Made up a few more shoulder warmers.
Soft, soft cotton.
Frayed edges instead of bound. Still picking out the threads on most. Good mindless work.
The hopsacking was a breeze to untangle unlike the finer cottons. Being fairly precise about cutting on the exact grain lines was key to most excellent fringe. My wonky ways were cause for a few do-overs.
But in the end, I walked a straight line for the most part.
All stocked up for cool nights on the patio or in the park watching fireworks.
There's a list sitting on the dresser by my bed. It's a list - short, only a handful of things - of crafts I want to learn this summer. Number one on the list is the art of crocheted beaded edgings.
These edgings can go on scarves, tablecloths, lampshades or, these adorable little candleholders.
Pretty flippin' cute, ne c'est pas?
First day of summer - and my, oh, my - it's a tad hot. We had dinner on the veranda, Tomato Aspic and Pickled Shrimp. No, I'm not from the South but I shoulda been.
Tomato Aspic - how ladylike. My mom always insisted that being ladylike was a top priority, but it's hard to be ladylike with sweat, I mean glow, dripping off you. So dinner was all from the fridge and we sat - ankles crossed, knees together, pinkies up - in the shade of the patio umbrella and enjoyed.
Granted, the aspic takes a little planning. It must be made at least the morning of but better the day before you're going to serve it. The recipe I used came from this book which was a gift from this funny lady (whose writing a blog on cleaning tips - Jen, put the link in the comments if you will). What I loved about this incarnation of gelled tomato juice is the lovely addition of horseradish, lots of horseradish. Ladylike, but spicy - wink, wink.
Basically, you steep the juice with some tasty stuff, strain it, add gelatin and horseradish.
Here's the recipe because I know you can't read it up thar it that there photo.
Tomato Aspic (from "Being Dead is No Excuse")
4 cups tomato juice
6 slices lemon
3 slices yellow onion
2 bay
tops of one bunch of celery (I used celery salt and eliminated the salt later on)
several whole cloves
3 ladylike Tablespoons horseradish
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
4 envelopes (or 4 tablespoons) Knox gelatin
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
Put first 6 ingredients in heavy pot and simmer for 20 minutes, more or less. While this simmers, mix gelatin and vinegar. Strain tomato juice mixture into a bowl and add gelatin mixture. Stir until there are absolutely no lumps of gelatin left. Add horseradish, salt, pepper, lemon juice and Worcestershire sauce. Pour into an oiled 6 cup mold. Chill several hours or overnight.
Tonight we had tomato aspic with pickled shrimp (from Costco - Lime Shrimp, it's the bomb!), artichoke hearts, devilled eggs and a dollop of Best Foods.
This could be the Summer of Love.
It's been a real craft fest 'round these parts lately, all sorts of clever things to show you. So much I've wanted to try my hand at over the last several months but couldn't find the wherewithal - well, that dam has burst, shall we say. There isn't a day goes by that something from the long list of "to do's" gets checked off.
Starting simple - something I saw over on Etsy although hers were much neater and she used old vintage fabric instead of paper. It was just a matter of crocheting a few little scallops on the bottom edge of each tag. The images are from the Paper Source calendar I used for the necklaces the other day. Pink, paste, presto.
Lightening bugs - wish we had 'em here.
I did the scallop in each color just a little different in an effort to see which worked the best. They were all fine. The key was getting the holes placed properly.
Tags galore.
First of the 2011 Summer Series weekly day trips. We headed over the hill, to the coast for lunch at Duarte's in Pescadero.
We managed to get in some thrift shop action, produce stands, the San Gregorio General Store and lunch. It was a tad foggy but the temps were in the 70"s and good times were had by all.
A basket of fresh sourdough - soft and chewy on the inside crusty and toasty on the outside. Sweet cream buttter wouldn't melt in our mouths.
The famous artichoke soup for Mom
Accompanied by a luxurious crab melt sandwich. They cook the crab in big ol' pots out back of the restaurant.
Me? I had the Pacific Oyster Sandwich. Um - YUM!! Try as we might there was absolutely no space left for the Olallieberry Pie which I'd dreamed about but, even though I didn't eat my fries, I could not fit into my tummy. Next time.
We stopped at the Country Bakery on the way out for artichoke garlic sourdough bread...
and stuff.
Then took the back roads, which were lined with Queen Anne's Lace, wild fennel and rosemary, Stinging Nettle, poppies, lilca and more, home. Once again, yay, summer!
The Easiest Crafting Ever!! Pick up a packet of these little framed glass slides (I found some at JoAnn's) shuffle through your scrap paper and/or adorable fabrics and go to it. These inserts I cut from a Paper Source calendar, but I made others with a scrap of embroidered fabric (that I neglected to photograph before giving it away).
Because there are two slides of glass between the frame, you can do a double-sided piece. The pressed flowers are very flat because there isn't much depth to these. After I fastened the frame, I put a jump ring on each and ran ribbon or a bead chain through and before long I had a handful of gifts. I think they would be cute with sweet little quotes (or even not-so-sweet) written inside, photos of your peeps or any other flat little treasures you could come up with. I made all three of these plus the chains and ribbons for less than 10 smackers in little over 10 minutes. Such a deal!
Most of you know I had a rather sordid relationship with vegetables when I was a kid. One of the most hated of green things was frozen lima beans. More often than not those mini hockey pucks were freezer burnt and hard and gaggy on the inside. Then, as an adult, I met Butter Beans, the kinder gentler relative of lima beans and - well - I fell in love. Seriously? BUTTER beans, I mean who doesn't love BUTTER?
I discovered this recipe last Fall. It's one of those you throw in a crockpot, go to work and come home to the delicious aroma of BUTTER beans and turkey. Yumskers!!!
Just a little secret. I don't even do the browning and transferring business. I mean, it's 6:30 in the A.M. fercryinoutloud. It's all I can do to cut up onions at that hour of the morning. But my friend, with whom I shared the recipe, said she did and hers was delicioso. So do what you must. Also, the last time I made it I didn't have any white wine around, (I know, go figure) so I used Vermouth. Everything was copacetic.I served the whole schmozzle with grilled veggies.
On the patio. Yay, summer!!!
Use It the Heck Up. I was going to write "Make do and de-stash" but I am morally opposed to verbing and I kind of like the almost expletive. Make Do and Use It the Heck Up - yep that's the kind of pithy phrase that should be lipsticked (verbing, again) on my bathroom mirror and spray painted across the garage door (do you think the Home Owners Assoc. would mind?) so that I see it first thing in the A.M. and last thing before I come in the front door in the afternoon.
Thus, in the manner of all good intentions, I have started off the summer wingding by taking some long-but not-that-long pieces of fabric - the ones I cannot pass up in the thrift shop but that are too small to make anything grand - well, I've gathered those together in yet another pile with the goal of turning them into fresh little summer shoulder warmers. Here in the Golden State, evenings can be a tad cool.
First off the use-it-the-heck-up manufacturing plant is this green with posies number. This photo is blurry. When I reel them off the camera and onto the desktop to upload here I can never tell if it's my damn bifocals or the art of my photography. I'm pretty sure this is just plain blurry. Well, one virtue per blogpost is plenty.
Part of the fun of thrift shopping is figuring out what you're going to do with the goodies you find. Today I hauled in some yarn. There are five balls of the royal blue cotton which I think will be edging on some quilts I'm planning to whip up this summer and the light green wool and blue wool will become scarves because my niece pointed out ot me that her sister has two neckwarmers that I've made for her and she, herself has 0. Harummph. Tsk tsk Auntie Vallen.
Here's the thing. One of the reasons I found ot so hard to blog the last several months is because I'M TIRED.
I leave work at 4 p.m. every day/ While I'm always in the office a half an hour early in the morning, I rarely stay past 4. On the way home I stop at the grocery store/cleaners/Target/drug store/library/gas station - and arrive at the house somewhere near 5 p.m. I start dinner/laundry/a book and try to get dinner on the table around 6 p.m. I almost always cook a homemade meal every night. After dinner I pick out what to wear the next day, read my mail, get ready for the next day (which often includes cooking or present-making/wrapping or crafting before I fall in to a stupor to arise at 5 the next morning. That is why my blogging tapered off.
There are only - let's see - six more days of work, before summer vacation.
Bear with me
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