Jeans Fly Tutorial

For you, Sherril. ;-)

Click here.

Super Bread for the Superbowl

First, I have to say Best Game Ev-ah! I'm not usually a Giants (or Patriots) fan, but we were all rooting for the G-Men last night and jumping up and hooting every time Brady was squashed down. And with as many times as Tommy Boy was hammered, it was almost aerobic exercise.

Ahem. OK, back to today's post.

I knew that once the pre-game stuff started I would be mostly planted in front of the tube. That meant I had to get the eats out of the way early in the day so the boys wouldn't be interrupting me watching Ryan Seacrest (Ryan Seacrest??) on the red carpet (red carpet??). Actually, it's Terry, Howie & Jimmy that I watch every Sunday during football season. I like the pregame shows almost as much as the games. What the heck was with a red carpet on Superbowl Sunday anyway?

The day's menu:

Late Lunch: Nachos and Terriyaki Wings (nachos from scratch, wings from freezer)
Very Late Dinner: Cowboy Chili with Cheese 'N Onion Bread

The Cowboy Chili you've seen before, here. The bread was absolutely delicious and perfect dipped into the Cowboy Chili. Yum. But don't plan to kiss anyone after eating it. ;-)

Cheese 'N Onion (Bread Machine) Bread

Makes a 2 lb. loaf

1-1/3 cups water
3 tbsp powdered milk
2 tbsp sugar
1-1/2 tsp salt
4 cups white bread flour
2 tbsp dried onion flakes
1/3 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1-1/4 tsp yeast

Place ingredients in the order listed into the bread pan and process on "Dough" setting.

Remove dough from pan and place in oiled bread baking dish/pan. Let rise for 45-60 minutes, until doubled in size.

Bake in preheated 375 degree oven for 20 minutes. Remove, sprinkle a handful of shredded cheese over top and return to oven for another 20 minutes. Remove from baking dish and let cool on rack.


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And this?



That's one of the burners on my cooktop, which since Friday is fully operational again. Yay!!

Shirred Success

Here's the final top on me. Yes, I'm still wearing my new jeans. I'm never taking them off. I wore them half of Thursday and all day yesterday and they didn't stretch/bag out a bit. See. Best Jeans Ever. (Thank you all so much for the nice comments!)

Anyway, the shirred Burda top is done. You can read the full review here, but the short of it is I ended up taking the entire thing apart, cutting a whole new front, modifying the back, and cutting new sleeves. I thought when I first pulled this fabric out of the stash that it would be OK if I had to sacrifice it to a wadder. But the more I looked at it and tried on the ill-fitting version, the more I decided that I wanted to keep it if possible.

During the week I worked in spurts with unstitching and evaluating the fit issues. Because I did it in small increments of time, it didn't feel tedious or annoying. Which is good, because now I have a top that I'll wear a lot.

I released each end of the shirring to see how that affected the armhole curve. It really didn't affect it at all. The problem was the shape of the pattern, not the shirring. So I used my TNT Ottobre tee front armhole shape/width to modify the Burda pattern. That fix, new sleeves and a modified back which fixed the too-far forward shoulder seam and batwings problems was what I needed.

I'll keep this pattern and make it again. Well, actually, I'm only keeping the front pattern piece. I've marked on it in big red lettering to use the Ottobre back and sleeve pieces with it.

Oh, and don't be surprised if you see shirring show up again something else I make, because I really liked doing it and how it turns out. (Hi Angie!)


Parting Shots:

I've mentioned that Dani has been enjoying nibbling on my comforters, right? Well, a few weeks ago I noticed that it was Too Quiet downstairs. Like when you have young human children and you just know that something bad is happening. I went upstairs to find Dani and Chili in the center of my bed, surrounded by clouds of fluff. DH had forgotten the rule of last person up immediately makes the bed or else. Well, "or else" happened and that comforter was now beyond repair. It's one thing to patch the edges. Another thing entirely when the center has been shredded and defluffed. Ahem. Bad (giggle, giggle) Dogs! Bad (snicker, snicker) Dogs! You should have seen their you-know-what eating grins when I found them.

So I took the main comforter off the bed and dragged it into the sewing room to evaluate what I could do until we replaced it. While I was doing that, the dogs decided that the bottom comforter was now fair game too. Grrrr! The bottom-layer comforter is now waiting in my sewing room since I have plans to cut it up, serge the edges and make doggy nap pads. Except, well, they beat me to it. The napping part anyway.



A new bottom comforter and a top quilt were purchased and put on the bed. Here are the "Bad Dogs" on the new bed stuff with DS. And I know, it's only a matter of time.

Best Jeans Ever — Reviewed

The review is here. But what you really want is the pictures, right??





I love these jeans! The pattern turned out to be a clone of my TNT so, really, the best part is the fabric and is what makes these my Best Jeans Ever. Dark navy denim with just a hint of stretch. I'm SO hoping that the denim I ordered yesterday from Fabric.com is more of this wonderful stuff because I can't remember exactly where I got this piece from and now it's all gone. Sniff.

Today I'll be finishing up my re-make of the shirred tee from the latest Burda Plus. And waiting for the cooktop repairman. Maybe I'll be able to use my pots and pans again tonight.

Best Jeans Ever

That's all I'm saying.

(Until I write my review.)

Oh, and one more thing … Fabric.com has their stretch (and other) denim at 30% off their already discounted prices. Click here. But only through midnight tonight. I got my order in so am now telling all of you. There's not much of the 10 oz. and 12 oz. so hurry! I'm mentioning this because part of the reason these are the Best Jeans Ever is the darkness, weight and only slight stretch of the denim. Look at the Dark Navy (#BF-738) and Dark Indigo (#BF-735). I ordered Dark Navy and Indigo Blue (#BF-721) because I want to see piece-to-piece the difference between 10 oz. and 12 oz. These denims are all only 2% Lycra, which is enough to be comfortable but not so much as to be baggy by the end of the day. OK, you've been enabled.