I’ve been meaning to write about this little project for a while now.  It wasn’t much work, practically none at all really, but it has been awesome. I got the idea from an old issue of Cookie magazine (well they are all old now– damn you, tanking magazine industry!).  I just slapped some chalkcloth–oil cloth that works like a chalk board–that I got on etsy, cut it to fit, and because I couldn’t be bothered to take it off again I just mitered the corners with some glue.  Done and done.  Now it’s someone’s job to draw the place settings for dinner (sometimes mine) which makes those 15 minutes before dinner enjoyable rather than the low blood sugar hell they usually are.

I don’t normally do posts like this–there are plenty of others who do it often and well–but it’s been busy around here lately. And if we aren’t busy then we’ve been sick, so my evenings are filled with the wonderful and mindless linklinklinking that is the internet. There is some fantastic stuff out there. So here’s a little list of things on the internet that are awesome (this week):

Stella McCartney for the gap. I can’t get over the how awesome the band jacket is and that leopard dress ain’t too shabby either.

this is an ikea chair. and though I have too much ikea shit in my house and would rather not have more, I love this freakin chair.

my kids would go crazy for these blocks (called playshapes)by Miller Goodman and I would probably play with them a bunch too.

I know this is an old post from the purl bee, but I just learned to crochet so it’s new to me. And isn’t it beautiful?

And these slippers look perfect for slipping on right about now (if you knit she sells the pattern, if you don’t she’ll make them for you).

ok. I think that’s enough, I’m getting all wanty now.

I wanted to make some corduroy pants for my kids this fall and my son picked out this crazy purple called blackberry.  That was weeks ago. And it’s not like the fabric has been sitting around waiting for me to get to it. I have been working on these pants and his sister’s skirt for a good long while now. First it turns out that a yard and a half will no longer get me two pairs of pants like it used to, so the shorter one got the pants and the taller one had to settle for a skirt (luckily the tall one’s a girl). And then when I really looked at the fabric, though it is corduroy, it’s barely thicker than quilting cotton (damn you Joann’s and your cheap ass fabric) so I thought I’d try to line it. Which I’ve never done. And while we’re at it let’s try flat felled seams because hell I’ve never done those before either. Oh and pockets, they need pockets. All of this added up to my sewing machine permanently living on the dining room table, because I only have 10 minutes here and there to work, and now my hand wheel is covered in peanut butter.  Neither piece turned out great, but I was doing lots of things I didn’t really know how to do and made up the patterns as I went along, so really I shouldn’t be surprised.  Lining is hard. We live in Wisconsin and our winters are super cold, so I would love to line all the clothes I make, but I don’t know how. You would think it would be easy. In the vastness of the craft blog world there must be some “how to line clothes” tutorial . Isn’t there? I know I did the lining for the skirt wrong because it can stand up with no one in it and the ruffles aren’t very ruffly. And the pants lining was a little easier, but the hems were a pain in the butt because they were so thick. So they got warm, if a little half ass, purple clothes. All they care about is the purple, so whatever.

The heart pocket was my friend’s brilliant idea and my daughter loves it. And I love the bright blue stitching that I used on both garments and the buttons she chose. So they weren’t complete failures. Luckily I just bought the book “Carefree Clothes for Girl,” which is beautiful–and has patterns, because I learned I can’t just wing it. And to help with that problem I got “Design It Yourself Clothes: Patermaking simplified” from the library, which I just started to read and it’s awesome. My list of things to make get longer with every new craft book that comes out.

image from gourmet.com

There really is no good reason to make this pie, but when I saw it on Gourmet’s website a few weeks ago I really wanted to find a reason. Now that Gourmet is gone it seems some ridiculous pie making might be in order. Because along with the magazine and the website (though I assume epicurious.com will continue) all the web only recipes will disappear–mr. fatty fatty bacon pie being one of them.  My favorite part of this recipe–after the fact that practically every other ingredient is fat–is the little parenthetical after 1 cup peanut butter (not natural). It was obviously very late in the evening when someone decided to throw together a jar of Jif, some chocolate wafers and bacon dipped in sugar. Eating this pie seems like a good way to say goodbye and screw you! how the hell did you %!*&  everything up enough to make this great magazine get axed.

I’ve tried to knit many times, but I get so tense while I’m knitting (is this right?? is it working?) that my stitches get so ridiculously tight I can’t shove  the   damn    needle    under   the      yarn.  And even if I do loosen up, it takes me forever and I just don’t have the patience. I’ve always wanted to learn to crochet because I know it is faster than knitting and I want to be part of the yarn kids click too.  I’m just so nervous when it comes to working with yarn–you can’t really half ass it, like you can with sewing. So I checked out Kids Crochet by Kelli Ronci and Lena Corwin because I figured if they can teach kids they can teach me.

It’s a beautiful book and the projects are awesome, but I still didn’t really get how to crochet.  You tube to the rescue! I watched a 3 minute video on single crochet and a few hours later I had a scarf.  It helped immensely that the yarn was super bulky and the hook super bulky too (a size P).  I was originally going to make the shorter neck wrap on the cover for my daughter, but I enjoyed the actual crocheting so much I just kept going until I used up the whole ball (skein? I know no yarn lingo) and now the scarf is mine. I have plans to make more projects from the book (like all of them) but I need to learn more than just single crochet for that.

Oh, I don’t know why I didn’t mentioned this sooner (October is flying by!) but I was asked by the lovely ladies of Habit to be a contributor for the month. Habit is a photographic collection of the little bits of life from both Emily and Molly and the women they ask to participate. It’s been extremely enjoyable and a good excuse to try to take more–and possibly better–pictures. So go check it out.