Firsts of 2013

Sorry, Flickr won't cooperate tonight and won't show my rotated pix as rotated.

I am still fitting the Sewaholic Thurlow trousers.
I started on Dec 31.  I'm on muslin #4.
And still have far to go.
Luckily I'm enrolled in "Altering Pants" on PatternReview.com, and Angela Wolf started helping me fit them to my body last weekend.

That necessitated buying my first bolt of muslin.


A whole bolt of muslin is actually kind of dreamy.
Finally my first wearable garment off my new sewing machine and my first underwear of the year!

Black Fabric: hmmm...probably Joann's.
Iron-On Patch that wouldn't iron on, so I sewed it on: Definitely Joann's.
Hot pink elastic: Pacific Trimming, NYC, MPB Day

I think it's adorable.

I made chicken pot pie tonight, from scratch, even down to the cornmeal crust. The kitchen looked like my sewing room does after a project. 

The recipe from Cook This Not That is MUCH better, but in that recipe I used store-bought phyllo dough and I liked the idea of the from-scratch-ness of this recipe.

Sadly, the cornmeal crust didn't taste like much. It probably needs a boatload of butter and some sugar to make it better, ha ha.  The filling doesn't have any milk product at all.  Traditional pot pie has cream and lower-cal ones use skim milk.  This one just uses chicken broth.

I'd say this dish is like the wearable muslin of cooking.  I'm going to eat it (well, the filling at least) but it's not going to be made in this form again.

But it looked adorable in the cookbook in red ramekins:

I hadn't been to the PPL for a while and it was fun to browse during lunch last week. SO many books I couldn't carry them all, so I got these to start:

I leave you with this.

I helped my friend Debbie learn a bit more about her sewing machine last weekend (which was really fun to hear her reaction especially as she didn't know her machine had so many features, like automatic threading). That was another first, showing a friend new sewing machine features.
We went to the Ardmore Farmers Market so I could relive some college memories.
Ok, ONE more.

Delish!
Well, just ONE more.

Ok, this is what I really came for:

The same woman who served me in college served me last weekend. With the same chocolate chip cookies I adore.  LOVE.  Almost as good as mine.  Different than mine.  But yummy.
Be well!

Simplicity 2054 view A done and unarticulated

Today it was 83F here so it seems a bit bizarre to make a dress with long sleeves! But here it is, Simplicity 2054 view A, a Cynthia Rowley dress with long sleeves and a monster cowl collar.

I think that picture above makes me look like I'm running for office.  "BlossomKyle for President:  For a new Sewing America".  Or, maybe if I wore my cowl on my back, I'd look like a super hero??

Comments were mixed about the articulated sleeve (i.e. a peek-a-boo or slit in the elbow sleeve) of my muslin of  view C.  Read all about it in this post.

The muslin looks like this, and I wore it as a nightgown last night. Very soft and comfy:

I wound up not making the articulated sleeve. I love Antoinette's idea of making this in black with the articulated sleeve, and Mushywear's idea of making the sleeves tighter...so there may be another version of this in the future!

That collar is actually a separate piece.

So you can take the cowl collar off and it is just a t-shirt dress...I will try wearing it like I wear Hawaiian leis--not right up against the neck.

Here's what the back of the cowl looks like. It has basting stitches that are supposed to be removed after the cowl is put together but I didn't remove them.

Here's an idea of the monster size of this collar--in the cutting phase:

oh!  The fabric is from The Common Thread in Austin, TX.  I purchased it with Antoinette and Leslie in Austin back in March.   It's a lightweight double knit, very soft.  :)

Side view:

Back view. As you can see I added a CB seam to add some shaping for the swayback.
Here's a closeup of the binding finish I used, which is different than what the directions recommend:

I just LOVE how this finish looks:

Here's an action shot

So yea, it's done!  Maybe I'll call this my birthday dress?


So what should I make from this fabric??? Seems like the right time of year to use it, and I have a yard and a half of it. It's a double knit from Mood purchased with Antoinette in June.

Farmer's mkt flowers for this week. My favorite flower farmer has packed up for the season so I bought from a different stand this week.

I made chicken pot pie tonight; I haven't made this for about 6 months now and it is SO good.   Aren't pearl onions the best?   Unlike last time I didn't overfill the dish, yea! No smoke coming out of the oven was just a bonus.

Be well and good night!!

Pattern Review blog surprise! Plus cooking

So on Friday I was checking my twitter feed and saw that my review of NewLook 6000 was featured on the PatternReview blog...I must admit, it's kind of wild to read someone else's summary of my review.  I don't know why I was chosen to be featured but I am honored!  Then Monday night I realized that my profile pic is one of the rotating pix in their "what's new" box (if you go to http://sewing.patternreview.com/ and my pic isn't in the box, press refresh until it is).  Get out of town!   The dress is definitely a winner.  I did fix the stretching of the CB seam over the weekend the "right" (or should I say better) way (i.e. ripping it out and ironing interfacing in, then sewing it back up)  I wore it again to work today and got lots of nice comments, and have received great comments on the dress here on my blog and of course on my review at  pattern review.   It was my 99th review on PR...what will be #100???

In other news: It had to be done. I cooked tonight.  I'd MUCH rather sew but I need to get back to eating more of my own food.  Unfortunately I didn't have peas for the minestrone tonight.


Here's the lemon chicken orzo

Library books:  a repeat (I needed a refresher), a novel and a book about ayurveda.

As always, be well and good night!

Reader Q&A

Soooo...I asked about the sleeve lines in my last post about the Jule tulip sleeve shirt, and you guys answered!  Thank you!  I might play with this pattern some more sometime and see if I can fix that issue. I agree, the shirt is too long in the shoulder line. But I also think I didn't do a great job tracing the pattern. I think I'm actually going to cut the sleeve pattern directly out of the Jalie paper as I don't ever see myself tracing that piece out properly.


Now time for some of your questions, answered!


Gwen wanted to know "where's the food"...there you go!   I cooked tonight, after dinner.  Those are in-progress shots, simmering away...minestrone and corn chowder.  Antoinette, when you were here, I forgot to add the pearl barley.  Oops!  I haven't experimented with new-to-me recipes for a while.  It's time to do that again soon.  I'm stuck in a cooking rut.

TracyKM wanted to know about swayback puddling. I don't know how to determine this without doing a muslin first, but it involves figuring out how much of a tuck needs to be taken, then transferring that tuck (just fold the pattern over) from the CB waist or slightly above it eventually folding to nothing at the side seam (that way the length of the dress at the side seam doesn't change). It's essentially what I did in my black Burda dress, only I fixed it on the fly by adding the horizontal seam at the waist and taking out the 1" tuck via the seam there. Also, like Jodie said, adding a CB seam and shaping that can help too.

The Slapdash Seamstress stated that it's hard to find good quality knits at Joann's. I  *adore* their $12.99 ponte roma knit--it feels "yummy".  But they also sometimes have good knits that aren't the ponte roma.   

Hrm, it felt like you guys asked more questions, but I guess not!

Health update:

• still no bloodwork results from 7/29
• got the authorization code--my brain MRI with contrast to rule out MS is Thurs morning.
• my pelvic ultrasound is Monday afternoon.
• I'm still feeling weird/slightly numb/lightheaded on and off.   I don't know what that's all about but I'm hoping the tests will figure it out or this just goes away on its own
• I'm feeling burned out from managing my health.  :(

I finished the mindfulness based stress reduction course Monday night.   I thoroughly enjoyed it; it has changed the way I look at my back pain.  and I think I might have made some new friends from it too!

Be well and good night!!

Sunday night food

Thanks for your kind words about my non-hernia news!  I am so so so relieved!  I saw my primary care doc on Friday for my annual physical.  He seemed pretty surprised about the pelvic kidney, though it was there on the MRI report I gave him last year on my initial visit to him.  He said it must be pretty close to the front of the body.  I'm still having trouble sleeping through the night so he gave me a stronger anti-inflammatory.  Finally, some drugs!  Normally I am not a drug person but I am ready for them now.  You folks with kids, I don't know how you can work sleep deprived.  It's been almost 2 weeks for me now of non-normal sleep and I don't like feeling like I'm in a daze.

So I find that when I sew in a rush as opposed to sewing at a leisurely pace, my garments suffer as a result.  Tonight, I learned the same lesson with cooking.


That's brown rice pilaf with mushrooms from the Flat Belly Diet cookbook. I threw in the carrots because I have some left over from last week. I rushed the rice with this one and let's say the rice has some bite! also, this truly is a side dish. It needs some more vegetables to bulk it out.


That's Chicken Pad Thai from the same cookbook. Actually this tastes like pad thai, which shocked me! As I was rushing my way through this I thought there would be no way this was going to taste like pad thai.  I wish I had bought those little miniature corn cobs; I didn't think about it til I was cooking. The recipe doesn't call for them but I *love* them. And water chestnuts. Ok, next time! The carrots aren't in the recipe either but I had to use some up!  And I love the smell of limes.  They remind me of when I was little and my dad would drink gin and tonic and let me have a slice of lime.

Oh, and here was dinner last night:

I love scrambled eggs. The broccolini is actually from Olives in Princeton. Isn't the Valentine napkin a nice touch?

I also mashed some sweet potatoes tonight too but forgot to take a picture.  Maybe tomorrow.

My fridge is dying so I have a lot of fridge cleaning-out to do this week!

Here's my Princeton Public Library book pile for this week:


8 Weeks to Optimum Health by Andrew Weil (middle of pile) is fantastic.  I'm really enjoying that one.  That first book on the pile is to balance out all the serious reading I'm doing.

Hope you are healthy and happy, are pain-free, and getting good quality sleep!

My week: repairs, reading, more snow, food, books...

No sewing today, but some repairing!  In December I broke my dining room lamp.  I accidentally hit one of the "arms" of the lamp, and it "popped out."  I thought I could "pop" it back into place but it had actually broken off.    I tried a lot of things, crazy glue included, but nothing worked.  Today I got back in the repair saddle and tried again.  So far, so good.  I've run the washing machine upstairs (which shakes this light fixture) and it held up; the next text will be the dishwasher tmw night (it also shakes the light fixture).



I used hot glue to keep the arm in position, though hot glue is not enough to keep it from falling over.  I used silver wire I had in stash from my flower days, wrapped it around all of the arms, so the other arms + wire + hot glue are keeping the arm from popping out. 


I don't think it looks too bad.  In the picture above you can see the glue and the wire; but in reality if you're at the table looking at the lamp you just see the wire, and it really doesn't seem so noticable.

I have to go to Home Depot tmw to buy a new toilet handle and lever tmw.  I took apart the old one today; it broke this week.  I totally understand what I need to do.  I'm feeling very confident I can fix it all by myself, which feels very empowering!

We are still getting snow!  It is so unusual for NJ to have so much snow, especially after last year's snowy winter.   There was snow into ice  Monday night into Tuesday morning.  I should have taken a picture of my car; it had snow and then was "enrobed" in ice.  Here I took a picture of a chunk on its side; it's half snow and half ice.  The yellow thing in my hand is my ice scraper.


Can you see the outline of the ice coating the trees??

Then Wednesday it was in the 40's and the snow started to melt, but there's so much snow, it didn't disappear.
Then it snowed again on Friday morning, 2 or so more inches on top of what remained.  I like the sunlight glistening on the snow.

I drove to work late both days even though the university was operating at normal hours--it just felt safer that way, though there's always a scary moment somewhere along the way on a drive through the snow.
  
I finished "Are You My Guru:  How Medicine, Meditation, and Madonna Saved My Life" by Wendy Shanker.  If you have a chronic illness, or chronic pain, you MUST read this book.  Highly recommend.



My friend at work saw the "Are you my guru" book on my desk (it was so good, I was carrying it with me, reading it on my lunch hour, at the doctor's office, etc).  She told me about "The Guru In You" by Cameron Alborzian; she saw him on Ellen.  I've only flipped through it so far, but if you want a former male supermodel to show you how to do some basic yoga moves, you're in luck; it's part of the book:


The Pain Free book Beth recommended last week was checked out of the library when I went on Thurs, but I'll put it on hold.

My orchids are in full bloom now!  Great job, orchids!


I used leftover ingredients (and of course all of that leftover rice) to make dinner on Tuesday night.  It looks a lot like Saturday's dinner, right??  But it's different; I put mozzarella cheese chunks in it, and didn't use soy sauce.  See, I even used a different pan (round, not square!)


I never got to do the navy blue sailor shirt photo shoot; maybe tmw.  Cooking, reading, doing my homework is cutting into my sewing time but it's worth it.  My back is feeling a lot better (this week is its two year anniversary), but I pulled an ab muscle so that's on my radar.

By the way, I'm going to PR weekend Chicago (though I still need to request the time off from work)--hope to see you there!

corn chowder redux; Vogue 8534 redux sneak peek

Today was the day of the redux.

First up, corn chowder. Last week's was too much liquid, not enough corn. So I combined the "Skinny B*tch" recipe with the recipe from "400 Calorie Fix". 1 cup more corn, 2 cups less veggie broth, what a difference! MUCH better.


I also finished Vogue 8534 redux, my first garment of 2011! Finally! It's been three weeks since I've sewn. As you may recall, the previous version suffered an accidental cut, and then was too small anyway. The redux version is navy blue and fits me a lot better. I'm not loving the loop for the bow, though. I can easily remake that so it's not as wide.


I'll write about the shirt sometime this week, and I'll do a photoshoot then too and write a pattern review of it then too.  I wish I had my sailor hat from Disney World.  It would really make the photoshoot.


I want to change my SPR name.  Right now it's kdburkhardt.  I'm thinking of changing it just to my first name, or my first and middle names.  I suppose I could change it to something sewing related, but I don't know...

Beth, I will look into the pain book you recommended, thanks!

Last question: What is a dutch oven? A lot of recipes use one--I'll google image search it now!

Snow, food, books, etc

It's so strange; the last few winters Jersey has been the recipient of quite a lot of snow. I would have loved this when I was in school!
Here's Wednesday's snow. It was 10am delayed opening that day.


How much snow? This much:




So, on Thursday night I made two eggs scrambled and french toast made with wheat bread. Easy and yummy, though the cinnamon sort of plummeted out of the container and onto one of the slices.


Tonight I made "Chicken Fried Rice" from the "Cook This, Not That!" cookbook.

So I really wasn't thinking about the whole "rice" issue. The recipe called for 2 cups cooked whole grain rice in the ingredients list.

First, I think it's sneaky for cookbooks to put cooked items in the ingredients list. This bit me in the a** a few years ago when a recipe called for cooked pasta in the ingredients...when it was time to throw the pasta in, I did and then ha ha, realized it was supposed to have already been cooked.  Oh, crunchy entree.

So I cooked the rice first, BUT I put 2 cups of uncooked rice into the pot to start--when it was time to put the cooked rice in, I'm thinking, wow, this looks like a LOT of rice and I couldn't fit it all in the pan, but kept on cooking til the end (I think this is analogous to sewing a wavy hem--I realize it's wavy and kept going--it took a few years to get myself to STOP when I realize something's going wrong).   THEN I looked at the box. 2 cups uncooked rice = 10 cups cooked rice. ohhhhh....I had to add more (lower sodium) soy sauce to my dish because that tablespoon got soaked up in all that rice.  But it was good dinner and plenty o' leftovers! 

I saw a bit of "Worst Cooks in America" on Food Network the other weekend. I feel like those cooks. And tonight I could sort of hear Chef Anne screaming in my ear to be more aggressive with my chopping, ha ha.

Here are 9 of the 10 items I have checked out of the Princeton Public Library.


I love the library.

I highly recommend "Food Rules". Easy read, common sense guide to eating.  As the author says, it boils (ha ha!) down to "Eat Food.  Mostly Plants.  Not too much."  I think one of my favorite rules is not eating anything your great-grandparents wouldn't recognize (it means it's overly processed).   Also, not eating unless you're hungry enough to eat an entire apple (to eliminate grazing). 

I just started "Are You My Guru? How Medicine, Meditation, and Madonna Saved My Life". Love it so far.

I've read bits and pieces of "Full Catastrophe Living." I like it so much I bought a copy so that I can annotate it. I think this book will play a big role in the elimination/reduction of my back pain.  

"Heat", written by someone who worked for Chef Mario Batali, is an audiobook that I can listen to during my commute. I currently am listening to "Half Empty" by David Rakoff on my commutes (not pictured). I already listened to "Wherever You Go, There You Are" by Jon Kabat-Zinn, but took out the book for good measure.

I actually sewed today for about 45 minutes! I'm hoping to do some more sewing tomorrow and finish the Vogue shirt. But now I have to finish my "homework" for the week (I'm doing the "Pain Free For Life:  The 6 week cure for chronic pain without surgery or drugs" program which has half an hour of homework per day, for 6 weeks.  I'm doing homework 5 nights out of 7.  Today is homework day number 10.)

Like I mentioned before, I'm doing less sewing to concentrate more on my back.  The time I spent cooking and doing homework, I would have spent on sewing.  It's well worth it.

Good night!