Who wears the apron

I used to enjoy cooking, but now that I have to do it all the time, it's not quite as fun. A few days ago I made my first custard from Epicurious' chocolate cream pie recipe. It turned out well and it was exciting when the consistency changed at boiling point and little clumps of hot custard flew out of the pot like lava drops. But lately my brother is the real cook in the family. He has a cooking blog, in fact. Don't go there hungry! I've eaten this tartlet up above. Actually it has the name of "Vanilla bean patisserie." I couldn't pronounce it but I sure could eat it fast. My brother made it for me when I visited : )

Alter ego

I have also started sewing in the last few years. My production has slowed down immensely since my job started, but here is my first quilt from 2005 (has it been that long?). It's an applique with batiks, and I learned how to do it during a class at the (sadly) now defunct Cotton Boll. The teacher hand-dyes her own fabric and makes stamped appliques herself. The nice thing is you can just sew all crazy-crooked, and cut pieces irregularly, and not match colors and it looks better! My friend Julie took class there with me but she has a much different aesthetic (and is going to be famous some day). That is why she is now in New York. Visit her here.

Monkeying around

Today I pretended I knew what I was up to with GIMP. I managed to inject some color into a photo of an old shed in Wyoming. It was fun!!

For the first take, I may have overused the Unmask sharpen overmuch.

I backed off the Unsharpen. But it's less green. I dunno how to use layers yet.

Here are some photos to choose from:

This is my first entry!

I am very excited. I never thought I would have a blog. But, now my friend Haris is going to show me how to edit photos using GIMP. We will pick one of my digital photos and go from there. You can follow the process. Thanks for reading!