The only problem with a useful SWAP is...

It can get sort of boring.

I mean all these tops need pants and I have two pair nearly done and the others cut and finished.

Nothing really exciting to report about them other than the fact they have two legs and a zipper in the side and fit better than most on the Vogue pattern site. Also I am using the same pattern but different fabric and therefore totally different eases - I am cutting an inch total off each side for the ones with a woven with stretch in it.

I suppose this is mildly interesting as a demonstration of what we all already know and that's a different fabric totally changes the fit.

I will be glad when these are done and I can do something more interesting. Might insert a dress into the line-up until I can get that raincoat pattern, my last SWAP garment, sent here.

I am thinking of a dress for Valentine's day. 

We used to go out to a place that was sort of a grotto underground (Le Cave for my local readers) for Valentine's because of the cheesecake.

Then some slick son with bright ideas inherited the business and decided to bring it up out of the underground and go all right trendy and expand the menu and reduce the portions so they were minute with swirls of reductions (that's what you call not enough sauce) on it on giant white plates.

And of course in four months they were out of business.

In an attempt to reproduce the extreme romantic atmosphere of a seedy underground restaurant we found another place that was partially above ground and although it was not Le Cave, it at least had stalactites hanging from the ceiling made out of some very ancient dusty plaster. 

We were quite happy with its 50s Italian menu there for a few years until that place burned down, which is not surprising since it was a well-known fire hazard.

And then there were the three Valentine's days when my spouse was in Tennessee working and I was here shovelling snow and working and deciding that Valentine's day does matter to me after all.

Well in acknowledgement of this fact I am happy to report that the burned down place has recently re-opened after several false starts and I have booked us in for dinner on the 14th. 

They sounded surprised when I made a reservation.

I am not going to spoil the surprise by going down to see if they have replicated the decor but since they are still in the same basement type location I am hopeful their servers still don't have first names, are in fact still called waiters, that no one is going to offer me freshly ground pepper, and that the food is spread all over the plate and not arranged in a tower.

And I'm thinking a new dress is in order.

I mean if you look like someone's mom and dad all dressed up for special occasion you should at least look like it.

I might even order a Pink Lady.

I wonder where Miss Scarlett stashed my pearls?