Fun with Fleece

About a year ago, my mom gave us a sewing machine with the hope that I’d take it up and make all types of great things for our house. It sat on the shelf unused (mostly because I’m too impatient to learn how to use it correctly), but my husband rescued it from oblivion a couple of months ago and quickly caught the sewing bug. He’s made iPhone pouches & a pillowcase, and recently he’s been consulting YouTube videos to learn different types of seams (Oh, you need a flat felled seam? Yeah, he can do that). Yesterday he took on his most complicated project yet: tailoring a jacket.

This fleece jacket was an Xmas present from work two years ago, but the only available size was a Men’s Large. Not too wearable. Luckily for me, husband took on the challenge.

First, he took all my measurements and the dimensions of the coat. To get the right fit (fitted but not too snug), he decided to trim the waist by 20″ (!) and each arm by 10″. It was a very large jacket. He sewed the new seams first, then cut away the excess fabric. Then all the seams were reinforced and finished by hand.

 

 

So…basically my husband is a miracle worker. It’s like having an entirely brand new jacket, fitted especially to me. He’s offered to teach me his sewing skills, so that’ll be my resolution for 2012. I just hope my first project will turn out as successfully (unlikely).

Tea Party!

Highly recommend Upton Tea Imports if you enjoy high quality loose leaf tea but don’t want to get robbed at a mall kiosk or other specialty shop. They send an extensive catalog every few months that’s fun to look through and choose new flavors, and they always include a couple of free samples with every order. It’s easy to find something for a variety of price ranges, too. They carry some pretty rare blends along with their everyday teas. All that we’ve tried has been excellent so far, and we just ordered a new batch last week. Can’t wait to try their Earl Grey!

On Every Girl's Christmas List

These American Girl “inspired” dolls each come with their own theme and storybook. Vespa-cruising ballet dancers, wealthy horse riding champions, and other reasonable goals for girls to aspire to. My favorite is the teen mom doll.

White Christmas in a Convenient, 25lb Bag

It’s fake snow! And apparently it’s impregnated. I’m not sure if that’s appropriate.

That time I was carded for squash...

Two mini-dramas of the day:

1) Starbucks for morning coffee, 8:53am. Lady in front of me is ordering a large caramel frappuccino with extra caramel and extra whipped cream. The barista takes a venti 24oz cup and starts marking it with the order. The customer exclaims, "Did you not hear me? I said a LARGE. I want THIS SIZE!" and points to the new trenta 31oz cup. "Sorry Ma'am. We can only serve iced coffee and iced tea in that size, Corporate's orders." Commence five solid minutes of arguing back and forth and accusations of atrocious customer service, concluding with the customer grabbing the measly 24oz of sugary yum-yums and storming out of the store in a huff.

2) Target for a box of Pacific Natural Butternut Squash Soup, 5:35pm. Cashier scans the soup and demands to see my ID. I ask why; he says I can't buy "that stuff" without being 21. I tell him that I'm not showing my ID. It's soup. He says that a lot of wine looks just like what I'm buying. That's fine, but I'm not buying boxed wine. I'm buying soup! He will not relent. Cashier calls the manager to the register. The manager confirms that I do not need to show ID to buy butternut squash soup. Thank you.

Naive Son & Midnight in the Garden of Goo and Evil (#bookswithalettermissing)

(More #bookswithalettermissing, my favorite Twitter hashtag in ages).

Truly, though, the Sons were naïvely optimistic this year when it came to garden tomatoes. We planted our tomatoes in early April, thinking that by the time July rolled around we'd see something like this:

RESULTS NOT TYPICAL

Instead, Texas decided to have its hottest summer in 30 years (and possibly ever, if we keep up the 100+ degree days for another week). At first we were amused by the early high temperatures, thinking that the weather would settle down and only the first round of tomatoes would be affected:

Haha, the heat rotted out one of the tomatoes to look like a mouth! How cute!

Soon, though, we realized that we were not going to enjoy limitless tomato-basil salads, bloody marys, and homemade pasta sauce. In the course of about three weeks one of our crops went from this:

Look how healthy! We're going to have so many tomatoes we'll have to give them away!! :D

 To this:

Oh.

So, 2011 in Dallas, Texas. Not the best year for tomato gardens. I will say, though, that Roland and his green thumb managed to save a healthy dozen or so of the tomatoes before they dried up, and his basil is thriving like a desert plant. And he cultivated a bunch of cucumbers and this beautiful eggplant that was delicious with olive oil & salt:

Survivor: Garden Edition

A Grisly (and Grizzly) Crime

In our mostly fruitless searches for quality furniture over the past year, we've come across some pretty strange pieces in some pretty strange places. Most horrifying, surely, is this ottoman we found that was clearly made from dismembered teddy bear arms. How barBEARic!