Culinary Adventures

This Winter I have been channeling my Domestic Goddess, Sewing and cooking up a storm. What better thing to do on a rainy day (which we've had a lot of this past month in the Bay area)?!

Culinary adventure #1:
Homemade Sausages

For Christmas I got myself a beautiful, brand new lemony yellow Kitchinaid Mixer with meat grinder and sausage attachment. To celebrate, my good friend Colin and I made Loukanika (Greek citrus sausage). The process took all day, lots of elbow grease, and once we sat down to feast I didn't feel like eating any of it! But everyone else seemed to like them!



Culinary adventure #2:
Fituras de Malanga (Malanga Fritters)

Malanga is a starchy root vegetable that is very popular in Cuba. Similar to taro root, it's flavor is earthy and a bit nutty.

Malanga Fritters are very easy to make. Grate peeled and washed Malanga on cheese grater, add egg, salt, and "deep" fry in a cast-iron skillet till golden brown. Can be eaten with honey or just on their own with salt. Mmmm! I ate like 15!
There's nothing better than getting together with friends and eating great food.

Doctors For Haiti

Yesterday I donated my Hand Embroidered gold fish bag to Craft Hope For Haiti, a wonderful Etsy Shop created to benefit Doctors Without Borders in Haiti. I was excited to promote this great program with my bag on the web page but it sold instantly! So, although you won't find any of my work there anymore the shop is still filled with wonderful hand made craftiness that you can feel good about buying since 100% of the proceeds go to Doctors Without Borders.

Thank you A.N. in Ohio for purchasing one of my bags and helping such a great cause!

NEW! On Etsy

I'm back from a lovely but brief trip to Cuba, and am diving head first into my Etsy shop. Lets see if I can get my name out there and sell some sweet hand made bags on the Internet!

It's a new year and I'm feeling inspired to create! I still have a few choice bags left from the Fourth and Clay holiday open studio, as well as some discounted older bags that I'm posting on Etsy. Get'em while there hot and help me make room in my studio for new creative stuffs!

Record Bag

For Christmas this year my family decided to do "secrete Santa". A couple months ago we found out who in the family we were to gift. I got my sister's Fiance Rafael who is a wonderful musician. His newest solo work called Las Palabras, just came out on 7" and MP3.

Since he makes the music, I thought I would sew him a hand embroidered record bag!
It's about 14" square, fully lined with bright yellow oil cloth, with a 1 1/2in. adjustable strap. It was super fun to make, which makes me think I will be making more in the coming months.

LPs are definitely back in style, and what better way to celebrate that by carrying them around in a hand embroidered bag!

Santa is a procrastinator

It's definitely Christmas time and I'm still working on my hand-made gifts.. I love to procrastinate! But it's now or never, so I'm locking myself in my sewing room and not budging till everything is just right!

Christmas is always a little stressful but it's definitely one of my favorite times of year... So, a happy Holidays to all and a very happy New Year!

Party Sucess!

The Party Thursday night was a roudy good time. Holiday cheer is here!
Thank you to all my lovely friends who made it. It was wonderful to see everyone.



The Front Junk band supplied the party with the sweet, roudy, stomp your feet music.

Octopus

Octopi are amazing creatures. With no internal or external skeleton they can fit into any space, they change color, and eat crabs and other shellfish. Mmmmm.. Crab...

Here's my newest bag with hand embroidered Octopus. You can see/purchase it this weekend at Fourth and Clay Open Studio.