the latest exploration

as you may have guessed by now, i'm kind of a hands-on, crafty gal, and i love a project. so when i read about making cheese, i had to try it. i've made yogurt cheese before (with dill, sooo delicious) but this was real cheese. like sold-in-stores cheese. it is called paneer (panir) and it's a very mild, middle eastern/indian cheese, and it was so insanely easy to make. i think it would be fun to make with kids (if i ever get around to getting one or two) because it's neat to watch the curds separate when you add the vinegar. here is the finished product:


i want to try this again with herbs mixed in, and possibly salted (which makes queso blanco!). and i want to try making chevre, which is also supposed to be easy but i don't have a recipe as yet. this afternoon i will be trying my hand at making ricotta, which is made with the leftover whey and is supposed to be insanely easy also. also insanely better than store-bought ricotta, which i have no doubts about, since imho homemade stuff in general and my homemade stuff in particular is insanely better than store-bought.

on a slightly different note, i received my [belated] birthday gift the other day from alice and isn't it spectacular?


it's venetian glass (she brought it back from her italy trip this summer) and i am so in love with all the colors in it. fabulous.

heck yeah

i forgot how insanely fun bowling is, especially with a big group of fun people, especially with drinks and betting involved.



yep, that is a new lifetime high score for me. yep, i'm a crappy bowler. yep, i'm pretty damn proud of it.

life

i hate it when my life apps come back table rated [worse than standard rates due to health issues].

and i hate it when people get mad at me about it. why get mad at me? i don't make the underwriting decisions. and i'm not the one with the health issues. that's all you, baby.

to paint or not to paint

from the moment our sectional was delivered, all i can think about is that the north wall of our family room needs to be painted. something bold but earthy, like a dark terra cotta or some kind of russet-y pumpkin-y brown. otherwise, it's just so beige and boring.

brian, however, is not as keen on the idea as i am, even when i point out to him that it's just paint and if it's awful, we can repaint it. (he did not even perk up when i suggested that we could shut the blinds and paint it naked. huh??) even when i showed him a photo of the family room that i had [badly] photoshopped, he was not convinced.

so for the three people who actually read this, please give me your opinion:

now

or after (even those un-photoshopped spots would be painted - you get the idea)?

(and for my sister, who wants to see the dining room table):

my life in a nutshell

(thanks to kerry and gabe for turning me on to sam brown and exploding dog)

humidity

and the smell of rain in the summer heat makes me think of you.

more [old] projects

all of my time and energy these days has been channeled into the house, so i haven’t been sewing hardly at all. which is not to say that i don’t want to – just that i feel guilty devoting time to such a hobby (unless it is house-related). so here are some old projects that i really enjoyed making and wearing:

this dress is the same see & sew pattern as this one, only i decided to face the armscyes and neckline. at the time, the idea was to preserve the stretch characteristic of the fabric, because i thought the dress would be more comfortable with a bit of extra give across the bust. i’m not sure where i was going with that, because it’s not an uncomfortable pattern by any stretch of the imagination. (the pattern calls for lining the bodice but not the skirt – the easter dress is fully lined, though.) next time i will trust the experts and my mother and just line the bodice even if i think it ought to be faced. it just makes a nicer garment and i hate facings anyways. i think this is a really fun print (world monuments like the coliseum, eiffel tower, leaning tower of pisa, et cetera, if you can’t tell - along with dapper men and stylish ladies walking poodles) and i like how the piping turned out:



this dress is an old butterick pattern (# 4042) that i tweaked ever so slightly. i just love shift dresses. they are so insanely comfortable and so easy to make. one view of this shift had a cute decorative little ribbon at the "waist," so I decided to put a little bit of elastic in to accent the narrowest part of my waist (thank you, stacy and clinton). however the pattern did not account for that and i neglected to alter the pattern, so the narrower "waist" created by the elastic made a bit of a pooch in the fabric, unflatteringly right where my tummy is. i think waist darts could alleviate this problem on a future dress, but at the moment i'm not sure how to put them in and keep the fullness at the bust without cutting the front piece into two and joining them at that waist seam. i still really really like this dress, and i love the gathered ribbon trim, and with the batiste lining it is nice and cool:



this is an old butterick pattern also, # 4393. it was supposed to zip down the front but i like buttons instead, and i thought the print was too summery for full-length sleeves. i also took off the nehru collar in favor of the gathered ribbon trim:



eventually there will also be a circle skirt in that antique rose print – i have it cut out and ready to go except for the lining. it’s part of the same butterick pattern as the jacket, which is also this fun tropical skirt. i love circle skirts – they’re universally flattering (imho) and super-easy to make. two seams, a zipper, and a waistband facing:



i love this bias skirt too (simplicity # 4881) which again i think is (almost) universally flattering. also super-easy – two seams and elastic at the waist. i was initially not sure about the plaid (i thought it was kind of an odd color combination) but it has really grown on me. it feels kind of retro to me:



here is one of my favorite dresses ever, vintage vogue # 2902. in the future i would take out some of the fullness in the skirt, because it is very full – a complete circle, i think, and maybe then some (in contrast to the circle skirt above which is only about ¾ of a circle):