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Friday, June 29, 2007

How To Make An Apple Pie

First, cut 1/2 cup of butter into 1 1/2 cups of flour (you have to use real butter). When the mixture looks like coarse crumbs, add 1/4 cup of cold water. Form this into a ball, and roll it out, turning 1/4 turn after each pass with the rolling pin. When it's big enough, transfer to a pie dish and fancy up the edges. You can use a fork if you don't want to crimp them up like the photo.

P.S. My grandfather made that rolling pin for my mom when he had to cut down her favorite tree in the yard. It's probably 35 years old.
Next, peel, core and slice five Granny Smith apples. I like to overfill the pie. Five apples will cause some oven spill-over, but if you put the pie on a foil-lined cookie sheet, it will catch them. It's totally worth it. I only use Granny Smiths because they are awesome and make other apples look like chumps. In the same bowl you used for the pie dough, mix together 1 cup of sugar, 4 tablespoons of flour and about 2 teaspoons of cinnamon (I don't measure the cinnamon). Some people like to add nutmeg, but I don't like nutmeg, so it doesn't go in my pie. Mix this up really well. This will make a nice, thick apple-pie gravy, instead of a watery mess when it's baked. Put this mixture over your apples, mix them up, and then put them into the pie crust.

For the top, instead of a traditional crust, I like to make a crumb, strudel-like topping with pecans. I mix 1/2 cup of brown sugar with 1/2 cup of flour and then blend in 4 tablespoons of butter with my fingers. When it's sufficiently blended, mix in about 1/2 cup of chopped pecans. Sprinkle this evenly over the pie top. If you want a traditional crust, double the pie dough recipe and divide it in two.

Put the pie on a foil-lined cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for about 90 minutes. I tend to leave it in a long time, because I like the apples to be over done. Put a piece of foil loosely over the pie top to keep it from burning. Those pecans will burn with a quickness.

Sunday, June 24, 2007

Mammal

This is so fucked up and awesome. We love this one. Right now, we have a few bags in the works that may or may not get us kicked off of Etsy. Usually, when the ideas make us laugh so hard we can't breathe, we know we have to make them.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Start

Randi made this little gem. It's inspired by the Super Mario world, and the pockets on the front are seriously groundbreaking. She's all up in your ass with this one. Check our Flickr for more photographs.


I made these. They were done last night, but I wanted to wash them to make them shrink before I stuffed them. I put the buttons in today. I also painted my garage doors, and built a new place to take photographs. I used some MDF and bead board I had hanging around, and I painted it a very light blue. I love the concept, and it works really well, but we'll see how the color works out. I would have liked to have brighter light, but it was later when I took these. I'm greasy and have paint in my hair.

Friday, June 15, 2007

White Trash Third Nipple


Randi made this. It's a cat belly. It's also a purse. The teats, or nipples, are made from pink Ultrasuede. It's a little obscene and very funny. She had the idea to make something like this with three nipples and call it "White Trash Third Nipple". It seems like we have a lot of white-trash friends who have third nipples. I don't know what that's about.

This purse was a custom order. I love the way it turned out. I have another purse cut out and started, as well as a couple throw pillows. I might keep them all, I don't know.

Saturday, June 9, 2007

Golden Bugs


Randi has started her Golden Bug series. Using a side quest from The Legend Of Zelda as inspiration, she’s handcrafting golden bugs and reinterpreting them in handbags. This is the second installment, and I think the little bug compartment is perfect, almost ethereal.
I’ve been working on exciting projects as well, but I can’t quite talk about them yet, and frankly it’s taking me down. I’m excited, and I can’t keep secrets.
We also went to the Rose Festival today. I took quite a few photographs, and I plan to use them for some projects.

Monday, June 4, 2007

Radish Spirits, Squeeze Frames


RED! I made two of these yesterday. I love the red the most. I also got a purse-hardware shipment which included some fantastic little squeeze frames. I've been making little radish spirit purses, but I've had to hold back a little, because it would be easy to fill my shop with them. I also made salamander sleeping pants for my husband. You'll just have to imagine them for right now.

It's summer finally, my kids swim all day and I sew, and then we all eat things like barbecued chicken off the grill. I'm having a pretty good time.