McKenzie

A baby girl is coming!!! My cousin Kelly is expecting the first girl in the family in almost 19 years and I couldn't be more excited. The five little boys born in the past few years are wonderful and as sweet as can be but pink and ruffles are sooo much fun. This little one is going to be met with lots of handmade love at her baby shower this weekend. The hat is from Natural Knits for Babies and Moms and the I found the bib pattern free online!

I also spent the morning working on some sewmuchthyme bags to send off. Here's the one I just finished...the only clue I got to help pick out fabric was that the girl likes "bright colors."

Now I need to finish a secret quilt for a secret friend who is coming into town this weekend for a visit. Maybe it will be done....maybe.
Until then, I really want to make this. It would be perfect to hold my neurophysiology text book this Fall....

A Conversion

I have converted "The One." Who is the one behind the sewing machine???? The Little Wowzer, who until Saturday would have rather gone out to a movie with her friend then sew all night long. But then something happened. And she and Catherine sewed for hours making each other flannel pillowcases (which are now on my craft list).

Not bad at all, eh?


Meanwhile, I've been busy cutting and sewing Sewmuchthyme bags for some 'customers (!!!)'. Look who helped:

The Wowzer, again.

JAMboree

At midnight of July 21, 2007 most people were waiting in lines in Barnes & Noble or Borders or some other nice local bookstore waiting for their precious Harry Potter book to be placed in their hands. I, however, was dreaming of jam...raspberry jam to be exact.

Check out the awesome market flowers...I couldn't resist being the annoying person taking a picture!!

On Saturday morning, Nicole and I headed to the Public Market for some quesitos and coffee before a morning of berry picking at Whittier Farms. After a quick lesson in raspberry picking (I can't believe I made it this long WITHOUT picking these yummy berries!) we picked away while working on some nice sunburns. Shortly, we had 8 quarts of berries and headed off for some emergency sugar, just in case we ran out.







We went to work cleaning and smashing berries, boiling berries and measuring sugar all morning long, when we realized we picked enough for not two batches of jam, but four. Good thing for the emergency sugar.

After a brief shopping break we headed back for some more jam making. Nothing is more satisfying than listening for the little 'pop' when the jars finally seal. By the end of the night, 30 jars of raspberry and tripleberry jam were made and we were exhausted.
Here's a CHEERS to Nicole's new kitchen, complete with enormous white cabinets and a big gas stove...there will be many baking and canning experiences here!

(A couple of months ago, I was garage sale-ing and found these vintage canning lids (a la the ones that are not gingham). Even though there were only three that had not been previously used, I couldn't resist buying them. I think they add a taste of 'kitch' to jars!)

In fact, the berry-picking/jam-making was such a blast (was it the process/experience or the company???) I took Caroline and Camryn this morning out to Schutt's Cider Mill to pick black raspberries for lunch. There are no pictures because we got especially berry-covered and needed to take a dip in the pool before heading inside.

The jam is sooo good, I've already finished about a jar and had raspberry jam at every meal... hopefully I'll still have some left for Christmas presents as planned or else I will be picking again come the fall harvest!!!

I Wanna Party With You!!!

Happy Birthday, Nicole!!! At some point, there will be a rocking picture taken of us...perhaps in the next year. Here's your horoscope:

CELEBRITIES BORN ON THIS DAY: Vin Diesel, 40; Martha Reeves, 66; Paul Verhoeven, 69; Nelson Mandela, 89

Happy Birthday: Communication, travel, education and uprooting yourself, if you must, are all in the picture this year. Getting away or learning something new will lead to a host of ideas, directions and greater stability in the end. A chance to make a difference to someone or something you believe in is apparent. Your numbers are 1, 12, 15, 31, 40, 42

Sounds telling....what will this year bring??

All my love and happy birthday!

Smells like campfire!

Outside, it is another beautiful spring/summer day! And it smells like campfire which has nothing to do with crafting, except I love campfires as much as I love crafting.

On the crafting front, Nicole and I have embarked on a market bag making-fest. Combining going to the Public Market and sewing has worked out well for us. Over Memorial Day weekend on retreat in an old farm house in W. Walworth we sewed up a bunch of bags for ourselves and friends and family have put in some requests. More details on the bags, how one can get them, etc. later. I have used the bags as gym bags/library bags/work briefcases/grocery bags for the past couple of weeks and I love 'em.

When I haven't been sewing or knitting (which seems to be a lot of time these days) I've been working around the gardens at my house. There's been a lot of annual planting, weeding, mulch laying and coffee ground spreading. Apparently, coffee grounds keep the aphids away from rose bushes and they generally make the gardens happy as well. And who can blame them, I enjoy a good cup ( or 2 or 3) of coffee now and then (or every day by 9 am). Last summer, I saved my coffee grounds every morning and put them around the most sickly rose bushes in the back. A couple of weeks ago, when getting my daily java I noticed Starbucks gives their "pre-enjoyed" grounds away FREE for anyone who wants them to put in their compost or around their gardens. Now, I'll do most anything for something free so I was in for the free used coffee grounds. As much as I like to support the local coffee brewers, I do go to Starbucks every once and a while and I do love this initiative.
Apparently, my roses love coffee as much as I do, because they are going crazy. They haven't bloomed this much ever.

Here's the before: (yes, this is how I feel when I don't have coffee, too)

And the after:

This bush hasn't bloomed yet, but when it does just imagine how fantastic it will be!

And a token black and white photograph, because everything is better in black and white:

Other big things have been happening besides market-bag sewing and blooming roses. The Wowzer is getting ready to graduate (hence the intense gardening and annual planting). Here is the Wowzer with the origional crafter who taught me how to sew and knit and cook. (She's the one not in prom wear).

The Lupine Lady

Did I ever mention that I'm a bibliophile? I love LOVE books. If it has a cover and pages I like it and read it. If I'm not crafting, I'm reading....

Today I read my students my favorite childhood book Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney. If you ever have to read a book to any child at any age this is the book. Alice Rumphius, the Lupine Lady has three goals in life: travel to faraway places, live by the sea, and make the world more beautiful. This strong female character achieves her goals and makes the world a more beautiful place by planting lupine seeds where ever she goes. Even my inner-city kiddos, who are literary critics in their own sense, loved this book!!! Yay for passing on a love of literature!

In crafting news, the stripey sock is coming along quite nice...Hopefully this long weekend will allow for lots of crafting productivity.

Crafting Duldrums

Hello there....apparently between lots of travels, graduations, and spring arriving here in Rochester blogging has taken to the back burner. However, here is the promise more consistent updates and hopefully some more crafts.

Anyways, as Nicole says that our individual crafting style is reflective of our inner peace my style is starting to show. As careless or carefree (depending on the day) as I am...with everything, if I cannot give 110%, I often don't give anything. A la my stripey socks. There is now a heel and half a foot on the previously mentioned sock. However, its taken me about a month to get there. Normally, I can get socks (2!!! socks) finished in a week or so. I must, I must get on the socks basically because I have 2 feet and one will be seriously cold if I don't get a-knitting.

One reason the socks are still en-progress is due to the lovely, not-like-Rochester-at-all weather. When its sunny and warm I can't help myself from spending time outside taking walks and biking. One of the best places for this is conveniently down the street from my house. The Webster Arboretum one of the best little parks around. One Sunday I brought my camera on walk to share the sights and scenes. Here's the gazebo:

When Highland Park is full of thousands of lilac-smellers and festival-a-goers, the Arboretum offers its blossoms to...well...basically only you.

And here are some lilacs to enjoy sans crowds:


Years back I remember the beginning of the Arboretum...I took a science inquiry class there when there were a few flowers and trees and this new pond. Now the new pond isn't so new, but it does have some new inhabitants:

The goslings are quite cute and the momma and daddy are rather protective. I must get going and working on those socks.