bday cookies and cake

for my 2 favorite boys! yup, october is coming up, and since i no longer live near long and ryan, i figured i'd shower them with gifts this past weekend when i hung out with their family at the beach. they had tried my gingersnaps during their visit to philly on labor day weekend and loved them, so i figured i'd make them their own batch of gingerthins, which are essentially just skinny gingersnaps. (i also wanted to try something new, since i make gingersnaps for the rents so often!) the dough looked like poo, although the cookies were tasty.

too tasty. i ate so many of them that the kids didn't end up with as many as i had hoped. oops. for their cake this year, i baked a marble ring cake and kept the chocolate icing on the side for everyone to add as they liked. long loves chocolate and ryan loves vanilla (but rather dislikes things that are too chocolatey), and since they were sharing their bday celebration with me this year, the timing was perfect for a combined cake. marble cakes are fun to prepare, as you alternate between spooning white cake and chocolate cake into the cake pan. happy birthday, boys!

the mei-tai

my dear sewing friend, erin, works for a patternmaker, meg of sewliberated.com, who published a fantastic pattern for a mei-tai, an asian baby carrier/baby sling that has become all the rage amongst babymamas these days. meg's is particularly strong in that inside the panel, the straps are crossed as an x, thus providing more support than standard mei-tais, whose straps end at the panel. i had been waiting for the perfect excuse to make one...

now lori, my former colleague for whom i hemmed those jeans, is preggers. (in fact, those were her preggers jeans i hemmed!) lori is the perfect recipient for the mei-tai for many reasons: 1) she's short, my height, and thus an adjustable baby carrier would be ideal for her. 2) she appreciates more natural organic things. and 3) she's asian! yippee! i selected this thick cream woven canvas with thin white stripes for its simplicity and sturdiness

and the penguin flannel because her kiddo will be a winter baby! you might remember the penguin flannel from mom's christmas pj pants last year. i had just enough for the main panel of the mei-tai. (i love when things work out perfectly like that!)

mei-tais have long shoulder and waist straps for securing the carrier onto the babymama's front, back, or even side! they're "one-size-fits-many," so babydaddys can partake in babywearing too. the front pocket was supposed to be a stuff sack for the entire thing but since i used such thick fabric, the pocket will be just a regular pocket.

here's my mini mannequin donning the mei-tai:

(i thought about trying it on for the post, but then when bunks turned out to be the only "baby" i could carry in the mei-tai, i figured you'd all think i was weird... so mannequin will have to do the honors. hehe. bunks, you're off the hook!)

blondies

no, i didn't dye my hair blonde (what a sight that would be!), but on saturday i did bake some butterscotch brownies, otherwise known as blondies. i added chocolate chips (of course!) and some shredded coconut. emily, a new math teacher hired with me, also has a sweet tooth, so she got half!

current mood:

in sewing denial. feeling swamped. tired of mathing.

sigh.

i'll be back, tim gunn, i'll be back.

i'll make it work... (until tomorrow night!)

patron saint of fabric

i hear there's currently no patron saint of fabric hoarders. upon my death, i expect you, my friends, to petition that i be canonized as saint helen, guardian of fabric. oh what's that you see to the left of the fabric shelving in my coat closet? oh yes, and add patron saint of shoes to my resume as well.

oh, me too! me too!

dad: "i'm hungry, let's see what we can find to snack on in the fridge."
bunny: "did i hear snack? and fridge?" dad: "kinda in the mood for carrots. where are they? in the veggie drawer?"
bunny: "carrots? veggies? oh, me too! oh, me too!" fortunately, bunks hasn't learned to recognize the sound of the veggie drawer of the fridge in philly yet. hehe

a tasty meal!

after hitting up whole foods, the only non-convenience store grocery near me which is also ridiculously expensive, i decided to cook myself a lavish meal: steamed turbot topped with scallions, pepper, dill, ginger and a mix of olive oil and soy sauce; steamed yu choy with oyster sauce, and brown rice. aside from the fact that the turbot was really flaky and didn't hold itself together that well as i transferred it from the steamer to the plate, the meal was decently pretty! and tasty! don't think i've changed. tonight's dinner: back to frozen ravioli! yay!!

shirt #3 for dad

3 weeks ago, dad challenged me to make him 2 shirts in 4 days because he had been doing business in dc and was counting on mom to visit that weekend with his clothes for the following week in tow, but we weren't sure if she was able to come or not. loving any challenge, i took it on! however, then mom showed up, so i never ended up finishing the 1st of the 2 shirts nor did i even start the 2nd one. apparently dad is convinced that he makes better decisions while wearing the white with grey stripes and the light olive with cream stripes shirts that i made him in the past, and thus he wears these 2 shirts weekly. clearly he needs more to spice up his wardrobe, so last night, after having finally settled into my philly apt, i decided it was time to finish the shirt that i had started! (it felt so good to get back in the groove after a 2.5 week hiatus!) and trust me, the shirt is a beauty! first off, i used a sharpie and created a label from twill tape for the shirt. i like how basic it turned out. and, twill tape is soft so it's not as obnoxiously scratchy as many store-brand shirts' tags! secondly, i took pains to make all the stripes match this time. see in the pic that's 2 above how the striping continues perfectly across the front of the shirt, despite the break for the button placket? and check out the cuffs: (cute new bedspread, isn't it?) and the shoulders! on the other 2 shirts, i kept forgetting to line up the stripes on the shoulders with the ones on the sleeves when i was cutting out the fabric. however, this time, i remembered! meticulous, no?? i love the color combination in this shirt. it's my fav so far!

happy bday to my bunks!

my little trouble maker turned 3 this tuesday! unfortunately i didn't get to spend it with him as i was away at a conference on how to teach ap calc. boo! but, i did get to spend the week at my godparents' house! my godmother is the master of all crafts. there are crocheted blankets galore, quilts, clothes she made, stuffed animals she put together! she has this beautiful beautiful metal singer that works like a charm! and finally, this week i figured out from whom i learned my fabric obsessive ways. (shhhh, secret.) she and mom definitely are my crafty heros!but, it's bunkies' day, so let's focus our attention on him and him only. i got the little bugger a basket woven from his favorite brand's hay. $11 bones, this basket. ridiculous! but anything for my bunks!it's so small that he can't fit in his big butt! i think he's tired of his bday present now. i gave it to him early, in mid july. he doesn't really touch it anymore. sigh. happy bday my picky boy!

ever wonder what a non-cook eats for dinner?

instant korean noodles! and, to make matters worse, dad's in town! it's not a bad thing that he's in town because i love his company. however, dad is also a relative non-cook. he's a worse non-cook than me, hehe, as he can concoct sufficient dishes (sufficient in that they will feed you and not give you food poisoning, and you might get all the nutrients you need, minus the protein component since he's essentially a veg). i'm the best non-cook though because all my dishes come from instant this or instant that, and sometimes i have even given myself food poisoning. sigh. since i've just been lesson planning and sewing all day while he's out at work, it's been my job to contemplate dinner. but just contemplate, since he always helps me make it and laughs at how incompetent we are. the noodles are actually little tubes! apparently the koreans think they've invented this new noodle that cooks faster because the inside is hollow. i was sold on the fact that this is a "hearty rice noodle soup." i heart hearty meals, hehehhee.

today is the big move day. so, bloggy's profile location has been changed to philadelphia, pa! YIPPEE!

happy bday julia!

julia, my former roomie, celebrated a bday july 31st! julia's bf, marcus (he's absolutely hilarious), lives in brooklyn and she misses him lots. also, she has NO wall hangings in her new place. so, i took it upon myself to help her out with her decorating and her missing her bf situations. enter the ork poster... ork posters are these hipster maps of cities where the different neighborhoods are delineated, with the names typed in goofy font. i've been dying for an excuse to get one, but haven't had any good excuses (isn't that usually the case for all my purchases?). i cut out a heart from a paint chip swatch (which i hoard from hardware stores for my gift tag craft punch!), and rubber cemented it onto the glass right where marcus lives. i used rubber cement so that julia could move the heart if marcus ever moves in brooklyn again (he's in his 2nd brooklyn neighborhood). if he leaves brooklyn, they're on their own for mapping out his new location, hehe. of course i got myself a dc one (grey background with white font), now that i'm moving! happy bday julia! i'll miss you when you're off to haiti to do relief work!

isn't she noble?

lan's heidi bday dress

friday was lan's bday. she had been hinting to me (and not to subtly at that!) that she would love a garment sewed by me for her bday. now lan's a serious girly girl and loves yellow, so i had to go on the hunt for fabric that would make the cut. jcarolinecreative.com had just what i was looking for! yellow fabric with white flowers by robert kaufman (a decently cool fabric designer!), and it was on sale! unfortunately they had only 1 yard, but no matter, i'd make it work. i chose the simplicity 2965 pattern (2nd from left along the bottom) because it was more modest and work-appropriate. i used a light blue stretchy cotton on the top, so that the dress wouldn't be all yellow. the inside was completely lined, which was no small feat! notice how in the picture below the lining in the skirt part was inside out! so yes, i had to snip the skirt lining out and reattach it by hand. sigh. i'm not so great with spatial reasoning. then, i ran into my next problem: the dipping pockets in the front puckered along the curves and corners! also, the yellow fabric was so thin that you could see the seams along the pockets. after digging around in my trim box for a bit, i pulled out this fancy vintage rickrack that a former student had donated to my sewing club back when i taught. it was perfect! here the left side has trim already sewed on, but not the right. isn't it so much better with the trim? here is a final picture of the whole dress. in the back, there is an invisible zipper. i'm quite pleased with how i turned out. it kind of reminds me of heidi, the little swiss girl who lived with her grandpa! and for dessert, i baked lan red velvet cupcakes! these were the first that i had ever made with the red food coloring. they were delicious! here's a pic of the last one, with shredded coconut on top! the poor thing was smooshed into a tupperware with the other 5 that i had saved for my parents this weekend. and this is after i ate half! happy bday dear friend!

sojourn to beantown and weston

no worries, i'm still alive. 2 weeks ago i was in boston visiting the sarah. THE sarah. and last week i was chilling in good ole weston with the momski.
in beantown, sarah put me to work. 1st she demanded chicken pot pie. dough was made from scratch, although with her whole wheat flour, so the consistency was dry and a little grainy. thankfully, the flavor of the chicken filling was tasty. i used small ramekins to make us personal sized pot pies:next up, she wanted a pizza for dinner. i didn't take pics of it, since i've made a million pizzas by now, and it was really nothing special. just spinach, broccoli, and chicken on top, with her mom's red pasta sauce (the best feature of the whole pizza) and some shredded 4 cheese mix. then, she wanted red velvet cupcakes, STAT. her local supermarket ran out of the red food coloring, so really i ended up making brown velvet cupcakes. however, to make up for the lack of red, i used sarah's pink cupcake wrappers. so perhaps we shall call these the pink velvet cupcakes! 1 of the 2 trays filled with cupcakes:and finally, on my last last night, sarah had the nerve to request another batch of chicken pot pie! she bought regular unbleached flour, so this time the dough came out nice and flaky. this time i made a big pie and carved her initials into the top for steam vents, hehe: however, when the "joy of cooking" (my present to sarah for her bday!!!) said to use 2 cans of cream of chicken soup, i learned the hard way that this doesn't mean 2 cans of condensed cream of chicken soup. hehe. the filling was rather thick this time, although still tasty! and no worries, sarah isn't all that bossy and didn't demand any of these food items. well maybe just the pink velvet cupcakes. usually she asks and bats her long curly eyelashes at me and i'm a sucker. see, we're still friends: at home, mom suggested i make food for our road trip back to dc. i had successfully avoided preparing food at home all week until the very last morning. she suggested i use all the leftovers and concoct a meal. note: i hate cooking and really am useless unless an oven is involved. so, i did what my people do best: i took out the wok and stirred everything together. it tasted just ok but looked horrendous. and while in weston, i dug up the 2nd beaded project i made, 5 years ago, to snap pics. (the 1st was a cardigan i made for my grandma, but i have since lost the pics.) i used a black long sleeve shirt and beaded the front in the style of those victorian bib shirts (way before the bib shirt trend of 2 years ago). the 3 swirly chains have a gold eagle button in the middle and are meant to resemble necklaces, in a way. this was a mother's day gift for my mom that year.the back has a continuation of the scalloped trim from the front. you'll have to look closely, as the black beads on the black shirt are hard to see.

a new use for a shrunken sweater

really i prefer to think that i grew and that's why the sweater doesn't fit. however, a more likely scenario is that my stellar laundering skills shrank this grey scallop-knit sweater. i've been working on downsizing my STUFF so that i have less things to move to philly, which means that stuff i no longer wear or use must be sold to a consignment store, donated, refashioned, or tossed. this was on its way to being tossed.until monday morning, when instead of helping mom and dad pack the car for the trip back to ct for the week, i decided that my bed lacked throw pillows and that i needed one in a neutral color to go with the new vintage white bedspread (is that an oxymoron?) that i got for my bed for philly! grey is neutral! so, i took a cheapy ikea pillow that was too big for how little stuffing it had (and thus it was super flat and lumpy) and sewed the pillow shut down the middle. then, i sewed the sweater shut across the armpits and zigzag-stitched right next to that to prevent fraying. along the bottom ribbing of the sweater i sewed an invisible grey zipper leftover from one of my numerous ambitious sewing projects that never got started (since my list of MUST SEW items is longer than my list of completed to-do items)! i stuffed the newly poofy ikea pillow into my new sweater pillowcase, and voila, one pretty scalloped throw pillow for the bed! it's still a little lumpy. mom claims that after some tossing around, it'll be flatter... we'll see about that. ikea pillows suck. never buy pillows from ikea unless they're of the memory foam kind! note: this is not my new old white bedspread. i'm saving it for philly. oh, and did i mention that i painted this bedframe from ikea? i decided i NEEDED a bedframe and it came in natural untreated pine. however, i decided it should be white. HAD to be white. so now it's white. add that to my list of random apt crafts and completed to-do items!

this weekend, for 4th of july, i baked blueberry muffins with fresh blueberries! i doubled the recipe, and we probably had 40 or so muffins! i used minimal butter and sugar since mom and dad are freaky health nuts. bunks benefited from many blueberry treats! no worries, i didn't spill any "soft scrub" into the muffins. mom was cleaning my stovetop. apparently i'm a "filthy filthy girl," in mom's own words! *blush*

chickens!

when jimmy was in middle school, he was obsessed with chickens. instead of saying "cool!", he'd say "chickens!" (don't ask. i don't get it either.) so, as soon as my job finished on june 30th (!!!!), the end of the fiscal year (i do work in a finance office and all), the first thing i thought of sewing was a dress with this african chicken fabric that i got at the school's rummage sale last october. you may remember it from the christmas birdies post; it was the fabric that was turquoise with dark red chickens. (NOTE: i met up with some friends for a farewell happy hour and it was pointed out to me that said chickens are really quails. but i'm not satisfied with calling this a quail dress, since i've been calling it my chicken dress for a week already. so sorry friends, but CHICKEN DRESS it is!)

i'd been eying the mila dress pattern from burdastyle.com, an online shop with tons of free and cheap sewing patterns. i love how crisp this looks! not a fan of how the front flaps open like that, though. it sort of looks like a boob offering!!! hehei ripped apart this black jumper that i never wore for the coordinating fabric. it's really more black than grey... the coloring here is just a little off and i forgot to take a pic of it before i ripped the skirt section to shreds! (ew, what was i thinking with this dress!)and made this: yes that's me midsentence! notice how the chicken right in the middle under the button placket is complete! i meticulously calculated how to cut the fabric despite the 5/8" seams on both front skirt panels to make sure the fabric continued exactly once i sewed them back together. ditto for the back: it pays to be slightly ocd, huh? (however, i'm not a fan of how i look like a linebacker in these pics. i've been swimming laps at my pool fairly regularly to stay in shape and it's making me broad!) mom and dad are in the town for the nation's bday, so to celebrate i baked banana bread and gingersnaps! mom has a weakness for gingersnaps and often buys them, so i baked her some to prove that i could make them better. and, they were! so she swore to never purchase gingersnaps ever again. ah, unemployment is so sweet! tomorrow i'm going to bake a blueberry pie! however, once next monday hits, i am going to hit the books to lesson plan for next year. lesson planning will be my day job for 8 hrs (ugh!), and of course i will continue sewing at night as my regular hobby!

happy father's day!

ok maybe i'm just 9 days late, but no matter since the rents are back in town this weekend to renovate the apartment! 1 small and fitted laptop sleeve for dad: complete!the back:and a view of the inside: