A DIY watch band and Food Friday

This is probably a DIY of semi limited usage, but it makes it possible for me to wear a wrist watch.

Several years ago I developed a nickle allergy. Over the years it has gotten progressively worse. Eventually even the buckle on watchbands were impossible to wear once the brass or gold plating wore away.

I came up with a solution that is fairly quick to make (around ten minutes) and looks to my eye pretty chic.

A couple of years ago I was lucky enough to purchase a giant wheel of  inch and a half wide elastic for either $5 or $10. My elastic watch bands last for a a few months. They get yukkier in the heat of the summer and tend to last a bit longer in the winter months.

You need a length of elastic that is about the same size as the length of your wrist.

Thread the elastic through the little watch band holding bars on either side of your watch.

This should take about a minute.. Adjust the length of the elastic so the watch is centered on the elastic.

I used to sew these by machine. This is a time consuming mistake. It is much easier to hand stitch the watch band closed.

I lightened this photo so you can see my stitching near the raw edge.. I then turned the raw edge to the inside and stitched again. In fancy sewing talk this is called sewing a French seam. I then stitched the seam allowance to one side. This is called a felled seam.  At this point I have sewn an inch and a half of fabric three times. For those of you who like me are math challenged that's a whopping 4.5 inches of sewing. This won't take you long.

If you figure out a tidier way to do the job, then do it your way.

And now for those of you who like to eat.

For tonight's chicken i pretended that I was an Indian grandma and pulled out a bunch of spices and mixed them up in a bowl before I coated my chickens with all of their spicy goodness.

I did snitch tastes as I cut up the chicken. i did a good job pretending to be an Indian  grandma. 

Yesterday I had a conversation with a woman from the Ukraine. She was compiling and translating a collection of recipes from her grandmother. one of them was one she had never tried. it was beaten egg whites and sugar mixed with rye bread crumbs and then filled with a sweet filling.

I had a chunk of last week's challah left over and adapted this Ukrainian cake idea to my own larder. I took the left over egg yolks and made them into a chocolate dough and sort of mixed the two together.

This is the beginning of a good idea. I think I will explore it a bit more.

I have several cool projects that are starting in the next couple of days.I am looking forward to getting going on them.

Shabbat Shalom!