This is a sewing project that I had finished a while ago. I didn’t mention it because it seems a bit of too “normal” and I don’t want to make it a big deal. To be honest, I don’t know how many people really use a cloth peg bag nowadays, apparently we didn’t need one until the old plastic bag finally was broken two or three weeks ago. My husband thinks that plastic one was perfect and he seems really fond of it.

I hate that bag and wanted to get rid of it long time ago anyway. Watching it falling apart has been one of  the most pleasant and forseeable things in my life. I was like an evil holding this little “dirty secret” in my mind, and at the same time conceriving “a real peg bag” to just wait for the right moment coming.

Then I made it happen. I saw a couple of designs in the cheap dollars warehouse and also looked some interesting ones on the Internet, and believe me, some of them are really fancy. Finally I decided that I only need a basic one and comparing its look and function, apparently the latter weighs much more.

So basically I didn’t use any pattern, I just measure out the size that I wanted to make. The width of this bag was mainly based on the size of a baby cloth hanger that I had available in hands. I still used that old piece of fabric I had used in many sewing projects before and added it red bias tape as the decoration for the highlight.

It took me a second time to finish it. The first time I made the opening to sit below the middle, which caused a serious problem — it reduced the depth of the bag and held very little pegs. That was a very stupid idea and I do think I was just as silly as the bag looked. Then I fixed it by putting the opening above the middle, everything seems fine then, though I admit that the upper half is still not usable anyway.

See, I could have just kept quiet about this project to show my respect to my husband’s feeling (as he liked the old plastic one and didn’t think making a cloth bag myself very necessary and a terribly brilliant idea). But guess what, he went out to help me to hang the washings this morning, and he took the peg bag with him as I insisted. He seemed very impressed and found it quite handy and enjoyable.

My work was validated accordingly. So now, I am feeling quite motivated to share it with other people in my blog

This is something that even kids can make. I actually got the idea from one of the kid’s cooking books. My husband is not a big fan of sausages, but I get cravings from time to time. I have to say, I am always obsessed with making stuff with puffy pastry. They can create tasty, fun and quick snacks and making less mess in the kitchen.

So, here is how I did it, as most of people probably already knew about it. Cut the 1 sheet of  puff pastry to 9 little squares, in the middle sprinkle some grated cheese (I used tasty cheese), then sit one chipolata in the middle cross-way on top of cheese, then wrap left and right pastry sheet into middle to meet. They should overlap each other a bit. Insert a tooth pick to secure the pastry and chipolata.

Lay them on a lined baking tray, put in a pre-heated oven for 220 degrees and bake for 15-20 minutes or until chipolata cooked through and pastry turn to golden colour. Dip in tomato sauce or any sauce you prefer, and eat!!!!

Isn’t this easy? For a lazy day when you don’t really want to cook too much, maybe just make a tray of these cute things and have them while you are watching a DVD on the couch. Well, that doesn’t sound very healthy, don’t do it! Or, if you do, just don’t tell anybody!

Knitting, crocheting, sewing…..after having experimented all the stuff that requires a needlepoint job, should I really be surprised that I finally get myself into embroidery now?

I suppose that I shouldn’t be, but I still was. Look, my mom used to do embroidery, as most of women do at that time? I remember she did some flowers to decorate a pair of pillowcases, which was an exquisite piece of needlework and had been used for many years by the family. That’s how I get the impression about embroidery. An embroidery work is supposed to look like that, and certainly I got the feeling that I could never achieve it. So if I can’t, why would I be bothered even trying?

About 3 days ago, I happened to see some nice embroidery work on the net. Instead of being classic as Mom’s embroidery, they are just being as cute as I would ever wish. Suddenly my eyes are wide open to a new world. I realised that I don’t need to be good to do this, and an embroidery doesn’t need to be always as perfect or serious as what I see in mom’s work or in those traditional Chinese Art & Craft Houses.

In the following days, I was overwhelmed by a feeling of “I can do it”, so I picked up the needle, grabbed a book from the library, got a piece of felt and some cotton threads in the drawer, printed out some patterns (from Sibling Craftery), and started to stitch.

I have no intention to even match my mom’s job. I just want to create some cute stuff that can be used in my daily life or just functioned as a way to express my needs. I am very bad at getting evenly placed stitches and I was so frustrated with not being able to successfully doing a french knot so far, even theoretically I do know how to do it. I am still trying different ways to transfer a pattern onto felt fabric, which is very difficult, and I wondered if I only should have used only 3-4 strands of cotton instead of all 6 strands.

But that’s my Tweet Hearts Birds, a pair of birds facing each other chatting? They are not perfect birds, but they are very happy

We went to friends’ place for the lunch this Sunday. Before I got to their place, my mouth was already watering, thinking that we were going to have “Shao Ji Gong” (a kind of spicy chicken stew using rooster as a main ingredient), which I only tried once in my life back to 1998 or 1999 in Chongqing when I went to visit my boyfriend’s parents ( that boyfriend had been upgraded into my husband soon after ).

One of his best friends treated us in a restaurant with Shao Ji Gong, which was very popular around that time. I couldn’t remember what it tasted like, as to me the food from Sichuan almost taste the same at that moment, all very hot, looking reddish, being covered with half plate or bowl of oil, red peppers and chillies, rich in flavours and making you sweat. However, I remembered the name, a funny name to call rooster. It sounds more like a dish to cook SOMEONE (similar to Lao Gong) instead of cooking an animal.

Well, our lunch was very delicious. Our friend, the talented cook and hostess from Chongqing, absolutely embraced Sichuan spirit in her cooking. I ate a lot, claiming myself being someone “eating for two” and doesn’t give a damn to weight gain, as well as a way to show my appreciation to the cook’s fantastic work. The rooster meat, unlike what I have thought before being tough and bony, was very nice and tender. It was a satisfying meal for a warm Sunday in the early summer time. I kind of enjoyed rubbing my already pointing-out belly after the lunch and just not wanting to move much around.

That was what I did when we went out to the park in the afternoon practising golfing. I was wearing a black felt hat (kind of fedora style) given by our male host and just sat there in the park looking at another 3 persons swaying the clubs, either hitting the balls, or NOT, or watching the balls flying into nowhere or disappearing in the bush. I was not even fetching the balls. It’s an interesting thing to observe how people response to their first try. I wondered at my age, if I would ever develop my interests towards something after getting a lot of frustrations rather than successful experience. It takes a lot to have self-control to just focus. In terms of that, I really admire our host. He is very persistent and I just felt quite guilty for us being not good companies of him after about only half an hour’s practising.

Anyway I took a photo of his historic golf gears. According to his wife, he dug them out from his father’s garage. I reckon it must have something in there way too much than what I can tell.

The other day I was on the phone with Jessy who happened to just have a look at those new photos of my new craft project — the red paper roses. Apparently she liked them, as she asked me if I have any other good paper craft ideas to try out. I told her “yes”, but as a matter of the fact, I realised that I am not just having a positive answer, I actually have many many ideas hovering in my head, which not only make me feel compelled to tell, but also make me feel a bit of “overloaded” at this moment.

I had to write them down eventually, then I found that there are at least 6-7 of them on the paper. No wonder!!!! I am kind of mixing them all up and don’t know where to start now.

So I have made my decision today. I will only concentrate on one project at a time, and the one I just had a test-out yesterday was a paper dome ornament. Here is the link.

It would be ideal to use a bit heavy paper, especially if you want a big sized ball.  But seriously, you almost can use any weight of paper, magazine paper, printing paper, scrapbooking paper, card stocks. I hoped that tissue paper or newspaper haven’t passed through your mind, as they are going to make the whole ball too fragile

The instruction is very clear and assembling is easy too. Just be as creative as you can get. Try different sizes  or different colours for different circles, or use different paper patterns, or embellish a plain colour dome with decorative stickers, like lady bugs, butterflies, stars, sparkling stuff, glitter……whatever you can think of.

A paper dome ornament can be hung anywhere, or just put on your desk, on a shelf or several in a row on a window sill. Comparing to those paper roses I made, I know that they are probably not so much functioning as free-formed decorative pieces, but it is an interesting project and you will be certainly amazed by its construction. If you are also interested in the math behind this, check out this diagram below. Now we are back to high school age, aren’t we?

I always like the savoury version of almost everything. I think in my body, there must be something going on and requiring me to provide salt all the time. I was never a fan of sweet food to solve a starving situation in my life. When I was really hungry, I don’t go to a lolly jag or a cookie tin to haunt my target. I would rather spend another 5 minutes to cook something on the stove with salt or brew a bowl of instant soup than munching a piece of dry biscuit.

That’s the motivation behind all these savoury buns that I made this Sunday. I got to try them out. Not just they look funky and kind of skill-demanding, it’s also because they make me smell something, something with the aroma of cooking oil, shallot and salty meat. The minced meat looks like tiny little stars scattering on the white background. I can remember many many years ago in the canteen of my uni , they always had these things available, even though they looked slightly different. We had to be quick or go there earlier, otherwise, there won’t be anything left.

The way to make these buns was interesting enough to keep me focused. Roll a dough to 3 big skin-ish pieces, brush each piece with oil, sprinkle with shallot, minced meat, then stack 3 layers together. The next step is to cut out this three layers piece of pastry into many thin strips (about 15-18 cm long), then wrap a bundle of strips together to form the shape of the bun. It’s a bit hard to handle the minced meat from falling as well as forming the strips together from falling apart, as not all of them sticking well on the pastry. However, I managed that part.

The buns look very cute and extremely complex if you don’t know how they are made. It’s more like an artistic work than a cook’s job. When I’ve got them all cooked in a steamer, I can smell it, a kind of very nice smell. However, I have to say that I did miss something there. I should have sprinkled salt on each piece separately, instead of trusting the cooked minced meat’s own salty flavour, which is just not salty enough. So, next time, I will make them better.

Well, I admit that my mind is too busy and I just can’t allow it to be idle.

Recently I found quite a number of pretty things made of paper. Many of them are very practical to do it yourself at home and would be a great decoration to add a bit of touch into your daily life.

I highly recommend this one — paper rose I found at dozidesign. She has written up a detailed tutorial to show you how to make them. I had so much fun making them myself. It’s easy, cheap but so beautiful. It’s a décor that costs you almost nothing but would last forever.

I used one sheet of dark red A4 printing paper (about 80 -85g weight) and it works quite nicely. I actually picked up some branches outside yesterday afternoon on the way home. Yes, I am probably a very odd (if not crazy) person. I felt like I was like a mother bird gathering all the branches to bring them back to the nest but hey, if you seriously look outside, you will find plenty of beautiful branches on the ground and they look much better and more natural than those sold in the shops.

I don’t have any great tips on how to roll the paper, but I have realised that apart from using varied sizes of paper to make roses, you can also alter the spiral shape, such as drawing a square spiral instead of a round spiral, which actually gives the final effect more pointing petal-liked, rather than just a spool of rolled paper. You can compare the difference from my photos. I reckon that it makes a rose looks more like a real rose. But maybe different people have different opinions on this one. It’s totally up to you.

However, if you do using square spiral, rolling is a bit tricky, you probably will end up with a bigger sized rose and not so much sticking up together like those round ones. But I believe that you will figure out your own way to roll it up and once you did, it looks just perfect.

You know, I am very bad at flower arrangement (I actually have some reputation and history known by my husband), but with this one, no matter what you come up with, it always looks gorgeous. Remember: You don’t really need many flowers to make it work – “Less is more”.

 今天尝试做了一种新的面食——即所谓的双色馒头，效果还不错，至少看着很象那么回事儿，挺能唬人的。其实想想，也不算是我的烹饪技术提高了，主要是我这个人比较容易厌倦一个固定的东西，普通馒头做得时间长了，就老想换换花样，娱乐自己也顺便娱乐一下“其它大众”。不知道这一点象我们家谁，好象有点我妈的影子，呵呵！

总之，我第一次看见双色馒头的照片时，觉得简直是天方夜谭一般的神奇产物。白色和巧克力色层层叠叠地缠绕在一起，形成了令人目瞪口呆的波浪螺旋形，我很怀疑这是不是用普通人手能鼓捣出来的东西，怎么越看越想是魔术棒挥出来的玩意儿？

可看过了几张有关做法的图解，我马上就恍然大悟了。世界上有些东西就是这样，看着万般复杂，但实际上掌握了机巧就是简单无比。我对这双色馒头做法的核心理解就是：用两张不同颜色的大面片叠在一起，然后卷吧卷吧形成筒状，再刀切成小段。白面发酵的原理不变，和基本馒头一致。弄出巧克力色面片的关键是在发酵的白面里掺入巧克力酱，可可粉或咖啡粉。我用的是普通的Baking Coco，闻着很coco，但尝起来其实什么味道也没有的。

不知道为什么，看了双色馒头的图片，我有一种对这种馒头的味觉的预期，就是觉得它们应该尝着是甜甜的，带巧克力和奶香味儿的。可惜我光顾着外表，忽略了内核，没想着要放糖，加奶或其它什么的，也许下次可以改进一下。不过，下次我又想换换别的面食花样了，未必再做这“神奇”的双色小馒头了。

不过如果你也想自己尝试一下，在别人面前“惊艳”一把，不妨看看这篇文章，可谓是图文并茂，一学就懂。我的照片是馒头们列着队，在上锅蒸之前拍的。蒸出来的馒头个头儿更大，表皮也更光滑一些，吃着和普通发酵的馒头差不多，但看着，掰开确实都挺好玩儿的，值得尝试！

Recently hubby has been spending a lot of time in the kitchen……making food for us……which I really appreciated it very much

The thing I am concerned the most is, how can he protect his hair from an often oily and smoky Chinese kitchen environment as we have realised that this is most of time the case.

I always have my cooking hat on while cooking, which is a knitted slouchy beret and can hide all my long hair underneath a very large undercover. But what about him? Bare head with short hair, I wondered if this is good enough…… not just for his personal image, also for the sake of the food that he cooks.

So, I decided to make a cooking hat for him as well, an one that makes him look just like those “iron chefs” on TV shows or any male professional chefs on any media. You know, those hats (often pure white) with a big wide band on the bottom, then a kind of loose and wrinkled “cloud” on the top.

I admit that I always wondered how those hats were made and where I could get them. I thought there must be a secret place to buy them, and only the real chefs working in a restaurant-levelled environment have the access to those secret places.

Then I came across Stardust Shoes, who has a super easy pattern to sew this fabulous chef’s hat.  I was like suddenly obtaining a password to the wonderland, soon entered a whole new world.

What amazed me was that the pattern is so simple. It’s basically just a rectangle band and a rounded circular. The actually sewing only takes about 5 minutes, but does need a little bit time to pin the loose circular into the band with the even intervals, which I found rather interesting.

The top fabric has very amusing texture, different colours of guitars. Trust me, if I could have found forks, spoons or cakes as the texture, I wouldn’t have chosen this. But I really don’t mind this one, kind of childish cute in a nice way. I don’t really care if my hubby think it’s too much, mind you that the only person who is going to see him wearing that is ME, who else would care?

So now I have appointed him as the King of the Kitchen by crowning him this Chef’s Hat hehe!

Two days ago, I went to the clinic and got my H1N1 vaccine done. Initially I thought I could have waited a bit longer then to bring it up until I see my doctor at the next appointment, but I supposed that it’s gotta be done anyway, so getting it done sooner would be better than getting it later.

So I made an appointment last Wednesday. It’s said that my doctor had approved me to do this. So I went there, then was told there was no record showing the approval. As a result of that, the nurses had to ask my doctor again.

I waited and waited, half an hour later, I saw my doctor came out of his office but apparently he was in the middle of chasing one of his patients who mysteriously disappeared for the time being. To be honest, my doctor is the one of the most busiest doctors I have ever seen in my life. He is everywhere, clinic, emergency room, hospital ward, and most of time it was after hours or after a surgery when he was still wearing a surgery cap. I often wondered if he ever sleeps, eats, spends time with his family or has ever been on a holiday. I think he works at least 15 hours a day from 7am to 10pm and for the rest of time, he is probably on call all the time.

Anyway, I got his permission finally after a bit of “Doctor Becker” type of scenarios. You know, doctors normally don’t recognise their patients very well when they are NOT in their office environment. I finally got my injection and was instructed to stay for a further 15 minutes in the clinic.

Another boring 15 minutes I waited, wondering if I would go into a shock or a sever allergy reaction or passing out or something. Nothing happened, and I was free to go. For the rest of that afternoon, I was fine, until late of that evening, I started to develop a bad headache.

I spent a whole night in my bed flipping over from one side to another, like a pie being cooked in a frypan. It was almost unbearable and the last time I had the same sort of level of pain was back to 10 weeks ago. I got up and tried to do something, but nothing really worked.

I eventually went back to the bed and prayed after another a couple of hours, it would be the early morning and headache will be gone and I will be back to normal.

Yes, it did happen though leaving me feeling very week in the morning, I suppose that is called “SIDE EFFECT”. Not sure if it’s caused by injection or it was just out of blue, or I was too stressed yesterday. I carefully checked all the documents that I could find in regards to H1N1 vaccine, it all suggested that it’s a safe practise for ordinary human being to take.

Two days later I am still here, despite feeling a bit sore around the injection area 24 hours afterwards. But it all cleared up now. No more dramas appeared to happen so far, and I can still feel some bubble balls being wheeled all around in there.

My husband said I am one of those “little white mice”——不小心当了一回小白鼠!