Small Pouch, Pencil Case

I could have sworn that a while (as in years) ago I posted on making little zipper cube pouches. I thought this was about to be a sister post, for a rectangular pouch, but I see no trace of this other post. This, then, is long over due! I recently bought a yard of fantastic red and white linen and then went to town sewing up my favorite quick projects and using it all up in a day and a half. It was so great to spend that much time sewing. I love these pouches. They take very little material and make great gifts, too.

Instructions after the jump!

Eating on the East

As you know, I'm transitioning to the west coast (!) - I left Boston at the end of October and traveled down the east coast, bidding farewell to friends and cities. I have no sewing machine and no pantry so I can't contribute much on those fronts (the only "project" I've done is mend some buttons) but I thought I could talk about some of the fun places I've eaten along the way.

New York City
Doughnut Plant in Chelsea and Dough in Bed-Stuy: Such great flavors; pricey but thats how boutique treats go.
Roberta's in Bushwick: A bit out of the way, but a great space with great pizza.
Bearded Lady in Prospect Heights: Cool corner spot, bright mid century chairs.
Sit and Wonder in Prospect Heights: Stumptown coffee, great egg and sage baguette, wifi.
Pequena in Fort Green: Fantastic mexican fare. I'd go here all the time even if Lindsey wasn't there (say hi!)
The Habitat in Greenpoint: They have trivia - with buzzers!
Anotheroom in TriBeCa: I could live in the look of this bar.

Philadelphia
Ultimo: Counter culture coffee and beer, a sister to Atlanta
Green Eggs Cafe: Don't be fooled, the red velvet pancakes are hardly breakfast fare.

Baltimore
Brewer's Art: Esquire named this one of the country's best bars.
Milk and Honey in Mount Vernon: A wonderful cafe and market.
Soup's On & Ok Natural in Mount Vernon: Great organic soup shop nestled up with a natural market.
Pitango Gelato in Fells Point: The banana taste just like pureed banana, which I love.
The Windup Space: a bar with the Black Lodge from Twin Peaks set up. Enough said.

Washington, DC
Actually, I just ate at the museums on this day trip.

Atlanta
Vesuvius on Edgewood: Great pizza, lots of space.
Sister Louisa's Church of the Living Room on Edgewood: I thought bars like this only existed in NYC. Two levels, garden, ping pong table and choir robes to wear.
Sun in my Belly in Decatur: The ideal brunch spot.
Octane in Grant Park: The sister to my old westside haunt; plus a bakery.
Carroll Street Cafe in Cabbagetown: Not new to me but a must-go place if you're in the 'hood.

I'm now at home in Kathleen, Georgia through Thanksgiving. I fly out on a one-way ticket to San Francisco on Friday. Eee!

*A special thanks to Foursquare (and me for checking in) for keeping track of where I'd been!

Candied Key Lime Slices

Sorry about the inconsistent posting as of late. Allen and I were out of town for quite a while, traveling in Italy and France. It was a great trip. There were little disasters (I lost our train tickets - replacements, in fact, for the train that we'd missed 15 minutes earlier), and minor mistakes (Allen said "Hola!" to nonplussed Italians more than once (note from Allen: Only once.)). But there were little victories, too: I learned a little Italian, and my triumphs include successfully ordering quantities of cheese in a crowded Venetian market while Allen stood behind me and whispered, "Get some salami, too. Salami!" Allen's greatest feat was more dramatic: he cool-headedly jockeyed through Florence traffic in a Fiat while I pushed an imaginary brake pedal and stifled shrieks.

Allen, my awesome husband, was an ideal travel companion. Aside from being generally fun and hilarious, he hauled my giant suitcase around Europe (of course, I offered to tote his reasonable carry-on), while I packed it ever-fuller with jars of honey and olivewood cutting boards. And if I ever got tired of bumbling through Italian greetings, or searching for a French verb that I haven't used in years, Allen was always ready to step in and shout "Hola!" to everyone in the vicinity.



Jessica is presently gallivanting across the eastern seaboard, and me? Well, now it's time to eat and drink and catch up with friends (Jessica among them!) - before the holiday eating and drinking inevitably starts, which is a whole other kind of eating and drinking, and will require commitment and preparation. But we're back in the meantime, however sporadically. Those Christmas dioramas aren't going to decorate themselves.

Now to the project at hand. Our noble little key lime tree, who lives in a pot and had to be moved indoors last night, has given us 10 or 20 little ping-pong-ball sized fruits. In my determined campaign to turn everything healthy and natural into candy or cake, I took those fruits and made gorgeous little stained-glass treats - candy to decorate a cake!



Here are the instructions:

places: Gardens at the Villa Lante, Bagnaia, Italy

After spending the better part of a decade studying architecture, this year I finally got around to taking a course on Renaissance and Mannerist architecture. It's the kind of class that breaks your heart a little, knowing you can only take it once.

The course has subtly realigned so many of my priorities and tastes. Shopping for drinking glasses a few months ago, I found myself thinking, "These are nice - but would they look at home in the Villa Giulia?" A ridiculous hypothetical for almost anyone, but particularly for someone living in a 900-square-foot house from the 1940's. A more fortuitous result of this reanalysis is this kind of inner dialogue: "These jeans are nice. But the money I'd spend on them could pay for 2% of a trip to the Villa Lante."

A note on the photos: I've used the photographs of Ken McCown and Pandorea to illustrate this post. Please visit their gorgeous Flickr albums.