Bopple kids

If you want to follow my baby steps on my journey of designing kids clothes come on by my other blog "Bopple Kids". This journey may be a stroll or an trek I can't say but I decided to just try and go for it...

Pictures are worth a 1000 words

they are ready now...

Floor pillow I made with some fabric I fell in love with a while back. I used fiberfill for this... it is very fluffy but if you weigh more than 50lb you feel like you are sitting on the floor. I will have to redo it using foam or some other filler. The kids love it though.

This is my new love or should I said renewed love since I bought this with money I got for our wedding. I made a slip cover because I couldn't stand the pattern on our hand me down couch.

This is a skirt I am making for the daughter of a friend of mine. Her favorite color is purple and she loves dragon. I'm going to finish off the skirt with some pockets and embroid a dragon for her.

This is the stack of fabric waiting for me... and I have a few more things stashed away or old clothe waiting to be cut and reused. But I have to say lots of fabric but little $$. Joann's had some fat quarter for 99 cents each and well I use two for a skirt! I found tons and tons of linen I bought 10 years ago... Along with some so so fabric I bought for making a quilt seriously what was I thinking maybe I can use that to make baby boy pants.... We shall see

This is the second skirt I made for MEC. The fabric was very flashy at the store but one the skirt made it turned out super cute. I need a bit of practice with the pockets. I also seriously need to improve my picture taking cuz well you don't really see anything here!

And voila ...

I think next I will finish the dress I started for MEC, then will decorate a white tee shirt for MAC, I want then to prepare a few gifts for baby showers and maybe make a top for myself pfff Wait I need to take a deep breath every 3 sentences or so.... I guess I should apply that on my blog as well.... So much to do ideas are popping in my head like fireworks. I have a few interesting reads that fuel my creativity and help me improve my sewing "made by Rae" and "Made" and all the other blogs I discover through them. Maybe one day I will give back, but for right now I will soak up all the tips and tricks that I can.

Quick recap

What has been happening in my life lately.... Lots of work, family time while my parents were visiting. Lots of sewing, dunno why all of a sudden I fell in love with my sewing machine! I mean it has been sitting there for the past 10 years! But I'm loving the feeling of creating of figuring things out! It is just so fun, I'm like a kid at Christmas time!

While I tackled the chair slip cover also known as the "vagina chair" for its color, I also decided to wrap up a few projects. So here is what I've made in the last few weeks...

- Slip cover for my super duper comfy wing-back chair first craigslist purchase thanks CG!

- Floor pillow for some of the lighter weight people in our household (need to rethink the filling)

- A dress for MEC from one side of the top part of an existing dress...

- two skirts

- One top

Pfff... Lots of projects done lots more to go and maybe some news to come if I bite the bullet!

Well you might think what happened to the training well you see creativity and training are quite mutually exclusive in my current life! So training was pretty much non-existent for the past 3 weeks. It puts me to shame when the pregnant stud ladies mind you are working out twice to three times more than me!

We are working on changing that and finding a good balance between training and creating.

Sunday I went for a ride with a friend nothing duper exciting just a little 18-20M bike ride around Rancho Santa Fe, today I went for a measly 3M confidence booster run. I will work my way back to a 5-7 day workout per week!

Finally the vegetable patch is growing, we have a few potatoes showing their foliage, about 10 yellow squash seeds have taken a lot more tomatoes and some peas too.... I will have to work on the yard as my approach was put as many seeds as possible and see what grows!

My parents have left and so the excuse of missed workouts and the laundry and cleaning up fairy!

From the garden to your plate

From the garden to your plate is something I like to do or at least try. Last year I grew peas in our pocket side garden (this is the space allocated for veggies). I had enough peas for two risottos made with fresh peas and saussage yum yum. MEC even started liking pea after helping me harvest them. Even the gopher enjoyed some too! This year I chose the "blast" or "sink or swim"approach or sink or swim. I also decided to increase the diversity of veggies.... After throwing a germed finger potatoes into the ground and getting these! Aren't they cute, eventhough my mom promised me 1lb of potato for every potota planted I'm not great at estimating weight but I'm pretty sure these don't weigh 1lb. I decided to plant 4 ot 5 bigger germed potatoes, then I threw some yellow squash seeds next to the fence, in hope that they will climb it and decorate it and feed us all in one swoop. Next I threw three different kind of tomato seeds and finally two rows of peas. Behind my herbs (oregano, thyme and sage) will go some swiss chard and probably something else... I will throw some arugula as well as butternut squash... In the meantime, using the herbs in my garden I prepared this pork loin

Here is the recipe:

• 1 pork tenderloin open in the middle (not cut through but more like butterflied)


• mushroom (white, or portobello or crimini)


• blue cheese


• bunch of oregano


• bunch of sage


• bunch of thyme


• bunch of rosemary


• 1 glass of white wine


• garlic choped.

Cut the tenderloin in the middle to open it NOT to cut it in half. Dice the mushrooms, then mix them with some blue cheese (you don't need much), the herb all chopped and the garlic. Put the herb mixture on top of he pork, add a bit of olive oil and a glass of wine and cook it in the oven until done (about 45min at 390)...

Serve with some roasted potatoes like the little one above cooked as such

Quarter the fingerling potatoes skin on, put in an ovenproof dish, sprinkle with coarse salt or normal salt and some olive oil and cook in the oven until crispy.

Enjoy with a glass of white wine or red.

sewing mania

This is really a quick update more explanations to come soon but this is some of the things I made over the week end for MEC.

I don't remember how much I paid for the fabric but I would say roughly 15$ at the most. It took me 3H00 to make and for pattern I use a old navy knit dress that MEC loves. The result is a bit more fancy than I wanted but ah well...

I went to UTC with my mom to buy some stuff for the kiddos and my nephews. I totally fell in love with this skirt but for 15$ and my new found love for sewing made me not buy it!

When I had to go to Joann's the next day to buy appropriate sewing needles, I stumbled upon fat quarters at 99cents each... Hmmm my little girl is so bitty that two and half fat quarters are enough to make a top or a skirt, add two cute button and an elastic waist and voila.... for 4$ and 1hours work!

Around the house ...

So for the few followers out there, you may have noticed that my training post have been far and few in between. While the triathlete blogs I'm following are posting huge training and wins I'm logging 9M of running/week boooh. First of all I had to put my budding mountain biking career on hold for two reasons, a) the san diego weather has really not been cooperating and b) strategic reasons that I won't bore you with. Lets just say that I decided to pick my battles and so I will roam the trails in a few weeks! Then well I will shamelessly use my parents are in town card and I have lots of work. Both are pretty lame excuse but since I get to see my parents once a year I think it is still OK. I have been able to manage a 6-7M run on the trails on the week ends, one or two runs in the week and a session of yoga! Enough about what I didn't get to do but lets focus on what I have been spending my time doing because it wasn't watching TV. One of the main reasons I stopped working with Lesley which I miss dearly is to get to do more of the other things I enjoy: Namely making things. I hope one day I will be able to train hard and make things and work and .... I am almost done with my chair slip cover and I'm thrilled how it looks. I am quite surprised I didn't screw up at all and while every seam are not perfect and not quite symetrical. The result is rather pretty if I may say so myself or as B would put it "It is better than before". But see for yourself. Some details, the corners of the pillow with the piping were one of the trickiest part but it came out rather nicely. Then to add a bit more style I sew on the outside along the arm and I like the way it came out.... Now my armchair and sofa downstair look quite grimy in comparison. Maybe I'll have to tackle that one next and the big 3 seater couch as well... we shall see.

stay tune for the other things that have kept me busy besides family, work and house stuff....

All the things I love to do...

My parents arrived from France last monday night! It has been nice to have them and the kids are spending some time with their grandparents. For us it means a bit more time together to run, to mountain bike or even go out to the movies and dinner. Since I stopped working with my coach I didn't train every day this week tuesday and friday and sunday were off oops. However I need to figure out my schedule and my workouts. Yesterday B took me trail running. I was a bit anxious because last time we went together I found it very hard. All the hard work I put in last year in terms of training has paid off and I had a blast. I totally fell in love with everything. We ran 7M total and 2.5 were on the trails but those 25 min went by sooo fast. I was so focused on where to put my feet and taking in the scenery that I wasn't worried for once about my speed, that B had to wait for me etc... I was just in the moment! As soon as we hit the pavement all those worries came back. I'm hoping that I'll do a lot more trail running in the future! First I need to find a few girls who don't mind to get scratch up and dirty! One reason I stopped working with my coach is to have a bit more time for my home projects! I do tend to have a long list of them. B has no problem with me being so creative but he has one rule! You gotta finish a project before starting a new one. Since my free time is quite limited I have had a few projects waiting their turn patiently. The one that irritates B the most is the so called "vagina" chair named for its lovely shade of pink. He utterly despises the color and thus couldn't wait for me to get started on the slip cover. Since my parents are in town I hired my mom as a helping hand. I always do that to her! So we washed the fabric last night I know incredible I followed directions! It was dried and ready to go in the morning. I did read a few blog posts describing vaguely the steps to follow along with a few pictures. I decided that was enough to dive in myself. Some areas were a bit more dicey than others. The results is less than perfect but for my second slip cover ever it isn't too shabby. This is where it is at after working from 10:30-6:45pm with a 2H00 break at lunch. You can apreciate the difference between the pink color of the sitting pillow and the rest of the chair! We still have to trim the fabric at the seam, iron it and remove the basting thread. I hope to post pictures of it next week finished and back to its spot! I'm pretty pleased I have enough fabric to recover the IKEA chair as well. I am also a bit bummed because the white duck fabric is more see through than I expected! Especially since I bought the heavier weight! I'm hoping that a bright colored pillow will distract the eye! Then I will be allowed to purchase a bit of fabric to make two accent pillow and a bed throw. For a complete post let me put down the recipe of what I threw together for lunch! It is a morrocan/tunisian spin of the shepherd pie... - Ground beef - 1 egg - 1 cup Couscous - 5 yellow squash sliced - Cumin - Tumeric - Paprika - Balsamic vinegar - Olive oil - Cilantro In a bowl, mix the ground beef with the egg, the spices (cumin, paprica, tumeric) salt and pepper. For the spice mixture adjust for the flavor you like. I tend to use about 1tbsp of cumin, 1 tsp of paprica and 1tsp of tumeric. You can probably also add coriander etc... Cook in a pan and break it as you cook it. Slice the yellow squash marinade in olive oil 2tbsp and 2tbsp of balsamic vinegar, add some cumin to this as well. Sautee in a pan at high heat so the squash carmelize a bit. Cook the couscous, add bit of olive oil at the end. Once everything is cooked, in a low rim serving bowl put the meat at the bottom, then the squash and finish with the couscous. Decorate with some spices sprinkled over the couscous and some chopped cilantro.