Help!

Anyone out there have any good ideas for a homemade gift for a baby just turning one? I've been taking care of my friend's baby girl in the afternoons when her and her husband's shifts overlap (they are both cops) and she is just such a funny, sweet little shmoopie:



I'd love to give her something handmade by her Aunt Meggie, but I don't think a six-pocket handbag is quite the thing (the only thing I am confident I can make between now and October 2). She's got eight million relatives working on quilts for her, so I'd like to do something other than that. Any ideas would be most appreciated - as long as they don't involve, you know, darts.

Save yourselves

That bag? The Lily Beth one? It has...darts. DARTS. ON A HANDBAG. It's bad enough that this is an actual pattern, one I will have to pin to the fabric and then cut around - as though that's actually possible for real human beings who do not possess super powers - but, darts? I tried that whole dart thing on that wrap skirt I made earlier in the summer, and they were, lets say, crappy. No idea what I was doing then, no idea now. I hate to use such lovely fabric on what will surely be the instrument of my demise. Maybe I should get some muslin.

Wishing I had a good bag pun

The pattern I ordered to use with my new fabric is taking a while to arrive - I failed to notice the Etsy shop alert that the proprietor would be away until this Wednesday. Until then, I have found this:



Only eight bucks and it's a PDF - comes right to your email!

My need for instant gratification probably bodes ill for my diet plans, not to mention my sewing.

Sex on a Plate

Assuming, that is, you like, you know, sex. I lost my libido somewhere around 2005 and haven't seen it since. But considering how much my husband talks about it - it must be pretty good!

Also pretty good are homemade crepes with chocolate Grand Marnier sauce. I had never attempted crepes before, having been taken in by all the propaganda that says they're really hard to make. Bullshit! Obviously lies from the Pancake Council, who want us all enslaved to the thick, baking powder-enhanced slabs we've become so used to. Crepes are absurdly easy, and you can quickly cook up 2 or 3 for a quick snack and keep the batter in the fridge for later.

And besides, my goals for the week said nothing about delicious chocolate yumminess.

CREPES WITH GRAND MARNIER CHOCOLATE SAUCE

For the crepes:
2 cups all-purpose flour
4 eggs
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 1/4 cups milk
1/2 stick butter, melted

In a food processor or blender, mix together flour, eggs, and salt. Add milk and blend, then melted butter and blend. If batter has a few lumps, just pour it through a strainer into a plastic container and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Lightly spray a non-stick, 6 or 8 inch skillet with cooking spray (you will probably only do this once) and heat on medium high. When pan is hot enough to evaporate a drop of water on contact, pour a scant 1/4 cupful of batter into the pan and swirl to coat the bottom of the pan with batter. When the edges are brown and the middle is pocked with bubbles and no longer looks wet, flip using the thinnest spatula you have (I use an offset icing spatula). Cook for only a few seconds to lightly brown the second side, then flip onto a plate. Make as many as you desire and store the batter for later. The batter can officially be stored for 48 hours, but I've gone 3 days with no problems. If the butter separates in the fridge, just whisk it back in.

Sauce

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon Grand Marnier

Combine the chocolate chips and cream in a heavy saucepan and cook over medium low heat, stirring constantly until chocolate is all melted. Add Grand Marnier and stir. Sauce will firm up in the refrigerator, but only needs a few seconds in the microwave to melt.

The crepes can be folded on a plate and served with a little ice cream and sauce. I just roll 'em up and dip 'em.

Enjoy! If you, you know, like that sort of thing.

The time has come, the Walrus said, to lose some fucking weight

By all the measures available to me - online, at the gym, in books, at my doctor's office - I am not just fat. I am obese. Oh-fucking-bese. I can no longer use any sort of euphemism to describe my excess adipose tissue, and now the word "fat" no longer does the job. And I haven't even officially hit the 200-pound mark yet!

Last Christmas, we packed up the kids and went to stay with my parents in Tennessee for a week. The day we arrived, I happened to notice a pamphlet lying on top of a low bookcase, a pamphlet which appeared to be the instructions for a glucose monitor. After a day or two, it was hard not to notice that my mother was not partaking of the ridiculous feasts that my father insists upon preparing for each meal when we visit, and instead seemed to be eating very simple and measured meals. I waited in vain for her to mention something herself, until finally I couldn't take it anymore and I asked her, "So, are you diabetic now, or what?"

Her response was "Goddammit, John, you were supposed to get rid of everything!" Apparently, she intended to hide her recent diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes (my mom is definitely obese, and has been for many, many years now) from all her children at Christmastime because she didn't want us all "making a fuss." Not that we are, in general, a family of fuss-makers. We can raise a good stink, but we're not as talented with fuss.

But I think now that she wanted to hide it so that we wouldn't be able to scold her when she clearly fell of the wagon a matter of months later. My dad told me earlier in the summer that she claims to be testing her blood glucose levels regularly, but she hasn't asked him to pick up any supplies for her monitor in a long time. Then, when she had knee surgery in July, the doctor mentioned that her glucose levels were something ungodly.

And I totally understand, because even in the face of all the health problems that I know are associated with obesity, and knowing that I almost certainly have diabetes in my future if I don't lose weight, I have yet to maintain a diet for more than, oh, a few days at a time. Of course, I usually go at it the way I go at everything: all or nothing. I decide that I will never, ever, ever crack open another Dr. Pepper, and by day two I am sneaking them in on errands so that I can drink them in the car where they don't "count."

So, this time, I am going to take a different approach. Each week I am going to try to meet two goals. And they have to be reasonable goals, not anything grandiose (I WILL FLUSH ALL CHOCOLATE DOWN THE TOILET. I WILL NEVER EVEN THINK ABOUT SUGAR, MUCH LESS EAT IT.) And I will document those goals, and my success or failure in meeting them, here.

So, here we go. Are you excited? I can tell you are.

WEEK 1:
• Drink 3 glasses of water each day. (I realize the recommended amount is 8 glasses, but that, to me, is a "grandiose" goal. I will work my way up to that gradually).
• 30 minutes of exercise 3 days a week. (I currently have a free gym membership, thanks to my magazine job, and I LOVE this gym. Mainly, I love the showers, where I can actually shave my legs without having to tell some small person to stop opening the shower door and PUT DOWN THAT TOILET PAPER. They have a very nice child care center, reasonably priced, AND for 30 minutes on the treadmill I can listen to This American Life on my iPod. Why I'm not there every goddamn day, I simply cannot explain.)

And if I meet my goal? DOUGHNUTS!

Dude, I need to go "destash"

After finishing the two bags, I am down to remnants in my fabric box (I know you're supposed to call it your "stash," but that, to me, still suggests a hidden cache of pot. NOT that I would know anything about that, of course). I suppose I could whip up some wallets or something to go with the handbags, but right now, I've got purse fever and no pill's gonna cure my ill - just more bags! I've been trolling the various online fabric stores, searching for my next inspiration, and eventually, after endless minutes in front of the computer (my day's kinda full) it all starts to blend, an endless sea of cotton.

I had purchased the sushi prints from eQuilter.com - a great store for its vast selection. I placed the order Sunday evening and it was shipped on Wednesday, arriving via Priority Mail on Friday. This time, I'm going with an Etsy store, Fabricworm. She carries great sets of fabric that you can buy in half-yard sets, or yard sets, or fat quarters - or just yardage of individual fabrics. And the thing I love about Etsy stores is that they usually ship that day, so I expect to have my new fabric as early as tomorrow. Oh, and here's what I got:



They're from the Erin McMorris Park Slope collection. Can't wait to get started and I think this is what I'll make:


(Update: this pattern can be purchased here.)

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go clean up the eggs that my husband has been throwing at the TV screen tonight.

Bliss in a bag

It has been a full weekend here at Chez Bitchy. Number One Daughter turned five, and we used what funds we might have spent on a more elaborate celebration on a violin instead. Her daddy was a cellist, back in the day - when I was a young, impressionable, recent college graduate and he was a young, horny, recent grad school graduate. I always tell people that he convinced me to marry him by playing me the Bach cello suites, but that's not actually what he convinced me to do (if you get my drift). I guess he's feeling a bit deprived lately, because he got out the cello for the first time in a few years and the kids were quite impressed. N.O.D. decided that her instrument would be the violin, and from that moment on, we heard nothing else, talked about nothing else but violin, violin, violin. So yesterday we made a pilgrimage to the music store to rent a 1/8 size student violin. She loves it so much she asked to sleep with it that night.

Then the next day I arranged a movie date with her "best" friend, a 9-year-old who tolerates N.O.D.'s worship of her with uncommon grace. We saw Wall-E, had lunch, and came back here for ice cream, cake, and more presents. And even after all this, she threw a hissy fit later because it just wasn't as "exciting" as she wanted her birthday to be. I reminded her that on MY birthday, a mere 3 weeks ago, NO ONE did ANYTHING. No cards, no cake, no "let's take mommy to dinner." Nothing. And when I pointed out to the girls' father that he had dropped the ball, can you guess what he tried to do to make up for it? NOTHING. I didn't hear anymore about her sucky birthday after that.

And as for me, as soon as I finished that ugly quilt top, I started in on the six-pocket bag. Thank god for all the half-assed sewing I've done so far - it has all prepared me for THIS:



That's not to say it wasn't fraught with difficulty. My seam on the bottom edge looks like I was having seizures while I was making it, the pockets don't line up on one edge, and I couldn't understand the instructions on how to box the bottom, so I just didn't do it. And I was certain that my machine would die upon being asked to sew through as many as 10 layers of fabric (the straps are folded 3 times) and two layers of batting, sending needle fragments flying and blinding the children. (It didn't!) But even as frustrating as it was, I made it all in one day, and it was insanely fun. It was so much more satisfying to have made something I could immediately use, than a quilt top that still needs to be quilted and bound (and lord know when that will get done).

I felt rather proud of myself. And so, drunk with power, I made this the next day:



I had purchased that fabric the day I discovered my hidden-gem quilt shop, thinking that it might work as a backing for my first quilt top (it didn't. Once I finished the bag in 3 fabrics, I thought I'd give it a whirl in only one - and I quite like the result. AND - I found this fabulous tutorial on how to box the bottom, which now makes me want to go back and fix the first bag.




Until I made these, I had forgotten that part of my original inspiration to try this sewing thing was this bag I bought from Etsy:



I love this little bag so much, and when I got it, it really hit me that someone made it, probably at home, with her sewing machine - and maybe I could learn to do the same thing. And now, just a couple months later, I'm two quilt tops and two handbags closer to my goal.

I think that deserves a doughnut, no?