Small Places

North Carolina friend Carol sent me an article about a 90 sq. ft. apartment in New York City.  The entire article with more pictures can be found here.

Obviously, there is a place for everything. And at $700/month rent, WOW!  Her back yard is Central Park.

But I am still impressed that one of my Scrabble friends in Calgary, CA has moved into a renovated loft above a 100 year old pub in a toney part of the city.  His apartment is a bit over 300 square feet.  (And cost is not a concern for him, as he is wealthy by most middle American class standards.) 

It is all in the mindset.  Now I need to go get rid of a few clothes.

After posting this, my friend The KnitNurd gave a further link to TumblewoodHouses, tiny houses that pack a wallop.  Wouldn't you LOVE to have one of these?

Grandmother's Bread (with yeast and fairly sweet)

From the 1960's, this recipe was my favorite food item my grandmother made on a regular basis. I copied it down at the kitchen table while she spoke it. I knew I would want it later.  Boy, am I glad I did because I have used this recipe for these many years after she has been gone.  It is a real comfort food for me.

Favorite parts of the recipe include the words "beat with rolling pin" and the stains on the paper showing the age of the recipe.  And I do remember Mom beating the dough with a rolling pin!

Yesterday was cool and cloudy, and I made three loaves of this bread, although the original recipe said "Makes 4 loaves".

Loaves "under-cover"

All said and done, it was overcooked at 55 minutes (I confess to falling asleep while waiting for the stove buzzer), but still mighty tasty.

Aprons: Some Free Vintage Patterns

From The Sew Weekly, this week's theme is aprons.

As hard as it is to believe, there was once a time when women cooked in clothes that they didn't want to get dirty! Yes! It's true! And then the 1960s happened, clothing got a whole lot cheaper to make and buy and the idea of *not* wearing your party dress while you made some sort of gelatinous dish was born. While wearing an apron today has become more of a kitchy nod to the past, there has certainly been a resurgance of aprons as textile art.

Although I am not in that perfect age group to wear aprons, I still do it.

And IMHO, the perfect age group is either young (ages 4 to 29) or old (just a bit older than I!). 

Last week, I wore this apron to painting group, and got a funny look from a guy in an even older age group.  It probably is not attractive from the back view, if ya know what I mean, but it is very cute from the front:

pocket with embroidery, watercolor and crayon embellishment

A big lot of vintage FREE patterns for aprons can be accessed here.  Now go make one!