The Pie Ho

Pear with Gruyere Baked into the Crust

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 14:45:00 -0400

Fans of Pushing Daisies will recognize this pie! I’m rewatching the series for just about the millionth time and every time I do I wonder: is pear pie with Gruyere cheese baked into the crust actually good? Or did Bryan Fuller just want to make clever cheese rhymes with his fictional pies? This time around it was just too much for me to take, I had to know for sure.

The facts were these…

Crust

1 1/2 cups of butter
1 1/2 cups of flour
4 tbs water
1 tsp lemon juice
1/2 - 3/4 cups of shredded Gruyere cheese
sprinkle of sugar to top

Filling

5 pears
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup honey (for the homeless?)

No homeopathic mood enhancers here, sorry.

Peel and slice yo’ pears, coat them with sugar, drizzle with honey and let some of those juices run off for a little bit.

Cut the butter off the stick into thin little squares. Get your hands in there and mix the butter, flour, water, and lemon juice into a loose dough. I thought about grating the cheese on top of the pie like they do in the show, but was worried that it would brown and burn before the rest of the pie was done cooking (which I think might have been a problem with the southwest chili pie). So instead I grated it and folded it straight into the dough. Ps: You want there to be chunks of butter, don’t worry about making them blend perfectly into the dough.

Divide the dough and roll out the portion for the bottom half of the pan. In my experience it doesn’t really matter what the bottom crust looks like, it can be a little thin and you can patch it together a little bit. by contrast, the top crust looks better and tastes better if it’s a little bit thicker (it’s flakier and fluffier that way). Beat an egg, brush that puppy evenly over the top crust, sprinkle with a bit of sugar to give it a nice, crisp shine.

Pop it in the oven at 375 degrees F until it’s golden brown (I would say about 15 min).

In the end this pie ended up being more than just a clever rhyme! It was actually really good. I wish that I’d made the pears a bit sweeter and found a way to season them that was complimentary to the cheese, but overall it was a really good pie! Surprisingly good! Thumbs up, Mr. Fuller, thumbs up.

Fennel and Zucchini Soup with Tomato Relish

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 18:37:27 -0400

I recently downloaded the Epicurious app for my iPhone (which is awesome by the way! Organized, interesting, and you never need to worry about forgetting your shopping list!) and while I was flicking through it I stumbled on this recipe. I had a whole bulb of fennel and some chicken stock left over from making chicken pot pie so I thought I’d give it a try!

The only changes I made to the recipe were that I did not use fennel seeds in addition to the whole fennel, and I didn’t include the fronds in the tomato relish (I accidentally threw them away, my bad).

The soup was light, healthy, and super (or should I say SOUPer) easy to make. I also paired it with a few slices of toast with goat cheese spread lightly on top.

Pieminister's Spring Chicken Pot Pie

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 16:40:00 -0400

Per usual I’m going to withhold the actual recipe for this pieminister pie because I still occasionally get a squeamish about copyright. But I modified a lot of the ingredients (mostly because the specificity of the ingredients hinges on a lot of ingredients that or more prevalent in Britain), so I’m including the list of what I put into this pie:

1 1/2 cups of baby carrots, halved
1/2 sweet onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic
1 fennel bulb, diced
2 large chicken breasts
small bunch of thyme
1/2 cup of dry vermouth
2 1/2 cups chicken stock
1 cup heavy cream
1 tbs dijon mustard
2 cups broccoli
small bunch of parsley, chopped
rough puff or store bought puff pastry

And the slightly modified directions:

In a sauce pan you’re going to melt some butter, brown the onions, soften the carrots, and cook the fennel along with the garlic. In a separate frying pan brown the garlic in a little vegetable oil until each piece is sealed over nicely. Add the thyme and the vermouth. Their directions say to let it boil off halfway but I went ahead and added the chicken stock, cream, and mustard before letting it boil. Add the broccoli and parsley to let it cook. Roll out your pastry dough, brush with an egg wash and pop it in the oven until golden brown.

I halved most of the ingredients and still ended up with almost too much meat and veggies to fit in my dish. I also didn’t anticipate the amount of liquid there would be and it was definitely too liquidy at the end. I’m still trying to get the hang of meat pies. I feel myself tempted towards frustration, but I remember the same thing happening when I was first baking fruit pies as well; I just have to be patient and keep working at it. In the end no one seemed to mind that it was a little soupy in the middle because it was still delicious and I have really tolerant and indulgent friends!

When Someone Says They Don't Like Pie Early in a Conversation

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 23:26:00 -0400

I’ve wanted to share this playlist for a while but...

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 11:13:00 -0400

I’ve wanted to share this playlist for a while but wasn’t sure how to do it; it’s the playlist I’ve cultivated specifically for the baking of pie. This is just a sampling of the full playlist, but it’s a pretty good survey if I do say so myself. The full playlist is on Spotify as “Pie Music” and you might be able to find it with some clever searching, but hopefully I’ll make another one of these soon!

Sample playlist: listen here.

You Are Here - The Wailin’ Jennys
Morning Comes - Delta Rae
Make It Out West - The Greencards
Dreams - Fleetwood Mac
Ohio - Honeyhoney
Raise Hell - Brandi Carlile
Higher Love - James Vincent McMorrow
Let It Be - Ray LaMontagne
Middle of June - Noah Gundersen

I pride myself on being a pretty good mix-maker so I’d love to know what you think!

The Ol' Lemon Curd Tart

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 11:56:38 -0400

Nothing quite like an Arizona sunset reflected in the smooth, pristine surface of a lemon curd tart.

This is actually a rebake of a pie/tart I made my freshman year of college when this blog was in its infancy. When I made the switch over from blogger to tumblr it didn’t make the switch. I can’t remember why now.

I’m currently visiting my grandparents in Arizona where lemons are in season in a big way. One of their neighbors brought over a whole bag of lemons from her lemon tree! And since I’ve been looking for an excuse to show off my baking skills to my grandma (who is an amazing cook), I thought I’d take another crack at this pie. It was a bit like playing telephone since I was following the directions from my own blog and I made some changes the first time (I really hope I’ve gotten better at writing out my recipes, that was a bitch to slog through).

So here goes:

Nilla wafer crust:

2 cups nilla wafer crumbs
6 tbs melted butter
1/2 cup sugar

Lemon curd

5 large egg yolks
2/3 cup sugar
3 medium sized lemons, juice to one side (about 1/2 cup) zest to the other.
4 tbs butter

Blueberry syrup

1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
fuckton of blueberries, that is the accurate measurement

Mix all the stuff for the crust together, press it up the sides of your baking pan, shove that in the oven at 350 degrees F for about 15 min, ‘til it’s brown about the edges.

Mix the sugar and the egg yolks together until smooth. Add lemon juice and butter and pour it into a waiting sauce pan. DO NOT TAKE YOUR EYES OFF IT. You can’t let it boil and if it steams you take it off the heat. YOU DO IT.

Side note: I was questioning my own directions and I left it alone briefly to zest the husks of the lemons and that shit BURNED. Not badly, but the curd’s got little brown flakes in it now from where it burned on the bottom of the pan and then I stirred it up again. I remember questioning the original recipe and now I know WHY (and you do too, learn from my mistakes). I passed the curd through a strainer and it’s a little better now but we lost a bit of curd, like good soldiers in the desert sun. This curd is a bitch. Seriously. Last time I made it I said it’s like “calming a baby” and I am amending to say that if it looks like a bitch and cries like a bitch it’s probably a bitch. Moving on.

Take the curd off the heat and pour it back into the mixing bowl, folding in the zest. Place it in the refrigerator to cool and thicken. When it has done so adequately, spoon it into your pre-cooked crust and bake at 300 degrees F for about 10-15 minutes until it appears to firm up around the edges.

Last time I was really dissatisfied with the blueberry topping. So I made up my own. Dissolve the sugar in the water and heat it in a frying pan. Pre-squish a few of the blueberries and then let them darken and reduce in the simple syrup. I threw in about a tablespoon of cornstarch to try and get it to thicken a bit (per the original recipe) but it didn’t do much. After it has boiled for about 5 minutes you can take it off to cool and pop that in the fridge.

I worked on my quilt a bit more while I was home. Initially it...

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 11:52:05 -0400

I worked on my quilt a bit more while I was home. Initially it this was going to be it, but after adding so much of the black and white fish scales around the edges I realized that in the process of trying to bulk it out I inadvertently skewed the color balance. I think I’m going to trim some of the black and white border and try and find a nice, bright floral to add around the edges; I’m thinking a warm pink with bits of yellow in it. I also have to finish sewing the intersections (I’ve included my old picture as a reminder of what I want them to look like) and the corners of the existing border. And I’ve decided to do them by hand to improve my hand stitching and to decrease the amount of brash mistakes I tend to make on the machine.

Chocolate Chai Cup Pies

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 09:32:00 -0400

Happy Day After Pi Day everyone! I hope you all celebrated by getting appropriately pie-faced.

After I made the earl grey tart a while back I started thinking of other teas I’d really like to taste in a chocolate ganache filling since I’m absolutely addicted to tea. Chai lattes are my cold day jam and since March in NYC can’t decide whether it wants to be a lion or a lamb (inadvertent rhyme!) I thought I’d hit that flavor up for a pie. For Pi Day sharing and convenience (and because I knew you only want a shallow little bit of ganache in the middle anyway) I made them into cup pies.

(Makes about a dozen cup pies)

Gingersnap cookie crust

2 cups crushed gingersnap cookies
6 tbsp melted butter
1/2 cup sugar

Chocolate chai ganache filling

1 cup heavy cream
3 bags of chai tea
~8 oz milk chocolate

Mix the melted butter with the gingersnap cookie crumbs and the sugar, you want the mixture to be crumbly and slightly clumpy; not dry but definitely not too soggy with butter otherwise it won’t retain its cup shape. Press the mixture to the bottom and then up the sides of the muffin cups (no need to grease or use liners!) or your tart or pie tin. Bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes or until slightly browned around the edges. Allow to cool.

Bring the cream to a boil in a saucepan and, stirring constantly to keep from clumping or developing a skin over top, dip and drench the tea bags in the now simmering cream. I recommend using a rubber spatula to stir so that you can use the flat of it to press down on the tea bags and extract all that chai-y deliciousness. Do this for maybe 7-8 minutes and once you’ve squeezed the desired amount of chai from the tea bags, pour/strain the cream over a bowl full of the milk chocolate (I used chips) and whisk until smooth. Then pour that silky mixture into your crusty cups and place in the refrigerator and allow them to set!

The crusts got a little crispy and (as usual) the cup pie crust was very thick, but the chai was definitely there and the ratio of crust to ganache was much better this time. I served them up with some vanilla ice cream and a bit of honey!

We Need to Talk About Tofu

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 17:40:00 -0400

I want to take a minute to talk about healthy eating. Lately I’ve been doing a lot of yoga and I just want to get into the spirit of that practice with today’s post. I know I post a lot of desserts and a lot of my recipes feature a lot of cheese and butter and potatoes, but I want everyone to know that I can be zen and hip, too.

So today we’re gunna deep fry some fuckin’ tofu.

Okay, so maybe it isn’t he most healthy way to eat tofu, but if you wanna try baking instead of frying be my guest (it works for chicken nuggets, I don’t see why it won’t work for tofu).

My two of my three sisters have gone vegetarian and my sister Kat is getting really good at making things out of beans and tofu. She make this great crispy sesame tofu when I was home in January and I wanted to give it a try myself. It really couldn’t be easier.

1 package extra firm tofu (EXTRA FIRM)
1 egg
~1 cup flour
~1 1/2 cups panko bread crumbs
~2 cups veggie oil
a fuckton of paper towels

Drain the tofu. I do this by placing a strainer above a bowl, lining it with paper towels, placing the tofu on the paper towels, putting another paper towel or two on top of that, and pressing it down with the container it came in (weighed down with a jar of peanut butter, Jesus this healthy food shit is going straight out the window). I also use paper towels to press out some of the moisture after I’ve cut the tofu into strips.

You want the strips to be between 1/4 and 1/2 an inch thick; not to skinny, not too wide. Roll in bowl of flour, then in bowl of beaten egg, and finally in bowl of panko.

Heat the veggie oil in a frying pan over med-high heat. You want the oil level to come about half way up the side of the tofu slice, add more oil if needed halfway through cooking. They DO NOT need to stay in long. Seriously, toss those puppies in, count to fifteen, flip, count to fifteen, fish them out and let some of the excess oil drain off onto a paper towel covered plate.

I didn’t have any sesame seeds so I seasoned my tofu with sweet red chili sauce (I love that shit so much). If you like soy sauce use that, maybe try some sriracha, chipotle sauce, whatever saucy flavor you’re in the mood for.

Seriously though, lemme level witchu on healthy eating. I do post a lot of desserts, but I’ve gotten a lot better about watching what I eat. I definitely exaggerated the whole “healthy tofu” thing at the beginning of this post to get a laugh, but there are two healthy points in my cooking motto that I will stand by: cook for yourself and everything in moderation. If you cook for yourself you know what’s going into the food, so while I may not know what Wok and Roll Take-Out down the street is putting in their crispy tofu, I know mine doesn’t have any extra salt or bullshit. I also know it’s totally vegetarian friendly. And as for moderation, I took half of my crispy tofu and put it away for lunch tomorrow. The cutlets I had tonight I followed up with some mandarin oranges and a tall glass of milk. When I’m full I stop eating. Balance that with yoga two times a week (yup, I was totally serious about doing yoga), and I feel pretty good about the choices I made today.

Never-Leave-the-House Mug Cookie

Sun, 10 Mar 2013 13:57:57 -0400

This week was a bit rough. I won’t bore you with the details of my personal life, but I think everyone has those weeks where you just don’t want to leave the house to go and get that much needed comfort food, baked good fix. It turned out to be perfect since I’ve been meaning to make this recipe for microwavable cookies in a mug for a while.

Normally I’m exceedingly well stocked in the baking department, but when you don’t have what you need and don’t want to leave the house for the right ingredients in the midst of baking, you’ll substitute where you can.

You don’t need pastry flour or any fancy ratio of multiple flours, just your all-purpose shit will get the job done.

I like salted butter on my toast and I don’t have the cash moneys to buy all the kinds of butter, so I buy salted and then when I bake I just don’t add whatever tiny amount of salt they list.

When we were 90% finished with these I realized that my vanilla extract had been lost in the move to my new apartment. So, with all of the other ingredients assembled I had to come up with a solution that didn’t involve leaving the house. Honey. We substituted a dash of honey for the vanilla and M&Ms from the building’s vending machine instead of chocolate chips. The result was a little bit blander than the chocolate chip cookie we’d hoped for, but it was still really good.

I’ll probably leave the house today (probably) and pick up some other ingredients so the next time I make these I can (maybe) do them right.

The Pasta Challenge

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 23:36:00 -0500

I made crispy tofu. It needs more work before I can present you with a recipe though. Just so you know I haven’t been idle.

I’ve gotten into this bad habit of buying boxes of pasta and jars of marinara sauce and then I don’t cook for myself, not really. So I’m not buying box pasta for myself anymore, I’m going to challenge myself to cook more diversely and to more actively. I think it’s going to benefit me as a foodie and a blogger. And if I do buy pasta I’m going to buy it in fresh little bundles from the farmers market OR maybe I’ll make it myself!

I promised you tiny pie earrings and dammit I follow through....

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 15:26:00 -0500

I promised you tiny pie earrings and dammit I follow through. So, although I haven’t made real pie in a while, these are available for purchase at my etsy store. I’m also making cupcakes, because I know some people swing that way.

Blingberry Pie earrings (in cherry and blueberry) - $9.00 + shipping

Let Them Eat Cupcakes earrings - $6.00 + shipping

I’ve cut a lot of prices in my store recently as well, so check out the new, improved, slightly lower prices on some of the other earrings I posted before.

Last Minute Pear and Honey Thing

Sun, 03 Feb 2013 21:21:00 -0500

If you’re like me, getting ambitious in the kitchen can be a dangerous endeavor. One minute you’re all like, “I’ma make a flat piece of crust and layer pears on it, the next you’re like, “Wow, the butter in the crust melted rather than baked and now I have a square of flour swimming in molten butter.”

Accidents happen, is my point.

I used to be really big on the idea that I didn’t want to cut corners; no store bought crust, no canned filling, pumpkin pie is always hard for me because my inclination is to carve and boil a whole pumpkin rather than use the canned stuff. But when those aforementioned accidents occur, it’s nice to have a quick and easy back up plan.

Phyllo dough is where I’m going with this. It’s crisp, it’s light, it’s layered, you can keep it in your fridge for a super long time as a plan B; we love it. So when I royally screwed my initial flat crust idea, I decided to wrap my pears in phyllo.

What you’ll need for this quick-fix, emergency dessert:

A roll of store bought (le gasp!) Phyllo dough
two red pears
1/2 cup of honey
1 tsp vanilla
dash of nutmeg
two dashes of cinnamon
3 tablespoons well-melted butter

Peel and cut the pears into thin half slices. Mix the honey, vanilla, nutmeg, and cinnamon together in a small bowl. I used orange blossom honey, which (in case you’re not a bee person) happens when bees make the honey using pollen from orange blossoms, giving the honey an orangey tang. (Similarly, my mother is planning on keeping bees in our back yard this summer and I anticipate that we will have a lot of mint honey because her mint is a rampant growth.)

The treatment of the Phyllo can be tricky. Unroll the phyllo and place a damp paper towel over the layers of dough until you’re ready to use them, otherwise they’ll dry out. When you’re ready, separate ten sheets of Phyllo and lay them out on your work surface in front of the bowl of honey. You’re going to dip and coat each slice of pear in the honey, allowing as much of the excess as possible to drip off. If you don’t allow some of the excess honey to drip off it might bubble out in the oven, stick to the bottom of your creation, and harden in a very unpleasant, burnt fashion (this was a problem with the mini test version I did prior to the big one).

(Photo’s a bit dark, sorry)

When you’ve covered half the phyllo with pears you’re going to fold it closed, brushing melted butter along the seams to seal it closed and along the rest of the dough to make it crispy and golden brown.

Place on a baking sheet folds up and bake until golden brown. (About 40 minutes at 375 degrees F.)

What came of this experiment is not really a tart or a pie, I guess this is some kind of… roll? Maybe a pocket? Like a pizza pocket but with pears? Either way it wasn’t half bad. It definitely wasn’t the worst failure I’ve ever had, it wasn’t even the worst thing I’ve ever made. So there it is, a quick easy fix to a last minute demand for something sweet.

I Didn't Finish My Quilt

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 09:50:51 -0500

Big surprise. I’m back at school and I WISH I could bring my sewing machine with me and continue working on my quilt, but I think part three of my stupid bitches quilting series will have to come later.

Here are some more of the clay beads I’ve made recently,...

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 16:18:53 -0500

Here are some more of the clay beads I’ve made recently, also available for purchase as earrings in my etsy shop, price ranges from $8-$15 depending on how difficult the bead is to make. I’ve got a bunch more planned, I’m currently trying to find a good way to make tiny slices of pie with tiny lattice crusts! (Will keep y’all posted on that endeavor.) And now I’ll stop spamming you with the stuff I’m selling.

Hey y’all, yet another one of my recent craft projects has...

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 20:01:19 -0500

Hey y’all, yet another one of my recent craft projects has been making clay beads. I’m kind of obsessed with making tiny things out of modeling clay. Anyway, after making this tiny Tardis I decided to pair it with a bow tie and make some Doctor Who earrings! These earrings are available for purchase at my Etsy store (because that is a thing I have now) for $12 per pair.

I don't frown on your use of machine. W/ 7 kids, have I ever, in 30yrs, had time to hand sew or quilt a quilt? Never. But do yourself a BIG favor & acquire an Olfa rotary cutting mat (get a big one), rotary cutter (Joann's has a dark blue 2" one that's ambidextrous), & Olfa 5" cutting ruler. Other brands are more slippery & dangerous. Save your pennies, they're not cheap, but Incredible cutting speed. There are TONS of speed-piecing tutorials online too. Good luck @ your new insanity er hobby...

Sat, 19 Jan 2013 21:12:00 -0500

Thank you so much for the advice! Seriously, I’m flyin’ blind here so it’s really nice to get support and tutelage from people who actually know what they’re doing. Like a lighthouse in a storm, to mix metaphors. Ah, the miracle of the internet.

Quilting for Stupid Bitches: part 2

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 16:41:00 -0500

I’ve basically been sitting on these crappy iPhone pics for the past three days. After becoming a basement-dwelling quilt gremlin Sunday through Tuesday, I decided I needed to take a break and reacquaint myself with the sun Wednesday through Friday. Seriously, those first three days I basically sat in the basement from 10 am until 10 pm with very few breaks. SEE! You were thinking, “I dunno, ‘gremlin’ seems a little strong,” but you were not expecting 12+ hours of quilting per day.

As you can see I’ve got two of the columns sewn together, but only one of the four point corners has been completed. I actually got in there and did part of that by hand (despite my earlier brusque talk about doing it by machine and not caring what anybody thought) because it’s just easier than trying to get the damn machine to turn those tight corners blindly.

Tomorrow I start work again, hopefully with some modicum of restraint.

On a side note, I was just rereading a post I wrote almost exactly two years ago (the pumpkin pasties post) and can we just take a moment to appreciate how far I’ve fallen as a blogger? I believe at one point in that post I say, “I don’t give a flying frog (censoring myself),” like I’ve taken a deep breath and counted to ten before writing this shit down. As opposed to my last post where I invited everyone to browse my library of fucks. I’ve definitely gotten more brazen and creative with my profanity… but I don’t hate it and I’m probably not going to stop. Also, I’ve gotten much better about documenting my recipes. Seriously, I used to just link to them and then spew decontextualized directions, I’m actually legitimately proud of myself for rectifying that, it’s just slightly more professional this way.

I was wondering, are the recipes here your own creations, or do you find recipes to try out, or maybe a mix of both?

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 14:46:00 -0500

A mix of both! If I find the recipe elsewhere I’ll usually say where and if it’s from another blog or website I usually link to it in my post as well. I’m an English major, we’re all bibliographies and properly attributed quotes and stuff, so I’m all about giving credit where credit is due.

Of course, I also fiddle with a lot of the recipes I get from other places on the fly while I’m cooking, especially if they aren’t working for me the way they’re written. In that case I’ll usually link to the original recipe and then post my own adaptation, or post my own and mention how I’ve changed it from the original and why. Another benefit of being a word nerd is that you get away with being massively verbose.

Quilting for Stupid Bitches: part 1

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 17:47:00 -0500

I am the stupid bitch in question. It’s the perk of trying new things.

When I decided to diversify this blog and expand it’s focus from just pie to other culinary endeavors I mentioned that I had recently acquired a sewing machine and perhaps I would also blog about my forays into the world of sewing. Well, since I have been/will continue to be on the world’s most ridiculously long winter break, I’ve had a chance to use it some more and I’ve started a quilt.

I’ve been at it for about two days and have very little to show for it. First I started a pattern that was a bit too hard for me, and “started a pattern” I mean I looked at some pictures, tried some stuff out, and after mangling the first patch I switched to doing plain old squares. I quilt the way I cook: I make it up as I go. It’s worked for me in everything else in life, why not quilting? (“Because geometry!” you say? Well geometry and I have never been friends, but I know how to work a square, thank you very much… she said in a fit of indignation that would inevitably come back later to haunt her in ways she had yet to understand. ANYWAY…)

These are my tools, the sewing gauge I’m using to measure the squares and the tailor’s chalk to mark it, sewing shears and glass head pins (have you ever seen a more ocd pin cushion in your life?), white thread, and a Brother machine. I know there are quilters out there who will frown on my use of a machine, but for now I’m just using it to do the top layer. Also, feel free to browse the library of fucks I could give.

Today I paired, pinned, and sewed the squares in sets of two. In each set of four I have coordinated it so that one of the brown and teal flower patters runs horizontally and one runs vertically. You can see I’m keeping them straight in separate piles.

The next step is going to be to take the sets of two and make them sets of four. Those sets of four I’m going to separate from one another with strips of this fish scale-like fabric.

Before I went to all the trouble to cut these all out I tested it out and this is what I came up with. Imagine this but as a whole quilt!

Cutting out fabric squares is SO tedious, which is why I tried to get a vast chunk of that out of the way. Even pinning and sewing can be a bit blah. My favorite part is when you pull the pins out, open it up, and admire your slightly crooked handiwork. For all the other boring stuff it’s important to either have episodes of Once Upon a Time to catch up on (I hate that show for two reasons: 1) because it’s so cheesy and 2) in spite of said cheese I have to keep watching it because of hot guys) or a good playlist (I’ve been listening to a mix I call my “Empowered Lady Mix” with a bunch of great female vocalists like Paloma Faith, Emeli Sande, Marina and the Diamonds, etc.)

Will keep you posted! I’m hoping to finish this quilt before I go back to school on the 27th but I may have to put the project on hold if it doesn’t happen.