Following a Pattern

This weekend Alex and I had a great time running (we're up to 16 miles for our long run!), relaxing, hanging out with friends, and completing some projects around the house. My proudest achievement from this weekend was completing my first ever (to the best of my knowledge) sewing project where I followed a legitimate pattern. I'm thankful for all of the sewing lessons that I received from Alex's mom while we were working on my wedding dress. They gave me the confidence to make a little bag for my sister-in-law for her birthday. I used left over Burberry fabric from the wedding and followed the "Frenchy Bag" pattern by Amy Butler. I modified it a bit to fit the materials that I had on hand, and it's far from perfect, but I'm very pleased with the finished product.

Tada!

Alex's big achievement for the weekend was baking. On Sunday night he got a hankering for cookies, and he set out to make snickerdoodles with our fancy new stand mixer. Though he's a chemist by training, he's never been a baker. True to his scientific nature, before starting the cookie experiment, he looked up what exactly the role of each of the ingredients was during the baking process (for an example of what he learned and subsequently taught to me, see the wiki page on baking powder). He made a few substitutions to match the ingredients we had on hand and then mixed and rolled and baked away. The cookies he made tasted spectacular... But, though he carefully calculated the ingredient substitutions, for some reason the cookies wouldn't hold their puffed up shape. They all flattened into what we deemed snickerdoodle pancakes. We count it a huge success since they really were super delicious, but next time we'll make sure to have cream of tartar on hand.