While Tangerine Dreams

Peaches and Dream

Peaches are in prime season here and we've been feasting on peach pie while slurping up the last juicy bits of summer. Thanks by the way for all the kind congratulations on the last post. It's heartwarming to know that close friends and long time readers understand how this is somewhat of a major fruition of a long stretched out dream for us. It's exciting to finally be moving into a home that we've been dreaming about pretty much since Craig and I met. Actually or second date to be exact when we're were swapping dreams in between swapping spit. It's not the exact manifestation we were expecting but how things actually turn out are just as if not more so magical.

So, under the catagory of knitting, sewing, spinning and other crafts, this is the first project I've made using yarn I spun. It's based on the Karee pattern from It's a Tape Thing but it's not. It's a Merino and Alpalca Thing.

Here we go off on a tangent; As I mentioned in the comments of the last post, we will be having the bedrooms painted by a Lazure painter who was trained by this guy. Lazure painting is ethereal, gauzy, layer-y, looks really cozy and suited for strawbale's plaster texture. So, the painter/kundalini yoga teacher came and saw then recommended peach and rose tones for Edie's her because of the Steiner belief that little kids should remain in a peachy keen type reality for as long as possible. Especially Edie. She's pretty light on her tipy-toes. Clara's kind of the same way so luckily I had enough left over of the homespun to make her a little fruity tooty dress.

And because I can't sew any bigger type clothing projects (things can messy and we're having people view our house we're trying to sell here) Clara's been ca-chinging the bulk of my creative mojo these days. I sewed up this little apricot number:

Once again, good from far, far from good. Luckily she doesn't complain much!

Gardening and Sheet

Garden is coming together. At first Edie had better things to do when Mommy was banging up the beds but now she's really digging it. Already we've been enjoying salad from our lettuce and we're looking forward to embellishing them with beets and carrots.

I still have some clean up to tend to in the background but I'm pretty excited about making bigger and bigger gardens in the future. My vision's to have a seated lace coverage for shade area for tea time with all the fixins like rose infused herbal ice tea and crumpets but for now I'm just content the deer fencing is finally up and I'm not totally killing everything.

So almost as important, if not more, than the garden, it's been finally been warm and dry enough to be sporting my new gardening outfit:

It's the Edwardian Underthangs pattern from Folk Wear patterns. Check out the site, lots of cute vintage styles. I made my bloomer set from a vintage sheet. Thus the post title.

Good sheet!

Pass the Herb

I attended a fun little celebration this weekend. It was a birthday party of sorts. An elder here turned 84 this week and so there was a festival marking the occasion on his property. Part of the festivities included a herbal salve making class that was pretty fun. It took place in this really rustic circular strawbale cottage, a couple of mah ladies in attendance while Edie and Craig had fun with other kiddies and daddies running around the compound.

The salve class really tickled my fancy for learning more about herbal healing, an interest of mine for a long time. I'm considering (once again) taking the Rosemary Gladstar correspondance Herbal program. I know a couple of my friends have done so in the past. Anyone else out there tried it? Anyone wanna do it at the same time as me? That would be fun. I'm just feeling the importance to embrace the power the plants offer us, especially living out here where a lot of medicinal plants grow so abundantly, being a mom and somewhat skeptical of conventional medicines and pharmaceuticals being so heavily pushed. I have lots of alternative health support around me but I think I'm ready to delve in to more of a personal practice. An empowerment thing, ya know?

I leave you with a message brought to you from the birthday boy's lens.

I "Octa" Learn to Crochet

What is it about summer that just makes me want to crochet the days away? I, even after my mom's tete a tete about dwindling down my obsessions to one (she's rooting for sewing, surprise, surprise - me too though) signed up for the Crafty Daisies on line Learn to Crochet series. The deal is each week we are taught some crochet basics then there are three pattens for squares to crank out. Making two of each, we should have a nice size lapghan at the end of the twelve weeks. I'm using my stash leftovers so it's been a nice walk down memory lane working with the stuff.

Again, this being my, ahem, third round of trying to learn to crochet (why am I so slow to learn?) I'm way behind the rest of the crew. I'm only on my third square. The octopus is just hanging out. Strange he ended up in the shot because I was talking about octopus in ceviche to a hitchhiker I picked up yesterday. Weird. Ceviche is the best heat wave food around. Have some with beer if you can and with any seagull sounds you can muster.

(I'm using the draft option of typepad so this was written yesterday and this morning I'm a totally different person. Not just because of my cells' unusually efficient regeneration capabilities but I'm already getting stumped in the learn to crochet along. I'm almost ready to throw my hook in the air and let Edie play with it until it goes forever missing in her toy picnic basket. We'll see what happens.)

Egg-cellent!

Look what the Easter Tree brought me. A new laptop!!! Yay! Joy! I'm so very, very happy!!! After a couple of emotional breakdowns, it was decided there was a need for Mommy to have a new computer. I feel much much better. For anyone who has been emailing me I'm not mad, just hanging out in real life. So nice to be back! I have my coffee on hand and am ready to blog heedlessly without fear the monitor's going to go konk and my mind then going snap.

I've been on an Easter crafting kick  Having a little munchkin in my life has made me get into such things as celebrating holidays in as creative ways with the challenge of trying not to involve sugar as much as possible. I'll have more egg-y goodness to show you probably tomorrow. I use to now a guy named Egg come to thing of it. He kinda looks like the picture above.

The Easter tree idea came from a Waldorf inspired book I've been dipping into here and there, The Children's Year and the blossom fairies are from a link featured on Whip Up a couple of pages ago. The Easter eggs were batik dyed using food colouring and drips of beeswax candles. Edie is so enthralled with the Easter tree project as you can see. She learned to use Mommy's scissors (I've been upgraded from "Mama" to "Mommy" by the way after the fever broke), and got to act as creative director telling me where each egg and fairy will go. She loves to stroke the eggs and say "soft!" and twirl the fairies to make them dance and then she joins along with a little shakey shakey. Ack! I love her!

Fully Mobile

The hearts came down and the birdies went up in time for spring! I am hooked on making mobiles! I felt the birdies up while watching the newest Christopher Guest movie and Edie got to fondle her pixie dust into each one as I went along. So many crazy-looking birds around here! It's our first early spring living here and I feel like we've been transported to the middle of a tropical rainforest sometimes.  I had to move this mobile away from the window though because a friendly feathered fellow tried to come over and play with one of them and bonk; into the window. Poor little guy.

And this glass mobile was a creation of a local artist who has a strawbale sanctuary/bed and breakfast close to us. Her yard is her gallery. She has her art weaving in and out of numerous gardens and natural buildings. She's like "I won't be home. Just drop by and help yourself and leave the money under the rock by my door". Okay. She's so lovely. I love how the mirrors dapple light all over the trees and bushes. It's like catching glimpses of tiny pixies dropping by to say a brief hello. The piece is hanging out on our backdeck which hasn't been visited much since the super dump. In the summer we have almost all our meals out there. Listening to the toisty, moisty sounds of rainforest.

Dye Daze

The dye day at the Guild was too much. I had such a blast. I brought with me two skeins to make Edie her Spring Sweater,  silk fabric for two more playsilks, one pink, one green (you know, spring) and some roving. Loved how these turned out. I think I may have to go back to the Guild on Wednesday to borrow the drum carder to marry these two colours together and make Mama some kind of spring hat.

Above the Duo fixin's. Craig's not agreeing that a sweater should have shortsleeves. Defeats the purpose. But, hello? SPRING sweater? Any comments to back up my side of the argument would be welcomed. Not to mention I only have enough of the Psy-reggae yarn for the short-sleeve version.

I have so many projects to tackle! Not complaining, love the feeling actually. We have began with the Grand Experiment again (Craig putting the monkey to be to wean her off the going to sleep nurse) so that's buying me a tiny bit of time at night to at least make and look at a list of all the projects I want to get on and play with. Pretty blissful. Except I started plying last night and I don't have a Lazy Kate (only a Lazy Kathy - ha ha) so the bobbins were scurrying all over the floor, banging into the closet, and at the point of the evening every miniscule uneccessary noise makes every muscle in my being cringe. Time to McGyver myself a shoebox Lazy Kate. Mmmm. McGyver (I do a wicked Marge's sisters impression by the way). The idea's from my new Spin to Knit book. Off to a play date!

Booties Fit for a Fairy

Made some more booties. These ones are intended for a little fairy girl I know who just turned one. Kind of like how my friend Brenda use to describe her manicure jobs; good from far but far from good. Let's just say I took the photo from a flattering angle. One slipper's different from the other but I have  figured out now a technique to keep the pairs consistent.

I had an amazing St Patrick's Day weekend. Saturday morning, Craig and Edie went swimming again town while I hung out with my Threads Guild crew for a dye day. I'll have photos of that adventure to share tomorrow. I went with the intention of spring hues to make Edie her Spring 2007 knitwear collection (I want to make her the short-sleeve Duo anyway) but, again, it's like reggae creeps into my inner ear and I go home with Rasta inspired colours instead. Still very happy and cheery, mahn.

Today we visted where the fairies live; Faerie Meadow. Edie's favourite part of the Horniman Ranch. The photo was taken in November (damn camera batteries dying!) so imagine with 75% of the white stuff gone. I'd photoshop but time on this stoopid computer and napping upstairs is ticking.

We're set to start building May 1st so every minute we get to hang out on our property is like living in a dream sequence. So much fun was had today. Edie's boot got sucked up muck, she got to roll down a hill like a log (in a good way - she loved it) and Mama got to lay down on the spot of her future bedroom for a long time (which also happens to be under the crows interstate freeway in the sky). Batteries - recharged!

Joey 4 Joey

 

We were invited to a first birthday party tomorrow afternoon. The mum, an old friend of ours, asked me to make a page for a cloth book she's making for her son.

His name is Joey so I made a kangaroo with a little baby (I didn't make the baby by the way), because you know little baby kangaroos are referred to as Joeys! Plus, I guess because they're a pretty attachment parenting type of family, he's spent a year being slung around. Really deep symbolism here, ya know.

And Joey can come out...

And then jump right back into his Mama again. I'm just having too much fun with his name. I also felted him a Joey ball with a sad attempt at a star on the other side.

No Davinci Code type message there. Just his name. Don't wear it out!

PMS

Introducing Poppy Marmalade to the world! I was saving that name for Craiglett no. 2 but then her initals would be PMS so should probably try to think of something else. Until then, Poppy it will be until Edie says different.

Check her out in action! Edie's pouting with excitement, really. I tried to follow Edie's hairdo but she insisted that Poppy has "pom poms" (that's what she calls pony tails) so her hair's a little on the crazy side but allows room to grow into whatever it is Edie's boufant settles into.

I made her the little dress with some thrifted flannel while Tangy was napping yesterday. I have one knitted slipper finished and will show you a money-foot shot when that's done. Too cute making doll clothes! Such quick gratification! And I can tell the Munchkin loved the novelty of taking off and trying to put the dress back on. Can't wait to make outfits AND a little house, and bed and who knows what else. Total new crafting frontier here that I'm very stoked about.

And Edie's pretty much in tounge-hanging-out-love already. Phew! Like abating breath to see if a child accepts a new sibling. So, the Waldorf doll just follows in the tradition of Steiner philosophy (founder of Waldorf schooling, philosopher, and biodynamic farming pioneer) of natural materials, respecting our natural phases of development by not intellectualizing children too soon, using simple not too detailed human representation in the doll to leave more to the child's imagination which should be the primary way to learn until at least age seven. I know that's a shoddy summary of Waldorf philosophy but I'm reading more and more about it and am intrigued by the genius and the controversary surrounding it. So much to learn in this lifetime, hey?

I was pretty excited for the opportunity to pour all of my love and intention into this little Poppy. Not to mention, making one I was able to place a heart-shaped rose quartz in her chest for that extra dose of bliss shine. She even has squishy butt cheeks! Ack!