August 9, 2009
It’s been missing for about a month now and I found it!! Of course it was in a place we’d already looked when combing the house. Here’s a pic of the garden from early July:
Carmella HAS to have her carpet remnant to lay on in the sun. She’s so funny.
I’ve been really busy with a summer semester but am excited to get back to the blog. Projects I’ve been working on soon!
June 22, 2009
Congrats Mom! For winning this year’s Rug Hooking Magazine Reader’s Choice Award and getting your rug on the cover!!
June 19, 2009
My grandmother is an amazing person and I am lucky enough to not only have her in my life but to be named after her as well. She is 91 this year and has been writing her memoirs; I very much look forward to reading about her adventures in life: being a child of missionaries, jazz, traveling back and forth across the country starting businesses and raising a family with my Grandfather, being the parent of teenagers in the 60’s, and all the stories she tells of being alive for the greater part of the last century.
One of the things I find wonderful about my Grandmother is the way her house reflects her personality. She is a fiber artist, although she’d prefer to be called a colorist, making hooked and braided rugs in amazing variety and color combination, and they are everywhere. She has collected the work of a lot of her artist friends, which are also all over the house. And my Grandfather built much of the furniture in the house during his retired years.
My Mom, Grandmother, and I have started getting together for a crafting day once a month and I took a number of photos yesterday trying to capture the feeling of Grandma’s house…it doesn’t come across as much as I’d like, but here are some shots I’d like to share:
(That is a small portion of my Grandmother’s bangle collection up at the top.)
The currently in progress braided rugs on her indoor front porch.
Some of her work, my Mother’s photographs, friends’ pottery, a dresser and a number of dove-tailed boxes made by my Grandfather, and an intricate, Asian-style, carved chest.
The library, all shelving made by my Grandfather, filled with rugs for sale.
The house is filled with art and hand-crafted furniture, most of it made by family and friends. It’s always been where we gather as a family. And as a home crafter, both in the kitchen and in the sewing room, it has always inspired me to create a home just like it: full of friends and family and amazing things that the people we love make to help warm our lives.
June 6, 2009
Grandma too.
They hook rugs. 
My Mom travels to rug hooking events all over the country and since it can take months to complete a rug from design to edging, she is hesitant to mail her rugs to the shows, conferences, and classes she attends. So I made her a carrying case for her rugs that complies with the standard airline size requirements for carry-ons.
It’s a simple design: a tube with a draw string closure that is squared off at the bottom, all of it lined in silk so that her rugs can slide easily into the bag.
June 6, 2009
And here’s the final product!
Gorgeous, no?
May 28, 2009
Help! I have a counter full of lemons!!
It’s actually very exciting. A friend of ours was up in my home town Petaluma at a friends and they had a tree full of lemons they weren’t using. He asks – how many do you want? And I say – as many as you want to bring me. Goodness!
This would be very simple to work through except that I’m going out of town tomorrow for the weekend and won’t be here to make lovely lemon things out of them all. So far, we’ve made lemon bars and, one of my favorites, limoncello:
Soak the peel and vodka together at room temperature in a covered container for 1 to 2 weeks, the longer the better. Strain out the peels, filter the vodka through a coffee filter (or 2), combine with the simple syrup, and enjoy!
Especially tasty when served in a pyrex measuring cup over ice.
May 24, 2009
I made apricot jam this morning and it is absolutely delicious. I’m trying to think of other things to use it on than just toast and yogurt…thoughts?
I also spent a chunk of time yesterday and today helping my friend V out with a project he’s working on for an upcoming fashion/art show. It involves tulle. Lots and lots of tulle…
Off to go make a strawberry peach crisp and rhubarb chutney – hooray for fruit!
May 23, 2009
The Erl and Moonpie garden is coming along quite well, especially considering how little full sun the backyard gets. I’m in love with the tomato plants and hope we don’t get tomato worms…although, they are pretty amazing creatures and I wouldn’t mind seeing one again. But stay away from the tomatoes!
Our arugula has already supplied 4 harvests and, since I keep pinching off the flowers, doesn’t seem likely to stop any time soon. The beans are all finally winding their way up the strings and the zucchini is growing visibly every day. The beets and leeks have suffered a bit:
I don’t know if it’s the few scorching hot days we’ve had or something else… The basil, carrots and beans seem to love the weather. As does the parsley:
April 26, 2009
One more quick thing before I get myself off to bed. Dinner:
Pork loin chop with just salt and pepper, cooked in a little canola, over a bed of sauted onion, garlic, zucchini, fresh peas, and a little basil. Delish!
April 26, 2009
A little while back, the hubby and I joined a meat CSA; find out what that means on the Marin Sun Farms website.
We had already been buying eggs and meat from Marin Sun Farms at the local Farmer’s Market and a nearby coop grocery and knew we liked the quality. It’s been a wonderful thing so far, and we intend to stay in it for the long haul. This weekend, we, along with other CSA members, members of the public, wholesalers, and restaurateurs, were invited to come out and take a tour of the farm and see where our meat and eggs come from.
The funny part, probably only to me, is that the ranch is actually out at Point Reyes National Seashore where I lived and worked for 4 of my more formative years (a story for another time).
The tour was great. The people on it were a mixed bag: some I was glad to have along and others I judged not quite a silently as I should have, but that’s what you get for coming out to the coast and not preparing and therefore needing to wear a baby blanket wrapped around yourself to keep warm in the windy weather.
Our host, Dave Evans, owner of the farm, started us off with a history of the area. Fascinating, even if not new information for me. His take on what sustainability really means as well as his take on the organic label and it’s failings were both right up my alley.
He also talked about the network of farms that he is connected to in order to be able to sell animals to grocers year round – I had never really thought about how when you feed animals a strictly grass diet, your meat becomes seasonally available.
Nate, the ranch manager, filled us in on the day to day activities of the ranch, his view of diversity of species and the role that plays in sustainability, and tried really hard to ignore me trying to take his picture…so here’s one of him (in the muck boots) moving a chicken enclosure with ranch hand Cesar:
I’m sure he’d prefer it that way.
The chickens were a trip! How exciting to see the very hens that lay the eggs I so enjoy. (If you are not a farm fresh egg person, please try one if you can get your hands on them; not only are they full of nutrients regular store eggs don’t have, they taste 1000 times better.)
The chickens live in “hoops” that are moved about 200 feet a day so that the chickens always have fresh pasture. Because they are layers, and I think older breeds of chickens, these chicken are smart enough to gather around their hoop when predators, such as the red tailed hawk we saw flying overhead, come around.
The chickens that are “broilers”, the ones you’ll broil and eat later, are a variety of chicken that is not smart enough to get to safety when predators are in the area, so they require special hutches that are moved twice daily so that they have access to new grass. The layers followed us to the broilers area, knowing that we’d move the hutches and that they might then have access to the organic corn feed that the broilers would leave in their wake.
They seemed to be quite happy in their half covered, half mesh, hutches and one that was taken out even tried to get back in. This one, though, she looks like she’s ready to break for it:
You definitely feel like the layers get the better deal, but they do work for a living.
3 other quick pics before I wrap up this moster post: a couple rach pups, their protective mama, and the taco I had at the lunch afterward that was so amazing you get to see it in all it’s blurry glory.
Hooray!
