Cupcake has a Little Lamb

My favorite thing to sew is clothes for Cupcake, but looking in her closet she really doesn't need any clothes right now.  Except maybe pants.  I'm willing to buy leggings for her because they are cheap and fit her chubby legs well, but they aren't the best option for the cold weather coming soon.  Some sturdy, simple, plum-colored canvas pants coming up!

I followed my favorite basic pants tutorial on MADE and whipped up these pants in no time.  I'm excited to have made something so useful - these will go with a lot of her wardrobe!  So plain is good and practical, but it is also a little boring.  

This month for Project Run & Play the challenge wasn't a specific pattern but adding some hand-sewing to whatever we wanted to make.  Plain purple pants were the perfect canvas.  But what to add?  Cupcake and I discussed mermaids, princesses, dinosaurs and stars.  Then we came up with the jackpot: Sheepie.  If you know anything about my daughter, it is that she loves her little stuffed lamb.  Sheepie goes everywhere with us - church each Sunday, the zoo, grocery shopping.  Sheepie was even in the pictures with Santa.  Why not immortalize him on some pants?  

They were going to be hippie pants with a little bit of everything on them - I sketched stars on one hip, dinosaurs on the opposite thigh.  Of course we thought of the sheep after that so Sheepie was added to the back of one leg.  I started sewing Sheepie before the other designs, because that's what Cupcake was most excited about,  And then I realized just how long hand-sewing takes.  My hands got tired and my elbow was sore, the deadline was looming and Sheepie really was the best thing going for these pants so I stopped after that.  

 One slight problem: the sheep was on the back of the leg.  It would have worked with other things sewn onto the front, but by itself it was just sad.  So I cut the leg off and turned it around and sewed it back on.  Now there is a random seam across the leg, but I don't mind it, and Cupcake is too enamored with the sewn sheep to care.  I love how the simple embroidery transformed these plain pants into favorite ones.  There will definitely be more hand-sewing in my future!

traditional Greek Easter dinner

Adam decided we were going to be a bit more adventurous for Easter dinner this year, and found this article the other day on NPR with a number of recipes in it. Adam followed the recipes exactly, since these were all new cooking concepts.

chicken and rice soup - we had this with homemade sour-dough bread. It was the perfect complement to it! The lemon flavor was quite prominent in the soup, but it wasn't overpowering. If you try this, be careful with the eggs so they don't cook up wrong. This was our "first course" which we had for lunch between General Conference sessions, and we had the rest of the dinner after Conference ended.

roasted leg of lamb - this was expensive! 30 bucks for a not-very-large piece of meat! We wondered at first if we'd like it - if not, that was a pretty big waste ... but hey, at least then we'd know to not spend that kind of money again. But it was good! Lots of rosemary and garlic and other herbs in it. Adam is sold - we'll have this maybe once a year just because of the cost.

asparagus with dill and garlic - asparagus was something I never had as a kid, but have liked quite a bit as an adult. It also had melted parmesan cheese over it.

There is also a recipe for an Easter bread (the red eggs on it look kinda yucky, if you ask me). Adam planned to make it but we ran out of time and didn't really need it anyway because we had the sour-dough to go with the soup.

roasted new potatoes with feta cheese - this was not included in the article but Adam found it to be a side to the lamb.