angry chicken

everyday black dress

I sewed this dress at the beginning of the summer. It's McCalls 5042 and I have made it before. I sewed a black dress like this in college and wore it all the time. I was wishing I still had it and then realized, um, I could sew another one. I made it especially to wear under blouses. So many blouses now are a bit short (as they were 20 years ago when I was in college) and normal skirts and pants, when lifting my arms or moving around at all, can get a bit drafty.

This is not lined, nor did I put in a zipper. I can pull it over my head, carefully. It's in black tencel, which has some stretch. Sort of. Kind of like rayon does. I love this stuff. I got it at Mill Ends. I added this white trim to the serged edge on the bodice. That lovely ruffle is not the dress but the best bra ever.

This is how I normally wear this dress, with vintage blouses (this lovely gem was a special gift from a friend who knows this is my 7th navy blouse) or a sweater on top. Oh, I also didn't hem this dress, just serged the edges. Super simple. I have worn so many items from my closet that were too short to be comfortable now that I have this dress to wear under—It's like I just got a bunch of free clothes!

great salad two ways

I had been meaning to make this super simple absolutely delicious salad in one of Nigella's books for years now and finally just did. It's so tasty. Just shredding carrots, peanuts and a light dressing. So good. 

Then the next day I tossed in quinoa and edamame, a bit more dressing and loved it as well. The second day peanuts weren't as crunchy but it was still very good. This salad is a winner.

• I have really been enjoying Hurray for the Riff Raff's cd, Young Blood Blues a whole lot. (Via Amy Sly.)
• I have quite a few sewing projects I have finished and need to show, many of which involved stretch fabric, which means there's a good story there.
• I am digging this outfit/hair/look quite a bit, over at Built By Wendy.

 

I give a fig.

Fig, baked chèvre and almond salad

Figs with honey on plain yogurt

I bought some figs last week and although I had great plans for baking them in dessert items, I ended up just eating them uncooked on various food stuffs. Before I knew it, they were gone. Simple seemed better for these. As it turns out, I am the only fig eater in the house—except a fig newton cookie will get eaten by everyone.

Random notes-

• If you are in SF or the Bay Area, don't miss the workshop, Printin' in the Kitchen. Christine Schmidt is teaching. She is the genius behind Yellow Owl Workshop, and my love for her book, Print Workshop and her shop are no secret. The details of her workshop and sign-ups are here—it's coming up! Saturday, October 1st.

• I am in love with this skirt. So simple, and I love the length and the color. But I wish it wasn't poly. And the cats would surely shred it.

and it's not even for Halloween

Over the years, I have sewn very few things for my husband. And now that I think of it, I'm pretty sure the only things I have sewn are costumes. And not very many from scratch, mostly altered existing clothes. This dashing tunic is sewn from Simplicity 3519. We were looking for a piece that would work in plays/living history and dress-up and would span the most centuries. You can do a lot with this tunic. I also thought it would be great to wear for solstice. You know, us ladies in the house get pretty decked-out in finery and dad is just sportin' his normal look—it didn't seem right.

So, this came together quite well. I did have to make it harder by using what I had on hand—a top sheet. But it was jersey, and while this makes it quite soft, it was like sewing with pancake batter. The belt is his and the sword is my brother's, of course. We actually had 3 swords to choose from for this photo, which I think is pretty impressive considering we have no boys and Pete has never been a sword type of guy.

He reminded the girls several time this was not his Halloween costume. He says he's going as Jim Rockford. From the Rockford Files. No one will know who that is and even if they do, his outfit is so un-notable that the whole thing is perplexing, so I am choosing to ignore this whole topic when it comes up. Like last year when when threatened to go as Dorf.

I was remembering his past costumes (we have always ran with a Halloween lovin' crowd): A pirate (back in 1991 before they were everywhere) Ed Wood, Evil Knievel, Robbie Knievel (Evil's often injured son, so it was the same costume, only with blood and a cast) Magnum P.I., Carlos Santana (in casual day wear) I'm trying to think of others and they escape me. Oh, a samurai that ended up looking like Freddie Mercury, which was not good.

*And the oils are shipping! Thank you again for all your support. I am still mixing and bottling and working on that video.

end-of-summer fun

We had a really fun time last week in Sunriver and are still coming out of the hot and dry central Oregon haze. It was hard coming home but we had 3 kittens that were thrilled to see us, so that was swell. There was only a little bit of cat puke.

Thank you so much for all your Facial Oil and Hair Oil orders! I got a few more than I was expecting (yippee! and oh my god!). I am working like crazy bottling up and preparing all your formulas—so your patience is really appreciated. I have been asked some questions about using these oils and so I plan to put together a little video showing how to use them very soon.

2 unrelated items-

• Figs! I only now seem to be obsessed with them after years of not giving a fig (sorry), so that has me very excited. Photos will follow soon.
• Who is making hot chocolate with stevia? I love hot cocoa so much and always make it from scratch and it never occurred to me to make it with stevia, but why not? But see, now I need to buy some stevia and I know this will be a thing, you know, that I need to research because I wonder if what I can buy easily is really what I want? Like organic and ground whole leaf. Mountain Rose Herbs has ground whole leaf and I see it here too at Navitas, which has a lot of products and recipes that look very interesting to me, click-click, must get dressed for the day and pack orders, click.

Skin & Hair Care items for sale!

I am so excited to be selling these Facial and Hair oils! They are available in my etsy shop with a whole lot of information on what they are, how to use them, why they are so great and what makes the organic ingredients so wonderful for your hair and face. You might want to grab coffee or tea before you sit and read, it's long. There are 3 Facial Oils and 1 Hair Oil, the differences are listed in the descriptions.

The backstory—

I have always loved concocting natural skincare and medicinal products but focused on just making them for myself and experimenting with ingredients relatively easy to buy. Then, with my deep love for publishing recipes and patterns, I put all my experience and research into emailorder #11, so you all could make your own too, using recipes I had tested over a long time.

Fast forward to the mall— a dear friend mentioned a $140 bottle* of facial oil while we were shopping at Sephora, and asked if I knew of it and similar oils, and I said "Yes, and I sell the recipe, and you can make it at home." We got to discussing this and I admitted well no, you can't actually make it with my recipe. My recipe is really good, but I wrote it for myself and the average person who doesn't want to buy 8-12 organic essential and carrier oils to make facial/hair oils. It would cost hundreds of dollars and you would have way too much—enough for a well moisturized army. Also, my friend noted, even if someone could make it, they may not want to. They might rather buy one I had created.

Enough said. I jumped at the chance to source all my dream ingredients, not the ones that I could find at the natural foods store, but all organic (or wildcrafted) hard-to-find oils that are ideal for skin and hair care. This opened up a whole new word of ingredients for me and I blended, tested, researched, and read like crazy. I love these products so much, and even with all the expensive ingredients (one of the oils I use is almost $2 a drop) they ended up costing much less than what they sell for in the high-end skin care lines.

Please check them out and I hope to add more products soon.

*This then lead to a disusscion of prices and skin care and how one might believe a $140 bottle of oil works better, becasue well, you have to—you have spent $140 on it! But really, it's a trick. If it helps, pretend mine are $140 each.

 

some books about WWII plus one unrelated

Here's a stack from earlier this summer. I found that it's easiest for me to just photograph the spines rather then write all the titles down that we have liked. I am so visual, I can remember what the books were about much better from seeing the spines rather than from reading the titles on paper. After we return them to the library, we buy a few favorites for each topic we cover. I can find almost all of these books used, so we can keep revisiting these topics as they come up, which seems to be all the time. It's so fun to see what they keep pulling out: books about the Titanic and anything related to Charles Dickens and maids/servants are extremely popular.

But the surprise book of the summer that we LOVE is Great Big Book of Children's Games: Over 450 Indoor & Outdoor Games for Kids . I checked out a few other similar titles from the library and this one was the one we decided to buy. It's so great—a ton of games perfect for road trips, restaurants and rainy days stuck inside the house. It's got a bit of everything. And it's pretty cool watching the girls teach these games to their friends.

it was hot that day

These were taken at The Oregon Garden a few weeks ago. Silverton is a cute little place to have lunch and do some antique shopping after visiting the garden.

• I am listening to the newest Blind Pilot, via streaming from NPR because the album isn't for sale yet. I will miss their upcoming Portland show, which is a bummer.

• I am looking at this dress for inspiration. I'm not sure about the gathering in the front, but the idea of a plaid dress is exciting.

• I just watched this, 200 hundred things I learned from the internet (not for kids. really not for kids.) and I laughed. And then was bored. And then laughed. And then was confused. And then after about 8 minutes or so—was completely exhausted, but was still laughing. Is The End near? Possibly.