Archive for August, 2011
Here’s lace crochet covered beach glass (actually, it’s more of a smoothed pottery than glass…). I’m trying to resist the temptation to always photograph things on the same pale teal color wood surface (a.k.a. Our kitchen table!) no matter how much I like it and convenient it is. Mix things up a bit sometimes, you know!? So here it is on a fabric bound book and old ruler for scale.
It’s a beautiful summery Saturday and we decided to go berry picking! To be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure which ones were in season at this time in Portland (strawberries were 2 weeks late in early summer) but we need no excuse to drive around the beautiful Sauvie Island so off we went. At the farm, we found blueberries!
Sauvie Island — it’s so peaceful here.
I didn’t take any pictures, but we also picked some heirloom tomatoes for $0.99 per pound! How cheap is that? Especially considering it takes almost no effort picking enough for the week.
Immi loves to dress up. She’s always decked out as a princess or a faery or a princess-faery every single day. But she hasn’t had proper faery wings for a while (and makes do with make shift ones or imaginary ones) because those mass-produced crappy wings get broken so easily. While we were out shopping the other day, I contemplated putting one in the shopping cart but resisted. Because I mean seriously, it was $7 and it won’t see the end of the week — which is not only expensive (for all that it is), but absolutely un-environmental! Instead, of buying one, I decided to make one that is comfortable to wear, washable and durable. I put my brain to work and came up with this design which uses only supplies I already had. I made a pattern from scientific illustration of butterfly wings and simplified the lines a bit and added the heart in the center to hold it together.
Now Immi can be a make-believe faery with real fake wings instead of imaginary ones. I do love everyday problems that can be solved with bit of thread and fabric!
Todd requested more fingerless gloves (or arm warmers), which he uses [what seems like] most of the 24 hours spent at his laptop (and sometimes away from it too!) and I had the idea to make it from knit jersey fabric instead of knitting with yarn to accommodate summer weather. I don’t have the picture of this because I gave it to him the moment it was done, and it’s been in use since but seeing how quick and easy it was, I made one for immi! I made the flower hair clip while at it. It’s made from her old t-shirt that got a bit ruggedy in places.
It’s entirely hand-stitched. I have been reluctant to work with my sewing machine much because it really doesn’t stitch very well anymore (it was mostly a toy to begin with — it’s cute though, with Hello Kitty on) but I found out, browsing through vintage Japanese craft books, that I can in fact stitch stretchy fabric by hand! In stead of using running stitch (or otherwise straight ones) diagonally placed stitch is used to accommodate stretching of the fabric. I see that there’s some option for diagonal stitches, but I think that herringbone stitch works pretty well.
My lunch solution lately has been pizza topped with whatever left overs from dinner night before. This one has grilled chicken and roasted veggies on. Kids usually make the cheese pizza because that’s all they like. This one turned out quite well (better than it looks! I have much admiration for chefs who can make beautiful foods, I seem to have no knack for this).
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