Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

Y'all. These pumpkin cinnamon rolls. They were real good. Thursday my friend and I had a baking/hang out in the beautiful weather day and busted these bad boys out. We used this recipe from Smitten Kitchen, which is pretty infallible when it comes to recipes. Have you visited this blog full of heavenly goodness yet? Oh you haven't? Prepare for your world to be rocked.

But, before we get into the nitty gritty deliciousness, first you must meet Tyler.

Yes, those are glasses of milk. Things you should know about Tyler: 1. He is hilarious, awesome, and probably cooler than you are because he's lived in France a whole bunch. Most recently in a provincial village (literally), a la Beauty and the Beast, on the coast of France. Not fair, I know, I have life envy. 2. He loves cooking (and consuming) good food just as much as I do. We're both big fans of butter, so OBVIOUSLY he's a genius in the kitchen like yours truly. Ahem. 3. He will whoop your butt in bananagrams. For real.

Here's the photographic rundown of our adventure in baking:

While waiting on the dough to rise we sat outside and Tyler beat me in bananagrams. And yes, that is "porn" in my words. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Biggest cinnamon roll-log ever. Quote of the day, "these are going to be some tight buns!". 

While Tyler took a Jackson Pollock approach to icing his rolls (first picture), I just kind of smeared icing everywhere. I had icing all over me. Because I'm five years old like that.

These were seriously delicious y'all. Go make them. Best cinnamon rolls I've ever had, FOSHO. The only downside was that they weren't as pumpkin-y as we thought they'd be. We debated on whether adding more pumpkin to the dough would change the consistency and also pondered adding pumpkin to the icing (which is phenomenal as is and totally worth stealing from this recipe even if you hate cinnamon buns, although I'm not sure we can be friends if you do). Maybe next time. Regardless they were amazing and they lasted a little over 24 hours before they were demolished. Brendon loved them. They will be made again, probably sooner than later.

Dirndl 2.0

The Halloween costume is finished! Can't wait to share it with everyone! Next up on the sewing agenda is a new dirndl. Wurstfest is quickly approaching!

One of the best parts about starting a new sewing project is picking out your materials. It always takes me forever because there are a gazillion color/texture/fabric options and I can never chose. For instance, I had in mind navy blue fabric for the dirndl and red for the apron as I went into the fabric store today. Obviously I changed my mind.

I found this leafy grey cotton and dropped the navy I had in my arms at once. I immediately thought of yellow for the apron, and found this really great sheer flower embroidered yellow fabric on clearance. There isn't quite enough (always the challenge with clearance fabric), but I'm going to try to make it work. And then as I was walking to the door I found some adorable salmon rickrack and decided to throw it into the mix as a trim. These colors are much more springy than fall, but oh well. Navy blue is my favorite color to wear and I think I sport it a little too often. It's good to mix it up.

The dress pattern I'm using is different from the traditional pattern I used last year. In fact it's not even a dirndl pattern. But it's close enough and I plan on altering it quite a bit to suit my Bavarian needs. And I remember struggling quite a bit through that last dirndl pattern, and it's half German instructions, and I'm not looking to relive all that. Happy sewing!

K&K in Austin

This past week we had a visit from our favorite North Texans, Kristy and Kennedy! They spent a couple days with us, chillin', eatin', and pretending that we don't live a few hundred miles apart. Mostly we hung around South Austin and stayed away from the craziness of the ACL nonsense, but on Friday we ventured out to the Oasis on Lake Travis. I'd been meaning to go since we moved here, but never made it out. So we went! The restaurant is meh (as I had heard) but the view is really great. Ironically though, it's just a few minutes from where I work. Who knew?

It's such a shame that these lovely people live so far away. I love hanging out with Kristy, it's so easy and relaxing. It doesn't matter how long it's been since we've seen each other, we pick it up like we hang out on the daily. And Kennedy is a blast! That little lady is SO smart. And probably the cutest two year old ever. You should see her dance to Gangnam Style, it's epic. It's so much fun watching her grow! She sprouted like a weed and grew a head of curls since the last time we saw her.

Move to Austin, y'all. I need more Kristy and Kennedy in my life!

Greg presents a guessing game

Sweet little Greg, you are the cutest thing in the world sometimes. Thank goodness, because you are also the most annoying thing in the world sometimes.

Halloween is quickly coming up! And you know what that means, time to make a costume! As it was last year, it's a secret until the day of Halloween. But because I'm terrible at keeping secrets, Greg and I are giving you one little hint, this beautiful blue velvet. It's a smallish part of my costume, but also my favorite part. Last year I think I gave my costume away a little too easily, so you only get a little hint this year. If you guess correctly, I will make (and ship, for all you far away friends) you a little sewing prize!

Isn't it beautiful? I love love love the color. I've never made anything with velvet, so wish me luck! If I mess it up too badly, I guess I'll just donate it to Greg to sleep on.

Lederhosen for Mr. H

Y'all. These lederhosen. SHEESH, they were a project. Took me weeks. I used this Burda Style pattern, which was designed to be made with leather, or imitation leather, like traditional lederhosen. We could find neither the real or the fake stuff so we used corduroy, in a caramel-leather-esque color. This created a huge challenge because, duh, it was fabric not leather. The pattern and pattern steps were designed for leather, as in you can cut it and it wont fray. Problemo numero uno. I had to do a lot of inventing/flying by the seat of my pants to make sure this thing wouldn't unravel in the first 30 minutes of wear. Every raw edge was finished and I blew through an entire spool of caramel colored thread sewing all kinds of seams to make sure not only did it not fall apart, but it still was put together as if it was made of leather.

 I think Brendon may have enjoyed this pose a little too much.

Problem number two, leather is obviously thicker and stiffer than fabric, even corduroy, so it doesn't quite hang/fit the way it ought to. The biggest and most obvious spot is in the chest band between the suspenders, it is far too floppy for my taste. In hindsight, I would line the chest band and suspenders with interfacing to bulk them up so they hold their shape a bit more.

I did all of the top stitching in white and I love how it stands out against the corduroy. It forced me to sew in straight lines since they would be visible, which for some reason has always been a challenge for me, but I was mostly successful. I really like the effect though, I may have to do a little more contrasting top stitching in the future!

 Crotch shot much?

Yet another challenge this project presented was the lovely section in the directions that asked me to simply "machine embroider" the decorative elements. OH OKAY, let me just hop over to my embroidery machine... oh wait... At that point I almost threw in the towel. Almost. I pouted for little bit, took a day off, and then put my big girl pants on and got on with it. I drew all the designs by hand, made a pattern, traced them onto the fabric, and then slowly but surely embroidered it all by hand. And I'm pretty dang happy with how it turned out!

Do overs? Make it in leather. Make it a size smaller. Line the pockets with a lighter color. Splurge on better buttons. But all that said, I am very proud. This was definitely the most challenging thing I've ever sewn. But I did it and learned a ton. And now Brendon has German gear to sport this year at Wurstfest! And he just looks so dang cute!