Baked Brie and the Last of the Curtains

I love baked brie.  But I have a secret - I hate the rind on brie.  I can't make myself eat it.  When I order baked brie at a restaurant, I am careful to eat around the rind.  A few months ago, I tried making baked brie at home.  I carefully cut off the rind, arranged the gooey cheesy insides on sheets of puff pastry, and added dried fruit and honey.  It was a disaster.  A tasty disaster, but a disaster nonetheless.  The gooey goodness that is melted brie melted right out of the puff pastry layers I had tried to trap it in.  I did some looking on Google, sure that someone else must hate the rind as much as I do, but the internet consensus seemed to be that I would have to get over my dislike of the rind.  No way.  I had to try again.  This time, rather than making mini squares, I kept the puff pastry sheet whole, intending on wrapping the edges up around the cheese, leaving no room for it to escape.  I scooped the cheese out of the icky rind,  and added some chopped dried cherries and honey.

I wrapped it all up, and put it in the oven, hoping for the best!

20 or so minutes later, and success!  All of the gooey melty goodness that is baked brie, and it all stayed in the puff pastry.  It is possible to make a baked brie without the rind.

I finished the fat little rabbit's curtains several weeks ago, but did not have any rings to hang them up.  I finally remembered I needed them while I was at Target.  Her other nickname is "bug-bug" so I thought the print was appropriate.  And yes, I know they need to be ironed.  

More curtains

Today I tackled the middle boy's curtains.  I was surprised by his fabric choice -- he usually likes blues.  I thought he'd go for one with stripes, or dots, or something more boyish.  Instead he chose this dark orange with white and black birds.  We walked around the entire fabric and curtain area at Ikea twice, and he insisted on this fabric.  I hope he likes it for a while!

I tried a different type of iron on hemming tape.  This stuff came in packs of 10 yards, the stuff I bought earlier was in 3 yard packs.  This stuff also had paper backing.  The instructions said to iron it on adhesive side down for 2 seconds, then remove the backing, attach the fabric, and iron for 8 more seconds.  This is how I expected the stuff I used yesterday to work, but that stuff just said to iron on one side, and there was no backing.  I prefer the stuff I used today.  I did have trouble removing the paper backing on a few sections.

Another thing I did differently today was in how I made the second curtain.  Yesterday, after making the first, I measured its length, and then tried to make the second the same length.  It didn't work well.  The second curtain ended up about 1/2 an inch shorter than the first.  Today, after making the first curtain, and doing the top hem on the second curtain, I placed the first on top of the second, to figure out where to place the bottom hem on the second curtain.

Both the cat and dog tried to help. 

The middle boy's bedroom window has an arch over the top.  I have no idea what you are supposed to buy to cover that, so I installed the rod just straight across the bottom of the beginning of the arch.  

I was very happy with how these turned out.  They were much quicker than the first set too!  Tomorrow I'll try to do the fat little rabbit's.  

In which I make curtains

So I decided to make some of the curtains today.  I went at got some iron on hem tape, rather than try to sew them by hand, or pay for a sewing machine.  The window started like this:

  So you can see why not having curtains or blinds was a problem. Windows that face out to the street?  They need curtains.






I set the fabric out, and started with the iron on tape.  We somehow failed to pack our ironing board when we moved, so I had to improvise with a towel on the floor.  It worked fine.

  

Our cat decided to help.  He was not very helpful.

The biggest problem came when I went to hang them up.  I bought curtain rods from IKEA, and when I went to hang the rods, I discovered that they did not come with the screws necessary to attach the holders to the wall. This seems wrong to me.  A quick stop at our local hardware store fixed that though, and I got them all hung!  I"m pretty happy with how they turned out!  I think I'll start on the others this weekend.

5 miles and new curtains (almost)

5 miles yesterday.  It was warm out, but really windy.  I ran mostly laps around the ponds at our local park, but it seemed I had a headwind no matter which direction I ran.  My pace showed it too - it was a struggle to stay under 12 minutes/mile.  6 miles next week!

We looked for curtains for the kids' rooms today.  I didn't really like any we saw, so I took the kids with me to IKEA to look there.  The two boys found fabric they really liked, and I found some cute stuff for the fat little rabbit's room.  The trick is, it was just fabric!  Now I have to figure out how to sew it into curtains.  I don't think it will be too difficult, just a couple of straight seems, right?

Oldest boy's choice:

Middle boy's choice:

Fat Little Rabbit's: