mushroomy foldover clutch plus some new books

My sewing machine still works. It was iffy....the cover hadn't even been taken off of it for some unknown time - several weeks or so before Christmas. 

But my deal old Pfaff jumped right back into the action with no problem. The only rust in the situation was on me! There are several things that I really could do because they need to be done. Violet has a lack of pants that aren't either leggings or blown full of holes. Clover could use a few t-shirts even though she likes to live in two shirts on rotation. But ever since I saw

 Skirt as top's foldover doily clutch tutorial 

and the

You and Mie leather accent clutch mod

I was inspired to make one like them for myself with a mushroomy linen fabric. 

Unfortunately I didn't have any mushroom fabric or leather, but I did have some nice blue hemp/linen blend leftover in my stash, so I had to make a print. This was made with a couple of old wine corks and some crappy fabric paint that I picked up at Joanns. I don't recommend buying fabric paint there....

Jacquard is so much better quality, and the colors in the paints I got are weird. Why, I ask, are things labeled with names like "red" or "crimson red" all various shades of pink? 

I decided to grab some crappy paint anyway, and carved out stamps from old wine corks. The place where the hole from the corkscrew went through is where the dot ended up on all of the mushroom caps. Lol. 

It's lined with some scraps of Sarah Jane that make me happy when I open my clutch

Now I'm back to knitting again. The Downton knit along has started, and after two false starts on my project due to using the wrong size circular needle, and an aborted long tail cast on after running out of tail, I'm now partway through the ribbing band on my hat. Hopefully I'll get some shots of my progress tomorrow and update on that. I'm excited! We also just finished the last episode of season two and can start watching season 3 now. Yay!

In other news I'm obsessing over two books that my parents got me for my birthday. One is Ladled by Kimberly Harris, whose blog "The Nourishing Gourmet" I follow and love. It's all about making super nutritious and delicious soups with a base of homemade stock. There are so many recipes in this. One I'm interested in trying soon, among many, is the authentic pho recipe.

Source: thenourishinggourmet.com via Tara on Pinterest

And the other is Tartine Bread

which is an incredibly beautiful book about making traditionally leavened bread. It's an interesting mix of cooking instruction, history, narrative, and biography. I love how it starts out with the story of the author's quest for making the perfect loaf of bread, and his journey around the US and into rural France before opening Tartine in California. The photography in this book is to DIE FOR. And I can't wait to start up a culture to make some of this bread out of.

Source: tartinebread.com via Tara on Pinterest