It's been a long time since I left you

because I was off being a lazy ass.

I'd like to blame being sick but the reality is, I just felt like being a bum.

Let's update, shall we?

Me Made May was a semi success. Aside from the five days or so I laid about in my jammies with a fever, I did wear something handmade each day. However, I didn't take many pictures since I pretty much rocked a rotation of things I've already shown you. I also burned myself out making so many things back to back that I just sort of quit sewing anything about halfway through. I hope to have knocked out a few more things in the next few months so that when Self Stitched September rolls around, I'll have more variety.

Pinky helped participate by wearing her Christmas dress about two Sundays ago. Lucy helped by eating pinky's face.

And here's one of my new favorite skirts. The material is a poly charmeuse from Fabric.com. I think it might even still be available. (And it is here.) It was a ridiculously easy pattern to put together and now I want to find some plaid flannel to make a winter skirt. Can't you see it with a pair of cute slouch boots? Or is that too ridiculously 80's? Would I look like Elyse Keaton I wonder?

As for the Spring-Summer palette Challenge, I really need to step up my game. I've made nothing for it since the button down skirt from a few weeks ago. I'm going to force myself to finish one dress this week before I get so far behind I can't catch up.

Wanna see a better picture of the skirt?

On the homefront, the garden is flourishing so expect an update soon. I harvested some green beans today and fed them to my minions and wonders of wonders, we're all still alive. But that was a mere two hours ago so if I don't post anything in the next few days, be on the look out for a post about food poisoning once we've all come through on the other side.

Also, you all need to pray for me. School is out in one whole week and sweet Lord in heaven, I beseech you on behalf of my hot mess children and my tested patience . . . delivery my children from foolishness. Amen. We have a summer bowling pass and some resources for finding cool things to do in Savannah over the summer so let's just hope I don't end up choking out some small children. I'm too pretty for jail and I doubt they let you bring your sewing machine.

Sunday Dinner

Oh what a beautiful morning!

My children made me breakfast on Sunday. Okay, so I made them make breakfast. This makes me responsible for the girlchild leaving the house this morning looking like she caught a case of the measles. I'd almost rather she had. Then, I wouldn't have to explain that I let my kid get popped in the face by a roving band of melted butter that hopped right from the frying pan and onto her skin. Dude, totally her fault for dropping a piece of ham on to the skillet from a high point, right? Or, yanno, my fault for not paying attention while she was cooking.

Then there was the moment when we got to church I asked pete where the diaper bag was.

"Oh, you must have forgotten it at home, mommy."

Wut, who?? I, who said, pete, get my purse and the diaper bag and go get in the car?

Yeah, sure, I forgot it. ::eyeroll:: Thank God pudding didn't have a massive blow out at church because what better way is there to spend your Mother's day than getting shat on by your own kid.

Le sigh.

Let's talk about dinner, shall we?

Before you yell at my husband for making me cook on Mother's Day, please understand that I adore our Sunday dinner tradition. I plan the menu well in advance, researching recipes, wondering if I should buy a new serving platter or baking pan, what new food to offer up, etc. I planned this Sunday's dinner before I even realized what today was and once it was planned, the hounds of hell couldn't stop me from looking forward to making my very first poundcake and attempting homemade beef pot pie.

Since my greatgrandmother taught me to eat my veggies before dessert, let's start with dinner. For my Sunday Dinners, I've been working with the Cover and Bake cookbook from America's Test Kitchen. I cannot rave enough about the awesomeness contained in these marvelous pages. In addition to some kick ass recipes perfectly suited for my tastes, as a bonus, this book spends a huge amount of time explaining why they've chosen to make the recipe the way they did, how to select ingredients, and what type of equipment to use. Even if you know how to cook well and can easily tie up the perfect pork roast, I guarantee you this book will teach you things you didn't know.

Today, it taught me to make a perfect pot pie. First, the ingredients.

You'll also need your favorite biscuit dough or pie crust recipe.

So now that you've got all that gathered, let's proceed. Heat up the butter in a large pot and cook the beef, seasoning with salt and pepper until browned. Remove from pan and set aside. While resisting the urge to shove all the tasty beef down your gullet, brown the onion and carrots. Stir in the garlic then sprinkle in the flour. Keep stirring and cook flour until golden brown. Then slowly add the wine, scraping up any browned bits. Next, pour in the chicken broth, tomato paste, and thyme. Stir until smooth. Dump the beef you haven't managed to eat back into the pot and stick a lid on it. Then let that bad boy simmer on low until the beef is nice and tender.

Slap the whole shebang in cassarole dish. I used buttermilk biscuit dough for my topping. I rolled it out, stamped out about 12 biscuits and laid them on top all nice like. Then I baked it at 400 for about 20 minutes or until the biscuits were nice and brown.

Profit.

So for mother's day, mr man gave me exactly what I wanted, another opportunity to turn out an amazing dinner, not because I'm the type of sap who lovingly declares how much they just love taking care of their family but because I like being a grade A attention whore in my cute apron.

It's raining, it's pouring

I'm blaming the rain for my lack of productivity today. I sewed exactly jack and shizit today, didn't cut out a damned thing. I weeded nothing and watered about two hours before the skies opened up and released a torrent that I thought would knock over my sage.

I did manage a homemade veggie sausage soup though.

I made the stock from yesterday's lamb trimmings and spent the day salivating as the scent permeated my kitchen. This is also the trouble with using your crockpot while you're at home. Suddenly you feel like a supermodel in the middle of a bakery, your stomach lecturing you while you try in vain to convince yourself that you are not starving. I may have stuffed my face all day accordingly. Half of that might have been leftover Sunday dinner dessert. Cookie brownies are the devil.

I worked in some MMM, too.

This is the Sorbetto blouse by Colette Patterns. Yay for a free working pattern.

Babies are convenient things

You can, like, hold them and stuff and distract people from your fat belly.

A belt would probably work better to nip in the waist and give me a better silhouette but the kid was free and I feel like he owes me considering how much time I spend wiping his butt.

The skirt is something I threw together without a pattern, just two panels of some stuff Joann's calls Tutti Fruiti that feels like paper but the color was so vibrant I couldn't resist. Look for it again in a few days when I make pinky a dress out of it and maybe even another skirt for myself. I have three yards left I think.

Day three of MMM was a wash. I just loafed around the house all day in a target tee and watched some New Girl.

Day two

It's days like this I remember why I have children, yanno, beyond the slave labor aspect. Hey, groceries don't carry themselves into the house, you know.

Anyhow, I have recruited my children as little helpers in my blogging endeavors, primarily to be my personal photographers. Sure, I could get their father to do it but then I have to resist the urge to choke his tall ass out when he gives me that annoying "wut" face for taking five million pictures a day and actually being the type of person who has a blog. What can I say? The man is a seventy year old man in a thirty seven year old body. So I bypass his pursed lipped judgement and finagle the children into doing my dirty work. They do want dinner, yes?

The minute the spill into my house, dropping permission slips here, hoodies there, and leaving notebook paper and pencil nubs in their wake, I pick off a particularly eager looking one and usher them outside for picture taking time. Today, we had to make a pit stop in the land of "what did mommy buy today" to give pinky a dress I found for her at Goodwill. Then, I had to sit and wait while she changed immediately. On one hand, I'm delighted by how much she loves her $1.99 dress. On the other, I WANT MY PICTURE TAKEN, DAMMIT!

I'm glad I waited though because she trilled me. After taking my picture, she decided I should do her a solid and take her picture too and because she's a joiner, she wants it posted on the blog too.

So now that you've suffered that barely entertaining, meandering story, here's the pictures.

What's that I see in the trees?
World peace?

The top was done up in two hours out of some knit I have in my stash. I think I picked it up on the clearance table at Hancock's. But it's been a few years. The skirt is Sandra Lee Me Made, aka, barely made by me at all. But instead of being paid millions of dollars to ice a store bought cake with canned frosting on national television while drunk on peach schnapps and delusion, I took a Goodwill maxi dress, cut off the top, sewed in an elastic waistband and called it good.

Here it is in it's pre-Snarktastical glory.



Who doesn't love a little uniboob in the morning?

 And here's the oft hilarious pinky in her Goodwill dress, perfect as it is.



Whirled peas? I don't get it.


Perfect as she is. Nope, I gave her absolutely no direction on either where we ought to take this picture or how she ought to pose. Pinky just climbed her happy little butt up on that wall and stunted like her mama, facial expression and all.

She slays me.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've been ordered to make her a maxi skirt. I'd feel put upon if I wasn't fully aware that in a couple years, she'll be bending over backwards to be my complete opposite. I better enjoy having a mimicking shadow while I can.

And We're Off!!

If you recall, today is the start of Me Made May and to get the ball running, may I present my yard sale revamp?

I really need to learn to take better pictures. Guess it's time to start reading up on photography.

In any case, I started off with a standard ladies dress shirt in a size 12/14 that I picked up from my church youth group's yard sale in October. I'd planned to convert it into a maternity top but never got around to it. Turned out to be a good thing as the existing shirt would not have accomodated a babyfat belly for very long. My crappy photography skills don't show the colors very well but it's a white shirt with chocolate, tan, and maroon stripes.

The conversion was pretty easy and only took me about a day. I cut off the sleeves first then cut out the side seams. I used the Sorbetto top pattern to cut the proper armhole shape but cut the neckline just a bit lower. I added darts at the armholes and the back yoke to fix the gaping. Then I made some bias tape from the sleeves and used it to bind everything up.

 I know that I'm really not supposed to be making up a lot of stuff for MMM and just going with what I already have however, I realized belatedly that most of my handmade items are dresses that won't be convenient for nursing my kid. So I could either make a few extra things in addition to all the sewing already on the books or amend my challenge parameters.

I chose the latter because I enjoy making my life more pressure than it has to be.

Such an inconvenience, these baby things. Also, they spit up, a lot. As if sensing the drawbacks to dealing with their fussy little behinds, they often make a concerted effort to be extra cute, as if it somehow makes leaving wet spots all over your shirt less annoying.

Who am I kidding? I'll totally deal with grody patches if it means I get to dress the kid in adorable feetie jammies. See that spot of gray adorning my kid's toes? Those are rhinoceroses/rhinocerooses/rhinocerice, yanno, something.

And just to bring it home, they say "I'm in charge" on the tag.

Do you die? I die.