Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Chocolate and Lime

A new chocolate twill skirt, seen here after a hard day of church, family reunions, and playing in the park.


Pattern, from Mrs. R., is a mock wrap skirt with a nice big pocket. Vintage button.  I topstitched in tan all over it.


It fills a hole in my wardrobe left by the first brown twill skirt I made, using my mother's old 1970s Singer which frustrated my efforts at every turn. I was a very new sewer, and two weeks ago, suddenly realized how badly it showed in that skirt (uneven hem, chewed up topstitching, crooked zipper) and dropped it in the trash. I know: I have lost the right to say I'm thrifty (and shortly after the trashcan incident, I sat straight up in bed and realized I had forgotten to take out the perfectly reusable zipper!).






Lemonade Sirup (from Joy of Cooking, 1953) - made with limes, a 10-for-$2-deal at the grocery store
Boil for 5 minutes:
2 c. sugar
1 c. water
Rind of 2-3 limes (I shaved it off with my vegetable peeler)
1/8 tsp. salt

Cool.  Strain.  Add the juice of 6 limes; you can strain that as well, but I like the pulp.  Drop a lime slice in for pretty.  Store in fridge. 

To make a glass of limeade, add 2-3 Tbs. to a tall glass of ice water or "charged water" (seltzer). 


Perfect with Sunday evening popcorn.  Pretty against a summer skirt.

8 comments:

Jennifer Jo said...

I have tons of limes in the fridge (16 for 2 bucks---my best find yet!) and will now commence to turn them into syrup.

Margo said...

And I thought I got a bargain! Impressive!

Deanna Beth said...

Thinking of your skirt in the trash... I have a comforter that had been on my son's bed for years.... it's nothing special, just a department store quilt. And it's totally coming apart. All over the quilt, wherever it's been machine stitched, the fabric has shredded and the batting is showing. I don't see how it can be salvaged in any way, but it seems so wrong to put a whole quilt in the trash. That's where it belongs though, right? RIGHT?!

Beth said...

Yum yum! And the skirt is classy :-)

Genevieve said...

Your brown skirt is lovely. I've just been thinking about getting the sewing machine out and make some clothing for Summer. I used to sew most of my daughters clothing from vintage linens from the thrift shop.

Christian - Modobject@Home said...

Love the skirt... make one for me, and a glass of limeade!

Margo said...

Deanna Beth, amazingly, that's just the sort of thing that was used as batting for a new quilt back in the day. It depends how patient or thrifty you are feeling, but you could make a comforter out of it. I used a blanket as the batting for this comforter http://thriftathome.blogspot.com/2010/03/comforter-is-done.html
and I thought I was going to quilt it, but it was so thick I had to tie it. I also used an old flat sheet as the backing and cut up part of the fitted sheet for patches. Truly, I like this kind of project because the materials are free or so cheap that I don't get mired in perfectionism. Let me know what you decide. But obviously, I threw a skirt away instead of taking out the zipper and repurposing the fabric!

Anonymous said...

I LOVE your skirt, and it makes me itch to sew something again. Some day I might attempt a skirt as fancy as yours (remember that I'm a novice at this sewing thing!) but the yummy chocolate brown color makes me yearn for fall. And temperatures below 103.