Absolute Fail

I know that we have all had massive fails at attempting different crafts or recipes and here is my most recent one. Macaroons. The first time I made them they came out wonderfully and this time, well I'm going to let the photos do the talking.

No little feet, got a bit crispy on top and....

I'm not sure if it was the oven temperature, the ingredients, my mixing (beating eggs to a stiff peak by hand while incorporating gel food coloring and sugar) or the fact that I used a different recipe from last time and then had to half the recipe. Oops, notes to self don't mess with a recipe the first time you try it.

Yeah, a big fail

But I still wanted to make something. So I looked around for something to make with chocolate chips since I had them and decided on cookies. Who doesn't like cookies? I know he likes them. So here are the cookies which are amazingly good.

Super yummy cookies!

35 Little Cranes

So I'm not at 1,000 by a long shot and I'm not even all that close to 100, but the little cranes are slowly multiplying. Yes, that is 35 cranes in the photo below and I can already say that I'm beginning to get a little sick of some of the colors, but I will push through and get them all done in a year. (I hope)

Easy Lunch

Three days of lunches from a convention worked the past three days. Each one took no longer than 10 minutes to prepare.

Dip was in the small container

I also had an apple and I got a small pizza at the convention as well.

If you are looking to make lunches quickly and love rice, grilled rice balls are a great and easy thing to make. You do have to spend one day making them all and grilling them, but you can freeze them and pop them in the microwave before packing them in your lunch. I think it took me about an hour to make 18 of them and most of that was spent cooking the rice at the beginning. And they are yummy! If anyone wants the recipe just let me know.



On another note, I also went to a Get Started meeting for the 3-day and learned a lot about all of it, but what really got me was the video they showed. One man was walking in memory of his wife and at the beginning of one of the days he saw the 'My Wife' banner, picked it up and carried it for the 19 miles that day. He said that others would ask him if he needed help and his reply to them was, 'No, I'm carrying my wife.'

I have thought about doing the walk for a few years and decided that this was the year. Not only do I want to be able to say I did it, but the statistics for breast cancer make me want to do it even more. As they said tonight, 'we walk until we no longer have to walk'. Here are some of the statistics that we heard:

- 1 in 4 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer

- During the course of the 90 minute meeting we had 30 people will have been diagnosed

- The majority of women with breast cancer have no significant family history or other known risk factors

- Somewhere in the world a women dies of breast cancer every 69 seconds

Meet Me on Monday

1.  What jewelry do you wear 24/7?

None

2.  Do you twirl your spaghetti or cut it?

Twirl it!

3.  How many siblings do you have?

3! One older brother and two younger half sisters.

4.  Were you named after anyone?

I think so, but I could be wrong.

5.  Coke or Pepsi?

Neither, I like Sprite. But if I had to choose it would be Coke

Vintage Beauty

How I wish this would fit me. Well, also that it was in a style I would wear, but one little wish at a time. This was an (obviously) beginning of one of my grandmother's projects if I remember correctly. And it is gorgeous! 

The work put into this amazing. It is a layer of linen fabric (or at least that is what it feels like) and a layer of fine muslin machine basted together. If I ever get around to doing a burn test on some of the extra fabric fashion and I'm wrong, I'll fix that. The designs are a combination of lace motifs and thin cording machine stitched onto both layers. The cording also continues around the collar all the way to center back. There back zipper allowances are already folded and ironed and the hook and bar tack are at the very top. I have to admit I almost didn't see the bar tack at first because the thread matches the fabric so well.

I'm hoping to turn this into something wearable in the future, but I'm not going to do anything until I'm completely positive on what to do and have it be something that doesn't mess with the cording and lace too much. 

Please pardon the color change between the first two and second two photos. The first pictures of the bodice top and center front motifs didn't come out. The color is closer to the first two.

Shirred Shirt

A really old pillow case got a new life today. This poor silky pillowcase was from my grandparents' house when we cleaned it out almost three years ago. For some reason it was always my favorite and even though it was in not so good condition I snagged it and used it to the point it was starting to fall apart at the seams. And as always I forgot to take a before picture, hopefully one day I will remember, but if you know what a pillowcase looks like then you know how it started.

Six rows of shirring, one side seam, two little slits and some fun with the ruffler foot later, I have a fully functional, although slightly sheer tube top. I want to add straps, but ran out of fabric so I'll go digging for some lace later. And the shot of me wearing the garment which is abysmal at best (the photo, not the top). Somehow things always look frumpy and unflattering on me when I take my own photos. It is loose, but not as bad as the picture looks (probably didn't help that I had a shirt on under it). I'm planning on belting it around the waist when I wear it.

And of course there is a funky flash reflection.

Man I was so excited because I hadn't seen this done before, but then I googled and found Shirred pillowcase top. Now did I come up with it or had i seen this post forever ago? Meh.

PIE!

A pie post for National Pi Day!

So instead of a cake for his birthday, my brother requested that I make pecan pies. Works for me, I like pie. However I pigged out at his party and didn't eat any of the pie that we cut there, but never fear, I made two pecan pies and the second one wasn't even touched. And I even made the pie crust! However a week later and I still haven't tried it, though I have it on good authority that the pie was good.

Yeah, I just had some and it was good.

Meet Me on Monday

1.  Do you have a fireplace in your home?Nope, but there is one outside next to the pool. It is actually a fire pit.
2.  Can you drive a stick shift?The short answer to the question is yes. The long answer is yes I can drive stick shift, but you never asked me if I could drive it well. Because the answer to that would be no way in heck and you would be crazy to let me out on busy streets at the wheel of a stick shift car.
3.  How many computers are in your home?Just my wonderful little laptop
4.  Are your taxes done yet?  Do you do them yourself?Um, I'll have to ask my dad about that.
5.  What is your favorite meal of the day? Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack time. They are all my favorite! I just like food.

My Kindle's New Home

It took a while, but here is my kindle cover. I couldn't find fabrics to compliment the zebra in my stash so I dug into my Moda Buttercup charm pack and used three of the squares, two pint and the white solid. The fabric for the rest of the outer is the same oatmeal colored linen that I used for my mom's kindle cover. The second time around the sewing went a lot quicker probably due to less mistakes though it wasn't entirely mistake free. Right before I started top stitching around the opening I noticed that I hadn't sew in the ribbons to close it. Noticing it then meant that I only had to do a tiny bit of seam ripping.

The cover is padded with some cotton batting, but not quilted. And the lining is some Anna Marie Horner blue and white voile print that I'm in love with and hiding away until I can find the pattern I bought if for originally.

Close up to show stitching detail

60 Miles

As you might have seen there is a new addition to my side bar, a donte button for the Susan G Komen 3-Day for the CureS. Yep, I'm doing the walk. 60 miles in 3 days sounds like a heck of a lot, but we will see.  Is this going to kick my butt getting ready for it? There is no doubt about it, but I am going to do it and you are not only going to be getting crafty updates from now on, but updates on the training and fundraising as well. In fact, yesterday I walked 3.5 miles (and it is already kicking my butt)! Doesn't sound like much, but I did it about an hour and fifteen minutes! Sadly, before this is all over my poor walking shoes will probably have to be replaced, or at least they will be sharing walking duty with a new pair.

Since I am a rather lazy bum who has way too many movies in my Netflix instant que, I decided to go with the 24 week training schedule on the 3-Day web site. This means that I have Mondays as my rest days, Tuesdays/Thursdays/Saturdays/Sundays as walking days and Wednesdays/Fridays as cross training days. The schedule is nicely laid out with the miles to walk on walk days and the time allotted to cross training on, well, cross training days. I'm taking liberties on cross training days because the Wednesday one falls on ballet class day and I'm not only going for 15-45 minutes. That's just not going to happen. And let me tell you, if you have a ballet day followed by a 3.5 mile walk the next day, your body will let you know. At least if you are as out of shape as I am. Seriously, I stood looking at the following view for a few minutes trying to talk myself into walking down the stairs.

Except that I wasn't laying on my side. Silly technology, sorry for the sideways photo

I also have plans to wear a different pink bow each day of the walk and have started getting my bow components ready because I know that if I don't get them done soon, procrastination will happen. Photos of those coming soon.

I see a UFO!

Yep, those dreaded unfinished objects. We all have them, or maybe I just have enough of them for all of us, either way I am slowly making progress on one of mine. I can't remember exactly when I started this project, but I'm going to guess at least a year and a half and possibly closer to two. Maybe longer...Anyway, here is the progress I have made on the Luna Lovegood cardigan. Mind you three rows were done last night which watching Futurama.

Yep, the purple one that she wearing in Order of the Phoenix.

Yeah, this one!

The pattern came from Maggie_the_spy over on livejournal. And I thank her greatly for it. Never in a million years would I have the patience to figure it out on my own. So thank you!

Look, look, look! I did a 90 degree increase! And this is closer in color to the actual color

I do have to say, before you start a large (to me) project with a plastic crochet hook, make sure you have a back up. Seriously, I cannot stress that more. My size I hook broke in the middle of the yoke and because I didn't have easy access to a craft store when it happened I had to do a quick fix which involved a bandaide and some choice words before I set the project aside until I got another hook. Of course I also forgot about the project for a while after that too. And if you ever have to do a quick fix like mine, bandaides don't hold well at all.

On a side note, I walked 3.5 miles today! Tomorrow is a cross training day and then two days of walking. This will all make sense after tomorrow's post. Or if you noticed the new button on the right side of my blog.

Kindle Cover Part 1

So I still haven't gotten around to making a cover for my Kindle, but I did manage to make one for my mom for her birthday. It is one of those projects that should have been easy, but having a scatter brained mind made it more complicated than it should have been. But that was totally my fault...So here is my mom's cover.

For mine I have a bunch of fabric scraps I got from Sweet Flavor on Etsy. There are so many fun scraps that I want to use but...

I think I might have to find a way to show off this scrap because it is interesting...