Potluck Lunch at Work

Our team every now and then has a potluck lunch at work. The theme this time was appetizers (plus desserts) and it was amazing!! Here are the dishes.

Smoked trout with dill on cucumber...
Crab stuffed mushrooms...

Steak tartare...

Asian beef bean sprout salad...

Bruschetta...

Brazilian desserts...


Stuffed Zucchini

I made the stuffed zucchini. Sorry for the rotated picture! I'm not sure why this one got rotated and I dont know how to rotate it back. :( Here's the recipe I used for the stuffed zucchini.

Girls at Church

The little girls (~ 2nd - 5th grade) at our church decided to get together and sell bracelets made out of yarn to donate to our church building fund. It was so cute!! I had to support this handmade "non-profit" business! My purchase was a special request... so instead of a bracelet it's a skinny scarf with little tassels. It was made by hand knitting... no needles! I just love the colors!

Fun at the Machine

I bought some basic thread (white, navy, and black) at Joann's on Friday so I could play around with my new serger. Saturday morning was a lot of instructional video watching, which taught me the different features of the machine as well as how to thread the machine. The threading took a couple of tries but in the end I learned and it's pretty easy! :) I'm super happy about my purchase and I was able to finish the cozy cardi! Here's the completed piece just hanging on a hanger. I'll have to take better pictures another day.



See my scrap bin on my machine. You can tell the machine got some good use this weekend.



I serged all the raw ends of my wool pieces to prep for pre-shrinking later this week based on this blog. It's so pretty and exciting! (I'm such a nerd!)



My hubby and I went to Inner Space Caverns in Georgetown on Saturday for a date! Here are some of my favorite pictures.



Not very good lighting inside the building, but it'll have to do. Can you tell we're Texas fans?! :) Hook'em Horns!

I Got a New Toy!!!

I got a new serger earlier this week!!! I'm SuPER excited about this, but I haven't had too much time to play around with it. I hope this weekend I will get some alone time with it. :)

I had bought a serger over the summer off of eBay, but it was NOT a good experience so after a long drawn out process I was able to return it and get my money back. This is what that serger looked like... there's a big crack in the corner!

I should post some of the emails from the seller... they are quite ridiculous, but I will spare you the drama.

Here's my brand new toy that was ordered from SewVacDirect. No cracked corners here. :) I hope that I overcome the learning curve very quickly and start using it right away. I think my first project on it will be the cozy cardi. Wish me luck!

Silk

I washed the black silk charmeuse the other night in the bathtub with a little bit of shampoo and my bathtub was covered in black/purple dye! Hahaha.. later I found that silk doesn't hold color very well especially dark colors (particularly black) from a website... but I can't find the website anymore.

Here are some more tips in handling silk:
http://www.emmaonesock.com/guides/silkcharmeuse.asp
http://www.denverfabrics.com/pages/static/Silk/silk-fabric-care-sewing.htm

I just need to press it and then I will be ready to be cut into the beautiful black silk charmeuse! I wonder if my scissors are too dull to cut into the silk... I suppose I should test it on a corner first. I'll be turning this into a silk blouse using Simplicity 2601 and it will be the first piece in my fall SWAP.

This has definitely been a learning experience. Hopefully, I can summarize my whole experience from purchase of fabric through final product once I finish my project.