Food Friday, Fast and Furious Edition and Odds and Ends Sewing

Today I’m supposed to meet some out of town relatives. The weather is dicey here in New York so I’m not sure exactly when I am to meet up with my relatives across town. I thought it was wise to cook right after I woke up.

I made chicken with left over red wine, the dregs of the mustard jar and some rosemary.

 

I also rough cut some sweet potatoes , put olive oil in the pan and sprinkled with black pepper, cinnamon and ginger.I had to put the pan away in the fridge because otherwise I would have eaten the whole pan piece by piece.

As always, my life is not just cooking, and not just client work.

 

My youngest needed a new batch of boxer shorts.

I made him five pairs. I taught myself how to sew soon after my older son was born. While I have made clothing for all three of my kids, my youngest has benefitted from the fact that I had a few more years of sewing under my belt by the time I began making him clothing. With the exception of two pairs of novelty boxers that he purchased, all of the rest of the boxers in his drawer are home made.

Our family is close with a little girl. Her father gave each of our kids music lessons. We adore her mother.  My kids now baby sit for  the little girl.

 

I made her this dress for her fifth birthday.

I had actually begun the dress as a baby gift for a relative…but got lost along the way. I finished the dress today. The birthday girl tried on the dress yesterday and it met with her approval, and it fit. I had begun with a commercial pattern for the bodice. The hand embroidered eyelets on the bodice were a flight of madness on my part.

 

The sash is tacked to the dress at the side seams and at the center front. I love the mix of the menswear shirting with the eyelets. I think I drank in that love with the water that flowed in the pipes in Quincy, Massachusetts.

 

I’m including the following item in this post because it was completed this week. A couple of years ago one of my internet fabric sources was offering a special price on “ Imported Italian designer knit fabric”.  it looked like Missoni to me.

 

I bought some. it’s a beautiful quality. We have all seen crummy knock-offs of Missoni like fabric. I can’t swear that it was knit at one of their mills, but it is pretty.

 

This is what I ended up making.

 

It does look weird without a belt.So I belted it for the photos. I lined the dress in a rust colored knit.

 

Clearly there are areas of wonkyness, but better pressing ought to improve things some.

 

A good dress for summer. My daughter once quoted an article to me that stated that people from New England tend to wear screamingly bright colors in warm weather.I tend to agree with that. Summer is a great time to wear orange and magenta and bright green and a touch of yellow –all together.