My wallet is falling apart

That means, time for a new one!

This past weekend I was in the process of cutting out my fabric (and Peltex and Interfacing and oh no, I have not cut out those damn bias strips yet) for the Weekender Bag. As I was looking at the amazing fabric I bought for the bag, I decided before I started on such a huge, time consuming project I would make myself a quick wallet out of the same delightful fabric. It was on clearance at Hancock Fabrics for $4 a yard (originally $14), bonus.

I scoured the inter-webs for a pattern to use as a starting point. With a little Google sleuthing, I discovered this gem. I had a hunch I was going to want to make more than one of these, so I even made myself a little pattern to use because I am not very good at measuring things.

I decided to do some stitching on the outside with two different colors of thread. I kind of just went with the flow and stitched how I felt.

The back looks pretty sweet too.

The inside pockets are just fabrics I already had that I figured looked good enough with the outside fabric. The bottom pocket took me a while; figuring out how to fold it correctly did not come easily to me. I thought about it real hard and compared it to the picture and then it made sense.

That was as far as I got today. This weekend: putting in the zipper for a change pocket and hopefully putting the whole thing together. Can't wait.

Wedding Dress Part I

There's not very much I've planned for when it comes to a wedding. I was never one of those girls who dreamed about their wedding day. I never cared about location or flowers or cake. But the one thing I always knew I'd do is make my own wedding dress.

The wedding is in two months. I've been messing with the muslin for the dress for about a month and a half now. I made the muslin and then I fitted and re-fitted. I ordered fabric samples and it took me forever to decide on what to use. I finally settled on some duchess satin (@ $40 a yard, it's the most I've ever spent on fabric), with some dupioni silk for a contrasting sash, both ordered from Thai Silks.

Nevertheless, I've been a little paranoid about starting the real dress. I keep thinking I'm going to majorly mess it up and then I will cry very, very hard. With only two months to go, I decided I need to get over this fear and start cutting the dress out from real fabric. I started with the sash because it's simple and quick. There wasn't much I could do to mess it up, and besides I ordered plenty of fabric to be able to re-cut if I made a major mistake.


Yesterday I unrolled the fabric and pinned the pattern for the sash. I knew as I was cutting out the fabric that it was the most beautiful, luxurious fabric I have ever used. And that was just the dupioni! I can't image what the duchess satin will be like to work with.


I managed to sew the sash in about an hour. This was being super extra careful, and pressing very thoroughly. I had my helper Frankie and the movie Office Space to keep me company while I sewed.


I'm so thrilled with how it came out. One thing I can check off the list. Next up is cutting out the lining and attaching the boning to the lining. I've never worked with boning and I'm a little intimidated but I think it will be fine. The pattern for the dress itself is so simple that I can't imagine messing it up. It took about an hour to make the muslin, so making the dress shouldn't be that difficult either. Of course, duchess satin and french seams will make it a little more time consuming. I've got plenty 'o time.

Man Socks

I really enjoy knitting socks, especially for people I know appreciate the time and effort that went into creating them. No person more than Steven enjoys being the recipient of my handmade socks.

I started these socks at the beginning of December with the hopes of getting them done in time for Christmas. I got distracted making my friend mittens for Christmas (which I never did get a picture of). On Christmas Eve morning, I wrapped up the one sock I had completed, and the partially, really-barely-even-started, second sock. I gave it to Steven and told him to open right then and there. I told him I was making him the socks and he would get the second one down a lot faster if he knew he was getting it and I could knit in the open instead of trying to knit in secret. I was able to finish the second sock up this morning and I think they turned out quite wonderfully.

The sock yarn is Smooshy by Dream in Color. The colorway is called November Muse. I really liked the colorway; mainly brown with various shades of blues and greens mixed in. It struck me as a very manly and appropriate colorway for what I hoped to be manly socks.

I used size two needles, and the basic 4 needle top-down pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks, casting on 64 stitches. I didn't use a stitch pattern found within that book. I picked out a really awesome 4 stitch pattern from my stitch dictionary called Crossed Braid. It is a two round pattern:

Round 1: Slip first stitch, knit next stitch, yarn-over, pass slipped stitch over knit stitch and yarn-over, Purl 2
Round 2: Purl

Somebody is happily wearing their socks this morning.

Hmmmm, bacon

I recently looked at my budget on Mint.com (which I signed up for long ago and then completely forgot about, even though I do get weekly e-mails from them - OK, let's be honest, I'm just really lazy about financial matters). Anyways, I realized that I have been spending way too much on eating out. So since I had Friday off and had time to plan and get organized for a visit to the grocery store, I came up with some really good ideas of food to eat. For instance, last night we had filet mignon topped with blue cheese and walnut butter, along with baked buttercup squash and cheddar garlic mashed potatoes. Add some lovely merlot, and you've got yourself a meal my friend.

But what I'm really proud of, and what this post is all about, is this delicious salad I made, topped with warm bacon dressing:



Honestly, I never knew that salad could be so scrumptious. Granted the bacon dressing probably kills any nutritional value of the salad whatsoever, but I have to tell you it is a delightful taste explosion and I loved it.

Spinach Salad w/Warm Bacon Dressing

Spinach
Blue cheese
2 hard boiled eggs, sliced
Grape or cherry tomatoes, halved
Almonds
6 slices bacon
1/2 red onion, chopped
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt

1. So the salad is basically some spinach topped with the blue cheese, sliced eggs, tomatoes and almonds.
   
2. To make the dressing, I cut up the bacon into small pieces first. You could cook whole then crumble. Anyhow, cook the bacon to your desired doneness. Remove from pan, reserving the bacon grease (see this where you know the recipe is going to take a turn for the un-healthy).
3. Cook the onion in the reserved bacon grease until tender. Stir in the bacon, sugar and salt. Keep stirring until the dressing thickens a bit, then spoon over the salad.

Deliciousness!

There's probably enough dressing there for 5-6 salads, depending on how much you like bacon. We had for dinner on Friday night, but had enough left over dressing to have it for lunch again on Saturday. I just stuck the dressing in the fridge Friday night and then put it in the microwave for about 1 minute 30 seconds the next day, and it tasted just as delectable.

I thought these would be the awesomest socks in the universe

[And then the mustard ended up right next to the bright green, and it ended up looking kind of, I don't know, "pukey." I mean, overall I still really like the socks and think that they are pretty neat, but they could have been a whole heck of a lot better if I had had the foresight to think about how the colors were going to line up. Such is life.]

May I present to you, the Socks of Kidness. They are a birthday present for my dear friend who unfortunately has a birthday four days before Christmas. I always like to make sure I give her separate birthday and Christmas presents, and she specifically requested a pair of my hand knit socks for her birthday this year.

When I saw the skein of Noro Kureyon sock yarn (colorway 164) I figured it could easily be made into the best pair of socks ever. The colors were perfect for my earthy, fun-loving pal. I had read up about the nifty striping effects you can create with Noro. I carefully wound the big skein into two separate balls, and then cast on for the pattern on my teensy, tiny size one needles. I alternated four rows of the pattern from each ball. I loved the zig-zag effect immediately, although I gotta tell you, I'm not much of a fan of lace (counting is hard!) either. The socks did go surprisingly well, although I'm not going to lie and say I didn't have to rip it out once (or maybe like five times, whatever).

The colors were looking pretty good at first. Manly, almost (the one that starts with the gray and mustard is the first sock). The boyfriend thought they were really neat and wanted a pair for himself. That is of course, until they went into the bright green. Then the bright green melded with the mustard, and the socks started to look kind of, um, unfortunate. The second sock doesn't even look like it came from the same bunch of yarn because it's mostly teal and green. I really like the teal and green combo but it is the complete opposite of the first sock. The second sock also unfortunately had the pleasure of the green/mustard combo too.

Oh well, I love them just the same. They are quirky and unique. I hope my friend will see them that way too.