Creative Knit Cutting With my Cameo...

This last summer, I attended a Peggy Sagers (Silhouette Patterns) ETA Expo in NYC I took a class with Anne St. Claire (Needlenook Fabrics) who was teaching a bra making class. This has been something that I have wanted to do for a while as the off the rack offerings are just plain uncomfortable or make me at the age of 44 look like a hoochie mama. Not really the look I want as I am happily married and not looking to be "girlfriend bait" anymore.

It was a wonderful class, however in my typical MO (Modus Operandi), I took the class, spent a week at the expo taking more classes, during which I PROMISED myself that I would immediately make one upon getting home. I even coerced a sewing peep that happened to be in the class with me to do the same.  Great intentions... then once I left the Expo all my good intentions got clobbered with real life.

At the time of writing this, it is New Years Eve. And just like my birthday, I finally put aside all the things that jump into my path, and work on what I want to do. So after making boxer shorts for my husband for Christmas, I am now getting back to me... and trying to simplify or exactify the process of bra making... to make it easier and less of something I have to set aside oodles of time for, and make it something I can just "do" with a few hours and little thought. I wanted to write this blog so I can help others do the same and also not forget this myself...

One of the first things I did, was to digitize my pattern into Silhouette's  (No relation to Peggy Sager's company) software (Silhouette America), making a digital pattern that my Silhouette die cutter can just crack out. Why you ask? Well, the lining of the lingerie is made with tricot (a light weight silky knit). Which is a *&^%#@ to try to cut even with the RIGHT scissors. The hobgoblin of making your own lingerie is precision. When fabric slides like liquid, it is almost impossible to get an accurate cut. So what do do? I thought about using my BERNINA CutWorks for this, and it might work...but the limiting factor with this is that any piece I cut, it HAS to fit in a 255x140mm hoop... and that is NOT going to work. The Silhouette Cameo is at 304x304mm (12x12 inches). If I had a machine that could use the Jumbo hoop from BERNINA that would be one thing, but an 8 series machine is a bit out of my reach for 2015.

The next problem I had was HOW to keep the fabric stabilized while it is being cut. Silhouette sells 2 fabric stabilizers. One you CAN sew through and the other one you CANNOT. It did not matter as  neither would work as this was a knit that had to stretch after being cut and sewn. They were a permanent addition to the fabric.

Reaching into my embroidery stabilizers, I looked for something that would not only adhere to the fabric but also wash out. I came up with the best of both worlds... Floriani's Wet and Gone Tacky. The adhesive is great enough to hold the fabric, but also release it, with out damage, if peeled away. If I need to leave the stabilizer on, it will WASH away when the bra is laundered.

The other problem I had was how to not have the tricot bubble on the stabilizer fabric. I found that if I laid the fabric down first on my table, then placed a pre-cut piece of stabilizer on top of it, and hand pressed it on to secure, I had little or no bubbles. If I had it the other way 'round, it was very bubbly, and I spent a good deal of time trying to hand press the bubbles out.

I found only one other mention of cutting knits with using the cameo, and that was on silhouette's blog making a floral T-shirt. They suggested a depth of 7. That DID NOT work for this, and I damaged the mat I had. After sacrificing the damaged mat, I tested it a few times and found that the 4 setting on the cutter is a better option. I also noticed that when I tried to cut, it did nothing during one of the tests. The bottom of the cutting tool, was loose...it is the part that has the hole in it at the bottom of the tool. After tightening it, to the point it wasn't spinning it worked just fine.

So in short, this is what you need to know when cutting light knits with your die cutter:

-Floriani Wet and Gone Tacky
-Place fabric down first, then place stabilizer sticky side down, and hand press.
-Use a fabric cutting tool, not the standard tool. 
-TEST your cutting setting... The happy number I came to was the #4. Yours may be different. At 4 it did still score the mat, but it did not cut through it as the higher numbers did.

Oh and also keep in mind, not that I mentioned it here... but the Silhouette software is needed... If you come from the BERNINA world as I do with embroidery, it behaves NOTHING like any other vector digitizing program. There is a GREAT tutorial series on youtube that I recommend for learning how to use Silhouette's software as it is so different.  The channel is "Clever Someday" and she has a "Tracing Without Tears" video collection where she illustrates very well how to digitize your cutting files. Do check out her channel here:
Tracing Without Tears


Happy Sewing!

Multi-Grain Bread for the Bread Maker

So, I have been meaning to post my "how to dry lavender" post, and it is half written, but someone asked for my Multi-Grain Bread recipe.

Here we go...

Typically with bread, it is yeast, flour, salt, oil, water...maybe some eggs... but this is a Multi-Grain bread recipe. So we are adding some grains here! Also, a liquid grain: Beer! This takes a little prep. Add about 45 minutes to your average time before bread is ready...


This recipe makes a great sandwich bread, however the loaves do get kind of tall. I would suggest 1 slice makes 2 regular slices of bread for a sandwich when cut in half.

Ingredients:

12 oz beer, (1 bottle or 1.5 C)
1/2 Cup of dry 7 or 10 multi-grain cereal (like Bobs Red mill)
3 TBS of olive oil
1 TSP salt
1/3 Cup sugar
600g of Bread Flour (about 4 Cups)
2 1/2 TSP Instant Yeast

Prep:
Microwave beer in a large bowl to a simmer (about 3.5 minutes)
Add multi-grain cereal (CAREFUL, this will boil furiously )
Cover with plastic wrap  and let cool until is is just warm, around 120 degrees F (45 minutes, give or take)


Assemble in Pan:
Pour beer/multi-grain mix into bottom of bread pan.
Add the rest of ingredients in the order listed above
Set your bread maker for French Bread Cycle, Medium Crus, 2 lb loaf

Irish Soda Bread

Ok. Soooo.. I look Irish. My old high school principal used to say I had "the map of Ireland" in my looks. It got me out of many a detention back in high school I can tell you...

As you might of guessed, he was of Irish decent as well. :)
It causes some confusion on the Aer Lingus as often I am not given customs forms. My husband will get one, but they skip over me entirely! 

For a few years back in my twenties, as I have the "Celtic Look," I figured I would make the most of it  and I got a job at a Irish pub called "Olde Irish Alehouse." I spent an hour before each shift, curling my hair and tucking it into a bouncing pony tail and then served Irish Soda bread and Shepard's Pie to all that came. Strange side note, that bar, locally referred to as "The Alehouse", looked more like the "Cheers" pub than the original "Bull and Finch" pub (the inspiration for the TV show) did on the inside. Dark paneling, brass accents, a bar that stood in the center of the floor with glasses above. Today, it has been remodeled and rebranded as "Waterford's." But I do digress, you came here for a recipe.

I found this recipe as I wanted to make the bread that I served back in the day. Around St. Patrick's Day here in the extended Boston metro area, most local grocery stores and bakeries just sell you stale bread that has little or no taste.  Past that day, you have a very hard time trying to find it. So as ever, I figured... it couldn't be THAT hard to make, and it certainly has to be cheaper than paying $4+ per loaf.

And it is... 

So this is the next "recipe" for my friend (and embroidery student) Kitty Brady. She asked me to list a bunch of my recipes for bread making and you can find those recipes up on the "bread" board (ha!) on my Pinterest page (http://www.pinterest.com/rourri/) as she is looking to take back the bread making and save money too!

Here you go:

Irish Soda Bread

Yield: 2 loaves
Adapted from Margaret M. Johnson's "Irish Heritage Cookbook"
(yes, adjustments have been made...read on below)


Set your oven to 350 degrees

Mix the following dry ingredients in a bowl: 
4 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons (+/-  to taste) caraway seeds
2 cups raisins (light or dark is fine)

Mix the liquids together, first making "quick buttermilk"
1 1/4 cup quick buttermilk* (1 1/4 cup whole milk with 1 teaspoon of vinegar)
1/4 cup olive oil (evoo if you wish, I just use whatever is in the pantry)
2 large eggs, lightly beaten

Combine both together, until a soft dough has formed.  Split the dough into two balls. Dust with extra flour to stop the dough from sticking to your hands.

Place on opposite ends of a cookie sheet and make a "Cut" with a knife across the top of each ball of dough. Classically, people make a X cut at the top, but a single cut will do. This just helps with releasing the steam as it cooks. Set your timer for 30-35 minutes at the 350 degree oven temp.

* What is "Quick Buttermilk"? Well, I rarely have regular buttermilk or buttermilk powder in my fridge. Often after using just a cup or 2 TBS of it in whatever recipe, the rest just expires as I don't have the time to do more than the recipe that I had intended to do. This saves me money and cuts down on waste. If you *do* happen to have buttermilk in your fridge, by all means use it. But the vinegar and the milk trick works wonders. Just let it sit for a few minutes after you add the vinegar, then add to the rest of the liquids bowl.


Ok, just to clarify a few points about what I did in the recipe and why...

Most recipes for bread have a flour, water, oil and levining plus leaving control component.
In this case: Flour, Milk, Olive Oil, Bicarbonate of Sodas, Salt

The flour has some protein, and the milk has some sugar...and it all just works. Well, the original recipe called for Canola Oil or Veg oil. Not that I am a "clean" eating nut, as that word "clean foods" means lots of different things to many people, but I just don't like the health rating of Canola Oil as there is no such plant called a Canola plant. In my book that oil is no where close to any kind of "base component" source of food. It is highly processed. One could argue the point of the all purpose flour being a high processed food, but I find that is a livable choice as I use King Arthur flour, and the processing does not include bleaching or other higher processes that other white flours have. You could swap whole wheat flour in there, but then you would have to monkey with the ratios of liquid as whole wheat flour does not behave the same as all purpose... it was beyond the scope of this recipe.
Oil for oil works. Unless you substitute butter (oh yum) for the oil. Do understand though, the butter has MORE than oil in there... it has milk solids, proteins...and unless you buy "unsalted" butter on a regular basis and have it to use here, it has salt as well. The olive oil swaps out fairly reliably here. Again, make your own "Clean Eating" choices... This is what works for me.

The flavor needed to be amped up from the original recipe as I wanted to match the taste from what I remembered at the "Alehouse". I ended up by doubling the amount of raisins and adding more caraway. This is as close to what I could come to for what they used to serve back in the day. A copycat recipe from the Olde Irish Alehouse days.

From what I understand in Ireland, everyone has their own
take on soda bread. This is just my take on it or "recipe" if you will. There are other variations out there, and I encourage you to look for one that will be yours if this isn't your kind of "authentic".

So try it, tinker with it...and enjoy!

Bio-Degradable Egg Seed Starters!

Well, it has been a LONG time since my last posting since the waffle bowl101 blog. I just got back from talking to the Girl Scout "Daisy" troop here in Wachusett about 

Bio-Degradable Seed Starting in Egg Shells!

So I am writing this blog for them and the attending parents so that they can see how easy it is to do this, and do this as a "usable" option for seed starting. Bio-degradable options for seed starting are great, as not only are they good for the environment but they are also easy on the tender plants roots.  You can plant these directly in the ground, and the roots just grow thru the shell. Less disturbed roots on a new plant means that the plant can focus on growing rather than having to recover from a teased out rootball. You can also put it into a larger bio-degradable container (more about that at the end of the blog post tho)


When I first saw this notion of seed starting, it was on Pinterest. Pintrest is great for inspiring you, but not great on giving you the down and dirty of making things "feasible". This method was shown online in a perfectly charming cracked egg, using both sides of the shell. Some people in food service can crack eggs perfectly...I am NOT one of them! I tried to do this the way it was illustrated in Pinterest, and once I tried to wash the eggshells the item crumbled in my hands and there was not much left to plant in.

Fast forward to a year later and I am watching one of my favorite shows "America's Test Kitchen" (sense a theme here? Yeah, this is my ONLY kind of reality show...well that and anything Mike Rowe is in, but that is a blog for a different day), and they start doing their gadget segment on how to take a shell off of a hard boiled egg. I have to admit, I was anticipating a useless gadget and a waste of 5 minutes of my life. What I got was EGG SHATTERING! (get it? LOL...Ok you can stop rolling your eyes now). The showed how to take the top off a soft boiled egg using a Rosle Egg Topper. This is what I was looking for to grow seeds out of eggshells! It make a perfect rim around the top of the egg. The shell was structurally sound enough to not only wash, but also poke a drain hole in the bottom too!

 I was so excited I ran out there that day to Kitchen Outfitters (in Acton MA) and got one of the last ones they had. As I explained what I was doing to one of the ladies that works there, I got a strange look, a pleasant smile, and the feeling that yet again I just blew another bell curve in someones mind.
Bless their hearts, they humored me, ran the transaction, and I went home to play! They are wonderful folks there, even if I seem like a raving lunatic.

So after some experimenting, this is what I came up with. I rarely eat soft boiled eggs of the shell, and this tool is expressly made for that. I use more raw eggs for baking and for cooking, so to use it on raw eggs it was!

The trick here is to cradle the egg (pointy side up, large bottom side down) in the egg carton. Place a oven mitt under the carton to cushion the "topping" of the egg. Place the egg topper on the egg like a hat, pull back the spring and let the lever "whack" the top, full force.

No that is NOT my cat under the plastic egg carton... it is a pot holder. But you get the idea. :)

Pull the top off the egg and pour the liquid into a container (I use a small coffee mug) for use in whatever recipe and put the egg into a washing container for when I do my clean up.

It is really that simple. Then when dry, take a sharp knife tip and place it in the bottom of the eggshell with a touch of pressure. This will create the drain at the bottom to let the excess water out of the eggshell when you water your seedling.  Spin the eggshell around to create the hole. Too much pressure here will crack the shell and make it unusable.

If you don't have a knife that will work, use a thumbtack, but be careful with using too much pressure all at once!

I save my shells next to the dishrack as they are cleaned and need to dry out. Once I collect enough of them, I then put them back on into the egg carton for storage until I am ready to plant! When I am ready to start the seedlings, I use the clear egg carton as a tray. Place in a warm spot and soon you will have seedlings!

Once the seedling gets to be around 1-2 inches high, you want to start thinking about putting it in the garden or using a larger container (some plants require more root development before you place them outside in a garden bed where they have to compete for water).

I found this video on Pinterest too

http://youtu.be/7dlGQP81yfo

It is a Youtube video that is an excellent larger container.  Made out of newspaper, the roots grow right out of this and into the garden when planted directly into your garden bed, giving you blooms earlier and no plastic pot to recycle!

Now the downside here( ...and yes, there is a downside) is that the Rosle Egg Topper has caught the attention of some media outlets, and now it is hard to find in most kitchen stores. Some may still have one or two on the shelf, but do be prepared to wait for a month or so until they catch up to demand.