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Persimmons

I had never heard of persimmons until I moved to California in 1999. Not until this year can I say that I actually like them. I tried them baked in a cookie once. Wasn't a fan. They were turned down at every chance after that. A friend of mine told me that they were delicious dried. She said they were like a peice of candy. That sparked my interest. I love dried fruit and I love candy. Last Thursday one of the Cello teachers gave me seven persimmons. (The variety not used for cooking) They were pretty good. So today I got around to drying some :). I won't lie. They don't taste like candy when dried. But they are pretty darn good. I'm glad I tried them again. Now I'm looking to ease the burden of an overloaded persimmon tree.
Here are my efforts:

Umbrella

This is my favorite from a photo shoot today - We weren't even planning on the umbrella. She happened to pull it out of her bag and, WOW - it worked!!

The Nursery

I'm not sure why it took me three babies to get into the whole "decorate the nursery" mode. It could be that we lived in apartments, didn't have the $ or the fact that this is my first girl AND we have a spare bedroom. Kindof. The "spare room" was my sew/computer/storage/make a mess room.
After months of finding other places for my sewing, computer and messy stuff, we finally had the room ready for painting, new closet doors, finishing the base boards and a crib!
I made the crib bumper, quilt and ruffle and added a touch of matching fabric to the already existing curtains. I LOVE the quilt. I started with a yard of blue euro floral fabric that I had and started adding prints to it. I cut random sized strips and added a wider border and backed it with a soft pink minky. I hand quilted it :).
When I was at Babies R Us registering for baby items I ran across the Jungle Luv nursery decor and I couldn't believe how the colors matched my fabrics EXACTLY!! So of course I had to have the little mobile and lamp!!
Recently on eBay I found sellers who were selling matching hand made Jungle Luv accessories. After a bit of thought I realized I could do the same. I purchased a roll of Jungle Luv wallpaper border and made some matching wall hangings.
There are a few more things I want to do for the nursery. I want to cover a cork board with fabric and batting somehow, but am not sure how to do that yet.

Stacking Bowls

I swiped these from my Dad's house during a visit a while back. He had just finished a ceramic making frenzy and dared show me his wares. I took the liberty of staking my claim on a few - or rather a stack. They add a touch of decor yet are super functional.

Aquarium

A quick trip this weekend to Monterey to see the aquarium again. These little jellies are my favorite thing there. Just like the flames of a campfire or the rolling ocean waves, I can watch them for hours.
Next Spring the aquarium will feature Sea Horses. I can't wait to them!

Theme Thursday - Create

I tried all week to think of something I could create with my photography - it just didn't happen. I tried my hand at a bit of creative photoshopping but that doesn't come easily for me. So I did what did come easy for me - I created something with my sewing machine :)
First I finished my pair of wool mitten/warmers from cut up old wool sweaters. They are lined with fleece and are the warmest things ever- I probably won't need them here in CA, but they are oh so cute!




Then I made a pair of little baby shoes. Since I needed them to match something I took a dress I bought from The Children's Place recently and added some fabric flower appliques and buttons. A matching hat would be cute too - perhaps later. The dress alone was simply too plain but it was on clearance and I knew I could add something to the skirt to liven it up!
I love the way this turned out :)
Here is the plain dress -

And here it is dolled up -


And the little shoes. Well actually just one shoe. I still have to finish the second one :0)

I bought the mary jane shoe pattern from THIS etsy shop. They took a bit of time but I learned a lot of adjustments I want to do for next time. I want to add interfacing to make the shoes hold their shape better, and an elastic strap across the top to hold them on her little foot better. I also want to add peice of that stiff stuff you can add to hat brims, I can't think of the name of it right now, to the sole of the foot. It is flexible but stiff enough to help it keep it's shape.

Fall in Ithaca

Theme Thursday - Storyteller

Here is my story for theme Thursday
This week I returned home from Ithaca New York from a visit with six of my seven sisters! We try to do a get-together yearly. Each year we have a sister's exchange amongst ourselves. Sometimes we give things that we have sewn or crafted. This year I offered a photo shoot and my sister with a five month old boy ended up with my gift. I took some pictures of him on Sunday while I was still there and I'm so happy with the way they turned out! The colors there are AMAZING!!!!
Here are two of the pictures I took:


So then later that night I saw the pictures that another sister had taken - pictures of ME taking the pictures. I've never seen pictures of me taking pictures before and I laughed so hard!

This last picture shows my subject, my helpers and a tiny bit of me - a total behind the scenes shot of the cute pictures above.

I heart quilting

It must have been about three years ago that I put this quilt top together. I had no purpose for making the quilt except for a fun place to preserve some of my favorite fabric scraps. My local quilt shop offered this particular quilt class and so I thought I would splurge and actually pay for some quilt tutoring. It was FUN! I learned a lot in the short time I was there. Unfortunately I didn't complete the whole top in class, hence the three years later still trying to get it finished.
This past weekend I got it stretched out on a quilt frame so I could baste the three layers together. Now I have it ready to hand quilt which may take another three years. Hand quilting takes so much time but I actually enjoy it. I can take it with me in the car on long trips and I can quilt while watching tv or movies at home. I havn't been able to justify forking out the $80 or $90 to have it quilted for me and can't even fork out the $100 for a walking foot for my sewing machine. So for now it will be hand quilting for me.

Quilting is something that I could really get into. I love peicing beautiful fabrics together and creating quilt designs. I love the way the stitches and fabric pucker up together when it's completed. It seems to be an expensive hobby and very time consuning too. Hmm, maybe that's why all my quilts are taking several years to complete and why I resort to hand quilting. Even so, I love it.

If Disaster Strikes!

No one is safe from a natural disaster! In fact most of us live in an area that is prone to one type or another. ARE YOU PREPARED if a disaster were to strike?!?
A few years ago I assembled a basic 72 hour emergency preparedness kit. This kit holds the essentials that my family would need to survive for three days. If we had to evacuate our home quickly we would grab this and go. Inside are things such as a change of clothes, food, water and basic first aid supplies. Ideally you should take out your kit every six months or so and update the food and clothing sizes and anything else that needs to be swapped out.

Well this was the weekend I had set aside for this little project. We pulled out the dusty old duffle bags from the garage and pulled out all the old clothes and things that have been crammed in them for so long. I sorted everything out in piles of what still fits and what needs to be replaced, took out the old food (if you rotate this often enough you can eat it over the weekend and not have to throw it out for it going stale). Then I made lists of what food items need to be purchased, what items the kids needed and we went shopping for it all.
It takes a bit of work but when it's all finshed, packed up tight and put back in the garage in an "easy to grab" spot, IT FEELS SO GOOD!!! I always hope I'll never have to actually use the kit but it is security knowing it is there!


A few tips and things I learned this time around. Dry soups and dried fruit and jerky are much lighter than canned! We have been weighing our packs down with canned stuff - NO MORE!
We were given a large plastic garbage barrel on wheels from a family member and this makes a nice place to pack a lot of stuff. It will easily fit into the back of the van or if we had to walk with it somewhere (oh please I hope this never happens) we could wheel it.
Thrift stores are great places to find warm coats and things for the kids that hopefully they won't ever have to use. I don't like packing away their nice stuff.
I was thinking this weekend that while the whole topic of disaster and preparedness is on the brain it would be a good time to go over evacuation plans with the kids if ever there was a fire etc..
So I'm wondering. . . do you have a family plan in case of emergency? What do you have in place in case of emergency?

Multiples - Theme Thursday

If you would have told me ten years ago that I would have two children taking cello lessons and ME conducting their practices each morning I would have told you you were NUTS! However, that is what it's come to. It is definately a committment! One it seems I have to recommit to each day I load up the boys, the baby, the cello and the cello stool for lessons. I have to recommit each time we start practices early in the morning and especially each time I write out the check for lessons.
Now if you were to tell me that I will put the baby in music lessons in a few years I might not say that you were nuts but I'd definately say that I was!
Here is a Multiples shot for Theme Thursday. It is taken at the recital indoors with flash - Yucky - but I liked the composition. I added a vintage action to tone down the flash effects.