Food rut

Do you ever get in a food rut? Where you’re eating and/or cooking the same things day after boring day? We are in such a rut at The Little Yellow House. Our current boring dinner rotation includes pizza, baked potatoes and eggs. At least we aren’t eating delivery pizza, Kent makes our pizza from scratch.

Lunches are boring right now too as we come to the very end of winter. We’ve been eating spicy vegetable soup or lentil soup for lunch almost every day. While we love the soups, they are most definitely winter lunch staples and with luck, winter weather will soon be a thing of the past.

But all of that adds up to boring meals. You’d think that breaking out of the rut would be fairly easy – we are decent cooks and we enjoy cooking. But for some reason, we’re both just flat out of cooking inspiration. Couple that with our various pickinesses (I am far more picky than he is about the food we eat, I fully own that complicating factor) and the lack of interest and what do you get? Why, you get pizza, baked potatoes and eggs, that’s what you get.

So I’m scrounging through our cookbooks and favorite online recipe places to find one dish meals or super-fast and easy meals that we will like and eat. Got any suggestions? If so, just remember I won’t eat any strong tasting dark green vegetable (looking at you, kale, spinach and the like) and he hates sweet potatoes and liver, and isn’t very fond of carrots or Brussels sprouts (which I also detest). But don't be afraid to suggest recipes that do use the dark greens. I'll just leave them out.

Cranking out the sewing

Yesterday, Kent and I made real progress on the Easter clothes for the grandkids. I got both the boys’ pants done, and he’s nearly finished with their shirts. We had a very subtle plaid on hand that we’re using for the boys’ shirts and for our granddaughter’s dress. You can see it in this picture on the left where the shirts are hanging on the back of a chair. All day, Kent kept saying “teeny tiny sleeves!” or “teeny, tiny collar!” I’m sure he’ll say something similar when they’re done (“teeny, tiny shirts!”).


This picture shows you the pants plus the first pair of shorts I’d made for the middle grandchild. The elastic was a bit tight in the waist so our daughter-in-law sent them back so I could fix that problem. I left the pencil in this picture so you can get an idea of scale.

And this final picture shows Kent's thought process in taking the boys' measurements and lining them up with the measurements given on our pattern. He ended up having to do some drafting to make both shirts longer and our middle grandchild's shirt bigger around. That's part of the problem when you're using out of print patterns, you can't just go buy another one. 

I'll get our granddaughter's dress cut out tomorrow, and with luck also get a lot of the sewing done. Easter is around the corner and I want to have enough time to fix any fit issues they might have with these clothes. 

I haven't got time for the pain

I’m so incredibly sore, and it’s a very good thing.

My biggest complaint with so many exercise DVDs is that they don’t offer a solid, must-try-hard work out. You’ll get, say, three ab exercises and maybe do 12 each. That’s just not going to do much in the way of toning and strengthening your abs.

But I stumbled across Cathe Friedrich’s workouts on Amazon and figured I would try her abdominal DVD. Oh my word, it’s hard. I’m sweaty and tired after doing any one of the three routines on there.

Intrigued by the first DVD, I asked for another one for Christmas – the core cardio – and got it. That one is also super hard for me, I am flat out exhausted after it and can’t do a couple of the exercises without modifying.

So I asked for a third DVD, this time for my birthday. Kent obliged and so now I have the Cathe Friedrich's Low Impact Series: Total Body Tri-Sets. Good thing I know he loves me and isn’t trying to kill me because OW! I did the lower body workout yesterday, and folks I am incredibly sore. As in so sore, I didn’t run today because I didn’t think I’d be able to make it back up the big hill. This workout completely got my hamstrings, my glutes and even my inner thighs.

Yes, I’m sore, but I’m really happy. And I'm such a fan of her DVDs. I want more.

There's a hole in the bucket

If I had a bucket list (which I don’t), I’d be able to check off “sew a garment out of silk.” I finally finished the top version of Simplicity 1699 (dress version here) and let me tell you, silk and I will probably never be besties unless someone else is doing the sewing.

Eddie (L) and Wally (R) wanted
to be photographed.

I did a lot of reading online before ever laying scissors to fabric, which led me to run out and get some things just for this project:

• Bought new dressmaker scissors that will only be used on silk and the like
• Bought new silk straight pins and a different colored magnetic pin holder – I even cleverly wrote “silk pins” on the side in case the other sewist in my house gets confused
• Placed the fabric on top of paper
• Cut out all pieces in single layers (groan)
• Serged all edges – which was another groan because that stuff wants to move
• Pressed and ironed this garment probably seven times more than normal (and it still needs more pressing)*

I mostly like the top but will probably redo the hem. I added a band of fabric cut to match the peplum at the hemline (it’s some lining material) so that the hem would float and boy does it. So I think I will unpick my hem (can I get another groan? It took me 30 minutes to hand stitch that hem), cut off all but 5/8 of the fabric, re-serge the raw edge and redo the hem. If that doesn’t stop the floating, well then the top will just have to float. I don’t want it any shorter.

Made this skirt too, New Look 6082

In really exciting news, I won some amazing fabric from Sew Melodic and it arrived today. Isn’t this gorgeous? Now I need to figure out what to make that will showcase the fabric and look good on me.

Kent hadn't heard of the song "There's a Hole in the Bucket" so just in case you haven't either, here you go:



*I read somewhere that you should spend about three times as long at the ironing board pressing and ironing your sewing projects as you do at the sewing machine actually sewing them. This project blew that proportion right out of the water, plus I spent a crazy amount of time carefully pinning and repinning everything.

The only good thing

About our return to winter weather is that I can wear my finished coat without looking ridiculous. In the end, I went with buttons and embraced the straight nature of the coat. The finished tie will just hang on the hanger, and live a useless life.

I was tempted to try to do my button holes by hand (and Melody very kindly provided me with a helpful link) but in the end, I quailed at the amount of work involved and buckled down with my sewing machine. Even though I couldn't make the key hole button holes because of how thick the fabric is, these turned out fine.

Also, I was photobombed by Eddie. What a ham he is.

I kept blinking as Kent took the photos so
this is my attempt to open my eyes WIDE.

Works in progress

My silk top is cut out.

I cut it out in single layers, what a pain.

All done.

Kent is making good progress on shirts for our two grandsons.

He calls his machine "pretty peacock"
because it's got art on the front

Two tiny collars!

I’m on tap to make their pants and our granddaughter’s dress and little jacket. These will be for Easter so we have a little time. Since they live in Virginia though, I’d like to get the clothes done and there in plenty of time so that if there are any fitting issues, we can get them fixed.

Finally, Eddie has been supervising us in his typical laid back way.

He's in a box of fabric. Of course.

Missed the deadline

But I have a great reason. I flat ran out of time today to cut out my silk top because I was too busy finishing a wearable muslin from the same pattern I’m going to use for the top.

One of the best things about following other sewists’ blogs is that often they will see potential in a pattern I’ve rejected as unsuitable or ugly or whatever. Sew Ruthie did that a couple of years ago with a New Look jacket pattern – after seeing her version, I made it up for myself and it’s still in rotation.

This Simplicity pattern is another one I’d similarly rejected, until I saw how Sew Melodic had sewn it up. Mostly I thought it wouldn’t be flattering or that I would have a hard time getting the dress or top to fit properly. I was wrong on both counts, I’m happy to say. I tried something different for this dress: I cut a 12 on top and graded to a 14 at the waist. And the top fits beautifully. I do wonder though, if these sleeves fit so well because they are raglan. I suspect set in sleeves in a 12 would end up being too small. But that’s not the case here and although I don’t have a picture of the back of the dress, I can tell you that I have no neck gaping going on.

I'll get the top cut out tomorrow and maybe completed, too. The dress was an easy enough sew and now that I've made it once, making it again as a top should go pretty quickly.

As a side note, I’m very glad to have a photographer living with me. He very kindly photoshopped out the marks left by my socks, which I took off just before he took these pictures. Now that is love.