diy pickled shallots

top image by Sarah

A little more about that pickling session. Sarah and I lead the group in making pickled shallots, with a buffet of Choose-Your-Own-Adventure-Pickle-Spices: juniper berries, bay leaves, star anise, mustard seeds, peppercorns, on and on.

We call this a “Kitchen Sink Pickle” because you can throw in whatever vegetables you want. You could also add honey or sugar with you prefer your pickle with a punch of sweetness. This is a quick pickle, meaning you can make it before you start other dinner prep and it will be ready when you put everything on the table. It's enough time for the vinegar to take the raw hotness off the shallot.

We served this with duck confit and – this is the awesome thing about pickles – the addition cuts right through heavy, fatty dishes and brightens up the whole thing. I am a pickle convert. So I give you our recipe, as well as some ideas for different ways to dress up the final jars.

1 cup cider vinegar

1/2 cup water (plus more, if needed)

2 teaspoons kosher salt

2-3 teaspoons of your preferred pickling spices

2-3 shallots, sliced thin

1. Combine cider vinegar with water, salt and spices in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil.

2. Place shallots in a clean, dry glass jar just large enough to fit. Pour the brine over to cover completely. If there’s extra room at the top, add cold water to cover.

3. Cover with lid and refrigerate at least 30 minutes. The pickles will keep for about 10 days.

altitude design summit dinner

When Sarah and I committed to cooking dinner on the night of the eve of Altitude Design Summit, I didn’t quite realize that it would feel like creating a small wedding in one day. Like a wedding, it was creative and stressful and exciting. And ultimately, a whirlwind of happiness that felt reflective of our personalities.

We landed at HoJo’s on Tuesday night and got to work binding the booklets of recipes and photos and ironing birch veneer strips into what would become the overhead table decorations.

After a few hours of sleep, we roared into a professional kitchen the next day with grocery carts, a crate of wine, a suitcase of craft supplies, and a big case of nerves. The Alt team lined up the Roth showroom kitchen in Salt Lake City, run by Marie. In the final moments before the guests arrived – as we were frantically whisking and stirring and putting on mascara – Marie IRONED OUR DRESSES. She and her team of Jamie and Brenda went so above and beyond. We were family by the end of the night.

We chopped and prepped and decorated and at 7pm, a dozen bright, glittery, stylish ladies arrived. The energy lift was awesome. We clinked champagne glasses, made introductions, ate cheese and onion jam, and then moved into the kitchen classroom to decorate dinner napkins with hole punch stencils and fabric paint.

After that, it was onto a DIY pickling session. Then finally, the sit-down dinner, where everyone sounded like old, reconnected pals. As Sarah and I shuttled plates of food back and forth from the kitchen, we made dorky, over-the-top happy faces every time we passed each other because hearing the bubbly chitchat and oohing and ahhing seriously warmed our hearts.

Then it was all over, and we released the happy group into the cold Utah night.

marin love

I’m at Alt, folks! Will I see you there? 

Before I took off, Mike and I spent a weekend night with friends in Marin, where it smells so good and is so seductive. Part of the plan was to raid my pal MJ’s closet. But along with an armful of polka dots and stripes, I left with some other ideas too. Like patterns tucked into every concievable corner. MJ's oatmeal breakfast buffet. Her kids’ rad wood toy that I wanted to steal. Inspiration from Edward Emberley’s woodcuts in Paul Bunyan. And the best salt cellar ever – made from a Shrinky Dink.

blueberry brandy

Remember that little experiment with the brandied blueberries back at the end of the summer? Well, gang, this one was a winner. The blueberry brandy is even better, dare I say, than the blueberries themselves.

We cracked into a jar when we ran out of brandied cherries, and we tried them in an old-fashioned the other night. Holy deliciousness. I think at our next dinner party, I’m going to serve the blueberry brandy straight up as a digestif. It sounds like something that a 15-year old would sneak out of their parents’ drinks cabinet but it’s actually very grown-up tasting. Mellow and not sugary-sweet at all. A taste of summery berries to warm your bones in winter.

a practical wedding

Photo: One Love Photo

Meg Keene – who is feisty and funny and smart, and with whom I have had the pleasure of ripping it up on the dance floor – wrote a book called “A Practical Wedding” based on her website of the same name.

This is the book I wish I had when Mike and I were finding our way through our wedding planning all those years ago. What we experienced is probably familiar to most thinking, feeling, discriminating couples: it felt a harder task to maintain vigilance against everything we didn’t want at our wedding than to simply make happen what we did want. This is utter craziness, yes. It's why I wound up the day before telling my sisters and best friend through blubbery tears that all I wanted was to marry Mike and that suddenly felt lost.

It turns out, that wasn’t lost. Not by a long shot.

We got married in my parents’ barn. We actually moved them out of their own home. They were totally game to put their furniture in a moving van and park it out of sight at the neighbor’s house overnight.

We loved all of it. But it wasn’t without some heartache along the way. Which Meg explains is normal. In this book she will be your friend, your advocate, cheering you on to create a day that is actually (shock!) reflective of you and your partner. She is forthright and wise and rooting for you.

Congrats, Meg. You nailed it.

simple leather necklace

I have been on a leather kick lately, starting when I messed around with leather for the cuff bracelet in the book. It's a project a lot of people seemed taken with – I think because people realized that they didn’t need big leatherworking studios to make simple accessories.

I’m lucky that I live in a city with an incredibly well-stocked leather warehouse, where they are happy to sell me “necks” off the hides. This year, I bought a couple metallic leathers and made this very simple necklace for my sisters and mom. Look for leather suppliers in the upholstery section of your Yellow Pages (yep, I still use those) and in big, higher-end fabric stores. Using a pair of fabric shears keeps a clean edge.

I cut two circles – one smaller, one larger – and then cut across one edge to remove the curve. Then I stacked the smaller circle on top, made a guide hole with a needle through both layers, pushed a jump ring through, and added some chain and a clasp. This is one of those projects that is dead simple and luxe at the same time – a combination of qualities that I am particularly fond of!

on nostalgia and homesickness

There’s something about being within the landscape I grew up in, especially in the muted winter. The cold creek that smells like wet rocks, bright stars in the inky night sky, and blazing fires in a big stone fireplace.

I couldn't get enough of it on this trip back to Virginia – especially the landscape. The slope of the rolling hills, the stripped-down winter palette, the curve of the dirt roads. Clearly, I am getting more sentimental. It's easy and seductive to imagine yourself inserted back where you became who you are. So on the plane ride back out to California, this passage from The Solace of Leaving Early by Haven Kimmel – when a preacher is struggling to craft his sermon – stopped me dead in my tracks.

“That wasn’t really what he wanted to say. What he was aiming for was nostalgia, heartache, homesickness. Or stranger yet, the heart’s desire to return to someplace it had never been. He thought of his own bizarre tendency to long for other lives…

Why does this happen to us? Because we have abandoned an infinite number and variety of pure possibilities, and perhaps they live alongside the choices we did make, immortalized in the cosmic memory. Perhaps there are unknown lives walking alongside ours, those paths we didn’t take, and we reach for them, we ache for them, and don’t know why.”

happy new year

Camillas are in bloom in California this time of year, when the calendar flips over to a new year. This is one on my bedside table. I hope your year unfurls beautifully and mysteriously as this cluster of gorgeousness.

I have come to love the symbolism of a new year and its fresh start — the idea not so much of leaving behind last year’s big joys and big sorrows and everything in between. But having it be okay to move on, look forward, and wonder what’s ahead. So Happy New Year. I’m so grateful and glad that we’re all here together. xo

wishing you everything merry and bright

Mike and I are headed to the barn to sit in front of a big roaring fire and eat and drink and make merry – so I’m powering down next week to savor all those big and small moments. Winter walks and hot chocolate with marshmallows and being in the cozy company of family and friends.

If you want to get a sense of what it might be like, you can read some of my childhood memories over here. Including the annual Wilkinson Family Nativity Play. I am not kidding about that one – here’s proof.

Those are my sisters in the front and I’m in the back as the angel – please note the 1970s bathroom towels standing in as wings.

I’ll be back in the New Year to catch up with you all. In the meantime, I wish you everything merry and bright. xoxo

pop-top holidays

Full disclosure to this post: our friend Andy – who started the company Escama Studio – has employed me in the past to come up with step-by-step tutorials. This is no exception. Andy appeared on our doorstep the morning after Viktor Lina from Project Runway rocked this pop-top necklace. Andy was hopped up on the idea of telling people how to make their own (he actually owns the patent for the design). So if you're in need of a last-minute gift and have a soda addiction that keeps you well-stashed with a source of pop tops, here's an idea.

Escama Studio also has a tutorial for a snowflake ornament that requires fewer pop tops. And my mother, who is a big fan of their designs, just sent this ornament to me, no crochet required!

toot toot

(this amazing megaphone is from Yanko Design)

I'm a little loathe to do these press round ups because it just feels so me! me! me! But to be honest, the reason I share them is because I’m so proud of the book and the attention it's getting. And you all are so big-hearted and generous in cheering me on. So I don't want to keep anything from you.

Big thanks to Amy Azzarito at Design*Sponge for including Weekend Handmade in her book round up. It is such an honor to be endorsed by someone with such stellar taste.

Andrea Shea at WBUR in Boston and I bonded over our shared love of both radio and craft, and she blended both in her recent piece on the popularity of crafting. She was kind enough to interview me as a small part of her story.

Lisa Boone from the Los Angeles Times made a set of luminaira with her kids and said really nice things about the book here. I can't tell you how happy and proud it makes me to see people put their own spin on the projects. It was truly the whole reason for writing the book -- to see the projects come to life in other people's hands. 

If you happen to live in western Loudoun in Virginia, please come out this Friday night for a glass of wine and book signing at Dry Mill Vineyard in Leesburg. It's from 5-7 pm and you can meet my parents! I'm headed back to the barn for Christmas so this event will be really special since it's on my growing-up turf.

dip-dyed filter garlands

This year, I’m drawn to cozy natural decorations with a hit of glitz. The combo feels very Northern California to me: we’re normally a low-key bunch, but we’re all adding some sparkle for the holidays.

I made these with natural basket-style coffee filters, dip-dyed in food coloring and gold paint. These are so simple to make and I keep moving them around – one day they’re perched horizontally on the mantle, and the next they’re dangling from a window with the fat, ruffled filters looking like rosettes.

It couldn’t be easier:

1. Dilute 8-10 drops of food coloring into a bowl and add a couple tablespoons of water. The colors will dry much lighter than they appear wet, so I kept the concentration of the coloring pretty strong. Take a coffee filter and fold in half, then in half again. Dip the ruffled edges in food coloring and repeat with additional filters, setting them on newspapers to dry. For the gold-edged filters, I painted gold paint on the bottom inch of the filters.

2. Once filters are dry, assemble the “rosettes” by placing three filters (still folded into quarters) in a circular pattern. Secure each folded edges to the one above it with a glue dot. Next, pinch the centers and arrange the filters in a fan shape. Punch a hole through the bottom.

3. Using paper-wrapped floral wire, run the wire though the hole and tie to secure. Add pine needles and other decorations by wrapping the ends with wire. Repeat to build your garland.

4. Now, here’s the secret to getting the filters to fluff up into fat, ruffled goodness instead of hanging flat and limp: as you open the layers, place miniature glue dots liberally in between the layers to hold them open.

And there you have it, my humble coffee filters, snazzed up for the holidays. The dip-dye gives a lovely, soft watercolor effect and the gold adds a faint whiff of glam. Which way do you prefer – suspended from the window, or draped across the mantle?

my first ever cookie swap

My mom has many talents, but baking is not one of them. My Dad was and still is the family baker, but I don’t remember him ever heading to a cookie exchange to swap Betty Crocker treats.

So having just attended my very first cookie swap, I can definitively say that my parents missed out. I must have come home with five pounds of sugary goodness, from dark chocolate bark with Marcona almonds to a cookie called Santa’s Crack.

Jodi’s famous cookie swaps were immortalized in this article last year. And she wrote a how-to for throwing your own. I particularly adored the stacks of heavy bakery boxes and waxed paper she puts out for everyone’s haul (not to mention her most excellent wallpaper).

where all the lights are bright

I’m not a big shopper this time of year but that doesn’t stop me from heading downtown to bask in the displays and twinkling lights. Even after all these years of living here, the lit-up palm trees still give me a kick because they are so goofily Californian.

I ducked into Gap and look what I found.

Remember my string art last Valentine’s Day? Well, Gap is so adorned in yarn that it’s practically baaing.

lo-fi holiDIY: yarn and fabric trees

Our entry hallway was in need of a little extra holiday oomph, so these très cool yarn trees at One Pearl Button (spotted via Ez) had me raiding my yarn stash as soon as I saw them. As soon as I finished wrapping the first one in yarn, I wanted to try something different. So I wrapped the next in natural batting, and the last in tissue paper and added washi tape and stamps.

I made the tree forms from poster board but you could easily use old birthday hats as the base and do this with kids using fabric or decorative paper. And while I love them all, the plain downy white one might be my fave. It doesn’t translate as well in the photo but the texture and color reminds me of snowdrifts and marshmallows – two of my favorite things this time of year.

tropically festive

Our friend Jack, of Nancy Boy fame, made these for their holiday display. Do you see what they are? Cocktail umbrellas, people! He made a cardboard frame, wrapped it with rice paper, and poked these through. He did a drum lampshade too but I neglected to take a snap of that.

So genius, cheery and bright.

persimmon love

Before I lived in California, it’s fair to say I had no earthly idea what a persimmon was. If you haven’t seen them, the trees are beautiful to behold in the fall as their leaves drop and reveal what look like flame-colored lanterns. The fruit is such a rich color that it feels like it should be on an Indian sari instead of a tree.
 
My friends recruited me for their great Dehydration Persimmon Project of 2011. And it was indeed a mother of a project, since one single tree can easily produce 10 big tote bags worth of fruit. I only clocked in for one shift, but I love these mundane tasks, especially when the endless peeling and slicing is done in such good company, by candlelight with a glass of wine inside a cozy home on a cold fall night. 

tidbits of news

photo from here

A couple exciting things here in the land of Weekend Handmade.

First, I appeared on KQED’s airwaves – not as a reporter, but as the subject of an interview on The California Report. Host Rachael Myrow and producer Suzie Racho produced a rockin’ segment that I was proud to be part of. You can listen right here as we talk about the book and Rachel confesses that she has two left thumbs when it comes to crafting. That admission came just as we embarked upon making the Pressed Flower Luminaria – but afterwards, Rachel said she hoped to make them again with her nephews, so I’m claiming that as a crafty success.

Also, I was on KUOW in Seattle for a freewheeling conversation with Katy Sewall. I loved her relaxed style – seriously, I could have talked to her for days. There’s no audio for that one. And while I would really have loved you to hear it, my inner Luddite sort of appreciates that poof! one moment our convesation filled my living room, and the next it’s gone. Like sands through the hourglass, people.

Finally, for you locals, I’ll be signing and selling books at Nancy Boy on Hayes Valley on Friday night, as part of the annual Hayes Valley Block Party. Please stop by and meet our hilariously funny and talented friends Eric and Jack, who founded Nancy Boy. Their products can change your day – really, drop a few beads of their signature scent essential oil on your pillow and tell me that your addled state of mind isn’t vastly improved. That's this Friday, December 2^nd from 6-9pm at 347 Hayes Street.

And finally, if you can’t make it in person, I’m down to the last few copies of Weekend Handmade that I have available as signed copies. You can buy them right here, for all the crafters and wanna-be crafters on your list. Thanks everyone, as ever, for all the support and love for the book. It means so much.

thanksgiving nourishment

A poem from Kay Ryan called “The Best of It”:

However carved up
or pared down we get,
we keep on making
the best of it as though
it doesn’t matter that
our acre’s down to
a square foot. As
though our garden
could be one bean
and we’d rejoice if
it flourishes, as
though one bean
could nourish us.

a short story of an afternoon

Here was a lovely, unplanned thing in between the book party and family visits and Sarah’s and my first crack at our ALT menu and our pal’s rock concert: A late afternoon ferry ride over to Bainbridge Island, just Mike and me. Bundled up for the cold, lavender-grey skies, hot chocolates in hand for the ride over. Then strolling along the water’s edge among fallen leaves the size of dinner plates, and finding a warm spot for soup and a perfectly muddled old-fashioned.

The end.