Tuesday, December 7, 2010

The saga of the coat....

A few months ago, I saw an ad on craigs list... someone in my area was looking to hire a seamstress to replace the lining on her coat.... I thought this was a great idea.... I figured it was an easy way to make a little extra money. I mean, I've replaced coat linings before. It's not hard.... you take out the old one, use it as your pattern, make the new one.... done...
This is not that type of project. For starters, this is a vintage coat where the lining started to deteriorate last winter, so the owner of the coat cut out the old liner and proceeded to wear the coat unlined. Which means there is no original liner to use as a template. Which means I'm working from measurements. No biggy... might take me a little longer, but not impossible... I told her to go buy some fabric and I'd do it. So she did. But she bought not one, but two types of fabric.... because she liked both. And could I somehow incorporate them both into the design? I'm trying... really I am... It's been interesting so far. But waaaaaaaaay more work than I anticipated.... add to that that the temperatures here are already plunging into the teens on a daily basis and I feel rushed to get this poor girl her coat back, and I'm feeling the stress. So I'm off to work on it.... again.
I'll post pictures, if I can ever get it finished....

Friday, December 3, 2010

Wedding cookies

So, I know that at this time of year, when people are thinking about cookies, they generally have Christmas in mind. But, I don't have time to think about Christmas cookies. Sadly, I looked at the calendar the other day and realized, holy crap! The wedding is in like, six months!!! Cue major freak out.
But anyway, the dessert issue was a big one for us. We struggled hard as far as what to serve, because neither one of us is very into cake... and really, I didn't see the need for spending hundreds of dollars on a cake neither of us wants. I'd been wanting to somehow contribute to the food but I don't really know how to bake a wedding cake....
We tossed around a few other ideas, but they all seemed too expensive/impractical, etc.... So. Then it hit us. We both love cookies. Cookies can be baked a few days ahead of time. So we're having a cookie table. We'll bake several different kinds, I can have a few friends help and we'll put them on a bunch of different platters and done. That's all.
So now I'm trying to decide what kind of cookies to make. Here's what I've come up with so far:
-My future mother-in-law has offered to make her mother's gingersnap recipe
-I'll be making Josh's favorite, peanut butter blossoms (those peanut butter cookies with a hershey kiss in the middle)
-I'll also be making my signature trail mix cookies (I posted the recipe for those a little over a year ago on here)
-Also, traditional chocolate chip cookies
-I have a really good sugar cookie recipe I'll probably make

So that's where I'm at so far... any other suggestions? The one thing I'm stuck on is that all of these are basic drop cookies.... and I was thinking it'd be nice to have some sort of cookie cutter cookie, maybe in the shape of wedding bells or something... but is that too cutesy and traditional wedding-y for what has basically been dubbed the un-wedding?