Collars are Complicated

The blouse has slowly chugged along.  It is helpful that I have obtained things such as ironing boards.  Ironing on the table was such a pain.

I am learning so much from this blouse.   The collar was really starting to feel like an origami project though.  I had to keep rereading the instructions just so I could get all the pieces sewn together the right way up. But in the end patience and stubbornness won the day.

Here is the hick version without sleeves.

I finally was able to put the whole thing together this weekend.  Getting the gathers even on the sleeves was a bit of a challenge.  I am looking forward to making this again now that I have figured out most of the tricks.  Sewing a second blouse should go much faster.

And here is the almost finished blouse.  Ta daaaaa!


I am hoping that the wrinkles will come out with a bit of ironing. It also fits pretty well although it is a little tight under the arms. Something I will have to address with the next one. Have you noticed what is missing? Yup, still no buttons. :) That is my project for this weekend.

Issues I had with this blouse:

1.  I put the pin-tucks in backwards by accident.  I actually like it better this way on this blouse because the thread I used was not a perfect match for the fabric colour and as a result it pretty noticeable.  Because of this, the pin-tucks look terrible on the other side.  I guess they are officially pleats now. 
2. I really need to make sure I iron the iron on interfacing onto the correct side of the fabric.  As a result I had to be a little creative with my sleeve cuffs but it all worked out in the end.  Man that is a beginners mistake though.  I was very frustrated with myself over that one.

Overall I think I may keep this blouse this pink colour,  I was thinking about dyeing it a more rose pink/purple but I am kind of loving the bubblegum.

I am definitely planning to make a few changes for the next blouse I make.  I would like to add a more peter pan type collar to the next one and fix the fitting of the armholes and sleeves so they are a bit less tight.

With luck I will be able to take it out on the town on Tuesday for work.

Stay tuned for home reno crafty fun!

Finally some Random Rupert

Every day I walk to work.  Here are a few pictures of what I see along the way.
As you can see it is pretty quiet in the morning. Recently it has been a nice walk as it is not quite as cold. Prince Rupert also smells really good right now. I really hope we have a nice hot summer this year. I am tired of the rain.

Adventures in Breadmaking

So, I want to bake bread.

Not just because the bread at Overwaitea always arrives only days before the expiry date.  Not just because the home bakery in town charges A LOT for a loaf of fresh bread.  And not just because I want to make cinnamon buns. I want to prove I can do it! And without the help of a breadmaker (mostly because I don't want to buy one).

So my best friend and her husband have been making bread for some time. (Cue jealousy) She recently made a blog post here Rachel Learns Everything about making a quick and easy bread.  It looked so good and sounded relatively simple so  I figured, sure, I can do that.

Cue the horror music.

So it started out okay.  I got Hugh to convert the weight measurements into something I could use ( I mean really, who measures water by weight??) I guess someone does.  What happened to good old metric? I added my ingredients mixed and thought "this is easy!" Covered it with saran wrap and left it in our bedroom overnight.

Like Christmas morning I popped out of bed to eagerly check on the bread.  Now to be fair, I grew up watching my mom make bread.  I watched bread rise, get pounded down, only to rise again.  Sounds like an inspirational poster doesn't it? So as I looked down excitedly expecting to see a puffed up bowl of dough I was sorely disappointed.  It had barely moved.  It was spewing out tiny bubbles though so I figured life did exist in there, but it seemed to be struggling.

I whinged to my husband. I abandoned it for another couple hours.  No change.  I figured, why stop now.  Maybe I am expecting too much? I read the directions faithfully.

"Scrape edges of bowl, dump out onto floured surface,  take edges and pull around then flip so you have a nice round doughball."

I poke my batter. It grasps my finger and just will not let go. Huh.  I flour said finger and have another go.  Same result.  "Uh oh." I think.  I swirl the dough around a little more and it has the consistency of thick paper mache. "And I am going to eat this?" I wonder.

Finally with much courage I flour my counter and pour this sucker onto the counter. Yes I mean pour.  It begins to spread across my counter slowly reminding me of some strange suffocating creature. Frantically I powder the top with flour and valiantly attempt to fold and edge over.  Creature says "NO!" and commences smothering my hands. My hands did not stand a chance.  Thank goodness I had had the forethought to move my wedding rings to higher ground, like the top of the fridge!

Okay enough of this, I think and I fight back with my only weapon.  Lots of flour.  I threw handfuls of flour at this thing attempting to appease it insatiable hunger for hands with flour.  Finally after much feeding and gentle kneading it was coaxed into something vaguely resembling a sloppy ball and thrown back into a bowl for a second go at rising.

Meanwhile I contacted me friend and cried for help on her blog. Being in England, I think she was sleeping at the time. Bad timezones!

According to the recipe this should take about 1.25 hours.  I eyeball it at the appointed time.  No a bit of movement.  2.5 hours, still nothing.  At this point I got bored and went and watched a movie and gave up on the whole sodding mess.

As they say a watched kettle doesn't boil, a watched fax machine will not fax, and apparently a watched batch of bread dough will not rise.

Dinner time rolls around and hubby heads into the kitchen to cook.  Next thing I hear is, "You had better come in here."

Bread dough is now twice its original size. Well, yippy!

Next I realize that the recipe actually asks for some fancy cooking set up involving more than the one rack we have for our oven.  Who would think you would essentially need to set up a humidifier in your oven to cook bread??  I decide to cook to at traditional bread temperature and then drop the heat like it is suggested in the original recipe.

 

35 minutes later my bread...looks like bread.  Holy holy.  Look at that!  And it actually tastes okay too.  A bit heavy (kind of sourdough texture), but still not bad.

1. So what have I learned.  Even when things are not working out, throw more flour at it and keep going.
2. Trust in my instincts 

If I am going to start cooking with recipes involving weight I had better get myself a scale

I wonder if I could get a cute once second hand...hmmm

1946 Cooking

I have been lucky enough to get my hands on some neat old cook books.  Unfortunately I could not bring most of them home with me on the plane because of weight restrictions, but I did bring a couple with me.

One is the 1946 Cook Book by the Women's Auxiliary to the Canadian Legion of Trail, BC.

 I took this one home as I think it is the oldest of the Auxiliary cook books. I like to imagine my Grandma pouring over these cook books trying to decide what to feed her family.  So I thought I would try out the recipes in this book. (And I bet they are yummy.  Those ladies could cook back then.)

I chose the Lemon Cake recipe as both my husband and I are total lemon fans so I thought it would be a good start.  Warning,  this along with most of the recipes in this book are not for the health conscious.  They are full of "terrible" stuff like butter and sugar and eggs.  Mmmmm...  Here is the recipe:

Lemon Cake

First Part

1 cup flour

1/2 cup butter (melted)

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 tablespoon water

1/8 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

Sift flour, baking powder and cream of tartar, add sugar, butter and water.  Mix well together.  Press in greased pan.

Second Part

1 large lemon (juice and rind)

1 cup white sugar

3 eggs

1 teaspoon melted butter

Pinch of salt

Beat eggs and sugar together, add butter, salt, rind and juice of lemon.  Cook in saucepan until thick, set to cool.  Then spread over first part.

Third Part

2 cups cocoanut

1 tablespoon butter

1 egg

Mix together, spread over lemon filling. Bake in moderate oven 30 minutes.

---Mrs. A. D. Fletcher

This is what it looked like after the first part is complete. I made no changes.

The second part looked like this when it was done.

I did make a bit of a change. I used two largish lemons so there was more rind.  I would say I used between about 1/8-1/4 of a cup.  I also used the juice of 1 1/2  lemons (1/3 cup if your using juice from a bottle).  I really like lemons. :)

The third part had no changes although the egg should be beaten before adding the coconut and the butter should be melted.


I baked it at 350degrees for only about 20 minutes although my oven tends to run a bit hot.

It turned out like this:


They will get a taste test tomorrow!  Stay tuned.

I also did some gardening today. 

I have been growing flowers from seed this year and I felt they were now old enough to be planted outside.  I have been digging out these abandoned tires which were once used as planters so I can use them again.  They were absolutely over run with grass and weeds when I started.

Marigold (bought) surrounded by Pansies (grown from seed)

To be planted with poppies

Zinna (from seed) in yellow Poppies and Pansies in green pots

Random Rupert!

Today was Seafest and for the first time in the 2 1/2 years we have been here it was finally sunny for the festival!  Usually we watch the poor families out with their umbrellas in the cold and rain watching the parade and playing street hockey etc.  Rupert decided to surprise us this year.

We went down and watched the parade and plowed through the crowds (crowds are very abnormal in Prince Rupert.  It was a strange feeling.)

Unfortunately I left my camera at home.  Rats!

Just in case you wonder why I make such a big deal about the sun, here is a picture of my husband heading off for work in the morning.  Hard core rain gear!  Only in Prince Rupert can a store survive that completely caters to rain gear.  It is called "Slickers".

Yes, we do get the most rain in Canada per year.  What a claim to fame. :)