This week I’m going with something a bit different for the tutorial. That’s right, I’m going to show you how to grow your own food. My apartment doesn’t get very good light, I have no yard, and only a fire escape that I’m not allowed to keep any plants on, yet I can easily grow my own sprouts. You don’t need dirt or sunlight, so it’s perfect for apartment-dwellers. With some seeds, a lot of water, and a week, you too can grow your own tasty, crunchy greens. Did I mention that it’s really cheap? Yep, much cheaper than buying sprouts at the store.

Materials:
Sprouting seeds (I used alfalfa, but I’ve also grown clover, broccoli, and mung beans. You can buy tons of varieties from SproutPeople or at your local hippie store)
Mason jar (a big one!)
Mesh jar lid or cheesecloth
Water

I bought this mesh lid at a hippie food co-op store, but before I got it I used cheesecloth. It seems like you could probably make your own out of metal screen mesh from a hardware store, if you wanted. (Saying mesh too many times in my head made it sound weird to me. Mesh mesh mesh. Doesn’t sound like a word anymore.)

Methods:
1. Measure out 1-2 tablespoons of seeds and pour them in your jar. It looks like a tiny bit of seeds for such a big jar, but trust me, they expand.

2. Add a couple inches of cold water and soak your seeds overnight or all day. 8-12 hours should do it.

3. After the seeds have soaked, dump the water, fill up the jar about halfway with new water, and dump that to rinse your seeds. Drain them well (I set mine on my dish-drying rack for a couple of minutes), then leave them alone for the day. You don’t need to worry about sunlight because without leaves, they’re not photosynthesizing yet. I just keep mine on my kitchen counter.

4. I soaked mine overnight and then drained them in the morning, so I’m just going to describe the process with that timeline, but it doesn’t really matter as long as you do the rinsing about every 8-12 hours. So, in the evening, rinse your seeds a couple of times, as above. Mine had actually already sprouted at this point, but I only took pictures in the morning, with natural light.

5. Continue rinsing your seeds/sprouts every 8-12 hours. Use lots of water and give them a couple of rinses, then make sure to let them drain well.

Amazing, right?

6. Continue for 5-6 days, then give them a final rinse and 8-12 hours later, put them in the refrigerator for eating. You can do this final wash in a salad spinner to get rid of the brown hulls and dry your sprouts extra well, and in this case you don’t need to wait as long before putting them in the fridge.

I like to add them to salads, sandwiches, and wraps. Yum!

Ah, the perils of the Anthropologie sale section. I was there ostensibly looking for a dress for the party I attended this weekend. This one seemed too casual for the event, but it’s so darling that I had to get it. It has wooden buttons! It was also the last one left, and in my size! Clearly it was meant to be.

As you may have noticed, I wear a lot of thrifted items. Even when I wear something new, like this dress, I always mix in secondhand accessories. Belts, especially, are cheap and plentiful at thrift stores, so I have quite a collection. They can really make all the difference in an outfit, I think.

It may look warm and sunny in these photos, but it was actually quite chilly, so I also accessorized with wool tights, a wool cardigan, and a vintage faux fur collar. For all of you folks on the east coast who are snowed in, however, I’m sorry for taunting you with our spring-like weather. Compared to “snowmageddon,” I can’t really complain.

When I was walking down the street wearing this, a girl in the backseat of a car stopped at a light opened her window and yelled, “I like your outfit!” Being yelled at by men in cars is gross to me, but I definitely appreciated this compliment.

Yep, I’m dancing! Wanna make somethin’ of it?

Hmm, I should probably iron this dress….

Dress: Anthropologie (sale rack)
Tights: SmartWool, Nordstrom Rack
Shoes: Dolce Vita
Earrings: A gift
Watch: Nixon
Everything else is thrifted. I modified the faux fur collar to add a fastener. I’m adding vintage or sterling silver findings and embellishments to several faux fur collars that I plan to list on etsy later this week.

Whew, what a weekend. We attended the launch party for the game that Steven worked on, and I have the photo to prove it. The props all tie into the game, which involves defending yourself from crazy genetically-spliced freaks.

Unfortunately I have no other pictures of my outfit, but I have other plans for the dress so hopefully it’ll make an appearance here soon. Technically, it already has. Remember my stripe collage? Last week I found the pink and navy blue number in that collage on the sale rack at Anthropologie, and well, I just couldn’t resist.

In other news, last weekend I said I was going to a mustache party, and I did, but I don’t have a photo of myself in a ’stache. Instead, I give you my cat, Adventurous, modeling my mustache. Doesn’t she look dashing?

I probably don’t have to tell you that she wasn’t terribly fond of wearing a stick-on mustache. All of the other pictures in this series involve her trying to remove her furry accessory.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention this weekend’s Super Bowl, but as a non-fan of the sport (in fact more of a hater), I had no interest in watching the game. Instead I attended a sort of anti-Super Bowl party that my friend threw, wherein we ate the proper football game snacks but instead watched Anne of Green Gables. It was grand, simply grand.

I hope you had a great weekend! Anything of note?

In case you’re wondering what I wore with my homemade ruffled shirt, here’s the rest of the outfit.

I look really worried here because I’m trying so hard not to squint! My eyes are really sensitive to light, which is the reason I am usually wearing sunglasses in outdoor photos.

The shoes are thrifted from the Castro Out of the Closet. They’re actually small men’s shoes and they had several identical pairs so I imagine they belonged to a gay men’s choir or something of the sort. The scarf in my hair and sunglasses are both thrifted as well.
Coat: Vintage
Pants: Hudson, TJ Maxx
Blouse: Made by me!
Watch: Nixon
Earrings: Etsy, Crave Jewelry Design

Happy Friday, and have a great weekend! I’ve got lots of plans– burritos in the Mission tonight and celebrating the graduation of my fellow student (so happy for her!), taking two of my cats to the vet (that’ll be fun), driving out to the Alameda Flea Market (if I can talk Steven into it), and going to a big video game launch party (um, this one)!

Recently I had sort of a sewing revelation. But let me back up a bit. I started learning how to sew when I was a pre-teen and my mom taught me the basics using a hideous floral knit fabric to make stretch pants and a matching top (all of which I picked out, so I can’t blame her for that fashion disaster). Over the years I’ve made many things with various degrees of success. Right now, in fact, I happen to be wearing a skirt that I made from my go-to skirt pattern. (It’s New Look 6197, if you’re curious.)

So skirts usually work out pretty well, but shirts and dresses are another story. I’ve made several that just didn’t fit me right. Despite the fact that my chest measurement corresponded to the pattern size I was using, the finished product ended up too tight under the arms. For a long time I stuck to sewing skirts and only made tops out of stretch knits. Finally, however, I was inspired by BurdaStyle to sew a sloper block. A bodice sloper block is basically a bodice pattern that you adjust perfectly to fit your body, and then you can use it to help you adjust patterns accordingly. I was kind of shocked at how off my upper body was from the standard measurements. No wonder nothing I sewed had fit right.

Sloper in hand, I was determined to sew a shirt that fit me correctly. I started with Simplicity 2599 (which Angry Chicken posted about here and here) and, revelation number two here, I made a muslin. Yep, I took some scrap fabric and adjusted the pattern fit until everything was just right. Only then did I make my top out of some slightly more precious fabric. And you know what? It fits me really well! In fact, it’s probably one of my favorite things I’ve ever sewn. Of course there are still imperfections–one of the darts is a little bit puckery, and I’m sure better seamstresses than I can find more mistakes. But by Golly, I think I’m on the right track.

According to popular wisdom, you’re supposed to get a haircut every 6 weeks, right? Well, the last time I got a real haircut was last June. Why? Mainly because even though I’ve lived in San Francisco for about 4 1/2 years, I still don’t have a hairstylist that I’ve gone to more than once. Back in Portland I followed my friend Eve from beauty school and then from salon to salon, and every time I would go to visit my family I’d make sure to make an appointment with her. But now she’s whole continents away, and rather than deal with paying someone in SF to chop my locks, I’ve been hacking at my hair myself. One of the great things about curly hair is that it’s very forgiving of my terrible technique, but when I straighten it out it’s much more obvious how much I’m in need of a real haircut. The other problem is that I can never decide what I want done with it, so I put off making an appointment somewhere until I’ve made up my mind. Really this is just a long-winded way of explaining why I’ve bobby-pinned the hell out of my hair in these pictures. Also a request for advice: Should I grow it out, or keep it short? And if you know any great (ahem, cheap?) hairstylists in San Francisco, spill the beans!

Skirt: Ralph Lauren, Thrift Town
T-shirt: Target
Tights (and socks over tights): Target
Coat: Buffalo Exchange
Sunglasses: Don’t remember
Necklace: Thrifted
Belt: Gap, thrifted
Watch: Nixon

By nature, I’m not especially romantic. I’m not one of those girls who’s ever daydreamed about her wedding, and I despise most romantic comedies. But since Valentine’s Day is coming up and I know my Valentine will appreciate it, I made him a card. If you’d like to make one, too, I’ve hidden it from him behind the cut, so click the link.

Materials:
Cardstock (8.5″ by 11″ sheet)
Embroidery thread
Needle
Scissors
Glue stick

Methods:
1. Cut a piece of cardstock about 4.25 by 5.5 inches.

2. Sketch out your design with pencil on the back side. This means that any text needs to be backwards.

3. With your needle, outline your design by poking holes the length you want your stitches to be. Make sure not to put the holes too close together, otherwise you’ll tear the paper when you pull the needle and thread through, and then those stitches will be twice as long. This happened to me in a couple of places.

4. Thread your needle with the embroidery thread, knot the end, and starting from the side you’ve drawn your design, start stitching.

5. Continue until you’ve stitched the whole design, then repeat with the letters.

5. Take the rest of your cardstock and cut a piece that’s the same width but twice as long as your stitched piece. In my case this is 8.5 by 5.5 inches.

6. Fold the paper card-style.

7. Using the gluestick, glue the stitched paper to the front of the folded card.

8. Write something sweet and sappy inside, like, “Valentine, you’ve got my heart all stitched up.” Or, if you don’t have a special someone, you could modify the card to add “BFFs” between the initials and give the card to your best friend.

Whip up some homemade chocolate truffles (they’re actually pretty easy to make!) and you’ve got yourself a nice Valentine’s Day gift.

Vogue/Butterick/McCall’s was having a $3.99 online sale on their patterns, so I had to snatch up a few I’d been eying. I got:

I want to challenge myself to sew a jacket, and this one looks pretty simple.

This one looks like a simple sheath dress until you check out the back view.

Rachel Comey sure had a lot of pretty pattnerns, but I just ended up with these two.

Love this top, but these model looks frighteningly angry, doesn’t she?

I guess I’m into cut-out backs these days.

Now I’ve just got to find suitable fabrics with which to sew them all (not to mention the time).

If this picture doesn’t make your heart hurt you’re doing something wrong. Via Cute Overload, of course.

Lusting after this necklace. It’s for such a good cause, too.

OMG, does it mean that I’m totally nerdy because I’m psyched to watch the new PBS version of Emma online? Wait, don’t answer that.

I want to knit this adorable bath mitt, even though I don’t use a bath mitt.

I remember seeing this radio last time I was in the Curiosity Shoppe, but somebody’s blog post just reminded me of how awesome it is.

Whoa, I’d love to have some of these on my fridge. I bet they’re very DIYable with the right tools.

In honor of Tom Selleck’s birthday (actually yesterday), I’m heading out to a mustache party tonight. Got my ’stache from a plastic ball vending machine in the mission, but it looks like etsy sure could’ve supplied the goods, too. I like this one and this one.

Happy Friday!
If I look a little chilly in these photos, it’s because it was freezing up on that roof last week. Okay, not actually freezing, but it was cold for San Francisco. I obviously survived, though.

I don’t think I’ve ever posted pictures with my hair straightened, but now you know what I look like without my curly hair. Unlike my two curly-haired sisters, I rarely straighten mine. When I do, though, I kind of feel like a different person. Weird what a little quality time with a straight-iron can do, eh?

Dress: Thrifted (and the same as the one I wore here, just a different color)
Jacket: TJ Maxx
T-shirt: Nordstrom Rack
Tights: Target
Scarf: Thrifted
Boots: One of 2
Necklaces: Thrifted, and I made the one with the studs.

Have a great weekend!