Friday, August 23, 2013

Freezer Friday: Food.com

I'm gonna be lazy this week.  I have some recipes to give you, but I don't have time to type them out right now.  Here are some of my favorites from Food.com's top 25 freezer-friendly recipes.

Crock Pot Cola BBQ Pork Roast  I prefer Dr. Pepper & Sweet Baby Rays
 
Bacon Wrapped Chicken because who doesn't love cream cheese and bacon?
 
 
 
That's all for today.  I'm already on my way to Michigan!  Til next time
~elle

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Pinteresting: Travel Edition

I'm leaving for a mini-trip tomorrow and I thought a travel-related pin dump was appropriate!
 
 
 

If only I knew about this when I was in Central America.  How to delete tourists from your photographs.
 
I love this idea to make a keepsake box for mementos and photos from your trips rather than trying to scrapbook everything.
 
 
 

Platte River, Michigan I'm going to Michigan this weekend.  I'm not sure I'm going here yet.  It certainly looks lovely!
 
I look forward to sharing my weekend travel adventures with you in the weeks! 
~elle

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

WIP: SW Reunion & Laurel

I hate that I don't have anything new to show you!  I've been working on the Sew Weekly reunion project very diligently and, sad to say, the project was a giant FAIL!  I suppose I could fix it, but it's going to take me a while to unpick all the seams and sew it back up with a smaller seam allowance. 
Behold the crappy pictures!

This crazy shiny polyester creation is OMG! so tight all throughout the bodice.  The sleeves are tight. The waist is tight. So freakin' tight.
This is a polyester blend of some sort that I picked up crazy-cheap at JoAnn's. I think it cost $2 or $3 a yard.  Not a huge loss money-wise on this project fail.  I had the pattern and notions already.

The pattern (not that you can see any of the detailing with the SHINY!) is Simplicity 2588  I chose to use the slim sleeves, neckband, and full skirt. The pattern also has options for sleeveless with a yoke, a slim skirt with a back vent, puffy sleeves (probably called pleated), a belt, a bow, and tabs.  The Project Runway pattern collection is really awesome for giving you prompts when you decide you want to change something.  "Designer's extra:  Sew tabs in with back darts (or whatever)."

I threw in a zipper and called it a loss.  I have this thing that I spent so much time cutting it out and trying to make it perfect.  I made a muslin!  I made sure to find the pattern's wearing ease (4.5" my nose) before tracing the pattern pieces.  I don't ever work with polyester and this might be why.  There is zero give on the sewn fabric.  It seemed stretchy(ish) when it was laying flat, but no stretch on my body at all.  I actually really like this pattern and I really like how it went together.  I feel that this was a pattern/fabric matching FAIL.  It's unfortunate that this was going to be my sew weekly reunion project too.  Now I have ten days to make something else to submit and I'm going to be out of town for six of those days.  FUCK!!  I have a backup.  I'm going to draft and sew something.  Stay tuned for the madness.
 
(Meanwhile in Colettelandia...)
 
I'm still working on making all the adjustments to my Laurel.  I swear I'll never use another shirt pattern ever if I can just get this thing to look and fit right.  See, I have giant shoulders.  This is a good thing if I need to carry a 50-pound backpack or lift heavy things.  It's not so great when I need to buy new button down shirts, for example.  The giant shoulder thing on it's own isn't so bad, but I also have giant muscley arms.  Women have told me they would give their first born for my arms.  I'm happily child-free and I tend to like my arms as long as I'm not having to cover them with fabric.  So there's that.  RANT.RANT.RANT.
 
Pictures of progress so far:

In order to make my muslin shoulder wider, I first marked the seam allowance (purple).  Next, I found that dent where my arm bone meets my shoulder bone and I marked that with orange (this is the top orange dot--the other one marks my collar bone I think).  I found the center of the shoulder seam and marked that with a pink dot and drew a line from the armhole to that pink dot.  I had to make one more pivot point (blue) from the arm seam allowance to my pink line.  You'll notice that my blue line ends parallel to my orange dots.  This is awesome!
 
Cut along the pink line first, stopping when you hit the seam allowance.
 
Then cut along the blue line, stopping when you hit the seam allowance.  (This is the back.  I forgot to take the front picture.  Sorry, not sorry.)

Then you need to pull your pink line over to widen the shoulder to whatever you determined it to be.  I had to widen my shoulders an inch.  Then you move that blue line triangle just a bit until the top edge is flush again.  Then repeat the line process with the back piece. 
 
As you can see, I used scraps of fusible interfacing to hold my pieces in place.  I do intend for this weird cotton to become my new pattern, though I may end up having to transfer all my changes onto the paper pattern (twice because this is only the shirt part of the Laurel pattern.  OMGWTFBBQ!)  As I mentioned before about my Hulk arms, they don't fit so well in this armhole.  I thought the shoulder adjustment would help relax that mess out, and it does, but it still isn't perfect.  I already lowered the armscye 1" and I have to either redraft the sleeve or find one in a bigger size that will work for the Hulk arms and my top. 
 
So, no progress on anything really.  Happy stitching (or bitching if you're me),
~elle
 
 

Friday, August 16, 2013

Freezer Friday: Chicken Parmesan Wraps

As I promised last week after posting my Greek chicken wraps recipe, here is the chicken parmesan wraps recipe!  These are so stinking delicious.  It's always fun to have something turn out exactly as you imagined it would. 





 
Unfortunately I don't have a baked picture.  The one I baked at home to test the deliciousness ended up a little crispy because one of my out-of-town friends called me and we talked for way too long.  These are really delicious and so easy to make ahead and cook just when you need to.  I find the wraps quite filling too.  A link to the printable version is here (opens in a new window).
 
Enjoy!
~elle
 
Chicken Parmesan Wraps
 
Ingredients:
Baby spinach
1 cup pizza sauce or marinara sauce (approx.)
1 pound cooked chicken, shredded
8oz mozzerella cheese, shredded
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
Italian seasoning
12-14 egg roll wrappers
 
Preparation:
In a bowl, mix the pizza or marinara sauce with the chicken, adding more or less depending on your tastes. Place an egg roll wrapper on a flat surface. Place 2-4 spinach leaves in the center of the wrapper. Put a couple spoonfuls of chicken on top of the spinach. Next, add mozzerella and parmesan cheese to your tastes (I used a lot of cheese!) and sprinkle the Italian seasoning over the top. Fold one corner to meet the other and seal the edge with a bit of water, pressing all along the open sides to keep everything inside. Repeat until you are out of stuff. At this point, you may flash freeze the wraps for later or cook immediately. Prior to baking, brush the top of each wrap with olive oil to get a nice golden top. Bake for 10-12 minutes at 375° and enjoy!

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Pinteresting

I thought it would be fun to share some of my favorite pins of the week.  I might make this a recurring thing.  There are so many cool things out there.


One of my favorite songs Now with bonus youtube video below!
 
 

 
 
 
 
I've been on pinterest for a while.  I just chose to avoid this particular method of timesuck for longer than I should have.  And believe me, timesuck it is!

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Cocoa Beach the last

I woke up even earlier the last day I was in Cocoa Beach to get some great sunrise photos.  It's going to be really hard to narrow them down.  It was so quiet on the beach at 6am.  It was wonderful.  I love how the colors of the sunrise reflected back on the water below.  It looks quite magical, doesn't it?



















There was a surfing competition in town as well and I took some photos of that as well.  It's hard to capture the action with my camera.  Here are a few of the better pictures:











I would love to learn how to surf!  We don't have good waves where I live, but I am thinking about taking lessons when I find myself back in Nicaragua!  I want to go back there to attend Spanish school and there is a good school right near the beach!