Happy Birthday, Skyler

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Our nephew is FIFTEEN today! Here is in January (on the far left) looking like he’s walking off the Casablanca air field.

Two cadets march towards a hanger with lighted windows. The cadet on the left is taller.

That photo is from him receiving the Amelia Earhart Award (granted for “sustained excellence in all four areas of cadet life: leadership, aerospace, fitness, and character”) in Civil Air Patrol.

And “sustained excellence” is really a good way of summing up Skyler. He’s SUCH a good person: incredibly smart but not bratty about it, kind and empathetic, a deep thinker, and a problem solver (he wants to run for political office and I say good for him, let’s do it).

He may be essentially grown up and planning world domination, but I remember when he didn’t have any teeth and got the nickname “Bubbs” because he loved to blow bubbles with his spit–and was just as much of a delight to be an auntie to.
A baby looks over the edge of a couch and smiles

Happy birthday, Skyler! We love you. And be careful when you get your learner’s permit!!

Chicken Dilettante Progress

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Seven months into eating chicken, I’m amazed I found anything to eat as a vegetarian. I remember thinking, often, “It’d be a lot easier to just eat meat,” and wow was I right. Do I still think about how the chicken lived and try to make better choices? Of course–but now I’m choosing to eat it after that. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I am getting better at cooking it, though. I tried the lemon potato chicken dish again with skin-on chicken this time, and look at that. Much more appetizing!

Roast chicken pieces on a bed of potatoes and garbanzos

I’ve even tried a whole roast chicken a few times (the bag of giblets IN the whole chicken gave me pause, but I persisted). (Smitten Kitchen recipe used here; I don’t love cabbage that much but it was fine.)
A roast chicken on a bed of purple cabbage

But honestly, my favorite/most successful ways to cook it so far are to chuck it in a pot and forget about it: Clay pot with herb butter, crock pot honey-chipotle, even “rotisserie” style in the slow cooker.

That last recipe feels slightly wrong but it does get you lots of moist chicken to use in … chicken pot pie! Two baked chicken pot pies on a sheet pan

What’s the dilettante motto again? “Sucking at something is the first step to being sorta good at something!”

Tuesday Project Roundup: Day Off, New Bag

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We had a canceled vacation a few weeks ago (Doc’s mom is having health issues) but I still wanted to go somewhere on my day off. I ended up at the creative re-use store 40 minutes from home and saw an entire poppy red leather hide for TWELVE DOLLARS; I immediately decided to make a project with it, as one does.
A coral leather hide and bag pattern pieces and hardware on a white fluffy rug

This fashion belt bag pattern had crossed my radar the week before and I realized I could re-create a $395 designer bag pretty convincingly with that pattern and hide.
Screengrab of the Calre V site showing a model wearing a poppy red crossbody pouch

…Just like this!
A homemade poppy red leather pouch with a tan checkered strap, laying on a fluffy white sheepskin

This hide was thicker than my last leather sewing project and my machine struggled a bit, so I decided not to line the bag. (It’s not like leather is going to fray.)  I didn’t do a matching strap so I wouldn’t have to sew triple thicknesses of leather, but a contrast strap is also something the designer does: Screenshot from the Clare V site showing a tan bag with a contrast red and navy stripe strap

I added leather tabs to the end of the strap to make it look more intentional, like the ready-made one, and reverse-engineered the strap mechanics from the pictures on the site.

I hadn’t been sidetracked by a new project in a while; this was fun to just obsess over for a couple free days. And now I have a lifetime supple of leather so I can make all the bags I want!

Rain Poem

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It was a wet weekend here, which was honestly kind of nice–I got to putter around the house and take naps. No complaints.

 

To the Rain
by Ursula LeGuin

Mother rain, manifold, measureless,
falling on fallow, on field and forest,
on house-roof, low hovel, high tower,
downwelling waters all-washing, wider
than cities, softer than sisterhood, vaster
than countrysides, calming, recalling:
return to us, teaching our troubled
souls in your ceaseless descent
to fall, to be fellow, to feel to the root,
to sink in, to heal, to sweeten the sea.

Digging Through Old Quotes

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I save things as I see them for the blog but, much like buying fabric, I’m often distracted by the latest thing I see to blog about. I saved this excerpt from a newsletter by Helena Fitzgerald in 2022, but it still feels relevant, especially as I think about adopting another creature and taking care of family and how loving anything means you give it your heart.

 

All people want is for nothing to happen; all anybody wants is another day of our soft, stupid little lives, to be allowed the vulnerabilities we have built into them. We clutter up our houses with useless objects that mean something to us; we adopt pets who would slow us down in a crisis. All this is a way of ignoring the truth that nothing stops, which is to say it is a form of love.

Love means I have to make contingency plans. It means I have to worry about what I leave behind. I have allowed something to matter. I have allowed something to depend on me, and I have allowed myself to depend on someone.

Everything washes away; we all know this. We are making a declaration that it is worth it to choose the losing side. I would rather not pick up my phone; I would rather not worry about whether I fed the cats, or if they’re sick, or what I would do if they were, or how to bring them with me if I had to leave. I would rather not have to do the more difficult math of considering anyone other than myself, in a world where nothing stops, where there is always something else each next day. But I choose all that anyway; I would rather try and fail to stand still with you than to be fast and sleek without you.

Tuesday Project Roundup: An Even Brighter Shirt

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My Easter Liberty print shirt clearly wasn’t bright enough, because I had to buy some of this neon apricot cotton when I saw it on Harmony’s site and make an even brighter one. a neon peach mini-striped shirt hangs in front of a white door

I tried a new pattern for it, the Rose Raglan Button Up from Paradise Patterns. It, uh, reinforced why I stick to my two main pattern companies (Daughter Judy and Closet Core). Thankfully I read this review and suggested mods before I cut it out, so I still ended up with something wearable.

For the sewists out there, here are my mods:

  • Made a half-inch forward shoulder adjustment (standard for me).
  • Took a total of 1.5 inches out of the sleeve length; normally, I have to ADD an inch to most patterns so the sleeves on this as drafted are hella long. (One inch of that removed length was off the bottom, thus reducing the sleeve placket length, and the other half inch was taken off at the lengthen/shorten line.)
  • Reversed the side of the sleeve where the placket extension and pleats appear, per the Threadloop review. (Making it as drafted would have had the cuff buttoning the “wrong” way, wrapping under the arm to button instead of over it. Why?!)

The pattern does walk you through making flat felled seams for everything, though, so the finish on the inside is nice and clean and I’m happy with the finished shirt. It’s so BRIGHT!

A woman takes a mirror selfie. She's wearing a neon apricot striped shirt, camo pants, and clogs.

 

Scenes From Record Store Day

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The first place we went to (Graywhale) still had a line out the door at 2:30 and we just turned right around. I was feeling discouraged, but Doc reminded me that the other record store I wanted to visit (Randy’s) had an ice cream place next door and why don’t we just go and get ice cream and check it out? (What a gem he is.)

After an affogato break, we walked right in to Randy’s and I found the jazz and soul albums I wanted, plus a couple used ones. At the register, I asked if they’d already sold out of the R. Carlos Nakai Navajo flute release, and got a very long look from the cashier.

“No,” he said, “We didn’t even get that in. We all thought it was a weird release. But I can special order it for you? Gets here Thursday.”

So I special ordered the weird release like the weird old lady I am and took all my records home to listen to them. The end!

Friday Links

Karen

1. Tomorrow is Record Store Day and I’m going to hope that not everyone wants R. Carlos Nakai’s Canyon Trilogy on vinyl (for the first time!) and try my luck in the afternoon, vs lining up at an ungodly hour in the morning. I also have my eye on some jazz and soul. We’ll see!

2. Here for this: The mystery of the lost Roman herb

3. I haven’t gotten in any water out in nature in a long time and I can tell. Maybe I need to find a waterfall this weekend:

 

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