I seem to be in some sort of funk. I’m trying to get back to my drawing. And I’m trying to get back to sewing. But I just can’t seem to get going. I have a feeling it has to do with the books I borrowed from the library. I’m too busy reading.

I’ve had a pattern laid out on my sewing table now for I don’t even know how long. Weeks?

I also have pictures piling up that I’m not sharing. And everyday makes the pictures older and not worth sharing anymore. So how about some very recent pictures from this weekend? What did we do this past weekend?

Dye Easter eggs! When was Easter? You never mind that. Just look at the pictures.

Isabelle, surprisingly, made very little mess. The only mishap we had was when she pulled the table closer to herself and spilled blue dye into the bright orange dye and made brown dye.

And of course she did get some dye on her hands. You know that was unavoidable. But look, it’s barely noticeable.

Ok. Off I go to sew or draw. No I’m lying. I’m off to read.

I like dessert, any kind of dessert. Usually I prefer chocolate but sometimes I crave fruit. My usual fruit dessert is apple pie. I like the apple pie recipe I use but it takes way too long to make and to cool. So I’ve been on a search for a quicker fruit dessert.

I came across a recipe for a rustic fruit tart. It’s a “cooking without recipes” recipe from Fine Cooking. What does that mean? Well “cooking without recipes” lays out the basics and you can customize the ingredients to your liking.

So first I tried a rustic pear tart.

It was o.k. but the pears didn’t work really well. I didn’t like the way they looked, they reminded me of mushrooms. The texture of the pears also wasn’t to my liking. I think I should have peeled them. And it wasn’t exactly quick.

But I tried the recipe again because the pears were so disappointing. The second time around I had blackberries and strawberries. I had just bought some little tins so instead of one big tart I thought I’d try four individual tarts.

Originally I was planning to just bake the tarts with the fruit sitting right on top of the dough. But they looked ugly and messy. I had leftover dough so I cut some strips out and laid them on top. Much prettier.

But again it’s not a quick fruit dessert. There’s the mixing and then letting it rest in the fridge for 15 minutes. Then the rolling, making the filling, the egg wash, and it takes 50 minutes to cook! Wow I’m tired just from typing all that out much less cooking it. But if anyone wants this recipe let me know.

So…anyone have a good quick fruit dessert recipe?

Thank you everyone for the recipes!

And look! I’ve been drawing again…finally. I have another one all drawn up and ready to go for tomorrow (or whenever I get to posting again).

Yes. I know, I just went to the fabric store last week. But really, if you were me, you wouldn’t say no either.

And plus, I got to take pictures like this when we were there.

And I came home with….FABRIC! Bwa ha ha ha!

It’s linen. I had in mind to make more tops like the green top and the blue top with some alterations.

Alterations like this. No, I haven’t gotten back to sewing. I’m just playing catch up with pictures. This is the same pattern as the blue shirt from ISBN 4579111494. I just altered the hem. It has a wide band on the bottom. I don’t know if you can see that from this picture.

Yeah, so the plan was to make more of these shirts. That is until I remembered that we’ll be getting very hot weather in the summer. Then I thought maybe I should be making tank tops. No shirts. Tank tops. Shirts. Tank tops. I’m wishy washy like that.

Ok. Off I go to not sew with my new fabric or patterns, but to argue with myself on what to make. Have a good weekend and may you be more productive than me!

I’ve been feeling a bit scatter brained lately so this post is all over the place.

How was everyone’s weekend? We didn’t do anything except buy toilet paper and stuff like that from Target. Wow, how exciting huh?

Well we did play with binoculars.

They’re screaming fun! (Well for Isabelle)

Oh and I did get sewing done! Not this one but a tank top.

This one is the alteration on the pattern I showed before, in muslin, from ISBN 4579111494. I liked the band at the bottom but wanted it a little thinner than my test shirt. But I went overboard and made it too thin. I still love it. Well except for the color. What can brown do for you?

Oh and because this post isn’t random enough, here’s the drawing:

And also to make this post even more random and all over the place, here’s a video.

We were in the car and Isabelle was singing “Happy Birthday” and “Itsy Bitsy Spider”. It was so cute that I grabbed Alan’s cell phone and started recording. But when we got home, I checked the clip, and realized you can’t hear her. So I edited it just to the last bit where I’m singing and Isabelle is doing the hand motions.

I spent way too much time on the computer today trying to make a change to my Wordpress theme. I was on the computer so long researching, I actually feel nauseous. And the change did not work to my liking. Sucks. And because of that, my plan to scan pictures of the one of the Japanese craft books I got ages ago, ISBN 978-4579110438, didn’t happen. Oh well…maybe tomorrow.

This tank top is from that book. It’s too small and pushes down on my boobs. I’m so disappointed.

But here are some pictures of Isabelle that make me happy.

We were drawing with Crayola 3-D sidewalk chalk. It comes with glasses and when you draw with both sides of the chalk, and then look through the glasses, the colors pop out all 3-D like.

I thought it was very cool. Alan thought it was very cool. Isabelle? Didn’t notice at all.

She just had fun drawing outside on the sidewalk, on her face, and on her clothes.

I’m having one of those days where I didn’t get much done. I thought about doing a lot but that’s about as far as I got, the thinking part. BUT I DID scan in the pictures from ISBN 9784579110438.

Here’s the picture from the book of the tank top I showed yesterday. I’ve altered it since then and…it’s so depressing, I’ll write about it tomorrow.

No. Actually, I’ll write about it now. The test tank top in muslin (thank goodness I made a muslin) as I mentioned before was pushing down on my boobs.

The empire style (is that what it’s called) part of it was sitting in the wrong area. It’s supposed to sit right under my boob but my damn boobs are so big I had to mush them in and it wasn’t fitting. The bottom half puffed out unattractively making me look pregnant. I didn’t take pictures of a side view because, oh my gawd, the horror! The picture, from yesterday, didn’t look that bad but in person, YIKES! So I altered it.

I thought I would add three more inches to the top half so there would be more room for the girls. Well it doesn’t smoosh my boobs down anymore. And it doesn’t make me look 8 months pregnant. But it’s still a little tight, just a tad. Then it dawned on me, to measure my chest. That’s when I realized, I’ve gained weight since I first purchased the book. Or to be more accurate, I’ve gotten bigger.

That’s why it’s so depressing. That’s why it doesn’t fit! I made the largest size, 13, and it still doesn’t fit!! Aaaarrrgggh!!!

So now I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I should alter it more to actually give me more inches around or just give up and try a different pattern.

But what’s the point? Maybe all the patterns from this book won’t fit since the largest size is 13. I really wanted to make pattern #13, the one above on the left, but it doesn’t look like there’s a lot of room in the chest area.

Maybe pattern #10, the one above on the right, has more room? I don’t know. Maybe I should measure the patterns.

Man, I’m bummed. I look at pictures of myself and am sometimes surprised that I look bigger than I imagined. Is that a weird thing to say? Well turns out I am bigger.

So yeah…don’t know what to do now. Oh I almost forgot the whole reason for my post. I got distracted by lamenting about my weight. Here’s what I meant to link to, the rest of the pictures from the book.

Oh I hate being pathetic. I had to give myself a laugh. I looked up “I’m too sexy” on youtube and sang “I’m too big for my shirt, too big for my shirt…” with a little head shake and everything. Yes I’m a goober, a big fat goober.

Lately whenever Isabelle brings some pens over, asking me to draw, I find myself drawing this little guy. He sort of reminds me of a hamster.

Then I remembered, when I was little, we had a hamster. I can’t remember his name. I can’t remember what happened to him. But I do remember I used to take him out of his cage, hold him in my hands, and “fly” him around the room saying, “Super Hamster!!”.

And seeing as the topic for Illustration Friday is “save” I thought I’d share.