How have I never heard of Zafu before? This is incredible: you answer a bunch of questions on this website and then it tells you what jeans will fit you and how they will look. That picture up above is exactly how I want my jeans to look, and it's my number one match, The Sweetheart $30 at Old Navy. I ordered them and I'll report back if the fit recommendation is true or not. According to Zafu, here's how they are supposed to fit me in three key fit areas:

Waist: What makes this jean ultimately wearable is that it sits higher than most low rise jeans and will provide great coverage at the rear. There may be a teeny bit of snugness at the waistband.
Hip & thigh: This jean fits perfectly through the hip and the thigh and looks sexy. The stretch denim fabric skims close to carve out your curves without feeling tight.
Seat: You'll have a smooth fit across the seat without fitting too tight, and these jeans have the seat flattering angled pockets that brings out the well-formed curves of your butt.

Works in progress for holiday fest 2007! I am simultaneously feeling like I've gotten a lot done and like I'll never be able to make it. These trees are really fun and will make a great display. The ones standing up are made from thrifted materials.

Fall is here! It's raining and pouring today and we've had two successful baking experiments:

Whole wheat beer bread - this is yummy, but it does include about a cup of white flour. I wanted to try it out pretty much as written before experimenting with all whole wheat. I didn't have bread flour so I just used all purpose instead. This was my first time making bread with the mixer instead of kneading and mixing by hand. Shockingly, it was much easier.

Apple-Walnut Cake - for over a month I've been looking for my ideal apple cake recipe, a search I've restarted from last Fall. This isn't it because my ideal apple cake recipe is more of a biscuit type cake with struesel on top. I mainly used this particular recipe because it looked so easy and I'm getting tired of putting so much energy into not finding the right recipe. One of the reviewers mentioned that the base is basically a blondie dough and they're right, but with a ton of apples it turns extra moist and fantastic. So good! While this is not my ideal, it is awesome in a completely different way.

Crafty work day today, I made a lot of progress but still nothing to show for it. I'm trying to realize economies of scale by doing a lot of one thing at at time, right now I'm doing a bunch of trees and dream pouches. I wonder if I will regret this plan when I am sewing in zipper after zipper. The best part about crafty work day is the view:

I really like these crazy stockings from Free People. They're a little bohemian yeti for me but a great jumping off point for making my own stockings, something I've been meaning to do.


I particularly enjoy the use of pom pom.

Two of my favorite things: cute husband, embroidered pillowcase. He really loves being photographed when he's still trying to sleep for the last ten minutes.

Alright, I suck at NaBloPoMo. This week has been ridiculous. We will have black bean pumpkin soup this weekend and put everything back together. To get through the next couple of days, let's check out some more etsy favorites:

Hobbledehoy - It's true love, I really love this shop with hand dyed and handspun yarns. These are the kind of yarns I would make if I'd ever learned how to spin (sorry Mom!). The gal has been promising a large update in the next couple of days so I've been obsessively checking. Oh, and the prices are really reasonable for artisan handspun.

Hee! This is a little onesie I made especially for a little baby that was born too far away. Hopefully this message will sink in and her parents will move closer immediately!

Just a few days in and I've already fallen off the NaBloPoMo waggon! Yesterday was crazy: new babies were snuggled, gigantical life decisions were made, tears were shed, cuddles were shared. Big deal stuff that drives blogging right out of your brain, even when you do have an extra hour. Let's just pretend this never happened.

This is what the kitchen looked like earlier this afternoon as I waited for my sugar to caramelize to make this tart, a tryout for Thanksgiving.
It was very good but I drastically underestimated the amount of slivered almonds we had in the freezer. I subbed pistachios for most of the almonds and they were alright but the crisper almonds would've been a nicer texture with the soft caramel and cranberries.

I came home to the November Anthropologie catalog with these:




Both versions of an idea I've had on my mind for about a year now: make clothes with quilts. I think either a nice fitted jacket (maybe mandarin collar?) or comfy robe would be great candidates. For the jacket, obviously fit is a major concern, but for both the seam finishing would be crucial for a nice garment. Either a lining or maybe just trim the seam allowances and finish with binding or twill tape? Will have to think about it for next year.

As you can see, I've taken the pledge! This holiday season I am not only trying to make handmade things for other people to give as gifts, I'm also making sure all of the gifts from me are handmade too (well mostly, there are a couple of useful items already planned out that are not handmade, but sshh!). I've done a lot of embroidery so far and a little jam making. I'll also be doing a lot of etsy shopping (as per usual, ahem). The one thing I will not be doing this year is buying random industrially produced crap for those people on my list who are a little difficult to shop for. Also, I think it's pretty universally agreed that good books count as handmade since the author put so much of him or herself into the finished product.

By way of starting back up again here, I will be participating in the dreaded NaBloPoMo. At the same time I will be preparing to participate in these two craft fairs:

IndieSacramento
Charr's show!

To start getting in the mood for handmade holiday purchases, here are a couple of my favorite etsy stores:

Rhymes with Luck - gorgeous jewelry with a vintage feeling, made by a very creative friend of my family.

1AEON - natural fantasy inspired hand silk-screened t-shirts. I started trolling this shop to find gifts for my husband (Mr. Fantasy!) but ended up getting a t-shirt for myself as well. The shirts themselves are beautiful and soft and the designs are incredible, really nice vendor to work with as well if you do a custom order.

Hottoffee - fused glass jewelry. I own 3 or 4 pairs of these earrings and wear them all the time. They are beautifully made and simple but the layers of glass make them so special. Also the dangley earrings are held onto the hook with a little piece of metal in the shape of a heart and one is imprinted with the word "you" and one with "me." How cute is that!

Do you have trouble with buttons? I do. I really like them and frequently think they would be just the thing to add some texture and an interesting shape to a lot of things. But then when I get out the button tin (just go on ebay and buy one they come already assembled courtesy of someone else's sweet grandma) then I start thinking: is this too kitschy? is it going to look unbearably Shabby Chic? This is a problem I have.

This is a little project that I had some fun with for Thad's birthday. He needed a water bottle for his new work/fitness situation so when I saw these stainless steel bottles on Angry Chicken I knew they would be perfect: Thad has a thing for metal. But I was worried about how hot or cold liquids would feel in a stainless steel container so I decided to do a little protective sleeve thing to fancy it up, also to make a water bottle more exciting as a birthday present.



I've been buying silkscreened patches on etsy to use for little decorations and this is one of those, it looks dragonish and of course I had to add my two cents by writing "love" on it. I did manage to refrain from using my girly handwriting and I'm sure Thad is thankful for that.

It's funny how things work. When I was 13 years old I took a quilting class with my mom, neither of us had ever quilted before but it sounded neat and was something my great grandmother had done so my mom had some sentimental attachment. I made an 18" square that took me about six months (maybe a year!), and vowed never to handquilt again because six months for one square did not seem like a good deal to me. Fast forward to now: by way of embroidery I've started using a running stitch to decorate my quilted items because I love the texture: this running stitch is also known as hand quilting.

Inspiration today:

1. This beautiful and comfortable looking home on designsponge.

2. A couple last pictures of summer at the beach.

3. Love the Alexander Henry print quilt in this new book.

4. I hope this is about my new house, wherever it may be:

Continuing my love affair with the wonderful world of embroidery, I've been embroidering a few sets of pillowcases, many of which are destined to be gifts. This handwork has been very comforting to me because it is so portable and there are very few decisions to be made if you are following a pattern like this. My one big rule with these sets is that I must work both pillowcases at the same time so I don't end up dreading the second pillowcases (knitters see also second sock syndrome).

This one will be for us and is a blend of Sublime Stitching and Aunt Martha's patterns. It's mate has a unicorn in place of the birds and etc. Guess which one Thad wants to use?

My move was pretty disruptive but we are starting to settle into apartment living now so I can show you what I've been up to, trying to keep sane. These are a couple of sets of booties that I've been fiddling with using Heather Bailey's pattern. These are for a little Christmas project I've been thinking about which is where my love of pure wool in August comes from.

Both pairs are made from thrifted all wool or lambswool sweaters that go in the washing machine on hot. I also got a pair of lime green (!) Calvin Klein jeans that are turning into cute cotton versions.

I asked Joel how he answers the charge that because food like his is more expensive, it is inherently elitist. “I don’t accept the premise,” he replied. “First off, those weren’t any ‘elitists’ you met on the farm this morning. We sell to all kinds of people. Second, whenever I hear people say clean food is expensive, I tell them it’s actually the cheapest food you can buy. That always gets their attention. Then I explain that, with our food, all of the costs are figured into the price. Society is not bearing the cost of water pollution, of antibiotic resistance, of food-borne illnesses, of crop subsidies, of subsidized oil and water—of all the hidden costs to the environment and the taxpayer that make cheap food seem cheap. No thinking person will tell you they don’t care about all that. I tell them the choice is simple: You can buy honestly priced food or you can buy irresponsibly priced food.”

from Michael Pollan, of course

This weekend's menu (the first chance I've had to cook in over a month!):

mojitos
chocolate zucchini cupcakes, talk about delicious!
Zelda's Pizza
summer fruit from the farmer's market - peaches, heirloom melons
mushrooms over polenta, the mushroom part based on this method criminis work just fine