Frequent readers are aware that my knitting group celebrates National Pie Day each year in January, and we thought it unfair that cake didn’t get it’s own special day, so we made one up.

Our original idea was to tie it to an important Marie Antoinette date of some kind, but it got moved around a bit and the first (annual?) Let Them Eat Cake Day was celebrated this past Sunday.

We had meatloaf cupcakes with mashed potato “frosting,” crab cakes, corn bread cake with chili sauce, pink lemonade cake, lemon blueberry cake, blueberry pound cake, pumpkin whoopie cake, and leftover graduation sheet cake.

After gorging ourselves on a round of savory cakes and a round of sweet cakes, we traipsed outside to a) slip into a food coma or b) burn off some sugar high with a game of croquet.

Maggie demonstrates the proper food coma form.

Afterward we pulled out our Tupperware and divvied up the copious leftovers, and let’s just say I’ll be celebrating Cake day all week!

I’m not what you’d call a sporty person, but after a year and a half off, I took up jogging again about two months ago.

To give myself some motivation, I signed up for the Portland Sea Dogs Mother’s Day 5k.

It’s the second-largest race in the state, with 3,000 registrants and over 2,600 runners on the actual day.

You don’t quite realize how many people that is until you’re in the midst of it, but that is a lot of people! But it gave me a lot of options for people to pace myself off of, and I’ve learned that I seem to run at the approximate pace of a fit 65-80 year old man. (I just squeaked past a 79-year old at the finish line).

One of the reasons I chose this particular race was because the finish line is inside Hadlock Stadium. And I totally felt like a superstar running into the stadium and giving high fives to the kids along the edge of the seating.

I can’t say I’m at the point where I enjoy running itself, but I will say that this race was a blast.

Oh and I finished 33 seconds better than last time!

I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned this here before, but I’m a bit of a comic book geek. My comic love was rooted in the90′s X-Men cartoon, but really got it’s start in college, when I would drive my friend James to new comic book day every week. In return for transport, I could read all the comics he brought back, and from then on I was hooked.

So when I saw this LaFrock dress on Pinterest, I quickly decided that I MUST make one of my own. As in I found appropriate fabric and ordered it the next day.

I actually found the fabric used in the dress above (Alexander Henry’s “Sewing is Easy Print”), but I wanted to kick up the nerdiness a notch and picked this “Girl Power” print from Camelot Cottons, which features Wonder Woman, Supergirl, and my personal favorite, Batgirl.

The dress is cobbled together from two patterns, the waistband and bodice are from Colette Patterns Parfait, and the skirt and pockets from McCalls 4826. Despite some issues with the front bodice facing, I really liked the way the bodice came together and I have some lengths of linen I’m eyeballing to become a straight up Parfait this summer.

The dress is super comfy and is maybe one of my favorite things ever.

I spent a solid day putting the whole dress together, because I had a deadline to meet…

Free Comic Book Day!

A lovely event that happened this past Saturday (and the first Saturday in March every year, in case your planning your 2013 calendar). And where else to wear your comic book dress than to hang out with cosplayers and get a dozen free comic books??

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some reading to do.

Like most sewists, I definitely fall on the side of being drawn to frosting projects over cake projects – personally, I would be happy sewing nothing but pretty dresses, even if I wear a dress maybe once a week. But recently I’ve been finding a bit more balance between projects like my houndstooth dress, which I enjoyed sewing, think is awesome, but only wear occasionally:

and my slew of School House Tunics that I wear practically every time they’re clean enough to wear.

This weekend, I focused on some serious cake.

But that isn’t to say cake can’t be fun too.

Sure it’s a basic black skirt, but have you seen the inside??

In typical Leah fashion, I took a simple project (Colette Patterns Ginger, a total of four pieces), and made it 100% more complicated by adding pockets and finishing all the seams with home-made bias binding.

That said, I’m pretty pleased with the finished product, even if the fabric seems to spontaneously generate lint. If I had to make any changes I would have 1) used a stiffer interfacing in the waistband 2) gone a size down in the waist and 3) done the recommended hem length (I did a bit deeper hem).

(Might still do that last one).

I’m fairly certain this basic will get heaps of wear, especially since it looks so fantastic with my saddle shoes.

Oh and I should say that I’m not abandoning the pursuit of frosting, because my next project may very well prove to be the most fantastic, least practical thing I’ve sewn since my Halloween costume. (Still wondering where I can wear that).

I was initially attracted the Knitscene call for submission when I came across the “southern comfort” prompt. My brain started thinking of hanging moss and Gone with the Wind and I ended up looking at a bunch of photos of corset covers, which, along with a tank I had from Banana Republic,  served as the starting point for the design.

I was specifically drawn to the blousey shape and sometimes embellished necklines.  I ended up choosing this very simple openwork (two-sided lace) pattern and starting thinking about construction.

This top couldn’t be easier to knit. It’s knit in the round to the armholes and then split at the armhole to work the lace and then seamed at the shoulders into a boatneck. Even if you’ve never knit lace before, the stitch pattern  is an easy two-row/ four-stitch repeat that gives a lot of visual bang, for a small amount of complexity buck.

The swatches above where done in Quince & Co’s Lark, but the final design was done in Kollage Yarns Riveting Sport, a recycled denim yarn. I’m always a bit wary about recycled yarn, but I found this to be lovely to work with. It’s not splitty and very light.

I will note that the yarn is machine washable/dryable, but my gauge information was based on a swatch/sample that was hand washed and blocked flat, so if you have plans to machine wash/dry your final garment, do so with your swatch and adjust needle size as necessary.

The magazine is currently on newstands or is available as a digital download from the Interweave store. Eventually the pattern will be available as a stand-alone download in the Interweave store (presumably after the magazine is off shelves).

You can also queue it up on Ravelry.

Not this weekend, but the one before, I squeezed in some time to sew, and churned out this blouse, which I decided I also need to make in a swiss dot someday.

The pattern is the 1960′s reproduction pattern Simplicity 2154, and I even bought a bunch of yardage of linen to make the rest of the suit (which strangely enough, about the same number of total pieces that this blouse).

I love the fabric, which is a sturdy cotton from Lotta Jansdotter’s line that I picked up at Z Fabrics. My only two mods to the pattern were extremely minor: 1) I decreased the seam allowance along the hips, and 2) I did the “Mena Test” of Sew Weekly fame and omitted the side zipper.

The top is sleeveless, but it was way too cold/windy to bare arms on the day I took these photos, but they’re finished off nicely with some bias binding.  The whole thing is pretty simple to sew and I can’t get over how nicely the collar lies.  Yep, I definitely need at least one more of these!

On Sunday I wrapped up my 40+ days of vegetarianism with some french toast and bacon, but I thought I ought to do a wrap up of sorts.

Over the course of this year’s experiment I got a lot of questions about it from people, mostly the real vegetarians in my life, so while I don’t really have any new photos for this post, I do have a Vegetarian Q&A.

Q: Did you miss meat?

A: Yes and no. No, in that I never at any point was craving meat, as in “man, I need a burger,” but I did miss it when substitutions were less tasty to me. Like my attempt at making falafel was less successful than my ability to make chicken gyros, or when my substitution of veggie stock in risotto made for a very odd tasting meal. But in other cases, the vegetarian option was just as good or better (like restaurant-made falafel). I also missed meat when some restaurants had a limited/poor selection of vegetarian options (Ri-Ras, I’m looking at you!)

Q: Did you feel better/healthier?

A: I didn’t feel better, or less sluggish or anything physically, but mentally I did feel that I was introducing better food choices into my world.

Q: What was the hardest part?

A: Cooking without a doubt. I’m not a great and/or particularly enthusiastic cook to begin with, so there’s that. But mostly when I started this whole thing I didn’t have a much of a vegetarian cooking repertoire. So there was a big shift in having to change the way I grocery shop, and find recipes, and trying out 2-3 new recipes a week, with mixed results.  Though I wouldn’t say my repertoire is huge now (I had more failures than successes methinks), but I do have more options, as well as an ever expanding Pinterest board of recipes to try and an expanding feed-reader full of vegetarian cooking blogs, so I expect that to continue to grow. I did find that when all else fails, make a pizza.

Q: What was the best part?

A: Discovering new foods. I’m particularly a fan of quinoa now, which I’d never had before, and I forgot how much I like spinach. I like veggie-burgers. And I’m surprised at the number of recipes that called for parsley, which I had always thought of more as a garnish, but no more!  It also made me look beyond the same old some old at the grocery store and on menus. I could still expand my range of vegetables though.

Q: Would you consider staying a vegetarian/doing it again?

A: I don’t think that I will permanently be a vegetarian, I like keeping my options open, and for me, it’s about health more than any moral imperative. But I would like to continue to incorporate more vegetarian eating into my diet going forward.

Q: Any favorite recipes?

A: Yep! Here’s a few I’m definitely be making again (or already have):

• Vegetarian chilaquiles
• Quinoa Tabbouleh
• Nutty Cinnamon Breakfast Quinoa
• Barley Salad with Herbs

There’s also a few improvisations, like the aforementioned pizzas and some veggie masala that was quite tasty.

There you have it!

Look, it’s the summer edition of Knitscene.

With a two page spread of my design!

My name in print!

This hasn’t happened since I got a byline as an intern for an article on August Wilson’s play cycle in the Jan/Feb 2007 edition of the Goodman Theatre’s OnStage Magazine (So totally different).

And there it is again!

I was pretty much doing a little happy dance all night long!

And then,

Candy!

Happy Easter!

The light in the evening is coming back in spades theses day, for which this California transplant is grateful. It makes me feel so much for active and productive in the evenings, which is great, because it’s been a busy week and it’s going to be a busy spring.

Because with all the bright happy sunniness of spring comes new responsibility – probably a day a late and a dollar short, but I’ve started thinking about all the stuff I need to do to get  vegetable garden in the ground this year, not to mention spring cleaning, repainting the peeling deck, and all that sewing I want to do as soon as it starts getting warmer.

But for today, I’m taking it easy (as much as that’s possible on a work day) and not worrying about all the work that’s to come.

Deep breaths, and one day at a time.

All photos of Barley Herb Salad from Martha Stewart Living. Which is totally delicious, especially if you add extra mustard.