what do you do when you don't feel like sewing?

sorry for the radio silence folks.

i kinda lost my mojo for a few weeks after christmas. i still feel like i'm recovering from the entire month of december, but at least i've started sewing again. my sewing machine was unplugged for over a week!

i had to switch machines to hem a pair of pants for my little brother - i know, i said i wouldn't hem his pants anymore, but he suckered me in! he'd actually been acting like a real human being, and he gave me a sob story about how he was flying back the day before he started work, and wouldn't have time, blah, blah, blah. so i hemmed them, and since my brother machine does an awesome blind hem stitch, i switched out machines. after i'd put the brother away, my janome just sat there, not even plugged in, until i finally got motivated this past week. i was determined to finish my Habitat quilt before the FVMQG meeting, so that got me going a bit.



one thing i have been doing, since i haven't been sewing, has been baking. yay, baking!

while i was in manitoba i wanted to make sugar cookies, but i couldn't get my hands on the ingredients for my usual amazing recipe (whether you're vegan or not, they're AWESOME!). i searched and found a few recipes, and decided to go with this one, which i found on this blog, though i used margarine, not butter, and didn't have any cream of tartar. they still turned out great! i followed the suggestion to put the cut out cookies in the freezer for 15 minutes before popping them in the oven, and i think it made a big difference in the spreading.



they disappeared within 3 days, i think! isn't my platter neat? i think i paid $0.25 for it. totally a good score.


after christmas i decided to make another batch, again using margarine, but this time i didn't have vanilla, but did have cream of tartar! (i usually steal my sister's vanilla, but i made the dough late at night.) since i was at home, i had a lot more selection of cookie cutters, and i had fun using a bunch of them.

i made some simpler shapes, as well as some gnomes (which totally don't look like gnomes unless you do a fancy job of icing them!). i found this key cutter in my stash that i'd forgotten about, so i made a bunch of keys, and coordinating hearts. (aw. key to my heart. isn't that sappy?) i was so excited when i found the silver jimmies... but they're chocolate! i didn't realize that when i used them, and chocolate's kind of eh on sugar cookies. but it was okay, they were still yummy.



and then i made a tray full of strawberries, and had fun icing them. pretty, huh?



i also made a bunch of teensy-weensy cupcake shaped cookies, which i used to decorate cake cupcakes for a friend's birthday.



i didn't intend to match the icing with the tupperware, but they look pretty good together, don't they?




i'm craving sugar cookies now! why don't they sell sugar cookies at the grocery store like they do chocolate chip and oreos? there's obviously a gap in cookie manufacturing here.