the ill-fated dough, just hours before it was fiendishly ruined.
I had a post all cooked up (haha) in my head about making bagels. I had pulled out a new-to-me recipe and was eagerly working on them late yesterday afternoon, carefully documenting things as I went along. I was starting to get excited about this batch–my previous attempt last year was only so-so, and prior to letting them rest after shaping the dough into bagel shapes, things were looking promising. Alas, it was not to be: as I was boiling them in a large pot of water, prior to baking, and fly decided to commit bug-suicide and dove headfirst into my pot of boiling water full of delicious bagels.
Yeah, I know. How rude.
Needless to say I was more than a little annoyed. Besides the waste of ingredients, it was several hours down the drain (literally). Too late in the day for me to restart with a new batch of bagels (and hopefully be rid of any gnats that made their way through the window screening!), I decided it would be far better to do a post on kitchen disasters than skip a day.
Ah kitchen disasters… I’m sure we’ve all had them at one time or another! I know this isn’t the first gnat incident I’ve had. Last year I managed to go through three batches of pizza dough because every time I uncovered it, there was a gnat that had somehow wiggled under the cloth/plastic wrap. I finally got wise and started putting an overturned bowl over the rising dough. Then there are the “operator error” ones, like dumping way too much curry powder into the soup I was making. Needless to say the amount of water I drank during dinner taught me to always measure certain things! (I’m so bad about just judging by eye how much seasoning I add to something.) I also have a bad habit (particularly when the oven in on high or broil) of popping something in and then getting distracted with something else. Until the smoke detector goes off that is, and scares me half out of my whits (I do not do well with sudden, loud noises as my mother can attest). lol. But anyway, I’d love to hear about your kitchen disasters, if you’re not too shy! We’ve all burned something, over/under seasoned… maybe even made something literally go up in flames (I won’t name names…).
February 18, 2011 ·
69 lovely thoughts
posted in in the kitchen
· tags: in the kitchen, musings
I love the idea of ribbon bows tied around the head, but I can never seem to pull it off very well!
So I’m still completely smitten with romantic, Edwardian-inspired styles, and it seems to be getting worse rather than subsiding. Don’t worry–I haven’t fled my adoration of the 40s and 50s, but I’ve started detouring and revisiting other eras that are just as exciting to me. I think change is good in personal style–even if just slight tweaks here and there–because otherwise I start to feel like things are becoming stale and forced. Romantic elements in my outfits is nothing new, but it seems every late winter/spring I start to veer off in that direction even more. Just this year it’s taken new twists and turns. No longer satisfied with short floral skirts and vintage nightgowns as blouses, I’ve started figuring out how to do my hair in a “modern-Edwardian” style and have been eying things like dotted swiss for filmy blouses covered with lace insertion. I’ve been probably spending too much time browsing Ebay for antique dresses and stalking Flickr for old photos to go in my inspiration file. The folder on my desktop for Spring 2011 inspiration is chock-full of Edwardian-era pretties and stills from luscious films set in that time period. It’s addictive!
All this to say that I hope you aren’t getting bored of my constant posting about 1910s style–I can’t promise it’s going to subside soon. (It does crossover nicely into my love of pretty, romantic styles from the 1930s though…) I have a few more scans from my personal collection of rather tattered ladies magazines from this era. They’re so fun to look through, soak up inspiration and dream of languid spring days and weekend picnics in the sunshine…
An array of some plain and utilitarian shirtwaists and more lacy numbers. One of my antique sewing books informs me that the plain shirtwaists are called “tailored waists” and the ones containing a bit more trim are “fancy waists.”
More lovely shirtwaists. I particularly like the striped one with the fold-down collar in the bottom grouping; slightly nautical but not too much so.
Pretty dresses for young ladies–what we would call “juniors” now?
“High fashion” as seen and reported from Paris. Love the tiered, ruffled skirt on the far left!
A trio of beautiful dresses for ladies. I really love the way the floral print is worked into the dress at left.
February 17, 2011 ·
48 lovely thoughts
posted in vintage inspiration
· tags: 1910s, vintage inspiration
So how is your Swing Dress coming along? Apologies this post didn’t go up yesterday; I ran into some technical difficulties (my camera battery died and I had to wait to recharge it to unload all these photos!). So far I’ve underlined all the dress pieces, serged the edges, constructed the shoulder seams, interfaced the midriff and topstitched it to the bodice–it’s starting to look like a dress instead of a pile of pieces! Since I already covered how to sew the tricky shoulder yoke, I thought I’d show a bit about the midriff piece today. Now, the directions say to stitch the skirt back to the bodice before attaching the midriff, but I find it a lot less cumbersome to attach the midriff first and then move on to the skirt. So I’m assuming you’ve completed up to step 5 in the directions, and we’ll skip 6 and 7 for now.
Cut out the midriff from interfacing. If you’re using sew-in, simply baste (by hand or machine) the interfacing to the wrong side of the midriff. If you’re using a fusible, trim away 1/2″ (or the seam allowance you decided on) from all edges and follow the manufacturer’s directions to fuse the interfacing to the wrong side of the midriff. If you’re worried how it’ll look on the inside with the exposed interfacing, don’t worry! Anna shared with me a little secret she uses to finish the midriff area. After constructing the bodice and attaching the skirt, she simply cuts another midriff piece from the fashion fabric, folds the seam allowances under, and slipstitches it to the inside of the dress, covering up the interfacing (and also neatly concealing all the edges). Brilliant! So keep that in mind if you’d like to neaten the inside a bit further along in construction.
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February 16, 2011 ·
18 lovely thoughts
posted in sewing
· tags: sewing, swing dress sew-along
If you saw last week’s post of 20s lingerie illustrations, there was a super-secret, hidden purpose behind it! I’d been contemplating sewing vintage-inspired lingerie since late last year, and it all started with a slim 1970s volume called “The Undies Book”. It’s one of those delightful DIY books that includes techniques and scaled, graphed patterns for a variety of underthings from demure “peasant” half slips, to barely there panties. I don’t remember whose blog it was I discovered the title of this book, but I was completely smitten when I received my copy (I found one on Ebay for about $5 with shipping). I immediately honed in on the 70s-does-30s cami-knickers, and started scheming about making my own. I splurged with some Christmas funds while we were up in Virginia on a yard of silk charmuese at G Street Fabrics (seriously the most expensive, per yard piece of fabric I’ve ever bought… but oh so luscious!) with the idea of making these cami-knickers for myself. To embellish the garment, I found a length of 3 1/2″ wide, vintage lace on Etsy that went well with the peachy-tone of the silk (sadly, my lace stash didn’t have anything wide enough–as much as I wanted to “shop my stash”!).
The original design had a lace bra portion and the bottom half was opaque. However, I really wanted something that not only looked pretty (because what girl doesn’t like lovely underthings?!) but could be layered under a semi-sheer blouse and act as a camisole. So I opted to line the upper portion of the pattern, while still keeping the lace as an overlay (I wrote a lot more about construction details below the “read more” tag). The resulting garment is a bit flirty in that charmingly 30s way, but still useful. Oh, and silk as underwear material? I’m totally addicted. I told my mom that it was a bad, bad thing I did buying a yard of this high-quality charmuese. This was a one-time purchase and my budget won’t support it. But oh is it lovely!!!
more photos here.
Please excuse the dressform photos, but as I’m a bit shy about posing in my underthings and posting it online, I hope these will still give an idea of how the finished garment looks. For being a graphed pattern that I scaled up (just by scanning into Photoshop and enlarging–super easy!), the fit is very nice. I might cut a size smaller through the torso/hips next time, but a little extra room to move around never hurt anyone! (Click the “read more” link to read the nitty-gritty construction details if you’re interested.)
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February 14, 2011 ·
80 lovely thoughts
posted in sewing
· tags: 2011 sewing, lingerie, sewing
