My bread making skills have been steadily improving as I get more and more practice with the methods. I was really proud of this first attempt at French bread. It turned out to be more like Italian bread though as the loaf was too large and not a small diameter like a baguette. After the second rise, I knew it was too big!



It was still very good and came out of the oven golden brown!



I did not slash the loaf deep enough, so it expanded out of the side, however it was still delicious. I think I will be working on this more and buying bread less. The pan was also wonderful. The bottom of the loaf was really crusty, just like from a bakery. It also released the loaf with out any extra butters or oils. It popped out with out any fuss.

On Friday, Dan and I did something that we never do. We went out and bought the newest thing on the day it came out. We got ourselves new Droid phones! The last time we got new phones was when we got our first phones in 2003. It was a long time coming, and I am really happy to have a new smart phone. There has been a huge learning curve, but I am catching on very quickly as the user interface is really easy to figure out. Usually we wait for things to get older and almost ready for new models to come out before buying, but for once, we treated ourselves. That actually took up most of our day on Friday. Then, we both started to feel a bit sick. We spent all of the rest of the weekend feeling a bit awful and working on the house a bit. We reordered Dan's office, and I did the same to the sewing room. Most of it remained the same, but I switched up where my desk and storage shelves are. My desk is now in a cozy nook sheltered by the shelves of supplies and fabrics. The sewing area remained the same as it was working well before. Now, though, I can actually get the bins of fabric off of the shelves with out any tricky maneuvering or yelling. The only bad thing about the arrangement is that I am looking at the electrical panel for the apartment. All in all though, a good switch.

After the weekend of rest, I am off to a roaring start today. I have already gotten banana bread made and out of the oven, the whites and bed sheets laundered, and some light pick up around the house done. I hope this reordering of things continues. I would like to get harp playing back in the routine, and I am going to try to start that again today. I hope to add it to my Mondays, Wednesdays, and Friday schedules. Well I am off to sew since I am feeling the urge to finally complete the first Christmas project and move onto the next sewing one. I am also hoping to get some light housecleaning accomplished today as well. Wish me luck on the cleaning and that the crafting does not fully take over!

With Halloween fast approaching, I thought it was time that I got some treats made for Dan and I as well as some fun for us for the holiday. I made cut out sugar cookies, and while not the sour cream cookies of my youth, these are Dan's favorite from his. I made the dough and let it chill, and we cut them out while watching a silly movie. It was a fun time. We picked, "easy to decorate" shapes this year. The last time made some of these we made too many of the difficult ones, like the witches. We stuck mostly to single color items like pumpkins, ghosts, cats, and bats. The weird looking shapes for the low imagination types are candy corns.



They are on the counter now to age properly. These cookies are best when left to get stale over night and then adding liberal frosting that sinks into the cookie and then makes it all moist again. It is a great technique. It also avoids the soggy cookies syndrome that some frosted cookies seem to get. Tonight, I am going to get out all the fun sprinkles, dredges, and make up some big pots of frosting in black, orange, and white. I will take some pictures of the finished project. Now I have to switch my mind set to Christmas and get into the sewing room to work on some projects. Hopefully the sun will finally be right for me to take pictures of the chocolate pin strip pants this afternoon. Well lots of sewing and knitting ahead today. I am feeling suddenly inspired! Hopefully it is not an artificial rush from my sneaking candy corn out of the decoration stash.

I finally did the last stitches on those chocolate pinstripe pants. They got cast aside last week due to the birthday festivities, and now they are hanging on my door waiting for a sunny enough day to take product photos.





I really love this fabric. It is very similar to a business suit I have. In fact, these pants would be wonderful for someone with an office job that, like me, lives for comfy pants. They are a soft bottom weight polyester cotton blend, so they are easy care as well.

I have decided that it is time to cast aside the pants sewing for a little while in order to start work on the many toys and gifts for the holiday season. I have one almost cut out and marked. I hope to get it done today. I am also working on a project for Brenna's birthday. I started this one last year and abandoned it due to poor results. This time, however I am doing much better with it. I hope to have this all finished soon and waiting to be mailed out for her birthday on the 5th of December. It pays to plan ahead, especially since it has to travel across the country to the other coast. I also have quite a few patterns to copy over to interfacing. I am a solid believer in not cutting my patterns now, and I have found that interfacing makes a great transfer medium. Well I am feeling inspired, so I am off to finish cutting out all the pieces and putting this toy together. It will be fun to have so many "friends" hanging out in the sewing room as the holidays approach.

The past few days have been a whirl wind of activity. On Thursday, I ran all around to get the presents for Dan's birthday, and Friday was filled with running errands to get food for the brunch for Saturday and cleaning the house for the guests. I prepped for the meal all evening, so I skipped dance class again. The brunch was bountiful, partially because of my fear of running out of food. I made fresh pumpkin bread on Saturday morning to avail my fear and focus on pulling off some new recipes I have never made. It is such a hosting no no, but I really wanted to make these recipes I have never gotten the chance to because they make so much. I made a recipe for caramel apple and cranberry French toast from Tyler Florence and my second recipe attempt out of Mastering the Art of French Cooking was also a success. I made a quiche. I only wish there were pictures, but I was too busy hosting to think to take them. The food was awesome. We also had applewood smoked bacon from the smoker next door to our building and lox with creme fresh, capers, and red onion on mini toasts for the meats. It was a great spread, but the cleaning of the party is still on going. While I started the cleaning right after the breakfast, the rest of the party went over to Alameda for a tasting at the Saint Georges distillery. Needless to say I was pooped and gave up on fully finishing the cleaning around 6 that night.

Sunday was Dan's actual birthday, so we planned to celebrate it as well as get some of our weekend errands done. We ate some of the leftovers from brunch for breakfast. It was still very good. We then went and shopped for our pumpkin to carve for Halloween. I think we picked out a winner. I will make sure to take pictures for you all to see.

I have decided to try to start a new routine with this week. In honor of the new moon and the belief that the new moon is a good time astrologically to start new things, I am going to try to get back to my exercise routine. I am going to go as soon as I post this and do a yoga workout. It has been many month since I have done yoga, and I am starting to notice the effects in my everyday life and not just during dance. I am more stiff and feel less flexible to do things that I once could do easily. I am also going to work on taking up the Christmas gifts again. I am starting to rapidly fall behind again and need to get back to working on things again. I hope to get the gift I have partially cut out fully cut out and mostly sewn up today. I will also take pictures of these items for an end of the year wrap up like I did last holiday season. Well off to stretch and start up some sewing.

Yesterday was completely glorious in how rainy and dreary it was. I miss days like that, and today is also a nice day with some sun but really beautiful fluffy clouds. I have caught myself staring out the window at them almost 10 times this morning. It is just nice to see some variance in the sky besides fog or sun. I did revel in the rain yesterday by creating a rainy day feast of butternut squash and apple soup with homemade rolls. I made a recipe from Ina Garten that I added some modifications to for the soup. I have made this one before, but I did not like it as well as tonight's with my modifications. It was by far the best soup I think I have ever made.



The rolls were my first attempt at Parker House rolls. The dough was really good, and they tasted yummy. Sadly, though they did not all stay crimped shut, so some were just like biscuits. They were however all eaten, so I am sure they were not awful. We had them with some local honey and my homemade apple butter.





I declared, after eating the rolls, that we would no longer be a pop roll family. There were way easier to put together than I thought, and took very little time. So, I think I am adding another from scratch only to my list.

I did not get the pants done as planned. Many friends were calling me yesterday, and it was wonderful. There were people that I had not talked to in months that all decided to call me yesterday. I took the opportunity to work on some ironing and cutting out of Christmas gifts, as that can easily be done on the phone and sewing is too loud. Today, though, I am focused on those pants. Hopefully tomorrow is sunny enough to take a picture, so they can get listed up on Friday. They are a wonderfully dressy pair, that look almost like they could be suit pants. I have some shopping to do this week as well to get Dan some birthday gifts, so don't be surprised if there are some late entries into the blog in the next day or so. It is as it needs to be! Well I am off for pants finishing and more toy cutting out.

Annie and I have finally decided to call an end to the major jam production for the year. After canning another 24 jars of jams and jelly this last session, we both came to the realization that we cannot eat and give away this much jam in a year. Therefore, there is only one more canning session for jams left this year due to my want for caramel apple jam. I am really excited about that one! We tried our hand at jelly for the first time, and while not totally clear due to only doing one pass through our "jelly socks" and squeezing for extra juice, I am still quite proud of the product. We chose to call it natural unfiltered jelly, which is kind of silly because jelly is supposed to be clear, but the tasty product we made cannot be beat! I would like to think Dan's apple picks are most of the reason why.

We started with six pounds of rough chopped apples, leaving the skins and cores intact. Next, we cooked the apples with some water. Meanwhile, Annie and I finished off her preparation of the pear and pinot noir jam.



It was quite tasty! We then moved back to the apple jelly. After the cook time was up, we placed the cooked down mush into a pair of clean nylon stocking. Now, you may be scratching your head at this, but there is a perfectly good explanation. I am somewhat cheap, and the jelly bags you can get at many stores are just a bit to expensive when I am trying to be extra thrifty, so the stockings and high necked faucets work just as well as the expensive jelly bag set ups.



The most important thing is to make sure your socks are clean. We washed this pair of hose before cutting them up and placing the food inside. We then hung them over catch bowls and went to get some lunch.





From there we took the collected juice and added our lemon juice and sugar and cooked it all down.



We canned that and moved on to the plum and the peach that I had prepped the night before. All in all we had 24 half pints at the end of the day. I was proud of how much we did in the little time we spent canning. I guess we have our system down now.

Today I hope to get some time in behind the sewing machine. The call of my knitting has been a strong distraction lately, but it is not part of my Christmas sewing or my Fabulous Pants sewing, so I really need to leave that off till at night in front of the television. The black pants will be finished if it kills me today. I am also planning on finishing up this pants repair for a friend's pair of pants. While cool pants, the seams that the sewer used were way too short, so there are lots of little repairs for me to try to fix up the seams. I am taking most of it to the serger. I also want to make a killer fall meal tonight since the weather is so cold. Today was the first really cold morning, so I am even debating washing the quilt for the last time this season and getting out the down comforter. Hum... I think I need to make a pumpkin pie while I think about it. Test out that crust mojo and see if it is still here!

Yesterday I kept waiting for the heatwave to hit that was supposed to move into the area. Luckily, though, the sea breeze kept the heat over the Oakland hills on the other side of town from us. The house stayed delightfully cool for my fall housecleaning madness. I cleaned all surfaces. There was dusting of bookcases and tables, wiping down mirrors, polishing plates (Yes we have to polish our plates due to a reaction between the silverware and stone wear.), cleaning of bathrooms, and laundry in the machines. It was a whir of activity and a banishment of dust clouds. I kept the one last remaining good flower in the arrangement as a last hint of summer in the house. Today, it is still delightfully chilly despite blistering temperatures across the hills. I enjoy bay side living.

The only thing that did not get tackled is this:



I intend to get the desk mess in order today. Entropy is a hard force to fight. Just when you think you have it beaten down, it shows itself somewhere else. It will be great to have a fully cleaned house and work space. Today I am hoping to finish off a pair of pants and perhaps more handwork on a belt. There is also a matter of dessert to be made since the temperature is not hot again. I am looking to make a chocolate pie that I saw in my latest Penzey's Catalogue. It looks really yummy. Hopefully this will also be the end to my crust issues I have had as of late. I will report back to see if a new recipe and method worked better this time rather than the disastrous results I have been having lately. The red work boxes are being made, but are not finished yet. More on those soon. There is also the possibility that I will abandon all this to go and get some more tools for clay working. I am working up some new contraptions in clay and hope to have those out for all to see soon as well.

I am going to get down to work on this desk thing... hopefully it doesn't take all day!

The tomatoes on the patio are really starting to come along, and while I am still skeptical that they will ever get red, they are growing in size. This week canning with Annie, we decided to embark on tomato hijinks. We bought a flat of Roma tomatoes at one of the farm stands and began our canning. First we sorted them out by size and washed them all.



We then set out peeling and coring all the tomatoes. I had forgotten my Blue Book at home and had to resort to the USDA guidelines on line. We packed our quarts, but did not pack them full enough. We were not making sure to drain off the excess liquid while packing in the fruits. This resulted in floating tomatoes in our jars. We also left too much headroom as well as being too excited and forgetting to wipe off the rims of the jars. This resulted in substandard canning, and we had to open all the jars and redo all the work we did.



Luckily we had only done a third of the packing. A call to my Mom was made, and the canning guru led us through what we did wrong and how to improve on our poor results. We fixed up the quarts and went from four quarts to three. When we moved onto the pints, we packed them full and made sure to drain off the liquid as we packed so that they were very full. We also got juice on the counter quite a bit in the attempt to fully pack the jars. Sometimes we went overboard.



In the end we had two quarts of tomatoes and 7 pints of tomatoes packed and a few quarts of the cooking juice with lots of tomato goodness. I took five of the pints and left the juice and the rest of the pints and quarts for Annie.



After a dinner break, we moved onto the golden cherry tomato and ginger jam. (Recipe can be found in The Joy of Cooking post New Joy of Cooking era) It was something we were really excited about and required a two day cooking process. Annie plumped and steeped our tomatoes the night before. We then went through the cooking and jamming process for this. It turned out really gingery, but I can see it mellowing out a bit after cooling and being in the jars for a little while.



The only bad thing about this recipe was that it only made three half pint jars. If we do this one again, I think we would double it at least for the effort you had to make for this jam.



This weekend I am going to attend the Eat Real Fest in Oakland. I find it interesting that canning has become something that the "in" crowd is getting into. I guess my Mother and Grandmother are more foodie than I ever thought. The film festival continues around here as well. Hopefully we can clear off more DVR space as well as let me get some hand sewing done on those belts I am still working on. Signing off for the week. I look forward to reviewing the festival for you on Monday.

I have always been very sensitive to mold, and while it is usually a good thing, there are times when it is not so great. Mainly this has to do with my foodie side of things. I cannot eat things like blue cheeses, and while I would love to go into Cowgirl Creamery in the Ferry Building I cannot even get close to their stand. The mold rind and strong blue cheeses knock me out just passing by. When we were shopping for a house back in Illinois, our Realtor even joked that I should rent myself out to home buyers as I could detect both mold and mildew upon walking into a space. I instantly get stuffy and cough like a tuberculosis patient. So, you would think that I would listen to this reaction instantly, but when it started on Sunday at the Farmer's market, I ignored it. I just figured that I was still not over the Chaos Wars cold I caught. Well when I started to get things ready for making the strawberry jam yesterday, I learned why I was having such a stuffy nose and cough. The first layer of strawberries was really soft, and the bottom layers were completely molded through. I guess it will have to wait until I hit another stand on Sunday to buy another half flat. It was a sad state of things.

Today I have the curtains to sew for the 826 Tutoring Room I went to several stores looking for the correct shad of red in a fuzzy fabric, but the usual Pirate Store crimson was no where to be found. Right when I was about to give up, I found some neat looking crimson fabric by the door of a shop. I bought all that they had, and while it is enough to cover the space, I am not sure it will be full enough for a long term solution. We will have to see what Maria and the crew thinks about them when I bring them in this afternoon. After I do that, I am going to get the canning back in action and get the apricot jam processed. I also want to pick up my socks that I am learning to knit when I head into the city on BART. If there is enough time after all this, a crisp is in order with those great apples for tonight's dessert, and I would also like to pick up one of the belts I am working on again. I guess I should get to it and get some of this done. I feel inspiration coming on!

Vegas was a great time. I am, however, glad to be back home. It was really great to see Christine and bond with all of her friends. I felt like one of the gang in minutes, and the weekend ended with trading e-mail addresses and phone numbers to keep in touch. I may not have won any money, but I did win some new fun acquaintances.

I have to hand it to my husband, he sure knows how to impress. I came home to a fully cleaned house including the shelving of the last moving boxes. It is nice to no longer have a box wall to push around from place to place. I am glad to get home and again get to work on my embroidered belt. I also have some major choreography work to do for the April 11th performance at Hot Java in Morgan Hill. I have decided on a song and cannot wait to tackle it. Prop dancing is one of my favorite things because it is very challenging to me. You need to keep enough dance in to still have it be a bellydance, but you also need to seamlessly add a prop to the mix with out it distracting from the dance itself. I am going to devote tomorrow to that, but for now, I want to sew and work on some domestic activities. I am also thinking about making a new black choli for myself once I get the serger figured out for making my skirt and making it. I would love to have both the choli and the skirt for classes on Friday. Here is to hoping for luck getting it all to work!

My surger and I have a love hate relationship with each other. There are days when I totally love it, and it shows me love back by effortlessly producing great work. Yesterday we were not quite seeing eye to eye. I found though, that most of it was my fault. I need to learn to finesse that machine more and force it to do less. It is not the same as my workhorse Singer sewing machine. That machine will take anything I put through it and happily turn out consistent results. I guess I just need more training on the surger and need to spend more quality time practicing on it. Right now I am trying to master the shirring foot for the machine. It is a great attachment that I would totally love to be able to use. I am currently taking more lessons at Fat Chance Bellydance and they want you to wear the standard pieces of American Tribal attire to classes once you hit level two. That is coming up for me this summer, and I want to be prepared with several skirts that would be appropriate. While I already have two 10 yard skirts, I have only made one for myself, and the gathering of 10 yards of fabric into the skirt was rather time consuming. Plus, why do it by hand when I have this fancy machine that should do it for me? The big challenge is finding the right settings on the machine to perfectly gather the two pieces of fabric at an even 2 to 1 ratio. It is also an interesting thing to try to feed fabric into a machine with both hands into different slots. Only one fabric is under the presser foot and the other fabric is passed above through a channel. It is a feat of eye hand coordination to be able to make it all work. I was blaming the machine for a while, but I am starting to realize that this human needs some more training and practice for this to work. Last time I tried this, I decided it was not worth it, and I could finish the skirt faster by doing it all by hand gathering. While it was true, I am starting to realize that if I just put in the time now learning this, I could expand the shop to someday offer skirts for dance in the shop as well.

So, on that note, today is going to be filled with machine practice. As a break, I am going to actually pick up the cross stitch belt while I watch some March Madness games. Hey, just because I am no longer working as an athletic trainer doesn't mean that I lost my love for sports. Besides, I keep saying I am going to work on that belt and seem to never actually pick it up. I am also hoping to make some hair flowers for the shop. Perhaps I will be able to get those made and ready for listing tomorrow. We will see where the machine lessons and March Madness lead me. I still have not found music I like for my performance. I hope that inspiration strikes soon!

Yesterday I got the fortune cookie promos finished and sent off to Dirty Ass Soaps for her promo bags for a craft fair. It took me several hours to fold all the cookies up. I sat on the couch and just started throwing them into a finished pile as I was folding. Here was the end result.



Yesterday was an odd day. Dan was home from work again because he was not feeling well, and I was trying to do quiet work around the house and not run the sewing machines to save him from further headaches. I am not used to having to change plans or tip toe around, so I did some things I usually don't let myself do during "working hours". In the spirit of quiet I did some more reading of Jane Brocket's book The Gentle Art of Domesticity. There is a passage that I keep going back to and rereading as I think it sums up why I think my life as a stay-at-home wife is so valuable. This is what she says, and bear with me, it is a long quote:

"Just as many aspects of domesticity are often derided as old-fashoned, quaint or downright useless, so the skills and practicalities associated with it have fallen out of fashion. Despite the efforts of many contemporary knitters, quilters, stitchers, crocheters, crafters and bakers, the fact remains that the gentle arts are frequently regarded as mildly eccentric, touchingly nostalgic and outmoded. Why on earth would anyone prefer to hand-stitch a quilt when you can buy a perfectly good one in a shop? Why knit a pair of socks when they are so easy and cheap to buy these days? Why bake a cake when the store shelves are groaning with ready-made treats?
The answer lies int he not-so-revolutionary idea of seizing the means of production. It's as simple and as complex as that. A modicum of practicality in the domestic space empowers us to make our own choices about what we create and eat, rather than handing over control of our homemaking to profit-making companies. It may sound surprisingly radical, and it is. Embedded in the gentle arts is a slyly subversive streak that encourages free thought, individuality, creative self-expression, imaginative thought processes and not a little self-determinism. All this, and a great deal of pleasure, too."

I could not have come up with a better explanation myself. I have always felt like a rebel of sorts when I get to introduce myself to others as a housewife. People often wonder what it is I do all day and how do I keep myself fulfilled and happy. I find that my life is more fulfilling now than it ever was when I was working in the high impact athletic training field, and it is also more enjoyable to me than teaching, although I do still love teaching. (Hence the 826 Valencia tutoring I do.) I also like the notion of subversiveness that Jane Brocket talks about. I am bucking the system by not trying to "have it all," and I am perfectly fine with that. In many ways, I have found more freedom and creativity by working in the home and running a home based business than I ever did in a more traditional work place. My jam from now on is coming from my kitchen, and I am trying to buy less and hand make more. Thanks Jane for making me feel more comfortable,confident, and valuable in my choice to be a home business based Domestic Artist.

On that note, I made a leather thimble for myself last night. It turned out really well. Leave it to Threads magazine to come up with a this great tutorial Today I plan on making myself a new skirt if I can get the shearing foot to work on the surger. The last time I tried this it did not work so well, but that was also right before I found out one of the parts on the machine had broken. Today I will give it another try. Also, I am going to work on that cross stitch belt some more now that I have a trusty leather thimble. I also have to find music and start the choreography for my April 11th show. More on that when it gets closer.

I always try to post in the morning, and I find that it helps me set up what I am going to do for the day and reflect on what I did the day before. Yesterday was rather successful. I ended up on the treadmill and ran/walked a total of 2 miles. I was rather proud of myself. I know the pace was not that fast, but I still did it. I also got the banana bread made and the cookies made as well. Here is one of the sets of cookies fresh out of the oven:



I am late today with the posting because I received a call from my friend Erik to go out to lunch. I of course accepted seeing as it is always nice to have a person to talk with over lunch. It is pouring rain today, so it was also a very welcome thing to get out of the house. Erik also took me over to another hardware store to see if they had canning jars. Leave it to ACE to have exactly what I needed at lower prices than the internet. I bought two of the three flats of half pint jars. I cannot wait to get some oranges and start the marmalade process. Perhaps this weekend it will be clear enough to get out to the farmer's market and get some oranges.

Today, I am doing more hand work on that belt as well as trying to get to some house cleaning. I am currently watching some of the PBS series "Eyes on the Prize" that I taped a few weeks ago. I have always wanted to get to watch this, and now I have some time to do so. It is very interesting to watch, but also rather heartbreaking. Well hopefully I can get some things done on the belt, so I can photograph it for you all. Now, I am off for some sewing and television watching.

So I am totally unmotivated today. I think I am going to blame it on the new arrival into the household, our new tv. It is a large tv and it is like a small movie theater screen in our small apartment. I love it, but it takes the motivation to do things right out of me. I suppose the numerous messes left behind by our new bundle of joy are not helping matters either. The apartment is kind of hard to navigate, and the new boxes to the box piles are a bit disappointing since we were getting so close to being "box free." Needless to say, I took the opportunity to take the weekend off and do things like lazing around and watching the big tv. (Do you see a trend yet?) I did also do some good and productive things. I finished off the special order last week, which took a load off my shoulders. Now I am just going though my normal anxiety of wondering if the pieces I made are going to fit correctly. I measured many times and cut once, so hopefully Norm's steadfast advice will come though again.

I did do some productive things over the time since my last entry. On Wednesday, I spent the day with a friend. I meant to get the sewing totally finished on that day, but it was great to see Erik and hang out. Being over at his place is always an adventure, and I am never sure what projects we will end up doing, but they are always fun. This time, hydroponics. I think he was inspired by my window and Aerogarden the last time he was over and wants in on some of the home gardening fun. He, though, admitted that he is not good at remembering to water plants, so hydroponics seemed like the logical conclusion for his engineering mind. Engineers, you gotta love them! We, read he with my moral support, also built a soil moisture detector. It was amazing to watch him just put it together out of his imagination and a little internet help.

Thursday was my usual try to get things done in the morning with tutoring in the afternoon. I ended up getting all the cutting and a bit of sewing on the custom order done that day. Friday was the frantic, "This needs to get out the mail TODAY!" sewing session. I am proud to say that it got finished. I just wished my need for pressure to get anything accomplished habit would change. I guess I have always been a pressure person, so it may be a long time coming. I also went to Fat Chance for dance on Friday night instead of Tuesday. I just did not feel up to going on Tuesday, and it was nice to have the option of going on another night if I wanted to go but not on the particular night I was used to going. Options are great.

Today, I am hoping to get myself off the couch after writing this and into the gym. We will see how this works out. Big tv is pretty neat and also may be lonely if I leave the apartment. I also wanted to get a ton of baking done. Hopefully I can get some banana bread going after jogging and some peanut butter chocolate chip cookies accomplished today. English muffins may have to wait for tomorrow. I also want to get my sister's pants hemmed and Claudia's birthday present planned and the list of items needed for it written out. Once all that is done, I am going to settle in for some tv viewing and some hand sewing on that cross stitch belt that I mentioned months ago. Yes, it got put down again and forgotten. I would really like to get the embroidery done on that and get the belt finished this week if at all possible. The weather, being like it is, will actually help, since I find my best hand sewing occurs on rainy days. This week is supposed to be all rain. Pictures of baked goods to come tomorrow. Till then, I plan to stay dry and cozy with a cup of tea. Off to the gym for me now though!

The weekend was a good rest and well needed break of the normal pace. Instead of going out and doing a bunch of things, Dan and I mostly stayed at home. We meet up with a friend for lunch on Saturday and did some grocery shopping, but that was it. The weekend was also suitably rainy and crappy, so it was not a surprise that we hid indoors. I took the opportunity to get some organization done in the office area. I have stacks and stacks of different crafting magazines that I kept for the projects. I have decided to go through them all and rip out the projects and get rid of the adds and place the projects into organized binders. These magazines are chock full of adds, and most of the pages are going into the recycling bin instead of taking up room in the office. It was, in an odd way, relaxing to pull apart magazines, hole punch, and place the articles into binders. I also decided to work on my cross stitch frame. Currently the dowels that hold the fabric did not fit well through the frame holes. I also had to thread one side on first and then the other side of the frame, so it was always hard to get the fabric lined up well. I decided to get out the last scrap of sand paper we had since we "gifted" most home improvement supplies in our move and sand down the dowels. I am now wondering why it is that I did not do this sooner. It was much easier to work on getting the fabric not only centered but also taught with the ability to move both sides freely on the dowels. Hopefully this will make me get back to work on the cross stitch design in there that I have been working on for years. It is an "off time" project that I pick up and drop off when convenient. Also over the weekend, I cleaned up some of the piles on my desk. In doing so, I found the brochures for the Afghanistan exhibit that Dan and I visited over the holidays this winter. I will take pictures today and show them off tomorrow along with talking about the exhibit. What an oversight on my part to not share sooner!

Today is a delightfully rainy Monday. I love rainy days, and most of my love for them is the added focus I seem to have on those days. We don't get many rainy days though, so I find myself wandering more often then I would like. I have a ton that I need to get done, and today I am determined to get it all done in a timely manner.

On the plate for today:
I really want to get back to jogging. Hopefully the treadmills are back in working order this week. I have decided that while the elliptical is better for my hips, I really do like jogging on the treadmill better. I also need to get the special order finished today. There is so much work to do, but I MUST get it done today.I also want to get the photographs for tomorrow's post compiled and edited. As a bonus, I hope to get some peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies in the oven. That is all I am going to put up for goals. I want to meet them and perhaps get to exceed them. I am also going to continue the magazine purge tonight with my evening television viewing. Hopefully I can get this purge done this week. Ok, lots to do and I really want to achieve my goals, so off I go! Pictures tomorrow, I promise!

So I finally finished up the last Christmas gift for this year, and yes, it is two months late. Seeing as I am new to knitting, I am not too disappointed in myself. This was in fact only the second thing I have ever knit, and while I did not do it exactly correctly, it looks fine and is done. Apparently, I was not really knitting my knit stitches on this one but doing something else entirely called knitting to the back. I think.... I am so confused on this lately, and I am thinking of learning socks next. What is wrong with me! Anyhow, here is a picture of the finished scarf for my father-in-law.



It was supposed to be moss stitch, and it looks kind of close. I looked at several other pictures of moss stitch, and I can definitely tell this is not the same due to not actually knitting the stitches correctly. It looks good to me none-the-less. Here is a close-up of the stitches.



Pretty good I think for only the second thing I have made. I am still working on loosening up my tension on the knitting. This was a bit better than the first scarf, but still quite tight. I realized this especially when I compared the finished product to the swatching I did originally. I thought I had the gauge of needle right due to the swatch, but the finished scarf was smaller due to my excessive need for too tight knitting. It should get better with practice though, right?

I also went to take dance classes at a different studio while Ariellah is off teaching away from the studio. It felt fun to be a "new student" again. I went to Fat Chance in the city and had a good time. American Tribal Style was my obsession when I was in Illinois, but there were no certified teachers out there then. Ishara taught me the little she knew though. That emphasis switched to dark fusion styles before I left to move out here, so I have been with Ariellah since the move from Illinois and my cabaret style background. It felt great to look into ATS more again. I think it is going to be a nice departure temporarily from the studio. I feel in an odd way refreshed. I guess I should start practicing my zills again so I can keep up in class again.

Today I have decided to not go and jog. There is just too much that needs to be done around the house. I am still working out the kinks on that special order. I need to get that wrapped up by early next week to get it sent off in time for the client. I also have to do my city taxes for Fabulous Pants. I would also like to get some ideas sketched out for a new belt and perhaps pull out that embroidered belt and work on that again some more. I need to get some belts up in the shop soon! Ok on that note, I need to get down to some sewing action.

Yesterday turned out to not be very productive. After writing my entry yesterday, I think the workout I did got to me. Yesterday I ran/walked one and a half miles. I have never really done that since I quit playing soccer in high school. Then I lifted weights a bit. It felt good but sapped my will to get anything else done yesterday. This of course included my plans to make baklava, so I settled on making seven layer bars.



They are totally easy, and cheesy, but I love them none-the-less. Today I want to get bunches of stuff done before I leave for 826 to tutor. I want to finish up freezing the chicken stock I made yesterday into their "hockey puck" forms. After I make a big batch of stock, I freeze it into ice cubes in a muffin tin. It works out well, making even third of a cup pucks. I also want to get the kitchen moped and the stove cleaned. Both are in need of some major attention. Since I did not get anything else done yesterday, I need to get the pattern I am working on ironed out and modified if there are any needed. I also would love to get it muslined, but I am not sure that can happen before I have to leave. I am also working on "memorizing" the next song for choreography in my dance class. I accomplish it by playing the song on repeat for hours on end. I find that this is the best way for me to know the music fully, so that when I dance to it, all elements of the song become second nature. I am sure the neighbors love it! Well off to get some things accomplished.

I know that it has been a few days again since I wrote, but things have been pretty busy around here. I was contacted by a dance colleague and wonderful customer of mine, Ashley Lopez, who is both a dancer and instructor in San Jose. She needed a new pair of custom pants, so I have been of line working on making some tailoring adjustments and crafting her perfect pair. She picked out her pair from a new fabric I had in stock but had not made into pants yet. It is a beautiful raspberry sari fabric that she chose, and I am sure it is going to look killer on her.



I still have enough fabric left for one more pair of pants to be made if there are any takers out there.

Friday was a great day. Dan took the day off from work to decompress while I finished up the pants. We had tickets to see Kodo that night up in Marin. We went up and saw another wonderful show by them. Saturday and Sunday were filled with the usual domestic things, cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, and the like. Monday I spent out fabric hunting for another new special order. I found the perfect fabric for the client, and I am going to muslin up the piece to day to see if there are any adjustments that need to be made before I move onto the actual garment sewing. Yesterday was spent running around the city looking for a new pair of knee pads for dance class. I ended up finding ones I thought were perfect, but they did not end up fitting over my calves. Oh well, such is life. ;) I guess I am back to the drawing board with that one. I also got some supplies for the household yesterday as well as my Valentine's Day cards. I need to fill them out and get them in the mail, pronto!

On the list for today, I need to get these cards filled out and mailed first. Second, I am going to work on this pattern and hopefully get the muslin cut out today and perhaps sewn. I am still working on my now very late Christmas gift for Da, so that also needs to get worked on some today. Other than that, I want to try my hand at baking baklava. I will take pictures to post tomorrow for you all. I hope it turns out! I also need to order new bulbs for the AeroGarden. One is already burned out. Bummer I know, but I need to keep the now thriving garden happy. Well lots to do and so little time. Pictures hopefully tomorrow!

( Here is my finally finished Tea Cozy Tutorial. I hope you all enjoy it. )
I hope this keeps you all busy while I am away visiting my sister next week. I will return to writing when I get back at the beginning of February. I still have a lot to do to get ready to go. I wanted to make some napkins to match the cozy out of the left over fabric today, so Dan can mail it off for me tomorrow. I also have to do the laundry and pack for the trip as well as a little house cleaning before I go. I wish you all creative thoughts and fun times while I am gone and look forward to hearing from people on their tea cozy adventures!

I am attempting to get life back on track a bit more before I head out to visit my sister. I still have to write thank you notes for Christmas, oops! I forgot to do, and I really wanted to get back into that habit this year. I am going to work on those this evening while I watch the news. I also want to get back to exercising. I tried to do a jog on the ellipitical on Monday, and only got through 15 minutes before I had to stop. Between my cold and not exercising for a while, I was really out of shape. I am hoping to do 20 minutes today at a lower intensity than Monday. Hopefully I get through it all otherwise I will be pretty disappointed in myself. I also hope to wrap up the work on my new tutorial. I want to get that posted sometime late this week or early next week.

I have learned quite a bit when doing this tutorial. First off, I wished I had a third hand. There were times when I wanted to take a picture, but I also needed my two hands to show what I was doing. I also learned that using fiberfill instead of batting made hand quilting almost impossible for this project. I gave up on that and went back to the machine. I also found that trying to hoop this project when using fiberfill was also not able to happen, so I did not get to try out my machine in its footless embroidery mode. I have placed a lightweight foot on it, and it is slow going, but I am making good progress on getting one side of the cozy done. I hope to get it all finished and photographed today.

I also made bread yesterday. I had a great sponge for the sourdough started, but I ended up adding a bit too much flower and over kneading it. It tasted okay, but the crumb on the loaves was really tight. I hope to keep working on my sourdough recipe until I get it right. Bread making is an art that I have yet to master. Well I suppose I should get in gear and put my jogging shoes on. I hope to have more to report tomorrow.