Today was icing...

(You will have to read through this post to understand why I have such a tempting morsel torturing you!)

Being a teacher is rough. Anyone who thinks that we have a cushy job with a 3 month vacation needs to fill my shoes for just one day. Once you figure out how much I do in 7 hrs (counting only the school day hours, not the grading and prep that happens at home), most of you would run screaming out of the building.

On any one day, I am a teacher, a guidance counselor, a mother, a nurse, an ear that listens, a whipping post, a scape goat, a janitor, a sounding board, a disciplinarian, a dept. head, and a leader. Now, I don't have the luxury of filling one of those roles at a time. I do many of them at the same time. Oh, and prepare for 4 different classes, deal with about 110 students, grade mounds of papers, write exams and syllabi,  communicate with parents, attend meetings, deal with budgets, finagle schedules, and handle disputes among coworkers. I could keep going but I think you might get the picture.

Honestly though, I love my job. I love seeing the excitement in my students' eyes when they finally have that AHA! moment. I revel in their creativity and constant energy. I look forward to going to work every day and truly I am the early morning goodie goodie who gets to work just as the custodians are opening the doors, whistling a happy tune as I prepare to start another day.

Now, don't misunderstand me. I'm not always Miss Ray of Sunshine. Exhaustion follows me. I quite often feel overwhelmed as I look at my daily To Do list that keeps growing at an alarming rate. Then there's the daily dose of constant criticism that the Media feels necessary to heap upon my profession. It is hard to continuously hold my head up and keep my eye on the prize when all around me all I see is gloom, doom and more budget cuts.

Several years ago, I decided that I love my job and I needed a way to keep my perspective through the daily grind so I came up with my Cake theory. My job is to mix together my teaching techniques with my concern for my students and my desire to see them learn to create an environment that will allow my students to Rise to the occasion. They are my Cake. If I work on making the best Cake that I can possibly make, then I am doing exactly what I was put on this Planet to do...make cakes.

So how do I know that my Cake has risen? That's easy. Whenever I see a student who has been struggling to pass a test make it with flying colors, the cake has risen. When I look up to see students walk through my door with an air of excitement and a smile on their face as they greet me, I know that my ingredients are right.  In the Great Book of T (which I will write one day...), if the Cake has risen, life is good. Nothing else can bring me down. If I can achieve Cake, then anything else positive that happens throughout the school year is Icing.

Today, after weeks of feeling tired, beaten down and overwhelmed, I was handed a heaping huge plate of Icing.

My classroom is an interesting place. They are comprised of a very broad spectrum of students. I have the geeks, jocks, native speakers, and even the emo/goths. I don't care what I see on the outside. It's what's inside that counts. I try my best to treat each of them as individuals.

Today, one of my students became Icing without even realizing it. I've had this young lady in my class for 2 yrs now. She's always been sort of on the fringe, never really fitting in with any specific crowd, but trying to do so all the same. She came to me after school let out just to talk. She asked if she could ask my opinion on a personal matter and said "I understand if you don't want to." but I told her to have a seat and tell me what's going on. She proceeded to talk to me about some serious personal matters that have really been eating at her. I could tell by her body language that she was very nervous and upset. I listened, questioned and played Devil's advocate just a bit to help her see the other side of her situation. When the conversation started, she was almost in tears, but by the end, she was laughing and smiling. As we were leaving my room, she helped me gather my things, gave me a hug, and said "Gracias Senora".

Today, I had my icing. What's even better about all of this is there's no amount of bureaucratic crap, angry parents or manipulative administrators who can take this away from me.

I love my job.

I have your heart....

Ok, I just could not resist. I had to post this.

 

I've never embroidered an anatomical heart before and this piece turned out very well imo. In a 3" hoop and stitched on natural muslin, the heart is crayon tinted and worked in split stitch.  I made it for a friend who hasn't received it yet so DON'T TELL ON ME!! ;)

Bound for an Easter Basket

I decided to make amigurumis for my kids' Easter baskets this year.

I found these super cute patterns at Roxycraft, the Gabu and Bunny Boo . Somehow I managed to get these both made without either of my kidlets finding out which is a major accomplishment!  ;)

On a Blustery Day

I have always been a fan of Pooh Bear, not that whimpy Disney-fied version but the classic. My daughter has been obsessed with flying kites lately which inspired me to create this piece.

The design is a free coloring page which I transferred to my fabric and color tinted. After finishing the stitching (split mostly with stem in the kite string and back stitch in the rolled string), I added in the 3D aspect by using a fine floral wire to hold up the kite. The kite itself is made from some scrap felt and embroidery thread for the tail. It's kind of hard to tell in the picture but the kite is about 1" above the fabric in the hoop.

New Tees for ME!

I knocked another item off of my 50 Projects in 2011 last night! :D

At the end of last summer, my husband made several pointed remarks about the state of my t-shirt collection which I live in during the summer months. When I took stock of what I had, some were thread bare, stained or just blah. It doesn't help that the majority of the tees that I have are from work which means the school colors being black or grey.

After taking a good look at them, I agreed with him. (Yes, he was amazed that I told him that I agreed with him. ;) )

I picked up a couple of new plain tees and spent some time searching for new designs. Last night, I just decided to tackle this project so here are my new t-shirts! I'm so excited!

The green shirt has the Kanji symbol for Peace. The pink shirt is a lotus flower and finally the navy shirt has the Ohm symbol. I might still do a dragon shirt, but I think that I need to find a good red for that one.

Freezer Paper Stenciling

I learned how to use freezer paper to stencil t-shirts last summer and I have done at least a dozen since! It's inexpensive and super easy.

These shirts make great personalized gifts! :D

 (I'm stenciling 3 different shirts as I'm writing this tutorial. You get to see process pictures of 2 of the shirts here.)

What you need:

t-shirt
fabric paints
freezer paper
foam brush
exacto knife
pen...I prefer a Sharpie.
iron
wooden cutting board
a pattern of your choosing

Step 1
Wash the t-shirt and dry it but be sure to skip the fabric softener or dryer sheets. The chemicals in those two can affect how the paint adheres to the fabric.

Step 2
Choose a design and print it out. You can use either MS Publisher or Wordpad to adjust the size if necessary.

Step 3
Cut a piece of freezer paper that is at least 3-4" larger than your pattern in all directions. Lay the freezer paper shiny side down on top of the pattern and trace using the Sharpie. I have found that ink pens don't write well on this paper and I always have a permanent marker within easy reach.

Step 4
Place your pattern on the wooden cutting board and begin cutting out your pattern with the exacto knife. If you have a pattern that has lots of little pieces that need to place back into your design, I've found that numbering the pattern and then doing the same to your traced pattern prior to cutting can save you a lot of headaches!

Watch your sharp corners. Sometimes you're cutting doesn't exactly meet leaving tiny little tags of unwanted paper which can cause your pattern to rip if you are not careful when pulling the unwanted paper out of your design.. If you have small tags after pulling out unwanted paper, you can easily go back and cut out the tags.

Step 5
Place another piece of freezer paper (same size as the piece that you just used to trace your pattern) shiny side up underneath the area of the fabric to be stenciled. Iron (using fabric appropriate setting, no steam!)  to adhere it to the underside of the shirt. This creates a protective barrier from your paint.

Step 6
Place the stencil in its correct position with the shiny side facing down toward the fabric. Iron into place going over the design a couple of times. After it cools enough to touch, carefully check the edges of your design to see that they are firmly affixed.

You can see the freezer from Step 5 peeking out from underneath the neckline of the t-shirt.

Step7
Load your foam brush up with fabric paint. With a stippling motion (up and down, not drag), paint the areas inside the stencil. Put one coat of paint on and wait at least 20 minutes before adding more paint if you feel necessary.

Don't have fabric paint? You can substitute acrylic paint mixed with fabric medium. Just be sure to mix the paint and medium in the correct quantities before using. The fabric medium is very important because it "softens" up the acrylic. Without it, you can end up with a stiff, scratchy design that isn't too comfortable to wear.

Step 8
Allow to dry flat 4 hrs to allow the paint to dry. At this point, I will hang the shirt up to continue drying at least overnight.

Step 9
Remove freezer paper stencil.

Step 10

When you are confident that the paint is dry, turn the shirt inside out and heat set the paint into the fabric by ironing again at a fabric appropriate setting. Go over the entire design several times to make sure that the paint is melted into the fabric. If you skip the heat set, the paint might peel after several washings.

Troubleshooting

My edges aren't clean. The paint leaked out of my stencil.
   This could be caused by not using the up and down motion when adding the paint OR having the steam setting on on your iron when you iron the stencil.

The paint looks splotchy after it has dried.
   If you have reused your foam brush, it might have still been wet which would affect the paint coverage. You can do a second coat of paint to help even it out.

  Personally, I like the splotchiness. It gives the shirt character. :) 


Take a look at some of my stenciled t-shirts!

Dreaming of knots

More Stenciled T-shirts

A Gift from Hogwarts

Sweet Irish Soda Bread

Oh yes March 17th, St Patrick's Day!

For me, this day is a bit more than just wearing green or going to the pub for a pint. I actually get very nostalgic on this day as I'm part Irish myself. My granma (lovingly known as mamaw) was a fiesty Irish woman who was unafraid to enjoy life and as passionate about her family as she was her religion. I think about the summers that I spent with her and the lessons that I learned by her side while working in the kitchen.


One of mamaw's favorite activities was baking. That woman could take ordinary kitchen ingredients and make some of the most delicious baked items, cakes, cookies, friend pies. I never knew any of them to not taste heavenly. I've always wished that I could bake like her so last night, I just jumped in the kitchen and tried my hand at it in her honor.

Here's the end result....

Sweet Irish Soda Bread

I used this recipe and altered it only a bit by replacing the caraway seeds with 1 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon.

The end result was a lightly sweet, fluffy bread full of raisins and currants. It's perfect with a cup of tea and a dab of butter!




So let the amateur Irish wannabes keep their green bear and silly leprechaun hats, I'll sit here enjoying my cupa and bread thinking about the good ole days.

Satin Stitch

 
Ah, the satin stitch...so simple and elegant in appearance, but don't let it fool you! This stitch takes a bit of practice.

Step 1
Bring your thread up on the opposite side of your dominant hand. I'm right handed so I bring the needle up on the left hand side of the design.

Now place the needle back into the fabric directly across the design horizontally.

Step 2
Bring the needle back out of the fabric almost on top of where the thread originally came out. It's kind of hard to tell in this shot but there is one small thread between the two.

Step 3
Going horizontally back across the design, again place the needle almost on top of the previous stitch only one thread of fabric in between them.

Continue stitching!

The trick to this stitch is in getting it to look smooth across the top. This is where the practice and patience come in. I have found that stroking the needle tip gently through the stitches without poking through the fabric can help straighten them out a bit.


Satin Stitch on a Curve

Doing the satin stitch in a design with nice parallel lines is one thing, but how do you stitch in a curve?

Step 1

Notice that the inner curve is a much smaller, tighter area to be stitched and the stitching can bunch up if you are not careful.

Starting with the thread coming out of the inner curve, create a "fan" as you stitch across the design, keeping the stitches tight together on the inner curve and allowing a bit of space between the threads on the outer curve.

Step 2
Once you have the fan across the curve, work from the outer curve in filling in the gaps. Put your needle back into the fabric in between the "fan" stitches.(I stitched these stitches in green just for example.) If you go all the way back to the inner curve, this area will start to look bulky.

Here's how it looks without the multicolor example. This is called Long Short Satin.

Troubleshooting

My stitching doesn't look smooth. It looks twisted!
   Your thread can twist up on itself while you embroider which can affect the look of a stitch. Pay attention to your thread as you work. If it looks like it's twisting up, hold the embroidery frame up in the air allowing the thread and needle to dangle. It will untwist itself.   

There are gaps in between my stitches!
This could be caused by two things, the length of the area that you are stitching or not putting the stitches close enough together. If it is a length issue, you need to rethink the area being stitched to shorten it up. You can add in some interesting texture to your needlework in doing so. If the problem is the space between where the needle went into and out of the fabric, you can use the long short satin stitch to fill in those gaps.


Here's a piece of my work with satin stitch:

Pretty Little Posie - the red flowers as well as some of the green leaves are worked in this stitch

My Hoopla Wall is up!

I don't have many (...yet) but I'm so very excited to have my wall up finally!

The numbered hoops are those that I've received in swaps on Craftster. Those with no number are my own work.

 

 1 - the Lotus by Ffrogg from the IYP swap
 2 - Rising Sun by Krafy Karasu from Embroidery Hoopla OTT (round 3)
 3 - Celtic Christmas Tree by Bexieboo from Embroidery Hoopla OTT (round 3)
 4 - Peggy Hill by Sarad in the February Birthday swap
 5 - Golden Koi by thenorm02 from Embroidery Hoopla! (the very first round!)

I had my 5 yr old daughter helping decide which one to hang next and where which was a lot of fun. However, now she wants her own Hoopla wall just like her mommy! What a cutie...I guess I best get to stitching, huh? ;)

Crayon Tinting

About 8 months ago, I stumbled upon a new technique on Craftster for enhancing my needlework that is as easy and quick as it is beautiful! Oh, and addictive, VERY addictive! ;)

Crayon Tinting!

First, find yourself some good old Crayolas. I prefer Crayola over the other brands due to the variety of color. I actually bought myself that huge pack with the sharpener just for these projects. I do not allow my little one to play with my crayons so that the color don't get mixed up on the end of the crayon as she is known to color across areas that she has already colored.


I suggest that you use a smooth cotton for your first bit of tinting. You can tint other natural fibers but if there are any bumps that occur in the fabric like in linen for example, it can cause major problems with getting even color coverage.


Step 1

Transfer your pattern to your fabric with whatever method you prefer as long as it is heat proof! I actually trace my patterns onto my fabric with a mechanical pencil.

If you have the artistic touch, you can skip the pattern and just draw with the crayon to the fabric.


Step 2

Match your crayons to your embroidery thread.

I've been known to have a box of crayons in hand while looking through the DMC floss. LOL! Thankfully, the workers there are used to me and my odd quirks.



Step 3

Affix your patterned fabric to a flat space. I usually just use my craft table and some Scotch tape. Do not skip this step!  If you do, it can cause your color coverage to be uneven as you try to hold the fabric still while coloring.


Step 4 


Color the fabric! I prefer to do tiny details first and working from the center out towards the edge. You can color as lightly or as heavily as you wish. If you look closely at the picture below, the green "pasture" that Pooh is in as well as the bushes in the background are the same color of green. The difference is how heavily I colored them. I also tend to color heavily on the focal point of my piece which in this case is Pooh.

Pay careful attention to the edges of your pattern especially where two or more colors are side by side. It's easy to get carried away while coloring and go over the line into another area.

You might notice that after working with a specific color for a while that there's a build up on the crayon tip. This is caused by the friction of the crayon on the fabric so in essence, it's fabric shavings. Just remove it and keep going!


Step 5
Take out your iron and set it to the setting necessary for the fabric that you are going to embroider.

Step 6


Place your embroidery between two pieces of white printer paper.

Step 7
Iron your embroidery. Do not slide the iron as you would when ironing clothes. Instead, place the iron on an area, allow to sit for about 5-7 seconds and then bring it straight up. Then move to another area of the fabric ironing in the same manner.  I go over the entire piece several times just to be sure that it's well ironed. The wax in the crayon melts into the fabric making the color permanent.

You should see the excess wax from the heavily colored areas being wicked up into the white paper.

Step 8
Embroider as you wish!

ETA!!: The Pooh piece that I used in the examples for this tutorial is still a work in progress. I'll be sure to post a link here when it is done. It's finished!!! See below. :)

Troubleshooting

ACK! I've finished my embroidery and just noticed that I missed a spot when coloring!!
   You can fix this! Just carefully color in the missed spot being sure that you don't get crayon on your embroidery thread and iron as before.

One spot of my coloring is darker than another.
   Pay attention to the pressure that you are putting on the crayon while coloring. You can go back and darken in the other lighter areas but reversing it is not possible especially if it has already been ironed.   

Here are some examples of my work that are crayon tinted:

On a Blustery Day

Silent Night

A Little Birdie told me...

Pooh needed his friend

"Oh bother..." said Pooh.

Horton!

Just singing in the rain!

Pretty Little Posie

It's almost spring time! I love the new leaves, the chirping birds and the little wildflowers that pop up all over the place!

A friend on Craftster asked me to embroider a Spring time hoop for her to use as a prize for a competition and I just finished it. I love the way it turned out!

The stems are stem stitch. The leaves are done in mostly split stitch and a tad bit of satin stitch. The red flowers are satin stitch with little yellow french knots in the center.

French Knot

I love a French Knot! It's a quirky stitch and very individualized. Not often does one knot look like another, unless your doing so many at one time in a piece that it turns into one big blur of knottiness. ;)

Step 1
Pull your thread up through the fabric looping the thread off to your non-dominant hand (i.e. I'm right handed so I loop to the left) and bring the needle back pointing towards your looped thread.

(I am using 6 strands here just so it is easier to see what I'm doing.)

Step 2
With your non dominant hand hold the thread and begin wrapping the thread around your needle while it pointing towards your non dominant. (Yes, this is a bit tricky at first. Be patient!)

(I'm obviously not holding the thread with my non dominant hand in this picture. The cat would snap this photo for me! ;) )

I wrapped only twice in this picture. You can wrap it as many times as you want, but honestly, I never wrap more than 5-6 times. The more you wrap, the larger the knot, but be careful with your tension on the thread in Step 4!


Step 3
Continue holding the thread with your non dominant hand and carefully place the needle back into the fabric. Don't loose your wrapping around the needle. I put my index finger on the wrappings to help hold them in place. (If you do loose the wrapping, just go back to Step 2.)

Take care not to put the needle back in the same hole as where the thread initially came up through the fabric. If you do, your knot will pull through to the back of your fabric.

Step 4
Pull the needle and extra thread through the fabric while holding an even tension with your non dominant hand.

VOILA! It is a French Knot!

Just to show you how the number of embroidery thread strands used can affect this stitch, take a look a this picture.

All of these knots were wrapped twice. The difference is that the knot on the left was done with a single thread and each subsequent knot has one more added strand with the knot on the far right being 6 strands.

Troubleshooting

My thread is twisting up on itself and making the wrapping difficult.
     This happens when thread is being twisted while stitching. Simply hold your hoop upside down in the air and let the threaded needle dangle. It will untwist itself. Sometimes, you have to do this several times while working with certain stitches.

The knots have little loops of individual threads poking out!
    Pay attention to your thread tension on your non dominant hand. It might be uneven as you pull the thread through.

I can't get the needle to go back through the fabric.
     Your thread tension in your non dominant hand is too tight. Loosen up a bit.

Here are some examples of my work with French knots...

Mother Nature's Glory

Hand of Hamsa

A Sweet Tweet! - The heart in the center of the hoop is all knots

And this is the truth...

Pretty Little Posie

A tiny bit of Spring in a tin

Back in November of last year, I was involved in a Santa swap. My partner and I agreed to do 5 or so crafted items and this is one of the items that I sent her. She is very much into hand sewing and knitting so I made her an altered altoid needle case. The blue flower design came from a pattern that I saw on her wist.

On the inside...

A tutorial on how to make this type of altered altoid tin is forthcoming! :D

It's Log, lo-og! It's better than bad. It's GOOD!

I saved an extra special item for my 100th post!

Once upon a time in January just past, I found myself snowed into my home with my two kids. Needless to say, I had to have something to fill the long days as well as help me maintain my sanity. This project did just that. I lost count how much time I spent on it because it was loads of fun to make!

My first IYP swap partner had a very interesting item in her wist. It was a knitted log. She had something like it as a child when she was young and wanted to her little daughter to have one like it.  Now, I don't knit but I have done enough simple patterning that I was able to reconstruct it in crochet. I added in "age rings" to the log as well as some vine work (not pictured...) to spruce it up a bit.

Here's the log:

Oh wait, there are wooden buttons on the log. Whatever could be inside?

What else but....forest creatures!

If I had allowed myself, I would have continued making little mushrooms and other little woodsy bits, but alas, a week is only so long and I eventually returned to work.

I hope my partner's little girl has hours of imaginary fun with her log! :D

Woot!

This is another piece that I worked up for the IYP swap. My second partner and I had a bit of a conspiracy going. She found this pattern over at Urban Threads and we made our joint partner a diptych using our own variation. We actually even met up one weekend while she was down here visiting her SO to buy the necessary ground fabric. Did you know that it is actually very hard to match black? LOL

Here's my latest little Woot! owl done up in split, stem and french knot stitches.

Learning about zippers

I finally bit the bullet and did my first set zipper. It has been intimidating me for a while but not now!

I'll be making more zippered pouches in the future. :D

The zipper pouch was part of an IYP swap partner's package. I wasn't super happy with how the zipper turned out so I threw in a matching coin purse as an extra. ;)

Beef Stew a la crock pot

If it's cold outside, then there's no better meal to warm you up than a big bowl of beef stew.

I've been living on my own for a couple of decades, and I'm a bit ashamed to say that it's only recently that I've made what I feel is a truly great beef stew that could live up to the memory of my mom's stew. Up until now, either the texture of the meat or the overall depth of the flavor just wasn't right, but now, I've got it!

...and my mom made this look so easy when I was growing up. ;)

This dish is a true labor of love for my family and is reserved for Sunday afternoons when I have the time to do this dish right.

Ingredients

1-2 lbs beef
1 medium onion, diced
2 stalks celery, sliced
2 cups carrots, chopped bite size
2-3 cups red potatoes, chopped bite size
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon black pepper
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon ground thyme
vegetable oil
1 can tomato sauce
2 cups beef stock

Step 1
   Chop all veggies and set aside.

















Step 2
Prepare your beef. Your meat should have a medium marbilization (white streaks through the meat), too little and your meat will be tough after cooked.

Chop into bite size pieces.

Step 3
Prepare your frying pan with a couple of tablespoons of oil. Add onions and cook until almost translucent. When ready, transfer the cooked onions to the crock pot.

Step 4
In a large bowl, combine flour, salt, pepper, garlic powder and thyme. Mix well.

Step 5
Drop about a third of your meat chunks into the flour mixture, turning them to coat them well. (This is called dredging.) Be sure to wash your hands at this point so that you don't have any cross contamination!! (This is one step I won't consider skipping.)

Step 6
Add the meat piece by piece to the frying pan and cook on medium heat. Be sure to leave them plenty of space. Overcrowding doesn't help develop the carmelization of the meat.  Turn after about 2 minutes to cook the other side. You want them to brown but not cook through.Add oil as needed but only enough to coat the bottom of the pan.

Keep an eye on the brown bits that start to collect in your pan. Don't burn them! It will ruin the last step of the stew if you do! Add oil or turn your heat down if you're worried.

Step 7
Remove meat when cooked placing them on a plate lined with paper towels to soak up excess grease. Continue dredging, cooking and removing until you have cooked all of the meat. Add all of the cooked meat to your crock pot

Turn the stove off so that you do not burn the brown bits left behind in your pan! This is important!

Step 8
Add carrots and celery to the crock pot as well. Pour tomato sauce over it all. Cover and turn the crock pot on to high. (I actually add the meat in stages as I cook it up. I turn the crock pot on as soon as the first batch goes in to help cut down on preheating time.)

Step 9
Turn the stove back on to medium. Allow the skillet to heat up for just a minute. With a wooden spoon and stirring constantly, gently pour the beef stock into the pan. Use the spoon to scrape up the good bits on the bottom of the pan. (Using a metal utensil on this step can destroy your cookware!)

  

Allow this mixture to simmer on medium low for a few minutes. The flour left behind from the dredging will start to thicken this into a gravy.

Step 10
After the meat and veggies in the crock pot have been cooking for about an hour, add the potatoes and pour the gravy over all. Allow to continue cooking for another couple of hours.

Serve with a slice of hearty artisan bread and maybe a slice of good cheddar cheese. A roaring fire is a nice addition to this dinner as well. ;)