We had an opportunity to go to Montreal for a few days and turned it into a mini-vacation. Although it would be hard to top the dreamiest time we had on our first trip there, it was a lovely few days. Local beers were drank, bagels consumed, coffees sipped, and many nice walks taken. Such a nice place to visit….

It’s astounding to me that I survived the first 30 years of my life without every experiencing fennel. I really don’t understand how I could have missed out on it for so long, but after having been introduced to it in a salad made by a friend a few months ago, I’m pretty much obsessed. We’ve been trying fennel in different ways and then had this salad as part of a delicious meal at a local pizza restaurant. I was so taken with it that I tried to reproduce something similar at home a few days later. You wouldn’t think that oranges and olives would taste good together, but they really do!

1 large fennel bulb
2 cups boston lettuce leaves, chopped
2 clementine oranges
1/2 cup sliced kalamata olives
1/4 cup olive oil (of the best quality you can afford)
2 Tbsp lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste

Slice the fennel bulb in half lengthwise and slice thinly. Separate the orange segments and slice each in half lengthwise. Combine with lettuce and olives in a bowl. Combine dressing ingredients, drizzle over the salad and serve.

I’ve had this vintage fabric for awhile, and I love it so much that I’ve been saving it for just the right project. Then when we were in Denmark at the Marimekko store and I was coveting all the bags there I had an idea to make a bag sort of like this one out of this fabric. The shape is pretty close, although not exactly the same, of course.

But I tried adding a zipper for the first time in this way and it went better than expected. I’ve been carrying this bag around for awhile now and it still makes me pretty happy every time I pick it up. So a success, I guess!

1. hedgehog pincushion_080605, 2. three wishes (detail shot), 3. Corujice, 4. dolly shoes,

5. Block Party Quilt, 6. Untitled, 7. dogs, 8. city made of wood,

9. roundy :: colored rays, 10. A Girl And Her Owl, 11. Embroidery hoop gang, 12. polaroid-embroidery-hoop,

13. Pillow Swap 2 – front, 14. dang owl bag, 15. Pillow Swap – A little bird, 16. DQS#8

Received as a gift, this cuckoo clock from decoylab which we totally love.

Been going through my box of fabric scraps, picking possibilities for a new project. It’s nice to find a use for bits of my favorites.

Right before we left on our trip to Costa Rica, I decided to whip up an organizer case to keep all our travel documents in. I hate rooting around in the bottom of my purse for important pieces of paper, or even worse, not remembering where I stuck my passport after the last time I used it. So I thought if everything was in one place it would make things easier. After looking around on the internet for some instructions, I came up empty handed. I did see a few types of organizers that were about what I was looking for and I thought I could puzzle out how to construct something close. This is what I came up with, and I thought I’d document it in case anyone else is looking for something similar. The instructions for the zippers are a little but tricky, but hopefully you can follow the steps that I took without too much confusion.

You’ll need three different types of fabric, cut into the following sized pieces:

Fabric A
10 x 12
4 pieces of 6 x 5

Fabric B
2 pieces of  6 x 10
6 x 8
6 x3

Fabric C
10 x 12
2 pieces of 6 x 5
6 x 3
6 x 10

2 6-inch zippers

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I guess Easter’s got me thinking about eggs, because I’ve been scheming about making deviled eggs all week. When we were little and would dye dozens of eggs all kinds of crazy colours before easter, my mom would often make them into deviled eggs once we were done, so maybe that’s why I’ve had the craving.

I decided I wanted to make some different flavours of eggs rather than just the traditional type with mustard, but when I was looking around on the internet it was trickier than I thought to find new ideas. I guess everybody loves the standard so much that there’s no need to mess with success? I ended up making three kinds – dill and caper (inspired by a Martha Stewart recipe), chipotle and lime, and fresh basil. They were all delicious – but I think the dill and caper was my favorite.

Deviled Eggs Three Ways
(Dill and Caper, Chipotle Lime, and Fresh Basil)

Ingredients:

One dozen eggs, hard boiled
Salt and pepper to taste

Dill and Caper:
3 Tbsp mayonnaise
2 Tbsp finely chopped fresh dill
1 Tbsp capers, chopped
2 tsp Dijon mustard (whole seed grainy mustard is nice if you’ve got it)
2 tsp lemon juice

Chipotle Lime:
3 Tbsp mayonnaise
2 tsp lime juice
2 Tbsp Chipotle sauce

Fresh Basil:
3 Tbsp mayonnaise
2 Tbsp fresh basil, finely diced
2 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp vinegar

After boiling your eggs (14 minutes for large eggs), place them in an cold water bath to stop cooking. When completely cooled, remove shells. Slice each in half and remove the yolks. Place the yolks from four of the eggs each into three separate bowls. Mash the yolks well and mix in the mayonnaise and other ingredients for each of the three flavours, as indicated above. Add salt and pepper to taste. Spoon the three different yolk mixtures into the whites, or pipe it in using a pastry bag with a large tip. Refrigerate until ready to serve and sprinkle with paprika just before you serve them!

With all this unusually warm weather we’ve been having, things are really starting to pop up in the garden. It still seems a bit wrong to me that it’s this warm in the first week of April (climate change anyone?) but I have to admit I’m enjoying it!

I thought that my arch nemesis, the squirrel that lives in our tree, had dug up and eaten all the bulbs I planted last fall, but it seems that he missed a few which is a nice surprise.

In honour of April, I’ve put up a new craft soundtrack for you to listen to (all legal mp3 downloads) in the right column. It took me a while to warm up to the She & Him thing, but now I’m totally into it just in time for the release of Volume 2 and a Toronto tour stop!

The other songs this month are:
SHE AND HIM – thieves
NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL – holland 1945
APOLLO GHOSTS – things you go through
BELLE AND SEBASTIAN – funny little frog
DAMON AND NAOMI – eta
THE NATIONAL – bloodbuzz ohio
THE PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART – come saturday
MICHAEL YONKERS – lovely gold
SONNY AND THE SUNSETS – death cream
M WARD – rave on