Sunday, May 24, 2009

Rooster Apron



Well, I did a mock up of the shirt and sure enough, HUGE ! Since I do not need a shirt that could double as a tent, I set that pattern aside, ran to Joann's, and decided to drown my sewing sorrows in a new apron. This is for my cabin, where I'll soon be living for a month as we get ready for a large music festival I work for.

Aprons are great for convincing yourself that you CAN sew, after a demoralizing experience like a tent-shirt. Looking at the pattern now, the model looks cold and grumpy, and I found this shirt at our local thrift store.
Pretty similar, eh? Unique thrift store saves the day again!

Ordinarily, I do not go for animal prints, but this was cute and I figured "Why not?"


I had fun designing the pocket, and I made it cross in the back, which makes it feel very secure.
No slipping apron as I do country cabin-like things: grilling, cooking, building camp fires, making cookies, weeding, hauling water jugs around...

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Sewing A New Shirt















I bought this pattern to make a quick and easy shirt for summer. I really liked the one with puffed sleeves and the square neckline, but now that I have the pattern home, I am starting to get cold feet. I cut out the pattern pieces and frankly, you could house a small family in this shirt. It looks huge. Awfully roomy for not being a maternity shirt. So, I'm going to have to adjust this pattern, which is something I hate to do. After those Jalie jeans I just finished, I have become spoiled by being able to cut out a pattern, sew it all up, and wear it.


This is the pattern with the fabric I picked for it, a soft cotton with great colors. I guess I'll have lots of leftover fabric if I take this shirt in as much as I think I'll have to. Hmmmm... We'll see...

Yogurt



This week I promised myself to start making yogurt. I used to do it before I had kids, but the wild things sort of knocked me off of my hobbies for a while, and I'm finally getting back to things like yogurt making.
So, a couple of days ago I made a batch of yogurt which has been devoured by the youngest wild thing and I as an after-school snack. It was amazing. Creamy, not too tangy, and really not in need of much in the way of sweetening. We like honey with ours. (He likes lots of honey with his. He informed me once that ALL of his teeth are sweet teeth.)
Here's how I made it:
In a microwavable Pyrex bowl, I poured 4 cups of milk, then microwaved it for about 10 minutes. Once it reached 180 degrees, I took it out of the microwave and let it sit until it reached 110 degrees. Then I added 1/4 cup of yogurt, mixed it all up really well, and dumped it all into a quart jar.
Here's where the fun part came in. I don't have a yogurt maker. They are more expensive than I remember (especially since I got my last yogurt maker at a thrift store...) and online there are all kinds of wacky contraptions for keeping the milk at 100 degrees. I loved looking at them all. People use cardboard boxes, ovens, coolers, crock pots, and all sorts of combinations to make yogurt.
I have a cooler and a heating pad, so that's what I used. I put the jar into the cooler, popped in a heating pad set to "low", and walked away. Six hours later, I had great yogurt!
My friend told me that I have officially obtained "White Trash" status, and my husband looked at me strangely when he saw the contraption, but hey, it worked!
Maybe some day I'll get a machine, but for now I'm happy.
And, I'm eating delicious yogurt.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Anniversary Trip



This weekend my husband and I went to central Illinois for our anniversary.

There was extensive flooding in the area, and we had to do the tourist thing and take lots of pictures of it.
I also got reacquainted with my old Elna sewing machine, which sounds like a Mack truck but sews beautifully. Just looking at this machine makes me happy - it is so adorable. It also has lots of feet, though I'm not sure what they do exactly. I made some chair covers, but didn't do tons of sewing.

We did get to several antique stores, which was a lot like our honeymoon. (We'd get up, go to Perkins for a huge breakfast, then hit antique malls until we were too exhausted to shop any more. Aaah, the pre-children shop-'til-you-drop days...)


Anyway, now we're glad to be home and enjoying the kids again. This week, I plan on making yogurt, sewing a new shirt, and baking bread. That's not too much to ask, is it?

Note: Somehow, the "Preview" I see of this and the one actually getting published are not the same. I can't get the words to line up correctly. Aaaargh!















Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Mother's Day 2009






This was a great Mother's Day. We had sunshine, flowers, Church, adorable kids, and a trip to Carmella's, one of our local Mexican taquerias.




My second son has taken to "combing" his hair with a new green scrubbing sponge. My husband jokingly referred to it as a brush and my son took him seriously. We figured as long as it's a clean scrubbie, it probably doesn't matter. And he is adorable doing it, as you can clearly see.



Both boys woke up and got as dressed up as they could (in our house that means a button-down shirt) in honor of Mother's Day.

I got a pair of earrings from my oldest son which say "MOM" on one and "ROX" on the other. He wrote me a poem "M- My mom, O- on the go, and M- my cleaner." He's got that one right!

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Jeans Extravaganza





















I saw on Pattern Review that they were doing a Jeans Sew-Along and was inspired to make a pair. One pair became two, which quickly morphed to three when I realized that I had enough fabric. Three days and three pairs later, I am all finished!!!