Butterfly Emerges

Wow. What fun we had today. Click here to see our flickr set of the gulf fritillary.

Wrinkles

Watercolor on paper, 7 inch by 7 inch. If you've ever read The Quiltmaker's Journey, you've seen those little pins all over the book. I had to try some myself.

Wedding Poem

My good friend read this poem at our wedding. She recently got married herself (eloped to Santa Barbara in fact) and so I've been working on some gifts: the napkins and this painting. I've had this frame bumping around for a while, originally I think it came from my Nana (my paternal grandma).

I Love Quiche

I made a quiche last night for dinner that was both tasty and well formed. I wish I had taken a picture before we gobbled it up but I did not, so you'll have to look at this one; it was the inspiration for me to find a new recipe. I used the "Madame Quiche's Quiche Au Fromage" recipe from epicurious.com and modified it this way.

First, I used Trader Joe's Frozen Pie Dough, thawed it, shaped it into a 10-inch pie dish, and put it in the freezer again (like the recipe says). I baked the crust, as instructed. I'm sure home-made pastry dough would be better, but this worked out pretty well.

For the filling, I used 1 1/2 cups whole milk, no cream (didn't have any), 6 eggs, 4 ounces goat cheese, salt and pepper and a little nutmeg. I mixed the filling using a non-electric hand mixer, which resulted in a nice fluffy texture. Before pouring the filling in, I lined the bottom with chopped basil. I baked it at 425 F for 30 minutes, as instructed. The one thing I will do differently next time is cover the rim of the crust with foil while baking the filling - it was a little beyond "golden brown".

I loved it, Chris loved it, Sofia loved it, Maia, well, she ate it. That's about all I can hope for.

Gift Napkins

I'm going to start calling these "Lexi's Eco-Napkins". I love making them for people. These are for a friend who I've know since I was twelve and she was eleven. She eloped recently so I've been working on some gifts for them. I made these using 20 different quarter flats; each one makes two small "everyday" napkins. My family uses them for all our meals and we just throw them in with the regular laundry every week.

Fun Project

I go to a parent-child class with Maia once a week. There is always an art project for the kids to do and this week, Maia was particularly engaged. The flowers are made from coffee filters, diluted food coloring, and pipe cleaners. I think she made about 8 of these. The idea was to get them to use an eye dropper, working on their fine motor skills, to drop the color onto the filter. Then we twisted the middle of the filter, attached a pipe cleaner and voila! A beautiful bouquet.

Caterpillar Updates

The caterpillar metamorphosis is being well documented (I'm a little obsessed). I don't think I ever did this as a kid, so I'm completely fascinated by the whole process. The caterpillar has now started turning into a chrysalis. We've also confirmed that it will be a Gulf Fritillary, which is the same as the butterflies I saw around the vine where I found the caterpillars. Picture updates are being posted at our flickr site.

Just another trip to the mailbox

Maia and I went out to get the mail today and noticed some pretty flowers that had bloomed. Then we saw the lizard by the door. It was a much larger variety than the blue-bellies we normally see in the back yard. This one was about 9 inches long! Then we saw the grasshopper jumping around, on the grass. So I ran and got the camera. I couldn't let all this nature go without some documentation.

All this after our adventure collecting a caterpillar this morning. I had seen a bunch of these caterpillars on my walk yesterday, so I took Maia back there this morning to see them. I brought one home, along with the stem/leaves it was sitting on. This is the one we brought home.Here is his current home - I'm still reading up a little about what it will need. Mainly, plenty of ventilation, plenty of the fresh leaves it was eating, and some moisture. If all goes well it will metamorphose into a beautiful orange butterfly. Then I will be sure to release it in the same place I got it.

Future Bruin Mascot?

The game was, well, less than pretty. But it wasn't for lack of spirit on our part. Sofia decided to put on her bear costume to cheer on the Bruins, but it didn't seem to help. Next year, next year.

Notecard for Swapping

This is my contribution to Regina's Notecard Swap. I was inspired by photos taken by our neighbor of his plum tree blossoms with bees. I first did a quick sketch by hand and then refined it to a simple line drawing. Next I scanned it in to Illustrator and separated it into color layers. Each color layer was then printed in black. I used these to make print gocco screens and then did the printing with the gocco. I was disappointed with the white ink coverage. It didn't show at all on the lighter colored paper. So, after experimenting a little, I found that hand painting with a white Caran D'Ache crayon worked. The cards are printed on DCWV acid-free and lignin-free paper. Other contributions to the swap will be posted here.