I got this special German edition of Burda magazine a few weeks ago, and look who's in it. This is the Godet Skirt I made last December in a fuscia stretch velvet. I left the magazine out to see if anyone would notice. Yes, people (regular, normal people that don't sew) actually do pick it up to peruse it at my house. Yeah, no one noticed. My kids were pretty excited about it though.

This is our third year of our square foot garden. It's a fun thing to do with the kids. Teaching them where food comes from. They think it's pretty much akin to magic when they see it grows from a seed and doesn't come from a box. So this year, we planted a couple of zucchini. I don't eat zucchini. I was born a finicky, picky eater. You know, like those weird people on that TLC show Freacky Eaters that only eat potatoes. It's only been a couple of years that I started eating lasagna (before this, it kind of struck me like vomit) and most recently, I've learned to eat oatmeal. Yes, oatmeal. This took several tries as I couldn't get over the slimy texture at first. I'm still not that fond of water. Enough of my weird eating habits. I could go on and on. The point is, I don't want my kids to turn out this way, so I try my best to introduce them to healthy foods. OK, and in this case ... chocolate. Anyway, now the zucchinis are reall...

This is currently my favorite breakfast: - Kodiak Whole Wheat Flapjack mix pancakes - with fresh mangoes - and Kodiak Raspberry syrup (there's also a Marionberry syrup that is equally good) Delicious! And if you eat this outside, it's even better. If you're trying to make the switch from white flour baked goods to whole wheat, like I've been trying to do for a few years now, this pancake mix is a sure winner. This also helps explain, why there are less posts about sewing and crafting. I've been concentrating my efforts on eating yummy things.

Pattern: Explorer Vest Little Things To Sew by oliver + s ------------------------------------------------------------------- This is an oldie I made last year but it's a super favorite that he still wears all of the time. It's also been very popular among the guys. More than once, we have been out somewhere that a guy will comment to him about his vest, how cool it is, and how they wished they had one! This was pretty easy to make up. The pockets take the most time obviously, you can omit some, but then, what would be the fun in that. It is lined with another cotton on the inside. The binding around the arm openings makes it so you don't have to do any tricky turning of the vest. It's just about ready to hand down to the little brother, but first I'll have to make him a new one.

Sew Mama Sew is sponsoring an online sewing contest. I just got wind of it so I was too late to try for it, but there is a Community Bee for those interested in sewing along with the weekly contest challenges.  

Summer has been getting in the way of blogging and well, uh, sewing lately. I have, however, been making plenty of use of my Blendtec for healthy smoothie snacks. I was even motivated enough to buy a popsicle mold and make semi-healthy fruit pops. My kids are always begging for treats like this in the summer and I'm pretty stingy when it comes to buying candy, junk snacks, ice cream and anything else kids really like a lot. So I thought I would pre-empt their whining for popsicles by making them in secret. I've made the pineapple ones from this Blentec recipe and yesterday I concocted my own mango recipe. This is what I used, it will make more than you need, but you can always drink the rest. My three-year-old, Super Disgusting, kept asking me for these one day for about two hours. I couldn't figure out --What the hell he wanted!!! - "Mom, can we have some pachios?" - "What?" - "Mom, can we have some pachios?" - ...