Kompadre Krafting

This weekend was a whirlwind of crafting activity (from which I am just now recovering), and I was joined in my adventures by my lovely creative kompadre, L.  Mr. Kaizer was gone for most of Sunday afternoon, so L and I were able to spread out in the dining room and get down to business with some serious cutting and sewing.  L and her boyfriend K (the charming duo with the silk screening setup) will be sharing a booth with us at Ueda Joint.  Aside from producing some stellar t-shirts for the event, L had some great ideas for accessories – you’ll have to wait if you want to hear more about the specifics of what she’s creating.

I do have to show you a little bit, though.  I mean, look at the colors she is using.  They’re fantastic.  Plus, she is using ricrac.  Is it possible that a project with ricrac in it won’t turn out well?  I doubt it.

The thing that really gets me, though is that she found all her wonderful fabrics at Yuzawaya.  It’s the same store I go to.  It’s not the same branch, but the idea with national chains is that you can find the same things at any location.  That’s kind of how they work.  But the thing is, I’ve either never seen the fabrics she is using, or I’ve seen them but walked right past them.  It really is remarkable how easily we can get sucked in to routine in a store and stop seeing the boundless possibilities behind everything.  At what point did I stop looking upon the contents of Yuzawaya as a source of inspiration and start to view it as an obstacle course to be navigated while in pursuit of one specific item?

I think there is only one solution to this: I must return to Yuzawaya when I do not have a specific project I am working on and just spend half a day wandering around.  The difficulty, of course, comes from trying to find a time when I have half a day to kill and no projects in the works.

Getting to see all of L’s goodies did remind me of a wise decision I had made many months ago – avoid the ribbon and trim section of the store.  When it comes to things this lovely I have absolutely zero self control.  L wisely kept her marvelous ribbons and laces out of sight, but I did manage to ogle this ribbon as it was being sewn onto a piece of fabric during the early stages of product assembly.  Absolutely wonderful.

Tomorrow I should have pictures of my own progress to share with you.  Until then:

May life continue to inspire you,

Miss Kaizer

Goodies

Check out what Mr. Kaizer had for me when I came home from work today.  Five mini loaf pans, a liquid measuring cup, a strainer, a pastry cutter, and a sifter.  He just picked them up for me while he was out and about in the city.  So sweet of him!

But I think it’s his way of asking politely for more banana bread.

Scones & Lemon Curd

The question this Sunday was, what to bake?  After an apple pie and banana bread, the only other thing I really felt comfortable making was cookies.  My mom is a cookie-baking fiend.  Making eight different types of cookies for Christmas is pretty standard.  But when it came to other baked goods, they were almost never from scratch (except Grandma’s banana bread, of course).  There’s nothing wrong with that, of course.  I think we have always been cookies and ice cream people.  I’m just saying that coming from a house that didn’t have a springform pan or a bundt pan, trying to navigate the world of baking is a little unnerving.  After just two recipes, I feel like I’m totally flying blind.  So what to try next?

Cookies was the obvious choice.  I’ve helped my mom make so many batches of them, it seems like the logical step – not to mention an easy one.  Ok, if you don’t count eating a bunch of raw dough as helping, I’ve probably actually helped about a dozen times.  The problem was that cookies seemed too easy, too familiar.  I mentioned in my very first post that I’m trying to do more things that scare me.  Well, baking anything besides an apple pie, banana bread, or cookies definitely scares me.  So I decided to try scones.

Ingredients for Lemon Curd

I know there are tons of recipes out there for scones with cranberries or chocolate in them, but what about just plain scones?  And what can you have with a scone besides jam so you can actually swallow it?  (I think every scone I’d ever had up to this point had been painfully dry.)  While looking for recipes, I found the answer.  Lemon curd!  Ok, I had never had it before.  But so many people raved about it, that I figured there must be something to it.  And I did a bit more reading and found out that It was a component of the filling used in fruit tarts.  So being able to make lemon curd couldn’t be a bad thing.

I prepped all my ingredients because I wasn’t sure how quickly the process would go once it started.  I’m glad I did – I didn’t stop stirring the entire time.  The only thing I didn’t do was zest the lemon.  But Mr. Kaizer, sweetheart that he is, did it for me.  As soon as it went in to the fridge, I cleaned up and started making the dough for the scones.  Since I have  never seen buttermilk for sale in Japan, I had to make my own following the instructions from the scone recipe.  It worked beautifully.

Ready for the oven!

I was not prepared for how sticky the scone dough was.  I was convinced I had done something wrong.  I mean, the recipe just said to cut the rolled out dough into wedges and to give it an egg wash.  It didn’t say the dough would stick to the knife like superglue!  I did what I could, though, and then shoved it all in the oven in the hopes that it would turn out ok.

After 20 minutes, I sprinkled the scones with powdered sugar and put them back in the oven with the broiler on.  But I had to take them out before the sugar was able to crystallize over the entire surface because the tops were getting too dark.  But aside from the tops being a bit darker than I wanted, they were perfection.  I mean, just look at the picture at the top and try saying no to it.  Cannot be done, my friends.  As for the lemon curd, holy awesomeness, Batman!  Totally amazing stuff.  I don’t know how I lived my life thus far without it.  If you have never had it, you must make some.

Both of these recipes will be printed out and stuffed into the Betty Crocker cookbook.  Dear Betty already has a lemon curd recipe, but hers calls for a lot more lemon juice.  I’m not overly fond of citrus, so I opted for the Joy of Baking recipe instead.  (When in doubt, use the recipe that calls for more sugar.)  The plain scones were fantastic for allowing the flavor of the lemon curd to really shine.  And I suspect that if I take them out of the oven sooner they will be the best tasting, least oh-my-gosh-it’s-so-dry scones ever.

Any suggestions for what to make next Sunday?

May life continue to inspire you,

Miss Kaizer

Independence Day

I hope you all had a wonderful July 4.  We had a fantastic time celebrating with our Kaizer Kompadres and the holy trinity of Independence Day: beer, barbecue, and fireworks.  We also had some creative time as our dear hosts got their silk screening setup going for the first time.

Shortly after we arrived at our Kompadres’ house, they started turning the bathroom into a darkroom.  Screens have to be pre-coated with a light sensitive cream (but you can also buy them pre-treated, which was the case here).  The screens are then exposed to light – where the cream comes in contact with light, it solidifies.  The rest is then washed out and presto, you’ve got your silk screen.  This particular screen was a tester for determining just how long it should be exposed to light, hence the three pairs of owls.

Just after the the pork was injected with maple syrup (I cannot even  begin to tell you how amazing it tasted) there was a test run on a piece of paper.  It came out beautifully and there was much rejoicing in the land.  Many more ideas have begun to flood our little brains as we consider the full possibility of this new medium.  Our Kompadre hosts are extremely talented, and I can promise you that you will be seeing more of this.

After the initial success of the silk screening, it was back outside to enjoy the perfect weather while the food was expertly cooked by a bevy of barbecue masters.  I don’t know why guys always have to barbecue by group consensus, but as long as it tastes as awesome as it did on Saturday I’m 100% ok with it.  There was pork injected with maple syrup, shrimp skewers in a super spicy Thai sauce, marinated chicken, corn on the cob, and an absolutely amazing potato salad.

I got up early in the morning on Saturday to make a loaf of Grandma’s banana bread to take along.  It was extremely popular, even with the two Brits who I don’t think had ever had banana bread before and were reluctant to try it because they thought it would have a super banana-y flavor.  And yes, it was a multicultural Independence Day: 4 Americans, 2 Brits, 1 Aussie, and 1 Japanese Kompadre.  We also shouted lines from the Declaration of Independence at our British friends as thought they were official representatives of the British Crown:

“Please pass the potato salad.”

“He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people!  Oh, sorry.  Here you go.”

I’m kidding.  But we did steal their tea and dump it down the drain (we’re too far away from a harbor of any kind).  I’m kidding again!  They are wonderful Kompadres and we thoroughly enjoyed sharing the day with them.

What about the fireworks?  I was extremely excited about this part of the day.  When I was seven years old, my family moved to a different state.  It was a move from a place where fireworks were legal to one where they are not.  So while I remembered the joys of shopping for fireworks with my Dad and lighting them in front of my house as a kid (while the entire rest of the neighborhood did the same), it was something I was unable to do for a VERY long time.  Unfortunately, the Kompadres’ neighbor was less than thrilled about a bottle rocket being set off at 9:30 at night, so we were only able to light one.  But it was still fun.  We’ll just have to save the fireworks for the next Japanese holiday.

May life continue to inspire you,

Miss Kaizer

Progress!

I don’t intentionally write a bunch of posts all at once.  Sometimes it just kind of happens that way.  I am trying to do a bit of crafting every day with fairly regular blog posts, but some days I’m just so darn tired that I don’t have the energy to do anything except convert oxygen into carbon dioxide.  You see, I also work.  A lot.  Like 60 hours a week a lot.  So sometimes there will be a few days without any posts and others there will be multiple posts – I do what I can, when I can.  Fair warning!

So this picture has been languishing on my hard drive for about five days now.  As you can see, we’ve been making serious progress with inventory for Ueda Joint!  Since this picture was taken the stack has nearly doubled in size. We now have the exteriors of 185 aroma healing pillows just waiting for their insides.  I’ll be sure to post more pictures as progress is made.

After all that machine sewing in one sitting, I felt an overwhelming urge to do some hand sewing.  So I made a little felt dinosaur applique.  Isn’t he cute?  I might need to make a few more of these guys…

May life continue to inspire you,

Miss Kaizer

Care Package

Remember when you went to summer sleepaway camp and Mom would send you care packages?  Well, I don’t because I never went to sleepaway camp.  But if I had, I’m sure my mom’s care packages would have been the awesome-est (yes, I am aware that “awesome-est” isn’t a word, but a new one had to be created to describe just how hard my mom’s care packages would rock).  A lot of places won’t ship internationally and a lot of others charge a small fortune for it.  So Mom collects all the stuff we order, packages it all up, and then mails it over here.  Both my mom and Mr. Kaizer’s mom do this for us.  Why?  Cuz moms, pretty universally, are amazing.  Our moms more so than others.

In addition to two books, a bunch of hair product that you can’t buy in Japan (and the only thing that stops my curly hair from looking like I stuck a fork in a light socket), a replacement ipod charger, and a stick blender, we received a few really awesome goodies.

Did you see all that ricrac?  Nine colors, five yards of each color.  What am I going to do with it?  Not a clue!  But it was on sale and I’m sure I’ll think of something.  I look at it this way: there are so many stash-busting projects out there that totally rock.  How can you do them if you don’t have a stash to bust?  I’m sure that one day I’ll figure out what to do with all of it.

Then there were a couple of surprise gifts.  For me, a cute bookmark with green glass decorating the end, cool black and white bobbie pins, and two mini totes.  I think the mini totes would make adorable gift bags, don’t you?  And for Mr. Kaizer, two hats.  Wild, crazy, funky hats.  Just his style.  He’s thrilled.  And while I think they’re pretty cool, I still cringe a little when I think about the amont of attention he receives when out in public while wearing them.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some goodies to play with!

May life continue to inspire you,

Miss Kaizer

You might want to know…

There is a giveaway going on over at Bee In My Bonnet you might be interested in.  I know I am!

The kit up for grabs is all the materials needed for making a batch of vintage day of the week dishcloths. It also includes the winner’s choice of four vintage iron-on patterns.  Keeping my fingers crossed!

I remember the dishcloths my grandmother hand embroidered and how much they fascinated me as a kid.  They were what first got me interested in embroidery (at the ripe old age of 6).  I used to sit on the floor in my room on rainy days and stitch on paper plates hoping that some day I could make something half as wonderful.

I think I am going to add a project like this to my to-do list.  If anyone knows an online store selling vintage embroidery patterns, please let me know!

May life continue to inspire you,

Miss Kaizer

Banana Bread

You may remember that last week I baked an apple pie and immediately declared myself a baking fiend.  Well, the unbelievable success of last week inspired me to try again.  This week I planned ahead and got the ingredients for the banana bread I wanted to make.

Now, I don’t mean to brag, but I have an outstanding banana bread recipe.  It’s in my Betty Crocker Cookbook behind the Family Recipes tab.  The thing I love about this cookbook is not just the fact that it has all the very basic information that a non-cooking non-baking person like me needs.  I love it because before I moved to Japan my mom went through her old metal recipe box looking for all my favorites.  She typed them out and added to the book behind a custom made Family Recipes tab.    So not only did I get to make banana bread, I got to make the banana bread that my grandma used to bake for my dad when he was little.  The same bread he still loves to eat warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.  (It’s an almost religious experience – next time you have warm banana bread I suggest you give it a shot.)

Some people drink wine when they bake. I drink beer. Don't judge me.

Everything was going well until I realized I had no idea what happened to the 1/2 cup and 1/4 cup measurers.  I had to use tablespoons.  Measuring 3/4 cup of sugar in tablespoons wasn’t a big deal, but measuring out the butter was a bit more tedious.  I really need to get some new measuring cups.  I might just have to make the trek out to Ikea soon…

After mixing in about twice as many walnuts as Grandma suggested, the bread was put in the oven for an hour.  When it was done, we had a loaf of bread with sharp corners.  I mean, seriously, running with that loaf is akin to running with a pair of scissors.  But the little local shop only had the metal loaf pans you see in the background.  Yet another reason to go to Ikea.  Hmmmm…

By the way, that wooden cutting board you see is pretty much the only counter space available in the Kaizer Kasa.  The kitchen in this place is minuscule, but I digress.

Back to that gorgeous loaf of banana bread.  Well, it was Mr. Kaizer’s first experience with the family banana bread recipe and he couldn’t stop eating it.  He even said I may have to make more in the middle of the week because he doesn’t expect it to last long.  And that is the kind of response that gets me excited about baking.  Now if I could only figure out what to make next week…

May life continue to inspire you,

Miss Kaizer

Crafting Accident

This is why you should never use a rotary cutter and skype with your mom at the same time.  I’m just glad Mr. Kaizer still has all his fingers.

Friendly reminder to all of you – rotary cutters are sharp.

Although, as a credit to the quality of Olfa rotary cutters, Mr. Kaizer did say it went through the cord without so much as a bump.  He didn’t even realize he’d cut it until he couldn’t hear his mother anymore.

Oodles of Supplies

On Thursday Mr. Kaizer and I went shopping for supplies at Yuzawaya, the seven-floor Tokyo crafting mecca.  Ueda Joint, a weekend long jazz festival in the Nagano area,  is coming up at the end of the month and we’re going to have a booth.  So it’s in to super-sewing mode for the aroma healing pillows, children’s tote bags, appliques, and a few other items that I will reveal later.  While I’m in the office, Mr. Kaizer has been cutting all the fabric for me between his conference calls.  Such a fantastic guy!

So, what lovely things did we acquire on our trip?  I thought you’d never ask!

For the tote bags:

I’m using the adorable Hello Kitty fabric again.  It’s just too cute to not use it.  I wanted to get some more of the dinosaur fabric, but they were all out.  I have to start checking other Yuzawaya branches to see if I can find some more.  But we also got Shinkansen (bullet train) fabric for the boys with a bright green contrasting fabric.  I plan to make a cute little train applique for it as well.  For my second girls fabric I got multicolored polka-dots on grey (as suggested by Miss Tanya – thanks Tanya!).  I couldn’t decide which of the contrasting fabrics looked best with the polka-dots, so I’m going to do some of each.  I’ve already made a panda applique to go on this one.  I mean, who doesn’t like pandas?

For the aroma healing pillows:

We got a wide variety of colors in the traditional Japanese asa no ha fabric.  It’s a stylized interpretation of the hemp leaf that was popular in the Edo Period (1603-1868).  It was most often used for baby blankets and clothing for children so they could grow up fast and strong like the hemp plant.

We also picked up some nice purple linen with polkadots, clover and ladybugs, and some checkered cotton with little country girls on it.  They remind me of characters from a Ghibli movie, but when I said so Mr. Kaizer he shook his head like I was nuts.

The floral fabrics we picked up are extremely soft.  We think all of these fabrics will do very well at the festival.  Right now, I cant’ stop touching them.  I love fabric!

Other goodies:

Most expats in Japan are working here as English teachers.  (Ok, I should clarify that most expats from English speaking countries are working here as teachers.  And that isn’t a statistic or anything, it’s my guess.)  I first taught English when I came here and many of the Kaizer Kompadres are English teachers.  They’re actually very good English teachers, and provide a quality learning experience for the children in their classes.

Where is this going, you ask?  Well, I have been asked to make bean bags.  Gloriously multicolored, differently shaped, fun for tossing, learning colors, and learning shapes beanbags.  You may be thinking that beanbags aren’t that big of a deal.  But guess what?  It’s my first commissioned project! I’ve been hired to make something for someone else.  Happy dance…happy dance…happy dance…  Ok, I’m done.  But look at those colors.  They’re fantastic.

Of course, I had to get the thread to go along with all this new fabric.  Reminds me of a box of crayons.  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some SERIOUS sewing to do!

May life continue to inspire you,

Miss Kaizer