Bunnies don't like sharks

Daaaaaahhhhh!!!!! My husband recently purchased "Rayman Raving Rabbids" for the Wii, and we have really enjoyed playing it. So much, in fact, that I made him a Rabbid for his birthday. His is the one obviously screaming "Daaaaaaahhhh!!!!". My son likes to watch us play, and will come to us holding a Wii remote, bowing, and saying, "We would like to play bunnies.". Knowing that he would run off with my husband's rabbid, I made him his very own, more benevolent-looking rabbid. I got the inspiration on craftster.org, just search for "rabbid" and you will find several entries. I made these with felt. The eyes and the smile are embroidered. The thing I learned doing this project: stuffed animals aren't that hard to make. I've made sock monkeys before, but never anything like this. I see many more in my future as Christmas, birthday, and baby shower gifts. Now I need to find patterns......

A little piece of sunshine...

That's what my new dress reminds me of. I *finally* finished the yellow gabacha yesterday and wore it to a baby shower. It was nice and comfortable, and I got lots of compliments on it. Have a gander:
Now that I know my son will be gone a good 4 hours a day 4 days a week (hooray mommy-time!), I can get some major projects done. I'm planning on doing the next gabacha this week in the blue floral that is pictured in an earlier post. I didn't get the baby blanket done - I wanted to do a Speed Hook Baby Blanket, but had trouble locating a size S (yes S) hook. I did find one yesterday, on the way to the baby shower, so we ended up picking a few things off the Target registry. Not ideal, but hey, all babies need clothes. :) The next baby blanket I make will be the 4 Hour Baby Blanket pattern by Lion Brand. I'm interested to see if the name fits with the reality of how I crochet. We'll see....

A few weeks ago I cooked in the solar oven again. I made Filipino Menudo, based on a friend's recipe, and it was excellent! I do the recipe by sight, so I can't really give any solid measurements, but your ingredients are: pork loin cut into cubes, a yellow onion, chopped, about 5 or 6 cloves of garlic, minced in a garlic press (more if you really like garlic), potatoes peeled and cubed, raisins (don't look at me like I have lobsters coming out of my ears, it's really good!), soy sauce and water. Saute the onions and garlic until the onions start to get a little soft, but don't brown the garlic! Add the pork and brown. Then add a few handfuls of raisins, the potatoes, about 1/2 cup of good soy sauce from the Philippines (I use Silver Swan), and enough water to cover everything. Then, slow cook it either on the burner or in my case the solar oven. The longer you cook it, the better it is. I think I left it in the solar oven about 3 hours. We eat it served over rice. I was really impressed by how much I could actually make in a 3 quart pan. We had 3 meals out of the one batch. I think I'll be doing this again soon. YUM!

I haven't been back out in the garden yet, I still need to locate row cover. I may have to order it. At least I can still plant for fall. We have had some good rain, and our front yard plants, which are desert plants, always say "Oh boy! Water!" and put out impressive new growth. I love the purple sage (is it Texas sage?, I'm not sure of the exact variety) that we have out front, and here's a picture of one happy bush. I hope the rain comes back soon - it's been hot and muggy with no rain payoff the last week or so. :( At least not in our neighborhood.

So, I leave you with hopes of rain and cooler temperatures, as long as the rain holds off until I'm finished line-drying the wash tomorrow.....

Lots of updates...

Whew! It's been a busy couple of weeks! Let's see.....I finished the pink dress, picked 50 pounds of peaches, read "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", canned some peaches, planted my garden, crocheted a Hello Kitty purse (and just realized that I forgot to take a picture, d'oh!), and eagerly run out into the backyard every day to see what has sprouted. First, here's a picture of the pink dress. It is also a Folkwear Sporty Forties dress, and I LOVE it! The picture doesn't do it justice. I'm almost done with the yellow gabacha, and I'll post a picture when I'm done.

We went up north of Wickenburg to Date Creek Ranch and picked peaches last Sunday. We ran into a monsoon storm and had to pull off the road on the way up there, but it was nice and cool and drizzley the whole time we were picking. My son wasn't too discerning with his peach selection, but did well for a four year old. We picked for about 2 hours give or take and ended up with 55 pounds of peaches (we were picking for a friend, too). My husband had never had a peach right off the tree, and now he knows what a peach is *supposed* to taste like. We ate a bunch fresh, and I still had enough to try my hand at canning. I ended up with 3 quarts of spiced peaches and 4 pints of peach butter. Peach butter = yummy! We are already planning a trip for September to go pick apples. And we hope to order 1/2 a cow with the same friend we were picking for this fall from the same ranch.

I was finished with "Deathly Hallows" by Monday afternoon, and then it was my husband's turn to read it. No spoilers here, but we really enjoyed it and thought that it tied the series up nicely.

I planted my garden last Friday, and had sprouts coming up this Thursday. Aren't they cute? Our monsoon season finally started up in the past week, and my garden is loving the rain! (Doing a happy-dance for rain in the desert.) I have more coming up now, and the varieties are: Triple Treat, Small Sugar, and Jack Be Little pumpkins; pinto beans, navy beans, California Black Eye peas, Kentucky Wonder pole beans; Jenny Lind, Hearts of Gold, and Sugar Baby melons; sweet corn, and winter squash (I'm not sure if the Hubbards or Acorns are up). I'm still waiting for my California Wonder peppers to sprout. I think everything is coming up well considering the seeds are from when I last tried a garden 2 years ago. I also planted some sunflowers a few days ago in my son's garden. The only downside seems to be that crickets are munching some of the sprouts. I have everything covered, but not too tightly. I was more concerned with birds getting at the wormy-looking sprouts. :(

Hopefully it won't be another 2 weeks before I post again, but hey, life happens, right?

It's quiet. Too quiet.

Sorry for the lack of posts of late. I have been busy with multiple projects, including sewing the pink dress (done, and already worn twice, but I haven't taken a pic yet), nearly done with the yellow dress, have the blue flowered one cut and ready to go, re-reading the Harry Potter series before "Deathly Hallows" comes out (I'm through "Goblet of Fire"; don't know if I'll make it through "Order of the Phoenix" and "Half-Blood Prince" in time for the new book release), although I am currently taking a break to read "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver, since I had requested it from the library and this will probably be my only chance to read it any time soon. I like run-on sentences, can you tell? I also cooked in the solar oven twice last week, in the same day, no less. I made the Strawberry-Rhubarb Crisp that is in "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle", and I combined two recipes to come up with an excellent Cilantro Chicken, um, stew I guess you'd call it. I combined the Cilantro Chicken recipe from "Solar Cooking Naturally" by Virginia Heather Gurley, and the Chicken Recuerdos de Tucson from "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle". (You can go here to get all the recipes in the book: http://www.animalvegetablemiracle.com/Recipes.html) Both turned out so yummy that we inhaled it before I could take any pictures. :( (edit: I *was* able to take a picture of the crisp before it was gone! :) I love strawberry-rhubarb pie, but I never would have thought to make a crisp until I saw the recipe. Now I am going to be on the lookout for other fruit to make into crisps. This week I'm going to try more recipes in the solar oven, and I'm also going to be doing some planting in the garden. We have a good chance of rain this week, and I want to take advantage of it. I need to get out back and do some tidying, and then I'll be able to take and post some pictures. Now, do I go read or sew? So many fun things to do.....

Call me Cinderella.....

I have never been what you would call a slave to fashion. I have always been the most comfortable in jeans and a t-shirt, but recently I started feeling really schlubby (is that a word) in my normal outfit. However, I felt great in skirts or dresses. As I rarely find anything I like in a store, I set out to make some. I have always felt that I was born in the wrong point in history, so I started looking for vintage or vintage-styled patterns. That is when I discovered that Vogue is releasing reprints of historical patterns in _modern_ sizes. http://www.voguepatterns.com/list/vintage_vogue/page-1 No more trying to guess what size you are in a vintage pattern. Also, most of their vintage patterns are from the 1950s, one of my favorite fashion time periods. I purchased several styles that I liked, on sale of course, and have made one of them so far. It is Vintage Vogue pattern V2902, and I LOVE it. I must say that it was a challenge for me to make, since I still consider myself a somewhat novice seamstress, and it was my first fully lined dress, first zipper installed (I always had my mom's help on these before), and it involved a lot of hand sewing, which I don't particularly care for. But, it turned out great and it is so much fun to wear. The dress is cotton chintz (I think, the bolt wasn't labeled) that was about $3/yard and has a bit of stiffness to it, so it stands out nicely without a petticoat, and the lining is muslin. I found out the hard way to prewash your muslin - the bottom of the lining shrunk about 2 inches the first time I washed it.

The second pattern line that I've found and LOVE is Folkwear Patterns. http://folkwear.com/ Again, they are vintage patterns sized to modern standards, and they are printed on butcher paper. So much better than the tissue paper! I have several of their patterns (purchased uncut from eBay), and have made pattern number 235, Sporty Forties' Dress. It also has a sweater pattern to knit, but alas, I only know how to crochet. So far, anyway. This is a lovely shirtwaist dress that uses a minimum amount of fabric (WWII rationing) but still looks great and is a very flattering cut. I made the short-sleeved version out of a light taupey calico with a white print (yes, you can use it for clothes), and found some great shell buttons for about $2 a package of 12. In case you are wondering, I shop at JoAnn's - it is the closest fabric store to me. I also learned a new technique, French seams, from the Folkwear pattern. I'd highly recommend learning this if you worry about fraying seams.

I was asked by my Mom earlier this year as to what I would like for my birthday, and I replied a gift card for JoAnn's so I could get the supplies for a project. Well, Mom really came through and I was able to get material and notions for 3 dresses. Yippee! With what I already have on hand I should have a fine dress wardrobe for many years to come. Have I mentioned that I still wear shirts I had in junior high? I wear stuff until there is no wear left in it, so these dresses will last me a long while. My next dress, which I will be cutting out today, will also be a Sporty Forties' Dress, this time in a really cute pink floral cotton that a friend gave me (she found it for $1 a yard and bought the whole bolt, made herself and her daughter a dress, gave me enough for mine, and still had some left over that she is making into a rag rug - quite a buy!). She is also the one who brought over her dress form so I could take these swell pictures. :) Thanks Glenda! Hopefully I'll have the pink dress done next week, and I'll post pictures then. After that one, I'll be making 2 of the Folkwear pattern # 121, Guatemalan Gabacha, one in a yellow calico and one in a nifty blue floral on a cream background. I also have the fabric to make Vintage Vogue #2903, in a purple cotton print, but I'm going to need an extra set of hands for that one, so I don't know when I'll get to that one. I've definitely got the sewing bug right now!