Pinkham Millinery

Two weeks ago. Pencil Girl, Theatre Girl & I
attended the grand opening of Pinkham Millinery.

Miss Pinkham's creations have just been published in a history of hats book entitled Couture Hats: From the Outrageous to the Refined  by Louis Bou. Dayna is one of four Americans featured and the only american milliner outside of New York.

 I debated whether to use this photo since there is such a rosa parks' feel to it.
This gal knew Pencil Girl from a class at Portland Sewing and had taken a class from Dayna Pinkham to make this hat.
 The sweet pale pink in her hat perfectly matches her well put-together outfit.
Striking.

 Simply brilliant creations.

From cupcake hats to over the top. With discreet netting to feathers & fur.

  A fashion show plus some nibbles and bubbly.


 

Live jazzy music

Tools of the trade

Workspace

Located at 1012 SW Washington  Portland, OR 97205 in downtown Portland, Oregon, Pinkham Millinery is a workroom as well as a showroom.
Art.

Clam Chowder, non-dairy

I have had a gigantic craving for clam chowder the last two weeks. It occurred to me that I could make some - with coconut milk.
I have used coconut milk with great success with cream of broccoli soup but, frankly, how much green soup can a person eat in their lifetime? (rhetorical)

I haven't had as much creative clutter up in my head lately. Working full-time with overtime and zero time for breaks, I am always about two steps behind at work. My head, in a huge sudoku game, has been puzzling how to get two more things done AND take a break (damn it!). Which doesn't make good blog posting as who really wants to hear about the janitorial contract and attachment five in triplicate and getting the payroll and the eflash numbers by lunchtime.

I'm only thinking about my readers.
Pencil Girl and I and Theatre Girl went to a Hat show (grand opening) and Josephine's Dry Goods a week ago and there is plenty of good bloggy material to post. In reality, 50 pounds of tomatoes to freeze, shorts to sew, Japanese hand-sewn gifties to sew, and the aforesaid w-o-r-k and I might need a break.

Anyway --- back to the chowder. As many of you know, I endure amazing food sensitivities, resulting in boring menus (salad? Yes, please. Let's just have salad the rest of my life). Occasionally, I suffer from epiphanies and thought that I could possibly make clam chowder - using coconut milk instead of the dairy.

I have to say, while the coconut 'taste' is nearly non-existent  with broccoli, it's a little more pronounced with the clams. So I added twice the usual amount of thyme and hot sauce and it has  turned out interesting, as in tasty. My husband slurped down two bowls.  The real test is tomorrow when the flavors have had time to meld.

Kathy's Clam Chowder, non-dairy

2 cans Snow's Chopped Clams, drain and reserve the clam juice.
5-6 Potatoes  -- from my garden - mix of red and yellow
Sea Salt, White Pepper
5 slices of Bacon fried (non-nitrate - Voget's in Hubbard)
1  13.5 oz can Coconut Milk
2 tsps.Thyme - dried from my garden
20 drops Hot Sauce
Brown Rice Flour to thicken.
Dollop of real butter

Peel potatoes and cut into 3/4" chunks. Barely cover with salted water. Add white pepper if you have it.  Boil until nearly tender.
I dumped about 1/2 cup of the water and then added the reserved Clam Juice.

Add the Coconut Milk (turn down heat to medium - once you add any milk - you don't want it to boil again)
Now start adding the flavorings. If you didn't add salt to the potatoes, add some here.
I typically use white pepper in my clam chowder.
I usually use about a teaspoon of Thyme but I felt the coconut flavor needed to be damped down - so add two tsps.
Add some Hot Sauce. Taste, Add more, Taste. Maybe two more drops.
Now add the clams.
Break up your bacon into bite-size or smaller pieces and add.

Stir.    Taste.    Might be thin.
To about 1/2 cup Brown Rice Flour (your choice of thickener), stir in water to mix, add to chowder to thicken.
Dollop of real butter.

Yum. Totally satisfied the craving.
And I minimized the allergen response.

• I typically can handle butter way better than milk, cream or cheeses.
•  I try to wash off the starch from the potatoes and this helps me. 
• Alternative flours in small bits are better than regular flours for me. But I typically do not eat any grains or legumes. This has helped to minimize my joint pain.
• Pork products tend to bother me but I don't have much problem with Voget's bacon - theorizing it's the nitrates/chemicals.
• Canned coconut milk is cheaper than the cardboard cartons in the refrigerated section which often have odd things added to keep the milk in suspension. Yes - I know that the cans leach a small amount of some plastic chemical but I haven't found a better solution other than moving to a fresh-coconut populated place.
• Seafood - some gives me problems -- so far, clams are still in.
• WORK is a four letter word.
• This was a really good recipe.

Attitudes

I actually embrace change.
I may start off kicking & screaming (aka whining and more whining), but I eventually find something to like about working six days a week with overtime and I totally get into the new attitude.

I'm still working on the embrace-this-change part but I think I came up with a plan to help keep my creativity going which we all know keeps me from going insane.


It all revolves around this book: Omiyage by Kumiko Sudo
I first borrowed the book from the library then fell in love with it and had to buy it.  There are more than 20 projects that totally appeal to me  and I could see gift-giving in every one of them.

And then the book sat on my bookshelf - never too far from my thoughts - but not worthy of them until I needed the projects.
I have plenty of scraps and needles and threads so I think I will work myself through the book.

In Woodburn, there are three fabric shops catering to Russian women (old believers) which have all sorts of silky, patterned and textured fabrics to buy if I run out of scraps. These shops are near enough to my work place to run to during the lunch hour - so yet another reason to buy fabric. There is even a thrift store that carries old believer dresses.


A humongous amount of hand-stitching small pieces of fabric. Little projects that I can do on my lunch hours. Some for gifts, and some to keep.

Policies

I managed to hit both the Pendleton Woolen Mills store and The Mill End Store
on McLoughlin Blvd on Sunday.
I didn't buy much - some cheesecloth for the Waste Not V-8 juicer person and some trims.

I am still grumbling (well - minor rumbling) about a customer service problem I encountered recently while on-line fabric shopping. If you'll remember, I posted here about my crankiness.

To recap, most of my order fell out of the hastily sealed flat-rate envelope. The seller took five days to get back to me.  She then wanted me to go find my order through the morass that is the USPS. In short, it was not her problem.

Since then, I have visited other shops and kept an eye out for policy wording.

This seems to be a typical worded policy at several on-line fabric shops:
AFTER SHIPPING
After your order is shipped, we cannot be responsible if your package is lost, stolen, or undeliverable. (To date this has never happened.) We will help you locate the package by providing all relevant shipping information, but we cannot reship or refund your order. Please call your local  Post Office and/or local Customs Office.

Several on-line fabric stores have this policy posted. I don't believe the one who took so long to get back to me and then wanted me to chase my fabric had this policy - which is actually the norm - not to have any policies. I haven't been back.
Those are important words: "I have not been back".

I then looked at Joann's, Hancock's, and my own Fabric Depot. No policy stated.
Are these 'no responsibility' sellers only boutique sellers? hmmm. . .

1. What do you think of foisting the entire blame for an incomplete or lost shipment onto the post office and the customer?

2. Would you be satisfied to say sayonara to your money and your fabric if it went missing?

3. Am I the only one who sees this as bad customer policy?

4. Have you had a shipping incident? What happened? Were you satisfied? Dis-satisfied?

I went back to my etsy shop and re-worded my policy to include provision for the customer to tell me what they wanted to make them happy as I clearly identified my dis-satisfaction of not getting the fabric & pattern I spent time to order and pay for.  I was never asked what I wanted - to make the problem better.

Here's my re-worded policy:
In the event USPS or UPS loses your item or it arrives irretrievably broken or incomplete, I will refund all monies. However and Please, let me know if you would like to try something else. I want my customers to be really happy.

I tend towards overkill in the shipping and packaging department. I want you to receive your order asap and in fantastic condition.
I rarely encounter problems and I believe there are generally few problems. But if you wanted the customer to come back wouldn't you bend over backwards to keep them?

I would be interested in what you think. If you don't want to share in public - you can e-mail me at k8hobbies(at)yahoo(dot)com.


And finally: USPS.com has about 40 different priority products that you can order for free and receive for free. Take a look.

September is GONE!

September sure zipped on by.
Thanks to the Rural Mail Carrier Mail Count, begging people to mail stuff to me, I received two packages as well as several letters.
I received other packages but they were the boring vitamins & fabric purchases that I made.
These were from friends.

The first one, I did not expect at all. All I did was comment how lovely the table topper turned out and the following week, it was in my hands!
My Japanese/Oregon friend, Crafty Tokyo Mama, loves to sew too and is constantly making the most amazing creations. I love the blues in this. She was fiddling around with matching fabric on the center motif as she could only make it whole by sewing the half motifs together. Her seams are perfect and one would never know about the seam if she hadn't of said something.

My before photo was boring cream - lamp and knitted doily.
One rarely sees a knitted doily but the sister of a neighbor makes them.
It can find another home because I am loving the blue fabrics that Crafty Tokyo Mama chose.

My second package arrived from a finnish friend when I confessed to withdrawal symptoms of Salmiakki. Salmiakki is a particular finnish taste for salted licorice. The Fazer Salmiakki bar is salted licorice encased in chocolate. Rather addicting. And if you can't read finnish then there are probably no calories or anything that I am terribly allergic to. lol.

I did not buy enough to bring home while traveling there this summer. Most of my haul went to neighbors who watched the dog, the kids, and other deserving people.
The Fazerina bar is truffle filled chocolate. The geisha bar which contains hazelnuts also contains wheat.

I have a stash to keep me happy for a few months.



My work situation grew another mile in the good & bad categories. I am now in charge of my office which, unfortunately,  curtails my other life. Big grumble there. However, it will be good for me as I will be learning lots of new government rules to confound you with. The other flip side is that 60 man-hours per week is being pushed onto me at 45 hours per week. The pressure of being hung out to dry is pretty fun too.

I do have a much better boss now. She's going into Portland on a detail assignment that is perfect for her but that leaves me with no help.

This is my Saturday haul from the garden. All of my potatoes are now dug and more tomatoes picked. Hubby is going to try making V-8 juice.

I can't eat Tomatoes (nightshade veggie), although I can usually tolerate the occasional one. I suspect it is because my garden tomatoes are not genetically altered. In any case, we still have stewed tomatoes from last year and because of my new-found workload, I had decided to let the tomatoes go.

But "Waste not, Want not" hubby decided to make the V-8 juice.
Tomatoes were picked over a week ago.

Which sat there.

Probably moldering - hence the newly picked tomatoes which were next to the potatoes.

This project is threatening to suck me in big time but I am holding firm.
Hubby has watched me can but never participated. He is already knee-deep into his amazing whining act of, "I need help." (double whine).

Part of my marriage behavior is to help my husband but he returns the favor rarely and seems not to value my help enough to respect my available time. To keep me sane while I am trying to learn new jobs at the paying job and retain some time for me, I need to get better at saying, "NO".


I have a work sewing friend who is also trying to understand the mid-life depression her hubby has sunk under so I made a card for her this morning.
Basically it was a red fabric heart sewn  onto my stationary with a note written, "Sewing is necessary to keep the insanity at bay. Knitting & Crochet count."

I mailed it today as a little pick me up note while she is going through a rough patch. She's working 12 hr. days whilst hubby is unemployed. Working long hours leaves practically no time for her creativity to help keep her on an even keel.

Sewing certainly keeps me sane.




*** As far as the Rural Mail Carrier Mail count goes, it ended today. Results should be in next week. My carrier, who is a total jewel, did great with only his letter count decreased. Everything else is up.

Keyless Locks

My parents are getting 'older'.
Last week my dad spent some time at the emergency room and in the ICU for pneumonia and some heart problems discerned on the hospitals monitors.
When I brought my mom back home after a long time waiting for hospital stuff, it was pitch dark.
My mom had her keys but it was totally dark outside their home. Thank goodness my smarty pants phone is a flashlight too!
My mom also had trouble turning the deadbolt with her arthritis.
So noted - trouble with night-time lighting and locks need to be graphited.
Bear in mind they are in with the sun. They don't ordinarily scamper around at darktime.

Two days later, my older sis picked up my mom and off they drove to go pick up my dad from the hospital. They arrived back at my parents place with NO keys.
They called a locksmith and my brother who both arrived at the same time. My brother remembered how to jimmy the basement window open and they were in.

WE siblings all decided we needed  to implement a better plan for helping my Mom & Dad remain independent.
For me, I wanted to fix their locks first.
I checked around the internet and found out some options.
1. keyless entry - hardwired
2. keyless entry - install into existing hardware holes, powered by battery
3. hide-a-key

Our problems:
1.Dark back there.
2. Mom's arthritis
3. no access for the no key scenario

I looked at the hide-a-key options which basically is like a realtor's lockbox, accessed by code and mounted near the door.
This is the cheapest option but did nothing for our two concerns.

I elected to go with the battery powered keyless entry.
Kwik set Powerbolt 1000 looked interesting and even has a  youtube video.




Home Depot carryied both the powerbolt 1000 and the Schlage  brand. I liked the number pad on the Schlage better. Straight numbers. The kwikset one doubled up on the numbers -- possibly confusing  my mom.

Home Depot keyed both of my locks the same. They also offered this generous refund policy. Except for the keys made, they would refund the entire cost if these didn't work.

What we found? Yes, these tyoe of locks are backlit but there still might not be enough light at their back door.
2. We traded a  hard to turn key for a hard to turn deadbolt on the Schlage. Part of this will get fixed as deadbolt hole in door frame is rubbing. My dad can file this down a bit.

Deadbolt is at top.

3. My mom loves the code. She 'got it' before my dad. But we'll see if she can remember it tomorrow.
4. the battery in the Schlage powers the backlighting and the 'engagement' of the electronic lock hopefully for three years. The kwikset lock uses the battery to also move the deadbolt  with an estimated one year battery life.

5. We used a simple code because as I explained to everyone: The chances of them being burglarized while both are usually home all day are in the 0.5 - 5% range. The chances of them remembering this simple code are over 90%.
6. That said: there are some techniques that are not common to open the locks. Even if said burglar guessed the code, they would have to move things a certain way. Not easy.

7. Installation was done by screwdriver. And jigsaw and file. The deadbolt lock's hole was smaller than we needed. The frame's deadbolt hole is rubbing. If you pull the door while turning the lock's knob, you are good.
8. Setting the code was easy. However because of Schlage's free-turning knobs (I'm sure to foil those pesky burglars), we spent some time second guessing ourselves about the istallation.

9 For my mom & dad, we exchanged tit for tat. The previous locks were known in their peculiarities. The new locks changed those items. We could not solve the arthritis issue for example.
10. For the rest of us, WOW!
We can now access our parents home. If one of them falls but could still reach the phone, a neighbor or emergency personnel can be given the code to get in. We children are all 30 minutes away so access to mom & dad was vital.
If they get a ride somewhere and forget their keys, they can still get inside the house.

Mom & Dad have embraced list making as 'forgetfulness' settles into their daily life. This keyless entry is one thing that won't be on that list. "Everytime you leave the house, make sure you have your keys". They can get in by code.

11. Over all, I am liking this Schlage keyless lock very well and plan to install the same on my back garage door soon - well  - as soon as we replace the frame where dry rot has set in.

As far as the lighting goes, we can put some solar lighting back there. I looked at battery powered lights but very few were rated for outside use. Those that were  were motion sensors. Which I personally dislike, living in dog, cat, racoon, possom, nutria,  coyote & cougar land.

My brother offered to help me install the locks and we decided on 1pm after his church time which worked out very very well as my dad had laid down for a nap meaning there was no supervision!

Just in case, my brother brought his daughter - granddaughter numero 3 - as diversion tactic #1. I brought pizza as diversion tactic #2.

I don't know how your dad is, but my dad can do anything and everything himself.


 These locks got on my short list because I will be working six days a week with lovely overtime for the next while. May I remind you we have one week left of Rural carrier mail count where every letter, flat and package is counted towards paying your mail carrier. Please send a letter.

Roving

Sorry --forgot to show you what I found at the Flock & Fiber show.



Roving is used for needle felting. I have colors that are solid but few that are dark background shot through with blues & greens.



I also found chapstick made with good oils & no chemicals.
I bought some goat cheese from an elusive dairy that is just south of me. The proprietress was a tad haughty which may explain my inability to track her down. As in, her cheeses aren't for the hoi poloi.

I like Juniper Farms in Redmond better.