Alabama Studio Sewing + Design: Sunset Spiral Applique

Trying out the basic dress pattern in Alabama Studio Sewing + Design for Bella, in a below-the-knee version (it's offered in so many lengths, including luscious floor-length with a four-inch train!).

I'm using the only cotton jersey I managed to find in New York--this russet.


I visited the thrift store for t-shirts in toning oranges. I love that used cotton tees are an affordable sewing ingredient universally available--even to us small town girls. Mango, tomato, and pumpkin are definitely happening here in the form of spiral appliques.

She'll glow.

Lovely Bathroom Sink

Lovely to look at, and it's certainly lovely to be able to brush my teeth in my own bathroom again. Next, a towel rod!

On Using Up the Good Things in Your Stash

"One of the few things I know . . . is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time . . . The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now."

--Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

A Quiet Writing Table

For a while I have been wanting a dedicated little surface to use for letter-writing and the typewriter. A safe place for pretty stamps, and two good pens in a cup.

When Henry moved to my mother's at Easter (no birds in Felix's dorm), his living room table opened up, and it's just right.

Hush, I'm corresponding!

Cake Lady: Pineapple Upside Down Cake

In a skillet. So satisfying.

Nine cakes down, twelve to go. Clara wants me to pick up the pace so she can taste them all before she leaves for college.

A Corsage from Daisy

Daisy is so good at gifts. Her birthday and Christmas presents are prepared weeks in advance, wrapped beautifully, and stowed under her bed, where we are never allowed to look, ever.

She made me this corsage for my birthday. She took a vintage brooch, then pressed mint leaves until they were dry and quite crispy, and put it all together somehow.

I wore it all day on my birthday, up to visit Felix, out for Thai food, and through the evening. Yes, pieces of dried mint kept finding their way down my shirt. But oh, the Daisy love.

Curly Locks

Bella's been curling her dreadlocks. A spritz of water the night before to dampen them, then they're twisted up in three or four buns and tied in a scarf. In the morning, she lets them down, and: glamour.

Iris Garden Log Cabin Quilt

A log cabin quilt top in gorgeous violets and purples. I was very dubious about my squares when they were partly put together; but I relearned the lesson that with scrap quilting, if you will keep on going, everything will turn out beautiful.

And that moment when the pile of scraps, and then the pile of squares, stitched together, suddenly hangs like fabric? Always a yes.

Kinshasa Symphony

We loved watching Kinshasa Symphony this week (from Amazon). It documents the efforts of a group of dedicated amateur musicians in the Congo as they put together a performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, on a shoestring.

Combining so many of our family interests--classical music, West African culture, and thrifty creativity, how could we not love it?

Green Tea Punch

It's easy, it's cheap, and you can keep the ingredients on hand. And you can pass it off as Asian if you want to--I'm always stumped about what to serve to drink with Chinese or Thai . . . .

•Green Tea Punch•

Bring 8 c. water to a boil. Pour over 8 regular or decaff green tea bags and let steep according to teabag directions.

In a very large jar or pitcher, mix 1/2 a can of lemonade concentrate and 5 c. water. When the tea has cooled, add it to the jar.

Stir in 1/3 c. sugar til dissolved. Add a big handful of fresh mint from the backyard, and serve over ice.

Then, generally, the thrifty housewife will plan to make punch again the next day to use up that half-can of lemonade concentrate sitting in the freezer.

Cake Lady: Fresh Coconut Cake

One whole coconut, grated onto clouds of seven-minute frosting, and pillowed into vanilla cake layers . . . good thing tonight was potluck at my house.

A Pearly Jug of Privet

It's good to have a more at-home week. I had been ignoring the cleaning needs in my kitchen but this week I'm working my way down a list: light fixtures, floor scrub, cabinets sorted and wiped down.

And the sitting room needed a deep clean. Out with the orchids past their prime. Out with the amaryllis bulbs I'm STILL waiting on. Not interested anymore!

More in the mood for a big jug of privet cut from the hedge. Oh, the subtle fragrance!

Clara Begins Her Last Times

The real last times won't come until August, but already some of her Life Til Now is wrapping up.


Last symphony concert this weekend. For six years the Composer has been taking her every month to Sunday afternoon concerts. They've had the same seats down near the front, near the too-loud theatrical lady who warbles and coos over the soloists. But they just went to the last performance.


Next year she'll be in a different place, different concerts. Same red shoes, I hope.

. . . And an Oil Painting

Hung over the tub.


I love these colors. They can rule my house.


This gorgeous piece was an early effort of a friend of my mother's. She used to pass along all her "extra" paintings.

A Curtain and Some Floor Paint

Our bathroom progress has been going at a more meditative pace as we wait for the second coat of oil-based floor paint to dry.


Finally we can tiptoe around, and I got a curtain hung, and I can take a bath. All my recent curtains have been plain canvas. When they're closed, they give you privacy. But most of the time, they're pulled wide open on their rings, and I love the rumpled drape they have.

Fabric from the Suitcase

I am really trying hard not to bring new fabric home, but some did find its way into my suitcase in New York. And Pennsylvania. Apparently my subconscious had issued orders in a brown/gray/orange palette that I had not heard about before, but what can you do?


This beautiful gray print was my one purchase at Purl. I love it, and wonder what it will be. Isn't it a perfect match to my late 1940's cookbook?

Alabama Studio Sewing + Design

Isn't it time we talked about this? About how beautiful the designs are, how generous the pattern count is, about how a person could spend the next decade hand-stitching from this book alone?

Natalie Chanin, you are a genius with jersey.

A Carefree Cotton Dress for Bella: Advance 6118

This pattern can definitely go dressy or casual, depending on fabric choices. Someday soon I'll make it up in satin for fancy, but first I tried it out in two kinds of cotton gauze, in Bella's signature soft orange.


Textured on the bodice, plain in the skirt, it makes a comfortable frock.


I was actually quite short of fabric (a passalong in the stash) and cut the skirt far narrower than the pattern would have had it. It's still plenty full for every day though.

Impossibly Beautiful

"Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies.
Your righteousness is like the highest mountains,
Your justice like the great deep.
You, Lord, preserve both people and animals.
How priceless is your unfailing love . . . . "

(Psalm 36)

Daisy Gets the Goats

Daisy has convinced Phyllis to bring Luscious Kandy and Sinnamon over here to live in our barn.


They settled right into Felix's abandoned chicken pen. It's just right for the two of them; they're quite dainty. Luscious is about the size of my big cat.


At least twice a day we bring them out on their leashes to graze around the yard, preferably not in the flowerbeds. The goats are a huge block to productivity. Basically Daisy and I sit there on the green grass, under a blue sky. I never get anything done.


Luscious wants you to see that her collar is purple, with sparkles. How did this happen?

I never meant to be a farmer.

Preparing on Friday Afternoon

Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.


We wait for Sunday.

Lady Banks Rose, in White, with Bee

After five days in Cityland, the unbelievable greenness of this place is . . . noticeable. I am happy to be back in my leafy paradise. With a few urban goods.