M.I.A.

I have been a bit absent from blogging lately.  A lot has been going on, although very little of it in the sewing/crafting department.  We had some craziness at our apartment after returning from our trip to Mexico.  The long and short of it being that we were broken into when we were gone, the second time we have been robbed at that place and so we decided to pick up and  move a week later.  Luckily a really great place in one of my favorite neighborhoods in Portland just kind of fell into our lap and the transition was pretty easy.   The last month or so has been spent cleaning out our old place on the weekends, setting up our new place, trying to relax, and doing lots of cooking, and LOTS of yoga.   Up until today the closest thing to sewing I have done is cutting some felt and gluing it to the bottom of my living room chair to protect the hardwood floors.  But...I have some things in the plans which hopefully I will be able to post about soon.

The first plan is for another Zig Zag quilt from the Purl Bee pattern that I have used before (lets let the third time be the charm!).  The original one that I made was actually stolen from our apartment in the break-in.  A diamond ring in my jewelry box was left behind, the handmade quilt, taken. Such a bizarre thief. Anyway, it basically broke my heart that some jerk stole it but  the baby the quilt was intended for is still on his way, so I am making another quilt! I have been procrastinating getting started though. I need all new fabrics because I used the leftovers from the first one to make another small baby quilt for a different expected baby. Today, finally motivated, I made a sunny day bicycle trip over to Cool Cottons.
Cool Cottons has so many great quilting fabrics, its really amazing.  Fabric Depot is cheaper but the experience of going to a sweet little local shop is so much nicer.  I think its worth it to spend a few extra dollars. It only took me about a half hour to pick out all the fabrics I wanted, instead of the two hours I spent at Fabric Depot when I picked out the fabrics for the original quilt, not so much crap to wade through. I am washing the fabric as we speak and hopefully will post the top sometime this week!

In the mean time here are some pics of my new place:

Spring Palette Challenge

I am over-connected to the Colette patterns blog Coletterie, I get updates from their facebook page, get update emails, and I am subscribed to the blogs RSS feed on google reader. Not sure why I feel it is necessary to be quite so tapped in, but I am. Needless to say I am a fan of Colette Patterns.  I was pretty excited this week for not only their new spring patterns but also Sarai's announcement of a Spring Palette Challenge!
I have been thinking I need some new cute clothes for the spring/summer season and yesterday I even went browsing around at Buffalo Exchange and found absolutely nothing that I liked. Since I started sewing more garments I feel like so many popular clothing brands are so cheaply made! It hardly seems worth it to spend money on them.
The Palette Challenge seems like the perfect catalyst to putting together a cute cohesive springtime wardrobe.
I started putting together some ideas in a Pinterest board and so far the colors I am focusing on are Coral red, mustard yellow, navy blue, and stripes. 
To start I am definitely envisioning a pair of coral twill Iris shorts, a seersucker Hazel, and hopefully a couple variations on the Sorbetto pattern in lightweight silk or cotton lawn.

If you are not a Pinterest user, you can check out my very preliminary, and somewhat primitive mood board below:

Easter Sunday

Egg molds

Heart shaped crumpets

Leg of lamb roasted in banana leaves

Black forest torte with whipped cream

Paleta Fever

One of my favorite parts about the food in Mexico was definitely the popsicles. I have always been a popsicle lover, but the Mexican popsicles are on whole different level than ones in the states. For one they are huge, like the Dole popsicles of my childhood, which in case you don't remember were the delicious precursers to the lousy Dreyer's ones that are available now. The Mexican ones are made with fresh tasting fruit and are not super sweet, but rather tart and ridiculously delicious. Some of my favorite flavors that we tried were coconut with huge chunks of coconut meat, pineapple with chile, kiwi, and chamoy with pineapple, strawberry with cream.

 

As soon as we got home I was craving them. Months ago in a kitchen cleaning and simplifying frenzy I had thrown away what I thought were fairly worthless popsicle molds from IKEA. Not wanting to order molds online I went on a quest around Portland to try and find some.

 I realize its not really the season but for popsicles, but I was still surprised not to find anything suitable at any of the places I looked in town. I ended up caving and ordering these Norpro molds on Amazon. So far I am pleased with them, the molds themselves are sturdy, the pops are pleasingly traditional looking, and it makes ten at a time.



My first homemade paleta attempt was pineapple with chile, which came out decent, but not as great as hoped. The second attempt however for banana with cream came out delicious
I have been trying to cut down on sugar since we have been home from our trip. Especially after the lack of decent coffee led to me and Liam developing a Mexican Coca-Cola habit. These popsicles will be plenty sweet without any added sugar if you use super ripe bananas.

Me and a Coco Paleta in Palenque

Low Sugar Creamy Banana Popsicles
Ingredients:
4 very ripe medium sized bananas
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
a few splashes of milk as needed
1/3 cup heavy whipping cream.

Blend bananas in blender or food processor, adding milk as needed to make a creamy consistency. Do not add whipping cream yet! Once banana mixture is smooth, add cinnamon and cream and stir by hand. Freeze in popsicle molds according to manufacter's directions.