Today I am over at You & Mie for her series on Japanese Sewing Books. The series walks you through all the steps you need to know  from Japanese pattern books. They can be a bit intimidating, but they also can be a lot of fun. My post is all about finding your pattern and tracing it. Sounds easy, but there are some tricks you need to know. Hop on over to Cherie’s lovely blog for my post, and all the guest posts this week!

In honor of Japanese Sewing Books week, I sewed up this sundress from my favorite Japanese sewing book, Happy Homemade Vol. 2. Well, to be honest, I dug up this dress that I sewed most of last spring, then hemmed it and added buttons (in honor of Japanese Sewing Books week). Why I sew 90% of something and then abandon it is beyond me.

But anyway, it’s done and (still) fits! I’m going to do a form style report on this one, because 3 days into spring break and the children have run me ragged already. My brain is not functioning at full capcity.

the fabric: oh, the fabric is lovely. It is 100% cotton shirting I got from the good fabric store in my neighborhood. They have a lot of beautiful fabrics, but mostly in ugly prints. This tiny blue stripe was perfect, though. It’s a good weight too, just right for when (if?) summer comes. I went with polka dot buttons because it’s stripes + polka dots up in here, all the time.

the pattern: the pattern is from Happy Homemade Vol. 2. I sew from this book a lot; I talk about it a lot too.  I think it’s a great 1st Japanese sewing book. I’d love to do some sort of sew-along thing-a-bob with the patterns in the book. Anyone up for it? Maybe after KCW? Anyway, the pattern. The pattern was pretty simple, because, well the dress is pretty simple. I do remember the armholes being super fussy and weird.

the sewing: There was a little swearing, but there alway is, isn’t there? The fabric was dreamy. The striped bias tape turned out really nice, as did the bias cut bodice piece. I’d say not bad for a dress half done, abandoned, and (because it’s almost Easter, I’m just going to go for it and say…) resurrected. Ha!

My daughter has never been much of a girly girl. There was a brief princess phase, but for the most part all the frilly and fussy girl things are of no interest to her.  Not that she is all for boy things, either. She just wants to like what she likes and not be told what that should be. A while back she said, totally exasperated, “Arg! why does my toothbrush have to be pink?!”

Exactly.  So what is the awesome dress that isn’t too girly, but still has a tiny bit of twirl? The Skater Dress pattern by Kitchy Coo.

Amanda has hit the nail on the head with this pattern. Even the name is perfect. The skater dress is comfy and stylish, just right for puddle jumping in the spring, throwing on over your suit in the summer, and of course going to the skate park.  She designed it to fit for a few years! And this dress will indeed fit my daughter through the fall–a lifetime in kid years.

The original pattern is a crew neck, but I couldn’t imagine it without a hood. Luckily for me, Rae recently posted a hoodie tutorial that was a perfect match for this dress. I made the placket a little shorter so I wouldn’t have to add buttons or snaps. She does have to wear something under it, but I expected that.

The fabric is from Joann’s if you can believe it. I couldn’t. It is a lovely knit: not to light, not to heavy, and so soft. The best bit is that one side is stripes, the other polka dots! The color could be less Primary! Blue! but I’ll take it.

The pattern is well written and Amanda guides you through the trickier parts of sewing with knits. She convinced me that I should use stretch needles when sewing with knits. And she introduced me to the stretch stitches on my machine, which I’m now in love with. Amanda also tried to get me to use a double needle for the hem. I did buy one, but then wimped out when it came time to using it. My hem is of course wavy and now I regret not listening to her.

The moral of this story is, listen to Amanda and buy her awesome pattern! Be sure to follow along with the Skater Dress blog tour to see everyone’s variation of this fantastic dress. See you at the skate park!

I’ve never been a picky eater. Partly because picky eaters were not allowed in the house I grew up in and partly because there is just so much delicious food out there I don’t want to miss. But eggplant, well eggplant never did it for me.

I always looked at it as the vegetarian’s meat. And not being a vegetarian, I chose the actual meat. Eggplant sat there spongy and tasteless. Yes, eggplant parmesan is delicious, but if you accidentally breaded and fried your kitchen sponge, then doused it in tomato sauce, it might be delicious too.

This past year, I waged a food war with my pickiest eater, my youngest. I’m happy to say I won (and have been thinking of posting about it–would you be interested?) but part of the battle involved looking at the food I ate. Was I picky? I didn’t think so, but I had fallen into a food rut. I bought the same things every week, so we ate some variation of the same things every week.  I went out and bought 2 eggplants.

Then I had to figure out a way to cook them. I found a good recipe, messed with it a bit, and have made it at least ten times. I eat eggplant–willingly! This eggplant is smoky and bold, bright and fresh, a little winter-y and a little spring-y. It is lovely warm, but equally as good cold.  Can you tell I love it? I love it even more the next day with a fried egg on top.

smokey, roasted eggplant

adapted from this recipe on the kitchn

ingredients

• 2 large eggplants
• 1 tablespoon Kosher salt
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 2 tablespoons cider vinegar
• 2 teaspoon smoked paprika (don’t substitute regular paprika, go get the smoked stuff)
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 tablespoon maple syrup (optional, but good)
• 2 large garlic cloves
• 1 cup flat parsley leaves, chopped
• Juice of 1 lemon

directions

1. Heat the oven to 375 degrees F
2. Cut the eggplant into cubes (1 inch or so) and sprinkle with the salt
3. Whisk the oil, vinegar, paprika, cumin, and maple syrup together
4. Add the garlic and the eggplant.
5. Mix everything up and spread it out on one sheet pant (it looks like a lot for one sheet pan, but the eggplant shrinks considerably)
6. Put it in the oven for 1 hour–stirring now and then. Really it can stay in for even longer, it just gets better.
7. When the eggplant is done, take it out and squeeze the juice of 1 lemon over the top.
8. Stir in the parsley and eat!

 

Tomorrow is the first day of Spring, which means it’s time for another edition of Kid’s Clothes Week! Kid’s Clothes Week is a community event where you to commit to sew children’s clothes for an hour each day for 7 days. This spring KCW will be the last week of April.

I’m so excited to tell you about all the new things coming to Kid’s Clothes Week! Some you might notice right away, like where did the last C in KCWC go? Well, kidsclothesweekchallenge is quite a mouth full. I wanted something shorter and snappier for the bigger and better KCW. After going through many, many new names (a lot of terrible puns, some just terrible), I finally settled back on the original name, only a bit shorter.

Even though the challenge is gone from the official name, kid’s clothes week is still a challenge. Actually there are even more challenges! Starting this year, KCW will take place four times a year: winter, spring, summer, fall. This way if you have to miss one, you won’t have to wait half a year for the next one.

It gets even better. I have teamed up with the amazing and talented Dorie from tumbling blocks to build KCW a site of it’s very own. We have all built this amazing little community while sewing for our kids, and I think it deserves to have a home of its own. 2 We will need your help, but more on that next week :)

For now all you need to know is: new and exciting things are in store! I know you are itching to start planning for spring. To sign up for KCW Spring 2013 head over to the official KCW blog and leave a comment on the very first post.

This, my friends, is what my kids did all weekend (and last weekend and the one before). What are they doing? Making magic potions, of course!

My creative, talented, and lovely friend Helen, and her son, made this amazing Magic Potion Kit.  My son was very lucky to receive it for his birthday. It couldn’t have been more perfect. Previously my son had been making odd mixtures from glue and dirt and soap and whatever else he could scrounge up. Now he had ingredients never before seen to man, replete with pipettes and giant caldron!

The magic potion kit has all the things a 6 year old could want:

• messy things
• exploding things
• yucky things
• magical things

The magic potion kit also has everything a mother could ever want:

• non-toxic things
• easily clean-up-able things
• cheap and easily replaceable things
• quiet children engaged in creative play

1. danger! live slime  2. unicorn tears  3. moth wings and bat claws  4. juicy eyeballs 5. magic potions  6. bat tongues  7. dragon skin  8. ground up vampire bones 9.a great big caldron full of magic!

I love how every bit of this gift is handmade, most of it is recycled, and all of it inspires creativity. What more could you want?