lemon carrot cookies

i ran a last minute student council meeting on tuesday, so to entice attendees, i baked lemon carrot cookies!

see the little shreds of carrot?  i'd make these more often, except shredding carrots takes forever!

mom's christmas jacket!

i've been wanting to test out butterick 5392 for quite a while now.  i was planning on making the magenta bell-sleeved jacket without the bows at the waist for mom for christmas, with leftovers of the teal wool that i used to make the scalloped skirt a couple of years ago.  however, there was not enough of this teal wool.

before shirley moved to oregon, she gifted me maybe 5 yards of this grey wool knit sweater material... i had planned to make myself the same jacket with this grey wool, and since there was SO much, i figured why not test the pattern out on mom anyway, since she's built more normally than i am.  so, one wool sweater jacket got started!  here are the outside front panels!

this wool was very easy to work with.  mom found me a bunch of ball-point needles, perfect for working with knits.  the wool was not all that stretchy, but was rather scratchy, so i used grey cotton jersey for the lining (also from shirley!  she's so sweet!  she gave me maybe 10 yards!).

here's the jacket before the sleeve installation.  it sewed up so well!

and around back:

before i finished up the jacket, i decided to try it on for fit.  yeah, this look definitely did not work for me.  i really don't look normal in poofy sleeves (the only one i've ever made for myself is that black swiss dot blouse from "twinkle sews"), and the shoulders were about 1.5 to 2 inches too wide each!  also, the sleeves were so voluminous that my little chopstick arms looked so silly sticking out from them.  i'm going to opt for the purple version's style with the 3 quarter-length regular sleeves when i make it for myself, also in this grey wool... one day.

here's the final product!  the button is from one of my colleagues who gifted me all her late mom's sewing goods from her days as a professional seamstress!  the collection is divine; so many wooden spools of vibrant threads and boxes of vintage buttons!  originally i wanted to use a bolder button on the jacket since there is only one.  however, with the loud sleeves, i decided to go for a subtler large metal button, so as not to detract from the jacket's shape. 

nice shape, isn't it?  'round back:

and the inside:

i love this jersey on the inside.  it is actually 100% cotton... hard to find nowadays, believe it or not!

hopefully i can get dad to snap a pic of mom in it sometime!  hope she likes it!  merry christmas, mom!

happy new year!

for new years 2013, i got to hang out with grace again!  we partied last new year's, when i made that cute teal vintage silk party dress.  i desperately wanted to make a dress for this year, but school got in the way.  so, i made red velvet cupcakes for grace's party and michelle did the frosting.  (my newest baking strategy is to do the baking and to commission a friend to do the decorating... because let's be honest, most people prefer to decorate baked goods, and we all know i can't decorate!)  good teamwork, no?

the sprinkles were a festive mix from barb, jimmy's gf!  here's grace and i in our requisite yearly new years pic:

my hair is getting long!  yay!  and here's michelle and i playing with sparklers off of grace's balcony.  we're a little blurry... grace took many pics and they're all a little blurry!

happy 2013!!

christmas snackies

energy bars for the 'rents... they had oatmeal, raisins, almonds, coconut, peanuts (essentially all random fruit and nut type things in my apartment).  oh, and chocolate chips!  how could i forget!

christmas spice cockaigne (or something similarly named.  i forget what it was exactly) from "joy of cooking."  it was quite fudgey and i included dark chocolate chips and raisins.  i didn't really like this recipe to be honesty.  too spiced!

merry christmas, dad!

well, a little over a year after initially cutting out this fabric... i have finished dad's christmas shirt!  from 2011.  hahaha!  and now for 2012 too.  essentially this shirt covered xmas of 2011, his bday from march of 2012, father's day of 2012, and now christmas of 2012.  valuable shirt, wouldn't you say?

i did a kickass job, if i do say so myself.  (sorry aunt stella and mom... but it's true, it's one of my best yet!)  perfectly aligned button placket on the front (as usual) and on the sleeves (i finally figured out how to cut them so they line up with the sleeves themselves!)

 perfectly aligned front pocket, as usual!

and i added cute little darts in the back for my skinny mini dad.  on dad's last shirt, mom showed me her little trick for evenly spacing the darts... a trick which i successfully employed all by my lonesome this time!

also, since mom and dad keep their house at the toasty temp of 57 degrees (HAHA!), i made dad a pair of fleece pants.

i used the pattern from jimmy's doggy pj pants from last year.  the fleece was from this year's black friday sale at joann fabrics.

i added a little strip of ribbon at the inside back so dad could figure out easily which side was the front and which side was the derriere.

unfortunately, i heard dad complain that he would never wear these around the house, as he claims he likes his pants to be wearable in public (although the man has been known to wear thin yellow sweat pants outside of the house...  as if those are presentable in public????).  he knew i was offended, and as soon as he got home from hanging in the city with me, dad calls me up and says "i'm already wearing your pants, by the way!"

muhaha, tricked ya into wearing warmer pants, dad!  merry christmas!

present delivery for meeeeeee

sophie, a student from my philly days, who is now taking a gap year in china to learn chinese, came up to the city today to go bootshopping (yes, bootshopping is such an ambitious endeavor that i have coined it a single term...  she wanted my stellar shopping advice hahahahahhaah) and brought me this really cute mousey pincushion (it also came with purple thread!) from the mansion in "downton abbey" in london:

and this really pretty green ikat satin from xinjiang province in western china, home of the uyghur people!

it's soooo vibrant!  i want to use it for these cowl neck shirt patterns that jimmy scored for me at joann fabrics... yes, i have my bro shopping for me at joann fabrics (and he then recommissions the project to his gf hahahha)