony and mother-child bonds were put in jeopardy just to bring you this pattern.And in other Chez Beeper Bebe news, I have made 4 new Two-Faced Friend Dolls that are all up for sale in my Etsy shop right at this very second. So, should you not be the sewing type, you need not forsake all hope of owning your very own Two-Faced Friend. These are sort of special to me as they served as the dolls photographed for the pattern and include some new detail modifications to my original doll design--AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, they are all constructed from mostly vintage materials. Every single one is made with lovely vintage feedsack fabrics, vintage buttons and vintage rickrack. And the bodies of the dolls were made with reclaimed white cotton sheets--so there is a whole lot of reducing, reusing and recycling going on here.

I do plan to put together some Two-Faced Friend Doll kits this week. These will come with the complete pattern, cut-out doll pieces from some of my very favorite vintage feedsack fabrics, vintage buttons and trims for embellishment, and the other items needed to make your own without all the pattern-pinning and cutting fuss. And I have been working on some sweet and simple packaging for these. Look for those this coming weekend...

Oh, and one more thing then you can go back to doing to whatever you were prior to all my enraptured ramblings, I started a Two-Faced Friend doll Flickr group--you can find that right here. So, should you decide to purchase the pattern and make a doll or two, you can share your doll design prowess with the world--or at least, with me.

Experiments in Jam Making: Blubarb

Another jam recipe for you. This one was the original inspiration for all this jam-making craziness. I mean, I love blueberry anything any day of the week--but when you add the tart goodness of rhubarb, well, I will admit that I actually hoarded the blubarb jam we bought from the farmer's market last summer, declaring it off-limits for everyone but me, me, me.So, here I am this year, making enough blubarb jam that I can afford to feel more generous with it and set a better example as a human being to my son. Because sharing is important, you know. I love this jam especially on fresh, eggy popovers. But it also happens to be extraordinary on everything else you would put jam on...and I want to try it on poultry too since last year I had some sort of duck when I was in Maine and it had a blueberry sauce on it and it was so good I was almost born again. People have been known to get religion over lesser things than blubarb jam , you know, so don't laugh.

Anyway, get your own near-religious blubarb jam experience right here:
DOWNLOAD BLUEBARB JAM RECIPE

And remember that if something goes woefully awry, you can always find my runny jam cure right here.

Slurping Up the Dregs of Summer

This is where we have been and what we have been doing all week. Sand, cold lake water, freezie pops in day-glo colors, towering pines, mid-afternoon champagne, and evening canoe rides. It was utterly perfect. So perfect we even contemplated how we could just take out a second or third mortgage on our home, then we could apply for all the credit cards we could get our hands on, and finally, when the money ran out, beg the owners of Ludlow's Island to let us stay a little longer if we help out with chores around the island like raking the sand and cleaning the boats...but then we sobered up and realized Beeper had to start kindergarten tomorrow and the cat would starve to death if we did not come back at some point. So, here we are--back in the city. Until next year.