a whiff of fall

Before our vacation about a month ago, I forced myself to clean the studio and get organized. I refolded and stacked all my fabrics and shirts by color. I must say, since getting back I've been quite productive making new patterns and prototyping accessories. I'm determined not to let it turn into a mess again.

Yesterday, the weather suddenly turned crisp and I started feeling really excited for fall. It'll be sweltering again soon enough, but I should've been working on fall by now anyway. With my fabrics all nicely stacked, I couldn't resist tearing the piles apart again and grouping together some story ideas.

I am mixing vintage fabric with thrift store shirtings, old but not quite vintage early '90's fabric from when I worked for an apparel company, and a few new pieces. There will be some patchworking happening.

There will definitely be some corduroy involved this fall. I am almost done perfecting a jumper to be made in corduroy. I had it on my little size 5 fit model from up the block last night. Even though I have the size 5 dress form, I like to see things on a real body that moves.

For some reason, teal looks really fresh to me right now. I've hated it ever since the '80's, but I like it again, especially with avocado and and mushroom. And I can't stop thinking about MUSHROOMS! I feel the appliqué urge coming on...

card table makeover

Have you noticed card tables have the same problem that office chairs do? They seem to only come in boring colors like taupe, grey, or almond. That, and they get shabby rather quickly. At least in our house they do...

Um, yeah, I let the kids trash this one with paint and I may have exactoed some stuff on it without any protection. Then I stored it in the basement before we got the dehumidifier and it got all moldy. I'm sorry, Table. I'll make it up to you.

The top is attached to the frame by brackets and screws that come apart easily with a phillips head screwdriver. Don't lose the screws- put them in a baggie or something. Pry up the staples holding on the vinyl and remove it, never to be seen again.

You don't have to, but I decided to liven up the legs with 2 coats of Rustoleum spray paint in my favorite color: apple green! I figured, I'd do that since we're planning to use it as a puzzle-making table and will need the top to be white *yawn*.

I'm attaching marine vinyl with my trusty staple gun for the new cover. It only takes about a yard, just measure your table to be sure. Actually this would be a great project to use Mexican oilcloth or laminated cotton for like Jen of Lars & Ella did here. If I can get my hands on another table or two or three, I just might make a fleet of party tables with colorful patterned tops.

Last step: screw the top back on.

Voilà! Back in service as an exceedingly useful extra table!

woodside farm creamery tour

This past Sunday (July 18th) was National Ice Cream Day, the only day of the year that Woodside Farm Creamery in Hockessin, DE opens its doors for tours of its dairy operation. Woodside supplies our favorite ice cream parlor in Wilmington, Sweet Lucy's among many others, so the kids were raring to go.

The farm has been run by the Mitchell family for over 200 years. The main house oozes old-fashioned charm. I find myself engaging in 1940's farm life fantasies involving chicken coops, baking pies, canning and sewing play clothes out of calico for a passel of barefoot children. But I digress. I'm sure it's a boatload of backbreaking work running a dairy farm with no time for baking pies or crafting.

Emma did some sketching of the animals.

The milk for the operation is supplied by 30 jersey cows. Jerseys give the creamiest milk. These little guys are the calves.

The milking process was intriguing to the children. It takes about 6 minutes to milk a cow using the milking apparatus. Each Jersey cow gives 20or 30lbs of milk a day which sounds like a lot to me, but apparently is about half of what Holsteins give.

The farm doesn't advertise itself as being organic, but it uses a number of sustainable practices. The cow manure is composted in this 5000 gallon drum and used to fertilize the orchard, alfalfa, clover, & rye grass. To keep the flies down, special tiny wasps are introduced as a form of biocontrol. The wasps attack the fly pupae and are supposedly not very noticeable to humans or livestock.

Best of all, this past year the farm installed a huge array of solar panels to run its refrigeration. There they are in the distance. CMI Solar Electric did the installation. They also do residential work. Another fantasy of mine is to cover the whole south side of our roof with solar panels. Someday...

 

The ice cream machine. Not as big as I was expecting, but it does the job apparently.

Oh the flavor choices! "Dirt" (has gummi worms in it), Bacon (?), Black Raspberry (had it- mmmmm), Birthday Cake, and the list goes on.

The most popular flavor is vanilla- by far, they say. Even with all those choices, that's what the kids want- with sprinkles of course.

strawberry rhubarb pie fail

I hinted earlier that there might be some good things in store for our bumper crop of strawberries, possibly involving rhubarb.

Oh, how I love rhubarb. I came to like it later in life because I was turned off as a child by the way my grandmother served it: stewed and runny, on it's own in a bowl like an unappetizing soup.

A pie was in order and quick- before the strawberry and rhubarb seasons were over. Well, I'm sorry to report that I squandered the last of our strawberries and rhubarb on an unsuccessful pie. Do not use this recipe! I stand by the Martha Stewart crust I always use, but this pie was a sludgy mess. I think where it goes wrong is the flour-based thickener and the fact that it said to sprinkle the dry stuff on top of the filling rather than mix it with the fruit prior to filling the pie plate. Some of the other recipes out there call for tapioca or corn starch for thickening, so next time I will go that route. Alas, there is no more rhubarb to be had and the strawberries are being trucked in from God-knows-where.

The pie project wasn't a total waste, though. My girl finds it great fun to weave the lattice top.

We spent a pleasant mother-daughter afternoon putting the pie together.

It wasn't a bad looking pie, even if a little overdone. We did still serve it to our guests with Woodside Farm Creamery vanilla ice cream *swoon* on the side. Everyone was polite about it, but I consider it a fail. Once the first piece was cut, the whole filling just oozed back together into a milky, sludgy soup.

Hopefully next year I will have better luck! I am open to suggestions...

kid-friendly ocean city getaway

"A change is as good as a rest"- Stephen King

I do agree with that saying, but a change and a rest are even better. On the spur of the moment, we decided to decamp to the beach for a quick vacation this past week. After all, we live in Delaware and beaches are only two hours away. We usually bum a room off relatives for our vacations, but it was time we did a real vacation, just our own little fambly.

No, we did not stay in this lovely house. This is my fantasy beach house located on Martha's Vinyard in walking distance to town. It's for sale for $2,395,000. It doesn't say how far from the beach it is in the ad, but that's what those charming bikes with wicker baskets on the front are for.

This is where we stayed in concretey Ocean City, MD. Sure, it's a far cry from my fantasy house, but the price was right and we could get a 2 bedroom condo at the last minute through Coldwell Banker. A lot of these high rises have the option of renting for a "mini week" which means you can rent from Monday through Friday like we did or Friday through Monday for a long weekend. It's a considerable savings if you opt out of the weekend which I find unpleasant traffic-wise and crowded beach-wise anyway. Just a heads up if you do rent through these guys: about $200 in taxes and multiple fees are added on to the rental "price".

When we were DINKs, we would never stay someplace like this. We used to go to remote dive resorts in the Caribbean every year where we'd have our own private hut right on the beach, but now that we have kids, it's a whole new world. The little buggars were absolutely thrilled with the aggressively thematic decor, the fact that we rode an elevator every day to get to the beach, and every other aspect of this vacation. If the kids are happy, then I'm satisfied!

The over-the-top beach decor is actually necessary to remind guests that they are still at the beach when inside the condo. This was the view if you go out on the balcony and crane your neck. Note the uncrowded beach though! It was remarkably uncrowded during the week.

And this was the view at night. Not unlike Vegas, agree? Again, the kids were thrilled with it.

We indulged in some mini golf at a dinosaur-themed course. Each of us got at least one hole-in-one. Absolutely too thrilling once more!

I have nothing good to say about the food options along the strip there in Ocean City. It's "all you can eat" fried stuff everywhere you turn. It's been just completely uninspired fare and poor ambiance in every restaurant we've been to along there. Our favorite place to go is Sneaky Pete's in West Ocean City just over the southern bridge on Ocean Gateway. It's part of the wildly popular Hooper's Crab House and occupies a large gazebo and a couple of boats at the end of a dock. We discovered it a few years back when we tried to go to Hooper's and the wait was going to be excruciatingly long. They sent us out back to this more casual version of Hooper's that never seems to have a wait and is completely charming in a Key West kind of way.

We needed to have that boardwalk experience too. We've been to the Ocean City boardwalk many times, but this time we went to the one in Rehoboth, DE. Oh, it is so much more clean and manageable than the down-on-it's-luck-feeling OC one! You still have your Thrasher's Fries, your soft serve ice cream,

your disgusting cotton candy that looks like a bag of fiberglass insulation,

and your tame kiddie rides (which incidentally are partially powered here by solar panels on the roof). There is even real food available on the streets leading up to the boardwalk. I had an excellent sandwich with fresh local tomatoes on it at Green Man on Wilmington Avenue.

The beach in Rehoboth as seen from the boardwalk.

Now we're home and refreshed and feeling some creativity coming on...

manayunk arts festival 2010

I deviated a bit from my indie craft show habit to attend the Manayunk Arts Festival in Philadelphia today with my mother-in-law and her pal. I don't consider it a true "indie" craft show since it's in its 21st year and is heavy on the fine art & photography, but times have changed since I was last there 8 years ago. I thought I'd go see what's new. Sure enough, I did find some modern crafters mixed in with traditional folk which suited the all-ages crowd. I was particularly impressed with all the upcycling going on.

Vintage tins are upcycled into pretty belt buckles by Constance Scott of Studio C.

More vintage tins, antique doll parts, and salvaged metal are recycled into decorative doll sculptures by Primitive Twig.

Vintage post office boxed converted to banks by Lone Wolf Woodworks. Too cool!

Brian Marshall combines found objects into funny robot-like creatures that exude personality. I love the name of his shop: adopt-a-bot.

My, my, my, look what can be done with discarded glass bottles! Kathleen Plate of Smart Glass takes bottle recycling to a new level. Her gorgeous chandelier-like hangings really capture the light...

as do her interesting loopy necklaces. The glass colors are the original colors of the bottles they came from.

Shena Curreli of Resinate With Nature  had the most appealing earthy-modern resin jewelry displays. This wood bowl with rice perfectly complements the rings made of tiny seeds, leaves, and other natural bits encased in resin that it contains.

Rustic frames fashioned from reclaimed wood salvaged from old homes and barns by Margaret Taylor of Dancing Dryads.

I recognized Dave Conroy's distinctive jewelry made of stainless steel nuts and nails from the Crafty Bastards show last fall. Alitas Jewelry will be making the rounds all summer. Coming up soon... the Artscape show in Baltimore on the weekend of July 16.

I couldn't walk away a second time without buying a piece from Dave. This cuff bracelet is made of tiny nuts fused together in a Moorish pattern and hammered. It looks like a delicate filigree tattoo on the wrist.

I'm considering coming back the weekend of September 25 to check out the new Manayunk Eco Arts Festival. So many shows, so little time!

recharging the creative batteries

Um, this is the state of my studio right now.

This might be part of the reason I've had a lapse in creativity. I can't even cut anything out on my cutting table. I haven't put away all the great supplies I bought in the garment district two weeks ago. I have several half-finished projects waiting for missing elements just sitting there taunting me. Instead of completing them, I've been goofing off with my kids, spending too much time online, and entertaining out-of-town family who were in town for Fathers' Day weekend. I've discovered the addictive nature of creating Etsy treasuries after being included in a few. I stayed up waaaaay too late last night making my first one.

Creativity does tend to ebb and flow, so I'm not too terribly worried, but I'll have to kick start it soon if it doesn't come back on it's own. I found a few links with some decent advice. This article from Zen Habits is about not becoming a workaholic, but I think the suggestions also work for boosting creativity. Working all hours is a great way to zap your creativity. I also like this straightforward article from Digital Art. This post in the Mohr Collaborative blog explores how creativity and insight happen most when our minds wander, yet we spend very little of our days allowing that to happen. The Mohr post also links to this fascinating Wall Street Journal article about the anatomy of the brain's breakthrough moments.

The top 10 ideas I've gleaned for boosting creativity:

- clean workspace- instant boost
- unplug from the internet for at least a day
- take a class- a long term thing, but I can vouch for this one
- play/socialize
- make something other than your usual work for a change
- doodle/always have a notebook handy
- rest- the mind remarkably can solve problems better while wandering
- get out and explore- a great way to find new sources of inspiration
- make time for creative pursuits- don't over schedule yourself (hard, I know!)
- block out self-criticism and negative thoughts- you always think better in a good mood

After reading up on creativity, I don't feel like I'm doing so badly at all. I'm already doing the playing and socializing. I've been out and about exploring. Today I'm going to start a major cleaning and organizing effort in the studio. And next week is the biggie: I will be unplugged from the internet from Monday through Friday and doing nothing but relaxing, sketching in my notebook, and playing. Then when I'm done with all that, I'll make time to be in the studio for blocks of time while the kids attend a camp or two. And right this minute, I'm going to sit on the porch and enjoy my new favorite drink!

An "Arnold Palmer" (part iced tea/part lemonade). Aaaaaahhhh.