Elemental Stitches

Collecting

I went to Goodwill this weekend and came away with an entire school wardrobe for Brae, a pretty new plate, a picture frame, and a blouse for myself.  Not bad for my first trip!  I cant believe it took me this long to find the Goodwill out here.  There are a few thrift and antique stores around San Jose and I hope to start visiting more of them soon.  This Goodwill was surprisingly good.  I usually have low expectations of Goodwill but most of the clothes I bought looked brand new!  I don't think anyone ever wore the blouse I bought and all the clothes I got for Brae look completely perfect.  Score one for me!

The garden also heaped its bounty upon me and my new plate offered to hold it for this photo.

Have you ever seen corn pollen?  Neither had I until a couple weeks ago.  It blossomed on the tassels of the corn plants in a cool purple color.  We made sure to shake the corn around a lot to help pollinate them.  Then we collected a little bit of the pollen for our nature table.  It seems to have worked because we have several ears of corn growing on the stalks.

This week is the beginning of lots of changes in our house.  Brae is starting Kindergarten and I am going to start working with Tom and the falcons more often.  Its the end of late mornings and schedule free days.  I guess this time has to come around every year eventually.

Weekending

I hope you are having a wonderful weekend!

Listening to Mary Queen of Scots

Reading Bend the Rules with Fabric

Drinking Home made Mocha Frappuccino

Sewing Sew Along Project - ONLY 3 DAYS LEFT!!

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all of those Moms and Moms-to-be out there! 

I gave my camera to Tom today in an effort to have a couple pictures of myself in my 20s.  I am normally the one behind the camera so there are few photos out there that feature me in them.  He did a good job.  I should give him the camera more often.

Best Wishes to all the Moms out there, and extra special wishes to my own Mom!

Sewing Memories

I love reading through your stories!  If you haven't entered the book contest you should check it out here. 

My sewing story is similar to many of yours.  I think my first sewing project was an apron I made in Girl Scouts when I was about 7 or 8.  I cant remember what happened to that apron or if I even finished it.  I hated girl scouts, I was more of a boy scout, so I quit after a couple of meetings. 

I also remember embroidering and hand sewing a stuffed snake.  I couldn't have been older then 10.  I invented the pattern, embroidery and everything.  I didn't even know what I was doing was called embroidery, but I knew that a snake needed some sort of scale decoration so I embroidered some.  I have seen this snake at my mom's recently.  I know she still has it somewhere.

The next thing I made was a stuffed dog from a kit.  I was in Home Economics in 7th grade.  I actually still have that dog somewhere.  He came out great!  It had to!  I was a psycho perfectionist when I was a kid.  Everything had to be perfect.

Not many people in my life sewed.  I didn't have grandma's that crafted.  My mom did macrame and crochet in the 80s and I remember thinking that was cool.  My greatest crafting influence came from my experiences with my best friend, Jasper's family.  She lived nearby when I was in 1-2 grade.  Her mother made all of their clothes (for 5 people), sewed beautiful quilts from scraps, made them toys, baked her own bread, and had a thriving vegetable garden.  She was a true blue homesteader.

I spent a lot of time at her house and I remember playing with small scraps of fabric and beads.  Us kids had a blast harvesting sunflower seeds from their garden, playing in the pool, building our own forts, and helping to bake in the kitchen.  Their family meant a lot to me. 

Unfortunately, I also remember a lot of sorrow and tragedy associated with my last memories of them.  One of Jasper's little brothers, whom I played with often, drowned in their pool as a toddler.  I didn't really understand what that meant at the time, but I remember the heavy feeling of sorrow in the air that lasted for months.  It wasn't long after that when their house caught fire and burned to the ground during the night.  Everyone was able to escape, but Jasper and her family moved away that night and I never saw or heard from them again.

I have often wondered what happened to them.  My friend's mom made such an impression on me as a child.  I feel like a lot of my current beliefs and values about homemade and homegrown come from my experiences with her family.  I hope that someday I might find out where they went and what happened to them.

Chase - The Newest Member of Our Family

This is Chase.  The newest member of our unique animal family.  Chase was given to use by a friend of a friend of a friend.  His owner's work schedule changed and he was no longer able to give Chase the time and attention an English Pointer needs everyday.  Now he is happily chasing seagulls at work with Tom right now!  What a life for a birding dog!  He gets up at 4am and heads to work with Tom to help chase away all those trash eating seagulls.  One more step toward keeping our city and San Fransisco Bay trash free.

What blows me away the most about Chaser is that his previous owner trained him to hunt with hawks and falcons.  While the hawk is flying high above, Chase and the falconer are "flushing" birds for the hawk to catch.  Chase will search a field for birds then when he finds one he will freeze and he will "point" at them with his whole body.  When the falconer gives the signal he will run at the birds, making them fly up.  That is when the hawk gets his opportunity for a meal.  When I snap a photo of him pointing I will post it.  It is amazing that both these animals can be trained to do this.  And they love it!  This breed of dog LOVES to have something interesting and fun to do.  They are smart and energetic dogs that need to be stimulated and praised. 

However, a falconer can not do this with all types of hawks and falcons.  It is a lot of fun with a Harris Hawk, which works really well with dogs.  We have one named Vinny, who is new to our family as well. 

I LOVE Vinny.  He is my favorite raptor so far.  Harris Hawks are the Labrador Retrievers of the raptor world and Vinny is a charmer.  Don't let his frighteningly good looks scare you, he is really a sweetheart and incredibly gentle... unless you are anything that moves that is smaller then a Cocker Spaniel.  Then your time on this earth is probably up.

Boxes Everywhere

Okay!  We are finally back online!  I have been without the internet for almost a week and its been killing me.

So, I have a couple photos of our new house.  It is a city townhouse, which is the same size as an average house, but it goes up instead of out.  My townhouse has two stories, but I think a lot of the townhouses in the Bay area have three.

I took a couple of photos of the interesting rooms.  The bedrooms are big with high ceilings, but otherwise boring and just full of boxes so I left those out.

Here is the downstairs.  I like the Pergo flooring.  I wish it was real hardwood, but that is for a future house.  They don't put real wood floors in these new homes anymore.  I am just happy it isn't carpet.  Please ignore the boxes.  These were taken a few days ago and I have more put away now.  It is so hard to unpack when you don't have any furniture.  I want all of my things to be organized from the start so I am trying to organize as I unpack.

My kitchen is small.  I like to say it’s European.  However it must have been designed by a woman, because everything has wonderful flow. It is very efficient.  I love how quick it is to clean up and I barely have to go anywhere to get ingredients.  In this kitchen everything is within arms reach and I don’t have to do a lot of walking back and forth to cook.  Plus its loaded with cabinets.

The backyard is perfect for a veggie garden.  There is a sunny side and a shady side.  Tom and I decided to split the back yard down the middle.  He got the shade for his falcons and I got the sun for my veggies.  I have been obsessed with starting the garden so I already started one bed of spring veggies.  I started it after I took this picture so I will take more for another post.  My garden this year is going to be way bigger then my garden last year at UCSC.  I can’t wait to grow one of those 100 pound pumpkins!  I have wanted to grow one since I was little.

Well that is the gist of the house.  I will put up some more photos as I thrift and redo some desperately needed furniture.  I already repainted a beat up bookshelf that I had in my old apartment.  It got some light water damage while in storage, but with a coat of white enamel paint, it looks like a whole different bookshelf.  Tom actually thought I bought a new one.

Back soon!

Moving Day

I never really feel like I am moved out until I unplug my computer.  It is always the very last thing to go.  I after I finish this blog post I am unpluging my computer, getting it ready to go in the morning and going to sleep.

Tomorrow is the day.  Moving day.  We have an early morning and a very long drive ahead.  Please send us some safe traveling prayers if you have a moment!

Tomorrow night, surrounded by my friends, I can breathe a sigh of relief.  This whole 6 month long ordeal is finally over!

Is That A Moving Date?

I have good news!  We were approved for a townhouse! 

Yea!  I am so happy that our house search is over.  Filling out those applications, competing with other nice families for a future home, it all makes me feel so inadequate.  Especially when you are not picked, which happened twice, for two totally different reasons.  I really loved those two houses too, but they were not meant to be.  The final choice came down to a house in a less desirable neighborhood or a townhouse (same size) in a better school district, walking distance to Tom's partners house and a fantastic sushi restaurant.  The townhouse is also much newer, but it doesn't have the great fireplace that the house did. 

Its all over though!  We can finally be settled again. 

So the next two weeks I will be moving and unpacking.  After I get situated I will get started on all the great things we are doing on my blog this year!

Looking Back and Ahead

This past year has been one of the hardest for me.  So many changes have happened in my life to take me in new directions.  Some lessons were learned the hard way, some were easier, but all have guided me to a better life for 2010. 

In the past year my crafting skills have tripled!  I feel like I am a fairly confident knitter now.  Last year I could only knit flat things.  Now I am knitting hats, mitts, stuffies, and I have sweaters in my sights.  I have learned so many new ways to embroider and embellish.  I think that they will all play a part in my crafting to come.

So what is coming up this year?  I would love to...

1.  Knit a sweater

2.  Knit more hats with some colorwork

3.  Sew Brae a bunch of clothes from Carefree Clothes for Girls.

4.  Sew myself some spring and summer skirts.

5.  Sew a shirt that I like to wear.

6.  Somehow design something that combines sewing and knitting that I like.

7.  Do LOTS more giveaways on my blog.

8.  Do more tutorials for you all.

9.  Go to a Craft Faire in San Fransisco

10.  HAVE A FABULOUS YEAR!

I hope your New Year looks bright!

Got Him Back

I am exhausted, but we finally caught him!  This is Hermes, AKA Foghorn Leghorn.  He took off during training yesterday and has had us chasing him ever since.  We eventually kept tracking and chasing him until he was too tired to keep flying away from us.  You see, falcons don't really love you.  The most they think is that you are a source of easy food.  If they aren't hungry they will not come back no matter what.  We are pretty sure that he took off excited at being free for the first time and killed himself some dinner then didn't need to come back.

I think I hiked about 6 miles today through desert and buttes.  I wish I had taken my camera, but I knew I would be doing a lot of walking and it can get heavy around your neck. I am off to take a long hot bath.  I hope I can get back to crafting tomorrow.