2008!

happy new year!

binding your quilt's corner

my mom is the best sewer i know. and over the last 10 years or so, to my delight and the delight of everyone around her, she has become a nearly fanatic quilter with an amazing eye and a precise hand. when i was making my first quilt i was alternately cheering about my accomplishments and producing sad bags of screwed up squares to my mom to fix. when it came to binding the edge of the quilt, i began to lose some momentum because even though it was turning out beautiful, the proposed recipient of the quilt had recently become my ex-boyfriend. i was quilting out of love, which always brings the best results, but the nature of the love had changed. while i was once sewing the quilt out of love gained, now i was sewing the quilt out of love lost. so, i got to a stopping point, and i produced what i had for my mom. she said, don't give up now because the binding is soooo easy. and luckily she is not one to downplay the difficulty of things so i knew to trust her when she said the last part was easy and she even added, i find it soothing. that sounded like just what i needed to finally sew up what had rapidly turned into a sturdy kleenex. so, binding a quilt is easy, and my mom made me a little fabric model of how to bind the corners (the hardest part) without which i, and many of my friends, would have been lost and frustrated. this morning Becca called me to ask if i could described to her how to bind the corners and doing it in words on the phone was not coming even close, so i made a little diagram to show how it is done. if you are in need, it is here for you.

liqueur, liquor, likker

Last weekend I had this to-do list. It had on it things like 'laundry', 'vaccuum', 'return books at library', 'pay bills', 'study'... you know, things like that.

It did not, however, have anything on it like 'drag out every single dusty bottle of homemade liqueur in all of my cabinets, and from the basement, and in every state of completion, and proceed to assess, consolidate, strain, filter, wash bottles for, rebottle (in matching bottles, natch), and label every single drop of homemade liqueur I possess. That was a messy sentence, but it was a messy process.

this is the green walnut liqueur when i started it last fall

My kitchen was a wreck. It took all afternoon.


But oh, how it satisfied. And now I look in my liquor cabinet and breathe easy, baby. 'Cause my liquor and shit is toGETHa.

trouble

This fall, there are two new mammalian additions to my household.
Welcome Watson and Crick, feline geneticists, melters of hearts, attackers of wine corks, tormentors of Beandog, urinators on down quilts, climbers of crabapples. O heavens, what have I done?

going to the source

For quite some time, I've had the bug up my skirt to be a bigger part of where I get my food. I dream of annually harvesting buckets of berries, canning tomatoes, pickling beans, going to the farm and buying chickens for the deep freeze. Although my plans are always overly optimistic (my stock-in-trade), I am aiming in the direction of this kind of connectedness to my food. One of the sub-plots in this effort was a multi-year attempt to get someone to take me fishing for salmon. It sounds easier than it was, and eventually involved a barter of landscape planning services with a retired engineer, and over a year of patience. Finally, last month, I got to go effin' fishing. The trip entailed a five a.m. arrival and a long drive to the coast with three retired dudes in a BIG m.f. of a truck. We hauled a BIG boat with a BIG motor (oh, the petroleum!), and put in near Warrenton. Then, we just trawled all day up and down under the Astoria bridge, back and forth, back and forth (did I mention the petroleum?). Finally, we caught a few.


This is a coho. What a beaut. Do I look stoked or what?
I actually caught a chinook too, but had to put it back for safe keeping.

Then, later, I ate it. With garlic and olive oil, S&P.


In the end, I had a ball, but it sure did seem like a lot of effort and resources for a little ol' fish.
I think next time, I'll just head over to the locks and buy my salmon from a native dude.

Unless someone else asks me to go fishing again.

always late

Sometimes deadlines that I impose on myself don't work. And I don't come through. And if someone else is involved, I back pedal. And sometimes I have to apologize for flaking out. And so on. This card is the final part of my most recent transgression. It is made from a file folder and I drew on it with pencil, colored pencil, pen and white-out.

high waist is the new low rise

I finally got a pair of jeans that accomodates my summer eating and two years of graduate school. They are comfortable, sassy and didn't come already worn out (I hate that!).

The designer's name is Karen Walker, here is a link:
http://www.mycatwalk.com.au/pages/karen-walker.html?PHPSESSID=c630b71b514ba457377e9c109d7ae8

But note, I only paid $42 dollars consignment at Le Frock for my pair.
Thanks to Tyler for the photographing and doctoring the photography!

these old lamps are new lamps with big eyes

I found this postcard at the MoMA in NYC but unfortunately didn't get to see this piece. If I owned this piece, I would want in my house too, so I totally understand. But the point is, I have always really liked these old lamps but they have been in need of a facelift. And poof, a round, oversized bulb has turned this thrift store cast-off into a curious little puppet creature to hang over your desk. I am going to do this.

recovery!

i/we finally finished the chair. i can't believe i did this big project, i am really excited and happy about the way it turned out. i wish i had a before and after but this will have to do.



here are the underpants, so to speak. i thought the underside could use a little pazazz.


and then here are the worker bees.

a lovely sunday, simply lovely.

sometimes you get to have that day when everything seems sparkly, fresh, and oh so right. for me, yesterday was that day (thank goodness because i have been really really longing for one). it started off with an almond pastry from extracto . . .

then made its way to sauvie island's lighthouse . . .

and ended on our back porch roasting sausages over an open fire.

thank goodness for september in portland.

i hope you had a lovely day too. xo.

i have just hat it!

Hi ladies.
I couldn't think of a better set than you to share projects and ideas with.
I am so fed up with drooling over all those cute messenger hats and then seeing their price tags. pricey!

I made this hat out of a dress shirt I got at the Salvation Army on Grand. The collar is the part that makes the front stiff and i sewed really stiff fabric (2 layers) into the bill to make it sit out the way it does. I did make a pattern that needs a little modification which i should do, and would, if anyone wanted it...the sewing was a challenge, but i think if i didn't a second one i could really streamline it.

xo

the first pep rally

welcome to drill team practice. ready-begin!