Caramel Fail, Bag Win

So, I messed up a caramel recipe. Again. I found the picture of Chocolate Dipped Caramel Pecan Bars irresistible, so I tried them the other day.

The first step- the shortbreadish crust- went fine.

 The toasting of the pecans was hunky dory as well.

It was the *cook the sugar, syrup, and water until it changes color* that flummoxed me. The first time I tried a recipe like that (the salted caramels), I cooked too long and the caramels ended up like the Sugar  Daddy suckers of my youth (great flavor, but tooth breakers fer shure). So I watched this recipe very carefully, and as soon as I thought the mixture was *a light amber color*, I removed it from the heat, and added the cream.

 My light amber and their light amber were obviously different shades. The caramel didn't harden enough to stay put when the bars were sliced. We weren't able to cut them into triangle bars for chocolate dipping without the topping dripping off the piece. Instead, I just drizzled chocolate and salt over the rest of the pan. We're slicing and eating as we go, which is fine (this stuff is amazing!), but it's definitely not finger food. (Full disclosure: most of these high-carb things I'm making this year, are being given away. However, I do eat a little bit of each one... and I still can't run... I'm going to pay a price for all of this indulgence).

So recipe writers: please please please include a goal temperature for your sugar boiling stage. Or at least an amount of time for the boiling. This color matching thing is obviously not working for me.

However, this Old Port Carryall bag came out really really well. I did some quilting on the pocket,and I would have done more on the rest of the bag, but I ran out of the fancy schmancy matching quilting thread. So I went with quilted pockets only. I used wide double fold bias tape for all of the edging, rather than cut fabrics. That worked very well and looks good. However, my friend Cassie, from knitting, and I confabbed on the handle construction of this pattern, and we decided that we didn't like it (it's difficult to do, and looks awkward on the inside). So I just used fabric handles, sewn in place, covered with lampwork buttons.

The zipper pull of the little bag is another one of my lampworked beads. 

And the whole set came out perfectly!

I think I'm done with slippers for Christmas, but I might sew a few pairs for next year. The Big Tub 'O Knitted Things (which holds more than knitting) is just about empty.

Slipper City

Are these cool, or what? I finally made a pair of Pitter Patters for myself. I used some of the canvas knitting camo fabric that I designed through Spoonflower for the uppers, fuzzy stuff for the lining, and Jiffy Grip for the soles. As I suspected, this pattern runs toward the Narrow Foot spectrum (not a pattern problem, I am descended from Wide Feeted Peoples). Luckily, the pattern is multi-sized- as in it fits infants through adult men- so it was easy enough to use the Large Adult pattern, and then just shorten the heel by about an inch. There's enough overlap in the uppers (they're Velcro adjustable) for many foot widths.

The slippers are cozy and comfy. I don't suppose they'll hold up to long-term wear, but for fun (and for travel), they're perfect. The only change I made in the pattern was to sew the bias tape binding to the bottom of the slipper sole and hand stitch it down on the top (rather than the other way around- there is no way that I could hand sew through the Jiffy Grip, and I didn't trust my machine seaming to look neat enough if I tried to do it that way).

I also made a small zipper box-bag from the same fabric (tutorial here). I dug through my collection of fat quarters and found this one for the lining. I thought it was  pretty enough to show you.

Here's the bag from the outside. I still have a hard time getting my corner seams straight, but that doesn't matter much. I altered the pattern without realizing it- the handle is supposed to go from corner to corner, but I put it at the top by the zipper. I actually like it better there, and it's much easier to sew in. I also added a tag at the bottom of the zipper to make it easier to close the bag. I used some heavy duty interfacing, and the bag stands up by itself very nicely.

It's the perfect size for toting around Socks in Progress.

After Christmas, I can show you pics of some of the other slipper/box sets I made. And I still have a few more to sew and the calendar is ticking, so I'd best get busy.

Super Secret Stuff

I can't show you what I'm making, but I can show you what I'm making, if you catch my drift.

One of the current can't-show-you-the-actual-item projects is this zippered fabric tote, from this tutorial by Dragon[knit]fly. I've made a couple now, and though I had a hard time visualizing what I was supposed to do, I just followed the instructions, and voila! I had a lovely little zippered box. You can make one with 2 fat quarters, some interfacing and a 12" zipper, easy peasy. It's a fun blog, and maybe there's a new baby in the Dragon[knit]fly family by now.

I'm also sewing these slippers

from Favorite Things, though maybe they're no longer producing the Pitter Patters pattern  I bought my copy from Keepsake Quilting, and it seems to be available from them still. This is a really versitile slipper pattern, sized to fit infants through adult men. It's not a difficult pattern to sew, though by the time you get done, you're stitching through quite a few layers, and I opted to hand-tack the outer bias tape on top, rather than try to machine sew it around the outside of the slipper, or hand sew it to the non-slip bottom (and by this, I don't mean that I hand-sewed the bias tape to the slipper. I used the machine for that. I just hand-tacked the fold-over down). I do think the footpad is a mite narrow (on the other hand, I come from The Land of Wide Feet), but that's a fairly easy adjustment. Once my next shipment of Jiffy Grip arrives, I intend to make a pair for myself, which I can actually show you.

I can show you the progress on the Lapland mitered square hat, though, since I don't know if that will be a gift or not (I'm thinking of putting together a mitered square workshop, and may just toss it in with other samples for that class). It's coming along, and I was right to try mitered squares with this yarn- they're a perfect match.