Coffee date dress fabric!

My fabric--a sneak peak of a later project in the background!

Inspired by this Anthropologie dress, I chose a print for the skirt and a solid for the top of my dress. The print is kinda this crazy water coloresque print, and the top will be a light blue. I'll also use the light blue for the lining. I can't wait to make my Picnic Date Dress with all of you!

My inspiration:
Anthropologie Sunny Soiree Dress

How's your fabric searching going? I'd love to hear about it in the comments section!

Coffee Date Dress Sew Along Details!

I've set a date for my coffee date dress sew along! We'll start working on Monday, June 19th. Correction: Sunday, June 19th (2011). I'll post ~30 minutes of very beginner level instructions for each day. This means you should buy all your supplies in the next month. At the start of the sew along, I'll post a calendar with what we're going to do each day. I expect the whole thing to take about two weeks, and I'll leave a few "catch up days" in there in case you miss a day.

Committee Meeting Dress

Sexy Date Dress
Click the picture to see the blog post

I have used this pattern twice before, once to make my "Sexy Date Dress," and once to make my "Committee Meeting Dress," which I made before I started this blog. This time I'll make a "Picnic Date Dress"--a sundress version out of plain cotton or cotton/polyester material. I would recommend that beginners also make a sundress style coffee date dress, but if you're more experienced,  you could use this sew along to challenge yourself with a fabric that is more difficult to work with (like satin).

I'm thinking about doing the top in one color and bottom in another, like on this Anthropologie dress, which really resembles the coffee date dress:

Peach sorbet

I had half a bag of frozen peaches sitting in my freezer forever, and since I'm about to move, I'm trying to avoid having too much frozen stuff I have to move. I thawed them out, figuring I'd make some type of dessert. I decided to go with a sorbet!

My google searching led me to learn that a sorbet is really just blended fruit and sugar. I blended the peaches, added sugar, added lemon, and then I boiled it. Did I have to boil it? I don't think so... but those peaches had been sitting in my freezer for a LONG time, and then they spent a few days in the fridge, so I just wanted to make sure they weren't going to make me sick. I cooled it back down, added a splash of rum (so it wouldn't solidify beyond being scoopable), and stuck it in the ice cream maker! It was delicious!


Peach sorbet
1 1/2 cups frozen peaches
1/2 cup sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp rum


Blend the ingredients, make sure they're cold, and put them in an ice cream maker. Move to the freezer for at least two hours.

My poor, poor little tomatoes

I thought it was about time for a garden update. I'm moving in a few weeks, and my new apartment doesn't have a porch like this one, so my garden will have to be much smaller and much more indoors. However, I really can't live without tomatoes, so I planted some cherry tomatoes and roma tomatoes to grow in pots on the fire escape of my new apartment. I had posted a few pictures of these tomatoes when they were babies, but then they got really big really fast! Like a good four inches tall with lots of leaves. Sadly, I don't have any pictures of this stage in their lives... They were on my windowsill when one day, it got really windy! 


My poor tomatoes got blown around quite a bit, and they never recovered:

Dead

One lone tomato remains
(I had just thinned out this pot, too,
since there were like eight)

My cinnamon basil seedlings survived the storm, though (they were on a table next to the window, not on the windowsill):

Sexy date dress

I love love love the coffee date dress pattern (well once I altered it). I've made a dress from this pattern before--before I started my blog--I'll share that with you when I post the details of my June sew along. 


I decided to take the dress up a notch and made it out of black satin. It's something polyester, so even though I loved the fabric when I first got it, I got frustrated with it pretty quickly. Still, I think it turned out nice! The dress definitely benefits from a belt, so I chose red... and my new three inch heels that are actually comfortable and walkable. Here's the final product (you have to click read more to see the rest of the pictures)!