Picnic Dress
July 3, 2009 at 1:35 am | In Chickens, Sewing | Leave a CommentI just sewed another dress! Same pattern, but with wider straps, no pocket, and a ruffle on the bottom. I’m pleased to report that this time around I learned from some of my first mistakes and did them correctly. Unfortunately I was feeling quite skilled with ruffles and gathers and ended up having trouble with this one. I think it looks darling though and Tabitha will debut it at Clark’s birthday party, or possibly a 4th of July party tomorrow. Also, this time around I completed it in two sittings!
A closeup of the fabric. This time I used a nice knit. The picnic pattern is charming, though the bottle of wine leads me to believe this probably wasn’t originally intended as a children’s print!
(I have many garden and chicken updates, but they will have to wait until tomorrow. But first, this big update: Mrs. Hen lives on! Not only that, today she managed to lay an egg and unstop herself. I actually saw her in the nesting box and it appeared she definitely had to work to get it out, but she did and is quite chipper. Hooray! I was so happy I gave her a big kiss and she returned the gesture by pooping on my blouse.)
Update: here is trying on the dress (I was astonished by the giant armholes since this was a size smaller!):
The Ongoing Saga of Mrs. Hen
June 29, 2009 at 6:56 pm | In Chickens | 3 Comments
On Thursday night when Paul went to put the chickens to bed he found that Mrs. Hen has passed two egg yolks (no shells or anything). He cleaned up the mess (well, pulled it out and the chickens descended upon it and gobbled it up-they can be very cannibalistic in that way (though it’s not really cannibalism) and you should not let your hens do it) and we thought it weird, but didn’t think much more. Then, on Saturday afternoon we noticed that Mrs. Hen (they are finally named–Mrs. Hen, Floppy, and Pecky) was lying down a lot and closing her eyes. I picked her up and looked under feathers at her vent (where the egg comes out). It did not look good–a bone was coming out of it. I had read of prolapse in various animals, including chickens, but this seemed especially odd to have this sharp bone coming out of it. I put some antiseptic on it. I sincerely hoped she would die on her own. Sunday morning she looked worse-it was sticking out further and looked kind of gross. We discussed it with our farm neighbor and he agreed that the best course of action would be to wring Mrs. Hen’s neck. As you might guess, neither Paul nor I feel ready to do this. We went off to a birthday party and hoped Mrs. Hen would be peacefully dead upon our return. She wasn’t, she was up on her perch for the night, nestled next to Floppy. This morning she was the second one out the door and started scratching about. This afternoon a check of her vent shows the bone is no longer in sight! It actually looks pretty normal! She happily gobbled up some bread from my hand. I don’t know what the hell this means. I really don’t know how she can survive this, but I’m happy I do not have to put her out of misery for the time being and happy today’s post was not titled “R.I.P. Mrs. Hen”
*full disclosure-the photo is not of Mrs. Hen, I think it’s of Pecky (the mean one, as you might guess), but I really like the picture.
Happy Father’s Day
June 26, 2009 at 7:42 pm | In Chickens, Family | 1 Comment
This post is almost a week late, but oh well! On Father’s Day last weekend we spontaneously decided to go to the New Jersey Adventure Aquarium (know to all as the Camden Aquarium). It was very crowded, but we had a great time. Even with my fear of pretty much all things living in the water I still think watching all the sea creatures swim about and do their thing is very beautiful. I especially like the jellyfish:
We have been here once before and both kids loved it each time.
When we got home we went for our first whole family bike ride, which was great. Clark has a new trailer he rides in behind my bike, while Tabitha sits on a seat on Paul’s bike. After the exhausting bike ride we let all the chickens out. The little ones loved it just as much as the big hens, though they were a little more timid. They definitely stuck close together. So it has taken about 6 weeks, but finally the little ones will go out into the coop with the big ones. They’ll never be best friends, but at least they seem able to coexist now.
Happy Father’s Day to a terrific dad!
Banana Coconut Muffins
June 26, 2009 at 7:21 pm | In Cookery | Leave a Comment
I think no one ever really minds when their bananas go mushy because it means you get to make banana bread/muffins. The other dayI had just such a situation and I thought I would add coconut to it. Rather than go with my usual recipe I looked in this Susnet book which was my grandmother’s. Check out the coffee pot on the cover! To my delight there was a Banana Coconut recipe in it, which called for a nice generous amount of toasted coconut in it. Result–delicious. And as for the batter, well any batter with crunchy toasted coconut is so yummy I swear I could just eat it by the spoonful. This was a hit with the kids, too.
The Other Half of the Sewing Project
June 24, 2009 at 12:29 am | In Sewing | Leave a Comment
As I mentioned, my friend and I were both following the same pattern and learning how to sew a bit together. She finished her dress today and it adorable. Her version of the pattern includes a contrasting band along the bottom (which adds enough length to make it a dress.) She also used her machine to embroider a fancy K on the front yoke, which is just adorable. Good job, both of us!
Modeling
June 20, 2009 at 12:33 am | In Family, Sewing | Leave a CommentTabby tried on the red top (briefly). i think she looks quite fetching.
Great day today–bought lots of stuff for future fun: bike trailer, canoe paddle, life jacket for Clark, bike helmet for Tabby. Before kids Paul and I did lots of “activities” together and it was always lots of fun. Now we’ll all be able to go biking together and I am going to take Clark canoeing, which I’m super pysched about as I used to very into canoeing but haven’t done it in a long time. My parents used to take all three of us kids in our big red canoe around the Great Swamp, which was wonderful. I’m looking forward to exploring the South Branch Raritan River with my own kids.
Another Sewing Project Done!
June 19, 2009 at 1:58 am | In Chickens, Cookery, Sewing | 5 Comments
My friend Jen and I are learning together by sewing the same thing. We got together and figured out the pieces, did the cutting, and then begain piecing the garments together. I actually was making a top and she the dress the version. It was really fun to do this with someone and have someone else also think the instructions may as well have been written in Greek. We ended up googling “bias tape in armpit” and finding a great visual tutorial on Shear Delight. I followed her instructions instead.
I was so eager to finish this that I did forge ahead on my own tonight and do it. This is a pattern I will definitely make again because 1)it’s relatively simple 2)it can be endlessly varied, and can be a dress or a top 3)I made so many errors in this one that I look forward to correcting them! I found myself thinking “good thing Nina Garcia is not here”. This garment is definitely more “homemade” than “boutique”, but oh well. Also, check out how wiiiiiiiiide this little top is. It looks like you could fit a hoop under it. Perhaps for future versions I will take it upon myself to make it slimmer fitting (of course, Tabitha hasn’t actually tried it on yet.) It’s a little hard to see in the picture below, but there is a pocket in the center.
I think this will look adorable with a pair of jeans, though I hope she doesn’t look like Minnie Mouse. My favorite touch is this little ladybug ribbon I put in the seam:
Tonight we collected FOUR eggs. I don’t think one of the comets has begun to lay, instead I think that we are so close to the longest day of the year that one of them laid two eggs in one day! Pretty cool.
I haven’t been baking much this year, nor have I been recounting much of my baking or cooking here lately, which is too bad, but oh well–the garden and the sewing have taken over! Today I kept staring at a bowl of fresh pineapple and longing for pineapple upside down cake ( a favorite comfort food dessert of my youth.) Given the endless rain and sibling rivalry I decided we all deserved some and made one. Here it is fresh from the oven
and then, voila! flipped over.
I am very partial to things that are basically brown sugar and butter. I know lots of sticky bun recipes and upside down cake recipes involve corn syrup or various other things, but the recipes in my family are pretty much straight up dark brown sugar and butter and I LOVE IT. Oh, and the maraschino cherries are a must.
How can frozen peas be so cheap?
June 18, 2009 at 12:21 am | In Gardening, Sewing | 2 CommentsWe’ve got lots of very fat peapods now (though I can see the whole thing is on its way out and we’ll probably be done with peas in a week.) It’s a delight to open them up and see big fat beautiful peas nestled inside. Tonight I picked a big handful for myself and shelled them, cooked them, gobbled them up. This was how many peas I had. How on earth can frozen peas be so inexpensive? Seriously, 89 cents? $1.09? For a bag that is ten times as much as I painstakingly shelled here. There must be some wonderful machine that quickly and efficiently shells them because by hand it hardly seems practical. They were delicious, by the way.
Tabitha had her first day wearing the seersucker dress (which I guess is a top now, since she is wearing it with pants.) It looked really nice on her and she was able to play very well in it.
Another Apron!
June 14, 2009 at 12:32 am | In Gardening, Sewing | 3 Comments
This pattern is called “Psychedelic Squares”, which seems like a silly sort of name for what is really a very plain rectangular basic apron. This is actually a gift for my sister-in-law and I chose the fabric (which I love-do you see the birds?) quite a while ago. I’m embarrassed to say her birthday is in March! I’m pleased with the way it came out, though in all honesty I don’t think it came out quite as well as my “fruit tart” apron.
One thing I noticed that was interesting is that each pattern in the book is by a different designer and so the instructions for each pattern depend on how the person wrote them. Though each apron I’ve made so far had a waistband and ties, the methods for putting each on were described differently. Which just goes to show you can do it however works best for you! Also, I’m fairly confident that in the instructions for this one there was a step missing and a step put in that made no sense at all (so I didn’t do it.) Oh, and rather than use purchased bias tape for the top of the pocket I used a little of the binding I had leftover from my fruit apron!
In garden news the heavy rain continues making everything grow like crazy. The peas were so tall and heavy they fell over and had to be wrangled back upright with twine. We pick some every day and they are delicious. A surprise to us–we had numerous ripe strawberries in the annoying bed that used to have strawberries, should have herbs, always has tall weeds. For some crazy reason we are not growing lettuce, which is a disappointment, but I am quite excited that we are, for the first time ever, growing corn!
Five Senses in my Garden
June 10, 2009 at 3:15 pm | In Basic Musings, Botanical Photos, Gardening | 1 CommentSight: We have so many beautiful and brightly colored flowers blooming, as well as about a million shades of green everywhere. I love our varieties of hosta, the round upright leaves of the water forget-me-not, the new growth on the rhodie.
Sound: We have baby birds in the birdhouse and they are noisy! I love listening to them and seeing the mom and dad hopping out to the adjacent bird feeder. Other sounds? The fountain in the pond, the noisy chickens
Taste: We picked a big bowl of peas and lightly steamed them for dinner a few nights ago. Delicious! I also love just picking them off the vine.
Touch: Curiously, this one does not easily spring to mind. I suppose I touch the dirt and the petals and the leaves. It’s been a cool start to summer, but we have had some sprinkler times. I do not touch the snakes that have decided this year to make their presence known 
Also try not to touch the poison ivy that that seem to crop up here and there.
Smell: Especially at night the scent of the roses and honeysuckle is positively intoxicating. Just lovely.
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