Like mother like daughters.

The original Condit ladies and their shorts.

Sometimes something becomes such a fashion hit that it begs to be brought back again and again as a classic. Sure, you may be thinking of the little black dress, over sized sunglasses, or cigarette pants. But when I think of a fashion statement worthy of bringing back, I have to go right for the red checkered matching bottoms. They are timelessly hilarious, painfully matching, and infinitely nostalgic of good times at the beach.

The photo above is circa 1995, taken at the Condit family reunion in Hilton Head Islands at the first pig roast. The ladies, in order, are my Aunt Barbie, my Aunt Susan, my momma, and my Aunt Connie. The shorts are from Kelly's Kids, and my mom was a rep and therefore must have been the mastermind behind the matchy-matchy shorts. The photo below is circa 2009, taken at the Condit family reunion in Hilton Head Island at the second pig roast. The ladies, in order, are my sister Anne, me, my sister Ellen and my sister Claire. The skirts are homemade by me and the brilliant idea of my sister Ellen, who thought it would be a riot to mimic the matchy-matchy shorts from the previous reunion. She was right. It was a riot.

The plaid shorts, reinvented for 2009.

We changed into the shorts just before the pig roast started. Giggling, we walked downstairs and my sister Anne declared to the family mixing gin and tonics in the kitchen, "We know just what four sisters are supposed to wear to a pig roast!" Everyone laughed and laughed, remembering the original shorts, and then the feasting commenced. A good time was had by all, and I like to think our checkered bottoms added to the festivities.

Somewhere in the photo albums there is the funniest photo of my aunts and mom sticking their heinies out for the camera. If you look closely in the below photo you can actually see my grandma shooting the picture in the background. The heiny shot is MIA right now, but we did our best to recreate it on the beach this go around.

In case you are interested in the technical details, you should know that rather than sewing long shorts, we opted for skirts. They are ultimately more fashionable, flattering, and easy to fit from afar (I sewed everything in San Antonio and they all live in Denver). I used my ultimate favorite skirt pattern, the Asymmetrical Folds Skirt from Stitch Magazine. As with the last skirt, I fully lined these ones in red to make it both stiffer and also reversible. They are a snap to sew, taking only a couple of hours a piece.

I believe it is said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Well, mom and aunts, I hope we did you proud. We can't wait for the next reunion.

Anne, Kate, Ellen, and Claire.

Aunt Barbie, Aunt Susan, Mom (Sarah) and Aunt Connie.

Reinvintage: A Mexican muumuu becomes a tunic.

Before...

...and After.

Look at my (self proclaimed) brilliant reinvention of a vintage thrift find, or to summarize a "reinvintage!" I wanted to write a sewing pattern review for this, however, it hardly seemed worth a pattern review as all I did was hem the muumuu into a shirt.

I purchased the dress at San Antonio's new, local, wannabe Buffalo Exchange called Stitch to Wear. It is a clothing resale shop with a small design department. The endeavor is only a few months old, and only boasts a few racks of recycled clothing, but I did find this amazing piece as well as a beautiful velvet vintage skirt that is sized for a 22 inch waist, but was so pretty and inexpensive that I had to buy it anyway. If you have a 22 inch waist and are looking for a purple floral print velvet skirt, AND if you can replace a zipper or will hire someone to do it for you, then let me know. I have the skirt for you. It is my gift to the person willing to take a picture of themselves wearing it out, so I can live vicariously through you. Anyways, back to the muumuu dress.

This dress was a real gem because of the yoked collar and fitted shoulders. I knew on first glance it would make an adorable tunic. And it was perfect timing, because my beautiful sister Ellen was visiting and she was a natural fit. It took a bit of convincing to make her see that this muumuu could be a fashion gem, but she came around. In fact, it was her excellent prompting to lengthen where I planned to hem that saved this shirt. My one word of advice for others performing this type of reinvintage is to hem long. You can always take it up more, but you can never make your cropped muumuu into a cute tunic once you cut it too short.

Next up, keep your eyes out for the pending reinvintage skirt, featuring none other than a great scene of a palm tree, senorita, and her Mexican beau relaxing on a sunny, slightly cloudy day.

Most certainly not Martha.

Nothing puts you in your place in the kitchen quite like botching a Martha Stewart recipe.

I love her Baking Handbook because of its clear organization, detailed how-to instructions, and most of all because of the gorgeous design and photography. You can see her book propped up in the photos above, all of her hand pies sitting their with their symmetrical, identical and goldened to perfection corners tucked neatly to the center. Um, yeah, it's perfection.

Then you see my hand pies. They are most certainly NOT symmetrical, they are definitely not identical. Many of them are more than golden, and nothing is neatly tucked to the center. My hand pies likely tasted very similar to Martha's, but they lack the visual perfection. This has a lot to do with my botched crust.

I need to find a "working with Pate Brisee" self help book, because I am just not good at it. It is sort of disturbing, because I come from a lineage of successful crust makers. My grandmother bakes apple pies in a giant, foot wide, deep dish pie plate. My father can whip up a flaky, tender, perfectly golden pie crust in his sleep using shortening, which is why he frequently bakes pies for my mom on a whim. My sister Anne must have acquired the gene for crust making, only she uses butter to make a legit pate brisee. Me though, I have not perfect the crust making, although I am trying. I won't lie though, on occasion my failed attempts at crust have left me crying in the kitchen. What's a girl to do when she strives for Martha-like perfect and ends up with hand pies that look like these?

The only thing to do is take some funny photos and enjoy them as though they look perfect. After all, they still taste good, right? Plus I have heard that it all looks the same after it's chewed anyways. And worrying about my pate brisee does not help the situation. As my dad always says "Don't worry, worry ruins the crust."

Sausage-Fennel Hand Pies (from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook)

1/4 c EVOO (optional)
1 pound sweet italian sausage, casings removed
1 large onion, thinly sliced
1 small head fennel (about 1 pound), trimmed, cored, thinly sliced
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
salt and pepper
6 plum tomatoes, quartered, seeded, and cut into 1/2-inch dice
8 oz. feta cheese, crumbled
pate brisee (see below)
1 large egg, lightly beaten, 3 T fennel seeds, lightly toasted

1. Heat 2 T oil in a large skillet over medium heat (no need if you have a non-stick pan as the sausage will release oil). Crumble sausage into pan and cook until browned, 4 minutes. Transfer to a paper-towel lined plate.
2. If needed, add more oil--depending on your sausage, you may not need any. Add the onion and cook 2 minutes (or a tad longer if you like your onion really soft). Add fennel and red pepper flakes, season with S&P. Cook, stirring occasionally, until everything is tender, 8 minutes. Add tomatoes and cook, stirring, until they release their juices, 3-4 minutes. Add reserved sausage. Remove from heat and let cool COMPLETELY. This is a good time to roll out the crust. When the filling is cooled, add feta and stir in.
3. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line a large baking sheet with tin foil. Now roll out 12 5x5 squares of dough from the pate brisee recipe (below). You can do this a lot of ways. I divided my dough into 3 pieces and made 4 squares out of each piece, rolling everything out between wax paper.
4. Put 1/2 c filling in the middle of each square, and then fold the corners up to cover it (shouldn't be completely sealed or anything). Lay them out on the baking sheet--they don't rise so I was able to fit all 12 on my sheet (admittedly it's an extra large sized one).
5. Brush tops with egg and sprinkle on fennel seeds. Bake until golden brown, 40 minutes (actually less in my oven). Cool slightly and serve warm.

Pate Brisee

2 1/2 c flour
1 tsp salt
2 sticks cold butter, cut into small pieces
1/4 c ice water

Combine the flour and salt in a food processor. Add butter and pulse until mixture resembles course crumbs. While machine is running, add ice water slowly until dough just holds together without being wet or sticky. You might need to add a little more water depending on how humid it is. Then chill the dough at least 1 hour or overnight.

Yogurt.

As I sit here now, I am enjoying spoonful after spoonful of delicious homemade yogurt. Yes, that is correct, I said homemade. It turns out yogurt is not limited to the small plastic containers lining the dairy aisle at the local grocery store. Rather, yogurt is a miracle of fermentation and bacterial reproduction, and something so simple literally anyone can make it at home. I can sum up the yogurt-making process into one sentence. You stir a little starter into warm milk, let the mixture rest at a warm room temperature sit, and in a few hours the bacteria from the starter have multiplied a hundredfold and created a thickened product full of billions of healthful, tangy bacteria in every spoonful.

But the wizardry of yogurt making deserves a bit more than that sentence. Our interested started thanks to this great article by Harold McGee in The New York Times. Sam found it online, and we were immediately curious, so we experimented this weekend. It could not have been easier. Basically yogurt making is nothing more than giving a small colony of chosen bacteria an expansive home, and allowing them a bit of time to take it over. The bacteria is a special type of bacteria called lactic acid bacteria. As McGee explains, "The lactic acid bacteria are a group of microbes that share the ability to convert sugars into lactic acid, which suppresses the growth of their competitors. The lactic acid also causes the proteins and fat globules in milk to cluster into a continuous solid network, with the milk’s water trapped in its pores." Thus, the bacteria turn regular old milk to yogurt.

And when McGee says "continuous solid network" he is not kidding. After just four hours of fermentation our yogurt was a thick and solid, shiny mass that was more inclined to stick to itself than anything else. Before draining, we could poke our spoon into the culture and bring it back up clean, almost like putting a spoon into a block of jello. After 24 hours draining through cheesecloth in the fridge, it has become like a delicious dairy glue. The final product is very thick, very rich, and very, very sticky.

We made two types of yogurt, one 2% and one whole milk. The verdict is still out, but I think we prefer the 2%. We used a 99% fat free vanilla Yoplait as our starter, and the bacteria in it were champs. My only complaints is that there is a faint and lingering flavor of vanilla yoplait in our yogurt batch. I expected the quart of milk to dilute our two tablespoons of vanilla into nothing, but apparently the flavor is potent. You might consider searching for a plain yogurt for your starter. I think our next batch will be better, as the vanilla will begin to be diluted into infinity as we use leftover yogurt as a starter in future batches. Also, one quart reduced to about a pint of yogurt after draining. If you have a big family or eat a lot of yogurt, you might consider making this from a gallon of milk rather than just a quart.

Any way you make it, this yogurt is a marvel of science, flavor, and what feels like magic. I am so pleased we tried this at home, most importantly as a reminder than many good things in the grocery store have long lost humble beginnings in the home cook's kitchen.

Homemade Yogurt
All yogurts begin in the same way -- milk is heated and then cooled slightly. Active cultures, which can vary depending on the type of yogurt, are added, and the mixture ferments until it sets. Anyone, literally, ANYONE is capable of completing this amazing, inexpensive, rewarding science experiment at home, and reaping their reward for breakfast. I would love to make yogurt with children. I think it seems like a great learning experience.

INGREDIENTS
One quart milk (whole or 2% preferred for flavor)
2 tablespoons starter (either remains from an old yogurt batch, or a commercial yogurt)

PREPARATION
Heat the fresh milk to 180-190 degrees, or to the point that it’s steaming and beginning to form bubbles. Cool the milk to 115 to 120 degrees, Stir in two tablespoons of yogurt, either store-bought or from your last batch, thinning it first with a little of the milk. Pour warm milk/yogurt mixture in a an insulated, wide mouthed container and cover it. Keep the milk warm as its sets, which usually takes about four hours. When set, strain through cheesecloth if desired (its what I recommend), put in a sealed container and refrigerate.

To make a thick Greek-style yogurt, spoon your mixture into a fine-mesh strainer or colander lined with cheesecloth. Let the whey drain into a bowl for several hours. The longer the mixture drains, the thicker the final product.

"Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme."

Are you going to Scarborough fair? We surely didn't, but we did pick up the notorious herbs mentioned in Simon and Garfunkel's song this weekend. We planted the herbs in two extra large pots we usurped from the front stoop of our apartment, and now, we wait for them to grow.

Our first pot features Basil, Oregano, Rosemary, and Sage. The second pots harbors Dill
Italian Parsley, and Thyme. I don't yet have Tarragon potted, but it is one of my favorite herbs to use in cooking. Perhaps if these pots thrive in the next few weeks I will be inspired to plant a few more containers. Come to think of it there are some green planters on the front stoop filled with a stray, straggling aloe plants each, just waiting to be adopted and cultivated. We wanted to grow mint too, but we were advised against planting it in the same pot as our other herbs. Apparently mint is not a friendly neighbor and quickly takes. Since I love me some parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, I had to forgo the mint.

The only downside to the herb planting is this repetitive folk song that now won't leave my head.... "Are you going to Scarborough Fair? " Last night I thought it would be funny to search online for scenes from The Graduate featuring the song..."Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme." After all, if you have ever seen The Graduate, you well know that it feels like this song is played on repeat throughout the film... "Remember me to one who lives there." To get a feel, just watch the trailer ... "She once was a true love of mine." It summarizes the entire film, complete with several separate performances of the noted herb lyrics. Unfortunately for me, ever since I cleverly thought to correlate our herb garden to the song, I have been unable to erase the refrain of the song from my head... ... "Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme." It is maddening.

However, all hippie folk songs aside, I am pleased to share that today it rained all afternoon. This might normally depress me, but now that I have pots full of little plants that like the rain, I too am content.

Vintage playsuits.

My sister Ellen visited last week, and we spent much of her trip ogling girls on the street wearing little onesy numbers I believe are often called "playsuits" or "rompers." The look is simultaneously gutsy, sweet, feminine, vampish, and completely and totally alluring. Just look at them. They scream "I like to have fun, and I am not afraid of my body. Come on, I dare you to make a move." Plus, as you can see in the illustrations, the playsuit has a Clark Kent style disguise for those moments when you need to be a bit more demure. Just button on your skirt and presto, you look like you are a proper 1950's dame. Oh, they are lovely.

We both find our fascination with the playsuit a bit confusing, as the playsuit certainly plays on both childlike AND sexy imagery. I have never been overly inspired by the Lolita-style fashions that often pop up in vintage wear, and this might be pushing into that category. Also disturbing is the knowledge that I am pretty sure you need to have long, stunning legs to pull off a romper with style. My legs are not very long, nor stunning, but a girl can still dream, right? Look at the playsuits below from this Etsy seller, who makes these one-of-a-kind rompers and sells them to beautiful, bold women. The are very much the look of the Carrie and Samantha's get ups in Sex and the City's season 3 roof party. They are great.

One of these days when my sewing skills really take off, and my legs grow another six inches (in lenght, not width silly!), perhaps I too will venture into the world of the adult romper. Until then, I will continue to admire from afar.

You CAN have your cake, and eat two.

My poor puns aside, I have to say that whoever once said "you can't have your cake and eat it too" obviously did not celebrate birthdays in our house. In our house on birthdays, we make enough cake to both have AND eat large slices of, without fear of shortage. This is because I like to bake, and I love my husband, and this means I gladly bake him multiple cakes on his special day. Last year it was a carrot cake and a Guinness Stout Cake, and this year was equally lavish with cake.

This year for Sam's birthday we celebrated with a duet of cakes, starting first with our new birthday favorite, the coconut cake which we ate with friends at his birthday party, and then moving into the tried and true classic from my childhood, the Colorado Cache Chocolate Fudge Cake, which we had on his actual birthday (and as leftovers for many days after).

I remember this cake fondly. My mother baked it for almost every birthday growign up. As children we were always allowed to choose our cake flavor on our birthdays, and almost everyone choose this cake year after year. She would bake it in a square pan, because we loved frosting and always relished the corner pieces, and a square pan ensures four corner pieces (for four daughters) and lots of edge pieces ripe with frosting. For summer birthdays the cake was always adorned with roses from the backyard garden.

One year our dog Bo jumped up on the counter and ate a large portion of my mom's birthday cake off of the cake plate. I have rarely seen my dad so angry. First, he was livid that the dog ruined my mom's cake, and second, he was upset because dogs and chocolate equal an expensive vet bill. Since chocolate is poisonous to dogs, my dad called the vet for a quick remedy. As luck would have it, the home remedy for preventing chocolate poisoning in dogs also gave my dad an opportunity to extract some deserving punishment on Bo. Thus we all discovered that two tablespoons of salt dumped down the back of a dog's throat, followed by holding the dog's muzzle closed to ensure he swallows, is an excellent way to induce dog vomiting (and thus extract the poisonous chocolate). I have never seen a dog retch as much as poor Bo on the fateful night. But then again, he did kind of deserved it for eating the cake off the counter, and the retching probably saved his life.

And, just in case you are wondering, we ate the cake anyway. My father sawed off the dog-infested portions of the cake and refrosted it a la Food Network's Ace of Cakes show. We ended up with an oddly tiered, sort of lopsided, and definately unique cake for my Mom, but we coudlnt' waste the remaining good parts. The cake was that important as a birthday tradition in our house.

I like this cake and was delighted to bring it into my own adult life as a birthday tradition this year for Sam. The cake has many merits, most of all as a vehicle for an excellent frosting. I must admit thought that I do differ with its self proclaimed "chocolate fudge" title. The cake is certainly chocolate, but it is nothing like fudge. Perhaps the frosting is what pushes it into this category? Any way you name it though, this is a good cake. Keep it away from your dog, and don't forget to serve it with heaping scoops of vanilla ice cream. Happy birthday dear Sam.

Colorado Cache Chocolate Fudge Cake

This cake was a classic during my childhood for birthdays. It bakes into a light, spongy, airy cake with an almost chewy crumb. It is the perfect vehicle for a good frosting, as it is not too dense, not too rich, but certainly stout enough to hold up to a heavy slathering of chocolate butter cream. The secret of this cake is the boiling water. I don't know what it does, but it give the cake its unique and memorable texture. Take note that the batter will be very runny after you add the boiling water, far more runny than you would expect from cake batter, but that’s part of the secret. Don’t stress, just put it in the oven and bake.

Also, this is a particularly delicious chocolate frosting with different recipe than your usual buttercream. You might consider one and one fourthing the recipe to give you enough for a very thick frost. See the below photo for proportions, courtesy of my mom who was bright enough to write it all down in the cookbook for posterity and ease. Any extra frosting will keep in the fridge almost indefinately and taste delicious on brownies, cookies, or graham crackers.

Cake:

3 squares unsweetened chocolate
2 1/4 cups sifted cake flour
2 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1/2 cup butter
2 1/4 cup brown sugar
3 eggs
1 1/2 t. vanilla
1 cup sour cream
1 cup boiling water

Preheat over to 375 degrees. Melt the chocolate over a double boiler, or on low heat in a glass pyrex in the microwave. Set aside to cool. Sift flour, baking soda and salt together. Beat butter until soft. Add brown sugar and eggs, and beat until fluffy. Beat in vanilla and add cooled, melted chocolate. Stir in dry ingredients, alternating with sour cream, until just combined. Stir in boiling water. Pour into greased and floured 9″ pans. Bake at 375 for 25 minutes or until tests done (toothpick inserted in center comes out clean). Cool on baking rack.

Frosting:

4 1-ounce squares unsweetened chocolate
1/2 cup butter
1 pound powdered sugar
1/2 cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla

Combine chocolate and butter in a saucepan until melted. Combine sugar, milk, and vanilla in a medium sized bowl. Stir until smooth. Add chocolate mixture. Set bowl in a pan of ice water and beat with a wooden spoon until frosting is thick enough to spread.

Can you name this mystery vegetable part II?

We have another mystery vegetable. Can you name it? I must admit, it is remarkably similar to last week's mystery bok choy, but still, it is not quite the same. This time, the leaves are darker with a deep green and purplish-red hue. The stalks at the base are shorter, smaller, and greener. What could it be? Please advise.

Everyone's Favorite Claire McCardell: The Dolman Dilema

I am still working through Everyone's Favorite Claire McCardell dress, with some distinct improvements to the original awkwardly-fitting muslin. However I am not there yet.

First things first, my reflections on the good. I scaled back to a 46 inch bust size (rather than 50), which is more in line with my upper bust measurement. This size is the best shoulder/back/neck fit. Then I conducted a pretty massive full bust adjustment, adding a good three inches or so in full bustiness room, as picture above.

Next, I moved the dart. It originally angled semi-upward along the side of the chest. The pattern illustration would have you believe the dart angles from in the waist area upward toward the bust apex, but it does not. On the pattern, the dart placement is definitely coming from the side seem slightly upward. Well, my problem of excess fabric over the armpit required dart migration into an area where it could corral the fabric. So I moved it up into the sideseem under teh armpit, where it now helps pull the extra fabric down and into the dart. Basically I used a slash and spread method to close the old dart and shift the dart into the armpit area, angling down a bit to my apex. The shift has helped the fit quite a bit.

However, it is still not perfect, so allow me to reflect on the bad. The biggest issue is still an excess of fabric over the bust in the armpit area. You can see it in the above photo puckering in the area of my upper bust (and sorry for the awkward self portraits. I try not to post bad picture like this, but I did not have my tripod at sewing class). I recognize that the dress design is not intended to be a very fitted bodice, and this excess fabric may reflect this, but nonetheless I am not willing settle for the gaping at my chest.

It is theorized by my sewing instructor that the excess fabric is due to my shoulder slope. I have a more sharply angled downward slope on my shoulders than the pattern's slope, which as you can see in the above photos is an almost straight line parallel to the floor. However, when we changed the slope on the shoulder, it constricted the arm/shoulder fit too tightly. The pattern fits with enough room in the underarm, but with too much room in the upper shoulder/arm. Yet removing upper arm fabric creates tightness. What is a girl to do?

To try and figure this fitting situation out, I have been research the fit and function of the Dolman sleeve. Be prepared as you read on. You are about to discover more about Dolman sleeves than you ever wanted to know.

I have done some reading on the design, and the basic description of this sleeve design is that the Dolman sleeve incorporates the bodice and the sleeve into once piece, making it the easiest sleeve style of all to construct. Dolman sleeves should create a smooth line over the upper chest (unless you are me on a first draft). The consensus is that this is an excellent style for someone with any kind of shoulder problem. Often, the underarm area is almost bat-like or cape like. Also, the sleeve often angles downward from the shoulder. This means there is some sleeve shaping but still no armhole or sleeve cap.

The dolman style has a sleeve formed integrally with the body, with only two substantial seams at the underarms. A generous amount of space is provided under the arms for movement, so the garment is usually considered to be very loose-fitting, even if the sleeve forearms are tight. It is perhaps the simplest style to assemble, with only two underarm seams to sew.

Dolman designs are usually constructed with sleeves extending at right angles to the body, so there can be the problem of too much fabric bunching under the arm, leading to a top-heavy appearance. Also, the fact that that there is no shoulder seam to support the weight of the fabric hanging down from the shoulders may result in pulling and stretched stitches in the shoulder area.

The conclusion is that, in general, when you're concerned with a good fit that complements the wearer (as opposed to a "safe" fit that will accommodate a small range of body sizes), set-in sleeve styling rather than Dolman sleeves is almost uniformly an ideal solution to the problem of adding sleeves to a garment. The Dolman sleeve might not be suited for a close fitting bodice.

As you can see in the below photo, I am making progress at a close fitting bodice with a Dolman sleeve. But if you look you can see the excess fabric gathering over my bust toward the shoulder. Perhaps I need to tweak and tuck a bit more. Perhaps I need a much more fluid and draping fabric to soften the excess. Whatever it is, I am not giving up hope yet that the pattern will work for me.

I am encourage by this bit of advice from Fast Fit by Sandra Betzina "Dolman sleeves give a nice smooth line and are forgiving on anyone with shoulder problems. Try to avoid an especially low curve in the underarm area. The Dolman sleeve and underarm seam can always be raised to suit your tastes....If a Dolman sleeves seems too deep for you, don't skip it all together - simply raise the underarm curve as you cut out. The goal is to keep the bust and sleeve circumference the same, but lift the curve up into the sleeve. Start by continuing the side seam up one inch to two inches into the sleeve, then curve back out into the sleeve. Curved seems at the underarm must be clipped or served close to lie flat. If you need to get rid of more fabric, you can do it in the sewing; but a conservative approach is better to start with."

If you have any advice for me, send it my way. I am accepting suggestions from every angle.

Can you name this vegetable?

Can you name this vegetable? The leaves have a very grassy, earthy, lettuce-with-a-kick flavor, and those stalks are just lovely and crisp looking. How should I prepare this produce. Please help.

What about this one, can you name this vegetable? The stalks look like petite celery, with less ridges and course fiber. The leaves taste salty and vegetative, similar to spinach, leading me to believe it is a fancy green best served wilted, but then again who knows?

Every Wednesday, thanks to our CSA subscription to Scott Arbor Farms outside of San Antonio, we receive a bag of produce. Most of it we can identify, and therefore find recipes and cooking instructions that are appropriate. This week, for example, we received beautiful red tip lettuce, fennel, broccoli, and kale. We don't need any help putting these in our belly. But then these two mystery vegetables. What are they?

If you can tell us what we are looking at, we will be grateful. If you can send a recipe for this particular produce item, even better. We are all ears.

1932 Draped Wrap and Cape: Pattern Review

1932 Draped Wrap and Cape: Pattern Review

I understand from the pattern proprietor that this pattern was reviewed in Threads magazine in January 2006. They sewed up the wrap in a silk lace that was beautiful. So, if you have that issue or can hunt it down, see what they have to say. Their insight may compliment (or refute) mine. In fact, if you do find the review I would love to see what they said and their photos of the finished product. Please consider sending a scan of it my way. You can email me here.

Pattern Description:
The pattern comes from my favorite company Decades of Style. As the pattern envelope says "This fabulous draped wrap and cape is a vintage style from the sophisticated early 1930s that's perfectly at home today."

I created the draped hip wrap, with a sleeve on one side and a cape treatment on the other. The sleeve is 3/4 length with a bell shape the widens at the exit. The boat neck-style neckline provides a great opportunity to show off your favorite vintage or antique brooch. The pattern is snug-fitting and designed to be worn as a light wrap and not over many layers.

It is a very unique design that (in theory) will work well with everything from jeans to formal evening wear.

Pattern Sizing:
I sewed a size C, designed for up to a 46 inch bust. That is my high bust measurement, but I am also broad shouldered and large busted and I wish I would have opted to sew size D, designed for a 49-55 inch bust. The final wrap was too small for my frame. The pattern ended up fitting my narrow-shouldered mother, probably a 38 inch bust and a size 12 in modern clothing.

The wrap is a very snug fit, so consider sizing up a few sizes. It MUST fit your shoulder width in order to drape as it should, which means you may want to go a few sizes up if you have a broad figure. You will also want to cut a muslin in a draping fabric to test before you cut into anything expensive.

As the pattern envelope says "Choose your size carefully. It makes a difference! "

Did it look like the photo/drawing on the pattern envelope once you were done sewing it?
Nope. Sadly my finished product did not have the glamor and easy draping fit shown on the pattern envelope. The front cape treatment did not wrap around the front neck and lay over the shoulder as the pattern illustration describes. You can see images of the in progress garment frustrating me with its ill fit wrapping earlier in my blog here.

I wrote Decades of Style for advice during the fitting process and they kindly wrote back with words of honest reflection and encouragement. They said, "In all honesty, the pattern just did not work the way the illustration showed it – with the ends wrapping around the neck and fitting all smooth and beautiful... I (pattern designer) ended up wearing mine by tying the free ends together in the front either at the waist or up slightly towards my shoulder. It made the wrap look completely different from the illustration but it was still attractive and unusual."

Were the instructions easy to follow?
As with all Decades of Style instructions, I found them well organized, easy to follow, and complete. The large illustrations of each phase of the process make it easy to follow along, even without much sewing experience.

What did you particularly like or dislike about the pattern?
Likes: The concept. The simplicity of the design. The utterly unique vintage style.

Dislikes: Well, the disparity between the pattern illustration and the final fit is a huge disappointment. It is like false advertising when a pattern illustration looks differently from the final product.

The fit of the wrap is very difficult, especially around the shoulders and the bust. For my large busted figure, I just could not make it work. This is not necessarily a flaw of the pattern, but rather a flaw of my shape in combo with the wrap.

Additionally, even on my narrow and smaller mother, the wrap still pulls on the body as it is worn. As mentioned, the final product fits my mother very nicely and she has adopted the garment and is modeling in these photos. Unfortunately, as she wears the well-fitting wrap, it still pulls on the body. The inside of the wrap that attaches underneath her sleeved arms to hold the garment closed wants to pull askew forward. Something about the physics of the long wrap portion makes the garment want to shift out of whack. I am not an expert seamstress, so I have not exactly figured out what is happening or how to fix it, but I do know that this wrap is the kind of piece that will need constantly adjusted while wearing to keep it in place. That is never the optimal situation.

Fabric Used:
The pattern suggests to choose a fabric with a nice drape, anything from velvet to wool, or possibly a corduroy or fleece. I choose a beautiful and softly draping gray wool dotted with flecks of green, red, blue and yellow. For the lining I used a very high quality burgundy rayon. Both were purchased from Elfriede's Fine Fabrics in Boulder, Colorado. It is the only place I want to buy fabric these days, and I don't even live in Colorado! Her staff is incredibly knowledgeable and helpful and she stocks only the highest quality clothing materials. Plus, she has an array of buttons that would make even a non-sewer squeal with delight. The wool worked well for this project, although something with even a looser and softer drape would proably have been even better.

Pattern Alterations or any design changes you made:
I ended up putting gathers in the lining rather than darts. Truth be told, at one point I did indeed have darts sewn into that darned rayon lining, but I sewed them in backwards. I had to rip them all out, leaving a bit of a mess in the fabric. My patience level was low, and I am not sure the fabric would have survived additional pinning and restitching of the darts, so I opted to run a gathering stitch the length of the darted area and pull it down to size. It appears to have worked well, and I would almost recommend this as an alternative to darting the lining in the first place. "Why make darts when you don't have to?" is my motto.

Would you sew it again? Would you recommend it to others?
No. I am such a loyal Decades of Style fan that it pains me to say this, but this is not a pattern I recommend. It is just as well I guess, because the pattern is no longer available. It's officially out of print (although with careful searching you can find it still at 3rd party vendors).

Conclusion:
This pattern is a great idea but a flop in its original form. With modification it can bcome a lovely wrap with unique style. A muslin in a draping fabric is a must, and don't forget to watch your shoulder fit carefully.


p.s. I grew up with a Portuguese Water dog - Henry - who looked JUST like this lovely little puppy my Mom sat with in the park for this photo. They are the nicest, sweetest, calmest, most loyal animals. My dad is proud to say that he knew how great Water Dogs were long before Obama did, so he now considers himself trendsetter. My brain went into a time warp when I saw this picture because that dog looks just like Henry did, right down to the red leash and collar and black floppy hair in the eyes. Our Henry has been gone for about a year and a half now and we miss him. So every time we see a Portuguese Water dog we like to stop and say hello and pat their head. It is a little bit like being with Henry again.

Everybody's Favorite Claire McCardell - progress.

Everybody's Favorite Claire McCardell has taken me on a roller coaster of emotions this week. Last week I made my first muslin with hopeful excitement. Then it did not fit quite right and I become a bit despondent. I pulled out my Fit for Real People and started perusing the alterations, wondering what I needed to do to reach a flattering silhouette. But it all seemed so daunting. The muslin looked like an oversize straight jacket. Granted, the muslin still needed a full bust adjustment to even out the proportions, but even with a longer bodice and deeper darts, I still had this issue of an odd armpit fit and too much fabric across the upper chest (see images below for proof). I almost gave up. Almost.

Luckily Threads Magazine and my weekly sewing class restored my faith. Threads is offering a fitting DVD preview with the current issue, and you can find the preview online as well. My "ah-ha" moment came in watching the "Fitting the Torso" section specifically on "Fitting the Shoulders." It turns out that an incorrect fit in the shoulder "rise" can cause many problems in the chest and upper back that look like bust fit issues, but are really shoulder fit issues. Simply increasing or decreasing the slope of the shoulder patter can correct the fit.

Inspired, my sewing instructor Lovita traced my shoulder silhouette on some butcher paper on the wall and we created a shoulder map. In laying the pattern against my shoulder map as instructed in the video, we indeed found disparity between the two. In turns out that my shoulders have a more severe downward slope than the pattern, and there is a good couple of inches of excess fabric between the pattern's should slope and mine. This accounts for the pouches of fabric gathering over my bust line!

We did some other measuring, and we think that my back is a smaller pattern size than my front by a size or two. Also, we already know the pattern will require a full bust adjustment AND a full waist adjustment.

So, I went to Kinkos yesterday and for $12 I had the front and back pattern pieces copied twice, to give me the freedom to slash, spread, move and modify without fear. I am taking today off from work and plan to do some alterations (just as soon as I get back from the gym, which is yet another way to try and make patterns fit. Wink.). The next step will be to trace the altered pattern piece onto a soft fabric tracing material to construct a lightweight muslin. This will give me something form fitting to allow for final alterations. Next, I will sew a full blown fabric muslin from this altered fabric pattern, make any final changes, and FINALLY move onto my well fitting final garment.

I am invigorated and again hopeful that I can make this dress work. Claire McCardell was after all a genius of simple and flattering design, and I would be honored to wear her dress. I have two versions of it planned in my mind already. One will become my little black dress and include the full 3/4 sleeves and the fitted straight skirt with the pleats in the back. I will make this in a high quality raw silk dupioni. Second, I would like to make the cap sleeved version with a fuller circle or semi-circle skirt in a seersucker, maybe a purple and white or blue and white. And if I get this really well fitted, I also envision making the bodice only a few times over in different shirting materials for work tops. Oh Claire McCardell, you are destine to become not just everyone's favorite, but also MY favorite too!

Areas of poofing and pulling due to excess shoulder material.