Candlelit Dinner

(pictures to come tomorrow)

We had an internet-free day yesterday. Sorry I should have forewarned you, but I really didn't know either ;o) It was J's suggestion. He is going for the whole weekend, so the pictures we took will be stalled until tomorrow. On Friday my brain was in Cartesian geometry-land, and wasn't much good for anything else. article

It was a pretty busy day. We got a lot of things done, culminating in a candlelit dinner with fresh-baked bread and wine ;o)

J changed the oil in the truck, and we took a long drive out into the countryside (to test it of course).

I cut J's hair. We used the wrong blade on the hair clippers for J -- he's not going to need another haircut for MONTHS! (think long velvet..eep!) Numerous loads of dishes and laundry went through the house. Two stuffed bunnies hopped into the world. We went to the library and stayed for about an hour. All of this not in actual order..

My pattern came! (Butterick 8 gore skirt, knee-length, 1950s), 2 yards of yellow-orange fabric (which is enough! YAY!) and a good matching spool of thread. Now for the work...

The Candlelit Dinner

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We decided to break the normal weekend habit, and make a fancy dinner - complete with tablecloth, place settings and candles ;o) It was a good excuse to open the wine.

J made fresh whole-wheat bread. He's getting pretty good at it! That took quite a long time, and other things were done in between. We had roasted cumin-basted sweet potatoes and brown rice. The food was very good, but of course it didn't go well with this particular wine. This one was asking more for steak or chicken cordon-bleu, which of course would never be on the menu here.

Maybe we can cook with the wine next time, a nice mushroom dish or the like, as a marinade.

Linky: Yorkers and Hirosophys' flickr : cherry blossoms
Linky: cute kangaroo softies
More softie cuteness.
wine article wine & food pairings
recipe
Simplicity 4013 six-gore skirt, keeping an eye out for next project.

Kitchen Cupboards

Linky: Alina Chau has more beautiful drawings!

Yellow for Project Spectrum

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I am impatiently awaiting the arrival of a 1950s knee-length 8-gore skirt pattern to come in the mail. I hope the 2 yards of orange-yellow cotton I have will be enough for it, but I doubt it.

TCOTF sounded like a cool idea -- so, even though this cupboard is technically over the stove (we don't have one over the fridge), I hope it counts! Of course, I found out about the contest over at Chris' blog.

If you are really interested in peeking into these cupboards, you can click to enlarge..
The top shelf is hardest to get to -- but there is olive oil, balsamic vinegar, some containers and alumninum foil up there. On the bottom shelf you will find cat treats (for Willow), salt, spices, Chinese tea (far left), cocoa, aspirin and a cooking timer. On top of the cupboard is plant fertilizer, a puzzle with a piece missing we never found, a broken blender bottom, and a box for our food processor.
As a bonus, you get a picture of the cupboard that is next to the fridge, as well ;o) One of these has to count, right?

The pantry has all manner of foodstuffs -- lentils, garbanzos, green peas, flour, cornmeal, sugar, Ramen noodles, lots of canned goods, coffee filters, paper towels, cereal etc etc.. You didn't need to know all that, right? ;o) Don't let it slip to my cats that there are 3 cans of tuna in there!

Did more garden work today, went to McKenzie and took some dogwood photos, (bank and post office trips as well, but we'll just say it was for dogwoods...)

I have a new site I am helping to work on -- at least, I get to do the Python code for it. It is a meetup site for farmers and ranchers about the NAIS laws (National Animal Identification System) that are being debated.

The girls are here at work with us today and taking full enjoyment of the rafters in the garage ;o) Willow came upstairs chasing a carpenter wasp, and jumped a full three feet in the air - a frog-type jump.. really funny ;o) Then, she sat there on the ground, looking up and 'meowed', because she didn't get her prey! I could just hear 'Ohhh.. You got away.. come back here!'

We are in for severe weather again - tonight, and tomorrow too. It has started to rain, thunder and lightning already (7 pm).. candles and flashlights again tonight!

Illustration Friday: Spring

doodle on rice paper

Well -- Chris says there is this thing called Random Wednesday. I guess this is a pretty random post ;o)

I'm a garden wimp. I used to work on the experiment station for the U of M, (Minnesota) -- but that was apparently too many years ago. Now, an afternoon of raking freshly turned clay soil leaves me wobbly and blistered :o(

Tomorrow, we can start planting seeds. I hope I have functional arms and legs tomorrow ;o)

Ok, the vote is in -- the kimono is orange!

Odd News Link: Arctic fossil may bridge gap between sea, land creatures

Soft toy rabbits : too cute! and with little babies wrapped up in swaddling!

Blog Link: A beautiful blog about kimono dress,, and also the same author's kimono collection. So very different than this home-made version of a vintage pattern ;o)

I'm thinking about a custom order from a pottery artist on Etsy - for two chopstick rests.

Kimono, wine and movies

Okay - this was a hard decision... my mirror looks a bit dirty and splashed upon... but you can see all the details of the kimono! How lucky will I be if I try to take that picture again??? So, please look past the spots and know that I will get the Windex to it as soon as I get home tonight ;o)

click to enlarge
I like the way the fabric-covered button turned out!

In truth, I need to finish the hem tonight, but that is the last step before it is completely done! So, that was a last visit to red and pink for Project Spectrum.. unless you think it is a little orange ;o) On to yellow and orange, as Chris has pointed out with all of her colorful pictures today!

In other news, the girls say I haven't taken enough pictures of them lately...

Where in the world did this come from?
What is it?
Is it good for cats? (No!)

However, I'll have to tell you if it is any good at all -- there wasn't much to choose from, and I couldn't find any of the reccommendations :o(

Wake me up when something interesting happens!
No, she was asleep before the wine arrived ;o)

Movies:
Howl's Moving Castle - 3.5 stars
Meet the Parents - J liked it, I hated it... sorry.
Firefly, the complete series on DVD - 7 stars (Can I do that?) Watch This! It is GREAT!

Illustration Friday: I'm thinking about it! It is a great topic -- but I have to sit myself down and this has not been the week to do it so far :o(
Great Link today: Tweedlebop's IF post. This is my fave so far, ingenious and whimsical ;o)

We're still here -- don't worry!

Thunderstorms, Tornadoes hit MidWest -- it hit about 30-50 miles to the west of us, as the crow flies. It looks like the danger zones for tonight's storms have skipped further east of us.

Oh My! Fargo-Moorhead is experiencing another flood! We moved away from Fargo last April. **hopes everyone is alright there**

I wasn't on yesterday because J had a bad stomachache. He didn't sleep at all last night. The storm was huge - just lightning, hail and rain here though. I heard some poor people in NW Paris hit power lines with a car, and we prayed for them -- but I didn't hear any more about that.

We lit two candles and put them by the window, in case the power did go out. But other than being loud, the storm passed over us.

All of the time, I was working on the kimono, and almost have it done. The front needs the interfacing fused, and the bottom hem has to be finished. Then I'll add a button at the top and a sash.

I called my mom about 9:30 - but that was before we heard about the danger that was coming with the storm. I called her again this morning and left a message that everything was okay - they read the newspapers and I'm sure they were scared.

Dinner: Shmooed Tofu Fish Sticks (J's request)... these weere a little hard to make - the tofu kept breaking apart. I threw a real fish stick on with them for me ;o)

Kimono: Bought some black satin rattail to make the button loops with -- since J is crashing on me (tummyache still) it looks liike I'll do a run to try to finish this. Note, if I ever make another one of this pattern -- I will alter the sleeves to be one piece, instead of two. The seam coming down over my shoulders just shouldn't be there -- but then, it is a 1969 American version of a kimono ;o) Coffee and Sewing, here I come.

kimono?

I got this pattern Simplicity 8551, circa 1969, at a thrift store this morning for 10 cents!

I have most of the pieces cut out and am ready to sew. The fabric is kind of an odd pink-red linen I picked up last summer from a lady I met on Ebay (she was closing out a lot of fabric at her shop/home south of Jackson). It isn't my first choice, but since the pattern takes 5+ yards (for the short one!) it will have to work! (This is the only fabric I had 5+ continuous yards of)

Plus, I'm not all that confident in my clothes-sewing abilities yet. Maybe this will help!

The cats are in big trouble -- they have been pattern diving. That means they hear me rustling the pattern while pinning it down, and they come diving into it at full force. 'Why are you yelling at us? You have fun stuff you aren't sharing!'

Here we go.