Busy

Not to overstate the obvious, but this doctorate sure takes up ALL of my time! I miss this space, though.

I realize that part of why I don't post more often is that I feel badly about the quality of my pictures. Since I usually find myself cooking late at night my lighting is the pits. Not to mention that the form and composition of my photos leave a bit to be desired. But that won't get better without practice, right?

Anyway, Fred and I just had new headshots taken by our most awesome friend, Rachel. This woman is seriously amazing. I love that we have engagement pics, wedding pics, and now these headshots marking every October for the past three years. Quality photos are key, and finding Rachel was such a blessing. So here's the evidence that we are, indeed, alive and well. Till next time.

Peaches

Did you know that peaches grow well in New England? I seriously didn't. I always associated them with the south. But I've been researching pick-your-own apple farms in the area, and everyone has peaches right now. Peaches, and late season raspberries. Craziness! Naturally, I had to go see for myself what this was all about.

Fred and I picked a rainy morning to head down and try out a farm. Well, we didn't pick the rain, it's been raining non-stop and we're running out of free mornings, so we went anyway. I won't say much about the farm, because it honestly wasn't that great. But indeed, they did have peach trees and we snagged an awesome ton of little peaches.



These guys were all on the small side, and the pits weren't proportionately smaller. Some of them were freestone, but a lot of them weren't. So we spent an awful long time slicing the peaches off their pits. But oh, the smell! Man, I don't know what grocery stores are hawking these days, but they sure don't smell like peaches quite like these did. And the taste! Every sweet juicy bite had us grinning like fools.

And then we made more peach jam than I can shake a stick at. Vanilla bourbon peach jam, to be precise, because with a name like that I couldn't resist. I adjusted this recipe a bit, and while mine didn't come out all beautiful and bright orange like the original, it still tastes like joy.



Here's my recipe. I used Pomona's Universal Pectin, which allows for double batches and way less sugar. This is a rough amalgamation of the suggested recipe inside the box and my inspiration. Note that other pectins will have you add the sugar and the pectin at different stages in the process. Be sure to scale the recipe and follow the instructions from your pectin of choice!

Vanilla Bourbon Peach Jam
(makes about 11 cups)

8 c. chopped peaches (yield from that basket up there)
6 T lime juice
1/2 vanilla bean pod, halved and scraped
pectin as per the instruction in the box
3 c. sugar
1/4 c. bourbon (Jim Beam Black)
2 t. almond extract

Prepare your peaches as you'd like. (We didn't peel ours, and just chopped them roughly as we pitted them. One batch we blended into submission with a hand blender. The other batch we smashed with a potato masher, and later decided to blend partially. Do whatever works for you.) Mix in a giant pot with the lime juice, seeds from your vanilla bean pod, and the calcium water if required by your pectin. Bring this mess to a boil, stirring quickly enough to not get splattered. Next, as per Pomona's instructions, add the sugar and pectin and return to a boil, still stirring carefully. Remove from heat and pour in the bourbon and almond extract. Contemplate as to whether this delicious boozy stew might just be the cure for the common cold. Pour into sterilized jars and set into a hot water bath to boil for 10 minutes. Remove the jars, and listen for that tell-tale ping of sweet success :)

what we eat 2

I realize this looks like a big pile of potatoes and mush with tomato sauce on top. It's scrambled tortillas from Moskowitz's Vegan Brunch, and even she says it's hard to photograph. Any picture of it at all is conspicuously missing from the cookbook. (Side note - I just found this recipe and about 20 pages of Vegan Brunch on Google Books!)

Scrambled tortillas are basically a pile of sauteed onions, jalapenos and corn tortillas that you cook with blended tofu till it turns awesome, mix with steamed potatoes, and top with a spiced tomato sauce. Yum. As Fred said, it's like getting all wrapped up inside a warm enchilada and then eating it. I could totally see a person making this with a few eggs instead of the tofu, adding other veggies, or topping with guacamole. Although unphotogenic, it's way tasty.

what we eat 1

Oh hi! How's your summer been? I just got back from a month teaching and coaching and performing and recording at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute with Bala Brass. Man, that was a whirlwind of a time! It was pretty fantastic, but I'm glad to be back in my own home again. Seriously, I missed my kitchen.

I realize my last 3 posts have been at least somewhat about food. This year I've discovered that my love for cooking is way stronger than I ever imagined. It's kind of over the top. Fred says that if I keep it up he's going to die fat and happy. Nothing is quite as rewarding as playing my horn, thank goodness, but cooking is quickly becoming my other first love. There's only one tricky detail. We're dietary vegans. Now this poses no problems as far as I'm concerned, but I realize that "vegan foodie" might come across as an oxymoron. So I thought I would spend some time on the subject.

Fred and I were vegetarians before we met each other, and decided to go vegan between Thanskgiving and Christmas of 2005. We like to say that we eat things that come from the earth rather than listing the things we don't eat. But that being said, we avoid meats, fish, eggs, and dairy products. We eat this way for purely selfish reasons, just because we feel good when we do. It's not an animal rights thing for us so we still wear wool and leather. For that matter, we still eat honey. We try not to proselytize and we certainly aren't offended by others cooking or eating meat around us. When we aren't in control of our cooking we're flexible as necessary, and we're extra flexible when desert is involved. As much as being vegan makes me feel good, sometimes a treat from the coffee shop feels good too!

Eating vegan doesn't feel hugely limiting to us. A lot of foods in this world happen to fall under the vegan heading. Heck, even Oreos are vegan! It means a lot of label reading and a lot of cooking, but it feels good so it's worth it to us. It's also pushed me to be creative in the kitchen, something that might not have happened without the "limitations" of our diet. But we eat some awesome and tasty foods, so I thought I would start to share that here.

Tonight I made my first attempts at a galette. Two galettes, actually. Deb over at Smitten Kitchen made this beautiful zucchini galette a while back, and I haven't been able to get it out of my mind. I wanted so badly to make one at Tanglewood. We even lived next to a farmer who sold his vegetables from a stand in his front yard. He always had such a pile of zucchinis. But of all things, our kitchen wasn't stocked with measuring cups. Cheap as I am, I spent the entire month cooking what I could without measuring cups. Ugh. Then when we got home the zucchinis at the grocery store looked pathetic in comparison and I couldn't bring myself to get a single one. But yesterday we were out visiting family in Western Mass, and they were trying to get rid of the extra zucchinis from their garden! Score on the zucchinis.

Then there's the matter of the crust. I'm habitually wary of pie crusts. My mom didn't make a ton of pies while I was growing up, and I've botched a few since then, so I just don't have a great working relationship with pie crusts. But yesterday I was flipping through one of my mom's old Cooking Light cookbooks and I found a recipe for greek baking-powder piecrust. It uses olive oil so it's accidentally vegan, and the book describes it as easy-to-make and convenient. Awesome.



I used the tofu basil ricotta recipe from Veganomicon, added some sliced tomatoes and my zucchini, and here's what we've got. I can't wait to dig into this guy. And the pie crust recipe makes two crusts, so I tossed some leftover farm stand peaches we had lying around into the other one. Instant desert.



So there you have it, the first installation of "what we eat." I'm hoping my posts come more frequently these days, but I'm guessing they'll come with more pictures and fewer words as school starts. I'm going to cook up a storm while I still can!

Staycation

We devoted yesterday to staycation. First there was a quick shopping trip, then a picnic and swimming at Walden Pond, finishing the first half of a pair of socks, and my first experience with the tennis courts across the street from our new apartment. Let's just say, I'm not a natural at tennis. But cookies afterwards, that I'm good at.

I did go ahead and order the cookbooks I've been hankering after. Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero are my heros, and their Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar is worth every cent. I was skeptical at first; I'm a decent cook and I can handle cookies. But every recipe so far has been unlike anything I could conjure up on my own. These are their Chocolate Fudgy Oatmeal Cookies, complete with dried cherries, and they're phenomenal. We've also made the Peanut Butter Chocolate Pillows, Citrus Glitters, and Blueberry Spice Crumb Bars. I think blondies or biscotti are up next. Mmm, cookies.

Hi summer, we're so glad you've arrived.

Shaved Asparagus Pizza

I like asparagus only barely as well as the next person, so when I read the enthusiasm on smitten kitchen over a shaved asparagus pizza I was skeptical. How could asparagus, or ass-pra-gas as we call it at our house, somehow be improved by shaving it? And no, I can't fathom a raw shaved asparagus salad being tasty. Nevertheless, I found myself at Whole Foods the other day, hungry and without a shopping list, and the asparagus called to me. It's hard to go wrong with a pizza, so I tried it.



My crust came from the focaccia recipe in Veganomicon. If you don't have Veganomicon and you're halfway interested in vegan recipes, or any good recipes for that matter, I beg of you to get it. Everything I've made from this cookbook has landed somewhere on the scale between good and amazing. The same could be said for Vegan Brunch and Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World by the same authors. I'm dying to get my hands on their other two cookbooks, but I haven't figured out a good excuse before Christmas. Those cookbooks have changed my life. All that aside, my crust was as tasty as I had expected.



On top of that I layered olive oil, thinly sliced potatoes and tomatoes, my shaved asparagus, a little more sprayed olive oil, and sea salt. I would have added an avocado if I had one, but I honestly think that might have been too much. Coming from the girl who eats avocados straight out of the peel with a spoon, that's saying something. The combination of the asparagus and potatoes somehow turned out buttery, creamy, salty, and delicious. I don't know how it happened, but this pizza was awesome. Now I'm glad that I still have some asparagus left over to try raw, and more pizza dough if all else fails. Yum.

Apricot Upside Down Cake

Do you like food? Have you ever browsed the pages upon pages of deliciousness at smitten kitchen? Far too often I find myself transfixed by her photos, and wishing her recipes could all happen to be vegan. No such luck on that vegan detail; curse the miraculous wonders of eggs and butter. Most recently I've been inspired by her everyday cakes, so I'm taking it upon myself to find, modify, or invent some decent vegan recipes.

This recipe turned out quite nicely. I only used 2 tbsps vegan butter, and added 2 tbsps applesauce and 2 tbsps vegan yogurt. She also doesn't say how much sugar to put in the cake batter, so I guesstimated and went with 1/2 cup. I baked it in a 9" cake pan, and the thing totally overflowed and smoked up my poor oven. That was the only pitfall, though. Despite my sub-par photography skills, this cake was bright and beautiful when it popped out of the pan, and the taste and texture were awesome. I'll definitely be making this guy again.

I'm going to take just a couple of lines here and sum up my 6 months of absence. Here goes:

- Some time in January I decided I needed a doctorate, picked a school and found an awesome teacher, applied and prepared an audition, bombed said audition, cried giant tears over my crushed dreams, and then got accepted.

- During the middle of that process, Fred and I were informed that our landlords wanted to sell our apartment as a condo and would not extend our lease. The clock was ticking, so we found a place within a week and moved within a month, all during the busy season.

- Despite my aforementioned love of cake, I've managed to drop a decent chunk of weight in the past few months. Yay for taking charge of my life! I'll say more about it some day if I ever reach "goal," whatever that turns out to be.

- My sister had her baby!

- My Dad and step-mom drove up from Texas to visit with us and then to meet the new baby! They were on the road for a 28 day round trip, and it was so good to host them at our new apartment.

- Base miles have been logged and marathon training has begun so that I might conquer that elusive first marathon.

- We went to see Fred's brother in Minneapolis. I had never been, and now I want to move. We'll see what happens in 3 years, after I finish this doctorate.

- The quintet landed a new tuba player. He landed a job in China 2 months later.

- The quintet landed a new new tuba player. He rocks.

- The quintet's trombone player landed a job in Japan. He leaves in September. We're hugely excited for he and his wife, and hugely sad for our loss.

- The quintet landed a gig as an Ensemble in Residence at Tanglewood this summer, coaching for their Young Artists Wind Ensemble!

- The year has nearly ended, I've wrapped up a significant amount of my teaching and playing to focus on school, and summer is nearly upon us. Thank goodness!

I think that's the most of it, in a nutshell. I'm looking forward to finding center again this summer, remembering how to relax, and exploring new projects. This year has been a doozy, that's for sure. It's a goal to be here more often too. Probably with cake :)

Flowers

Just stopping in to say hi. I'm swamped these days, so I don't have much more to say than that! But here's a picture for you. We've been keeping flowers in the house for these past couple of weeks, and I'm amazed at what a huge effect such a little detail can have. I like to take apart the cheap grocery store bunches of fillers and put them in a few little vases. I think they look better that way, and they seem to have a bigger impact. Anything to counter the winter grey outside, right?

#2

My sister is pregnant with her second little girl. We had a bit of a scare yesterday that involved a 3 hour ambulance ride and an overnight at the hospital, but thankfully everyone checked out alright. Phew. Now we just get to sit tight for the next 10 weeks or so. (Funny, where did that phrase come from?) I've been working on this quilt, hoping to get it done before she arrives. Now I'm really hoping I get it done, and really hoping she actually holds out for these next 10 weeks. Fingers crossed, everyone.

List 2010

Do you call it twenty-ten? Or two-thousand-ten? My vote is in for twenty-ten. 2009 was privy to some of my best times and some of my least best times, shall we say. I'm glad to be done with it, and here's to hoping for a more stable and prosperous new year. It's kind of hard since my season is very much on a September-June cycle and I'm still in the thick of it. But a few things are up in the air that could make for some truly awesome (and challenging) times. I won't know anything till April, but keep your fingers crossed for me.

So here's my list, my goals for the year, in no particular order. It's shorter than last year by a couple, but also more concrete. Oh, and all of those "every day" items have actually happened every day so far!

2010:

1. Eat something resembling a fresh fruit or vegetable every day.

2. Play my horn every day.

3. Go on a picnic. Bonus points for a picnic quilt and a cute dress.

4. Fly a kite. Perhaps whilst on the above picnic.

5. Do something physical and healthy every day.

6. Log at least 500 miles, running or walking.

7. Ride my bike into Cambridge and back.

8. Do something every day just for fun.

9. Relax often and fully enough to maintain a greater hold on sanity.

10. Make my bed every day. Or have Fred make it. Either way counts.

11. Attend wine and beer tastings.

12. Light candles during the dark months.

13. Host a cocktail party.

14. Record a CD with the Bala. This will take a financial miracle.

15. Play frisbee with Fred.

16. Go to the dentist. Ugh.

17. Learn to drive a stick shift well enough to make it into Boston and back.

18. Go swing dancing with Fred.

19. Learn to do the Lindy Hop.

20. Get through the summer with no credit card debt.

21. Summit Mt. Washington.

22. Finish the two new quilts I just started and sew at least 2 more.

23. Go camping.

24. Blog more often.

25. Add to this list as necessary, and check in every so often to be sure I haven't forgotten anything!

Quilt

Finished. And the cats have already claimed it for their own.

2009 in review

Remember that list from the beginning of the year? It seems it's nearly time to check in and see how I've done. Now, let me explain how we're going to do this. We're going to stay on the positive side of things and ignore all the items that didn't happen. Cool? I have a tendency to harp on myself for the things I don't get accomplished every day, and I'm finding it's not the healthiest way to go about life. (Stay posted, that's likely to become a goal for 2010.) So here's what I can check off:

1. Marry Fred! - Done, and awesome.

2. Plan and pull off an awesome, personal and meaningful wedding. - Check. Loved every minute of it.

4. Play my horn every day. - Not quite every day, but I'm going to call this a humongous success anyway. I played my horn nearly every day, and it was so worth it.

9. Wear skirts more often. - I did wear skirts more often, and I liked it!

10. Learn to design my own patterns. - Hard core. See #11.

11. Design and sew my own wedding dress. - Yes!!!

12. Let my hair grow out. - This was simple, but I'm pleased.

15. Give a recital. - I played more than a dozen with my brass quintet. That's not exactly what I had in mind when I came up with this goal, but I'm going to say it counts.

19. Make an inspiration board. - I made a wedding related inspiration folder on my computer.This was only a small part of it. Close enough, and really helpful.

23. Take a trip to somewhere I've never been. - Banff, with Bala. Can you tell I spend a lot of time with them? Just wait till 2010!

24. Finish the quilt I got fabric for a year ago. - I'm so close, and I've got a few days left yet! I'll get back to you when I'm done.

27. Put things away a little quicker. (Dishes, laundry, etc.) - Yes again, especially toward the end of the year. More of this in 2010.

28. Go camping. - I did this! Fred and I got a tent and camped out when we hiked Katahdin this summer.

31. Make better use of my extensive driving time. - I'm currently on a Jane Austen book-on-tape kick, and it's lovely.

32. Bag a couple of the local peaks. - Katahdin, in the bag.

33. Blog more often. - Check.

Alright, 16 out of 33 isn't too bad. And I've learned a couple of things in this process:

1. Lists are great, but I have to refer back to them every so often. I totally forgot a couple of items I had listed as goals, so they never had a chance.

2. Some things feel like a great idea in the first half of the year and then totally fizzle during or after the summer. My year still works on a September to May cycle.

3. Goals work better when there's a measurable result. "22. Smile a lot more." is too vague to measure, so in the end you can't really count it one way or the other.

4. Life happens. As my dear friend and superhero says, excuses aren't just excuses. Sometimes they're really good reasons too.

All in all, it's been a good year! 2010, coming up . . .

Christmas

Christmas is kind of tricky at our house, mostly because it's the busy season. We don't get to prepare for it in quite the same way most everyone else does. I drive by all kinds of cozy looking homes and sparkling decorations and busy shopping malls as I hustle to this or that gig. The gigs are of the fun sort, usually, but by the last weekend before Christmas we're all starting to look a little haggard.

That being the case, Fred and I have decided to celebrate the 12 days of Christmas. Come December 25, at least after he plays the one morning service he got called for, we're off the clock for a while. Our Christmas begins on Christmas. We haven't figured out what that means or what we'll do with the time, but I'm seriously looking forward to it.

Nevertheless, I just can't wait till the 25th to put up decorations. We decided not to get a tree because as soon as we put it up the cats begin to take it down. Instead we went with this for an alternative:

Cute, huh? And see, we hung the candle holders in the shape of a tree, get it?

And I made my very first non-graham-cracker gingerbread house! With window panes and a wood pile and everything!!

Forgive me, I feel like I'm short on coherent sentences these days. I'm going to go move my haggard self outside to shovel the foot of snow that blew in last night. (That sounds like a complaint but it's not. I love snow and I'm happy to go shovel it. That sort of work makes me feel more alive, know what I mean?) Anyway, I wish you a merry last couple of days till Christmas!

Morning

You know those moments when you think God must be smiling at you? The way the sun peaked in from behind my curtains when I woke up this morning made me happier than mornings usually do. Dust motes are lovely, and hard to photograph.

Shop Update

Prodded by a couple of custom orders (thanks!!) I've decided it's time to open up shop again. This lady was an experiment, made from another felted wool sweater, and she turned out beautifully. I'll add new elephants every couple of days and there will definitely be more sweater elephants coming. I think they're my new favorite design!

Sideboard

You may have noticed the orange background in a couple of my last posts. Meet my new orange sideboard!



Fred and I found it on the side of the road one day when we were out for a run. It seemed it was previously owned by a teenage girl with a penchant for blue nail polish, white-out, and carving her name in things. Yep, it was a little beaten up. The front panels were originally screens, but they were punched through and I knew my cats would further their destruction had I left them. I think it's an Ikea piece, which is fine by me. It's solid and the price was right!



Inspired by the how-to on poppytalk by the Something's Hiding in Here folks, this thing was a quick fix with some paint and fabric. We re-arranged some furniture and now it's got a spot in our dining room/studio. The storage space really helps, and yay for a pop of color!

Recipes

We hosted our first Thanksgiving! I feel like such a grown-up. So what does a vegan serve for Thanksgiving dinner?

Peppered Cashew "Goat Cheese" with crackers (this was Amazing.)

Seitan Roulade, Chestnut Stuffing and Mushroom Gravy

Carrots Elegante (a funny name, but tasty)

Hashed Brussels Sprouts with Poppy Seeds and Lemon

Mashed Potatoes (no recipe necessary)

Cranberry Sauce (from our favorite cookbook)

Pumpkin Ice Cream

Pecan and Caramel Apple Tartlets with a Spelt Flour Crust



This was our second Thanksgiving celebration, held on Saturday with my side of the family. We went to Fred's family on Thursday, and they're so wonderful that they had vegan options waiting for us! I think Thanksgiving is my new favorite holiday. It's as yummy as Christmas, has almost as much good family time, and there's none of the commercialism or fuss. All in all we had a lovely celebration, and we have so much to be thankful for. Wishing you all the best!

Wedding Decor

We were lucky in that we got married at a beautiful park that required no extra decoration, and our reception space stood on it's own really well too. Through choice and necessity, we kept the extra decorations to a minimum. Although what we had added a lot of color and texture, and to me the whole space looked happy.



There was a gallery room that everyone walked through on the way to the main ballroom. The exhibit that happened to be on display had these beautiful and huge watercolor paintings on every wall. We just got lucky with that one too!



We set up a photo table in that gallery room too. We collected wedding pictures of as many guests and family members as we could and put them on display. It was so neat to see all the generations of weddings before us, to see the same people in so many pictures over the years, and mostly, to honor all the marriages that came before us.



Aside from that, the only major decorations we had were the napkins that my family and I made, and flowers that we arranged the day before. My aunt Judy, my sister, Fred's mom and I had made a ton of napkins in advance, but come Saturday morning we still didn't have quite enough. So bless these people, we sat down together and made more. My dad and my step mom ironed, I helped pin, and my aunt Judy sewed. For me, that was a really special moment. It was amazing to have the unconditional support and help, and it felt so good to have my family around to make the wedding happen.



Flowers were a project too. I ordered wholesale from Potomac Floral, and I can't recommend them enough. They're good because you can order flowers by the bunch, not by the box, and that way you can get a huge variety.



My sister and I first put together our bouquets, which meant as much laughing at each other as arranging flowers. Mine was made up of hypericum berries and dahlias, and hers was an arrangement of mums and hypericum berries.



I also made boutonnieres for the guys out of mums and hypericum berries. I didn't do a trial run of the flowers, although I did do some research in advance and I've worked with flowers before. It was great that things turned out as well as they did!



We did make a pomander ball for my niece out of flower foam and mums. It was really sweet. And then we forgot it. Fred and I realized it was missing while we were in the car on the way to the wedding. We were running late enough that we just left it. Everyone says that something goes wrong at on your wedding day, and we figured that was it. Better to get it over and done with and move on! So Audrey stole my sister's flowers. Naturally.



Then my dad and step mom and I put together all the rest of the flowers. Fred and I had collected empty glass jars during the entire proceeding year for the table arrangements. We wanted everything to look natural and simple and fun, and it turned out beautifully.



In the end, it was so good having so much help during the weekend. People say that your wedding day goes by in a flash and all the details become a blur. It did go quickly, although I'm glad to say I have really vivid memories of all of it. But I'm so especially thankful for the time we all had together in the days before too. I'll remember making the projects come together with the people we love as much as I'll remember the actual wedding day!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Because nothing says Thanksgiving like a vegan tiramisu cupcake, right? Yeah, that's what I thought. Om nom nom. We'll see if all the turkey eaters can tell that they're vegan. Have a lovely day!

the dress

I don't remember exactly when I decided I would make my own wedding dress. The idea planted itself in the back of my head years ago, long before I knew Fred or knew we'd be getting married. And when the time came, I knew there were no two ways around it. Even as I got closer to the wedding and felt desperately behind, as almost everyone around me said I should go buy something, somehow there was a calm about it. I knew it would work, I knew it would be done, and I knew it would be as perfect as I could ever imagine.



My dress wasn't about being princess for a day, or needing to look like a bride. I've played enough recitals and worn (and made) enough recital gowns that I'm all set on the princess thing. I don't need it anymore, it's just not my style. Similarly, Fred never thought to wear a tux. He puts on a tux probably over 100 times a year for gigs. On our wedding day we wanted to feel like us, just spiffed up and extra awesome.



Then there was the issue of a pattern. I've never been keen on the commercially available wedding dress patterns. Some people use vintage patterns for bridal wear, and that's a much better option, but it still wasn't the look we were going for. I had never designed a pattern before, but somehow I got it in my head that that must be the way to go. Brilliant, huh? There's nothing like winging it for your own wedding dress. So I bought a book, Patternmaking for Fashion Design by Helen Joseph-Armstrong. I designed a couple of simple items to get the hang of it, and then I took the plunge. Wedding dress or bust.



Let me tell you, I went through so many drafts that I lost count. I started with the bodice, went from measurements to a pattern, made a muslin version, and then set to tweaking. Then I'd take it apart, put tweaks to paper, and repeat ad nauseum. Almost every adjustment affected every adjacent piece, so everything had to be redone every time around. And then there were the complete design re-dos. Those were the days when I would spend 8 hours trying to make it work, and then realize it would work better a different way but I'd have to start from scratch again. I spent a lot of time developing patience in those final weeks!



When I finally started in on the silk I was so ready to go. I had made that dress dozens of times in muslin, at least in pieces, and I was so sure it would work. It had to work, I was about a week and a half away from the wedding! Fred's brother came into town for our joint bachelor/bachelorette party, and it still wasn't done. He left for their house in Westfield to get the place ready, and it still wasn't done. It was probably Wednesday before I got the zipper in and actually tried my dress on for the first time. And promptly burst into happy tears!



I finished the dress at 10:30 am on Saturday, well more than 24 hours in advance of our wedding. The dress wasn't perfect, but I'm probably the only person who would know. The morning of the wedding I sewed a piece of fabric from my mom's wedding dress into the hem, slipped into my cowboy boots, and at that point it was everything I ever wanted it to be.