Beautiful Irony

I know I've been away for a while. I've had life. You know, the basics of laundry and child rearing and summer camp and 1st grade and Pre-K starting... Lest you think I've been all work and no play and thus become a dull girl, I'm going to tell you a tale of two books. They are beauty, they are the beast, but not a Tale of Two Cities.

The first is "Universal Beauty". It's the Miss Universe Guide to looking beautiful. And it's chock full of great advice on skin-care and such. And it's not really that geared towards the Pageant Girl.

The other great book I read was The Photoshop Elements 6 Book For Digital Photographers.

I've always wondered how and wanted to learn about making a good picture GREAT. Well, that book tells all! And how...

The irony of it all? There's not ONE picture in the first book that was NOT manipulated SOMEHOW using the techniques in the second. Take a good look at the cover. I promise it has been enhanced.

They Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To

Or a rant on Why I Hate Modern Patterns.

Let me preface this posting by saying that I am NOT a n00b. I'm actually a decent seamstress and would call myself intermediate/advanced. Now that I've established my creds, here goes:

Modern patterns (a veritable snore of the devil) are NOT made with the same attention to detail, quality and general re-usability of patterns a mere 20 years old. Yep. Whoda thunk I was praising the 80s?

Going back further, patterns from the 1970s - especially childrens' patterns - are superb. If not for fashion sensibility, at LEAST for the fact that once a pattern was cut, you could use it again and again. Why? Because the paper was a MUCH better grade of paper. Thicker and easier to refold. Has anyone tried to refold what passes for patterns these days? Trust me, you don't want to try. All you will get is M.A.D. Or be left with little shreds of paper where it refused to cooperate. Or both.

My favorite patterns are those that range from the early 1940s (how I love printed patterns) to the 70s. Why? Because they came in ONE SIZE. Not FIVE. Multi-size patterns are yet another snore of the devil and the bane of my existence <--- which I've spelled three times and figure "e" in the middle looks better. Especially CHILDRENS' multi-size patterns. Help me boab! When you have five sizes ranging from 1/2 (yes ONE HALF) to 4, it's quite obvious that the cutting lines are going to be ridiculously close together. And don't try actually cutting out the notches. So HERE is the offender:

It looks deceptively simple. There's a mere 21 pieces to the pattern. Yes, you read that correctly TWENTY ONE pieces for standard pajamas.

You could scoff and say "just transfer the pattern to paper and THEN cut it out". And I'd tell you BTDT ThankYouVeryMuch. That was just as much a PITA as doing it the "normal" way. So now, I'm back to the cutting table to finish New Year's Resolution 7.128: DO SOMETHING ABOUT ALL THAT FABRIC THAT IS SITTING IDLE IN YOUR STASH. AKA: Just make the darn outfits before your kids outgrow them.

12" Vinyl LIVES!!!

So I poster earlier about the new turntable, right? I have to say it is absolutely A-Mazing. I have ripped about 10 albums as WMA files and the quality is superb. I haven't done any digital clean-up of the files either. There's really no need. Most of the albums were in excellent to pristine condition so there was no popping or hissing to be dealt with. The one album that did pop and hiss a bit was "To Sir, With Love" (the original movie soundtrack released in the 60s).

My set-up uses the ion turntable as audio source, Windows Sound Recorder (yeah the basic thing that *comes* with Windows) to record & Roxio Sound Editor to make it all into separate tracks & remove beginning and end silence. Once an album is physically captured - done in real-time - it takes about 1 minute to convert a full side of a platter to separate tracks.

While I'm ripping in real-time, I scan the original album cover art in two pieces since I'm using a mulit-purpose print/scan/etc machine that has a legal size/a-4 size glass. I then take those two files into PhotoShop and edit them together for a pretty decent facsimile of the original cover. I tweak them a bit to get rid of any flaws from storage or what-have-you.

All in all, I'm extremely satisfied.

"Erstwhile Apple Pie"

Here's the recipe:

To get started, you need:

2 cups water
1/4 c. golden raisins/cherries
2 T unsalted butter
1 tsp Pumpkin Pie Spice
1 cup old-fashioned (5 minute) oats
1 sweet and crunchy apple

Bring water to a boil. Add raisin/cherry mixture, butter and PPS. Boil until raisins/cherries are plumped up. Dump in the oats and boil for 5 minutes. Stir frequently so it doesn't stick. After 5 minutes, remove from heat.

While oats are resting, slice the apple extremely thinly. Like so thin you could read through the slices. In a bowl, layer the apples and oatmeal (three layers of oatmeal should do it) and then arrange slices of apple on top.

Eat while still warm.

I haven't figured out how many WW points this is, but it's a nice alternative to pastry and it's actually GOOD for you. I suppose you could forego the butter if you really had to, but it makes it nice. I think that this recipe would actually serve two people, but I was HUNGRY. I hadn't eaten in almost 24 hours, so you can imagine.

Dim Sum For Dummies

I love Dim Sum. So do the kids. Another thing I love is Smuckers Uncrustables. I've had a theory rolling around in my head for a while that given the right conditions and equipment, I could reproduce a reasonable facsimile of the aforementioned Uncrustables.

Well, my theory has been proven sound. I present for your viewing pleasure:

PB&J Potstickers

These were insanely easy to make and pretty tasty to boot. How to do this at home? Read on!

Ingredients:

• Sandwich bread of your choosing. Just make sure it's SOFT.
• Creamy Peanut (or other nut) Butter.
• Spreadable Fruit (I like Cascadian Farms Strawberry)

Equipment:

• Rolling pin
• Spreader
• Dumpling Press
• Round template/biscuit/cookie cutter

How to:

Cut out round shape from slice of bread:

Roll very thin with rolling pin:

Place on dumpling press & spread 1 tsp each of PB&J in exact center of bread:

Fold over dumpling press and press down to make a seal:

End Result:

Place in zip top bag in fridge or freezer until needed.