Best Friend Friday No. 17: Sewing Day

This past Friday on January 30, Lauren and I decided to have a crafting day, or more specifically, a sewing day! Lauren has been busy with school and work so she has been itching to get some sewing time in, and who am I to pass up a day filled with craftiness with my bestie?

Whenever a new indie sewing pattern comes out that I adore, I just have to buy it right away, without any solid plans for it. Typically this new pdf just sits in my inbox for months, sometimes even years, until I get the sudden urge to sew up a new garment. When we moved to Philadelphia, Lauren and I kept all of our already pieced patterns rolled/folded up in an unused, clean trash bin. It was a sad state, and even worse to work with curled pattern pieces. We decided that our patterns need to be hung up and kept unfolded/unrolled. After hanging up Command Strips, hole punching our pattern pieces, and wrapping leftover yarns scraps through the patterns, we came up with a great solution that works well for us. Since we wear different sizes, we're unable to share patterns which means that we each have to print out the dozens of pages, tape, and cut all of the patterns we want to use. It's really not that big of a deal (I actually find piecing patterns quite relaxing), but that means that we each needed our own space for pattern storage. Lauren hung hers up by her desk, and mine's by the window (because I don't have enough space by my desk), and so far this system is working really well. Because our patterns are now in clear view, I at least always want to start sewing something new whenever I walk by.

Anyway, on Friday Lauren started and finished a Tiny Pocket Tee, sans the pocket. I finally finished my Tova Top. Our sewing on-and-off marathon truly began the Saturday before, and I finished this one project in the amount of time Lauren managed to sew three garments. That's okay though. I'm really happy with my finished product and I think that it will actually get worn a lot! I also restarted a Pretty Blouse that I initially began years ago. It's about halfway done now, but it still needs sleeves, a hem, and a finished neck.

This probably goes without saying by now, but obviously we had homemade pizza for dinner. We changed things up a little bit this week and tried a new "cheese". Usually we top our pizzas with Daiya Mozzarella, but we only had a little bit left and we were trying to save it for Super Bowl nachos. Cue Pinterest! I went through my pins and found vegan pizza cheese sauce. We had all of the ingredients so of course I had to try this recipe. Initially I was worried I wouldn't like the taste or texture since I've become accustomed to Daiya. But once I had my first taste, I knew that this cheese sauce would be delicious on pizza. Lauren and I loved this recipe. I'm pretty sure Lauren even prefers it over store-bought vegan cheese. The recipe makes a huge batch and should keep well for a few weeks, so I've been topping everything I could think of with the leftovers.

This week's pizza toppings included: Newman's Own marinara, cashew cheese sauce, spinach, black olives, yellow bell pepper, tomatoes, and onions. I've mastered the cooking time and rotating the two pizzas on various oven racks so that our pizzas come out with the perfect golden crust!

An awesome Best Friend Friday was definitely had!