It's been a few weeks now, but I made this dress for my friend Shannon. We went down to Lake Street Mercantile and she picked out this lovely blue and black plaid from their sale vault with every intention of making it for her and teaching her a little bit about how to sew.

I whipped this one out in a few hours, but considering it's the third time I've used this pattern, it was pretty much a cakewalk.

The pattern is from New Look. I love the cut and the way the bodice fits. Of course there are 3-4 different ways you can make it, but I've been pretty much using the same style every time and changing how I put the back together.

For Shannon's I used a criss-cross in the back so that it gave her a little more support. I also ommitted the zipper because it's just a casual sundress and, really, do you always need a zipper in these dresses?

Juicy Mini-Harvest

Right now, you defiantly wish that computers were scratch-n-sniff, because these smell amazing. The sweetest strawberries, juicy and ripe with summer. You can almost smell the sun radiating off them!

Happy Memorial Day!

Yummy Miso

Back in THE DAY when we were all poor and in college (wait, I'm still poor and in college...) Michele used to make us "Yummy Ramen"; which is pretty much ramen with chicken and mushrooms and any other veggies you have in the house. It makes something that is a cheap base into a decent meal, which is always welcome in my book.

Recently I've been on a kick to look for new recipes to try in an attempt to make my recipe repertoire have a little more variety. I picked up a lot of Asian cookbooks including Japanese Women Don't Get Old or Fat which is a rather hilarious book about a Japanese-American's reflection on how she ate in Japan and how she ate in the USA. One of the recipies she mentions is a delicious Japanese breakfast: Miso soup and an egg. That's it! It's really good, trust me, you should try it.

All you need is your local supermarket or local Asian market packaged miso soup mix, an egg, and your prefered cute bowl to serve it in. Boil your water and make your miso. Fry the egg to your preference and slide it right into the soup! Eat it with a spoon or eat it with chopsticks and slurp the soup right from the bowl. That's how they do it and so do I!

It's really good for you and far more filling and satisfying than a bowl of cereal. The miso soup alone is only 25 calories with .5 grams of fat. For those of you doing Weight Watchers...it's all of .5 point and the egg is just 2!

Miso is made from bean paste and the mix usually has things like dried onions, spinach, nori (seaweed), and dried tofu in it. If you want to make it even better add veggies yourself. Onions,

pea pods, baby corn, bamboo shoots, carrots, spinach, broccoli, and celery are all good additions. If you want you can even throw in some of that sushi wrapping seaweed you might have around. Seaweed is practially the ocean's version of spinach. It has vertually no calories but is FULL of nutrients and vitamins.

So give it a try and tell me how you liked it! You don't even have to have it with breakfast, try it as a side with dinner, or a mid-afternoon snack. Either way it's a cheap and easy way to get a little satisfaction without eating empty calories.

Gardening in Small Spaces

I've decided that tomatoes are fickle bitches and I hate them. The tomatoes in our garden plot have withered and died with the last few weeks of heavy rain on and off and I ended up just tearing them out of the ground and tossing them. I have heard mixed things from people when I have lamented how they've died. Some have said "I thought they were easy to grow," while others have re-assured me "they're a pain to keep alive." Either way, it's frustrating and I'm waiting until I am able to go out and pick up some of the 2' tall plants I see at the grocery store and hope those fair better.

A week or so ago I moved the blackberry bush be bought out of the garden plot and onto the deck in the large pot I have. While the raspberry bush and the blueberry bush are actually growing the blackberry bush is still a prickly stick jutting out of the earth with roots attached. Plants that don't do anything after three weeks don't get to continue to take up precious garden space. I'm proud of the raspberry bush though,it has gone from a single stick with a few leaves to a tiny bush.

In place of the blackberry I planted potatoes. I've never grown potatoes before so we will see how well they fare. The strawberries are doing excellent in the garden plot. I tied them up with some steaks to get them off the ground since they're already giving me a few little berries a week.

Our herbs on the deck are exploding. Apparently cilantro and parsley LOVE rain, because in a few days they doubled in size. I'm not exaggerating. DOUBLED. I'm keeping a close eye on them because I don't want them to crowd out or overshadow the rosemary or oregano they neighbor.

The experiment continues! SO far this is defiantly my most successful small space garden I have had in an apartment to date! It's only taken me five years but I finally have plants that aren't dead in a week. Huzzah!

Baking Frenzy

Today was a "me" day, meaning I was determined to do what I wanted to do. Granted I slept in far too late to do much sewing, but I have wanted to bake some goodies for a while. We've been eating a lot of bananas recently, but of course you never make it through the bunch before they start to look a little brown. So that last one, in the freezer. A few frozen bananas later, there was enough to make banana bread.

Assembling the Hakama: Part One

Fabric

If you haven't yet, you will need fabric for your Hakama. Traditionally they were either a solid color for casual and stripes for something a little more formal. If you need ideas for what is most traditional, I suggest browsing Okinawa Soba's Flicker page for ideas. The colors might not be right, but it will demonstrate what patterns are best.

I am using a hefty synthetic khaki green fabric, it is not very traditional, but has a nice earthy quality to it.

Cutting, Assembly, and Pleats

Apartment Gardening

For years I have tried to grow things in an apartment and failed. Usually small herb gardens in little pots that die halfway through the summer because they're not getting enough light or I forget to water them...or earwigs eat them in the night (yuck).

This year we are very lucky to live somewhere with a community garden. We got our plot rented and weeded and last weekend spent the afternoon planting the many fruits and vegetables that we acquired the day before. I even splurged for the frost protecting fabric because, as we are in Michigan, a frost or two in late April is bound to happen.

We ran into a snag though. In the excitement to be growing our own food and hungry bellies anticipating future fresh veggies and berries, we had far too many plants for a plot that became full fast. And we had bought seeds too, so there was no room for the seedlings. Alas! What shall we do?

Drafting A Hakama Pattern

For the longest time I have wanted to make a Japanese Hakama properly. I made one once before but I can't say that it was exactly accurate, considering I just kinda bought a whole lot of red fabric and made giant pleated pants. A friend of my has a birthday coming up and he is (literaly) my resident ninja, having spent years studying a form of Ninjitsu. So, what an excellent excuse to make him some Samurai inspired garb and whet my appetite to make Japanese clothes.

The first thing I needed to do is draft a pattern for the pants. I found this image a while back during one of my many long sessions online looking at Japanese traditional clothes. This one I found on sarcasm_hime.net Yes I am that kind of geek.

For the most part, Japanese clothing is made by piecing together long rectangles that create the sleek shapes we're so used to. This is evident by the way their fabric is made and dyed in long bolts usually 14-18" wide. Keeping that in mind, I didn't think that the flouted pant-legs in the pattern construction I found was necessary, so when I started making measurements and doing math, I decided I didn't want to make them taper out much from the hip.

Hakama are more than just baggy pants with some pleats. The pleats actually have a meaning,

seven total to represent each of the seven tenants of bushido. There should be five in the front and two in the back. In addition to representing the tenants, the extra baggyness of the pants is used to hide their movements during combat so their opponents cannot predict their next move. There is no need to make the pants any larger than necessary to include the pleats. I figure about three inches between each pleat, which adds quite a bit of fabric to each side, making them baggy enough.