The next step in The Great Living Room Project (tm) is underway, although there were a few hiccups. Speaking of hiccups, Winston gets them all the time. Should I be worried about this? They only last for a minute or so, but I've never known a dog to have the hiccups so often.
Anyway, back to the GLRP. I started on some curtains. I've had this green fabric for quite a long time, and I wanted to pair it with some nice, light, white to keep things bright and sunny. I picked up a pair of sheers from Ikea for $9.99, thinking they would work well and be economical to boot. I also originally thought that they would be cute with long, skinny tied tabs and then I realized that for three windows, with two panels each, I'd be making skinny ties for the rest of the year. So, I made one curtain, minus ties, and my economical solution was economical for a reason. The fabric from the Ikea curtains was too light, and the grain was way off, so it was a big pain to cut out and then it didn't hang right. Back to the drawing board. I have some natural linen, which I will be using to slip-cover the wing chair, so I decided to try that. Unfortunately, it was slightly narrower than my green fabric, of which I was using a full width for each panel, so I had to piece it together, and I didn't even have to sew it to the green before realizing that it was way too heavy and where I had to seam it was just way too stiff. So, on to the next option. I had a couple pieces of a nice linen-cotton blend. Again, I had to piece it, but it's light enough that it doesn't affect the drape of the fabric at all, and it's heavy enough that it works well with the green. So, I think we have a winner. Two panels are done, except for the hemming, and the rest are all cut out, so I may try to get one done each evening.
So, yeah, it's quite green. I don't care though, I like it. It's a Susan Sargent fabric, from the same line as the fabric on my sofa, so it works. I'm violating my self-imposed blog rule of no photography of wrinkled items, but I still have to take them down for hemming, so I'll press them all nicely then, and with the morning sun coming through, it's too dark to see the wrinkles anyway. Eventually I also want to make white canvas Roman shades for each window. I also need to figure out something for the window on the front door. Probably something plain and white. I sure wish I could remember where I put my switch plate cover thingie. I'm sure it's somewhere very safe.
I don't know if any bird experts read my blog, but we have a bit of an infestation of these little birds. They've built little mud nests under the eaves of our shed, which isn't a huge deal, but there seem to be way more birds than nests. There are about 5 or 6 nests, with more underway:
We've also found three of them dead in various places, and it doesn't seem to be the work of the dogs. Bear has caught a few little critters in his day, and he enjoys playing with the corpses and then swallowing them whole (gross, I know, but he's a bird dog and an excellent rat catcher, so what can you do?), and we've found the little bodies, completely undisturbed in the middle of the driveway, where he surely would have found them. I don't mind a nest or two, but it's getting a little creepy how many there are, just flying around. I'm wondering if I should knock their nests down, so they'll go find somewhere else to live. We were thinking that maybe they used to live in the tree that was cut down last fall. But there are lots of other trees where we live, so it's not like our shed is the only option. Does anyone know what they are? I'm just not sure what, if anything, we should do. I tried to get a picture of them all flying around when I get close to the shed, which is not easy, but here are a few of them:
They don't look so creepy there, but trust me, it's kind of creepy.
Okay, next topic. I did a little cooking this weekend, and have perfected a wasabi cream sauce, which is so tasty over seared tuna. Actually, perfected is perhaps a little too grand of a term, I just took a little sour cream and added some stuff, mixed, tasted, adjusted, and tasted again. Anyway, if you like sushi, you might enjoy this:
Seared Tuna Steaks with Wasabi Cream Sauce
2 4-5 ounce Tuna Steaks, very fresh!
1/4 c. sour cream
1/2 t. wasabi paste (you could probably use wasabi powder as well)
Juice of 1/2 a small lemon
1-2 t. soy sauce
Make the wasabi cream: mix together the sour cream, wasabi, lemon juice and soy sauce. Taste and add more soy sauce or wasabi if necessary. Add a teaspoon or two of water and stir. It should be just a little runny.
Season the tuna steaks with a little salt and a lot of freshly ground pepper. Sear for a minute or two on each side. They should be quite pink in the middle still, although not cold. Slice and drizzle with Wasabi Cream sauce to serve. If you're squeamish about rare fish, or you question the freshness of the fish, it would probably still be quite delicious if you cook the fish through.
We had this last night with some steamed sugar snap peas and this cold noodle salad from hello yarn and it was all so very delicious.
