In a much shorter series, let’s begin the chronicle of making the bow ties. My sister was looking around for bow ties to purchase, but discovered they were quite expensive, and the bridal party is rather large (ten girls, eight guys). So, putting my sewing skills to good use yet again, we are making the bow ties. The fabric was purchased during the same shopping trip in which we procured the flower girl fabric. She decided on a green seersucker. […]

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Day six began with a search for the bus to take us to Hanauma Bay to go snorkeling. After walking around for what felt like an hour, we finally had to ask directions, only to be sent back in the direction of our own hotel, where the bus was across the street! We arrived at Hanauma Bay and had to wait on a very long line to get inside to watch a special video about what NOT to do while […]

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Today I cut out the lining pieces for the bodice, and realized I need both an underlining AND and lining if I want the dress to be more streamlined. So I used the initial bodice lining pieces that I cut as an underlining for the sheer pieces of the bodice: What I ended up with was this, a fully lined, raw-edged piece. This is, of course, not the final product: I repeated this process with the back lining pieces, and […]

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Our adventures in Hawaii continued the next day with a trip to the aquarium. Apparantly Kara and I can’t get enough of the animals! (Actually, we had tried to go the aquarium the day before but couldn’t find it, ending up at the zoo instead!) Lindsay was back with us again, and with her help, we made it there. We spent a nice afternoon walking around looking at the fish (among other things we found Nemo) – at one point […]

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Yesterday, mom, Lindsay and I headed upstate for my cousin Thomas’ high school graduation party. It’s events like these that really make time feel like it’s flying. Thomas, along with my aunt and uncle, Carol and James, used to live with us in the basement apartment at my grandma’s house (well, THEY lived in the basement apartment, and we lived upstairs… we did not all share one tiny basement apartment) for a couple years after Carol and James first got […]

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Summer vacation means I am now dedicated to the project of creating the three flower girl dresses for the wedding. The skirt pieces are still up in the air (though I have an idea for the skirt that will work), but I decided to go ahead and cut out the bodice pieces yesterday. Laying the fabric out. I love piling the fabric on the floor and just looking at the sheer amounts of it which will become a dress (or […]

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Day three of our trip to Hawaii dawned nice and bright (in fact, I don’t think it rained the whole time we were there, and even if it did it was a passing thing, like much of the island). Kara and I were flying solo, as Lindsay had classes to attend. Already dressed in out bathing suits for out beach excursion later in the day, we decided to walk through Waikiki and try to find the zoo, which was easy […]

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This is the famous Roberts family cheesecake recipe. With it I posted the story I wrote about it for “Secrets from the Kitchen,” the recipe/story project I do with my students. No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, the wisdom of cookbook authors.” -Laurie Colwin When I was a little girl, I used to stand in the […]

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Our adventures in Hawaii began bright and early on the morning of April 4, when we headed out on the “Circle Island Tour.” As mentioned in a previous, “quote-of-the-day” post, our tour guide’s name was Kona, like the coffee. He picked us up at the hotel and we began our very full day of sightseeing. Our first stop was the Dole Pineapple Pavilion, where we enjoyed “pineapple whip,” a frozen dessert. Kara and I thought it tasted kind of like […]

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