Playtime :: Part Two

God, I am loving summer this year. I am not sure if it is due to the gentle reassurances the Dream Lab keeps shooting my way (think photos of Love notes on sticky paper showing up in your inbox and telling you that you can Rest and Slow Down) or the fact that hot hot weather has held off and we are settling into the high 80s and low 90s while watching the boys water the garden and attend to all things in a naked state. Whatever it is, I will take it.

Garden news :: This year the raised beds hold a special soil mix suggested by the Square Foot gardening and it has made all the difference. The soil is light and supporting all types of combination planting. There is basil mixed with carrots, strawberries that are slow to give fruit but so sweet and tangy, tomatoes working their way up to maturity and the pumpkins are loving the sun.






It is a wonderful thing to look out the kitchen window and see the growing things. But I will say this. We do not make enough to truly feed ourselves. Three strawberries a day does not a breakfast make. Growing food has given me a new respect for farming and the sheer amount of land and water and effort that must be required to grow the huge amounts of produce that we do. A cello bag of carrots at the market make me stop and think about how much effort that must have been....and it scares me a little too when I think that if it collapsed one day, would we really know how to do this. Guess it is a learning curve and next year we will be devoting even more ground space to food production.

Slow Stitching :: I am still deep in the stitching love and finding all types of fabric laying around to play with. This skirt is in the works, hopefully finished for this weekend.

It is a busy stretch knit print layered over plain pink and then I tried the felled seams as illustrated in Studio Style.

Super fast and simple and the result so far is pleasing. The seams break up the business of the print and I have high hopes that this will be comfortable and pretty. I did learn a few things this round:

- I tried the skirt as a single layer with felled seams and it was way too light to support that construction. I picked out the seam and layered with the pink and it feels much more substantial.
- I went with a small size because all the skirts I have made grow and grow as I wear. I think I made my grey skirt a medium and the first bloomers a large and both hang once worn for a few hours. We will have to see how the small works out. I'll let you know.

Exciting Finds :: I never did get to those recap posts from the Trip but I have a few pretty bits that I brought back with me. I found a sweet little antiques shop on Orcas Island right before we jumped on the ferry back to Mainland and there were buttons and books and an old tomato timer with a jarring ring (That was not really entertaining trapped in a small Subaru with boys who thought it was hilarious to hear it ring again. And again).

And then the oilcloth at the Mill End store in Portland. Oh, the oilcloth. These were some type of absurd deal, maybe 1.50 a piece.

I just used my 50% off coupon from JoAnn's to get this...which holds all the regular Martha brilliance and a few projects using oilcloth. Yippee.

Kitchen:: One word. J E L L O.

Cannot stop eating it. We made it with the boys the other day, floating berries in the red and mango in th orange. One taste and I was a kid again..in my best dress out to dinner at Michael J's, the local family friendly restaurant in town. It was the only one my parents dared take their brood, 8 rambunctious kids that always ended up sliding the slippery peach halves across the table at each other, sans dish in which they had been served. We were heathens. We always anticipated dessert, jello served in parfait glasses, perfect firm cubes crowned with the mandatory whipped topping.

They just tore it down, Michael J's, it was crumbling slowly and fed only the seniors from the mobile home park up the street. And then it was probably only on Fish n' Chips special night. It will now be a new Panera. That makes me a little sad. But I can always make Jello at home for the boys. And me. Might even be sneaking some of the whipped topping into our diet because it is mandatory, you know?

And I am over the Moon about....Babies! Not mine, of course. But finally our friends have jumped on the bandwagon know as parenting and I have so many little people-to-be to sew for. Right now there is a doll coming together for a little girl almost one and then it is on to the newbie stuff. I am so excited about these additions to all of our lives and so glad mine are big enough to send out into the yard naked to play while I sew.

Now, off to finish that skirt so I can sport it at the local 4th of July parade tomorrow. I know, it is the 3rd tomorrow but all of a sudden La Verne fancies itself Christian and apparently we cannot hold the holiday festivities on the Lord's Day. Except for the fireworks...those are fine in God's eyes. Whatever. I will be playing tomorrow with the boys and watching the fireworks burst on Sunday night. I'm easy.

Hope if you holiday, that yours is lovely and fun and special and bright. Cheers.