miss us?

Hi! If you've somehow wandered over here and wonder where we've gone, you should check out our new project. Not always in Iowa, not always summertime, but I have a feeling similar themes (baking, sewing, picnics) will show up.

Making Places

love,
mallory + sidonie

Prep time: 3 hours

Moussaka

Oh, Summer

It's still Summer in Iowa, despite the troubling lack of blog posts and the dwindling days until all our fellow students return.


But it's definitely still Summer.
In fact, yesterday we used the air conditioners for the first time: it was beautiful.
In other news, we've been keeping up our usual routines,


here are some beautiful dried cherry bran muffins I made a few weeks ago for our weekly Craft Time. friends came by and sewed and knitted with us, and we all ate muffins and scones (by Mallory, sadly not pictured) and drank tea from matching cups.


Moreover, with the intense heat we've been having, we've been trying to use the stove less and the oven almost never.
It's hard, I have a definite urge to bake some beer bread, but we've been coming up with more creative, no-cook dishes.
My favorite recently has been this quinoa and black bean salad from epicurious.com. I added halved cherry tomatoes from our community garden. I'm in love with those cherry tomatoes-- in my life, I have never tasted a more flavorful tomato.

It rained, so it's cooled somewhat. As much as we love this Summer, we are looking forward to fall, which we anticipate to include leg warmers and homemade bread. Sounds about perfect.

lazy lunch break

Oh, man. It's been a little while since the last post.

Unfortunately, I won't be addressing any of the promised upcoming posts. But I have been sewing things, reading books, and writing letters.


Today's lunch break was appropriately summery and relaxed - lots of laying around reading, chatting, and drinking coffee. After Sidonie left to work, I got some letter-writing done, on cute thrifted notecards with flowers and birds on them.

One of my latest sewing projects: something actually needed, a place to keep my pens and pencils.

I'm very pleased, and my zipper-installation skills are improving considerably. My first attempt, on a skirt, went less smoothly at first. The skirt and a french press cozy will be posted soon, maybe. Directions for the pouch came from Amy Karol's Bend the Rules Sewing, which I love. Another project (a secret one) from that book is in the works.

upcoming updates!

Smoothies!

Soon to come, updates concerning:
-our newly-made clothes
-haircuts and hairdyes
-bicycling in skirts
-summer fun!!!!!
-pitchfork music festival this weekend in chicago, hurrah!

rhubarb love

I got some rhubarb from the farmers' market yesterday, and baked some delicious rhubarb scones.


Unfortunately, all I have is a mac-cam picture. The rhubarb pieces looked really pretty, though, sitting in the bowl coated in sugar. Jewel-colored and sparkly, kind of like those bead-encrusted fruits that some people hang on Christmas trees or put in bowls around the holidays.

faire le pique-nique

Is there a better way to spend a Saturday afternoon, the last day of June?