Birthday Dinner!

I planned a special dinner for my birthday yesterday.  I remembered to take the "before" picture.

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But I forgot to take an "after" picture!

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We had Beet and Beet Green curry, with Toasted Spices Lentils.  It was delicious!  And fabulously pink!  Here's the closest thing I have to an "after" picture: leftover cake!

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Fall is in Full Swing

Fall is now in full swing.

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Sprocket and I took a walk to Columbia Park on Friday, and found that all of the trees have changed colors.

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We also found this huge pile of dead leaves.  Sprocket wanted to jump into it, but I wouldn't let him!

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Downward Facing Dog

Last night while I was stretching my back Sprocket came over to do some stretching, too.

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We call this downward facing dog.  He does it a lot, but somehow we have never been quick enough with the camera to catch it on film before now!

Decorative Boxes

I recently found a tutorial online for making decorative fabric covered boxes.  Then when my mom was down here visiting we went to Fabric Depot and found this great fabric on clearance, so I bought a yard of it and set to work making my own fancy boxes!

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To start I gathered the tools that I would need: cardboard boxes, fabric, a box cutter, and Mod Podge.

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Then I followed this tutorial.

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Voila!  Beautiful boxes that look like I could have bought them at a store!

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Produce Bags

Each week when we get our bin of vegetables we have to decide where to put them all.  When you get lettuce at the grocery store you just grab plastic bag from the reel and stick the lettuce in.  Well, the CSA doesn't provide plastic bags, and while we do try to save our old ones we frequently run out.  

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So I decided to make some cotton produce bags out of an old bed sheet.  So far I've made four and they are working out pretty well.  My only complaint would be that they aren't see through, so I have to open up the top to see what's inside.  For example, this morning I thought that I had pulled out the lettuce, and went to get some out to put on David's sandwich, but it turns out that I'd grabbed the bag that had bok choi in it!  They sure do feel similar!

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The bags have a casing for a drawstring, but so far I've only made one.  It takes a while to make a cord with my knitting spools!

New Skirt

Over the weekend I sewed a skirt.  This was my first ever project that followed a pattern.  In the past I've done things that are pretty simple like square napkins, and a straight skirt with an elastic waist (no need for shaping or zippers).

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This skirt is an a-line skirt with an invisible zipper in the back.

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The zipper took a few tries, but I got it looking pretty good!

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I also think that the skirt will go pretty well with both of my recently finished sweaters!  The little bit of blue that is the contrast color in the skirt fabric is a close match to the blue short sleeved sweater.

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I think that the brown shrug will go well, too, although this picture makes it look pretty dark.

Knitting Spools

I've been wanting a knitting spool for a while now.  I feel like I used to see them at stores fairly frequently, but as soon as I starting looking for one they all seem to have disappeared!  

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I mentioned my frustration to David and he came up with a brilliant solution.

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David cut off about 3 inches from the end of one of our broom handles and drilled a hole in it.  With 4 nails in the top it works great!

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The cord that my "broom" knitting spool creates is pretty dense.  To make a looser cord the hole would need to be bigger and the nails would need to be further apart.  That clearly wasn't going to work with the "broom" knitting spool" so David made me another one!

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This one is made from a piece of Cocobolo wood.

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The cord that it makes is definitely looser, so now I have 2 knitting spools and 2 options for cord making.  And they are way cooler than the store bought kind!  Thanks David!

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So now the only question is: why did I need to make cords?  Stay tuned: the answer to that will have to wait for another day.