Heirloom Needlework

  

Sometimes I take the beautiful things around me for granted.  We have these beautiful needlework pieces by Nathan's grandma Shirley.  I love having Nathan's grandma's handy work hanging in our house.  It makes me feel connected to his family and a tradition of making passed down through generations.  Too often I walk by these pieces without pausing to look.  Today I stopped and took a moment to appreciate her work and what it means to have it hanging in our home.

Eating: The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

I love cookies of all kinds, but there is always a special place in my heart for chocolate chip.  When I was little, I took drawing and painting classes at a little studio down the street from my school.  On Wednesdays, school got out at 12:30 and my friends and I would grab our art bins and newsprint pads and make the short walk together.  I would beg my mom to give me a dollar for a treat before class.  Some kids bought candy at the corner market, but I saved my dollar for a cookie from the bakery.  The cookies they sold are the best I've ever had.  They had a hearty, nutty, almost healthy taste to them, and I should mention they were enormous.  Throughout my baking life I have tweaked and tested many recipes in attempts to recreate this childhood cookie, here is the result.

My Very Own Cloud

Since I first saw these clouds lights, I began thinking through how to make my very own.  This weekend I scheduled in some craft time with my highly creative friend Jamie, and this is what we came up with.  Now I have my very own cloud to hang above my bed.

Los Angeles

Yesterday we spent the day driving down I-5 to Los Angeles.  It's crazy how many times we've done that drive now.  Every random gas station we stopped in was one we had stopped in before.  Oh, this is the one with the good paletas.  Oh, this is the one with the Taco Bell in the gas station.  Oh, this is the one that sells air guns and all the weird knick-knacks.  I love the drive in early spring when everything is green and the orchards are blossoming.  But spring sprung a while back it seems, and the drive was mostly brown and felt very long.  Coming up I have an all weekend making session with my best girl Jamie, and some quality time with Mom and Dad.  I love long weekends.

Eating: Rhubarb Pie

Looking back at all of my Eating posts, I realized I have never done a sweet!  How could that be?  I love sweets, I live for sweets, I dream of sweets.  Every spring I start craving rhubarb pie.  I grew up in Southern California, rhubarb does not grow in Southern California.  The first time I had rhubarb was spring in my second year of college.  I was visiting a friend's family in Vermont and her mom picked fresh rhubarb from the garden.  Not much was growing yet, but rhubarb is one of the first plants to come back to life after the long winter freeze.  She baked it into a simple rhubarb pie and we ate it with vanilla ice cream.  The fresh, tart taste of the pie tasted like spring itself and I fell in love.  Now I am a rhubarb purist.  Save your apples and strawberries for something else, straight rhubarb pie is the best.  Here is my recipe...

Solar Eclipse

In case you missed it, yesterday evening was a solar eclipse that was visible from much of the western U.S.  It was a annular eclipse, but in Oakland we didn't see the full ring, we saw a crescent shape.  We viewed it through a pinhole viewer and were a little disappointed when the sun started to pass behind the trees.  Until we turned around and saw this.  This is the shadow of the eclipse passing through the trees.  The shadow of each little leaf appears as the cresent image of the eclipse.  I think this was way cooler than the pinhole viewer.

Fresh Eggs

A friend gave us this batch of beautiful fresh eggs from his flock of chickens and ducks recently.  I have plans to use the shells in an upcoming project, but I couldn't resist taking a picture of them to share.  Aren't they lovely?

Blogging

So I didn't really want to do the meta blog post about blogging, but blogging is hard!  Way harder than I thought it would be.  Don't get me wrong it's fun and very rewarding, but it's also a lot of work.  Fortunately the blogging renaissance that happened a few years back created a great infrastructure for new bloggers to latch on to.  Many experienced bloggers offer weekend workshops and tutorials to help newbies like me sharpen their skills and there a great conferences that bring together blogging talent from all over the country.  One of these is the Altitude Design Summit in Utah.  The Alt Summit happens in January and I can't wait to get my ticket for next year.  But since I have to wait, I signed up for some online classes on the Alt Channel.  The classes cover a range of topics for new bloggers and only cost $15 a pop.  I'm taking classes on blogging basics, growing readership, and organization.  I think I've got the basics covered and my readership has been growing each week, but I know I can learn a lot from those who have gone before me.  Now I can't wait for my first class, but at least that's a lot sooner than January.

Eating: Pierogies

Way back in 2005 I was hanging out at the Old Pioneer in Red Hook, Brooklyn.  I hung out there a fair amount back in the day, and it was where Nathan and I met and fell in love.  It was a neighborhood bar that served mostly beer and whiskey, but also delicious barbecue.  The Pioneer was terribly run, but in the most charming way possible.  Pierogies were always on the menu, but were never actually available.  I assume this was because they are kind of a pain to make and nobody wanted to deal with it.  But oh are they ever delicious, comfort food at its best.  So one night I managed to talk the cook at the time into sharing the recipe with me.  He wrote it down on an order ticket, and I have kept it safely tucked away ever since.  The ball point pen is pretty faded these days, but if I squint I can still make it out.  Here is the recipe as written...

How To: Wire Wrapped Necklace

For Christmas my godmother Madi gave me a lovely bracelet as a very thoughtful gift.  It was made about 20 years ago by a family friend I was close to growing up.  However, I have big bones and it could barely clasp around my wrist.  So I decided to convert it into something I would wear more often.  Keep reading to see my DIY on how to make this wire wrapped necklace...

Keeping Busy

If you want something done, ask a busy person.  I kind of hate old adages like these, but there's a reason people have been repeating them for so long: it's because they are true.  The last few weeks I lost my momentum and floundered to get even the simplest task done, but I didn't give up.  After switching gears a few times and trying out a few different projects I'm back on track and my mind is overflowing with ideas again.  I'm working on a jewelry project I hope to share with you tomorrow (I can't tell you how long it has been since I worked on anything like that), I'm having fun with the embroidery I shared with you Friday, and I'm super excited about the knitting project I started last night.  Here's a sneak peek at the yarn, isn't the red just lovely.  Plus I'm teaching myself to play the fiddle with internet videos.  I still sound pretty terrible and Nathan leaves the room whenever I start to practice, but I'm getting better and I can already play two songs!  Here's to keeping busy.

I'm Working On... Relaxing

So I took some of my own advice and put that last embroidery in a drawer.  Everyday I had to force myself to pick it up.  It just wasn't working and I just wasn't enjoying it.  So I'm taking some time off from that one.  However, when I opened the drawer to stick that embroidery in it, I found this embroidery that I had stuck it I don't know how long ago for the same reasons.  I remember starting this and feeling dissatisfied, but now I have no idea why!  I'm trying to relax and keep it loose and I'm having a lot more fun working on it.  Let's see how much progress I can make this weekend.

Hana & Adam's Wedding Invitations

Images from top: Rifle Paper Co., Dapper Paper, Deviant Art

Hana and Adam asked me to design and print their wedding invitations after they received my Valentine this year.  I have known Hana all my life and I was so honored to be asked to contribute to her wedding.  Last week Hana, Adam, Nathan and I all met up for dinner and a show and I was able to steal Hana away for a few minutes to talk about her inspiration for the event. 

I have said before that I love Pinterest for finding inspiration.  So Hana and I scrolled through my types board looking for invitations that inspired us.  We have know from the start that we wanted to have a vintage inspired floral theme that will tie into the decor at the venue.  We loved how the text and graphics mingle together in the first invitation by Rifle Paper Co.  However, Hana knows this is Adam's wedding too so she wanted to keep a masculine text to balance out the florals.  We liked the clean and classic mixed fonts on this invitation.  Finally, we couldn't quite pinpoint what it was we liked about this invitation, from Dapper Paper, but something about it just feels... right.

So now my job is to come up with a design that seamlessly mixes all of these things together.  Wedding invitations are a guest's first hint at what to expect on the big day.  Knowing how amazing a couple Hana and Adam are, I know this is going to be an awesome wedding.  The pressure is on to make the invites awesome too.

I Love Goats

If you know me personally, you know I love goats.  Oh how I love goats!  I don't think I could ever choose a favorite animal, but If I had to goats would be way up there.  I love petting them, laughing at their ridiculous antics, feeding them dandelions, milking them when I get the chance, and of course drinking that delicious delicious milk.  Every May goats cover the hills of Oakland to clear brush before the dry season hits.  I look forward to this every year.  It means I get to see hundreds of goats every day on my way to and from work.  Yesterday I saw them setting up the fencing and I knew the goats were on their way.  So today I left a little early so I could stop and watch the goats a while.  Aren't goats great!?!

Eating: Spicy Peanut Pasta Salad

We have a potluck at work this week and the theme is southeast Asian.  I didn't feel like cooking up anything too fancy on a Tuesday night, so I whipped up this spicy peanut pasta salad.  It takes minutes to prepare and tastes much fancier than it is. I like this at room temperature or chilled for a summer picnic.  Keep reading for the recipe...

Pinspiration: Circular Patterns

Images clockwise from top left: unknown, Emily Barletta, unknown, Yoran Morvant

I worked so hard on the blog in April, that I forgot to work on actual work.  I wrapped up all of my ongoing projects over the past few weeks, and now I feel like the cricket who sang all summer.  I hate when I don't plan a good transition between projects.  It's very important for me to maintain my momentum.  So I'm trying to get that momentum back and get excited for the next big things.  Of course it always helps to find a little inspiration.  I'm loving these circle motifs I have on my patterns-textures-colors Pinterest board.   Triangles were the shape that was everywhere last year, but this year might belong to the circle.  Circles were definitely on my brain when I started my embroidery last week. Maybe now I have a little more inspiration to finish it.

I'm Working On: Getting My Life Sorted

Last weekend was a long weekend and still it was packed with activity.  But the weekend didn't seem to end on Monday as it usually does.  The good times just kept on rolling, I just had to go to work in the morning.  The highlights of the weeks was the Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros show at the Fox Theater in Oakland and a delicious meal and cocktails at Boot and Shoe Service.  I also started working on the invitations for my dear friends Hana and Adam's wedding this fall.  Between the work and the play, not much else got done around here.  So now I must wash all the dishes that have piled in the sink, launder all the clothes that have piled on the floor, and sort all the mail that has covered the dining room table.  And I have to figure out what I was thinking when I started this latest embroidery project, and which direction it should take now.  But all that might have to wait until tomorrow, I've got an art opening at my friend's gallery RES/IPSA tonight.

How To: Make Your Own Stamps

My firsts posts on this blog were about valentines I made using what was essentially a giant rubber stamp.  Carving your own stamps is fun and easy and opens the door to all kinds of crafty opportunity.  Last week, Nathan was having a hard time finding a "thumbs-up" stamp for grading papers, so I took the opportunity to whip one up myself.  Here's how...