Paper Pie

Hello World

Proud Papa reporting that at 5:25am this morning Liz gave birth to Rylie, a beautiful 8lb, 10oz little lady.  Mama and baby are doing wonderfully well, particularly mama who delivered an awe-inspiring natural birth. Rylie also entered the world on the same day as her cousin Kenzi, so it's been a big day for this proud family.  Say hello!

Liz & Kalli Food #10

Liz * Ina Garten
I want to do something different for the food post this week since there has not been a whole lot of cooking going on around here. We have been patiently waiting for our little girl's arrival, so we've been eating out a lot and ordering in so that we can save up our reserves for when we are too tired and busy with baby to cook. Instead of looking at the food that I did not cook this week, let's talk about one of my favorite chef personalities; Ina Garten from Barefoot Contessa. I love everything about her; her show, her books, her humble sweetness and especially her food. She prepares elegant but completely accessible meals that you actually want to eat and that you believe that you can pull off. A kind of casual sophistication, I'd say. I love the format of her show too because she is always cooking meals for the special people in her life; a romantic dinner with her husband, lunch for her staff, or brunch with old college roommates. Sometimes on her show, she will zip around the Hamptons to the produce market or bakery to pick up special ingredients, I love that she brings you in to her world. I have three of her books; The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook, Barefoot in Paris, and Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics. They are all beautiful books with full color photography and the recipes are well written and easy to follow. She has many other books that I would love to have to round out my collection. So enough of my gushing, she is just really great and seems genuine in what she is doing and I like that, a lot.

Kalli * Roasted Chicken Sandwich
This week I made a simple, but tasty roasted chicken sandwich, with chicken patties I got from Trader Joe's. I sauteed onions and red peppers in olive oil until they were mild and sweet, and added sliced tomatoes, butter lettuce, mozzarella in between toasted italian rolls.

For me, it all about the roll on this one, it looks really delicious. Where did you pick those up, Kalli?

A Ball For Baby

I've been keeping myself busy around here with a little bit of crafting now and then. I made the ball above from the For Kicks Patchwork Ball pattern in this book. I used my leftover fabric from the bunting for my baby shower. It is all from the Meadowsweet collection by Sandi Henderson. I love the cheeriness of the prints and palette together.

The ball was a little tricky, and in the interest of full disclosure, my photos are helping it look more round than it really is. When I use fiberfill, I know enough to use small amounts at a time, but I have difficulty shaping things how I want them. It is also a challenge to figure out how much to use on a given a project. Too little, and your project is wimpy, too much and it becomes impossible to stitch closed. Fiberfill rant aside, I do love the way this ball looks and I love that it is handmade by mama with lovely soft cotton prints and not plastic.

So Little Lady, my darling, please come out and play with your new ball now!

Liz & Kalli Food #9

Liz * Mint Iced Tea
It has been really hot around here the last few days and we have been increasing our walks around the neighborhood. All of this, and an ever-growing belly to boot! I would say a cold refreshing drink is in order, wouldn't you? I wanted something minty and simple and this definitely did the trick. I used this recipe with decaf green tea and it is delicious. I highly recommend that you give it a try to cool off during these dog days, especially if you are due to give birth in the next few hours/days/weeks.

  Kalli * Zucchini and Ricotta Galette
I've been reading a bunch of Smitten Kitchen recipes and dying to try something. All of her food looks so appetizing and simply elegant. I made her Zucchini and Ricotta Galette and was amazed that it turned out almost exactly as shown (that never happens to me!) Zucchini is one of my favorite ingredients, and on a bed of three cheeses, sprinkled with garlic and surrounded by flaky, buttery crust it's like a grown-up alternative to pizza, or like an eggless frittata. The presentation looks impressive, but it's not difficult to make, and I know I'll make more galettes with the same dough, probably using tomatoes, or maybe pear or apple with sweetened cheese.

Yum, Yum. That is all I have to say. Smitten Kitchen is one of my favorite food blogs, too!

Patiently Waiting

I hope you are enjoying your weekend - moment by moment. We are doing a lot of walking, enjoying each others company, and staying well hydrated and nourished.

Liz & Kalli Food #8

Liz * Pasta with Prosciutto and Peas
Yesterday was Ryan's birthday (Happy Birthday, hon) so for dinner I made him the yummy dish above. It is Pasta with Prosciutto and Peas and it cooked up quick and really was a nice light-ish meal. Actually it was light and heavy at the same time if that is possible. It is pasta, which usually means heavy, but the sauce was pretty thin and minimal even though it was cream. Anyways, my honey liked it and so I've deemed it a success. Summer has finally showed up around here. Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day, so we took our pasta outside and celebrated Ryan's birthday al fresco.

Kalli * Peanut Butter Cream'wich Cookies
I found this recipe for Peanut Butter Cream-Filled Sandwich Cookies in a neat cookbook (by the man who hosts Top Chef, Tom Colicchio) featuring recipes from his restaurants in NYC that offer an impressive array of sandwiches (including sweet cookie "sandwiches" like this). I wanted these peanut butter (and oats and butter) cookies to be comforting and homey, but they were not worth all the effort. They took too long to roll out, were very very sticky and burned after 10 minutes in the oven when the recipe called for 20+ minutes. The few I salvaged were so overwhelmingly buttery I didn't want to eat more. They might work as bite-sized cookies, but the size the recipe calls for is too generous. I'll be trying other recipes from this cookbook though, since there are some pretty original savory sandwiches detailed within, and there's also bits of interesting info about how they conceive and run their stores, choosing the best kind of bread, and helpful tips about assembling or serving many sandwiches for parties, catering, etc.

I don't know Kalli, those cookies look pretty good to me. Must be your beautiful photography!

Sugar Top

Slowly, but surely, working on the quilt top.

Once this sweet quilt top is complete I will need to find someone to do some long arm machine quilting on it to finish it off. Maybe, here?

Pretty soon you will be able to make your own Sugar Pop Quilt, it will be available on the Moda website as a free download. (So definitely practice your sweet stitches.) I'll let you now when the project sheet is up and ready for download. To keep yourself busy while you wait, you could join the SugarPoppers on Flickr so that you can add your quilt photo when you are done!

Crochet Weekend

I have been busy this weekend working on a new crochet project. It has been slow going and I am a bit down about the whole thing and feeling sorry for myself. I know. I'm such a bummer. Since there's not much progress to show you, let's just look at the beautiful yarn and think of all its wonderful potential. I need to come back to this project with a fresh perspective and rested eyes.

Baby Alpaca

Cashmerino

My progress. Trust me, it wasn't for lack of enthusiasm. But that yarn sure is pretty, huh?

Have A Seat

This sweet chair pad goes a long way to dress up a thrifted chair.

Just another little piece of the nursery/studio that is coming together. I like the way that everything is shaping up in here. It is one room with many functions but it is all put together rather seamlessly. It is bright and full of print and pattern, not a typical, soft nursery. There is art and fabric on the walls, a little vintage charm thrown in here and there. With the addition of the seat cushion above, the handmades are starting to let their presence be known around here too.
I made this cushion using Alicia Paulson's Summerhouse Seat Cushion pattern. It was pretty quick and easy because of Alicia's extra cool magic interfacing technique. The pattern was well worth five dollars just to learn that method, I love it! Plus, I love seeing all forty of my fabrics sitting together like that in tiny little patches. The back of the cushion is pink and ecru Mod Buds to match the ties. This particular chair has a bit of a challenging seat shape, it would have been easier to do something square. But all in all, I am very happy with the result.

Ryan and I have lived in this apartment for 3 years now and when we first moved it in we were in awe of all of our extra space. Our previous place was like 600 square feet or something ridiculous like that. But now, we are starting to grow out of this space too. Decorating, painting and fixing up a rental is a conundrum to be sure. You never really know how long you will be in a space and you definitely do not want it to be ugly while you are living there. Yet, you know that one day you will leave it all behind and you will start all over in a fresh space, which is thrilling in it's own right. I really hope that our next move is a bit more permanent though. Fingers crossed.

Vintage And Animals

Hi, meet our new puppy. He is kid-friendly and never barks. Isn't he the cutest?

Okay, okay, but this is one adorable and sweet book cover, don't you think? The Poky Little Puppy is just one of the many Little Golden Books that we have picked up for our baby girl. We got this one last week at the antique market. I had a huge collection of books when I was a kid, Little Golden Books, and others. I remember I had this plastic, orange Fisher Price record player and a bunch of books that included records and I would just listen to stories for hours and hours. Slowly, but surely we are building a collection of books for our girl too.

And slowly, but surely I am making some progress on the nursery/studio space. Vintage and animals, that is the very loose theme that I started out thinking about with this space. A lot of what we have done follows those two ideas, but we've also got some modern touches here and there. Not these vinyl stickers though, they are straight out of the late 60s and I could not resist them when I saw them at the market last week. They work in perfect with the other colors in the room.

Oh, well, this definitely fits the theme, don't you think? On the back of this sweet little lamb picture it reads:

This is a Magic Picture. It Glows in the Dark. After a short exposure to any light, portions of this picture will be luminous and visible in the dark. The darker the room the brighter the picture glows. Exposure to any light "recharges" the picture, and it will last indefinitely. The luminous material contains no radium, phosphorous or other poisonous material.

It still works! Isn't that amazing? It really does last indefinitely. And don't you think it is so nice that they let you know that it contains no poison material?

My mom sent us a package last week with a little dress and socks for Baby Scott to wear home from the hospital. She bought my sister's little girl the same dress in the hopes that someday her two granddaughters will save the dresses and their daughters will wear them home from the hospital. Sweet, don't you think? In with her package, she sent me three baby blankets that she found in my hope chest that is still in her house. One of them is an adorable crocheted afghan from when I was a baby. The one above she thinks was my grandmother's when she was a baby, that would have been in the 30s.

The blanket above was also my grandmother's. Isn't this little bonnet girl so cute? I can hardly stand it. I am so ready to meet our girl and I am just keeping myself busy around here, nesting and getting prepared. It seems like I have been pregnant for ages, but at the same time it seems pretty unbelievable that Ryan and I are about to become parents! There is no way that we can even begin to imagine what those first moments with her will feel like. Complete and utter endorphin-aided euphoria, I'm told.