Good morning, dear sweet friends. It's a beautiful morning here, the day before Thanksgiving. I am feeling grateful for so much in my life, very much including this little blog and all of you who hang out with me here day after day, through it all. I am grateful for this place of peace, and Andy and I sincerely wish you a truly happy holiday weekend and a really, really wonderful start to the season.
Love always,
Alicia & Co.
I have always really liked to cook. I cooked a little bit when I lived at home with my parents, and a little bit when I was in college and lived with my girlfriends off-campus. But I really started cooking with joy when Andy and I moved to Missoula and I got my own apartment (he had his own apartment but he was rarely there). Mine was a studio apartment, and the kitchen was really small. We painted the whole room wedding-cake white — bright, bright white, from walls to trim to shelves. It was pretty cute. The Orange Street Food Farm (our grocery store) was just a block down the alley. We had absolutely no money then. We worked ALL the time. But we started cooking together during those two years we lived in our little studio, and it was a blast. Dinner parties and special events were my favorites.
But cooking regularly was and still is challenging for me. I don't like going to the grocery store that much. I have a hard time figuring out what to make. I seem to have no memory of anything I've ever made when it comes time to figure out what to make today. Before I started blogging four years ago, I would say that cooking had become something I didn't even notice anymore, and just tried to get through when necessary, somehow. But the blog renewed my enthusiasm. Taking pictures of roasting spices is just FUN. Talking about what happened in the kitchen is fun. Finding something to make for the blog is fun. Real food blogs just totally blow my mind they are so cool. Watching cooking TV to get ideas is super fun and majorly relaxing. I love cooking shows. Perfect Day is my favorite one (though their web site is crashing my computer, so I'm not going to link it), and I love America's Test Kitchen, and you know I love the Barefoot Contessa, and I still TiVo Tyler's Ultimate and watch about once a week or so, depending on what he's got going on.
I don't blog everything I cook, by any means. But the blog has given me a renewed interest in the process of cooking. It forces me to slow down in all aspects — from shopping to preparing — and do things with more consideration and appreciation. Sharing what we've made virtually still feels like a kind of sharing, and thanks-giving. Today I'll pack my bags to donate. And plan the menu for Thursday. And do a little shopping. We'll have seven adults and two kids for dinner.
On Saturday, I was back in the kitchen after a bit of a take-out-Thai-soup hiatus. I spent most of the afternoon making Tyler's Turkey Mole Poblano (except I used boneless/skinless chicken breasts). I really love Tyler's recipes (though I do wish he would give exact measurements for salt and pepper the way that Ina does; it wasn't until I started cooking with her that I realized I was way under-salting and under-peppering everything that I made, and correcting that has made a huge difference in my cooking, I must say). But Tyler's recipes are perfectly, Saturday-afternoonly complex, at least in my opinion. You usually have to get pretty busy in the kitchen, creating sauces that have several processes, and sophisticated layers of flavor, but they work. I've made many of his recipes over the years and they work out really well for me (though now that I think about it I was that one time disappointed).
The Mole Poblano was terrific. Our friend Trevor was here for dinner and he graciously agreed. We served it with fresh avocado and a blob of sour cream and, yeah. It's deffo going into the recipe binder. Really good for a cold-and-rainy November Saturday night dinner.
Seeeeeeeriously messy kitchen when you're done, though. This doesn't even begin.
I am feeling much better, but don't seem to very motivated this morning. I took seven pictures of my cereal and that felt like a good day's work, frankly. Thank you for all the good wishes! You guys are so darn nice. I love you.
I was also on the internet this morning thinking about pies. I ran into these totally adorable little pies in jars, with the cutest tags by Lollychops. And a really cute turkey tag for Thanksgiving. And I was also thinking about getting these little leaf pie-dough cutters. But then I went back to these apple cider doughnuts. Which led me to these apple cider doughnuts. Which brought me to the creamed spinach (yum). All of which made me pretty excited about chowing down next week. Thanksgiving dinner's at our house.
Fighting my sore throat and stuffy nose with cold meds, take-out Tom Yum with tofu (very hot, very sour, very good), and the plaid hankie I bought for Andy in Victoria, B.C. Good thing I have a laceweight scarf to make and some London movies to watch. . . .
I ran into this gorgeous photo on-line yesterday while looking to make a frothy, laceweight scarf. This is the Alpine Frost Scarf from the Interweave Crochet Winter 2008 issue. It's crocheted, and designed by the talented Amy O'Neill Houck. I ordered the back issue of the magazine, but was too impatient to wait for it to come, so I kept looking on-line for something that felt like this. Eventually I stumbled upon the cuddly Claudia Scarf from Rebecca at A Little Slice of Life. Heavier, but still: deliciousness. While there, I also saw the beautiful Winterberry Warmer with its three perfectly rustic buttons and I went right to my shelf and got the special little glass-topped tin of three fancy buttons that my friend Shelly brought back from France for me a few years ago. Yes, that was it: I wanted to capture the feeling of those buttons in my scarf. So I thought: a flourish of cashmere, delicate and frothy, but still soft and warm.
I was remembering the cream-colored cashmere I had seen the other day at our very lovely new LYS, Happy Knits. So I put my shoes on, headed down there, and instead wound up with Malabrigo Lace Baby Merino (in #63 Natural). It's sooooo soft and light you can barely feel it — 470 yards in 50 grams (or not even two ounces) of yarn! But it still has a lovely matte sort of texture, and definitely looks like wool, which is what keeps it all from being too precious or, worse, shiny-fussy. This is the lightest weight yarn I have ever worked with — my first laceweight anything, actually. It feels like something a field mouse would spin into a warm little nest for herself. A confection. A wool meringue.
Funny how things are inspired by and connected to other things, then almost unavoidably change as you go along. With a B hook, the Claudia pattern, and some peppermint tea, I settled into the sofa and set to work, thinking that I really shouldn't be keeping this for myself, with Christmas coming and all. But I may not be able to give it up. (And to those who asked about my coy crochet from last week, that is definitely a present for a special person, so more details on that to come.)
I feel a lot better about everything after yesterday. I hit the ground running and . . . am almost completely done with all of my Christmas shopping.
I'll just give you a minute to picture yourself bopping me in the nose.
I know, I've grossed even myself out with this blatant display of organization, foresight, and self-satisfaction. But I can highly recommend it. The stores were so empty that at one point I had all three employees at P______'s cheerfully fussing over packaging my presents for me. Everyone was so friendly and helpful. I stuck to my budget. There were no lines and no hassles. Perhaps this is more a reflection of the state of our economy than it is on Christmas shopping on a Thursday afternoon in mid-November, but still: I like to think we were all genuinely having a good time out there!
Because I do love Christmas shopping. I always have. Every year on Christmas Eve day I'd go with my dad to North Riverside to SERVICE MERCHANDISE (anyone remember this awesome place? It just popped into my head and I haven't thought about it in years — my dad totally loved that store) or the Oak Park mall (which used to be a pedestrian mall but is now just downtown Oak Park). He'd buy his presents for my mom and a special present for each of us girls then. That's when there was still a Kroch's & Brentano's and a Marshall Fields downtown. We'd stop at Cozy Corner for lunch, which was like one of those traditional hamburger/club-sandwich/tuna-salad restaurants. Monte-cristo/coffee-in-a-scratched-white-mug/sixty-year-old waitress-in-a-half-apron restaurants. And then when we got home he'd send me upstairs to wrap everything, even my own present. (Classic.) But I miss buying presents for my dad. And I really miss getting presents from him, because shopping was something he only did on that one day a year, and I knew he looked forward to it, and there was something rare and special about getting something that he had picked out just for me. The green horse statue. The Lapis Lazuli necklace with the gold butterfly. The blue heart-shaped earring dish. The Pavlova perfume. I still have all of those things, given to me decades ago.
This year I am going to (coyly) make just a few special presents by hand. Not too many, though. That would not be in keeping with the New Non-psycho Alicia.
There's a mouse in the kitchen! Isn't he cute? He's a potholder I bought at the Mt. Angel Oktoberfest this fall. I think he's so sweet. Cute idea, too. Last night I made a sour cream apple pie, except that when I went to get the sour cream out of the fridge, there was about a tablespoon of sour cream left (and I needed 1 1/3 cups). So I used whole-milk honey yogurt (which, oddly, we had a gigantic container of). And it worked just fine! Yes, it's true, something that I baked actually came out. Miracle!!!
Thank you so much for all of the ideas you offered in the comments yesterday on ways to support troops and military families, especially at the holidays. I am definitely going to take some time this week to get organized in my thinking about the upcoming holidays so that I can do all of the things I want to do, make the things I want to make, send all of the gifts I want to send, spend time with the people I love, and generally try to make a plan to help me stay balanced. In our two fairly small families, we also have six birthdays (including mine) between mid-November and mid-January. Mid-November seems to trigger this relentless forward march through those three months, and it always sneaks up on me a bit, and makes me start wiggin. This year — this year — I want to be better prepared, and also build in some empty time for myself, as well. Yep. It's gonna be different this year [she said with determination and resolve].
I was out wandering around town yesterday, needing a few things: I picked up my Christmas cards, got some new socks, and found this pretty antler candle holder. I took this photo last night without a tripod. It reminded me of what I wrote on Monday. I think I am going to start shooting more still lifes without the tripod and see what happens. Life on the edge here at Paulson Place.
I'm thinking today with sincere gratitude about all of the men and women who serve and protect our country so selflessly. I would love to hear your ideas for ways to support troops who are overseas and far from home at the holidays.
Thank you so much for all of the movie recommendations over the weekend!!!!! A fantastic list I will be working my way through this winter. I did watch one several people suggested, Run Fatboy Run, on Friday night and I loved it. There are so many hilarious one-liners in that movie. Great movie. I'm going to take the list to the video store today and get a few of the ones I've never heard of before, like Jam & Jerusalem (which I think is a series, not a movie, but that's cool — more to love).
Butternut squash with brown sugar and butter; chicken with mushrooms, sage, and prosciutto. I used Ina's recipe for the squash and Mario's for the chicken. (Note: Be careful when you fry the sage, because it will really snap and crackle, and also I only used about 1/3 c. of olive oil instead of the called-for 2 cups.) Good grief, this was a good autumn Sunday dinner. We've made it twice this fall and it is a definite keeper.
On Saturday, it poured. I had such a fun day staying inside making ornaments with everyone at the Come Play! Portland event. Thank you so much to everyone who came out for that. The nicest, sweetest people in the world. I honestly don't think I have laughed that hard in a long time. And everyone was so generous to indulge me talking about myself for six straight hours. Poor girls. I really need to get out more. One of our "conversations" (i.e.: me talking about myself) was about winter: I was trying to describe a winter sunset. The life-long Portlanders in the group were genuinely bewildered: What's a winter sunset? Ohhhh, don't get me started unless you have a half an hour. Longer. Winter sunsets are a topic that I can't stop trying to explain, and can't get right. It's like talking about my grandma, horses, Stevie Nicks, or thunder: things that are not part of my life anymore, but for which I can conjure a physical longing in an instant. I see my grandma's ankles crossed, and her black shoes. I feel warm breath and whiskers on my appled hand. I'm in a room with some lace and paper flowers, singing to a record. I see the bare oak trees from my bedroom window in Chicago, and behind that black lattice of branches the red glow of the sun, sliding into dusk. It's somehow not enough, just to say. I want them all back.
We don't have winter sunsets in Portland. It goes from gray to night. I did see one last winter, during that week of snow (snow: don't get me started there, either) and I almost started bawling: It was a Monday late afternoon, two feet of snow on the ground. All the little girls in my neighborhood were in the front yard with Clover and me. They were in a rainbow of bright snowsuits, hats, mittens, tumbling all over the fresh snow, screaming with laughter, chasing the dog and being chased, pink-cheeked and wet-faced with cold. I looked up and our street was all blue and blush-rose, like alpenglow, a way I'd never seen it. A sob caught in my throat and I missed home so badly I couldn't speak. There was one other sunset I remember here, about nine years ago now. I was driving onto the Broadway Bridge on my way home from work. Mt. Hood rose up at the end of it, gigantic, much bigger than it should have been — some sort of atmospheric optical illusion, like when the moon is huge. The eastbound traffic crawled as if in a trance, all of us staring at that snow-covered mountain lit by the setting sun behind us. I'll never forget it. I thought I was hallucinating. Maybe I was. That was a tough time in my life. I needed to see that.
As I drove home from the event on Saturday, I stopped for a latte at Stumptown on Belmont. On the sidewalk, people were standing still everywhere, looking up at a huge rainbow. We were all smiling stupidly. The coffee-shop guy breaking down the cardboard boxes out back was grinning ear to ear. I, coming around the corner with my coffee, said, "There just isn't anything wrong with a rainbow, is there!" And he said, "Oh, dude, this pretty much makes my entire week." I knew what he meant. I took this picture from my front porch when I got home. Saturday was just totally great.
Navy skirty, pretty cute. It's baby-wale corduroy, very soft, with topstitching done by hand with six strands of tan embroidery floss. Cool folky buttons which you can't really see very well. This is Simplicity pattern 2758, view E. Ish. Longer. Skinnier waistband since I misread the instructions and only cut one instead of two of fabric, and by the end of Wednesday afternoon was too lazy to go back and unfold the extra fabric and recut it and do it the right way. So I just folded it over twice and made it skinnier. Fine. Next one I'll put the pockets on lower. A lot lower. Love the pleat, though. Taking photos of a navy-blue skirt is like taking photos of a black doggie: Light absorbers. (The other stuff in the photo is all thrifted. This is the wall of the dining room [which is as dark as a cave today].) Susan asked how I keep track of where I am in each WIP and I thought, "Oh, yeah! I should do that!" So I guess that is the answer: I just push things aside and then pick them up months later in confusion: "What is this? Oh . . . yeah . . . that [vague, dawning memory seeping in, no notes or indications where to pick up, general frustration with self and lazy habits, etc.]."
While I was making this: Ding-dong! The UPS man dropped off this skirt from Boden, almost exactly the same shape. With cable tights and boots: a winter uniform. Now for somewhere to go! Not today though: I am tiiiiired. Long week. Feel like ordering curry, getting under a pile of pets, and watching a movie tonight. What are your favorite movies that take place in contemporary London? Like really take place in London, where you can see London and the city feels integral to the movie? Kind of like Love, Actually or About a Boy. I love both of those. I have been meaning to ask this for a while! Thank you!
(Crochet hook case made by my dear friend Megan, though she is no longer making them.)
1. Midnight blue corduroy skirt with pockets and running stitches FINISHED
2. Olive-green weird corduroy skirt with pockets and running stitches
3. Rust colored corduroy skirt with you guessed it
4. Pink and purple striped socks
5. Peach, brown, and cream Fair Isle socks
6. Blue, brown, and cream Fair Isle socks (no relation)
7. Blue Fair Isle sweater
8. Pink Fair Isle sweater
9. Crocheted smocked baby dress
10. Stripey wristwarmers (smaller) FINISHED
11. Three Autumnhouse pillows (like Summerhouse Pillows but for winter)
12. Christmas present for someone related to me that reads this blog
13. Christmas present for someone else related to me that reads this blog FINISHED
14. Christmas present for someone else related to me that doesn't read this blog but who is getting the same thing as the other two so I still can't say FINISHED
15. Other family Christmas presents I haven't decided on yet
16. Andy's Christmas present
17. Book
Too much. Something's gotta give. These are not all for Christmas — it's just a list of everything that I have started. But still.
The other night Andy came upstairs and said, "Violet's in your yarn bowl.
Me [pausing]: "My what?"
He [enunciating]: "Your yarn bowl. Go down and see."
So I went down there.
Oh. Violet's in my yarn bowl.
That Amy Karol (who has a book signing at Bolt on Thursday for her cool new book, by the way). The girl knows about all the cool stuff! Like Polyvore, which is sort of like that old game Fashion Plates? But way cooler. Drag and drop stuff you like onto your palette and create a "look." How adorable is hers??? I started making one immediately(that's mine above). She mentioned that one might be slightly inclined to spend hours doing this. She wasn't wrong. Around 11 a.m., Andy came in the room and said, "Will you look up what time the movie is supposed to start? Let's go to a show around one o'clock." Me: "I would, but I'm trying to pick out my tights." Him: "Uh . . . okay." By noon I still hadn't looked up the movie. He went into my studio and got on the iMac. "It's at two thirty-five!" he shouted from the other room. "PHEW!" shouted I. "'Cause I haven't even gotten to my gloves, bag, and underpants yet!!!" Eventually I was happy with my outfit. I showed Andy the page (i.e.: what I'd been doing on the computer for the past two hours). Andy told me to send him the link (since all of these items are available to buy and he never knows what to get me for Christmas). He opened the link and saw that the coat cost $919 and made a noise I don't think I can describe phoenetically. It was sort of like "Pa-HAH !" Tone: Incredulous. Andy's approach to clothes is sort of like my dad's approach to shampoo: My dad had beautiful hair, washed it with a bar of ivory soap every other day, and was bewildered as to why everyone else did not act thus. Andy Paulson buys almost all of his clothes at Goodwill, spends about $100 annually, and looks like a million bucks. SOME PEOPLE ARE SO LUCKY.
Anyway, my outfit is called London Afternoon: Camden Market, chicken curry, British Museum. And like four hundred other things I would do if I got to spend another afternoon in London. You gotta try it. It's totally fun.
The apples were absolutely beautiful. I think I had a Fuji, a Gala, and a Braeburn. They were hard and crisp and so sweet. The kitchen smelled of apple sweetness. I had a recipe from the October issue of British Country Living for something called "apple parkin," which I'd never heard of before.
Don't you love that someone invented the apple peeler? One of the most fun kitchen gadgets ever.
The apple parkin has a sort of crumble crust with butter, brown sugar, eggs, flour, and oatmeal on the bottom, covered with a layer of chopped apple, topped with the crust mixture mixed into a thick batter with a bit of milk. The original recipe was written in metric, but I found a web site that converts metric measurements of specific ingredients into standard measurements. I didn't have self-rising flour so I looked up a substitute ratio for adding baking powder and salt to all-purpose flour and used that.
My margin of error was getting rather large. Let that be a warning to you.
It wasn't to me. I happily topped it with cinnamon sugar and baked it for as long as the recipe said (30 minutes). The center was still completely raw, though the edges were done. Ruh-roh. I put it back in for ten minutes: still raw. Another ten: still raw. Another five: still raw, and now the edges and the bottom layer were rock hard. I took it out, sliced a piece, and worriedly drizzled it with a bit of cream, hoping for the best.
It sort of tasted like a clod of dirt from an apple orchard. Apparently I did not read the line at the top of the metric conversion web site that literally and very obviously says, "These conversions only work with U.S. recipes. If you try to convert a British recipe using these instructions it may flop." And that's when I said, for the seventeenth or eighteenth time in my life, "Self, you should've made the pie!!!"
I picked the apples out and ate them. Three apples is three apples, no matter where.
Pumpkin, spice, and everything nice (i.e.: cinnamon whipped cream), all on a plate for an early-morning Halloween breakfast. These pancakes are from the always-inspiring Joy the Baker, and they were absolutely delicious. And very filling. I could not finish them. Possibly only the second thing in my life I haven't finished. If you're having an easygoing Saturday morning like we are (the fire's lit, I've got crochet on the hook, the dog has been walked, and Andy is . . . dyeing a t-shirt in a pot on the stove), I highly recommend these. They even have whole-wheat flour in them. Good.
Thank you so very kindly for all of your lovely comments on our forest walk. I love walking it twice like that. These stripey wristwarmers inspired by Lucy's would have been perfect for the walk, but I didn't start them until Sunday. I finished them on Monday and gave them to my mom today — they were too long for me, after all, but just what she wanted, apparently. Awesome! I thought I wanted them long but they weren't really tight enough to stay up. I chained more stitches at the start than Lucy had, 'cause I was thinking I wanted them to go a lot higher (and so needed to be wider), and then I decreased a few times to taper them toward the wrist, but I think overall I compensated too much because they didn't stay up and got too baggy. I am now making a new, shorter pair for myself, and going with 35 stitches, as Lucy did. Why didn't I just listen to Lucy in the first place, right? I know. But now my mama has a nice pair of wristwarmers, too, so it's all good.
Do you know how to make half-double crocheted ribbing? This is a very good video on how to do it! You crochet lots of short rows, then pick up new stitches along the side edge (which is now the top edge of the ribbing). Use a smaller hook than the yarn calls for. In fact, a lot of the yarn I used in these wristwarmers was Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino, and although I frequently use an F hook with that, I am using a C (2.5mm) hook on this second pair. (First pair I used a D, and I think I want them even denser this time.) I don't know how people are getting good photos of themselves in gloves! I couldn't do it, no matter how I tried. (Granted, I didn't try all that hard — after three tries I was done. But they were totally blurry.)
Did you see that show about apples (and other plants that have made themselves important to us) last night? Wasn't that cool? Our apple-tree plans are on hold until spring, it turns out — since our nursery doesn't even have any dwarf apple trees in stock right now anyway! Ha!
Within minutes, I heard the strangest noise, a muffled, muti-layered sound: dozens of geese flying high, high above us in a perfect V (look closely at the bottom secton of the photo, just to the right of center, and you can make it out, with a few stragglers up in the left-hand corner). We watched for long minutes as several groups flew over. It was the perfect start to our walk.
You've been on this one with us before, last winter. We wanted to do it again, this time in the fall, to see how things were different, to smell the difference between February and October. We took the secret stairs (not these, but right next to these, actually) that connect NW Thurman Street to NW Aspen Avenue and cut the walk in half this time. But it was no less lovely than it was the first time. Perhaps even better, because it feels like ours, now.
Oh, most beautiful day and season.
All is fragile and fading: The leaves bleached of color and ready to flutter off in a strong wind, the garage door open and ready, waiting for wood to be stacked.
The long grass whispers and waves, more gray than yellow.
Before we get to Holman Meadow, and the edge of the forest, one last backyard garden and tiny orchard to covet.
Then the shining forest opens to us.
The path is padded with fallen leaves.
The webs studded with spiders.
The greens dark and subtle.
The trees craggy and fuzzed.
Their limbs like old bones.
Their leaves as big as fans.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep. So very deep.
Everywhere you look, another universe you'll never know.
Another city of trees more beautiful than the last.
Eventually, we reach the witch's house.
Slick with leaves and cold with damp.
At the bottom of the stairs, it seems like maybe I shouldn't go in, somehow. But I do.
The path hairpins, and the creek is to our right now.
Fairy leaves.
Heavy and delicate together.
I love you both so much.
I love walking with you.
I love going to Besaw's (just outside Forest Park) afterward. A tradition now.
I love being there just as the wait staff is getting to have their own lunch.
Golden light through old windows; you reading the paper; grilled onions, rosemary, potatoes, and cappuccino; that tired, happy feeling in my legs; the feeling of still shuffling through leaves. Saturday afternoon.
I am truly excited to have been asked to teach at a very special retreat this spring (March 10-14, 2010) on the breathtaking, lifechanging, magical Oregon coast. Registration is now open, and I hear these things fill up quickly, so please check it out!
Created by the wildly talented Liz Lamoreux, the Be Present Retreats "are an invitation to pause in your life and gather in an intimate, creative community to explore, create, discover, and soak up the world around you." At re(discover), the third retreat in the series, we will be "rediscovering" some "old school" arts in a modern way in workshops that explore through-the-viewfinder photography (where you use a digital camera to take photos through the viewfinder of an old camera [how cool is that]), book making (by hand!), and embroidery (with your own initials, of course).
I am silly excited to be teaching with Andrea Jenkins and Stephanie Lee. Andrea's photos are just crazy good — generous and interesting and emotional (hmmm, very much like my friend herself, in fact). Stephanie is one of those people that is just seriously creative. Inspiring. She makes jewelry, paints, sculpts, teaches, and writes. She and I have yet to meet, but even her correspondence is effusive and generous. It has been a long time since I took a class outside of a familiar medium, and I am so into doing that right now that I can't wait to learn some new stuff here.
The fact that the retreat is in Manzanita, one of the absolute best places ever, well . . .
That has absolutely no bearing on how excited I am about this.
No, none at all
All morning, the rain has been pelting the windows, making our already-dark, north-facing little house almost as dark as night. I wove around the place, turning on little lamps in several corners, justifying the extra use of electricity by deciding that if it helps keep me off the funny farm with a severe case of seasonal affective disorder, it'll still be cheaper and less of a drain on the planet's resources. I love fall, but I find the beginning of the rainy season in the Northwest really challenging some years. If the rain hits — as it seems to be doing this moring — just as the leaves on the trees are looking their most beautiful, it frequently knocks them off the trees and to the ground in one fell swoop. Within a day or two, people have raked them up and carted many of them off, lest they turn into heaping piles of slimy, slick, slug-housing sub-divisions. And then that's sort of it. Sigh. Rain is forecast for every day this week.
We did get in a glorious walk in the woods on Saturday, before the rain started. I took over a hundred photos, so I will work on those today and share them later this week. On Sunday, we had planned to get our apple tree, but I just couldn't seem to budge from the sofa, where I was starting a pair of stripey crocheted fingerless gloves like the amazing Lucy's. Thank you ever so much for all the awesome apple-tree advice — our plans are moved to next weekend, which will give me a little more time to decide. I love the taste of Gala apples, and am also leaning toward a Red Fuji, and am also now thinking, because of your comments, that maybe we'll just go for a full-size tree instead of a dwarf. I like the look of espaliered trees, but we don't really have the right kind of wall for that right now. Our walls are in use, and one of them isn't even technically ours, so that idea might have to wait.
When I returned to the sofa after lighting the lamps this morning, Missy V. had made herself quite at home on my pile of yarn. There are four or five skeins smashed underneath her, too. Probably a good thing: In the past few weeks I was too busy to get some stuff done (update book list, change banner, upload new PDFs, answer email, etc.), and then after that I was just too lazy. And then I started the painting so I was too obsessed. And now that the rain has started I am too . . . lazy again. I just want to sit in front of the fireplace and crochet, though it's hard to do that when your cat is lying on top of most of your yarn.
She looks so cozy. But I'll do something else. I'll do it for you, Violet Paulson.
Last year at this time, we were just back from one of the best vacations in my whole entire life, our trip to Victoria, British Columbia. Remember that? Wasn't it awesome? If you haven't been there, you can come along with us again now: Day One, Day Two, Day Three, and Day Four. And Day Five. That was just such a nice trip in so many different ways. I took the picture above at Butchart Gardens, and we talked about getting an apple tree for our own back yard, and we are going to try to do that this weekend. I think I would like a dwarf apple tree with red apples instead of yellow. It will go back in the corner by the garage and the fence and the hammock. If you have any recommendations, let me know. I am pretty excited about having an apple tree. I don't know if any of our neighbors have one that is close enough to polinate or anything like that. I want to plant lillies of the valley and daffodils under it, since those seem like two of the best parts of having an apple tree.
A scene from the movie Bright Star
I was thinking about our trip to Victoria yesterday, too, because there was that day (Day Two) that reminded me so much of walking across Hampstead Heath when I was 21, and going to John Keats' house, and on to Highgate Cemetery by myself; the weather was the same, the wet, red leaves and foggy, dull light. We went to see Bright Star yesterday afternoon, mostly because that day in London is one of those strange days that is just stuck so resolutely in my memory, and in my memory of myself, and I think of it at this time every year, and feel like I have to do something about it. Actually, I don't "think" of it as much as it feels like it visits me, like a spirit: London in November, the smell of frying onions and wool coats, the sound of my steps. Bright Star the movie had the same feel and colors, quiet, patient colors: blues and grays and greens and darks and pearly lights. And, oh, for Fanny's wardrobe! Anyway, I won't talk about it too much, but I loved it, 'cause I love all that stuff. I'm going back to see it again with my friend Aimee because this time I'll just watch for the details. They played some previews for more movies that I really want to catch, including Coco Before Chanel, The Young Victoria, and Life is Precious, which has the most moving trailer I've ever seen.
Thank you SO much for all of the nice and super encouraging things you said about the painting. I busted out laughing at some of the comments, too. It's been such a fun week painting, mostly because it's something so different from the things I usually do, and it feel so good to break out of my old routine sometimes. I have four more paintings planned (I know, I am crazed) and last night I got a bee in my bonnet to learn how to make some
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woodcuts.
See, I bet you didn't think I was going to say that, did you. That's how we roll here at Posie Gets Cozy, though.
So, you know how when yesterday I said that I did the face and completely ruined the painting and then you said no, Alicia, you're just being hard on yourself and I bet it isn't that bad and how bad could it be, and I was like no, really, it's really really really not good you guys
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well
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people, I tried to tell you.
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It did not go well.
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Things I Didn't Realize About Painting:
After I let out a horrified scream that deafened the dog and caused every cat in the house to jump three feet straight up into the air, I took the painting and went down the street to my favorite little art supply store, Muse. After we all stopped giggling uncomfortably at how scary my painting was, the guys there were SO nice to give me a crash course in Portrait Painting 101 stuff and told me important things like there is a warm side of the face and a cool side (obviously depending on the where the light is falling).
OH.
I wound up buying a tube of paint that was called Toning Pinkish Gray or Toning Grayish Pink — basically, a very pale skin tone, and then I mixed everything using that and a little Burnt Siena for the warm a little Ultramarine for the cool. Then I turned the painting upside down, like you guys said, so that I was just looking at shapes of colors and not someone-I-love's face (which I desperately wanted to get "right," etc.).
So this was the second try:
Better. Humanish. I was extremely relieved!!! I called my friend and told her. I don't know what it is about painting that makes me want to talk on the phone. Add that to the list of things I did not know about painting!
I set it about ten feet away from me and looked at it. Even at viewing distance, there was still a little too much contrast. I felt confident, though. I felt like I could do it without freaking. I felt like I wouldn't have to start completely over, I could just tweak. So I replaced one color — I think it was the second lightest — with one that was both a little darker and a little warmer and came up with:
What do you think? Stand back from it a bit and see.
I still have to do the daisy, and the magenta, and the t-shirt. But I think this is sort of going in the right direction now, don't you?
I was going to do a whole bunch of other stuff, like cook and make a potholder and clean the house, but then I just happened to stop by Blair's blog real quick and saw the Glitterizer post, and that's when all Alicia-hell broke loose, and all other activities came to a screeching halt, and I haven't really put down the paintbrush since.
This is not the painting — this is the "glitterized" photo that I used as the base for the painting. Blair's post contains a link to a function at Martha Stewart that turns your uploaded photo into sort of a paint-by-numbers-looking PDF (stop by Blair's to get the link because then you can see GRACIE). You're then supposed to sprinkle it with glitter (there's an article in the November issue of the magazine I happened to run into last night, too). But as soon as I saw it I knew I wanted to paint on top of it, instead. So I chose several of my photos of kids and pets and "glitterized" them then resized the files to about 10" wide or tall, and put the files on a CD. Then I went to Art Media and had some 140# smooth watercolor paper cut to 11" x 17" (and bought some new brushes and artist paints, too, since I just had craft paint). Then I took everything over to Kinko's and had them print the PDFs on the watercolor paper on the color copier. (The prints came out a little dark, but otherwise beautiful, so I'm trying to compensate for that a little bit with the paint.) And now I'm just painting right on top of the printed, "glitterized" images, following the gradations created and mixing colors as I go.
(Phone on work table so I can call all of my friends and tell them about my painting.)
I have painted everything except for the very bright magenta patches, which I can't seem to mix out of the seven colors I have, and her face and t-shirt. I am afraid to do her face and completely mess the whole thing up. Otherwise, I just painted directly onto the paper over each area of color, and there are a million colors in this thing. Weensy brush, steady hand. But I'm sorry people it is so cool. If you've been wanting to paint (and I have, for a long time) and expecially if you've really been wanting to paint by numbers, this is for you. SO. FUN. Seriously. I can't stop. It's difficult for me to stop and write this post, but I had to tell you. I SWEAR I am going to answer the last four days of emails later today, too. I really am. First I hafta run out and get the magenta, though. Should probably eat something, too. No time. Back soon.
Yesterday, I got to cook. It was great.
When I get busy, the first thing to go is cooking. I can't seem to deal. And it's not so much the actual cooking part that I find challenging, it's the deciding what to make, the figuring out what we need, the getting the stuff at the store, ETC. Jeeeeeeesh. All that is really not — if I can be perfectly honest about it — what I like about cooking. (Which is strange, because I'm just sitting here realizing that all that is actually my favorite part of crafting.) But when it comes to cooking, if someone else decided what I would make every day and then brought me the stuff to make it, I would be very pleased and would probably cook cool stuff every single night.
But I get overwhelmed by the planning part, or just the relentlessness of the planning part. Every day: Something. I like to have a small, curated collection of really good cookbooks, and then I cook from them over and over again. Too many and I feel like I'm going to have an indecision freak-out, and decide, instead, to order a cheese pizza. I can't keep recipes in my head; there is not ONE single thing I know how to make without a recipe. I can't think of one. I read cookbooks in bed and turn the corners of pages down to try to help me figure out what to make when it's time, lest I start to twitch (upon opening a cookbook with smooth, un-turned pages). But once I've chosen something, and once the ingredients are on my kitchen counter, I am, dare I say it, almost perfectly happy (call Ripley's).
Eeeeeenyway. You get what I mean. Last night it was Ina's Chicken Stew and Biscuits. I've made this before and it is yuuuuuuuummy. (I can't find the post. Note to self: Time to figure out how to put a search feature on the blog.) I didn't have enough chicken breasts, so I used some of our weeny potatoes.
Pardon the lighting. Heading into fall/winter, we now have a selection of random kitchen lighting — two little counter lamps and the bulb-light over the stove — to contend with on the blog until spring. I think it looks kind of pretty, all rosy and such.
I got a set of eight different-sized biscuit cutters the other day. (See, and then I knew what to make — otherwise, no clue.) I like biscuit dough. It's sort of soft and floury and heavy. It always reminds me of my grandma's upper arm. I know that's weird, but it does. Always makes me miss her.
Ta-dah! Dottie biscuits and chicken stew! She did it. After all that talk.
Off to sketch some ideas for new pot-holders.
Naturally!
I love her.
She's so skeptical.
Always a little bit worried.
I think she thinks we're nuts.
She needs a trim.
Oh my word, what a couple of weeks it's been. The scene above is my carrot-on-a-stick — each night I hurl myself toward my nightlight and this pile of pillows with total determination and . . . devotion. I would call it devotion. It's possbly more like desperation. There's a fine line.
Andy went back to work today to, as he put it, "get some rest." He thanks you most sincerely for all of your kind comments on his dispatch from the front lines — I giggled all day yesterday as I watched him get up repeatedly to check to see if there were any new comments, and come back to his work table smiling, telling me what somebody'd said. Too! Cute! Agh. Sweet sweet sweet. It was an intense run. Mr. Awesome only got slightly crabby once and I only cried once, so I think, overall, we did really well! I thank you again so very much for your orders. All of the kits are assembled, almost all of them have been shipped, and what hasn't been shipped yet will be shipped tomorrow. Unfortunately, we are utterly sold out, and I am sorry about that. We truly did as many kits as we could, and as soon as I catch my breath I will make both patterns available to download as PDFs, so stay tuned and I'll let you know when those are ready. And if you're in Portland, don't forget that I will be participating in the Come Play Portland event on November 7, where we will be making ornaments together and doing other fun things. And I'm also pleased to be teaching them at Bolt Fabric Boutique in a two-night class, November 9 and 16. More information about that is here. I can't wait to make these with people!
Right now, I can't wait to clean the house and get some groceries and make some dinner and then, of course, burrow under that poufy duvet with my TiVo clicker and my floppy puppers and nowhere to go and nothing to do for a bit. Doesn't it sound great??? Can't wait!
Good evening. This is a dispatch from the assembly lines of the Posie sweatshop. It has been a while since I have taken photos and written here. How are you guys doing? It’s Andy. I know the clock says that it's late, but it has taken me this long to gather my supplies and get my work environment just right. Enough beer? Check. M&Ms? Check. The right music. Hmm. Important. Better do some research first, as I am likely to be doing this for a while. See where the time goes? It's okay because getting the workspace right is one of the perks of working for your wife, especially if she's already gone to bed with a sigh after hearing you talk about Neil Young in 1974 for the fiftyeth time this week. Better pick up another six pack, now that it is past 11. And now the dog is crying because I'm still awake. Time for you to go to bed, then, too, little little. Okay, I think I'm ready to start.
Can I just say that felt is awesome? I mean seriously. The next time you are holding some felt, look closely at it. It is like a bunch of string all mashed together. And the strings aren’t really even all the same color. How do they do that? This light brown that I am cutting here isn’t a light brown at all. I’d maybe call it a Grand-Dad’s-Camelhair-Coat. One of the pieces of felt had what looked like a pen mark on it. As I looked closer, it was a black thread, and I could just pull it right out. Neat!! How did you get in there, little guy?
And have you ever had to iron felt?
I’ve got one word for it.
Satisfying.
Look at this! All my measuring so as not to waste a millimeter of felt and then what. The hidden three inches. And then it takes another 30 minutes to take this picture. I mean, what color M&Ms should I "spill" onto the felt. Red and green for christmas, yea, but this scene has a sort of fall look to it, and it is October. Maybe one red and two greens, in the background. And where is the tape measure? The transparent ruler isn't Andy enough. Wouldn't want you guys to think that Alicia took this photo. This is taking forever! Luckily, we've budgeted for this time. Whoop. The beer is gone. Time for bed.
Coffee. The Blessed Sap. Wait, did I really wake Alicia up last night to talk about Neil Young when I went to bed? Woops. She: "Did you finish the brown?" Me: "It is really more of a 'Haystack'." She (rolling over): "..."
Rotary cutters are cool. I wonder if we’ll make pizza tonight?
The Smith kids (nephew and niece) are coming over for a sleepover tonight, so I’ll bet we do.
I hope we either watch The Black Stallion or Wall E...
This felt is making me goofy.
What’s that?
Oh, so she can put her own leash on now. This is new. Genius!!! But puppy, I have to cut this felt.
Oh, puppy. Okay.
So that’s what we’re up to today. Alicia says hi!!
But wait... That was Friday morning and now it's Monday morning. I'm still here and have another dispatch ready. So the kids did come over. Surf's Up was what we wound up watching. Awesome movie! It really felt like a real documentary. I love how every once in a while you could hear the cameramen talking to the characters.
Woo! Matchbox cars. I know, right? A different view of the sleepover. There were crafts, cooking, and pumpkin-carving, too, of course.
Fun times! Love those guys, but these ornament kits won't make themselves! Where's my felt, now...
t
Ah, yes. Yea, it was dark when I started "setting up my work station". Table set up on paint cans for the proper height. Check. Football shirt. Check. Football water bottle. Check. Football rally towel. Check. Felt. Of course. Beer? No more beer for a while, thanks. Coffee. Check. And, Mom, if you read this, make sure Dad knows that the only reason my table and I am wearing Seahawks stuff is because the Bears have a bye-week. What could possibly slow me down now?
Touchdown!!!
Clover and I are sooooo tired from working on ornament kits this past week and weekend that we are going to let Andy hijack the blog today. He's out having a jog right now [a jog! I can barely drag myself across the house over to the coffee maker!], but he'll be back in a bit to start writing soon. [He's very excited!]
Pretty little bags of sugared candy beads and sequins pile up on my work table, and I am making progress, which feels so good in a week that has felt more like slogging through molasses than what commonly passes for "progress." These are for the Walk in the Woods ornament kits, which are coming together around here and making me happy. (A few people have asked when the kits are going to ship, and, as mentioned in the original blog post about these kits and on the order page, we are aiming to ship all kits around mid-October, so start watching for them after next week! Oh, and I forgot to say yes — the patterns will be available as downloadable PDFs in a few weeks, too.) I love the busywork of actually putting together kits so much. I love going through all of the packing slips and seeing so many names I recognize from orders past, comments, emails, real-life and pen-pal friendships. I love that a little piece of our life here is going out to your cozy homes all over the world. I think about it a lot, and it makes me so happy to imagine you receiving them, and opening them, and making them. There is just something cool about that, so thank you for being part of it.
This year, I am also very excited to announce that I will also be able to make these kits with you in actual real life on a couple of occasions! The first is a very special one-day event hosted by the lovely Emily Ruth and Friends called Come Play: Portland on Saturday, November 7. Emily has such a totally adorable way of saying everything, I am just going to let her tell you about all the details when you click on the Come Play: Portland link, but in her words
we hope you will join us for this day of
sweet stitches,
old & new friends,
yummy treats,
& creative fun...
I can't wait to go play! :-) I hope you can come!
Thank you very sincerely to anyone who has been patient with all the email problems I've been having. As one problem has gotten solved, another problem has cropped up, but I am hopeful that all will be well soon. Right now it appears that all email going to aliciaATaliciapaulsonDOTcom IS actually getting to me, though anyone sending mail to that address will also receive an error message. But I've been assured that this is temporary, and will be corrected soon. Enough of that! I HOPE.
I have been so busy working on a million things that I haven't had a moment to relax, but I can't wait until I do. I do not do well when I have to be this busy. My voice rises to a fever pitch and starts worrying any animals and small children who happen to be in the vicinity of my conversations. I went in and looked at my fabric stacks longingly this afternoon, and that was fun for a few moments, especially when I noticed that I had some room at the top of those shelves. Happy sigh. I truly love having just the right amount of empty shelf space — I keep it like that, so there is always room to accomodate things when inspiration hits. I don't like it when everything is all filled up.
My mom and I took a mini-break and went to the mall for lunch today and I bought a new duvet cover because I have wanting one for about five or six years now and just couldn't find the one I wanted. Who knew they made Liberty duvet covers? I didn't. I thought it was darling. I got that instead of the mountain-house dress. Both so cozy, it was hard to decide, though I have historically chosen bedlinen over clothes. I think I was the only 7th grader I knew who spent her allowance on sheets.
It's cold here now. There might have been frost on the pumpkin this morning. I brought my old coat up from the basement the other day (from Boden, maybe four or five years ago now). I left it on the table in the guest room and the Bee promptly appropriated it for her nappers. This is how one can be seen to have cat hair all over one's back while walking around town. Niiiiiice.
I think that if the pets had their druthers, we'd live in California, where the doors can be open all day, and residents can come and go as they please without having to bother other residents to let them in, let them out, let them back in, let them back out. Let the next one, who arrived 20 seconds after the last one was let out, out. If I added up all of the minutes I spend opening and closing doors for pets in the colder months, it would be . . . it would be . . . it would be a LOT, that's all I'm sayin. L-O-T lot. Because one can't go out if another one is going out, and one can't go out if another one is coming in — oooooooh, no. No no. If one wants to be let out, and, as you start fumbling with the door the one who is already out hears that (from wherever she is outside, and I still have no idea where that is), the one who is already out comes racing to the door like her paws are on fire, and the one who wanted to go out in the first place gets absolutely disgusted to see Paws on Fire at the door, so she harumphs it down the stairs to the basement instead of out the door. Where she'll stay for approximately four minutes (just long enough for me to get settled back down again), at which time she'll come back up and start CLAWING AT SOMETHING like my new carpet or meowing in the most irritated way, like this — this life of hardship she leads, this not having opposable thumbs, this weather — is somehow all my fault. Naturally!
Like I have that kind of time!!! (What with all the personalized feline concierge services I must provide regularly.)
We will never ever ever have a cat door here at Paulson Place, either, because one thing I like less than having to let the cats in and out sixty to seventy times a day is having Wildlife in the House, like our neighbor next door. Lying on the sofa one night with a cat on his lap and a dog next to him on the floor, he heard the incomparable sounds of someone nibbling kibble in the kitchen. Doing a double-take to make sure that both household pets were accounted for (and yes, tabby-cat Dickens was on lap [check], and spaniel Robin was on floor [check-check]), poor Randy's heart started racing a bit — who was nibbling the kibble? A monstrously huge, hump-backed, beady-eyed RACCOON in the kitchen, that's who!!! Good thing Randy is totally outdoorsy!!! If I had heard Wildlife eating out of our cat food dish, I seriously think I would've fainted in terror. Wildlife in the House completely freaks me OUT! I am an abashed weenie, we know this; but I can't help it. As it is, a beet fell out of the refrigerator the other day without my realizing, and, with its crooked, whispery little roots coming out at all angles and its weird black stem, nearly knocked me to the floor with fright when I noticed it, several hours later, over on the floor by the lunchbox — I thought it was some type of gigantic maroon-colored tarantula/daddy-long-legs hybrid. AAAAAAaaaagh!!!!
Exactly!!!
Spending the day listening to Hope Sandoval (isn't she pretty?) radio on Pandora and trying to get my life organized. I think (har har) it will take longer than a day, but at least it's a start. I have been hearing Mazzy Star everywhere lately, and I hadn't listened to them in years — so weird.
In other news, I reeeeeeally looooooooove this dress:
Yummy. And good for wearing at my imaginary Alpine mountain house.
I think the email is working now, but if you received any error messages from me this week, do resend your message, if you can. I'm hoping for a lot less discombobulation next week (fingers crossed), ya kno?
Howdy! Sooooo, Earthlink is blocking all of my incoming email from my web-site email addresses (which I'm still failing to understand, but whatever). This probably means that anything that was sent to me after Tuesday at about 6 p.m. is gone forever, or at the very least, according to Earthlink, it will take 72 hours to figure out if it is. So, if you need me (you don't?!?), just leave a comment and I'll get in touch with you. Thank you. Sorry for the hassle. I'm going off to see if I can keep my head from exploding now. Need. Aleve. Stat.
(Updated to add: Orders placed for ornament kits via Paypal are just fine. Totally separate system from email, thank goodness.)
I think I'll just pretend I'm back on the ferry going to Bainbridge Island like I was on Monday morning. Yeah. . . .
There we go.
"Serenity now! Serenity now!"
It was my first time attending an NFL game in real life! It was a beautiful day, and we had great seats. Andy was extremely excited. We sat between Bears fans and Seahawks fans. Andy was a bit conflicted, since he likes the Seahawks just fine, but once a Chicagoan, always a Bears fan; he was wearing an Urlacher [Bears] jersey but wound up enthusaistically high-fiving everyone around, no matter who scored. I offered helpful observations about the game when I could. The first quarter didn't go very well for the Bears.
"The team seems a little uninspired today. The team seems like it is wishing it was on the ferry to Bainbridge Island."
"No, that's just you, hun."
Maybe. I continued knitting my fair isle sock. During halftime, Andy went to find some popcorn, and I read O Pioneers! Some people gave me weird looks, but c'mon, I'm Alicia: I get weird looks all day long. Doesn't bother me a bit.
The Bears came back in the end, and it wound up being a very exciting game. After the game, we walked uptown to our hotel, the Inn at the Market. We always stay there when we go to Seattle. I have a thing for nice hotels, as you might have noticed if you've been reading this blog for a while. I love fancy hotels.
One of our favorite restaurants, The Pink Door, is right down the alley.
It's a darling, sparkly little place, with pretty lighting and very nice food.
We ate outside, on the deck overlooking the water.
As I mentioned yesterday, it was turning into a gorgeous evening.
You could feel the chill in the air. It is no longer summertime.
We walked back down the lane to our hotel, about a block away.
And went up to the roof to watch the sunset.
Good grief, it is beautiful there.
I really love Seattle.
Andy and I took the train up to Seattle on Sunday for the game, and got back last night (very short trip). Seattle is so beautiful, isn't it? This was the sunset on Sunday night from the rooftop garden of our hotel. Love that place. More soon! Need coffee first!
Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! Weensy taters!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How should we prepare them????????????????????????????????????????
Knitting a sock (in Patons Kroy "Cameo Jaquard"), reading my new library book (Mountain Interiors by Beate Wedekind; I feel another Alpine phase coming on), and eating an English muffin with honey (good).
MUST make up for the pathetically disorganized frenzy that was yesterday. (Yesterday included lots of helpless stumbling around trying to get organized, and failing, then sighing, then giving up and knitting.) I have a lot to do and no motivation this week. (Perhaps because it's the end of September and it's still 90 degrees.) It would be more fun to try and think of names for my sock. "Alpine Sunset." No. Too obvious. "I Want a Little Painted Bed Like That One." Maybe.
I know. Welcome to my life.
I made a Farmer's Daughter apron for my mother-in-law Sue's birthday last week. She loves purple with a dedication and consistency that is inspiring. This seems true for almost everyone I've ever known who loves purple. Purple people are unwavering in their purple love. And when you meet them, and you see them with purple things or wearing purple, you think, "My gosh, I totally get it. Purple was invented for this!!!"
Sue wears purple so well it seems invented for her and her alone, especially the dusky, mauve-y, silvery shades that feel like the flower borders in the backgrounds of Merchant-Ivory films, and the insides of oyster shells, and sunrises at the lake. Heathercolors. Ollalieberry ice-cream colors. I love these mellow shades paired with pale browns and driftwood colors, like wild violets speckle-ing the pine-needled forest floor. There's an unfortunate moire pattern in this photo that's distracting, but the color of this linen was so pretty — kind of a warm, pinky beige. For the embroidery, I used DMC six-strand cotton floss but also some of DMC's linen floss in the palest silvery lavender. There isn't an appreciable difference, to be honest, but it does give areas of satin stitch a subtle, matte-y finish that I like sometimes, especially when it's playing off of the more shimmery, glossy surfaces created using the mercerized cotton.
Just sayin.
We all went to the Oktoberfest in Mt. Angel on Friday afternoon.
I was looking for the lady who sold the German Christmas ornaments last year, but she wasn't there.
The lady who fills the jelly doughnuts was there, though. . . .
St. Mary Church, which stands on a little hill overlooking the town, is so pretty.
Shelly drove, so I got to stick my camera out of the car window and take pictures on the way home. She grew up in the country, so she is not afraid to drive onto private property to photograph someone's cool old 1880's barn.
Man, if only we had a nervy, country-raised full-time chaffeur this blog would be so much better!
There was a ten-mile back-up on the highway, so we left I-5 and cut across the ditch toward a little frontage road, which took us to the back roads. (Country girls aren't afraid to leave the highway and cut across ditches to get to the backroads, either, FYI [I was biting my fingernails the whole time].)
We listened to Wilco Summerteeth.
It seemed just right.
But then, it frequently does.
Especially on the backroads, in the late afternoon.
Especially if there are apples and Queen Anne's Lace.
Remind me to go back to Boone's Ferry Road just north of Woodburn if I ever need a rusted-out turquoise blue car to use in a photo of an embroidery project. (Why wouldn't I.)
Fine. We'll bring the zoom lens. And Shelly.
Thank you so very much for all of the ornament kit orders!!! Your enthusiasm is so precious to me, and to Andy, and to Clover Meadow, who loves nothing more than to lay on the floor with her head on his feet while he winds yarn into bundles or cuts rick-rack. A few feet away, I'm working on the new kit pattern while he assembles (and in answer to a few questions that came in this week, yes, patterns for both kits will be available as downloadable PDFs after we get all of these kits made and shipped in October). Outside, through our big open windows, we hear the rustle and ping of hundreds of acorns falling from the huge oak trees across the street. I think one falls about every minute or so. It's a nice little work environment, I must say.
I sat in the backyard and took some pictures from my Adirondack chair the other evening. The yard is very nasty now, overgrown, weedy, with smashed and rotten plums all over the ground and spider webs — huge, almost-invisible spiderwebs — laced between any two things, usually right across doorways. Yesterday I stepped quickly out the back door without doing my usual reconnaissance (with my Chinese broom held in front of me, thwapping freely at all potential webby areas), and immediately walked into a big one, saw the big fat-butted spider that had been sitting in it shoot [smartly] off to the side and disappear as I flailed around in a panic and then spent five minutes pawing at my head and spitting web out of my mouth while doing the panic-jig (pick up feet quickly while turning in a circle and smacking yourself repeatedly and making worried-kitten noises). Eventually I was able to pick the half-eaten carpenter-looking ant out of my hair — I saw it and got so freaked out I whipped that thing across the yard as if it were a grenade and pulled a little muscle in my shoulder, then did a whole-body shiver from head to toe. It was quite a performance, I must say. I called it "Autumn in Oregon: Not for Arachnophobes." I'm sorry you missed it.
I am getting a late start today. I almost always wake up around 5:30 or 6 a.m. But last night I couldn't sleep so I woke up at 1:50 and didn't get back to sleep until 5:30. Which is about when Andy and Clover woke up and Clover ran across the bed straight for my face with her big, cold nose. I grumbled at them and they bounded away and bounced downstairs and I slept until 9, which is . . . I never do that. The day's half over now already!
From 1:50 to 5:30 a.m., I was reading Julia Child's My Life in France, which I couldn't put down. It's about book writing and book publishing as much as it is about France. She is so cool. What a cool lady. I treated myself to a little shopping spree at Powell's the other day and have a new stack of books on my nightstand. I must put my new book list together. I have lots of craft books to mention, too. So many beautiful books these days.
We have a fun but busy weekend around here. Farmer's market for sure. We'll get to the Mt. Angel Oktoberfest, and later go to a wedding (I haven't been to a wedding in ages.) And then on Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m., Portland crafty ladies Susan Beal and Diane Gilleland and I will be at the Hollywood Public Library giving a panel discussion on our experiences writing craft books.
This is part of the Writers Talking series, and I think it's going to be really interesting. The three of us had breakfast here yesterday and talked for four hours straight, but I promise we saved some good stuff for you! We'll give you the skinny. For more local author fun, Amy Karol will be at Powell's on Burnside on Sunday night at 7:30 p.m. with her new book Bend the Rules with Fabric, and you know she'll have cool stuff to show and tell 'cause that's how she rolls.
Good morning, crafters! Please allow me to introduce this year's handmade felt ornament-making kit, Walk in the Woods, available for pre-order now!
It includes the Cozy Cottage, with the wood fires burning:
The Snowy Tree, sparkling with ice crystals:
And my favorite, the Little Deer, who watches shyly from the trees:
Each Walk in the Woods Felt Holiday Ornament Craft Kit includes:
9 pieces of wool/rayon blend felt in assorted colors
9 skeins coordinating DMC cotton embroidery floss
3/4 yd French rick-rack (for hangers)
Sequins and beads
Wool fluff (from a local Oregon sheep farm :-) for the chimney smoke
Stitching instructions
Pattern templates
Illustrated embroidery tutorial
You will need to have your own:
Wool batting or Polyester Fiber-fill
Sharp embroidery needle
Dressmaker's chalk pencil or fabric marker
Dressmaker's chalk carbon paper
Iron-on transfer pencil
Sharp fabric scissors and paper scissors
Fabric glue
This year's ornaments were inspired by our walks in the Oregon woods, and designed to compliment the ornament set I designed last year:
There's the Hot Cocoa Cup, to warm you up:
The Ice Skate, with pom-pon for good measure:
And the Gingerbread Girl, the sweetest of all:
Ice Skating Afternoon kits are once again available now for a limited time as well! All ornament kits cost $25 each, and if you purchase both of them together you will save $5 (yay). Please use the special Paypal button on each page to get the discount (you'll see it). We'll leave the pre-orders open for the next couple of weeks, and make some extras if you miss that window, but if you are interested in these, it's best to order now and make sure we have one for you.
My dynamic duo (and if them working together last year wasn't one of the cutest things I've ever seen in my life) are once again helping me in a major way (thanks again, honey, seriously) to put all of these kits together, and we are planning to ship them all to you around mid-October. That will give you plenty of time to finish them for the holidays. I do ship overseas — just click on the "Buy Now" button and enter your country as the destination to see how much the postage is before completing the order. Please also check your addresses in Paypal before completing the orders, as well. Thanks!!!
About the skill level needed to complete these: Last year I said that, while I don't think of these kits necessarily as a children's or a beginner's project, if you have some experience working some basic stitches, these ornaments take more time and patience than skill. I will include directions on transferring the designs to the felt, and basic diagrams for completing the types of classic embroidery stitches you will need to know — backstitch, lazy-daisy stitch, satin stitch, French knot, and blanket stitch — but once you are comfortable working those stitches, if you just take your time and settle in, you will be fine. These ornaments are about 6" or 7" big — so, they take a bit of precision and attention to detail, but, you know, that's a handmade felt ornament for ya!
I think that's it. Any questions, let me know, and thank you again for your enthusiasm for these! I really appreciate that so much. Thank you!
I spent the weekend tracing, cutting, and stitching tiny pieces of wool felt into another set of Christmas ornaments for this year. This is my Walk in the Woods ornament set, which includes the Snowy Tree, Little Deer, and Cozy Cottage. (Can you see the "smoke" coming out of the chimneys on the cottage?) I am really happy with how they turned out! I really get into these. You get obsessed with blanket stitch (one of the coolest stitches, don't you think?). I think they are such a fun project to work on in the fall, especially if you give yourself enough time so that you don't have to rush.
If you were hanging around these parts last year, you'll remember the Ice Skating Afternoon ornament kits that Andy and I put together last September. I designed these new ones to be companions to those, and I am going to try to do a new set of three every year, I think. This year, we are putting together kits for the new, Walk in the Woods set as well as a whole new batch Ice Skating Afternoon kits as well, if you missed out on those. I know it seems early for Christmas, but rushing around during the holidays and trying to squeeze everything in just takes the fun out of all of it, for me; I want all of these kits off to you by mid-October or so.
To that end, we'll start taking pre-orders for both of the kits tomorrow, and leave the orders open for a week or so. I'll show you close-ups of each of them tomorrow and give you all the details then, too. This is just a sneak peek 'cause I was excited and couldn't wait! And Andy has been begging me for three days to please post again already.
Late yesterday afternoon, we headed out to the Gorge for one last time this summer.
The air was cool, the sky cloudy, the hills hazy blue.
Vista House on Crown Point is one of our favorite places.
"My telescope."
(Do marry a hottie, if you can swing it.)
I was actually about fifteen feet away when I took these, or he probably wouldn't have let me.
It's been a good summer.
I've loved taking pictures of it. Thanks for letting me share it all with y'all. xoxo
I did make the corn ice cream I talked about a couple of weeks ago. I thought it was delicious except for the cinnamon — the recipe calls for 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon to be added right at the end, just before you put the cream mixture in the ice-cream maker (and for those who asked what kind we have, we just have the attachment that goes on our Kitchen Aid mixer and it works wonderfully; I'm sorry I can't direct you toward a specific kind other than that). As I was watched my hand sprinkling the cinnamon over the top of the cream mixture, I had this moment of hesitation, thinking, "And now I've just ruined it." And indeed, once it was frozen, the taste of cinnamon was subtle but still overpowering for me, since, as you might imagine, the taste of fresh corn is even more subtle, and I thought it (the corn taste) wound up being secondary to that first, spicy hint. But I must tell you that if you love sweet corn, this is really delicious (just, y'know, leave out the cinnamon). It's quite a bit of work to make, but I might do it again, leaving out the cinny and serving it with a few black raspberries, as suggested. It seems, from our weather here this morning, that summer has returned to northwest Oregon for a few days, so . . . squeezing it all in.
It's Andy's last day of staycation. Oh, it's been great, lazing around. Doing whatever. I gotta say. Great. I've sort of been on vacation with him these past few weeks, too, but I should be back in the swing of things again soon. I just didn't want to miss a minute, you know?
The weather cooperated so beautifully with plans for a first fall feast — and that is to say that it was a miserable last weekend of summer, if that's what you were looking for: rainy, blustery, freezing cold, damp, and generally more like what we get in November than the first week of September. We had been out and about so much lately that we really didn't mind staying in and watching tennis (I'm sure you've heard about the rash of upsets at the U.S. Open this weekend — fantastic — GO OUDIN!) and embroidering and cooking.
It was so cold and fall-like we decided to make Ina's Chicken with Forty Cloves, winter roasted vegetables, and creamed spinach (is there anything better than creamed spinach? You know there isn't). I make it like my mom used to: Saute 1/2 of a chopped onion in 1/4 c. butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Whisk in 1/4 c. flour and cook for a few minutes the mixture is headed toward turning golden, add 1 1/2 c. warm milk and whisk smooth. Bring to a simmer, cook until nice and thick (maybe ten minutes?) add 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg and salt and pepper to taste. Thaw a 10 oz. package of frozen spinach and drain well. Add to cream sauce and stir to combine. Delicious delight.
I do love me a first fall feast. Remember our first one, when we got the Dutch oven? And the following year, with the ginormous apple? I don't know what happened to 2008 — I don't think we did it. This one was done with far less ceremony, and eaten (yes) in front of the television while watching tennis. It was too exciting. AND I was too tired to make the chocolate soufflees, after all, though I have all the ingredients and the ramekins in the freezer and everything. More to look forward to.
By the way, Typepad is changing things around again and making me nuts, but I wanted to let those of you who read this blog through a reader (I don't use one, so I'm not sure what you call it) know that I am still in the process of going back through the entire blog and fixing the text wrapping issues that I have had ever since I had to change the column width slightly during their last upgrade. This means going back through the blog and changing a little piece of code that is attached to every photo that was uploaded before this year, and it is taking me forever (and I don't really like going backwards, I must say). It makes me want to change the format of the blog entirely so that I have one big column (so the photos will be bigger and I won't have to have thumbnails) and one little column, and I might still do that, even though it will make all of the archived posts look really horrid. But I just apologize in advance for any unheaval that might result, because I think it means that all the posts will get republished in the readers, and I am really sorry for that. I still haven't decided what to do. Le sigh! I think I'll just watch tennis, instead.
Remember the apron I was making a few weeks ago?
I finished it!
I am so happy with it. It's exactly what I was going for (rare). It's generous and sort of . . . serious. Pretty but serious. Makes you feel like you can bake a ribbon-winning pie. I love long aprons — baker's aprons — the ones that really cover you, with long, generous ties (ahem).
The apron is made of linen, and trimmed with binding tape (not bias cut, just straight). It's about eight yards of binding! I don't like full aprons that just have a neck loop and then tie separately at the waist. The neck loop is never in the right place for me. These ties attach at the top of the bib, cross in back, go through loops at the waistline, cross again, and come to the front to be tied in a bow. Doing them this way makes the apron really adjustable, so it fits better.
The embroidery is a couple of Swedish floral designs I put together, done entirely in satin stitch (with two strands of cotton embroidery floss) and outlined with dark brown back stitch. I picked up some of the flower colors that were in that dark brown calico (from JoAnn's, many years ago now).
My friend Sarah and I finally saw Julie & Julia a couple of days ago and we loved it, especially the Julia parts. The clothes. The kitchens. The . . . everything. Her aprons — long, straight, serious. French. It was all so beautiful. I've got to see the movie again and just watch the sets and costumes this time. I went right home and cleaned the kitchen. And stared happily at my apron. I'm going to do the ties and binding a bit differently on the next one (have the side-bodice binding turn into the ties, and also, bind it completely by machine). (To be honest, and fully disclose my lunacy, I did the binding on this one by machine and hand.) There are plans for a next one — next four ones. (Three are already in progress. All different colors. I told you, I'm crazed.) There is a special someone's birthday coming up, and I am going to make three more for my mom and sweet sissies for Christmas. My sister Susie is an actual pastry chef, too — how cool is that.
This one is for me, though. My uniform for fall baking. Hmmm, what should I make . . . something French? Not a tarte tatin, though. I made one of those last year and I didn't really like it (quel dommage!). Something from Baking with Julia, maybe, because it's now (naturally) in my TiVo queue. Or maybe these chocolate souffles.
Wasn't Meryl Streep so amazing as Julia? Magical.
This week is also the Oregon State Fair in Salem. We went (yes, we go from one fun thing to another around here — that's how we roll, baby) last weekend, and it was so nice. The weather was absolutely perfect. We took the back roads to get there, like last year and the year before. The fields stretched out yellow across the roly-poly hills. Queen Anne's Lace and other late-summer wildflowers bloomed in the ditches along the old highway for mile after mile. The lavender clouds gathered and moved on.
I'm glad that the fairs happen at the end of the summer, during the crisp, yellow days. These days, the precious last ones, are the best part of the summer in so many ways. But I just don't know exactly what else it is about the fair that makes me so emotional. It's something.
I guess it's everything.
The fair always feels like an old dream, to me — a place I'd spent a thousand childhood afternoons imagining, a place I knew only from books, and pictures in books: strange but oddly familiar.
I was always sure that, if ever I got the chance, I would know exactly how to muck out a stall. Milk a cow. Collect a pale blue egg from under a ruffle-y feathered hen.
I could shear a sheep and spin my own wool. I could braid a mane and tail. If someone would just let me, I could build my own bunny hutch, make clover salads and daisy chains.
Storybook stuff.
I am naive. I do know that farms are about hard work and food, both animal and vegetable, and that the Future Famers of America don't get to indulge in many fantasies about that, as we city girls do.
I know.
Kinda.
I still cried just a little bit in the horse barn on Saturday, while petting the soft, soft neck of one of my old friends.
It always sneaks up on me, somehow. That old longing.
About more than just a horse, no doubt.
You know how it is.
Walk in the Woods Pattern
Ice Skating Afternoon Pattern
Be Present Retreat:
re(discover)
Manzanita, Oregon
March 10-14, 2010
