Cool Cuppa Cucumber Salad

We're experiencing our first heat wave of the season here in New England which has me trying to rustle up healthy meals that do not involve the stove or oven. I've been making this salad for myself for lunch a lot lately as it meets both those goals and is cooling, simple, and delicious to boot. This is my own concoction inspired by several different recipes from Madhur Jaffrey's World of the East Vegetarian Cooking. I seriously love this cookbook and it has become a go to source in my kitchen over the years.

I began experimenting with it back in the early spring when my mom had visited and left me some of her yogurt starter. I started making fresh yogurt with Jaffrey's recipe each week and was looking for different ways to make use of it. I've found it's wonderful to have the stuff on hand for smoothies, breakfast, baking, sour cream substitute, dressings, you name it! I'll have to share my process sometime and link back to this post. You really don't need one of those yogurt makers as I've learned they're kind of superfluous. That, and I really love a little authenticity in my ingredients when I can come by it. If you don't have homemade, some Greek yogurt from the grocery store will work too.

But moving on...the salad! The version in the photo is the basic "foundation" to which you can add any of the optional ingredients as well if you want to mix it up a bit or add some color. I like to grab some fresh mint from our balcony herb garden, but you can definitely experiment there too with other herbs you have on hand.

Cool Cuppa Cucumber Salad
Makes 1 bowl, double and triple amounts to serve more people

Ingredients
2–3 tablespoons rough chopped mint
1 large cucumber, quartered then chopped lengthwise
3–4 tablespoons fresh homemade/Greek yogurt
freshly ground salt and pepper to taste

Optional Add-ins
Chopped radish
chickpeas
cherry tomatoes
1 tablespoon lemon
minced garlic
Parsley/savory/lemon balm/different types of mint/chives

Directions
Just chop, mix, and enjoy!

Airmail Needlebook

I had some of this duckcloth leftover from when we spruced up my husband's office last summer. I had dyed it with coffee as a background for some aquatic specimens he wanted to display resulting in a very sturdy and mottled looking fabric. Fast forward to this past winter when I got to thinking how much it resembled an old letter. I began stitching on it without a whole lot of thought about what it might become, just wanting to play with the idea of transforming it into a weather beaten envelope.

All the stitching was done with a satin cotton floss and the stamp itself is a little scrap of Liberty tana lawn (tacked down with back stitch and a smidge of Fabri-Tac along the edges). For the envelope design on the back, I simply used an actual envelope as my pattern.

After that initial thought, the project got lost in a pile of "to dos" until I came upon this fabric, Airmail Stripe in Garden by Suzy Ultman for Robert Kaufman Fabrics. IT HAD TO BECOME BINDING. IT JUST HAD TO! Poifection, right?! I wasn't yet sure if this would turn into a mini quilt, coaster, or draft for a larger quilt. Then along came my first foray into teaching embroidery classes this past month and I soon realized that a pin cushion was just not going to be something I could easily haul and keep track of on the go. A needlebook was the obvious choice!

Still thinking about how I might adapt this design idea to become a lap-sized quilt/embroidery pattern

I pulled the notebook paper fabric from my stash along with the white felt and voila—pocket storage and a place for pins and needles of all sorts! As a finishing touch I tacked the baker's twine into the binding and used it to the secure the book shut with a vintage button from my collection on the front. I love having something special to take to classes and hold my most treasured tools on the go.

Necessity is indeed the mother of invention! Do you have any projects that start with a burst, then sit on the back burner until you find a way to make it work another use altogether? Sometimes you just need to wait for that perfect fabric that makes all the difference in the end!

Karma Coming and Going

A big thank you to Cross Stitch Collection magazine for featuring some of my stitching in their May 2013 issue! It's such a treat to have ones work noticed and I am completely flattered. It's available on new stands now and online here.

 

You may have seen this already, but I wanted to pass it along just in case!

As some may know, I live just outside and work and attend school in the city of Boston which is on the road to recovering from the recent Boston Marathon bombings. It felt odd to be blogging about projects or my etsy shop during that time, but I can say I was glad to have something to keep my hands busy as we sat in the house during the lockdown. Hand work seriously is great therapy!

The entire week was one of uncertainty, but I have been really touched by all that our neighbors, strangers and friends alike, are doing to pull together and support one another in the face of such evil. I hate the way it has come about of course, but I'm so grateful for the slim silver lining I have found—being able to witness the way everyone has come together so unequivocally to support each other and the victims of this tragic event. Though I adore the landscape, climate, and history, our move from DC to this area a bit over three years ago left me struggling to adjust to the more private and straight-edged New England culture. Because of that, it has been meaningful to me in many ways to see these ostensible acts of neighborliness in the face of such tragic and awful events. It's here, it just lives below the surface, just waiting to bubble to the top....you may just have to look for it in different ways than you would in the midwest or south of the mason dixon line.

Long-winded story short I guess, that is just part of why I want to pass along the opportunity to contribute blocks (or material if you don't sew!) to the Boston Modern Quilt Guild to support their effort in donating quilts to those affected by the bombings. The deadline to submit is May 24th and you can find all the details here on their blog. I'm personally not a member since I have a crazy student/work schedule, but I definitely plan on sending in some blocks and hope you will too so we can keep passing along some of that much needed neighborliness to those in need!

Looking Ahead

Yesterday was my birthday. It's crazy stuff, I tell ya.

It seems I hold many of the same ideas and values dear that I did in my 20's, but now I know how to put them into action, am more confident in my abilities, and am actually taken seriously by others. I know, how exciting and odd at the same time (muahahaha)! Since I have been in grad school these past two years (has it really been that long already? How can it be that I am now closer to graduating than I am to registering for my first semester?!), my sewing and embroidery, alongside my little etsy shop, have developed in ways I never expected. I have also stepped into new roles and opportunities in the other half of my professional life in the museum world. I still love having this split identity, even though it can be stressful juggling the two worlds at times. They are equally important parts of me and I feel lucky to be able to pursue lines of interest in both. Just this semester, in addition to classes and the million+1 projects I have going, I've begun some part-time work on campus, embarked on my internship and thesis, and may have the opportunity to start teaching sewing and embroidery classes in the Boston area soon!

As you can imagine, that doesn't leave a lot of time for custom orders (and yes, this is the point I have been building to). It has been an agonizing decision to come to, and one that I have pondered over for some time now, but I know now that this is the right time to stop taking on any more custom shoe orders for the foreseeable future. To be clear, I will still be blogging here and updating my etsy shop with ready-to-ship items, but will not be accepting orders for custom embroidered shoes.

It's been a pleasure and an honor to work with all the clients who have entrusted me with their requests over the years, but I no longer have the time to keep up the level of service I feel my clients deserve. It's difficult to justify the long-term viability of the work when communicating the details of each order, an unpaid task, takes far more time than the embroidery work itself. In addition, there are now many who have copied my designs for resale at lower price points and I don't feel it is a worthy competition. If there ever comes a day when I am able to do more custom shoes, I will be sure to let you know (I will update this post if that is the case). In the meantime,  I'm looking forward to putting my embroidery to the test in new endeavors, including teaching, pattern drafting, and if I get my way, hopefully more opportunities for publication. By doing so, I can continue to balance both worlds, just in new and different ways. On that note, I do have a new embroidery pattern I hope to release sometime in the coming month, so keep your eyes peeled!

An Embroidered Ketubah for Alicia and Jack

Before I say anything about this piece, I have to acknowledge the endless supply of patience and grace displayed by my friend Alicia, the bride who commissioned and helped design this piece. Holy moly cows batman, the girl is kind of amazing (and hilarious too). She first contacted me about doing this a little less than a year ago and with all my over-scheduled-trying-to-do-everything-crazy life right now, it has taken me that long to squeeze each phase of the project in. That's a shame really, because it's this kind of project I love doing the most and I'm so honored to have been asked to play a part in their big day!

Alicia and I share a similar design/work background so it was easy to communicate about the style and layout despite the long-distance now between us. That, and she's just got great taste, obviously. With her to tweak, specify, and reel me in where needed, I drew the design and layout of this 18x24 inch piece which I then embroidered by hand with colors to complement the rest of her wedding scheme.

This piece is what is called a ketubah, which is perhaps best described as a marriage contract, and is integral to the Jewish wedding ceremony. Much like a chuppah, the decoration can be very personal and is an important form of ceremonial and religious art. To complete the piece, a calligrapher will fill in their names and date on the banners and the text of the document itself within the central oval. I can't wait to see the finished piece and love that we were able to find a way to use the banners as a bridge to unite the embroidery and calligraphy within the piece.

You're going to get a hint of how crazy I am when I tell you that I've never actually done any embroidery on paper before this...whaa?! I'd read about it, and seen plenty different examples of it, but this was my own first stab at it and so learned a lot along the way. With paper, the process is completely unforgiving, and even more so with such a big piece as this. Luckily, my paranoia helped me keep the paper safe and sound and completely free from scratches, dings, bending, or tears throughout the process. Insert massive sigh of relief here (well, actually that will come once I know it has shipped safely and arrived safe and sound!!).

Embroidery on paper is also a much slower process because it requires a stabbing rather than a sewing method for the embroidery due to the inflexibility of each stitch. I also had to be a bit picky with the types of stitches I ended up using, keeping in mind what the card stock could support and how many holes could be punched in any one given spot without tearing. The backstitch was a great solution although I think my favorite part are the way the full french knots turned out which you see in the second to last photo. More on all that later though as I'm getting a bit technical here and think I will share a tutorial on basic methods for embroidery on paper with you as soon as I can sort through all the WIP photos I took.

Thanks to Alicia and Jack for entrusting me with this lovely project—may your wedding day be as joyous and beautiful as your life together!