I am on vacation. I will not be going anywhere. At all. Seriously, when you’re gone all the time, home is good. I may even buy new sheets to celebrate.
When I got back to SFO the other day I thought I’d drive home via Berkeley and a seriously great fabric store there, Stonemountain and Daughter. I’ve been hankering to make a coat. I love coats and own several (more than several, but I shall have a clear out soon). I usually just wear one or two, plus my uniform coat and those coats are all black. I want to make a coat that’s not black, something a bit more fun. But not too hard since I’ve never made a coat and I want to be successful.
Stonemountain has an upstairs section where all the fabrics are half price. They usually have some fab wools and silks up there so I thought it would be worth a look. I found several pretty coating fabrics – gray, black, brown – but knew that this raspberry Italian textured wool coating would do for my frivilous, non-black coat. Raspberry! AND it was $13/yard.
Now to figure out how to make a coat and find a pattern. I’ll look in my reference books and online, but if anyone has coat making recommendations now is the time to share them. I also need to find a pattern and that turns out to be the hardest part of all. The big pattern companies have about 2 coat patterns each in their Fall offerings and one is so 80s it’s almost fashionable again. Luckily I’ve got years of Burda magazines to look through. I’m sure I’ll find a few to choose from there.
Also, now would not be the time to point out that it’ll be in the 80s all week where I live, so coat needs are not immediate.
Foodwise, I got a baking stone at Kohl’s sale the other day. It’s a rectangular “cookie sheet” but I’d never make cookies on the thing. Pizza and bread yes. The first thing I made was Smitten Kitchen’s Shaved Asparagus Pizza and it was one of the most delicious things I’ve ever put in my mouth. Seriously. I used low fat mozzarella, a bit of cheddar leftover from Mac and Cheese and lots of red pepper to make it hot. Yum. I tried the pizza dough recipe from The Bread Bible and that was good and easy too.
While relaxing in my bed fighting off the jetlag, I was watching a Hercule Poirot (my fave of faves btw) and there is said HP rocking a mighty interesting shawl (he’s got a cold in this episode). Gorgeous colorway, interesting use of feather and fan-like pattern. Must note that for possible Raspberry coat coordination at a later date. Also, be afraid. I learned how to do screen grabs and it’s totally easy…
Must get back to relaxing now!
