Tons of fun: Cana and Pacific Grove

Whew! Last week was full of adventure, starting out with pupus and salsa dancing at our neighborhood Cuban club, Cana. A crabby-melted-cheesy-wonderful-toast thing, an order of sweet fried plantains, a minty mojito, a sultry cuba libre, and then a few turns around the PACKED dance floor before making our way on foot up the hill and home...couldn't be better on a Bay Area Sunday afternoon with temps in the 80s.

Then mid-week we took off on a little driving jaunt to Pacific Grove, on the Monterey Peninsula. Have you been there? What a gorgeous little town, and really nothing like the hustle and tourist vibe of Monterey and Carmel, except that it has the same beautiful non-stop scenery. Right on Monterey Bay and Pinos Point, the sparkling blue water and white sands are hard to beat.

We went there theoretically to play golf, but the golf was really the least enjoyable part of a very enjoyable 2-day stay. We stayed at the Butterfly Grove Inn, and while we were too late for the Monarch butterflies that throng here October through March, we still really liked the Inn. It's pink, of course, and quite 50s motel-like, but the rooms are huge and nicely, if simply, decorated. It's clean and attractive and comfy - we even had a gas fireplace in our room. Sweet! Not expensive, either, at least at this time of year. Outside is the beautiful grove of trees that the Monarchs return to, and in both directions we were close enough to the Bay and to downtown Pacific Grove to walk it.

Here's a view of the Bay:

 and some of the flora:

Gosh, it was pretty. That purple flower is iceplant and it was all over the rocks on the way down to the Bay. There are some beautiful homes here too. Quite a nice little city, and just minutes from Monterey if you wanted to go to the Aquarium or to the Monterey Jazz Festival, both worthwhile activities.

We had fabulous food too. We tried Fishwife for dinner, and loved it. The calimari appetizer is the best I've ever had, and very substantial. We also shared the Baja Fistherman's Bowl (shrimp, scallops, lobster) and thought it was great - lots of food. For breakfast the next morning, we first tried Red House, which looked great but we were too late getting up - they stop serving breakfast at 11. They sent us to Holly's, which was wonderful. Wayne had the carrot cake pancakes...unbelievable. So good! I had poached eggs and buttermilk pancakes - also to die for. So it was an eating frenzy in PG.

The golf? Well, it wasn't the course, it was us. The course was fine, although it was right on the Point (beautiful) which meant we were whipped by wind the entire time. I mean whipped! I'm not a huge fan of wind. Anyway, we golfed 13 holes and called it a day. We did get a special treat, though, and that was to see the Point Pinos Lighthouse, which is right next to the course and is the oldest continuously operating lighthouse on the West Coast. Cool!

This week we're recuperating...

How to make a lion comforter for Baby Leo

My brother's family is exploding with baby boys! My brother has two daughters. The youngest, Kristin, had a beautiful baby boy, Lincoln, in October and Great-Auntie (me!) helped her celebrate with a baby owl comforter, because owls were the theme of her nursery. See Lincoln and his owls here.

Now Kristin's older sister Amber and her husband Jason have adopted Leo, also a darling brand-new baby boy. In the way these things are, they waited for a long time for Their Baby to show up, and then when he did, it happened overnight. Suddenly they were new parents! So the idea of a "theme" didn't happen - in fact the nursery was still a dream in their heads. When I went to get fabric for a welcome comforter for Leo, I was on my own. Well, not really, because Leo pretty much means "Lion", doesn't it, and what could be better than a comforter full of lions!? I definitely had lions in my mind.

Lan at Piedmont Fabrics, my favorite neighborhood fabric store, came to the rescue as always with the perfect fabric. First she said, "You have to make a book, because I have this great fabric with lions that is meant to be cut up and made into a book." Then we said, "Well, why couldn't it be made into a comforter with all the book pages on the front?" And that's what I did.

Here it is in my sewing room. I bought one set of pages and cut off the instructions on the side. You can see it in the photo. The remaining fabric with all the pages was 33" x 32", a perfect size for a baby comforter.

 

I also bought a yard of soft flannel baby-blue-and-white striped fabric for the backing, some soft cotton batting for the stuffing, and a ball of baby blue yarn for tying the comforter.

 

I washed the fabric front, the batting, and the flannel backing in the washer on "hot", dried them in the dryer, and then ironed them. Who wants a baby blanket that's not perfectly clean? And besides, someone (probably Amber) is going to be washing this baby blanket every other day from now on - might as well get all the shrinking out of the way from the start.

After the ironing was done, I cut the flannel backing to match the size of the lion fabric, and laid the two pieces of fabric right sides together (see photo) and pinned them on three sides, plus a couple of inches into each end of the fourth side. I machine-stitched the pinned edges together using a 1/2" seam, and left the remainder of the fourth side open so I could turn the "envelope" right side out and stuff the batting in through the opening.

 Then I used the fabric "envelope" as a pattern to cut the batting. I used two thicknesses of batting, which in this type of cotton batting results in a thickness of about 1/2". We don't want it to be too thick, because it can overwhelm a tiny baby and even restrict his breathing if it's so thick and stiff that it sticks out over his face. Not good!!

 

Stuffing our batting into the envelope is a piece of cake if we roll it up first.

 

 

 

Then stick the whole roll into the farthest end of the envelope and unroll it toward the opening. Adjust the batting inside until it's smooth and even all over. Pin the open edge closed, folding under 1/2" seam on each edge. I hand-stitched this seam closed. It could also be sewn close to the edge with a machine, but the stitches will show and it won't look nearly as nice. Hand sewing is therapeutic... let's put on some nice music and find a comfy chair.

 

Our lion comforter is nearly finished! All we have to do now is tie it in regular intervals with yarn to keep the batting inside from shifting around, and also to provide a pretty pattern. In this case, I tied the comforter at the corners of the printed book pages, more or less, and kept up the geometric pattern where the pages became irregular at the top. Here's a photo of how to tie a comforter; of course we are putting the yarn through all layers of the comforter, so a stitch of yarn shows on the back too. Then  tie a square knot on the front and clip the ends off to about half an inch long.

 

 

One more pressing, and we're finished. Here's our beautiful storybook comforter for beautiful Baby Leo!