Red Roses: A Jersey Dress for Clara

A few photos before I packed this jersey dress off to Clara. I used the "Kristina's Rose" stencil available from Alabama Chanin's downloads, and stenciled the design in dark red (plain old red I mixed with a little brown). Both the front and back of the dress have a border of about ten inches of roses. 

The roses vary in size from three inches across to about eight inches. I decided to approach it as a sampler of various jersey embellishment techniques. So you can see beaded stitching below,

 and below here is the wonderful couching technique, where you stitch down strips of jersey that have been pulled into ropes. I love this one and it goes really fast--and the ropes are remarkable easy to shape precisely.

I worked in two colors of jersey--the red of the dress, and a darker red from a tee shirt from Goodwill.

I did a bunch of roses from appliqued strips, sometimes laid flat with bugle beads on top, and sometimes done in random ruffles, with gathers stitched into the strip. This one's fun too.

And last, I finished the neckline in a beaded rosebud stitch.

I can't wait to see it on Clara when she comes home for summer!

"If You Are Patient and Paying Attention"

"Most of us figure out by a certain age . . . that life unspools in cycles, some lovely, some painful, but in no predictable order. So you could have lovely, painful, and painful again, which I think we all agree is not at all fair. . . But if you've been around for a while, you know that much of the time, if you are patient and are paying attention, you will see that God will restore what the locusts have taken away."

--Anne Lamott,  Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers

Lilacs in the Kitchen

Grace Livingston Hill, World's First Hipster

"Cary's room should be painted white, walls and ceiling and all . . . and then she would stencil little birds around the top of the walls. That would be a room to which he could bring home his friends."

--Grace Livingston Hill, Re-Creations 

Blackberry Patch Log Cabin Quilt

Good morning, and look! A new quilt in my etsy shop. I pieced this last year in the heat of blackberry-picking, the week we were out at the patch of wild berries every night after supper. We always met our friends there, and David always picked into his yellow bucket, to match his little bright blonde head.

Peach Tulips and a Moment's Peace

Oh, it feels good to be back in this little space--I wasn't gone last week, just in over my head with life in general. The Composer was gone visiting Giles (I do have my turn next weekend!), and I've dipped my toe back into work-world in a way that involves a lot of time on the phone and a lot of computer time in the evening. It's finite and short-term, but it has taken some getting used to.

Peach tulips are just what I needed.

A Quick Break

I'll be back in a week or so; taking a quick break.

See you then!

A South American Feast

Tonight the girls and I cooked a South American feast for the Composer's parents and their friends--it was their lately-redeemed Christmas gift, a catered dinner! Fortunately for us, they chose to come to our house, so cooking and serving was much simpler than it could have been.

South American Feast:

Brochetas de Salmon y Piña (salmon and pineapple skewers)

Beef Tenderloin with Chimichurri Sauce
Ensalada de Papas con Chimichurri (potato salad with Argentinian chimichurri sauce)
Tort de Choclo (Colombian fresh corn souffle)
Couve a Mineira (garlicky collard greens)

Crema volteada (flan, with strawberries and blackberries)

It was fun putting together such an exotic menu (I broke the cardinal rule of entertaining and cooked things I'd never tried before!), and I did it all by looking at South American Food for ideas and recipes.

The diners were several couples who celebrate their birthdays together, so by special request the evening ended with a command performance from Bella: her special Show-Off Arrangement of Happy Birthday, with a lot of sustained high notes. Perfect!

An Extra Cat

This kitty has been coming to the back deck for weeks now to get food and attention. At first he was too skittish for words but now he flops down to get the affection. We call him Mr. Collins.

When Hobbes dies, he is to inherit the estate.

 

We're trying not to love him but it's hard.

Felix in the Cloud Forest

He took a ten-hour bus ride from Cusco over to Manu National Park. He was the only one in this beautiful lodge, and every day he went out into the cloud forest to look for birds. He was the only one there. 

Four days alone, in heaven, he said.

Easter Sunday

Tis mercy all, immense and free,

for O, my God, it found out me.

Forsythias after Rain

A few minutes of sun between rainstorms.

My Little Alpaca

In honor of Felix's travels in Peru I brought home this plastic alpaca from the toy aisle. With his happy face and big eyes, he reminds me somewhat of Felix . . . .

My Secret Academic Life

Yes, I have a secret academic life--I'm taking a class in Advanced Formal Poetry Writing at the local university. I adore it with all my heart and will be so sad when it's over. 

I've written blank verse, a sonnet, a villanelle, rhyming quatrains, and a poem in trochaic meter. 

It's my Useless Superpower: the ability to write absolutely anything using only iambs. If you need something redone in iambic pentameter, send it my way. I'm your man.

Alabama Studio Sewing + Design: Beaded Chain Stripe

And here is an appliqued stripe stitched down with seed beads threaded onto a chain stitch (done in button & craft thread). 

Alabama Studio Sewing + Design: Random Ruffle Stripe

This is not the first time that I've tried a simple-looking technique from Natalie Chanin's book Alabama Studio Sewing + Design and been bowled over by how fabulous it looks in real life.

Here is the random-ruffled stripe, a half-inch wide strip of jersey and appliqued onto the base fabric with a running stitch down its middle. Every few stitches, you take a couple of gathering stitches which you cinch up before sewing them down to the fabric.

It's so easy and it makes such a gorgeous textural effect in real life. Try it!

Anna's Garden Dress in Midnight

Surprisingly only a two week project--I've been wearing it and loving it for a week. All that quilting and snipping was fun, fun, fun! 

This stenciling was messy--I've done another project since and it came out much better since I  abandoned the sponge for a stiff paintbrush, and didn't try to water the paint down at all. I used a sponge here, and watery paint, and I had some leakage and some weird shapes happening, which I ignored. I love this stuff! I'm keeping on.

Early Morning Ironing

"Not in the Done"

"At the heart of . . . artistic avoidance is the denial of process. We like to focus on having learned a skill or on having made an artwork. This attention to final form ignores the fact that creativity lies not in the done but in doing.

I am writing a screenplay is infinitely more interesting to the soul than I have written a screenplay."

 --Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way

Too Cool for Color Scrap Quilt for Baby

This is my Too Cool for Color baby quilt--done in long columns of strips rather than in log cabins--not for any particular reason, except that sometimes a change is nice! I hope someone out there is a great connoisseur of neutrals, and visits my etsy shop for their super-cool baby.

In Search of Spirea

Spent this past warm Saturday afternoon at the greenhouse buying out all the spirea, as my plan is to finish out the Only Spirea Hedge Visible from Outer Space.

I own it, now I have to plant it. 

I also enjoyed inspecting the beautiful succulents. Are they in style now or something? My eye goes right to them.

Just like it does to any turtles that bob their heads up in vats of water hyacinths.

A Graceful Jersey Dress for Clara: Burda 7082

Remember when I was enjoying this pattern? I enjoyed myself again this week fitting it for Clara. I made it up in this gorgeous cornflower blue,  a perfect color but a dubious fiber--from a little hole-in-the-wall shop in Chicago where the proprietor assured me too quickly that *all* the jerseys were *all* cotton. However, it was cheap and made a great muslin for the pattern.

And now I can make the next one up in quality jersey, with fitting assurance.

As with my own dresses, the front inset belt is simplified and narrowed, the side zipper closure is omitted, and the front skirt was laid out to remove four inches of fullness from the center gathers--I think it's plenty full without. And just as I did for myself, I removed about an inch of ease from the midriff, after choosing the "correct" measurements on the pattern envelope.

Two Things to Do with a Butter Yellow Tee

First, you can cut it off below the armholes, and gather that length onto a smaller piece of pale pink cut from a different shirt in the scrap bin, so it will be a long enough skirt for a little girl. Sew a casing for elastic in the top,

and trim the bottom with matching velvet ribbon and a rosebud from the box of rosebuds you made while sitting with your mother when she was recovering from surgery. There, that's a good skirt for spring.

Then take the rest of the jersey and cut it into four long strips, each an inch wide. Pull them out into jersey ropes. Find a pretty straw bag at the thrift store for $1.00, one with a cheery yellow gingham interior, and cut the ugly vinyl straps out. Make new straps out of your jersey pulls, and give the purse to a girl with a yellow skirt.

The Gentleman with the Beard of Gold

Felix reports in from Peru that the travel ban for Americans has been lifted (whew!), that he's planning a trip to Manu National Park where he will quite possibly see parrots at a clay lick (among many, many other exciting birds), and that his host mother has given him the uber-awesome nickname (in Quechua) of, "The Gentleman with the Beard of Gold."

Clara's Knitting: Ruffle Scarf

Clara finished her ruffle scarf, made from some hand-dyed yarn from Purl in the fantastic colorway Poprocks. I think she pulled the pattern off Ravelry--I love how it drapes itself.

And the hyacinths are blooming!

Young Ladies Lunching

That's right, it's spring break for someone! Lots of knitting, resting, cooking, talking, kissing of Daisy. messing with kitties, and laughing.

A Tea Party Wedding Shower

Our young lady friend Aimee is engaged to be married in June. Having invited her to many a Sunday afternoon tea party over the years, hosting her wedding shower and disguising it as yes, a tea party, seemed just right.

I broke out the thrifted tissue paper wedding bells--they all hung from the ceiling fan (it was off).

Ham sandwiches with tiny pickle slices, roast beef sandwiches with tiny radish slices, cream cheese and cucumber sandwiches.

Assorted daffodils, so convenient.

And now we'll talk about cake. The girls and I made six cakes from Jane Brocket's Vintage Cakes, a treasure of a book. Only one had frosting; they all presented themselves with old-fashioned restraint, which allowed guests to taste several kinds. Above you see Victoria Sponge filled with cream and strawberries. Below is the Lemon Drizzle. And that picture up at the top was the Coffee-Walnut layer cake.

We also made Tea Loaf (a huge favorite here, and Clara has figured out that she can make it in the dorm kitchen! It just needs an egg from the corner market), Nutmeg Cake,

and these Almond-Raspberry Slices, which were outstandingly good and presentable.

To actually serve tea to thirty people at once, I cheated by making several pots of different kinds, brewed up twice as strong as they needed to be. After pouring a half-cup for a guest, I topped it off with almost-boiling water from my coffee urn. I think it wasn't quite hot enough but these Southern ladies didn't seem to mind. Of course, that could have been just their Southern politeness!

Alabama Chanin: Violet Paisley Applique

This violet jersey dress for Bella has been finished for a long time--just forgot to photograph it. I used Alabama Chanin's "Paisley" applique in a slightly darker shade of violet, then stitched two rows of beads inside each shape, in lavender and pale green. Oddly this made the paisley shapes look like sea creatures. You just never know.

It's still a great dress.

Jade Plant in Milk Glass

In my newlywed days I had a jade plant that suffered greatly from overwatering--it dropped all its leaves and ended up a sad bare stalk. I'm going to try again with this one. My orchids have taught me to trust the "water sparingly" directions, which go against my nurturing instincts. Less is more, perhaps, for these succulents.

Little Bites

I squeeze my creative endeavors into my life in little bites. Once or twice a year I might have an uninterrupted half-day to myself, but generally all my sewing, writing, painting, and decorating get squeezed in among the daily things of caring for a family and home.

And here's how.

1. I don't like a lot of projects going at once. One machine sewing project and one hand-sewing project, *maybe*. I like to start something, keep after it, finish it, bask in the glory for a moment, then start something else. (In the winter I always have two things going because sometimes the sewing room is just too cold to hang out in. Then I have to do handwork by the fire.) If you stick with just one or two sewing projects, and do something on them every day, you will come to the end eventually. Finishing creates its own energy!

2. Every morning, I sit and write three pages of longhand in a notebook. Far from recording anything profound, I tend to note the tiny creative achievements of the day before, and mull over what I might get to do today. This makes a huge difference in helping me to spend my free moments productively: I planned them at dawn!

3. I am so not a perfectionist. More and more I love the process, but I have never held myself to some impossible standard of precision or accuracy. I love almost everything I make, forgive the discrepancies, and move on.

4. I don't mind taking tiny bites. Five minutes of hand-stitching. Reading over my current writing and thinking about it while I go for a run. Stitching in a dart. There's always tomorrow, and I know that I *will* get back to my dear projects.

What works for you?

Anna's Garden Reverse Applique

Making a very wide border of reverse applique and embroidery for a blue jersey dress. The blue is laid over a lining of black, the shapes are stencilled on with fabric paint, then stitched around with button and craft thread, then the inside of the shape is snipped out with much holding of the breath. I'm almost done with the front of the skirt, then I'll do the back, then I'll put them together!

Frederick, Soft and Gray

Here's a greeting from Frederick, just because he's soft and gray. I'm so lucky to have him. This is what he looks like when he's keeping me company in the sewing room in the very early morning while we tidy up.

Late Afternoon Daffodils

Reflecting Pool Log Cabin Quilt

This log cabin quilt is named "Reflecting Pool." It was inspired by Eden Gardens State Park in Florida (hence the smattering of flamingos). I just love the overgrown, can-we-pack-any-more-in-here aesthetic of that type of garden. Live oaks, Spanish moss, the formal pools that are never quite clear . . .

In  the shop.

"A Person with Eyes to See"

"You don't have to go out into the world to do something useful, she told herself. For a person with eyes to see, there is always something close at hand. Misery, loneliness, sickness, fear. . . ."

--Emily Loring, I Take This Man