When I am frustrated with a project, but not frustrated enough to pour a big glass of wine and watch some trashy tv, I make pillows. We have a lot of pillows. Tell me I am not the only one who does this. Do you turn to simple projects to make you feel better when you are failing miserably?

The fabric for the new ones are, from right to left: some ikea fabric left over from the crib bumper, plain old random blue fabric (some of which is half way to being shorts for my son), and this awesome drop cloth print by Jay McCarroll.

One more too, because that Wiksten tank I’m trying to fix is looking pretty Becky HomeEcy. This print is by Geninne who did a lovely line of organic fabric for Cloud 9.  I fell for it when Erin made this top (it seems the wiksten tank is haunting me).

Usually, I hold off posting recipes here until I have the exact measurements and directions for making it, which means I never get around to sharing any recipes with you. Dinnertime is always crazy and often straight up chaos. My cooking style has become a few glugs rather than tablespoons, half a palm full rather than teaspoons, and whatever cup-like thing is in reach rather than a cup, because the actual measuring cups are in the sandbox. But I still want to share some recipes with you. If you keep in mind that my ingredient measurement are estimates and the directions are guidelines, then I think we’ll be okay.

Lamb and Feta Burgers with Tzatiki

for the burgers:

• 1 1/2 – 2 lb ground lamb (I like to make a lot to insure I can have some for lunch the next day)
• 4 or so oz feta
• 1/4 cup (handful) chopped cilantro or parsley (a little mint thrown in there is nice too)
• 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
• zest of one lemon
• salt and pepper

for the tzatziki:

• about 6 inches of a cucumber, peeled
• 1 cup good yogurt
• 1 clove garlic (optional, my children think it’s too spicy, silly children)
• salt and pepper

directions for the burgers:

1. Put the lamb in a big bowl with the garlic, herbs, and lemon zest. Crumble the feta into the bowl as best you can, smallish is better but really if there are big chunks it doesn’t matter. Mix everything up with your hands. Salt and pepper the mixture liberally.

2. Shape the patties. I usually make them on the smaller size: 3 inches, I’d say. Obviously any size is going to work.

3. Fry or grill those suckers until they are done to your liking.  If you end up frying them, use only a bit of oil in the pan because lamb gives off a lot of fat.

for the tzatziki:

1. Grate your cucumber into a bowl

2. Put all of it in your hands and working over the sink squeeze out the excess water–there is a lot. See unsqueezed, squeezed cucumber photo above.

3. Add your yogurt. As a side note, I really love this whole milk yogurt. We used to get the Stoneyfield yogurt, but then they very abruptly stopped making the cream on top kind and now their yogurt just tastes like gelatin to me. Obviously I’m picky and should probably make my own, but until I stop being lazy this Super Natural yogurt is totally delicious.

4. Add chopped garlic, and salt and pepper to taste. That’s it. I’m going to show you this picture because when it’s all mixed up it looks rather boring.

Tzatziki is delicious slathered all over the burgers. The kids use it as a dip. I try to get away with not even putting the damn ketchup on the table for the kids, but one of them usually remembers (the picky one).  We don’t use buns, but you of course could. To round out the meal, I use the rest of the cucumber for a salad and then make some other vegetable. That night it was peas (because I was so freaking busy taking pictures), but sweet potato fries are perfect with this meal.

There you are. This is dinner for two adults, one first grader, one garbage gut of a 5 year old boy, and one very picky toddler. Adjust to the size (and size of appetite) of your family.

It’s not all wine and finished projects in these parts. Trust me there are plenty of half done–half assedly done–things shoved in various corners of my studio. This afghan is not destined for one of those corners (I hope). It is actually coming along quite nicely.  I fell in love with this vintage afghan that Miss Rachel from Smile and Wave picked up at her local thrift. I had been looking around for crochet patterns I could use to make a blanket for my son, but nothing seemed right until that blue number popped up. A commenter on pinterest pointed me to a pattern on ravelry called the Vintage Fan Ripple Stitch Pattern, which turned out to be exactly the same as the original afghan. I went out and bought a bunch of yarn the next day.

I liked all the blues in Rachel’s blanket, so I stuck with that and threw some gray in for good measure. Ravelry came to the rescue again when I ran out of the light blue yarn I was using. The heathered light blue was by Berroco Vintage, which I had in my stash, and when I went back to my local yarn store for more they were all out. After a look on the interwebs, I discovered Berroco didn’t even make that colorway anymore. Luckily there was someone on ravelry who had two skeins of it for sale! I don’t know why the two rows of light blues look different in the photo–trust me they are not. Oh also there are more nerdy crochet details on ravelry. 

The other half done project is not coming along as nicely. The first time I made the Wiksten Tank it was nice, but it was a smidge small.  So I cut a medium this time. Well turns out the first one wasn’t small, it was just that the material I used didn’t have any give to it. The medium is too big everywhere and if I try to take the sides in, the wide set straps make me look, umm, beefy.  I can’t shove it in the corner because this fabric was expensive as hell. So here’s my plan: I’m going to cut this tank apart, cut the small from it (a little lower down), and then add a band of color to the bottom. What do you think? I picked up some navy linen that I think will work. I’m hoping it won’t look hackneyed.

Last winter we went on an amazing trip to Kauai. When we went the kids were 5, almost 4, and 1 at the time. They remember some things, but not too much. We try to tell stories about it and look at pictures from when we were there, because I’m guessing we won’t be back for a long while. That’s where these pillows come in.

Kauai is a teeny island with one main road that goes almost all the way around the island. When you are driving one way the ocean is on your side and when you turn around and drive the other way the mountains are on your side. Most directions include one or the other to help you find your way. The Hawaiian for this is mauka and makai:

– Mauka (mow-kah) means on the mountain side of the road.

– Makai (mah-kigh) means on the ocean side of the road.

The big kids each had their side of the car (the baby was in the middle). That mean one kid was mauka and the other makai. They would have argument about which was better and rub it in if they got the good side. Of course once we turned around and went home, the other one would rub it in. Some days the mountains were the favorite and other days it was the sea.

I’m not super big on souvenirs (except we got a hula girl of course), so I made the pillows, hoping it would help the kids hold on to  a bit of Kauai. The mountain is a simple green triangle. And yes it has snow, shut up it looks good. My first idea for the ocean pillow was to make it look like this, but when I sewed it up, it looked like a blue santa hat. I was working on these pillow right after I made this potholder and I was getting into the polka dot as neutral thing–as you can tell with the ocean pillow. I really love how it turned out: the day side, the night side, and polka dots all over the damn place.

and the winner is…Avital, who said:

I’ve got a roll of tyvek that my construction working husband brought me home from the garbage pile at a construction site, and I need to make some things with it. I was a little daunted by its whiteness, and it actually never occurred to me to try painting it. duh. I am not to clever sometimes. I make a lot of things out of felted wool sweaters and old t-shirts, and thanks to Maya’s inspiration I rescued a stack of coffee sacks a while back and have been making buckets from her pattern and then branched out into other things with burlap , and it has been great fun. I’d really like to win a copy of this book, so fingers crossed!

Get that tyvek out! Avital, if you’d send me your deets I can forward them on to Wiley Craft (elsiemarleyblog@gmail.com)! Thanks to everyone who entered. Please do check out the book, it really is a good one.