outdoor dining {One Room Challenge} week six: the reveal!

This is it, the big reveal from the One Room Challenge!

The rain stopped long enough to let me finish a couple things

and enjoy our first al fresco dinner for Mother's day!

And it was just I dreamed it would be:

The new table is huge,

I set it up for 6, but 8 will fit easily.

The bench is perfect for extra seating,

probably 3 people can sit there for a meal, especially children!

The table has great rustic charm, super sturdy

and made from old deck parts!

The colors of the seating area: indigo, turquoise/aqua and green are perfect with the eating area

The wall light stands out on the freshly repainted walls.

The string lights turned out beautifully,

the second row of light went faster than the first!

And at night, it gives the perfect glow for a meal,

or lounging on the couch.

I would say that overall, it was a great success,

even if not everything was done,

too much rain, not enough time!

sharing at decor to adore

and at the creative circle,

and Craftberry bush

calendar quilt

Well I did! I took my Fall dolls,

my Winter dolls, my Spring dolls, my Summer dolls,

and their houses/school. Here they are all together on this beautiful quilt.

And I love it, so fun!

Since all the dolls and appliques were just fused to the background,

I stitched and quilted it all at the same time,

as I have for many other applique quilts.

Like one of my favorite: farm life.

Here is fall, all quilted, with two trees and a house.

I quilted some extra details in the background, to make it more interesting

and also to keep it flat.

Then we have winter with his trees and a house.

I hand embroidered the leash of the dog.

Then it is Spring time with one tree and the school,

the tail of the kite is also hand embroidered, 

more texture is added with the quilting (clouds, trees).

Finally we have summer with trees and a house,

and of course the shop for school clothes.

For the back, I pieced the blue and green border fabric from the front,

and added a cherry print.

The quilt is finished with a simple black binding.

I have sent this quilt to my niece K, the one with the dolls book from a few years ago. Apparently she loves it! It does not get any better. Happy sewing!
sharing at Quilt Story

tartelette aux fraises

Strawberry season is in full swing,

one of my favorite time of the year!

About 5 years ago, I shared my tarte aux fraises,

well since then, I have learned some basic French pastry

at L'academie de cuisine,

and I have refined my technique for tarte.

Now I made tartelette (little tarte),

everything is better in single serving,

like cupcakes are better than cake!

Oh so pretty and tasty!

Here is my new version, with a better crust and a better creme patissiere.

First the "pate sucree"

8 oz of butter, room temp

4 oz of sugar

1/2 tsp of vanilla

1 egg

12 oz of flour (regular)

1/4 tsp of salt (I skip this as I only cook with salted butter)

Cream butter and sugar together, add vanilla then the egg.

Finally add the flour all at once mixing on low speed until just combined,

then work the dough on the counter until it is well mixed.

Divide the dough into 2 portions, about 1/2" thick round,

wrap them in plastic and refrigerate for at least 1h.

(it can be done the day before to save some time).

Roll the dough and put in the greased tart pan,

the refrigerate again.

Cut some parchment paper (coffee filter paper would work great for the small one)

and fill with some pie weights or rice/dry beans.

Bake at 375 for 10-15 minutes, remove the weights and paper

and bake for another 5-10 minutes until golden brown color

Mine cooked a minute or 2 extra, but it was still really tasty!

For the "creme patissiere"

I used to make it with corn starch, but I think it tastes better with flour, just takes a little longer.

1 cup of milk (supposed to whole but only have 2% at home and it works just fine)

3 egg yolks

4 oz of sugar

1 oz of flour

pinch of salt

1/2 tsp of vanilla.

Heat the milk to simmer.

In separate bowl, whisk egg yolk and sugar, then add flour and salt.

Slowly add the simmering milk to the egg mixture.

Return the mixture ti the pot and cook it over medium heat, whisking constantly.

Bring to a boil. Still whisking continue to boil until 

the pastry cream is thick and shiny (about 5 minutes)

Remove from heat and add the vanilla.

Strain the hot cream into a clean container

and cover it immediately with plastic wrap to avoid forming a skin.

Refrigerate to chill.

When both the crust and the cream are cold,

it is time to assemble the pies.

To give the strawberries an extra juicy look,

I heated up some strawberry jam with a little water, stained it

and brushed it over the fruit.

I tried a few different ways to put the strawberries on the tartelettes.

And for the one who does not like strawberries,

it totally work with raspberries,

tartelette aux framboises for Brick Master.

We will be enjoying some this week end

for Mother's day.

outdoor dining {One Room Challenge} week five

With only one week to go to the big reveal on the One Room Challenge, I was really hoping to get a lot of work done this week end... Unfortunately it rained all week end long, and it has been hailing and pouring even since! It stopped raining long enough on Sunday for us to start attaching string lights between the tree and the patio. It started out fine, I was quite happy at the idea of more pretty lights, I looked at the directions on the box, they could be hanged as they were as long as  the length was shorter than 24 feet, we were below that so no problem, right?

Sad face! Three trips later to Home depot (luckily fairly close)

Happy face! (house light from last week) We had to add some cable between the house and the tree to support the weight  of the string lights. After trying a few different tying system, we found one that work for us!

The first string was up, and then it started raining again. Electricity, wet ladder and rain are not a good combination, so it would have to wait.... The lights have successfully survived their first hail storm, so I feel like we are good. Now I would like some more dry time to be able to install another string... Speaking of downpour, we had an area that needed some help. After we removed the old deck, and the patio was installed, we were left with a big gap where rain from the whole yard had a tendency to accumulate....

very far from ideal. So we installed a French drain on the edge of the patio, retained by a mini brick wall, covered it with some stone (more drainage and aesthetics). Then Mon Cheri had a few yards of soil delivered, and shoveled it all to cover the area. The final trick has been trying to grow some grass, at least something green. Because of all the trees we have in the backyard and Malou(our young dog), things do not grow very well, but at least it is starting to grow and resemble grass, at more importantly the area is no longer a pool!

We added a couple of flagstone steps for Miss C. and her friends to go jump on the trampoline, I have lost the fight on loosing this piece of equipment.... It is still an eyesore, but a good exercise for tweens, so it will remain another year, may be next year I will win and we will try to grow more grass! Now let's look at what need to happen by next week: First thing, when/if it finally stop raining, I can screw my table top to the base, and stain the whole thing. Then attach the other string of light, touch up on paint, make some pillows  ( you would think with all the rain we had I would have time to sew...) find some cool accessories to decorate the place still lots to do, but nothing is possible until the rain stops! Wish me luck!

May the fourth be with you!

It is that magical time of the year.... where we can all embrace our inner geekiness!

Art: Clone Helmet by Miss C., present to her brother Brick Master  who has been passionate about Star Wars his whole life.
BB8 helmet also crafted by Miss C. has a costume, it all started with a beach ball and a lot of paper and glue.
My only addition: some Star Wars shape cookies, a tradition on this day. I seem to never have time to add the icing,,,
May the force be with you, always!

sweet little present for Mother's day

Are you still looking for a cute sewing project for Mother's day? It is not fast but it is such a fun project. Most of time is spent finding all the cute fabrics for the cover! I actually made this cute booklet for my mom for her birthday, it was lost for a couple weeks in Chicago but eventually made it. (the mail from DC to France goes through Chicago....!) I used a lot of prints from Ayumi of Pink Penguin (you can see her entire collection here)

It is only my second time using these prints, I previously made some gift card holder. But this time I fuzzy cut many prints to get all these sweet pictures: strawberries, sugar cube, tea pot, blueberries, apple pie, all the good stuff! I followed this tutorial from Fabric Mutt, it is pretty easy, the pocket is slightly challenging because it is small, but it adds to the cuteness factor.

I kept some of the outside sweetness inside with the cherry print and some more print from Ayumi collection. I also used this coquelicots (poppy)/butterfly print,  it has cool wording and great image. Below the pocket, there are large read poppy, very pretty.

I added a homemade booklet (from scrapbooking paper) with more butterflies on the cover. Happy sewing!