Monday, January 21, 2008

The dinner party that ate my weekend

I'm just not excited about my shirt. Which isn't to say it's not turning out well - everything fits nicely and I'm pleased with how the collar and cuffs look. But shirts/blouses are something I have trouble getting worked up about, even with a good pattern and fabric I’ve been hoarding for over a year. Don’t know what the problem is. I think my mojo's just cranky right now from fabric deprivation. 22 days and counting . . .

Still, I worked on it for a bit last night - the first sewing since Friday due to the dinner that ate my weekend. It's really cold outside, which means it's really cold in the workroom, so all I managed was setting in the sleeves (properly, this time) and attaching the cuffs before frostbite began to set in. Hard to sew when your fingers are that cold.

Dinner on Saturday was really good. Somehow or other I've had a big old house with a dining room for over 7 years, and this is the first time I've had people in for a meal that didn't take place either on the coffee table or standing around the kitchen. I've come to the realization that I have to do something ambitious to get excited about cooking, otherwise I'll make pasta every night and begin to look like the poster child for "No Carb Left Behind.” (Hmmm, any correlation between ambitious dinners and complicated sewing projects that make me happy?)

It was my first time doing roast duck. Actually, it was my first time roasting anything, and I realized that morning that I'd actually given my mom's old roasting pan to the thrift store so I had to run out and buy a cheap foil pan. The sauce took longer than the roast - in segments, probably from 11:30 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. But it tasted like it took 6 hours, too, so it was worth it. I shooed Mario out of the house for the day - even though he was more than willing to help, sometimes having a second person in the kitchen just complicates things.

For dessert, we had a cheese plate that our guests brought, along with two bottles of dessert wine, and sat around looking at their wedding pictures. I hate having my picture taken, and that comes through; this time, miracle of miracles, there's actually a picture of me in there with the boy, wearing the dress I made for the wedding, and it's a good picture! Hopefully I can get a print so I can share it.
A little something I ran into at Loehmann's today at lunch that I'd like to duplicate. That's the kind of blouse my head is thinking about right now, not Sandra Betzina's nice little shirt.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's a beautiful cream blouse. I'm looking forward to see how the duplication turns out.

Connie B said...

Karen, Karen, go make something pretty! Like that cram blouse- that will bring the mojo back