Another day, another tote

So we're heading to the beach with friends in a few weeks and I have been in a tote bag frenzy. I feel compelled to make a tote bag for everything. I used the two hour beach tote tutorial from here. It's ridiculously easy and takes much less than two hours to make. I actually started making two of them since I couldn't decide which fabric I liked best for the main part. The other bag will be finished as soon as I get some black webbing for the handles. It's a very no frills tote, it isn't lined so the raw seems are showing, which slightly bugs me. I suppose for what it is though it doesn't really matter. It's a nice in between bag; it's not huge, but it can still hold a few towels, water and sunscreen. I have a few more planned for the trip a snack bag, a toy bag, etc. After the trip is over I think they'll make great shopping bags. I'm all for reusable grocery bags, the less plastic bags I accumulate the better!

I knead dough

The "big" boy wanted to make bread today. Rainbow bread to be more specific. So we opened the new cookbook and set off on our daily adventure in making something. The dough was so pretty and vibrant before it was baked! Afterwards, it turned a lovely golden color and the inside was toned down a bit. It's really great when the food tastes as good as it looks!

There's a really neat giveaway happening here. It involves an issue of Cook's Country!! (My personal favorite cooking periodical!!!)

My blue sky

I fell in love with Amy Butler's Blue Sky hat pattern immediately. It took many, many months for me to actually make it. Once I decided on the fabric the hat itself came together very quickly. It was an easy pattern to make. I like the look of the hat. I think that if I were to make another one, I would make it a little bigger, I think I would just like it better if the hat were a little bigger, not the brim part though it's huge as it is. The three layers of cotton canvas seemed quite excessive to me. I'm sure that it was for the sake of the brim drape, but it's so thick and heavy. I might try using an interfacing and fewer layers of the canvas next time. It's so thick that you hear your own voice much louder than anyone else's!

My latest obsession

I am the worst about obsessing over things and not being satisfied until I have mastered it. Well, my latest obsession is the French macaron. After seeing the macrons from here, I couldn't rest until I had some of my very own to enjoy. So I found a recipe, well several recipes but the one that I decided upon was for Chocolate Raspberry macarons. I love chocolate and raspberry anything, so what better way to try making macarons?! The recipe can be found here. It was pretty straight forward and relatively easy to make, a little time consuming, but aren't most things that are worth anything? I would have liked the macaron to be a little more pink, the batter was a lovely shade, but alas faded as they were baked. I wanted to make sure that there was a distinct raspberry taste so I added some raspberry extract to the batter as well. You'd think that being a recipe that I have never tried, or even a type of cookie that I've never made, that I would actually stick to the recipe, but no... I did find that the second batch I made were better, I think it was because the batter was room temperature and had rested longer. I plan on making many more of these with lots of other flavor combo. I hear they're better if you wait a day to eat them, but how can you resist?

My three year old told me that they looked like little hamburgers. I guess they do, sort of.

Good Intentions

I do truly wish to update this page on a regular basis. I just tend to get bogged down with stuff, stuff like the load of clean clothes in the dryer right now that's just waiting to be folded. So here's to wishful thinking for the future.

This was a birthday gift made by A for his dad. Well, drawn for his dad. It was then transfered to the shirt using fabric crayons. I truly wasn't impressed with the crayons. I followed the instructions on the box and it didn't really do anything other than make a very light transfer. I ended up heating the shirt with my iron and tracing it on allowing the heat to basically melt the wax onto the fibers. Oh well. It still looks cute, let's hope it holds up after washing!