Fruits of my labor

The garden is coming along, as gardens do in July, especially when there's been a lot of rain.

This was what I brought in on Saturday afternoon.  The cucumbers are a bit bigger than I generally like, but the pot they're growing in was hidden behind some very high weeds (I told you it was raining), and I hadn't seen them sooner.

The tomatoes are also coming along.  The Juliet tomatoes, which are my favorite variety to put in the dehydrator, are a very viny tomato, and they've clambered up into the rose bushes when I wasn't looking.  I was planning to prune those rose bushes, but then I'd  have to invest in lots of tomato supports, and it just doesn't seem worth it.  I'll let them grow.

The blueberry bushes are slowing down a bit -- the bowl here is about 2 cups worth, and up until now I've been bringing in a full bowl every couple of days.  Since there weren't enough of them to have a proper evening snack, I made blueberry muffins and we had those instead.

There were enough left for breakfast, and for a snack this afternoon after we got done working over at Mario's house (up for sale, not selling, and in need of a bit of a sprucing up).  Patching drywall makes a woman hungry, especially in 90 degree weather.

Once we got in and had a muffin -- and wine, don't judge! -- I spent some time in the workroom.  This was supposed to be a very productive weekend, if you looked at the list I made up on Friday.  And yet I'd gotten to Sunday afternoon with most of it still un-crossed off.

I tried to fix that in a few hours and didn't do a half bad job.  I have an outdoor event next Saturday and I wanted to do another big batch of microwave bowls, plus I finished a few dresses I'd started earlier in the week and cut and pinned another batch of the mini teddy bears.

Tomorrow is Monday, and I'm back in the office.  It's not awful, but I'd rather be in my workroom.

Lessons from my mother

Mom at 16, nothing but legs,
boobs and attitude.  

My mother had a saying.

My mother had many sayings, most of them memorable, quite a few of them containing the word "shit" or something else that got me in trouble for repeating when I was a kid.

But overall, they've held up well.

Take this little gem, which I repeated to myself a few times yesterday when I started the pointless, "I wish the show had gone better" refrain in my head.

Mom would have said . . .

"Wish in one hand, shit in the other.  See which one fills up first."

Right.

She followed that up with, "The only time it's okay to wish is at Christmas.  The rest of the time, the hell with wishing.  Go do what needs to be done, and if you can't do it, get someone else to do it for you, and if you're good, you can convince them it was their idea to do it."

I believe she first imparted this piece of wisdom when I was about six.  At the time, all my wishing was probably (absolutely) focusing on what I wanted for Christmas.  But she did repeat herself, and eventually it sunk in.

Wishing won't get the job done.  All it will do is make you feel worse about whatever didn't work out right the first time.  Wish in one hand . . . or find a way to do what needs doing.

Highs and lows

Today was the Narberth Music & Arts Summer Festival.  I did this one last year, and it was a pretty good day.

Today, not so much.

Today, in a word, sucked.  On ice.

There are days like that, and thankfully they don't happen very often.  Today, at least, the weather was fabulous (after drenching rain all day yesterday), the other vendors were great, and I came home with an amazing gift from a fellow vendor, blog reader and one half of a multi-talented couple.

One of Damp Cellar Turnings' shaving brush and bowl sets

In addition to being a pretty impressive home winemaker, the shop -- called Damp Cellar Turnings (because their damp cellar is where all the magic happens) -- has a wonderful selection of handmade wooden items (mostly pens and shaving-related goods), all of which are lovely to the touch and reasonably priced.

The wine has moved from the counter to the wine rack, and in some cases the fridge.  There wasn't time to chill it in time to be the glass (or two --  don't judge) that I needed after I unpacked after my day.

Some days, you're the pigeon and other days you're the statute.  

Do statues drink wine?

 

New Venues

One of the most difficult parts in building this business is trying to get my work into new venues -- stores, markets, etc.

It's been a good week on several fronts, in that respect.

Locally, I've now expanded into Bucks County at Spunky Candles & Crafts, a cute little shop in downtown Bristol.  They started out as a candle company, but once they found a retail space they realized it would make a more interesting shop if they invited other makers to display their wares alongside, so there I am.

Also, I sent a batch of dresses to upstate New York to my artist friend, Maria Wulf's, open house this weekend.  She and her husband, writer/photographer Jon Katz, do an open house at their Bedlam Farm twice a year, and Maria turns her studio into a gallery space.

You can read about the Open House here.

Sweater season

Not really, but it is in my house.

There's a thrift store down the street from my house.  I've mentioned it before, but it really is one of the best parts about where I live -- it almost makes up for the corner bar, the Penn students and the general annoyance of living just feet from my neighbors.

They do frequent half price sales, and they're where I get most of my sweaters that I turn into mittens, animals and random other goodies.

But it isn't sweater season right now.  Technically.  They get donations all year long, but they don't have the floor space to keep a four-season display out, so most of it goes into storage after it's processed.

Sometimes they get too much, and then they sell bulk bags -- 50 pounds of clothes for $10.  One of the saleswomen suggested a few weeks ago that I ask the manager to have a bag made up for just of  nothing but sweaters.

I didn't know I could do that.  I asked; he said yes; and this morning, as I went past on my way to work (yes, I'm still at the temp job, it's been extended but I'm coping), one of the employees told me I could pick up the bag tonight.

It's a big, clear plastic trash bag with FORTY POUNDS of sweaters.  Almost all of them are wool, quite a few of them have already been accidentally felted for me.  There are even a few cashmere blends.

And all this fuzzy goodness cost me 30 cents per pound, or $12 for the entire bag.

I'll be doing this again, just as soon as I figure out where to stash this load.

Apparently it's sweater season, after all.

It takes a village to make a bear

Thanks so much to everyone who left a comment on my prior post about this bear.  As you can see, I took a little bit from each of your suggestions, and in the end, I think I (we) came up with something that will make the customer very happy.

I did end up using all five fabrics in the end -- the light blue for the body and half the arms/legs, the My Little Pony fabric for the head and the other half of the arms/legs, and the yellow terry romper for the ears and foot pads (including the original tiny Izod alligator, just because).

The difficult fabrics were, obviously, the Dresden plate and the shamrock prints.  I decided instead of using ribbon that I would make a tie from the shamrock fabric, and then, as suggested by Glenda, I appliqued the Dresden plate on the belly.  Because nothing succeeds like excess, I cut out the center circle and filled it with a pony.

Somehow it's both trippy and fun, and kind of feels like a bear that a child might design -- all those bright colors and random prints ended up working out, after all.

Letting Go

I'm still wandering through my house, throwing things out, sending bags to the thrift store (a belated exchange for all the bags I've carried home), handing off to friends, and I'm about to start a (hopefully) profitable relationship with Craigslist.

But last Friday, I did an event in Philly with another crafter, and he's getting these plates.  He was kind enough to give me a ride -- the event starts at 2:00 p.m. and my knight in shining Subaru isn't available until 6:00 p.m. -- and he makes really amazing jewelry from old china.  

I have a plate rail in my dining room, lined with old plates in blues, browns and reds.  These are extras.  The top left is mutton dressed as lamb (new plate masquerading as old).  There are two chipped Blue Willow plates, a brown-and-white transferware called "Royal Mail", which I already have 3 of on the rail, and the red Asian-inspired plate.

That one has a story.  A former co-worker went to Spain at least 10 years ago, and asked what I wanted.  I asked for pottery -- preferably folk art style, something that definitely said Spain.  She brought back this sort of Red Willow-looking plate, which is lovely but not what I wanted.  I thanked her, because it was a gift and it was nice of her to think of me, much less schlep a plate all the way from Madrid, but I've never found the right place to display it.

And it's gone now, because I realized that the gift and the gratitude and the memory are sufficient; I don't need a plate that I'm never going to use, stored away in a cabinet that could be holding something else.  It's going to make some lovely jewelry, and I might even treat myself to a piece of it -- it might not look good on a plate rail, but I'll bet it will be lovely on a silver chain.