Saturday, July 30, 2011

Ross's Chair


I have a problem. I'm addicted to upholstery. Or, more aptly, re-upholstery. So, with the oh-so-awesome Ross Bay closing on his Chicago Condo, I made a spurof the moment decision at the thrift store. I bought Ross a chair. This chair:

Yes, that is pink upholstery. I should have taken a better shot. I should have zoomed in on it's "ladies suit from the 70's" tweedy-houndstoothy awesomeness. But I found the perfect suede-y cream fabric that was going to make the dark stain look amazing, and I just couldn't wait to pull off the fabric and get started!

I found a little surprise under the fabric... some gross bird's nesty fluff, which I'm assuming was once batting. Gross. Good thing I was already planning on ripping the whole seat down and had bought all the replacement parts, so could just throw all the yuck away! My other surprise was that two of the screws holding the seat in place were missing... fortunately I have long since conquered the Home Depot and found exactly what I needed and got the heck out. Measure twice, visit Home Depot once.

Anyway, the final product is amazing, and is going to look fabulous in Ross's new living room!


Monday, July 11, 2011

A Bunch of Grapes

After getting in the mail the awesome "bunch of grapes" trivet that my grandma made from a pattern in a ladies magazine in 1955:


I decided to make my own. I used the same idea of making cozies for bottle caps, and sewed them together according to the layout of my grandma's trivet.


I found the purple crochet thread at the thrift store for a dollar for a giant spool. It's Uki brand Supreme. The leaves are some leftover cotton yarn from a baby hat I made a long time ago. I think it turned out amazingly well.

Here are the grape trivet twins:

Friday, July 1, 2011

The Perfect Macaroni and Cheese

So, when doing meal planning for the week with the nanny kids, they decided they wanted Mac and Cheese today. But not the box kind, homemade.

That was fine with me, frankly, because I love homemade Macaroni! I've had some trouble finding the perfect recipe and last weekend I had some really delicious Mac at Stanley's Kitchen and Tap here in Chicago. It was creamy and cheesy and delicious. I was pretty sure there was ricotta in it, so I searched the interwebs for Mac with Ricotta and found a couple of recipes. I settled on one that sounded really easy, but called for pureed cottage cheese. I subbed in ricotta and doubled the amount of it, and it turned out SO good! I don't have pics, since I made it at work, but I used Smitten Kitchen's recipe and there are some fantastic food porn pictures on her site. My favorite aspect of the recipe was the fact that I didn't have to pre-cook the noodles! Fabulous!