Because 2 days is never enough.

My love of the handmade or home cooked springs largely from the personal satisfaction I derive from looking at something and saying, “I made this.” But another reason for my love of all things DIY is that I feel good knowing that I am reducing my consumption and impact in some small way.

Lately, I’ve been making my own veggie stock. I save the ends of veggies I chop or the produce I realize I won’t be able to cook before it goes bad. I cut off roots and bad spots and save everything in a recycled ziploc bag in the freezer until it is full of vegetables.

I saute/defrost the veggies in a large stockpot with a bit of olive oil, add some salt and pepper and a few bay leaves. Then I fill the pot with water, bring it to a boil, and then adjust to simmer for about an hour. When it’s ready to go, i strain the broth through a colander into a big bowl and mush the veggies a bit to squeeze out every last drop of flavor.

The result is rich and delicious. Sometimes I use it right away, especially for risotto. But I also freeze or refridgerate it and use it for soups and cooking grains later on.
The whole activity makes me feel delightfully resourceful and equiped for life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony or something. And I also like that I didn’t contribue to the energy costs of transporting a box or can of broth, that I kept one container out of the landfill, that I didn’t eat something with god knows what in it, and that I eeked a second life out of stuff that I ordinarily would have just thrown away.

Some veggie broth tips (adapted from “A Beautiful Bowl of Soup” by Paulette Mitchell)

• Use strong flavored veggies like asparagus, bell peppers, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, and cauliflower sparingly.
• Don’t use any vegetables that have spoiled or gone bad. Wash and trim off any bad spots or bruises.
• Parsnips and carrots sweeten broth, but carrot greens can make the broth bitter
• Starchy ingredients like potatoes, corn, peas, and lentils can make stock cloudy if used in abundance. I often include cut up potatoes and am usually happy with the result.
• Use herbs and spices, besides salt a pepper in moderation. Let your veggies do the work to flavor the broth. I like to use a few bay leaves, though.
• Cut veggies into large chunks so they won’t disintegrate as you cook.
• Sautee the veggies in oil or butter before you add the water for a richer flavor. Another way to intensify the flavor of the broth is to simmer an additional 20 minutes with the lid off to cook out some of the water.
• Use the broth in 3-4 days, or save in the freezer for up to six months.

I’ve been dragging out my sewing machine, shopping around for sweet fabric, collecting vintage buttons, and practicing my rusty embroidery skills. The result of this effort, and of the tender pre-thimble fingers and strained eyes (bad lighting in my apartment), is this collection of super cute little ipod/digital camera bags. Hardy’s birthday was last week, and I thought up a little bag for her pod as a nice homemade gift. Turns out, they’re very quick and easy to whip up and each one is so unique… that pretty much everyone I know will be getting one of this for his or her birthday this year. So, yeah, sorry for ruining the surprise.

Hardy picked what I agree was the cutest one (blue with red button), but I love the others too. Be nice to me. These beauties could be yours one day.

I’m in Pittsburgh for work these past few days and I brought several Ziploc bags full of crafting activities along with me. I’m sure my TSA scanner thought I was a kindergarten teacher or the mother of a small child or possibly recognized me as the craft dork I am. When I got here on Friday, Jake guided me around town and earned hero status when he helped me find a thimble to save my aching fingers and a mini-pair of scissors, as I couldn’t carry mine on the plane.

As I sit here on my hotel bed embroidering, I am reminded of my first time. Maybe six years old, I was harumphing about the house complaining that I was bored, that I had read all my books and had nothing to do. My mom is a firm believer that only boring people get bored and she told me as much. Her solution was to pull out some heavy white cloth, an emboridery hoop, thread and needle. My dad drew a picture of a Holly Hobby type girl with a big bonnet holding a watering can over a little flower. After my mom showed me what to do, I sat on the warm conrete steps at the side of the house while my mom hung laundry on the line and my dad worked in the garden. The end result was very sweet.

But this is where it gets muddled. Looking at the uneven and unexpected results of my recent forays into embroidery, I wonder if this memory is accurate. Was I actually better at embroidery as a six year old than I am in my 30’s? Was my masterpiece, “little girl with watering can” actually, well, …bad? Did my mom do most of it for me? Did I make this whole episode up?

As my mom doesn’t bother to read this blog, I guess we’ll never know. I’ll have to focus on the future, not the past. Here’s the leaf design I made in Pittsburgh.

I’m completely euphoric. I walked into Brooklyn General after work today and a wave of joy passed over me. The blissful calm that came over me was fettered only by my inner conflict over wanting to buy, say, everything in the entire store and wanting to buy, perhaps, tons of stuff. Purchasing merely the embroidery thread I came for ceased to be an option the instant I passed through the doors.

Brooklyn General is nothing if not charming. It makes you feel a bit like you are in a chapter of Little House on the Prairie that just happens to take place in an Anthropologie. Beautiful yarn is scattered on shelves among stylish patterns and bolts of flannel and handmade pin-cushions. It’s heaven, I tell you, heaven.

I’ve been buying a lot of sewing supplies and notions lately for a little project I’m working on (which I’ll write about later after someone gets a finished product for a birthday gift). I’ve been hitting the garment district, making post work trips to Mood and dragging Karl to M&J and to Great Buttons. These places are amazing, don’t get me wrong, but the sheer volume in those places is soul sucking, and the neighborhood is jam packed, and trips never turn out to be any fun. Brooklyn General, though, it’s like someone built it just for me.

I walked out the door with a yard of lime green heavy cotton, a lightweight cotton with yellow birds on it (so cute), five skeins of French wool embroidery thread with all natural dyes, an embroidery hoop, needles, and two packages of vintage buttons.

And to my even greater delight, I found out they’re offering a quilting class starting April 15th for four Sundays from 11-1. I’m SO in I could cry. Anyone want to join me?