Lobster Shorts crafting, Food, sewing, vegetarian

Coffee and Cloaks

It’s a beautiful Sunday so far. The weather called for rain and clouds and it’s been warm and sunny – a beautiful day. I started my day with coffee and puttering around cleaning the kitchen.

My spouse woke up just as I finished cooking breakfast. It was the usual scrambles eggs, home fries in the air fryer, and today a side of sauerkraut. I bought the sauerkraut in this photo from the grocery store, but currently, I’m almost finished fermenting my own (I’ll post about that later this week).

As for the cloak, it’s cute and whimsical, but I felt silly wearing it out. In fact I carried it until I found a quiet spot by the river where my spouse could take some photos. He was weird about it too.

I’m more “free willed” than my spouse, he is my gage for what is socially acceptable. This cloak seems to have crossed the line. I know you’re not supposed to care, but I felt uncomfortable.

Being a warm day, I wasn’t able to judge how good this cloak would be at keeping me warm. It was getting hot wearing it to snap some photos.

It would definitely be more appropriate for cooler weather. I don’t think it would last in long in a Canadian winter against the temperatures. In the above photo I’m holding in closed, but it still stays open around the neck and chest. I used a tie closure made from the cloak fabric. I’m sure a different closure would help with that immensely.

I lined it with taupe coloured satin. I’ve been told satin is really hard to work with, and they are correct. The middle seam of the lining bunched during the sewing process and therefore ended up being short. I should have ripped the seams out and resewed it, but I didn’t, which in turn ended up messing up the drape at the bottom of the cloak.

If I want to fix the problem I would have to either rip out the entire lining and make it again, make the cloak shorter, or add some extra fabric to the lining which would make some strange lines on the inside. You wouldn’t see the inside lining, so that could be done. I’d still have to rip out a lot of the work I did. The cloak is pretty long, it wouldn’t probably be okay to make it a little shorter.

I’m going to leave it the way it is for now. I’m never going to wear the hood up. I like the way it looks down much more. It looked funny on, but the cloak would look incomplete without it. I do like the cloak, but not to wear it casually around. I will wear the crap out of it every Halloween season though.

I can’t wait!

Lobster Shorts card making, crafting, Food, sewing

Sunday Breakfast, Cloak Update, and Cards

This week’s Sunday breakfast, I made scrambled eggs, homemade scones (recipe here), and homemade clotted cream, in the Instant Pot (recipe here). I’ve made clotted cream in the oven before, but I’ll always be making in the Instant Pot now. It was super easy and turned out exactly the same.

I love clotted cream, but I haven’t seen it around since the pandemic started. In a province full of dairy farmer’s you wouldn’t think it would be hard to get, but we import it from England. It’s super easy to make, I’ll make my own from now on.

I found fabric for the cloak at FabricLand. Just my luck they were having a huge sale! It was still over $70.00 with the thread, cloak fabric, and lining. I am going to cut the tissue paper pattern out, possibly the fabric today. I’ll start sewing it during the week.

It’s been so sunny and beautiful lately. It’s still cold, but being outside is wonderful with all this extra sunshine. I’ve been loving Winter walks.

I made more cards this weekend. These two were my favourite. I’ll post a video of the rest and the supplies I used to make them, below.

Lobster Shorts card making, crafting, sewing

Let’s Talk About Cloaks

Let’s talk about cloaks and why we don’t wear them anymore. I’ve never worn a cloak, but I really want to. I love the way they look, they remind me of fairy tales. I don’t know why we don’t currently wear them. Since I’ve never worn one, I can’t attest to their practicality. There are no arm holes and maybe they aren’t very warm. It might be a pain in the arse having to hold it closed, and how would you carry your handbag while wearing one (if you carry a handbag). Cloaks were the furthest thing on my mind until I went on YouTube.

Rachel Maksy’s most recent video popped up in my subscription list, she was making cloaks and wearing them. She showed the pattern she used and I bought it on Amazon. I’m going to wait until the pattern comes before I buy the fabric. I’ve got to try this cloak thing out!

I also made cards this week. The two pictured above were my favourites. I made the other three below as well. Jay liked the Thanks card the most.

I cut the Yes!? part off the cat stamp (it was part of the big cat stamp). I didn’t think it went together so I chopped it off. I tried Ann Melvin Positivelypapercraft‘s laminator hack, to make the cat window card. Mine was a little bubbly, I’ll need practice. I’ll post a video of the cutting dies, stamps, and embossing folder I used to make them, below.