angry chicken

hamster hands

This is Mochi, our hamster. There is a zine about her you can buy from Sadie. She is so special. She waits for us every night to play with her. Pete is quite attached. 

We are in the beginning of spring break and I have a lot of sewing to do getting ready for spring shows. I had some not great success dyeing nylon, so thank god for Goodwill. I found the vests I needed and don't have to worry about the first dozen refusing to cooroperate. I have banished them into deep storage for now.

I have big indoor plant plans. I know this is the time to be thinking about outside gardening, but we have almost no direct sun, so I can only do so much. But indoor plants are calling to me. I plan to put them mostly on the mantel, to avoid the cats thinking it's a toilet, which is what happened last time we got house plants.

After listening to a large batch of podcasts (mostly catching up on This American Life) I am now listening to Becoming by Michelle Obama. I'm only about 45 min in, but really liking it so far. I am reading a historical romance, which I have a big stash of on my kindle because I need them and am always happy when I go back a to them. They are the perfect escape.

Delia and I are planning a trip to London and Paris this summer, so I am starting to make lists and researching shops, fabric stores, museums, cool cafes and all that. Any suggestions are appreciated! I haven't been there since 2001, so I bet a lot has changed.

one-color embroidery

I stitched this a couple of years ago for a book I contributed to, Embroider your Life, and I found it tucked away in my desk recently. It's stitched on a linen base and is a slipcover for a hardback sketchbook. So, it's reusable, which is nice. I forget how much I love one-color needlework, especially when I use different thicknesses of thread. This pencil was procured from the fabulous pencil shop in NYC, CW Pencil Enterprise.

I am up to my ears in costume construction and altering for spring shows. I also am going to finish Dune on audio book. I have 3 hours left. It's great—dated, awesome, and also goofy because the narrator does the women's voices too, but in a weird falsetto which is really amusing to me. Also, Paul is a kind of a whiner, but I know he's a teen, so I get it. It's hard being a teen messiah. I had never read it, or seen the movie, (I don't plan on watching the movie) but I know this book played a big part in forming my brother's personality and life view. That and Van Halen. I think for me it was Xanadu (the record and the movie) and Mists of Avalon.

I am really appreciating this list of recommended movies streaming on netflix right now from the New York Times. I feel like I spend more time trying to decide what to watch than actually watching, so this is helpful.

fabric happiness (and a blog anniversary)

These beautiful fabrics are from Bolt, which recently moved and expanded. They have such a good selection of fabrics and trims I got a little nutty. I am so lucky to have such wonderful local indie fabric stores in Portland.

I just saw on my calendar that Feb. 21st was my blog anniversary. I started it in 2005. 14 years? Incedible. And yet not. I feels like a long time ago. I go through my archives sometimes, with the girls. I just did recently with Lydia looking at all the homeschooling projects we have done. And the crafts, etc. We got a huge dumpster last weekend and finally cleaned out the garage and knowing I have documented so many of our learning projects, toys, costumes, and artwork makes it so much easier to send it away when it's creating clutter and chaos in my life. I do need to make a new banner for the blog, I think this one has been up for more than 7 years now. I am on instagram more these days. But sometimes I am not. I haven't really gotten into the stories thing. I am better with the photo and text format. Also, I like to reference what I have documented, so having it go away isn't so useful for me. Years ago I was printing out the blog and binding it in books, but I stopped after year 5? I'd love to keep doing this. I think I could easily get 2 years in a book because the amount of posts decreased as the years went on. But I also look at this project and get tired and think I a was totally bonkers.