Baking + Bag

I can't believe how quickly the month is passing. I thought the month would be a little slow since I'm not in class, but I've been keeping myself quite busy. I even had to buy a pocket calendar to keep up with all of my appointments!

I finally had a mostly free day and spent most of the afternoon in the kitchen. I baked cookies, bread and granola. In the spirit of full disclosure, I prepared the cookie dough last week and was just baking the last few cookies today. And I know what some of you are thinking. Granola? Did I go out and hug a tree afterwards?

No. No, I did not.

And the granola is delicious. I used the recipe on Orangette with a few tweaks. I didn't add the sesame seeds or ginger because I didn't have them. And I replaced the brown rice syrup with maple syrup because I didn't know where to find the brown rice syrup. It taste great and the apartment smelled lovely for hours and hours after I had finished cooking.

I also finally cut into my hippo fabric. Not today -- sometime last week. I made this cute reversible shoulder bag. The other fabric came from the crazy textile shop outside of town.




It seems springy/summery to me, so I probably won't use it much for a while. But I definitely plan on taking it to the zoo. I mean, come on, a hippo bag! At the zoo! I'd be crazy not to take it.

I used this tutorial from Lula Louise, in case you're interested in making your own. I really like the shape and the feel of the bag, but since it doesn't have any closures I'm not sure that I would use it for my daily bag. I think I will make a pouch for it and keep it in my regular bag so it's handy when I stop by the grocery store. If I ever make another one, I'll try to stick with fabric with a vertical pattern because the seams are on the front and back instead of the sides. I tried to line up the stripped fabric, but I'm just not that talented. Still, I'm pretty pleased with how the bag turned out.