Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Me-made-may day 4 and project list


So I just realized how un-photogenic I am when I try to take pictures of myself using the timer. Oh well too bad. Anyway here's day 4(may the fourth be with you). Its Butterick 4443, again!So, since after tomorrow I will have worn all my home-made clothes for Me-Made-May, I've decided I might need to make some more items. AND, since I'll be done with finals at noon tomorrow, I will actually have time to make some!
So I was going to make a ruffly-shirt with this, but then I realized its pretty thick and will be too warm now that the weather is staying nice. So I'm thinking maybe I'll make a Cynthia Rowley skirt. I was thinking maybe the one on the body left.
And then I think I'll make the upper left shirt on this pattern with this pretty flower-y pattern.

And, I've been planning this shirt dress for a while too, and I finally bought some buttons for it! I'm going to make the one in the middle, with this awesome geographic pattern.

I'm also trying to figure out something to do with this yellow polka-dotted fabric. I only have 2 yards, so I'm a bit limited unless I go back and pick up some more. I think I might want to make a less-flow-y dress. I only have 2 or 3 patterns that allow for such small yardage, so I guess I'll figure it out!


Monday, May 3, 2010

Me-made-may day 3

So I skipped day 2 of Me-made-May, but I'm doing a lite-lite version, because I only have a couple of dresses made.
Here's McCalls 5800 without a belt...
And with a belt. Too bad I'm going to be in air conditioning all day and will have to wear a sweater over it :(

I really like this dress because it feels a bit vintage with the circle skirt. I think I need to make a crinoline to go under it and make it poofier too. The fabric is quilting fabric from Joanns that looks a bit vintage to me too. And it was pretty easy to make!

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Me-made-may day 1


Well, its day 2 of Me-made-may and since I'm doing the lite-lite version, I wore nothing homemade today. But yesterday I wore Butterwick 4443. Its a pretty, light-blue, sparkly damask. The sparkles at first seemed super fun, but now I can't wait for them to wash out of the fabric. I also find specks of glitter everywhere in my apartment.
I paired the dress with plain white belt from H and M, and I wore a sweater part of the day too. Please note the crappy 10-second delay photography skills, no one was home help, so I discovered new tricks on my camera.
I just realized I've made this pattern, or variation of, for 4 dresses. It is one of the "Sew Easy" patterns, and it really was, except for zippers...but it also has a pretty full skirt and only requires 2 yard of fabric!

Yorkshire pudding...or wait popovers?

So after I finally found a summer job I decided to treat myself to Jamie Oliver's new Food Revolution cook book. His basic idea is we should al learn to cook and make healthy food with real ingredients. The surprising part is that half the recipes call for either bacon or heavy creme....but they do look good. I like that they are all kinda British and he has a ton of recipes for curries, which I've kind of always wanted to learn how to make.

Anyway, I decided on making Yorkshire pudding, or what my Dad/Grandma call "popovers" because they pop over the side of the pan.
Here they are at about 5 minutes into the cooking process(out of 15).


This is after about 10 minutes and right before my smoke detector went off. This recipe takes a pretty hot oven (475 degrees), thus burning all the bits of pizza (my roommate never puts her pizza on a baking sheet), and pie filling left from Thanksgiving, which reminds me I should learn how to clean out an oven.



So I pulled them out of the oven at 12 minutes because the smoke detector surprised me and I wanted it to stop, but I soon realized it wasn't the Yorkshire pudding that was burning, so I put it back in for 2 minutes. This probably made some of them pop less, but they still turned out tasty.

I paired my puddings with some leftover Shepherd's pie, making for a nice British Sunday dinner! (and the shepherd's pie is a "healthy" recipe, so if I had followed it exactly it would have been only 350 calories per serving).
The only problem I found with the Yorkshire pudding recipe is that they were a bit oily. The recipe called for a tablespoon of vegitable oil in each of the muffin holes, and it left some of the puddings dripping in oil, or in the case above, with a little pocket of oil inside. But they turned out delicious and crispy, even though I pulled them out before they were done!

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Happy May Day!

Apparently, no one knows what May Day is! I guess the only reason I know is because one time as a kid we celebrated in girl scouts and had a May Pole dance and everything. It turned out pretty cool.

But with May Day comes the first day of Me-Made-May. Since I only just started making my own clothes, I'm going to be doing a super-lite version. Basically, I'm gonna wear my hand made clothes as much as possible this month, but since I only have 5 dresses and 1 skirt, its not going to happen every day.

Today I'm going to start with my sparkly blue damask dress, but I'm still in my gym clothes (I was about to go out to the door to the gym when my landlord showed up to fix the washing machine, which 3 hours later he is still doing. Though, I gotta say, even though this is taking a while, he is a much better landlord than anyone I know, and is actually fixing things! :) ).

But on an other awesome point, I got my patterns I ordered from Vogue today! They had a sale the other day so I had to scoop up all the ones I can never find at Joanns!








So, right now I'm not sure when I'm gonna make these or what fabric I'll use. I'm not letting myself think about it until my finals are over on Wednesday. But I certainly do have a lot to make!