Oh commercial patterns with the word "Easy" the envelope, how I love you.  Quick, simple projects that let me focus on detail technique and wardrobe building without the frustration of not having a completed piece for months thanks to my adorable little interruptions.  And, much like my adored wrap sweater, this one is liable to get made a million times.

  I actually put off buying this pattern for a really long time.  I liked it every time I flipped through the pattern books, but I was pretty sure that I mostly just liked it because the model is utterly gorgeous and the color they picked is especially flattering on her.

  Too bad I'm not a 6' tall, leggy, Indian ballerina, huh?

  The usual $1 pattern sale rolled around again not too long ago though, and I finally decided I'd just give in and buy it.  There are worse things than spending $1 on a pattern that might not work out.

  Except it totally did work out.

  I love this top.  I made it out of leftover knit from my modified Adriadne top.  I will admit that it's not super practical from a "get on the floor and play with the toddler while holding a baby" standpoint, cuz it is really low cut and stretchy (so R tends to yank it even further down) but oooh cute staple if you don't mind flashing a bit of cleavage.  Besides, I can always throw a tank top underneath if I'm feeling especially modest.

  Since my bust measurement is all jacked up right now anyhow, I based my size off my waist and went with a 10.  It fits perfectly...hooray for finally picking the right size!

  I followed the pattern and instructions for this exactly.  That says to me, that for a normal length torso-ed person, this top would be crazy long.  It probably also means it would be too low cut.  I would highly recommend checking the neckline on yourself and considering modifying it before cutting into your fabric.  Aside from that, go wild.  This is a quick, easy top and it doesn't take a whole lot of fabric.

  Expect to see more of these in the future...and probably other pieces from this pattern as well!

  Well, I'm not quite back to my pre-pregnancy body, but for just under 3 months out, I'm pretty happy with how quickly the weight has come off.  My Mr. is doing his best to sabotage my efforts though...look what he made the other night:

  Yeah...Nutella and goat cheese in a turnover.  So much for my decision to skip dessert that night.  He started with this recipe and modified it to use the goat cheese.

Here's what you need:

  Sunday morning our power was out for scheduled maintenance but my Mr. forged ahead anyhow, it was supposed to be back on by 8am, so we figured it should be soon.

  Our house is old, so the vast majority of the walls and ceilings are plaster.  Plaster is a penny to cut without making an enormous mess.  Knowing this, the Mr. created a plastic sheet tent around the area he was going to be sawing in.  He swears it helped an incredible amount...but...uh....

  That layer of plaster dust you can see on my dining room table extended all the way into both my living room and my kitchen...and I don't even want to talk about the bedrooms upstairs.  We'll just say that everybody got new sheets and their beds got good and wiped down before it was time to sleep and leave it at that.

  Thank god we have a generator or we wouldn't have even been able to vacuum...the power didn't come back on til after 3pm.

  G was really into helping my Mr., so when the saw came out and it got too dangerous for 3 year old "help", I hauled the boys into the basement to keep them out of the way.  Once we realized how much dust was in the air we decided it was best if they stayed down there til it settled.  That gave me a chance to get some serious work done on a play space for G down there, like we've been promising him since R was born.

  Still a lot of work to do down there.  Like most people, we've used our basement as a bit of a catch-all for things we weren't entirely sure what to do with, but at least there's a space carved out for him now.  I set up his house (it was actually mine when I was a little girl...that beast has seen some wear), he has an art center (I used a hanging fruit basket on a chain hung from the ceiling beams to hold his markers and crayons) and he has space to tool around in his giant plastic car without my wincing every time he runs into something.

  More importantly, for his sanity and mine, he has somewhere he can go play loudly and rambunctiously without my giving him a hard time about waking/scaring/hurting the baby.

  Meanwhile, I'm cleaning everything (and I do mean everything) in my house to get rid of the plaster dust.  Every time the light changes I see somewhere else I missed!  So, no craft this week, us not breathing in airborne ceiling takes precedence over making a new necklace any day!

  It's been too long...time for another frittata.  Seriously, we eat these all the time.  It's a little ridiculous, in an eggy, cheesey kind of way.

  Here's what you need:

  I finished the top I started last week, and upon completing it I composed a letter to myself in my head.  It went like this:

Dear Erin,

You had a baby.  You are nursing said baby.  Your body isn't the shape it normally is.  Please stop expecting clothing intended for gamine Japanese women to fit you correctly.

  Thank you,

Your Unusually Womanly Figure

  I don't think it turned out badly, just not how I expected.  As I mentioned, I rather figured that the length would be a little awkward for a dress on me.  I was right about that, but I didn't really notice just how flat chested the model in the picture was until I put mine on and couldn't get it to drape anything like that.

Her:

Me:

  Hey look Ma!  I figured out how to look like a busty Victoria's Secret model!  Stand next to that lady!

  The fabric I used isn't ideal.  It's a clearance knit I had in my stash, but it was one of the few 60" widths I have left, and this piece needs one.  A softer, tshirt material in cotton would give much nicer, softer folds, but, eh.  I worked with what I had.

  There's a little bit of gaping in the armholes, but I haven't decided yet if it's an issue I can fix by taking it in at the side seam, or, again, because I'm currently too busty for this design.

  If you decide you want to try this top out, piecing together the pattern is by far the hardest part.  Pay attention to the guide at the top of the pattern sheet that tells you which pieces you're looking for.  This "one piece" pattern is broken into 3 pieces on the sheet and you need to line them up to create your pattern while tracing.  I found 2 originally and was confused as to why the grainline seemed so wrong...it was supposed to be on the third, middle piece that I'd ignored.  Way to go me.

  Once your pattern is cut out, you're pretty much home free.  The construction for this was very straightforward, and unlike the folded shrug and two-way stole from ShapeShape, I would have no qualms about a beginner trying it out.  The most difficult portion is finishing the neck and armholes, for which I used the same binding process as I did for the Ariadne top.

  I'm not sure I'll be getting a whole lot of wear out of this for a while.  It photographs nicely, but I sort of feel like a tank under a tablecloth wearing it right now.  We'll see.

  I don't know if I'll get the chance to try out another piece in this book before it's due back to the library, but I expect I'll be checking it out again!

  Today's recipe is one of my Mr.'s.  With all the perusing of low carb recipe sites we were doing towards the end of my pregnancy with R, we came across lots of homemade versions of energy bars.  The store bought ones are a bit of a vice of ours (they tend to have lots of sugar and other junk you don't really want), so my Mr. developed his own version.  He started with this and this recipe and went from there.

  Be warned, these are addictive!

  Here's what you need:

  Despite taking a more advanced photography class this time, I didn't wind up with quite as many pretty pictures.  This class was more about the nuts and bolts of getting the shot you want than just running around going "ooh!  Flowers!!".

  The absolute biggest thing I learned is the most embarrassing to admit.  I've had my DSLR since last August and until this past weekend I didn't realize there were two different portions of it I could turn to focus.  The portion that really changes how far you zoom in and out is pretty easy to find...it's the main part of the barrel of the lens, and on mine has indented stripes.  What I didn't realize was that I could also adjust the smaller, front portion of the lens to fine tune the focus.  I have been struggling to figure out how to use my manual setting and actually get it to focus where I wanted for months because of this.

  Aren't I adorable?

  Once I got past that hurdle, I was able to start working on depth of field.  Basically, choosing where in my photo to focus and what to allow to fall out of focus.

  The other concept we worked on was using sight lines to move your eye through the picture...finding naturally occurring lines and patterns and integrating them into photos in interesting ways.

  For most of these pictures I was experimenting with my telephoto lens, and so there's some warping that I'm not terribly happy with, but now I at least have a few more techniques to experiment with!

  The weather wasn't nearly as nice to us this year as it was last year.  It was overcast and cold most of the day and those of us who braved the night in tents went to sleep wearing every piece of clothing we had with us.

  I woke up bright and early and started my day with a class in shotgun trap shooting.

  I am not good at it.

  It was fun enough, but I've come to the conclusion that guns aren't my thing.  I'll fire a couple rounds, but I get bored quickly.  It's noisy and I can't help but thinking of how expensive the ammo is every time I (inevitably) miss my target.  I'm much more of an archery kind of girl.

   Good thing since that was my next class!  I enjoyed it so much last year that I took the beginning class again.  You need to have your own bow to move on to the more advanced classes and I didn't have one, so it was the starter class for me.  I liked it enough again though that the boys got me my own bow and arrow set for Mother's Day the next evening.  The bow we got adjusts so that any size person can use it, so once we get a couple bales of straw to set up a target I look forward to having some good natured archery competitions with my Mr., and, eventually when G & R are older, with the boys!

  My photography class was last, and by the time it was done I was missing my menfolk and ready to head home.  I learned a lot, had a lot of fun and can't wait to go back again next year!

  Today's recipe had promise...but I sort of killed it.  A few weekends back my Mr. wasn't feeling the best, so I was taking care of him and decided to try my hand at braising meat.  It didn't go so well this first time, but, I learned a lot and I think it should work out much better next time.

  I started out with the recipe above.  The flavors were great, but there wasn't nearly enough liquid, so the meat wound up dried out.  Next time I'll add a cup or two of broth to keep everything juicy.

  Here's what you need:

  That being said, while I didn't finish any new sewing this week, I have started a project.  Our local library recently obtained a copy of Drape Drape 2 (at my request) and, in an attempt to be somewhat realistic about how much sewing time I have right now, I'm going to try one of the "one piece" projects.

  Thing is, as a Japanese sewing book like ShapeShape (that I got my Two Way Stole and Folded Shrug patterns out of), the pattern sheet is INSANE.  I have to make sure I only open them when the boys are asleep, cuz I can't help myself...I swear every time I unfold one...it looks like G got his hands on a fine tip sharpie and a large sheet of paper and went to town there are so many tangled up, crossing lines.

  The "one piece" pattern that I needed to trace was actually broken into 3 pieces on one side of the paper...with about 4 other project's pieces mixed in there too.  So, tracing the pattern is as far as I've gotten.  The actual construction of the piece shouldn't take too terribly long, so hopefully I'll have it ready for next week.

  Here's what I'm going to be sewing:

  I'm a little nervous it's not going to be long enough on my crazy lengthed torso to work as a dress...but, eh, I can always wear it as a tunic, right?

  See you back here next week!

  We've got pork chops, mushrooms and a creamy sauce...lets get cooking!

  Heat about a Tbsp of the butter in large skillet over medium-high heat. Season your chops with garlic powder, salt and pepper and cook them until they are brown on both sides, adding butter as needed. Place in a 9x13" baking dish.  Add more butter to the pan and sauté the mushrooms until almost tender before dumping them over the pork chops. Pour the alfredo sauce into the skillet and stir to blend the browned bits from the pan with the sauce. Add your parmesan and allow it to melt before pouring it over the chops. Sprinkle with thyme. Cover everything with foil and bake at 300º for 1 hour. Let rest 10 minutes before serving.

  This was good...buuuuut, I'm not sure it's different enough from my pork casserole to warrant the extra work to me.  It looks a lot fancier with the whole mushrooms and the thyme, but the flavor is exceptionally similar.  I also prefer that the sauce gets really thick with pork casserole, where this stayed surprisingly runny.  I'm sure that this is probably better for us, since it has fresh mushrooms and herbs in it, but, eh, I'm lazy.  Sorry health, you're getting thrown under the bus this time.