Cate Anevski

Thanksgiving, A Day Late

I'm all backwards this week. I did the Black Friday post yesterday, and now I'm on to the Thanksgiving post today. Ah, well...

Just the four of us this year. Kieran had to work yesterday, so we decided to do Thanksgiving dinner today. My favorite bit about this photo is that the cats' behavior is just so typical. Shiim (the Siamese) is the flopsiest little ragdoll of a cat you'd ever want to meet, and all Lydia (the black kitty) ever thinks about is turkey, unless, of course, she's thinking about salmon.

Aaaaaand, action!

I hope everyone's holiday season is off to a great start!

Black Friday, At Last!

That's right, folksies! It's a Black Friday sale, and you don't even have to brave the crowds to take part! All weekend, all the prints in my shop are reduced to half off the original price. This applies to 8" x 10" prints, 5" x 7" prints, and print sets.

You don't need to do anything special to take advantage of the sale. The prices have already been changed on Etsy. All you need to do is act fast. The sale ends Monday, November 30 at midnight.

I had originally meant for the sale to begin on Black Friday, but as I fully intend to sleep in tomorrow, and I'm behind the rest of the world over here on the West Coast, I thought I'd set it all up a tad early. Lucky you! 

New Embroidery Patterns

 

Just a quick post today to let you folks know that I have a couple of new embroidery patterns available in my shop now. There will be a couple more before it's all through (as well as another free pattern in a few days), and I'll also be adding tons more items for the holidays. I may even do a holiday sale this weekend, but we'll just have to wait and see how that progresses.

Wishing you all the best of Turkey Days!

Now With 25% More Elf!

There must have been some sort of delayed reaction on the digital chip in my camera. When I woke up this morning, this little beastie was staring at me from this photo I took earlier. How odd!

Season's Greetings

I made these mustachioed holiday cards last year for the various craft shows I participated in, and they were a big hit, so I've decided this year to bring them back and include them in the holiday offerings available at my Etsy shop.

I don't know about anyone else, but I can't look at these cards and not think of family back home. (Although that probably has something to do with my dad's mustache.)

Either way, I think these cards would make a nice jolly greeting for anyone on your list this year. You can find your very own set right here.

Why I Don't Mind the Rain

The rainy season in Portland tends to bring out the best in mushrooms. This behemoth of a shroom masquerading as a hamburger bun was only one of many lovely spotted beasties outside of the grocery store this afternoon.

I want you all to understand just how big this guy was and how dreadfully excited I was to have discovered him.

Here are some of his best and closest friends, all enticing me to leave my day of errands for a day of fun and frolicking.

The shroomies reminded me that I hadn't yet posted this month's free embroidery pattern. In honor of my favorite food-centered holiday, I created a fun "Eat Me" pattern for you to try.

My Favorite Art Medium is Cookies

Marissa inspires me to try all sorts of baking adventures I never would have embarked upon by myself. This time, a quick AllRecipes.com search for something tasty made from both cocoa and hazelnuts resulted in the splendor of the haselnussmakronen.

As we reviewed the recipe, I noted that it sounded an awful lot like a hazelnut version of the traditional almond macaron, a treat I've meant to try baking ever since enjoying my first bite at Pix on my birthday. Upon closer inspection of the name of the cookie, we realized that haselnuss means hazelnut, which would allow us to incorporate the native Oregon filbert; makron means macaron, which would let me try my hand at a new delicacy, and en means plural, which ensured us that there would be plenty cookies to go around.

After much hemming and hawing over exactly how to execute each step of the recipe (meringue can be scary, you know), our resulting dessert was a great success.

Next stop: vanilla custard. (Gotta do something with those egg yolks, after all.)

Me Oh My, I Love Pie!

I always get excited by first experiences. And then I get excited again when I master whatever it was I was trying to accomplish in that first experiences. There's that whole middle ground that isn't quite as fun, but, hey, in the meantime, I'm going to enjoy this first experience. With a little help from my friends, I made a pie entirely from scratch. (I got high entirely from scratch. I get by entirely from scratch.) I peeled the apples myself and everything. And, you know what? It was wonderfully tasty. Not as pretty as it will be once I slog through the middle ground and reach mastery, but tasty nonetheless.

My friends Bridget (who really needs to post more artwork on her blog) and Marissa from my college days have been in town this week, and it's been a whirlwind of wonderment as I showed them the beauty of my new hometown, which included craft stores, grilled cheese, street art, sticky rice, and apple season at the farmer's market.

The Pact

I've wanted to create custom doll panels for a very long time, but every method I tried ended in disaster. (Let's just say I'm not exactly a master screenprintress...) However, thanks to Spoonflower, it's easier than ever to print whatever my bizarre little heart desires onto fabric, and doubly-thanks to Spoonflower, since they have created a doll panel contest that kicked my creative flow into gear to meet the deadline.

I have yet to order any doll panels just yet (I'm waiting to see the proofs of a couple other fabrics before I place all my orders in one fell swoop), but I can hardly wait to bring these little girls to plushie life. In the meantime, you can check them out at my Spoonflower profile.

Mischievous

As promised, I managed to catch up on a bit of my work today, and I have the results of the fabric giveaway. The fat quarter of fabric goes to Heidi, who, by the by, has been working on some pretty amazing embroideries that you can check out on her very entertaining blog. Thanks to everyone who participated. I will do more giveaways before the holidays, so be on the lookout.

Speaking of embroidery (lame segue, I know, but it's late and I'm sleepy), my October monthly embroidery pattern, Mischievous, is up on Bee's Knees Activities. It's based on the embroidery above, but I've cleaned it up a bit and changed a couple of things that I didn't quite like on the original.

I'd love to see any creations made with the design, so feel free to send photos my way. Enjoy!