A Visit to Shelburne Farms

I admit it, I've been waiting since my twin grandsons were born 15 months ago to take them for a visit to the Childen's Farmyard at nearby Shelburne Farms...We have been practicing "Old MacDonald" and animal sounds for weeks!
The day was glorious, the weather perfect, and no place is lovelier than Frederick Law Olmstead designed Shelburne Farms.
The Children's Farmyard was delightful, full of kids, school groups, parent, teachers, grandparents...and chickens! Chickens of every stripe and color...plus sheep, goats, pigs, cows, bunnies, donkeys, well, you name it.
Forget what you know about petting zoos, Shelburne Farms is perfect - clean, educational, environmentally sensitive, and so beautiful it can take your breath away! If you live in or travel to Vermont and have young children, it is a must. If you live in the Chittenden County area, check with your local library as they may have a day pass you can borrow for the day.

Sew Many Blessings

I've quite surprised myself with how much fabulous inventory I have right now. Just thought I'd show it off by posting a larger mini.

Raining Cats and Dogs!

Some of my new aprons feature fantastic prints of dogs and cats. I'm a real snob when it comes to cat and dog prints, and most I see are definitely ones I want to "pass by". These, however, I think are great. They feature pet characters we know and love.

Available on http://afterall.etsy.com/.

Feng Shui Quandry

I have no more than dabbled in feng shui, but I do find many of its principles attractive. Who wouldn't want to attract more prosperity, energy, and good fortune?
I receive Vicky White's e-newsletter "Life Design Strategies" (http://www.lifedesignstrategies.com/).
While perusing it the other day, I decided that the place for me to start was to rid myself of the old junk mail, old bills, papers saved, etc. around my desk and workspace. I began the project, but then this question began to haunt my mind....
"If I rid myself of old junk mail and old bills, does the chi unleashed bring me happiness and prosperity, or more junk mails and bills?"

Creative Luxury

Recently, I had the good fortune to "inherit" a lot of fabric from Peter's mother, who was moving. And I mean a LOT of fabric. Bags of it. She, like many of us who sew and craft, always had another project in mind, and to her detriment for a long time she had plenty of room to store her stash and over 80 years to collect it.

What this windfall has done for me is opened new doors. When I purchase fabric, I do so carefully and selectively, and the fabrics and designers I love are relatively expensive. I usually purchase and sew with a market or show in mind. Now, with all of this new fabric, even though most of it is not what I would have chosen, I am free to experiment, and luckily I have daughters who always love things that I make even if they aren't perfect, so I have a ready test market for new things I try.

Last week's experiment was a new style of half apron and the recipient was my daughter Becca. Her husband immediately pointed out that he does most of the cooking, so I'm starting one for him tomorrow, putting it together in a slightly different manner. Then one for Liz and Carl, to make use of some fabric scraps from making them napkins and placemats...though their patchwork may be different in size. While the patchwork on these aprons is relatively time intensive, it makes good use of my generous store of little pieces that are "too pretty to waste".

Mending Things

Mending things is a little art, a little science, and a lot about the inclination of the heart. It is the heart which determines what objects are worthy of the attention of repair, and what find their way to the recycling without a second look.
Generally I have a "mending pile" which serves sort of as "death row"...there clothing languishes for months, sometimes years, before its end is finally determined. Other things are carefully and lovingly mended much sooner on, they are my objects of affection.
I learned about mending from Grammy Danley. I never saw her sew anything new, though I'm not sure she didn't dabble in embroidery occasionally, but our long afternoons were often spent mending a variety of treasures. She mended socks...any sock. I still have her darning eggs. She mended silk hosiery, and in my mind's eye I still see a little piece of cardboard with various shades of skin colored silk threads wrapped around it, so that the proper match could be made. I have her enameled green Chinese jar in which she kept recovered buttons.
Her greatest skill was in mending china and porcelain. She had quite a collection, mainly blue and whites, the family heirlooms indistinguishable from orphans of the Christ Church, Winnetka rummage sale. These pretties were lovingly mended, not with museum quality restorations, but with a pretty good eye and a little ingenuity.
I still have a number of these pieces today. One doesn't notice the cracks and the glue first, but when you do you can practically hear an appraiser say out loud "Worthless because of the repair". There is one blue and white ginger jar that is particularly interesting... I inherited from my mother, who in turn inherited it from Grammy, and it was probably in my possession ten years before I noticed that part of the porcelain lip of the jar had broken off and long ago been replaced by a carefully crafted bit of putty.
Currently I have two pairs of blue jeans in their final stages of life...little holes and areas of wear have been patched by swatches of some of my favorite French Provincial fabrics, which only makes me more attached to the jeans. But the fabric is getting so threadbare there will be little patching on the horizon.
Yesterday I went to glue a trivet. Peter had accidentally sent it plunging from the kitchen counter a couple of weeks ago, and I told him not to worry as it was only a little thing I'd picked up on sale at TJ Maxx. He was greatly relieved it wasn't an heirloom. Yet, TJ Maxx or not, I couldn't quite put the broken pieces of this Provence knockoff in the trash, and yesterday looked for glue. All the superglue and all of the household cement in the house were as dry as a bone. I plugged in a hot melt glue gun, which had only limited success with one broken edge on the trivet. So I put the unrepaired pieces away, and found a little broken Portuguese ceramic on the way. This little dish has been mended a dozen times if it has been mended once, but I wouldn't in a million years discard it, even if pieces were missing. And yet I have no idea where I got it, or when.
It is nice when ordinary events bring back memories of loved ones departed, as this little TJ Maxx trivet brought back a flood of memories of my grandmother.

Tissue Paper Flowers - Easy Tutorial

I am almost embarrassed to call this a tutorial, as it is so easy and once you begin doing it is so familiar. So maybe it is just a "reminder".

I used about 2 sheets of gift wrapping tissue per flower. Lay one sheet on top of the other and cut the majority of the tissue into squares approximately 6 inches. Then cut squares approximately 3 inches, and lay those on top of the 6 inch squares.

Fold up stacked tissue like an accordian...I think my folds were probably around 3/4". When folded, find the approximate center and cut a "V" on both sides...if your scissors are dull and you can't quite get a "V" a cut in the tissue will do. This notch allows you to tie the flower a little better.

To tie up, use pipe cleaners, floral wire, craft wire, or, as I did, twist ties from loaves of bread. Then open out the "petals" on your flower one by one. Don't you feel like you are in first grade again? Puff, it goes from a pile of tissue paper to a carnation, rose or poppy.

You can decorate your flowers if you wish with a little glitter glue, or glue and glitter, or a bit of market adding color here or there on the edges. Once complete you have options: hotmelt glue on a backing, such as a pin backing or barrette (pin backs and you can put them on hats or curtains), or, if you don't have "stems", add a stem now with wire of some sort. If you have any green felt lying around you can do as I did and cut out "leaves", cut a little snip in them and put the "stem" through the leaves.

For a Mother's Day gift for my daughter I took a recycled parmesan cheese can, threaded the stems through the holes on the top, and wrapped fabric around the can. Presto! I think I'll make some for myself now, as the tulips and jonquils have passed and the lilacs aren't quite open outside.

Lost Sock Memorial Day

My friend Linda writes on her blog that Friday, May 9th is Lost Sock Memorial Day, the day we remember all of those lost socks whose return we await year after year.http://spottedcowsoaps.blogspot.com/2008/05/blog-contest-for-lost-sock-memorial-day.html
Well, I immediately thought I'd better blog about it, as Friday May 9th is my daughter Becca's birthday and Becca has been, for about 15+ years now, the style maven of mismatched socks. I can't remember whether she got away with it in Catholic school, but by the time she entered high school she'd hit her stride and was forever wearing socks that didn't match. Any lost sock in the household immediately found a new mate of a different color in Becca's wardrobe. Soon she was the envy of her classmates.
Do you know there is a Vermont company that makes mismatched socks?
Last year I was actively thinking of making little laundry bags for holding mismatched socks...I wanted to print the French phrase for "mismatched socks" on them, but our Paris contact told us that there wasn't really an equivalent phrase, it would come to something like "sock which no longer has partner", not something in common usage. If any reader knows better, let me know!