Holding Pattern
Oct. 10th, 2011 08:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chrysillaOver the last week I made a new necklace, with beads, lucky cat, and a ribbon. And then I started collecting the recently completed pieces in a bowl so I don't lose them before the photo session. Tho I don't know when that's going to be. *shrugs*
Tuesday I found out my oven doesn't work. It gets a little warm, but not all-the-way warm, and a friends suggests that there is a blockage in the gas feed. This means no baking for a while, until I can pull things together to get a new oven. I can do that with savings that were already going to go towards updating the kitchen, including spiffy new tiny oven, but I wasn't planning that until next summer. Oh well, the prophecy must advance. Until then no cookies, brownies, cakes, or breads :-(
The stove top still works fine (well, three out of four burners operational as per usual), so this weekend I spent a lot of time getting to know my dutch oven. Fried the big package of chicken thighs (four at a time, one set marinated), & made a terrible chicken gravy from the first batch.
Took the four pound chuck steak and made pot roast in the methodarcane_the_sage described. It didn't impart that much flavor to the meat, will check with him about what I did wrong, but is still nummy. I let the leftover liquid boil down and made a much better beef gravy. Probably my first gravy evar that didn't suck. Tho it took a couple of tries to figure out "Oh, I need to make the roux separately and add the liquid to that pot," there were no ill effects from that. I think. It's pretty strongly flavored gravy, but I like it, but I'm very forgiving of the taste of my own food.
Overall, I have enough food for at least two weeks of lunches and dinners, maybe three. So that's some time saved for beading and sewing, maybe writing, I hopes.
In other kitchen news, I picked up a carton of dried milk to make hot chocolate with, b/c I have bad luck with normal milks. It tastes a bit like cardboard, but its really just meant to be a carrier of Hershey's cocoa anyway, and it does that fine.
It was tea weather for, like, five minutes. I'd like that back pls.
Finally made the muslin mockup of the jacket pattern I'm working on. I have the swayback/bigbutt problem with fabric bunching up at the lower back. Tailoring it to fit my back perfectly was annoying, and I wanted a looser jacket anyway, so I just made the back panels wider with some tricks I learned on the internet, and then mis-remembered as I retraced the pattern onto other paper. Still turned out OK, and the velvet + lining will give it a bit more structure than the muslin anyway.
Next I want to do a muslin for the vintage-reprint dress that I have fabric for, so I can finish that by Halloween party season. And I suspect finishing the jacket may make me too tired to work on the dress anyway, so no rush there.
Might set up my hallway to see if it works as a place to do model-shots of jewelry and clothing. To see what happens. Am not expecting very much, b/c I look terrible in most photographs and in almost all photographs taken by me. I had the Myspace-mirror-photo mastered for five minutes before I lost it again. Dangit.
Might order a much needed extra pair of pants or two from Macy's online tonite. Ordering online usually goes badly for me and clothing, but now that I'm learning some basic tailoring techniques I think it will be OK. And I have lots of pants to replace after gaining more weight over the summer. Whups. My jeans barely zip up over my tummy now, but I haven't liked denim in such a long time anyway. And could never find plus sized black denim. Neat black trousers it is!
The heelspur was getting a lot better, especially after spending the whole weekend at home, and being home sick on Wednesday, but today its pretty bad again. I need to start looking for a new PCP to see about this and the lethargy.
I did get to hang out with a friend I hadn't seen in many months on Friday nite. And it was fun to go out for a bit. But for the most part, I am content to be at home getting in touch with my inner Boggan. Sometimes I get hit with a wave of srsly lonely depression, and I got hit with a really bad one on a night last week. However, they seem entirely separate and distinct from my usual feelings of "I'm tired, and would rather go home and sew things than go to a show tonite." This is what therapy is for.
<3 Chrysilla
Tuesday I found out my oven doesn't work. It gets a little warm, but not all-the-way warm, and a friends suggests that there is a blockage in the gas feed. This means no baking for a while, until I can pull things together to get a new oven. I can do that with savings that were already going to go towards updating the kitchen, including spiffy new tiny oven, but I wasn't planning that until next summer. Oh well, the prophecy must advance. Until then no cookies, brownies, cakes, or breads :-(
The stove top still works fine (well, three out of four burners operational as per usual), so this weekend I spent a lot of time getting to know my dutch oven. Fried the big package of chicken thighs (four at a time, one set marinated), & made a terrible chicken gravy from the first batch.
Took the four pound chuck steak and made pot roast in the method
arcane_the_sage described. It didn't impart that much flavor to the meat, will check with him about what I did wrong, but is still nummy. I let the leftover liquid boil down and made a much better beef gravy. Probably my first gravy evar that didn't suck. Tho it took a couple of tries to figure out "Oh, I need to make the roux separately and add the liquid to that pot," there were no ill effects from that. I think. It's pretty strongly flavored gravy, but I like it, but I'm very forgiving of the taste of my own food.Overall, I have enough food for at least two weeks of lunches and dinners, maybe three. So that's some time saved for beading and sewing, maybe writing, I hopes.
In other kitchen news, I picked up a carton of dried milk to make hot chocolate with, b/c I have bad luck with normal milks. It tastes a bit like cardboard, but its really just meant to be a carrier of Hershey's cocoa anyway, and it does that fine.
It was tea weather for, like, five minutes. I'd like that back pls.
Finally made the muslin mockup of the jacket pattern I'm working on. I have the swayback/bigbutt problem with fabric bunching up at the lower back. Tailoring it to fit my back perfectly was annoying, and I wanted a looser jacket anyway, so I just made the back panels wider with some tricks I learned on the internet, and then mis-remembered as I retraced the pattern onto other paper. Still turned out OK, and the velvet + lining will give it a bit more structure than the muslin anyway.
Next I want to do a muslin for the vintage-reprint dress that I have fabric for, so I can finish that by Halloween party season. And I suspect finishing the jacket may make me too tired to work on the dress anyway, so no rush there.
Might set up my hallway to see if it works as a place to do model-shots of jewelry and clothing. To see what happens. Am not expecting very much, b/c I look terrible in most photographs and in almost all photographs taken by me. I had the Myspace-mirror-photo mastered for five minutes before I lost it again. Dangit.
Might order a much needed extra pair of pants or two from Macy's online tonite. Ordering online usually goes badly for me and clothing, but now that I'm learning some basic tailoring techniques I think it will be OK. And I have lots of pants to replace after gaining more weight over the summer. Whups. My jeans barely zip up over my tummy now, but I haven't liked denim in such a long time anyway. And could never find plus sized black denim. Neat black trousers it is!
The heelspur was getting a lot better, especially after spending the whole weekend at home, and being home sick on Wednesday, but today its pretty bad again. I need to start looking for a new PCP to see about this and the lethargy.
I did get to hang out with a friend I hadn't seen in many months on Friday nite. And it was fun to go out for a bit. But for the most part, I am content to be at home getting in touch with my inner Boggan. Sometimes I get hit with a wave of srsly lonely depression, and I got hit with a really bad one on a night last week. However, they seem entirely separate and distinct from my usual feelings of "I'm tired, and would rather go home and sew things than go to a show tonite." This is what therapy is for.
<3 Chrysilla
