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Our premium fuel at $4.50 a gallon hurts. I really ought to work from home more often. For future reference, here’s an interactive Bay Area cheap gas finder 

Oh and we need to eat these summer rolls for dinner.

Overheard Doug say to Sylvie, “Come here, you look like you need a hug” and then Will pipe up “I need a hug. I need a hug, Daddy.”

On another note, Happy Friday. I’m looking forward to doing more muffin eating this weekend:

I’m on a Japanese craft book binge recently. It started when I finally purchased a few, after having seen the cute clothes other blog moms had been creating from these patterns. Since then, my fabric habit is totalling about $100 a trip and my Japanese book count is up to 10. As though it justifies the expenses, I’ve made a whopping 5 pair of pants and 4 shirts from the patterns, and 12 applique/screenprinted customized Ts with the left over creativity. 

When I complained to a friend about the addiction, he just didn’t get it. “Isn’t fabric cheap?” Well, yeah. At between $2 and $35 a yard, it is relatively cheap. But the issue is that you buy one fabric or maybe a few coordinating fabrics with no particular purpose in mind, and once you sew those up, you realize you need just one more piece so that you can make a funky/coordinated accessory, and just like those drinks at the bar – one piece leads to another and pretty soon you’re coming in late to work because you have to finish this one last seam, or this coordinating dress will just take 30 minutes, and in no time you find yourself laying face down in a pile of fabric scraps with lint in your hair, with no friends because they couldn’t stand to watch you head down this path and no money for food because you spent it all on fabric.

And it all started with a remnant and a japanese craft book.

Anyhow, it is not my fault that girlie clothes are so easy to sew and so cute, but although I had noticed Sylvie’s closet was filling with handmade goodies faster than anyone else’s, I didn’t realize anyone else had. Until the other night as I’m laying in bed with Will finishing two pair of pants for Sylvie when he asks, “who are those for? and who are THOSE for?” I couldn’t lie. He’d see her wearing both pair the next day. So I resolved to make him some handmades of his own.

On a whim, I turned into Joanns on the way to work. Call it fate – they were open at 9 AM beckoning to me on my commute to the office (it is right next door). And fate of all fates the entire denim aisle was 50% off! I snatched up the remaining 4-6 yards off quite a few bolts. We’ve got indigo washes, soft chambrays, navy denim with embroidered doggies… I bought it all. I could barely heft the bag into the car. My fingers will be permanently blue from the dyes!

Doug got a date night with himself to go see Cory Doctorow talk about his new young adult novel “Little Brother” at Codys in Berkeley. I stayed home with the kiddos sewing.

Made will some big guy shorts yesterday using my japanese chino pattern from this book and denim that I bought from Joanns yesterday. (Did I mention I bought my weight in denim???) Will was really cute – helped me pick out the inside pocket color and then chose which side of the denim to put as the right side of the pants. He asked me if he could wear them today. Oh the pressure to get these together in time! I’m on waistband attempt #3 because I opted to  put elastic in the waist so resized the back when I was cutting but forgot to adjust my waistband length accordingly… The issue with sewing while a 2yr old and a 4 yr old are jumping on your pattern pieces is that you don’t often follow through with the ENTIRE alteration in one go. Attempt #2 failed because I used the pattern waistband height which just didn’t work well with my elastic. I made it work, but admittedly not prettily. So this morning I took that out, trimmed my waistband and will attempt to sew this up tonight.

Good news is that the shorts are really cute on Will. At least with waistband #2. So, I expect they will be a staple in the wardrobe once I’ve fixed the waistband, tonight.