last year i spent an inordinate amount of time creating a little “easter crafts” mini-series, so, i thought i’d do a timely recap in case any of you were looking for some last-minute ideas for this weekend.
(this re-post is also an experiment for pinterest. i’ve finally taken the plunge and joined that community. if you’d like to follow me, leave a comment and i’ll send you my username.)
monday was my birthday and i decided to treat myself to permission to ignore all of my important to-do lists and just sew something. it needed to be something i could finish in one day (or maybe one-and-a-half at most), so i chose to sew a little something for the happy little dude. i’d been inspired lately by some tunic patterns i’d found in books. the first one i considered was in the book sew tina by tina givens because it looked super simple. but the closer i read the pattern, the more i had concerns. for instance, it says to cut a slit down the front piece, but it doesn’t say how far down to cut the slit. then, it simply instructs you to finish the collar (and this vertical slit you just cut in the front) with bias tape. i didn’t see how that plan could possibly lie flat or look quite right, so i started poking around for other tunic plans. i considered the charlie tunic, but (let’s face it) i’m cheap and preferred a free option if i had one. plus, i wasn’t sure i wanted i wanted all that facing… next, i consulted my christmas gift book that i hadn’t had a chance to make anything from yet–sewing for boys and bingo! i discovered the “easy linen shirt.” i didn’t feel like cutting into fresh linen yardage for an untested pattern, so instead, i used a lime-green, very large women’s linen shirt i’d picked up for a few cents at the dig-and-save awhile back. wanna see the result?
ta-da! i ended up making a few alterations that worked well. first of all, since this was an upcycled shirt, i used the existing hems for the shirt and the sleeves. i also used the existing side vents just for fun. i wasn’t sure i wanted a long sleeve shirt, so i shortened the sleeves considerably from the pattern. good thing! (you’ll see why in the photos of it on him) the slit on this shirt (which was very carefully marked on the pattern) was a little too low for my two-year-old (i made the size 2/3), so i also engineered this little button and loop (sort of inspired by the charlie tunic linked above):
i used the contrast fabric (from the amy schimler, “on a whim 2” line) on the front detail and also on the inside of the collar. but enough of these hanger shots. you want to see this shirt in action, right? (btw, i think the color of the shirt is a little more accurate in these outdoor shots.)
oh my. isn’t that cute? but can you imagine the sleeves any longer? yikes! sewists beware! but overall, this pattern was very clearly and thoroughly written. i learned how to sew on this collar style (a first for me!) and i love the seam finishing details they added. i’m trying to figure out if there’s a way to make this shirt so that it seems more casual. i still had the urge to take this one off of my little model as soon as we got inside so he didn’t “get it dirty” which means i may be reluctant to let him wear it very often (which is silly considering the shirt fabric’s origins…). but mostly? i just loooooooved getting back into the sewing room. it’s been too long. i really want to participate in elsie marley’s kids clothing week challenge, but we’ll see if i can get myself organized in time. for now, i’m just thrilled to have this cute little thing!
p.s. i just realized that there’s a march sew-along for this exact pattern–how timely!
remember these graham crackers? well, about a month ago (near the happy toddler’s birthday) i decided to finally try the other recipe that i’d linked to in that first post. i’d recently found some cars cookie cutters (the kind that also stamp details into the cookie and don’t just give you the silhouette) at a local discount store, and i decided that these would be the perfect birthday treat to take to the happy toddler’s class (he doesn’t really go for cupcakes and i knew he’d be thrilled to see tow-mater). how did they turn out? delicious! they taste more like a graham cracker to me than the other recipe, and in the first day or two after baking, they had the right crunch (rather than the softer, cookie-like consistency of the first batch). but… i wouldn’t necessarily recommend them for use with a detailed cookie cutter like this one. the dough was much more fiddly than the first recipe. as soon as it wasn’t super cold, it got really hard to handle (sticking to the counter, sticking to the cookie cutter, easily smooshing out of shape) and the four cookies you see above were probably the most clearly identifiable out of the whole batch. many of the rest looked more like this:
i will say they had a surprisingly long shelf life (we just at the last of them today and they were still tasty– but they had definitely lost their crunch. not stale, just soft and chewy.) i think i’d try this recipe again, but with simpler shapes (rectangles, perhaps?) or i might try the other one again and see if i could roll the dough more thinly and get the same cracker-y snap.
some of you have kindly alerted me to the fact that occasionally my site redirects you to another, very inappropriate website. after consulting with my webmaster (mr. happy stuff) i think we have it fixed. i’ve also changed themes just for good measure, although i may not stick with this one forever, i kind of like its clean simplicity and i’d rather spend time writing content rather than shopping for a new “theme” so we’ll see how long it stays like this. if you continue to experience problems viewing my site without having to worry that it’s “not safe for work” or if you have other feedback about the blog in general, please let me know!
several of you have asked me whether i thought the cleanse was “worth it” and when i tried to answer those questions in the midst of the cleanse or even immediately afterwards, i found myself focusing mostly on how difficult it was to figure out how to cook all those new foods and adjust to making my big meals at lunch instead of supper, and just how very much i missed cheese. yes, i’d lost about 9 pounds, but surely that was just because i was eating two liquid meals a day. and yes, i was feeling more (ahem) “regular,” but surely that was just because i was eating so many vegetables. but here’s the thing: it’s been three weeks. my eating is more or less back to “normal” and yet…i haven’t gained back the weight (despite a trip to texas) and my digestion is still functioning much better than it used to before the cleanse. i have held on to a few habits from the cleanse–smoothies for breakfast often, remembering to bring along a snack of fruit and nuts so i don’t just grab junk at work, and occasionally taking a probiotic when i remember, and realizing that if i eat two heavy meals in one day, i’m not going to feel very good (thus, i ate several salad meals when we were in texas), so… yes, i think perhaps the cleanse was “worth it.”
one unexpected side effect–i still struggle to figure out what to cook for dinner. everything seems like it will just take so long to cook and take so much more planning than a smoothie plus, i thought i’d be eager to eat all of our old favorites that we’d been craving throughout the cleanse, but many of those just don’t sound good to me right now. except for eating out. oh my. that’s not a good habit to get into (eating out every night) but it sure has been tempting.
this past week, the happy baby turned two years old. i suppose he needs a new blogname for real now. we had a lovely, low-key birthday celebration at home, then took a quick trip to texas to visit his birthfamily. this song and “twinkle, twinkle” (and sometimes a mash-up of the two) were heard frequently throughout the trip.
after knitting the baby blanket (hmm…. did i ever show you pictures of the finished product? must do that soon.) for just about a year, i decided i needed a quick project. i also wanted to learn how to knit on double-pointed needles, so the “pointy elf hat” from joelle hoverson’s more last-minute knitted gifts seemed perfect. i was a bit stumped when the pattern called for a very specific yarn which is no longer being produced, but the kind ladies at the sow’s ear held my hand and led me to all the supplies i’d need (even while my overly sleepy child was thrashing around on the ground). i tried to start it myself a few weeks ago, but got stumped after i got through casting on and dividing between the needles (now what?). luckily, many of my church friends are avid knitters and sara kindly helped me figure it out (it helped immensely when she said that the first few rows of knitting on double-pointed needles is always inherently just a bit awkward) and alison “tinked” a row for me when i accidentally knit the wrong direction and amazingly enough, i finished the entire hat in just two days! two days of just picking it up occasionally and knitting a few rows here and there! okay, maybe the last little bit (the part where you decrease) was all during the retreat church service on sunday morning (knitting during church is actually pretty common in our congregation) and maybe i did ignore my child and my irritated husband because i couldn’t wait to get done with the last four rows (so. close. just. a few. more. stitches….) and maybe the hat doesn’t stand straight up like the one in the picture does, but i think it’s super cute and i think my lil’ happy dude likes it too. maybe next i’ll try one in stripes…
on friday around lunchtime, i broke my dairy fast. it was heavenly. my child was a screaming mess because it was nap time and he was hungry, but i was putting together lunch as quickly as i could. i decided to make the yummy bean and chicken burritos (using brown rice instead of white rice and brown rice tortillas instead of wheat, and still no salsa, but otherwise back to normal), so i’d shredded some cheese for those. as i nibbled my first slice of cheddar in three weeks, i honestly didn’t mind the tantrum happening on the floor right next to me. i had this dreamy, far away look on my face…. i kept offering slices of cheese to the [not so] happy toddler, but he’d say, “no!” and run away, so i was forced to eat them myself. (seriously. it was a bit of a cheese noshing fest. i wanted to make reeeeeeally sure i wasn’t allergic! :) ) finally, he allowed me to pick him up and as soon as he saw the pile of shredded cheese, he grabbed an enormous handful and shoved it in his face. i handed him a plastic mug and he filled it full of the shredded cheese and then happily ate some of the beans i’d offered him earlier, but mostly just wanted shredded (not sliced) cheese. apparently, i wasn’t the only one who’d experienced cravings these past three weeks. we also enjoyed some plain yogurt with fresh pineapple for dessert–yum!
for supper, we decided it was definitely time to eat out again. i still was only allowing myself the addition of dairy, so we couldn’t go just anywhere, but with a little digging, i discovered that bunky’s cafe has both a gluten-free and vegan/vegetarian menus, so i figured i could probably find something there to eat. mr. happy stuff is being a bit more relaxed about his re-introduction process. he had coffee this morning and chose to drink a beer and eat some bread with his dinner, but so far, he hasn’t experienced any ill side effects.
we got to bunky’s and i just grinned from ear to ear to be back in a restaurant. even more awesome that it was one of my favorite restaurants that we don’t visit very often! i ordered my usual (lamb kafta brochette, served on a bed of basmati rice with a side of their amazing homemade hummus, a small green salad, and their yogurt sauce) and as i ate, i realized that with just a little tweaking, we probably could have managed to eat at bunky’s even while on the cleanse (note to future self). i got the gluten-free bread option, and if i’d forgone the yogurt sauce, i think it would have been clean (okay, well, the rice was a white rice, but it wasn’t the sticky glutinous kind of rice, and it may possibly have had butter on it? but since they serve vegan options, i know i could have asked for a dairy-free version if i needed it). it. was. de. li. cious. i almost teared up at one point, i was so happy to be eating such wonderful food and to be back in a restaurant (who knew that’s what i’d miss the most? is that pitiful?) and to see my boys enjoying their meals so much. we ended up ordering the happy toddler two child-size portions of the cheese tortellini and he ate all of them except the last one! plus, he ate at least half of the bread plate and about a quarter of one of my brochettes. i only ate one brochette, then stopped because i was full (not painfully stuffed, but certainly satisfied) and packed the rest up for lunch next week. mr. happy stuff got the chicken schwarma and agreed that although he wasn’t painfully stuffed, it was an extremely welcome sensation to feel full after three weeks of always feeling a bit underfed.
we spent the rest of the weekend at our annual church retreat and had so much fun hanging out with our friends (the happy baby was having a blast ramming around with all the kids there and although he fought going to bed, he crashed pretty hard and quickly every time he went to sleep). in addition to adding in dairy on friday, i added sugar on saturday (hello, valentine chocolates. you tasted delectable!), and gluten on sunday. i also accidentally ate some margarine and i think one baked good i ate may have had some egg in it, but i haven’t experienced any overt symptoms at all. my throat is no longer sore (although i’ve almost completely lost my singing voice, but that might just be from singing and talking too much this weekend), my tongue still has a tiny sore spot, but its migrated to the top side of my tongue which is a marginally less painful location than the very tip, and the itchy spot on my hand is the clearest its been in three weeks. mr. happy stuff suggested that perhaps i have an allergy to the lack of dairy and gluten.
we both noticed an increased awareness about food this weekend. on saturday, after a big breakfast and a pretty big lunch, mr. happy stuff realized he wasn’t really all that hungry for supper and bypassed the baked potato and just got a small bowl of chili (which he didn’t even finish). the only thing i could eat off of the snack table was some dried fruit, so i ate a little of that, but i realized that it’s not completely impossible to just not eat the snack food. i’m not sure if it’s better to just eat one of the things i’m really wanting (nutter butters, no-bake cookies, brownies) or if eating even one will just open the floodgates of flavor desire. even today, when i could have eaten more of the snacks on the snack table, i had no interest in the pretzels or animal crackers that were left, and so i didn’t eat them. i know that seems fairly non-exceptional, but i have a habit of eating food just because it’s there and that’s a habit i wouldn’t mind dumping.
people have asked me if i felt different while on the cleanse or if i feel more “clean” now that it’s done. i’m not sure i ever got that “burst of energy” feeling that others have talked about, but i did lose about 9 lbs (we’ll see how long that lasts) and i did learn a lot about food, about reading labels, some new foods we might try to add to our weekly menus, how incredibly pervasive tomatoes are in our diet, that ground turkey is a perfectly fine substitute for ground beef in many situations, that i love eating out, but that i can choose healthy foods when we’re in restaurants, that i don’t need to feel obligated to finish all the food the happy baby doesn’t eat, that i don’t need to snitch bites all the time while i’m cooking, i’ve learned some healthier, more satisfying snack options, and i’ve learned that i can actually say “no” to a brownie even if i’ve been smelling it bake all morning, and that there’s no reason to indulge in rich foods if they’re not your favorites. the jury’s still out on the “long-term” effects, but if anything interesting happens during the reintroduction process, or if i have any deep insights, i’ll be sure to post them here. thank you all for your words of encouragement to us throughout this experiment. if you have questions or are considering your own cleanse, i’d be happy to give you my opinions!
