christmas pillows!~ (& a bag)

i wanted to do something with all the dyeing that i had done over the summer and fall for my family & whatnot for christmas.. but i didnt really know what.. i am not that much of a sewer & it seemed like a lot of stuff.  i had bought a couple of pillows awhile ago to do ~something~ with.. and so i thought..why not do ..something.. like that. 
i thought i could do some sort of patchwork weirdness.. i have always been kinda fascinated by patchwork stuff, my grandma made patchwork quilts & i found them quite lovely & that you could take a bunch of little scraps and turn it into something pretty & useful is quite nifty!  so i thought i might give that a go.. when i was young i had lofty ideas to make some sort of patchwork blanket, but that never happened.. but a pillowcase.. maybe?
so i then had to gather up my little scraps of dyed fabrics (thank goodness i had the fore site to dye a whole bunch of little bits of solid colours in anticipation of future projects, though i wish i would have done more of certain colours that i really liked, but oh well) and ecodyes that i was willing to cut up into pieces & then .. design patchwork patterns!
i ended up making 9 pillows & a bag .. and the process would have been much much more enjoyable if i was not feeling so icky with my kidneys all sore feeling and infected and i feeling so exhausted the whole time making everything feeling a whole lot more like work.. but i got it all done in time for christmas, and it was not too much of a hassle.. with the exception of a few problems with the machines that i had to get help from my mom with.. so yay!!!
so here are my pillows (and a bag):

pillow #1.

this is the first one i made, so i designed it all simple like.. it went pretty smoothly, so i was grateful for that, but the pillowforms i used were just cheepo pillows from ikea that cost $2.. and they had a bit of a pattern on them & i realized that you could see the pattern through them.. so ugh.  i realized that i was going to have to line the suckers.  so boo.  i also decided in the middle of making it to do something.. anything.. on the back.. because just plain old white (well, it is unbleached cotton actually) just would not do.
i lost my notes on this one.. oops, i will find them later i am sure.. plus i have the stuff put away anyway.. but anyway.. i know that the yellow is from apple leaves & the brown is from oak.  i gave this one to dr.B2.

pillow #2.

used up more of the apple leaf (i had lots of the apple) & oak & ecodye #14 .. gave this one to uncle R.  (*note* in the pictures, except for #1, i have no idea about that one.. for the back, i took a picture of the front and then just flipped it, so that's how the back is situated.. when sewing the back on i never really payed attention to the direction.. ??maybe i should have?? who cares.)

pillow #3

since i was giving pillows as gifts, i needed to get more insides.. so i went back to ikea.. this time i bought some nicer ones.. larger ones.. that were all white.  i ~thought~ that these pillows were 16".. from my stupid memory.. & i made this one 16" ..but they were not.  so, this one is 16" ..and then i needed a 16" pillowform.. so i went to walmart and got a $3 pillow.. just a bed pillow.. and i cut it open, cut it up.. into a 16" pillow.. and i made it into one damnit.  ..but it is pretty darn puffy..
the large section was a peony leaf dye test, the green is schubert chokecherry & the pinkish squares are ecodye #36.  gave this one to mom.

pillow #4

this is the first one of the large pillows.. they were ~supposed~ to be 20" ..said so on the tag.. but no, not really.. if you actually measured them they were more like 19".   oh well..  also, my measuring skills seem to suck muchly, because ..well, i dont even remember my original design was not this.. but after finishing sewing it was too small cause i guess i measured wrong.. so i had to add on more pieces.. i had to add on the bottom and top strips and a strip on either side.. ugh.
green is schubert chokecherry, blue spotty is rust dye i made for a bag & the middle is oak shibori dye.. gave this one to lou & ian.

pillow #5

i think i made this one a bit smaller.. 19"..
large piece is ecodye #9, smaller bits are schubert chokecherry, oak, peony leaf, apple leaf, mountain ash, ecodye #36, dried leaf dye, black bean & rhubarb ..gave this to kev & michelle & the girls.

pillow #6 - gwen's

this one... ugh.  this one was the toughest one of the bunch... this is another 14"er by the way.. but this one, because of the way i designed it.. i did it stupid, but hey.. i dont know what i am doing.. i figured that i could stagger things like that, i figured that wouldnt be a problem, but it was... it was problem-atic.. oh well, it got done..
the greenish (which i just realized looks really grey here, and i know the colour settings on this monitor are wacky.. so who knows!) is schubert, brown is oak & the print is an ecodye made from leaves little miss gwen picked on our thanksgiving day walk.  i wanted to make an ecodye with her, but we didnt get a chance on thanksgiving & then the leaves sat in my fridge for a very very very long time and then i thought ugh.. i better do something with these.. so i did. 

pillow #6.

another big one.. the yellow is apple, the darker colour border is a mixed leaf dye i made out of a bunch of purpleish leaves when i was cleaning out the stash in my fridge in the fall.. and the center is ecodye #43.. i thought this particular section of it was pretty neat because of the mirror image aspect of it.. it is like an inkblot test.  i gave this to A.Mary & U.Jim.

pillow #8

very similar to pillow #7 but with a 3 colour border.. (honestly, i was getting pretty sick of designing new stuff at this point... plus that one ecodye had some pretty nice sections in it anyway..)
the darkest line is a peony exhaust dye, the light yellowish is willow leaf, and the edge which you cant see very well in the picture is from rhubarb.. the red skins of the stalks..  and then the center is ecodye #43.  gave this one to micha & derek

pillow #9

this is another little one, 14"..  it's got lots'o squares!
ok.. the big brownish square in the corner is that dye made from the purple leaves, the solid green on the bottom is schubert, the rest well.. if i can remember.. the bottom left square, the big one is the ecodye from gwen's leaves.. the top right is ecodye #30 (which is just poplar & schubert), below it, the pinkish one is ecodye #36, to it's left is ecodye #9.. the bottom right is from my postcard ecodyes.. the small squares on the front are the rust dyes i made for a bag, and a new rust dye i did with star rivets..  sent this one on over to U.Bob..

Bag for Scarlett

this is a bag i sewed for scarlett.. i thought she would like a bag better.  the stripes are peony, and the ecodyes is from leaves she gathered on our thanksgiving day walk, same deal as with gwen's thing.  the brownish fabric i did not dye, i just bought it at ikea, it is thicker and stronger.. i had bought it to make a bag for myself, which i will eventually.. 

---***---***---***---

so..i seem to have misplaced the paper where i wrote down what the ecodyes were, so i will have to add that on here later.. edititititititiititititititititiititititiit
but oh well..  for now, i post.

new fruit - apple - SALISH!

     SO!~  the other day when i was at the fruit store i found a brand spankin new type of apple, or at least one i had never seen before, a SALISH!  so, i figured i would give it a shot.  well, no, not exactly, cause it wasnt on sale, i wasnt going to give it a shot, but then i noticed this:

    it's got little spots all over it!  it is super cute!!!!  so, then i decided to give it a shot.  & well, i am not super good at describing how apples taste, because they all taste similar dont they?  well, no, not exactly.  & i must say, this apple tasted different than any apple i have tasted in recent memory.  it was quite unique.  it is a firm crisp apple, kinda gala like in that respect, but not super sweet like a gala, it has more of a... crab apple flavour to it?  a bit on the sour side, but not really sour like a granny smith type sour, more .. crab appley i guess?  it was really different.
    + the polka dots!

shredded butter & cheese scones!

my first ~real~ post on this bugger!


     so!  my friend wanted me to make her some cheesy scones!  so, i was happy too but i only had frozen butter.  i had remembered reading various locations online things about shredding frozen butter but never really thought anything of it, i dont even remember the context and have not since looked it up, who knows, it could be this exact same thing!  anyway!  i had the thought that i should shred the butter to use in the scones, you are supposed to cut it into chunks anyway, so, well, i did!
     i shredded it and then i put it back in the freezer a bit because it had got a bit soft from handling, and i had to measure out all my other ingredients anyway.

 
    THIS is the recipe i used.  i did make some minor changes, i nixed the cayenne, i added only 1Tbsp of sugar (because.. why?  they are savory scones???) and i used almond milk with a squirt of lemon.  also i didnt roll and cut, i did drop scones.
     shredding the butter made making scones SUPER EASY.  i should .. i will.. SUPER EASY!  i just mixed the dry ingredients then dumped in the shredded butter and stirred it to lightly coat it, thats it, no cutting or mixing with your fingers or anything, just stir it in there.  it is already in tiny little pieces that are perfect size!

     so the scones were super yummy & i made a second batch for myself.  the only thing bad about them was i followed the directions and put them directly on an ungreased sheet, which in my experience is never a good idea & i should have known better & they started to burn on the bottom a bit.  (but then again, that oven likes to burn things, i have horrible, i mean HORRIBLE luck with cookies unless i use a fiberglass mat, not even silicone, fiberglass) 
     this is what the looked like prebake:

     and then of course i forgot to take a picture of them after.  ugh.  this is actually pictures of the second batch because i was not expecting the shredding to make scone making ~super easy~ and did not plan on documenting it when i made the first batch.  & in this batch the butter was actually just refrigerated.  the frozen butter actually shredded in smaller shavings, but the results of the scones were similar.   they were not at all heavy & really yum.
     you can cut the butter and then shred it or shred the butter and then weigh out the shavings.  i weigh butter a lot especially when i have to measure out stupid amounts like 1/3 cup.  that is not marked anywhere on the little ruler thingy on the package.  why do they not put a little 1/3 cup marking?  i mean, it is not used a terribly lot in recipes, but how hard would it be put to put a little dash on the package?  you dont even have to label it, just put a mark at the 1/3 and 2/3 points, people would figure it out on their own.  oh well.
     (yummy scones!~)

hmm...

i started my blog to document things i have done, kind of as a place to to be able to go and look back at them & see them, things like recipes, ideas i have had, projects i have done, stuff like that & that is what i had used it for.  however, i have been wanting to use it for other things lately, shorter posts, less thought out things, just posting what i had been working on what i had done in a day, uncompleted thoughts, and possibly exploring google+ a bit farther.
     i discovered that you can have more than one blog under the same email account, yay!  now, i could have just created a new blog and used that for those purposes, but i wanted to use my name, dystatic, for that, and so i created this new blog as my documentation blog.  & that is what this is.  (it's not like anyone really reads this stuff anyway, i dont really tell anyone about it, but still...)
     so, here is a link to my last "document" post from my old blog, its about my yummy plum jam:

http://dystatic.blogspot.ca/2015/10/plum-jam-no-pectin-yum.htmlhttp://dystatic.blogspot.ca/2015/10/plum-jam-no-pectin-yum.html

     from there i am sure you (i) can go back and go to all my other older posts, the most significant for me probably being my nectarine jam, and for some reason the one about the Gardein -- BBQ Pocket Meals -- Pulled Porkless which has WAY more views than any other post (over 1400 compared to the next highest which has just over 100). 

   but here be .. dead things in jars.