Zadie Dandelions, Knitting Azules, Cooking Lenten, and Reading Palmer

This was supposed to be a Yarn Along post, but I read Ginny's post this morning about discontinuing the link up, so I guess it is just be little ol' me talking about crafting and domestic life today.  This is a long'un, so grab a cuppa and settle in.

~sewing~

I made some good progress on the warm weather dresses for Birdie on Saturday.  I finished the chambray one (and tried out a new pattern at the same time).  I think the pocket is a little low, but it works for now.  I used Simplicity 8087, the Lazy Daisy Jones dress pattern.  It has a women's version in the packet as well, that I might try out at some point.

I also finished the trim on the red dress and I think it came out very cute!  (I had Ponchik try the chambray dress on for size, since I'm making a couple of dresses for her from the same pattern.  Both girls are similar in girth, but Birdie is a couple of inches taller)

I also made another Zadie!  I splurged on some Art Gallery printed jersey (I have no idea why this stuff is so expensive--it isn't really that different in quality from the $12/yard jersey) and made this up on Monday.  

Earlier this month I decided it was time to get a proper cutting mat, so I bought a big one on amazon and cut this out with a rotary cutter.  It went a lot better with the rotatry cutting than scissor cutting on my Market Floral version, but it was still a lot of pieces to cut out.  I also used a tracing wheel and transfer paper to mark the pivot points and pleat lines which also worked better.  

The joins at the back went beautifully, but that pesky pocket join at the waistband in the front did not.   Again. I pinned and repinned and repinned again, and it still isn't quite right.  I may put in some hand stitches to make it lay nice and keep the pockets from gaping.  

The neckband also gave me fits on this one; I had to redo it three or four times and got seriously frustrated in the process.  I think I had beginner's luck on the first one.  I remembered why I don't like neckbands!  Won't stop me from making more Zadies, though.  I just need a break for a few months before I make the next one.  

The print is really pretty!  The centers of the dandelions are mint green.  The whole dress just feels so spring-y to me.  

I spent the morning yesterday cutting out a few things.  The rayon (above) is for me.  Remember how I said my spring rotation was a hot mess?  It continues to be, and I've been shifting things around all month.  I'm hoping it will settle into something useful soon.

I cut out three dresses for Birdie and two for Ponchik.  The white one is for both girls for Ascension and the dark green is for Palm Sunday/Pentecost.  I have black long sleeve t-shirts for them to wear under the green dresses.  The blue star one is just for Birdie.  I'm going to add orange rick rack to trim it.

I also decided to give the Everyday Skirt pattern a try after seeing Kate's most recent podcast.  I generally dislike gathered skirts because I think they add too much bulk in an area that I don't need it, but this one looks well drafted, and I've seen a lot of iterations that make me think it might work for me (including Kate's).  I plan to pleat the front instead of gather it, to further reduce bulk.  I'll have to add 4-5" to the length as well, but if this works, it could be a great skirt pattern for me.  I'm going to try it in the Kaufman Union AK chambray that I love so much (the same as Birdie's dress).  I think it will be nice for summer.  I'd like to make a mustardy-gold linen version for the fall if I like the pattern.

~domestic~

Birdie caught whatever virus we are all passing around and was home sick Monday and Tuesday. She was fairly miserable on Monday and just laid on the couch all day, but yesterday she started to perk up but still coughed a lot when she tried to do normal activity. Let's just say there were a lot of Disney movies watched in the last 48 hours.  The kids had baths in the afternoon, and then there was a whole lotta salon action going on.  Birdie and Ponchik were sitting with one of my sitters, and Boo was working on my hair in the kitchen.  Boo really seems to enjoy the salon stuff.  I sometimes have to part my hair in the middle and let Birdie work on one side and Boo on the other.  I usually end up with a frizzy mass at the end of it, but they are so content during it, that I hate to deny them.

~knitting~

I'm working on several projects at the moment, as usual.  I played yarn chicken with the end of a skein of Berroco Sox (leftover from my Hitchhiker Scarf) and lost.  I'm either going to have to rip back the first one to make the lengths match or just give up on the whole thing.  *sigh*

Boo had a OT evaluation on Monday and I grabbed my Rent/Tess shawl to work on while I waited.  It is a good travelling project since it is still small enough to shove in a bag, is easily interruptible, and doesn't require a lot of concentration on my part.

 I'm making slow and steady progress on it.  I was much further on it in February, but I ended up frogging it all the way back and starting again, so this is about a month's worth of on-and-off work.  It is Malabrigo Rios in Azules and the yarn is so pretty--it is hard to capture the tonality in photos.  There are blues and greens and purples and teals.  I think it will end up coordinating with a lot of my closet.

Got through another lace chart repeat on the Three Musketeers Gemini.  I think I finally have even tension on this yarn--the linen is really hard to keep running through my fingers evenly.  

The lace panel is coming along nicely, I think.

~reading~

Still alternating between these two books.  I had to set the Thirty Steps one aside for a few days because it just hit me right between the eyes.  It is pretty deep stuff, so I have to process a little bit.  The Palmer book is small easily digestible bites, so I've been reading that one a little bit every day.

~cooking~

I made vegan mushroom gravy again.  Mods to make it vegan are to use margarine and coconut milk with no-chicken stock.

And since my stitches are out of my mouth (Hallelujah, praise the Lord!), I can have grechka again!  The gravy is lovely on top of the grechka.  I actually need to make another batch to have with the leftover gravy.

Last week I ended up with a surplus of white potatoes due to an error on my grocery order, so I was puzzling about what to make with them, and suddenly remembered the very delicious Vedge recipe for vegan roasted potatoes with creamy sauce.  (Seriously, make this recipe--it is so good; it is worth the price of the cookbook)

You roast the potatoes first and then make the sauce (which is tangy and kind of melts into the hot potatoes after you pour it over).  Delicious.  Unfortunately, the potatoes I used are sort of dense for my throat, so I wasn't able to eat more than a few bites, but they were very tasty!

I guess that's all for me!