Seattle Yogini

GF Sourghum Bread, my first attempt

We had family visiting last week. It was busy and crowded and lovely and I'm glad we had some time together. We cooked a lot, which wasn't unusual but I note it here because we don't usually cook for four.

I wanted to supplement one of our dinners with some bread that I could eat. I haven't eaten bread since July, when I went gluten-free. I don't miss it, but I had just read the recipe in the Gluten Free Girl book and felt inspired.

For one thing, when I ate gluten I made lots of bread, and particularly loved the No-Knead Bread recipe. Loved. It.

I knew that the GF version wouldn't be the same, just as soy milk is not the same as cow milk.

It was good, though, and in the end I had a loaf of what we agreed was more akin to a dense & crusty cornbread than, say, a french loaf. That isn't surprising, since it's the gluten that makes a french loaf what it is.

I was happier with this cornbread-ish result than one might think, because while I haven't missed regular bread, I dearly miss cornbread (my favorite way of eating corn). This loaf was a close enough approximation that I could almost taste my Sopa de Lentejas (Lentil Soup, Spanish style) with my first bite.

Yum. Especially with honey slathered on it.

For the recipe, go visit Shauna.

Basket Yoke Pullover, a Gift for Myself!

I'm not much for "women's" magazines. As much as I like the concept of personal style, I don't much care about fashion. My magazine genre of preference is the knitting magazine. Not only do the patterns and articles give me artistic inspiration, they are often educational and motivating.

When I saw the premiere edition of knit.wear magazine, I earmarked a few different patterns for future reference. That's always my first step: I use those little self-sticking flags (like miniature post-it notes) to mark the patterns that catch my eye. Then I go through and read more about each to see if it's a pattern I actually want to follow. Then I consider the yarn suggestion, and peruse ravelry to see how it looks on various bodies, in various yarns, and with a multitude of modifications.

This is how I decided that I wanted to make the Basket Yoke Pullover, in the suggested yarn and with just two personalized modifications. The first thing I noticed about this sweater is the luscious, slightly fuzzy yarn. It's Berroco Ultra Alpaca, a 100% alpaca worsted-weight yarn. That means it'll knit up relatively quickly (thanks to being worsted weight), be super-cozy but also very light-weight (thanks to the alpaca).

The next thing that I noticed about the sweater was that it was the work of a designer whom I admire, Wendy Bernard. She designs curve-hugging, flattering (for my shape, anyway) sweaters and is generous in her advice about how to personalize a project. Just check out her book, Custom Knits, to learn more. This sweater is knit from the top down, which makes it theoretically easy to try on as you knit. I say "theoretically" because of course the sweater will look and fit very differently once the whole thing is done. That said, at least you are alerted to disasters - such as a too small neck hole, or that you can't get your arms through the arm holes - before the whole body of the sweater is knit.

What I knew I would want to change was the neck line. I like boat neck tops, and they flatter my strong shoulders. I have been burned, however, by the boat neck-turned-flash dance sweater, so I didn't want to take any chances with this one. I decided to modify the neck band so that it would be just a little narrower without sacrificing the overall look or intention of the design.

The alpaca yarn grew a lot in length after I soaked and blocked the finished sweater, but I was very happy with the body's resulting length. The waist shaping even hit me in the right spot! The sleeves, however, ended up about two inches too long and I realized that I didn't care for the bell shape. So, after the sweater was dry and I'd sewn in all of the body ends, I ripped out the last five inches of a sleeve, reknit without the bell shaping and making it shorter, and tried it on again. Success! I did the same change to sleeve 2 and ended up with a sweater that I love.

I ended up only needing 4 of the 5 hanks of yarn that I purchased. Thankfully, Fiber Gallery let me return the unused hank for a store credit. If you'd like to read the knitterly details of this project, as well as more information on my modifications, check out my ravelry page.

A note about choosing your sweater size based on bust measurements:

If, like me, you are overall petite with but with a full bust (in sewing terms, that's a C cup or larger), you may prefer to take a "high bust" measurement rather than a regular bust measurement when trying to decide which sweater size to make. The larger the bust measurement, the larger the whole sweater will be. If you are small with a full bust, you may end up with an oversized sweater. By using your high-bust measurement you are more likely to end up with a well-fitting sweater, though you may have to make some accommodations for the bustline (i.e. more increases, using darts, etc).

I know, for example, that if I make the 36" sweater (since I have a 36" bust measurement) I will end up with a too-big-for-me sweater. My high-bust measurement (that's just above the swell of your bustline, rather than at its largest part) is 34". The Basket Yoke Pullover pattern had a size option for a 34", which means that if my gauge matches the designer's perfectly, the finished sweater will have a bust measurement of 34". That would be 2" of negative ease, which sounds excessive but since I knew the sweater would be fairly stretchy and I wanted it to be curve-hugging, I decided to use my high-bust measurement so that the overall sweater fit would be to my liking. I knew that I could always add some room at the bust if necessary, and even do bust darts if absolutely necessary. With a stretchy fabric, though, I didn't find either of those fixes necessary. The sweater stretches across my bust in a way that I like without looking pulled-too-tight across my bustline.

Our Favorite GF Pizza Crust Recipe

It took us years to perfect our wheaty pizza crust. It was an amalgamation of various recipes and techniques, tweaked over the years to finally become our perfect crust. I could make it in my sleep. It always turned out great.

Then I found out I'm allergic to wheat.

Not about to give up pizza, I set about finding a new favorite pizza crust - one that I could eat without risking an inflammatory response. First I tried some mixes, but they were not satisfying. First of all, it was really hard to find one that didn't include other grains to which I am allergic (i.e. corn). Secondly, there is a tendency to include garbanzo bean flour, and I don't care for the taste (or gumminess) that it contributes. So I turned my sights toward making a crust from scratch, just as I'd done with our previous favorite.

Enter (you guessed it!) Gluten Free Girl & The Chef's pizza crust. It wasn't completely Arya-safe, because they use corn flour and corn starch. Shauna offered suggestions for alternatives, though, and I've been playing with it since.

We had pizza for Christmas dinner. My brother and his wife were here visiting, and we wanted to make something delicious that everyone could hang out in the kitchen and help prepare, and that would satisfy my need to avoid gluten, corn, and excessive dairy (I make an occasional exception for a bit of cheese on my 'za) and their need for it to be vegetarian. They were two of the best pizzas we've had, and my sister-in-law wanted the crust recipe!

Hints & Notes:

• One of the first things to know is that this crust comes together quickly, but there are some things that are best done in order (noted in the recipe).
• Also, while it has yeast and does need to rest, don't expect it to puff up. rise, and become elastic like a wheaty dough would.
• Make sure you have plenty of parchment paper on hand. I have found that I need to roll it out between two sheets, flipping occasionally in order to peel the paper off of the dough. Otherwise, the parchment works itself into the wrinkles in the underside of the dough and can get cooked into the crust. It's a real pain to try to peel off after baking, so I figured out the above method. Yesterday I learned that if, before baking, the parchment feels damp I should just go ahead and flip the crust onto a fresh sheet before baking. The damp parchment stuck to the underside of the crust during baking, essentially steaming onto the crust. Not the end of the world, but certainly annoying.
• You can swap out the flour below for an equal weight of all-purpose gf flour mix, but the results will vary depending on what's in your mix.

Gluten-, Corn-, and Dairy-free Pizza Crust

Ingredients:
125 g Millet Flour
125 g Arrowroot Powder
125 g Sweet Rice Flour
125 g Potato Starch
1 ½ tsp Kosher Salt
1 cup warm water, start with ½ cup
¼ cup Olive Oil
2 packets Yeast
1 Tbsp Ground Flax Seeds, plus 2 tbsp just-boiled water

Directions:

Preheat your oven, with a pizza stone if you have one, to 450 F.

Start by making the flax slurry. While the water is boiling, go ahead and mix the 1/2 cup warm water, 1/4 cup olive oil, and 2 packs of yeast in a measuring cup. Once the water boils, swiftly stir 2 tablespoons into the tablespoon of flax meal. Set aside.

Mix the flours and salt in the mixer. Add the flax goo and let the mixer stir it in. Add the yeasty oil & water, pouring slowly with the mixer on. Add another 1/2 cup or so of water (depends on the humidity of your kitchen, so don't get too hung up on the numbers), stopping when the dough comes together in a ball around the paddle but before it starts to get too sticky/wet.

Leave the dough in the mixing bowl, cover with a towel and set aside for an hour or more. I have left it for longer with no bad outcomes. Note that the dough looks spongy after resting.

Divide the dough in half. I freeze half for next week's pizza night*. Form the dough into a ball and pat it into a circle on a piece of parchment. Cover with the second piece of parchment and use your rolling pin to roll it out into your preferred pizza shape (we like roughly circular). Keep rolling until you get it as thin as you like.

Since the oven is so hot, I like to trim the extra parchment so that it doesn't scorch in the oven. Consider doing the flipping/peeling technique described above. Brush olive oil on your crust, and when you're ready slide the parchment with the dough on it onto your pizza stone (a rimless cookie sheet works great for this transfer from countertop to oven).

Bake for 8 - 10 minutes. We like a crunchy-bottomed crust, so we generally bake for 10 minutes. Our crust always bubbles a lot, and sometimes tries to curl up. I don't worry about popping the bubbles, as they never get very big.

When pre-baked to your satisfaction, pull out (use the cookie sheet) and decorate.

Here's what we topped ours with this Christmas: tomato sauce (the less salt kind) sprinkled with oregano, salt, and garlic powder. sliced shitake mushrooms, chopped kalamata olives, sliced marinated sundried tomatoes from PCC (so good!), pepperoni (Applegate Farms makes a good one, we cut the rounds into quarters so that it gets crispier in the oven) and a light sprinkling of shredded mozzarella. The baking brings out the sweetness of the sundried tomatoes, so you might want to salt to taste once your pizza is plated. My brother and his wife had the same sauce & herbs, mushrooms, sundried tomatoes, olives, cheese, and some spinach and lettuce from our salad mix (yum!).

Slide the decorated pizza back into the oven. I like to keep it on the cookie sheet now, so that the bottom of the crust doesn't get overcooked or scorched by the pizza stone. Bake until things are bubbly and toasted, or to your preference. We eventually switched to the broiler, which browned up our cheese perfectly!

* We also freeze our extra pepperoni and cheese. Just pull everything out to thaw on the counter (or in the fridge, depending on your climate) around lunchtime of the day you want pizza for dinner. Prepare the pizza as usual.

Please consider spending some time perusing the Gluten Free Girl and The Chef website for recipe ideas. Even though I have more food intolerances than she does, it has been easy to adjust her recipes for my needs - especially since she switched to ratio baking (thanks, Shauna!).

Gluten Free & Dairy Free Orange Cranberry Muffins

Oh, these muffins are delicious! I was concerned at first because even after cooking for a full 35 minutes they were so moist when we cut them in half. They were fully cooked, just super moist. They've been a hit, though, so I've decided that this recipe is a keeper.

Full credit for the initial muffin recipe must go to Shauna at Gluten Free Girl & The Chef. I adapted her GF Whole Grain Muffins recipe. Please visit her website for excellent inspiration.

I wanted to try using almond flour in my flour mix, and these muffins seemed like a good guinea-pig recipe. I adjusted my favorite GF flour mix to incorporate a touch of almond flour.  This not only adds protein and good fats to the muffins, but since the almonds are processed whole we also got more fiber, vitamin E, potassium, magnesium, folate and phytosterols (which help lower cholesterol)***.

Gluten Free & Dairy Free Orange Cranberry Muffins

For The Flour Mix:
100 g Brown Rice Flour
100 g Sorghum Flour
100 g Sweet Rice Flour
50 g Almond Flour
75 g Potato Starch
75 g Tapioca Flour

For The Muffins:
350 g Whole-Grain Flour Mix (See Above)
½ tsp Baking Soda
¼ tsp Baking Powder
180 g Dark Brown Sugar
1 tsp Kosher Salt
300 g Coconut Milk*
100 g sunflower oil** (or gently melted coconut)
2 Eggs
½ tsp Vanilla
1 ½ cups Chopped Fresh Cranberries (About 1 Pint)
1 tsp Orange Zest (About 1 Medium-Sized Orange)

* I use coconut milk because I like it. If you prefer soy, rice, or almond use what you like! Note that each milk substitue will slightly change the results, but if you're baking by ratios

** For our blueberry muffins, I like melted coconut oil the best. It imparts a strong flavor, though, and I feared there would just be too much going on in these muffins if I used it, so I've been using sunflower oil instead because that's what we have on hand.

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 F.  Line muffin tin with parchment cup liners.

Mix together your flour mixture, making sure that it is well-whisked for consistency.

Whisk together dry ingredients, including the sugar.  Add the orange zest.

Whisk together wet ingredients except for the cranberries.  Stir into the dry ingredients until all dry ingredients are incorporated.  Stir in the chopped cranberries.

Using an ice-cream scoop, fill muffin tins about ⅔ full.  Bake for 30 - 35 minutes.  Turn onto wire rack to cool.

Note that the almond flour makes these super moist!  Also, these don't turn golden brown like a wheat-based muffin would, so just assess their doneness based on time, the toothpick method, or by gently patting the middle of a muffin to see if it feels firm (cooked) or fluid (not fully cooked). The latter is my preferred checking-for-doneness technique.

Super Moist = Super Delicious!

These save well and you can even freeze some for later use. We like to split them, butter them, and stick them under the broiler while we cook our eggs. Then we have delicious, buttery, warm & toasty muffins for breakfast!

*** Source:  Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University This is an excellent website to bookmark, as it gives great scientific information regarding micronutrients and food sources thereof.  To your health!

Gluten Free Flour Mix Recipe

Since making the switch to GF living, I've been playing with various flour combinations. As a lifelong baker, I was not willingly to give up on baking just because I could no longer use a familiar foundation (wheat flour). Gluten-free baking is different, and as with milk substitutes, one should not expect the results to be "just like" their wheaty/gluteny counterparts

Using a combination of GF flours helps the baker fine-tune the outcome. A little more brown rice flour, for example, will give a particular attribute that is different from that lent by sourghum flour. For a good list of what GF flours offer your baked goods, please refer to this Gluten Free Girl & The Chef post (the post is good, but the info to which I am pointing you is found at its end, so scroll if you must). Incidentally, if you are GF and unfamiliar with the Gluten Free Girl blog/website, please spend some time there. She has been hugely inspirational and an excellent resource for me as I continue to eat well - without the wheat.

Disclaimer: I am allergic to wheat and all of its relatives (spelt, for example) and not necessarily gluten intolerant. That said, most things that are "wheat free" use spelt, so I have found it must easier to just go gluten free. I feel fortunate that I do not have to worry about cross-contamination to the extent that someone living with Celiac's Disease must. I have multiple grain allergies, though, so I definitely still have to ask lots of questions and read labels in order to care for my health.

Okay, back to the flour mix. I've been tinkering with mixes, first using the Gluten Free Girl whole-grain all-purpose GF flour mix.  I followed her ratios, using sorghum flour, potato flour, sweet rice flour, potato starch, arrowroot powder, and tapioca flour (since I can't use cornstarch). For my first batch, I swapped out the cornstarch for more potato starch. The result was pancakes and muffins that had a little more potato taste than we wanted, and in the case of the pancakes, it was as if I'd added instant mashed potatoes to the recipe. Ew.

Back to the drawing board, I decided to minimize and try to replicate our favorite off-the-shelf GF flour mix. We've been really happy with it, so I'll share it with you:

Arya's Current GF Flour Mix:

150 grams brown rice flour

100 grams sorghum flour

100 grams sweet rice flour

75 grams potato starch

75 grams tapioca flour

Mix together well. Note that I have followed Shauna's advice with regards to the ratios. I looked at what the store-bought mix listed in its ingredients, and made mine with 70% grainy flours and 30% starchy flours. It isn't exactly the same, but it's close enough!

I have used this successfully in pancakes, coffee cake, muffins, crackers, and pie crust.  I hope that you like it, too.

 

Time for Pie

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, then you know how I feel about pie.  Or, more to the point, how I feel about making pie.

Now that I can stand and walk around the house with relative comfort, and since fresh cherries are bountiful at PCC, it's time to make a pie.  My homemade cherry pie is one of Rob's favorite things, and I so want to give him something, show him how very much I appreciate and love him.  I can't do much right now, but I can make a pie.

The crust is chilling in the fridge right now.  I use the Cooks Illustrated vodka pie crust.  The vodka really does make it the flakiest crust I've tried - and I've tried a LOT of crust recipes.  I use leaf lard instead of vegetable shortening, and real butter (of course).  We're going to pit the cherries momentarily, but what I most look forward to is rolling out the crust.

I love working the dough.  It is a work of love, much like knitting, through which a few individual things become a cohesive whole...a whole that is better than its parts.

This week we'll celebrate ten years of marriage.  Just like my pie dough, we are even better together than we are individually (and we're pretty great individually, if I say so myself).  We'll celebrate even as we grieve, because life is full of mixed emotions.  We learn so much from each other, and have grown so much through this relationship.  I am thankful everyday for Rob's presence in my life.

A pie may not seem like much when it comes to celebrating a tenth anniversary, but I know he will see it as I intend - as an expression of my love, my gratitude, my willingness to be patient, to pay attention, and to get it right.  He will see it as a gift for him, as well as a gift of healing which I give to myself.

If I remember, I'll post a picture of our beautiful pie once it's out of the oven.

Early Signs

Before the emergency & before the trip to Ireland, I completed a knitting project.  The details must remain secret until it is gifted, but I can tell you that the yarn I used was 100% cashmere.  You should be sighing right now.  Seriously.  Sighing.

Anyway, there was a little bit of the yarn leftover, and it isn't the kind of yarn a knitter can allow to go unused.  At the time, I was preparing to be a friend's doula, so I decided to use the nugget of leftover cashmere to make a baby hat for her newcomer.  It was as soft and delectable as you would imagine, and was received quite graciously by mama and papa.

It was also the start of a knitting spree.

To date I have knit ten baby hats.  Hats with pompoms.  Hats with stripes.  Hats with little dots of color.  Hats with a wee "umbilical cord" knot on top.

At the time I joked with family and friends that they shouldn't jump to conclusions - I wasn't pregnant, I was simply industrious, and possibly a little bit obsessed.  I had lots of small portions of leftover yarn, after all, and I was happy to put it to good use.  It only takes me 2 - 3 hours to knit a baby hat, so the instant gratification index was high.

When I was about six hats in, Rob asked what I planned to do with all of them.  We talked about opening an Etsy shop where I would sell only hats.  It'd be like the Etsy shop version of that glass cup lady here in town.  I would just sell the one item, but in many colors and with little embellishments.  I thought that perhaps I would open the shop once I had a baker's dozen.  Now I'm really not sure.

I'm not sure about a lot of things.

I knit each of these little hats with love in my heart, pouring through my hands.  A love for babies.  A love for knitting.  A love and gratitude for the skill I have developed over the years.  I had no specific baby in mind, and no idea that a life was trying to grow inside of me.  For my first two babies, I knit specific items:  a luscious yellow blanket bag for our first baby, a sweet little pair of socks for the second.  This time, though I was knitting up a storm, I didn't make them for my own baby.

It feels so strange - to know after the fact that I was pregnant - that I am no longer pregnant - to not have known the fact in its present moment and for it to be completely lost to me now.

It's strange to grieve the loss of something I didn't even know that I had.  As I mentioned on Monday, I feel grateful for that ignorance.  Since I wasn't temping and charting, I had no symptoms of pregnancy or pain to indicate the impending trouble, and I even had what I thought was a period at the right interval.  I really had no notion that I was pregnant.

And yet, I feel the loss so keenly.

Studying and Making Don't Mix

This fall was not as craftily productive as I would have liked.  Given the time suck that is school, however, and considering the other things we were dealing with from September through December, I'm thankful to have found bits of time here and there to make things.

Regular readers, friends and family will know that I knit.  I knit a lot.  I often knit in public.  I can't knit at school, though, because I wouldn't be able to take notes.  So knitting is relegated to an opportunistic past-time for now.  Still, a few rows at a time can really add up:

I don't remember the specifics on these socks, except that I used the Yarn Harlot's Plain Vanilla Sock pattern.  The yarn can only be explained by the fact that sometimes we don't understand our choices, we just know what we want.  I saw the self-striping goodness of rainbow colors at the yarn store, knowing it would be perfect for a no-brainer knit, and that was that.  I must say that I am quite delighted with the gawdy goodness!  Oh, and they're kitty-approved, so they also have that in their favor.

Since the New Year I made Rob a pair of Dashing Mitts.  His thumb gets really stiff, achy, and turns a startling shade of purple when it gets cold.  Though he doesn't usually wear gloves or mittens, I made these for him so that at the very least he could wear them to walk the dog.  I altered the thumb to include a gusset, which took a few attempts to get just right for my yarn choice.  We're both quite satisfied with the results.  For you knitters, I'll post a full re-cap of my thumb gusset next week.  I used Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran.  The mitts are luscious:

Here's another photo, just because.  Though, while you're looking, check out that thumb gusset!  Woohoo!  Also, if you're curious, it was his left thumb that required surgery.  Doesn't it look great now?

I also made a cardigan, but there's no photo because I haven't sewn in the ends or put the button on it.  That is mainly because I'm a little afraid that it won't fit, but also because I don't actually have any idea what I'll wear it with.  I'm working on that.

Last, but not least, I made a pair of toast.  I think that they're going to be a gift, though, so I can't show the picture until they've been gifted.  Just click on the link.

Oh, and there's also this dress that I'm sort of working on, except that I'm still tweaking the bodice muslin.  I'm doing a "full bust adjustment", so I'll give it its own post later, when more progress has been made.

What are you making?

The Fabulous Feather

For today's installment of "Friday Frivolity", I give you close-ups and a brief discussion of the fabulous feather doodad I wore in my hair at the wedding last weekend. 

Slight tangent:  Since the newlyweds support it, I will be happy to share the details of officiating the wedding.  I might get to writing it over the weekend.  Molly, do you have any photos of the three of us that you could share?

Back on track:  Okay, so here's where you can see that there's something poky on my head.  Look at the upper right side of my head (on the left of the photo).  See that little bit of green something?  That's the feather.  I secured my hair with a barrette, and then put in the clip to cover it.  There was no way that little bit of clip was going to hold my gigantaur hair in place!

These fun feathery hair clips have cropped up around Seattle for the last year.  I remembered seeing one in a little boutique in Ballard many months ago, so I swung by last week to see if they still had any.  I finally found one, just as I was walking out in disappointment.  It was on display in the window.  The perfect bits of green to compliment my dress.  A peacock feather, which brings good fortune.  A little smaller than I wanted, but it was workable (and on sale!).  Handmade by somebody in Seattle.

 

Here's the back:

It's very nicely done, there are no blobs of clue or scratchy bits.  I like the teeny bit of lace to cover where the clip is secured to the feather backing.

After I first saw these, I bought a feather so that I could make a clip myself.  Then I remembered that I don't have a glue gun.  Oh, well, I know plenty of people who do, so I'll just see if I can borrow one.  Here's my feather:

As you can see, this one will be significantly bigger than the sweet green peacock one.  My only teeny-tiny concern is that I might resemble this guy:

"Hawk" from a favorite childhood TV series, "Buck Rogers"!

Whirlwind!

Hello!  It has been a very busy couple of weeks chez Yogini.  Last time I wrote, I told you about my decision to pursue midwifery.  Well, that clearly entails going back to school...which I did, on June 28.  I am enrolled in two classes - Nutrition and Introduction to Medical Vocabulary (an on-line course).  I am enjoying both classes immensely.  I must say, however, that I look forward to only having to be a student (once the studio sells or closes at the end of the month).  It is a lot to juggle right now.

Speaking of juggling, during the same two-week period I decided to make my own dress to wear to our friends' wedding, a wedding which I officiated!!!  So, there was a ceremony to create, write, get approved, at the same time that I went back to school, had two tests, and made a dress.  Whew!  I believe that constitutes a whirlwind!

So, here are the dress specifics, because I know at least one of my three readers will be interested.  :D

I turned this:

dark green cloth is a sheer cotton, chartreuse (a.k.a. "lettuce green") is a rayon lining

Into this:

The chartreuse lining lightened the overall shade of the shell, and created an almost iridescent-look to it.  I accessorized with a peacock feather hair clip, my bee necklace and simple gold earrings.

This dress held many firsts for me:  my first Colette Patterns piece (I really like that indie pattern company!), my first dress with a lining, and my first invisible zipper.  I started cutting it out on Friday, July 2, constructed it all weekend (when I wasn't studying or writing vows), put the zipper in on Thursday and hemmed it up Thursday evening.  It's a pattern I'd definitely use again, and I'm already thinking of making it with a wiggle skirt rather than the full, twirly skirt.

It was comfortable, a good color for me, very twirly (so fun on the dance floor!) and flattering.  I got a lot of "Where'd you get that dress?" inquiries, and was so pleased to say "I made it!"

I wore my new pair of Re-Mix Vintage Inspired Shoes, which the saleslady mentioned a lot of dancers wear, and I can see why.  Having danced a bit of Swing, these shoes are fabulous dancing shoes - comfy, slidey sole, secure straps:

I felt pretty, "feminine", and vintage, which is just what I was going for.  Success!