Garden Jubilee

What can I say????  Kendra one of our fearless farmgirl friends had a fabulous shabby chic booth at our local Garden Jubilee festival. She put together some themed herb, salad and tea pots and baskets with a lot of nice touches to add to her presentation…. loved your tags! Sorry I didn’t get any close ups of them.  Great job on the sign Jen.  I brought home some echinacea(sp?) and local mountain mint.  The echinacea is in the ground but I’ve got to think about where to contain the mint. I’m hoping the weekend was a success despite the rain.

Gone Goaty

Our kids together enjoying some fresh air at the Carl Sandburg Home.  The pairing of children with their siblings is so sweet.

As we entered into the open field the children just took off running and kept running.

And the baby goats.

Garden Green

I’ve gardened a little in the past and I’ve read a lot about gardening, but this year I’m really trying to understand how to be successful at it.  What I can say so far is I’m having to exercise a lot of patience.  Beginning with starting a seed indoors weeks before it even gets in the ground to watching it slowly grow- nature just goes along at such a slower pace than we do.  To stop, watch and listen to all the little things around me is truly a joy.  Just being around the garden with my children is such a blessing, they feel it’s draw to look in to see what’s going on… what seeds have sprouted, what flower is blooming.  Discovery and wonder……. it’s rubbing off on me.

Godspell Returns

I posted a few weeks ago about finishing up a project working as the costume designer for a local production of the Broadway musical, Godspell. Well, I’m back at it since, due to popular demand, we are running the show once again in just a few short weeks…June 19-21. If you are in the area and missed it the first time you won’t want to miss it again. I can’t wait.
The costumes were, for the most part, made up from many trips to the thrift store and lots of refashioning/upcycling. Sleeves were cut off of sweaters to make legwarmers, lots of slashing, safety pinning, Sharpie scripture writing on blue jeans as well as hand painting on jeans, adding sleeves, removing sleeves, making arm warmers from stripey socks and “jewelry” from old wool earwarmers. It was great fun to come up with a slightly crazy, boho, vagabond look for the characters and I’m enjoying a second chance at creating a second set of costumes for each one for future shows. While I thought this job was behind me, I’m looking forward to seeing it run as long as it continues to bless.
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Shoulder Bag Tutorial

I find a lot of inspiration from the tiny happy blog.  This is Melissa’s tutorial on making a shoulder bag, you can find it here. It’s  a great small bag that’s easy to put together.  If I make another I will add some length to the body of the bag because I need a bit more space to carry  around all the things my family needs. The pocket is from a pair of butter yellow corduroy pants that I used for Claire’s skirt.… and again a vintage button.

The Girl Skirts

I have been working on some summer skirts for Sierra and Claire .  I have found for the 3/4 year old that a bed skirt is a perfect knee-length with a provided hem.   This one is a nice soft blue cotton, the width can be chosen depending on how much swing is wanted and then I add a double waistline because I like the way it looks and fits.  The large flat section of a bed skirt that normally lays under the mattress can also be used for lining skirts or other projects.  Our local fabric outlet store sells them for a dollar so it’s a great way to use/find fabric.  For this skirt I added a tea dyed maternity sweater no longer needed for some charm.

For Claire  I found a beautiful butter yellow pair of corduroy pants for a quarter.  She’s still small enough so that I can just use a pant leg turned on its side for the main body of the skirt.  Some Ralph Lauren print for  contrast and a vintage flower button from my grandmother’s collection.

“Here he comes to save the day!!!”

In an effort to provide play /dress-up clothes for my children, I have tinkered with making super hero capes. 

Capes are pretty interesting and it is something that you can be really creative with.  Check out this one I made for a birthday gift….see picture below. 

I found just the right “silky” skirt from my favorite thrift store and then sewed on felt for the fun image.  Use your imagination.  Simple pictures could include initials, lighting bolt, cross, tree, flower, crown…and the list goes on!  You could even add extra details like sequins or renaissance-ish hood.  I finished my cape with a simple velcro closure.  This serves two purposes—1)  Easy dress-up for little hands to do themselves and 2)  With the velcro, it would rip apart and keep your child safe if he ever got entangled in a tree or such.

Up, up and AWAY!!!

Camel Love.

While away on a business trip…in an attempt to bring me back something meaningful, my beloved visited a “local” yarnshop!  Yes, ladies, I’ve got myself a good man. 
Well, mind you, he was extremely overwhelmed with the incredible choices of yarn and used the help of the shop owners.  They started trying to figure out what kind of knitter I was and there was finally the mentioning of some unsual yarns that they carried.  My husband was “sold” on one in particular….he purchased camel yarn!  This is a first for me!  My yarn has traveled all the way from Mongolia and the spinners name is Otgonchimeg. 

I have 100 grams / 102 meters of this stuff and currently pondering what to lovingly knit it into.  I’ve been on Ravelry, but this stuff is so unusual that there aren’t many that use it.  Any ideas?

Re-Fashioning Spring

So taking this pledge to recycle clothing and not buy anything new is a little extra challenging right now while we are in the midst of a season change but that makes it all the more interesting to me. I’ve been cleaning out dressers and closets, taking out the old and bringing in the new (well, relatively speaking). I found that my daughter has many more spring tops than bottoms so I have spent a little time converting winter bottoms to summer bottoms and here are a couple of examples of what I’ve done…I’m not big on shorts so I wanted to do something besides the traditional cut off idea.

Here’s a close up of the appliques. I cut off the pants to capri length and added the appliques that were harvested off of an outgrown shirt that was a little stained up. I ran a top stitch across the bottom of the pants to ruffle them up a bit and to give it a more messy feeling like the unfinished edges of the appliques.

Last night I took a vintage pillowcase picked up on a thrifting trip and a pair of outgrown jeans…

And with a touch of vintage ric rac from my stash made some more summertime britches…


I’m quickly becoming addicted to this whole concept and look at all clothing now with eyes that are deciding how I can cut it up.

Holler WAGON…

I painted an ol’ wagon for a friend’s farm/camp…it apparently had been sitting in their side yard, unused, for over 4 years!!! I asked them if it could still be towed and utilized. Yes, was the answer and the rest is history.
I would say that the wagon now has a happier existence. Hayrides, bonfires, and s’mores….life is good!