Chard.

sterling and plum

Dress: A heavily modified version of New Look 6349 in a plum colored linen blend

Sweater: 'Whisper' cardigan from Interweave Knits, Spring 2009 (Ravelry link)

Yup. Mrs. Lyons needs a haircut. Yup, my linen dress wrinkled in exactly 2.5 seconds after I put it on. Yup, those cute leopard shoes (Guess brand) are pretty pinchy. But they are a good cure to the monthly funk of I-don't-want-to-get-dressed-because-nothing-fits. Ha. I've been wearing these shoes a lot lately. :)

Wrap dress to the rescue!!

A quick note on changes I made to the pattern: modified the hem (obviously) and added a little panel that sort of makes it "tulip" out, moved the bust darts and added some bodice darts just for fun... and I changed it from side-tie to back-tie.

The $200 cake of FAILURE

The Eldest Man-Cub is having a birthday in a few weeks and therefore needs a birthday cake so last week I decided to flip through Martha Stewart's website and waited for inspiration to strike. While I was searching for something appropriate, I happened upon something else that captured my imagination...

The Sweet and Salty Cake.

It had lots going for it. 1)Fancy salt on top! 2)Chocolate 3)Caramel! I've never worked with caramel, I could learn something new! and 4)Fancy salt on top! Did I mention the salt?? I love fancy salt!! Chocolate covered pretzels are a personal favorite, and this seemed sort of like a layer cake version of that. Yes, I thought to myself, this is totally a Mrs. Lyons cake. I was all over the Sweet and Salty Cake.

After making it though, that's not what I would name it. I'd call it Seemed-Like-A-Good-Idea-at-the-Time Cake, or The Carmel Chocolate Cake of DOOM, or the How-to-Look-Like-You've-Never-Baked-a-Cake-Before-INYOURENTIRELIFE Cake.

Of course our Tale of Woe continues... I decided to attempt this miserable confection to... why else? Impress my friends. Ha. I should have known that it would all go horribly wrong when I was at the grocery store buying all my supplies for the cake and dinner party when a rather rude woman decided to not only make inappropriate comments to me about how full my shopping cart was (srsly? I'm at the grocery store. People go there to buy food, Lady.) but also CUT IN LINE in front of someone else to make these nasty comments. She decided that she couldn't wait for the checker to finish with me, so she ran, no joke, to the back of the store... only to stand in line back there. She stared at me the whole time, aaaaall the way on the other side of the store, and walked out of the store a whopping 5 seconds before I did.

Of course the checker, the girl behind me and I all snickered about her as soon as she was out of ear shot. Hey, she deserves it. But really, I should have known my carefully laid plans for A Perfect Dinner were doomed... first, random rude people. Always a bad omen. Then, the checker expressed a number to me regarding my groceries that was, roughly, twice as much as I was expecting him to politely utter in public. The last straw was me meticulously following the directions while baking and assembling the cake, the whole time ignoring the voice in my head screaming: IT'S NOT A GOOD IDEA TO DO IT THAT WAY. IT WILL NOT WORK, AND YOU KNOW IT.

Why did I ignore that voice? Well, like most people Mrs. Lyons has low self-esteem and lives for compliments,* and is also a not-very-reformed perfectionist.** So I followed the directions, even when I knew not to, so I wouldn't mess it up.

And I messed it up. I messed it up bad. And I know you wanna see it too, don't cha?

Notice the skewers in the top? I stuck those in there to stop the layers from sliding, then tried to break the tops off with my bare hands in a fit of rage when I realized they were too tall to fit in my fridge. The Man, sensible as ever, neatly trimmed them. I didn't think the cake deserved such kind treatment.

Luckily for me, my friends are awesome and drooled at the sight of it. That of course, totally cracked me up. I realated my sob story about making it to them... but seriously I don't think they were listening because I don't think they took their eyes off the cake the entire time I was talking, even when I used bad words really loud. (I was pretty upset over this cake.)

I said that in order to offset all the upset this cake caused me that we were all going to eat it with our bare hands (washed, of course!! *shudder*) once we were all good and drunk.***

layers of caramel and caramel-dark-chocolate-ganache

But you know what happened? I used a knife (surprise, surprise) and the cake tasted AWESOME. Oh, it was SO. GOOD. Really good. It was a pain in the Alicia to make, assemble and serve, but I might try it again. Maybe if I got good and drunk first this time.

So, what would I do differently next time? Listen to that voice and CHILL, CHILL, CHILL everything. The cakes should be chilled. The frosting should be chilled. In between steps, everything should be chilled. And the whole caramel deal? Well, I made it without any issues, but I'm not sure how exactly to make it work in between cake layers. The recipe said it will "soak in a bit" but that didn't happen. At all. (and none of it was chilled) So when it came time to start stacking that baby up, everything oozed and slid. Oh, how I cried.

and what a delicious mess it was!!

Just for fun, how about if we talk for a second about what exactly is IN this cake?

• a whole box of butter. At least.
• heavy cream
• sour cream
• evil of all evils: CORN SYRUP
• 1 lb. of dark chocolate
• 4 1/2 whopping cups of sugar

I'll let you just think about that for a second.


*not really.
**the funniest part is that I generally mess everything up, somehow, so can I really call myself a perfectionist? Most likely I'm just neurotic, *sigh*
*** yeah, Mrs. Lyons doesn't really drink, so my friends just got drunk and I watched. Amusing.

Dont say I didn't warn you.

tomato towers, June 2010

And look!! There is some kale that our pet slugs missed.

Let's play a little game, shall we?

It's called Good Idea/Bad Idea. Ready? Yay! Here we go:

Good Idea: wanting some home-grown tomatoes
Bad Idea: fertilizing tomato seedlings.

Seriously? These things are MONSTERS. I go in and "prune" them about once a week. A more accurate statement would be that I hack these suckers back with The Man's machete, just so they don't swallow the Princess whole when she innocently ventures into the vegetable garden to water. Sheesh! They reached the top of their supports/towers in mid-June. Mid-June!! What am I supposed to do with them for the next 2-3 months?! We don't have any ripe tomatoes yet either... I'm guessing a few more weeks? I don't know, it's hard to tell.

This is a new raised bed garden and we filled it up with soil from the, um, pond we are attempting to dig. (I'm seeing another good idea/bad idea in my near future) So it wasn't super great soil or anything... we amended it with a few bags of composed manure, planted our plants, and went on with our merry lives. A month or so later I got it into my head (probably from reading some gardening magazine standing in line somewhere completely useless) that they needed MORE fertilizer. I made a special trip* to the nursery and picked up some fancy-pants organic tomato and vegetable granulated plant food, aka Glorified Rat Hash. Yup. It gets locked up in the vermin-proof shed after gardening time is over.

*Yeah, seriously. I only leave the house to go to the grocery store.

enough already.

How about some yellow and teal? This is the same yellow skirt you've already seen. That little yellow necklace is sort of fun, it has a beehive charm on it and some little silver bees, too. I horded those things for years... finally found the right color yellow beads so I could string it.

why is my skirt so wrinkled? I ironed it. I did. I really, really did.

I think this is my favorite blouse. These might be my favorite shoes. Maybe.

Okay, um, what is up with the world lately? What is up with me? I've completely lost my motivation to do the simplest things... by the time last weekend rolled around I did NOT want to get up. I did NOT want to work out. No sewing. No knitting. Dang, I didn't even want to get dressed, let alone show up at our place of weekly congregation. Funny story: turns out that same day, the one where I wanted to crawl under a rock and work up a proper froth of self pity? WELL. Everyone seemed to be in rare form. Lucy was killing me so I spent most of the day in an Aleve-induced fog, hoping... praying that my liver wouldn't fail in front of everyone and that my limp wasn't too noticeable. Ha. The Man over heard part of a conversation I was having with someone (this woman was discussing my toes-- WTF???) and he later commented on my restraint. He was apparently expecting me to deck her... all I can say is if I had been on my toes (ha ha) instead of having to use all the Jedi Mind Tricks that I have at my disposal to distract myself from pain hitting an 11 on a scale of 1 to 10, she probably would have gotten a rather inappropriate and pointed comment involving her husband and my new pink Lady Gaga-esque nail polish.

Maybe the Aleve saved us both from getting black eyes?

By the time we all piled into Riley* to go home I was in crazy-rant mode. By the time my mouth stopped I realized I needed to apologize to the cubs. The eldest, in classic yes-Mrs.Lyons-is-my-mommy fashion, replied "that's okay Mom, but we won't be getting married when we grow up." HA. That cracked me up! I must say, I have good kids... so I gave them all the O-K to stay at home past the age of 30 if they kept up with all the weeding and dishes.

*Riley, our trusty mini-van.

Root Beer Float Cupcakes

Last week (I think) I spied this recipe on Smitten Kitchen's site. It immediately grabbed my attention. I mean, really? Root Beer Float Cupcakes??? Obviously I made them the first chance I got. Brought 'em to a beloved friend's 50th birthday party and they were a hit. I managed to squeeze 24 out of my batch.

This recipe was sort of interesting. It had you boiling things on the stove, then letting those things cool, then adding other things to the now cool things. Like I said, interesting....

A still life titled White Eggs in a White Bowl

There is not much in the world that compares to drippy bowls, in my humble opinion. Hey, how about an Internet magic trick? Okay, here it goes... below we have UNbaked cupcakes....

Wait for it... and POOF!

Now we have baked cupcakes! I know, my magic skillz are MAD.

After cooling completely you cut out a little hollow and put a mini scoop of ice cream in there. CUTE!!! I used some fancy pants vanilla bean stuff... because I'm like that. I was out of brown sugar (not that I usually have that on hand anyway...) so I just used evaporated cane juice for the white and brown sugar required. I used some fancy pants cocoa powder too...  The root beer flavor was pretty mild. Overall they were fantastic and had a great crumb.

The cubs missed out on these... that'll teach 'em to play basketball in the street with their little friends!! But seriously, I'm looking forward to making these again. They are just... fun.

Summer-y Circle Skirt

skirt-- McCall's 5431

top-- "Jewel" from Custom Knits by Wendy Bernard

I sewed this skirt up a few years ago... I really like this pattern, I've made it twice. The other version I made has the coolest pockets... but I'm not as happy about the print I chose for that one. Maybe I should make another one...

The top though... um. Well. Not the happiest about my yarn choice. I thought I was doing good, but no, it turned out bad. It sort of reminds me of a washcloth. Using a hand knit washcloth to do dishes? Good. Wearing a hand knit wash cloth? Bad. But alas, as I only have ONE white "summer" top, I wear it. Yes, this situation will be fixed. Soon. Here's the  Ravelry page with more pictures and my notes.

Mean, like a bully (mini blackberry cobblers)

Weeeeell....
The garden is doing great. Look at all this bounty!

okay, so we grew a few carrots.

We actually grew a lot more than this, but I could only find a picture of this measly bunch.

 I sauteed them in butter and we all ate them with our dinner.

They tasted like normal carrots. I was sort of disappointed.

Everyone thought I was nuts... I wonder sometimes, have they met me?

Hi! My name is Mrs. Lyons.

I like carrots that don't taste like carrots.

We also have a bit of a blackberry infestation... so we picked some blackberries and I made mini/individual blackberry cobblers. Behold them in all their pre-baked glory:

But DUDE, let me tell you! Picking them is not... um, fun. It's more of an "adventure."Those bushes are MEAN. But not mean in an awesome way, mean in a bully-that-makes-you-run-to-Mommy-and-cry way. Between the blackberries and the roses... wow, my sh*t is scratched up. I must've lost a lot of blood, look at me going all ghetto speak on ya'll.

The mini cobblers were super easy. We just filled our little custard dishes with fresh berries and I plopped some generic fruit crisp-type topping over them. Just a mixture of whole wheat flour, oats, a bit of salt and pumpkin pie seasoning and some honey. Baked 'em in a hot oven for 20 minutes or so, until the berries bubbled and the topping was golden.

Dresses. From that really really hot place no one wants to visit.

And I don't mean Death Valley because I know for a fact that people willingly and happily travel there for fun and entertainment every year. What possesses people to think 130 degrees F IN THE SHADE sounds like "something to experience" I will never understand.

No, I mean That Other Place.

The blue dress was *barely* completed on time. Wow, what a bunch of issues! The fabric had awesome drape, but raveled horribly and of course I had to pick out the seams a bazillion times... because... I had some minor fitting issues. *ahem* Moving on.

Simplicity 2724-- slim skirt, no ruffles and the stand-up collar option

Of course I am slouching all weird in this photo. I was in a pre-coffee state.

It is a comfortable dress and I like it... I think. I got lots of compliments and people looked genuinely shocked when I told them I made it... not sure how I should take that, exactly, but for today we are going to think positive! No dwelling on thoughts like 1) people have an extremely low opinion of my sewing skills, or 2) why I would bother to make a hideous sack like that?

I learned some new skills... side lapped zipper. Bound buttonholes. Oh, and I hand stitched the hem. *shudder* I loathe hand sewing. I really, really do. Sorry. Oh! I didn't really like where the waist seam lined up on the dress... it sort of cut me in half in a weird, non-flattering way... so I made a little belt/waist band and I think it worked out quite nicely:

back detail of the belt where I sewed bound buttonholes. Fancy, I know! *smirk*

The princess' dress (Hot Pink Pre-teen Prom Dress from Hell) didn't exactly come off without a hitch either, but... people? Getting that thing done, as a surprise no less, was a miracle on par with Moses parting the Red Sea. No joke. Except I didn't drown a whole legion of Egyptian soldiers... but come to think of it I do put up with more than my fair share of murmuring in the Wilderness. *sigh* A day in the life of Mrs. Lyons.

Simplicity 4721

You can also see the "petticoat" I made for her peaking out here. She was a bit less than thrilled. Oh well.

Can't win 'em all, I guess.

Did I just compare sewing the HPPtPDfH for my nine year old daughter to Almighty God delivering the Israelites from slavery in Egypt? I think I did. Hmmmm. What does that say about me?? That was a rhetorical question, don't answer that.

awww, a matching hair clip!!!

Over all she was pleased, I think. I made her a hot pink satin sash, but she didn't really like it... I'm assuming this because she kept asking me things like "what else can I do with this, Mom?" I won't share my replies.