Crafty Saturday (aka Don't leave me alone with a whole wheel of brie)

This Saturday I enjoyed the perfect combination of good company, crafting and tasty food. Two CFFs came to my place and my mom the Crafting Guru took us through the Wiksten Tova top from start to finish. Talk about patience!

Of course, what would a crafting day be without lots of great food? For lunch I made the ridiculously yummy New York Breakfast Casserole from Smitten Kitchen's cookbook with bagels, cream cheese, onions, tomatoes, eggs and cream. Seriously, go make this now.

Us four hungry crafters put a good dent in the casserole, served up with salad and smoked salmon. With full bellies, it was back to the work! Along with offering lots of guidance and great tips, my mom really kept us going. On my own, I'm sure I would have called it a day a couple steps in.

A few rough spots, mid-afternoon grumpiness (totally only on the students' side and helped by a buffet of tasty snacks) and seemingly endless steps, we actually finished our shirts! I'm still grappling with the realization I made a shirt! A whole freaking shirt! Me! So many exclamation points!!!

I used a cheery Jay McCarroll fabric I snagged months ago from Greenwood's sale rack when we first hatched the crazy plan to do this workshop.

Best of all, this shirt looks damn good! I even managed to sew mostly straight on the top stitching. I'm still admiring the details, like the front neckline and ruffled cuff. CFF Tara's shirt turned out beautifully, too.

This was definitely a bigger challenge than the Wiksten tank, yet still it went together surprisingly well. The pattern is well written and illustrated, but most of the credit goes to the excellent teacher. Not only did she explain everything so simply and patiently and instinctively knew when to step in to avert a total crafting meltdown, but also showed us better ways of doing a few steps.

The day's only downside - the busy crafters never got to the brie.