Hello... yes, I'm still here....

I know it has been over a month since my last post, but my life has been very, very full. Things are starting to slow down a bit, so I'm breathing easier. Those of you who know me have seen my bullet lists... those of you who are new to this side of me, this seems to be the easiest way to organize my thoughts and convey a lot of information....

1. Elsie started 2nd Grade and loves it!

2. I have been busy with freelance work which involves travel. I have been traveling almost every other week since the beginning of August. Some for personal and some for work... either way, I haven't been home enough.

3. I have been teaching an online class at the University of Idaho (which I teach every semester).... and then I had the idea for a field trip. So I took a group of students 9 students plus my director to Los Angeles last week on a fully packed 4-day field trip complete with a factory tour and trip to the California Mart for a fabric show. (The prior 3 days were spent working with a client in Irvine, so I was in LA/Orange County for a week.)
We spent the last day at the Getty Center... which was gorgeous and relaxing and amazing. The entire setting from the tram ride up the hill (at 10mph) to the buildings themselves was designed to elevate you out of the hectic pace of LA. It must have worked, because as I was making my purchases at the store the salesman touched my arm and told me that I had the most serene eyes. It had been a long week at this point, so I took that as a great compliment.




The spouse was very happy to have me home... so were the kids. Mister Ewan has not been far from me since I came home Saturday night.

4. My wonderful Grandmother Agnes passed away in mid-September. We will miss her very much. She lived to be 97 and up until June was living at home on her farm.


This is Grandma at her high school graduation.

The family all gathered in Idaho to celebrate her life and, in Grandma's words, give her a "good send off". Grandma would have been very pleased with the flowers.

5. Somewhere in the middle of all this, Mister Ewan turned 3. We celebrated part of his birthday in Idaho. We still need to have a Portland party for him for the family down here.... all in due time.

6. Had a successful Tag-A-Long pick up from school yesterday... and Miss Elsie and I were able to pedal all the way up the hill in front of the house and into the back yard.... and that's something.

Progress with the Tag-a-Long!

I have finally worked up to biking to and from Miss Elsie's school with her on the back of the Tag-a-Long. I have no idea what the distance is.. probably around a mile one way. I can't quite make it up the incline in front of the house, but I can get within a block. We are going to give it another go tomorrow. My goal is to be able to do the whole trip in grand style (as in NOT pushing the bike... at all) by the time school starts on September 8. Will keep you posted on that.

In the meantime, here is a little visitor that came and peeked through my open window in my studio where I was working....



He came around 10 minutes later for another visit. Apparently I wasn't very interesting... he didn't stay long.

Good Things

Today I went to Levi's to replace my mostly-holes-and-not-much-denim capris with some new ones. Of course standing there under the over head lighting and fun house mirror was not good for my body image. I took the summer off from ballet and although the scale hasn't changed, my body make-up has... as in less lean muscle and more fullness about the general hip area. Some sort of physical exercise is drastically needed so I decided the get out the Tag-a-Long (tandem bike attachment for the offspring) for my bike so Miss Elsie and I could ride together. I couldn't find the bike pump and the tires were completely flat since they haven't been ridden in 6 years- give or take, so off I went to Fred Meyer to buy a new pump. Came back, the bike pump did not fit the valve stems on my bike, but did fit the stems on the Tag-A-Long which in the long run really didn't matter since the bike pump was broken anyway. Back to Fred Meyer to return the first bike pump and buy a different one that would accommodate both stem types. Now we are about 1 hour into the project, and I have all the tires pumped back up, and spend the next 1-1/2 taking parts off my bike and trying to get the Tag-a-Long bushing/bracket onto my bike.... eventually resorting to the rubber mallet persuader. Finally I had success and put on my helmet, loaded up Miss Elsie, and made it 4 blocks and was so winded and out of shape... we called it an evening.... anyway... it's something to build up to.

Here some other lovely things from the end of the summer..

My 100% cotton crochet trim that I bought 3 years ago at Fabric Depot's outdoor sale. It has all been pre-washed (this stuff really SHRINKS), and ironed and rolled on a card.



Coffee filter art at Anthropologie... they really do the most amazing display work there....



In-and-Out Burger from our trip to Disneyland... enough said...


And the sushi platter from Saburo's... the Temple to Sushi here in Portland....



My garden is just not that dazzling this year... partly due to the strange weather... partly due to the continuing lack of sun in our backyard (the neighborhood trees keep growing... as trees do)... and partly due to me not being that diligent this spring because of allergies. I am developing a new strategy for next year that involves moving A LOT of plants around and some hard pruning... work will commence this fall.

Another dress and some gardening

Miss E gets another new dress. This one is remade from a skirt that belonged to my Mother-In-Law and was passed down a few times. We started with this...



... and wound up with this....



It has this great scalloped hem. The belt is the spouse's from when he was a little boy.



Gardening is coming along. Somethings are a little behind due to me not getting my plants planted early enough. But we have some green tomatoes and the basil is growing like mad! All were started from seed.




The pepper experiment out front is going well. I've tried growing peppers in the back several times and they either never fruit or don't ripen. So this year I put them in pots out front on the cement. They get lots of hot, hot sun and I can water them easily. Then they get reflected heat from the cement the rest of the evening and night. These were also grown from seed.




Very exiting!

Sewing Projects!!!

I finally am getting around to posting some of my lovely sewing projects that I have been working on.
Miss E came to me last month and announced that she wanted to sew a bag... something to carry her drawing supplies in. Not too purse-like and not too fat. We rounded up these supplies from my stash:



which produced this snappy bag....



Then today, after being inspired by a walk through Forever 21 and all their 80's floral inspired summer sun dresses... I finally got out my elastic thread that I bought awhile back. My friend Mo at Lime Gardenias gave it a try last year and created a darling dress for Miss M. So armed with the knowledge from Your Fabric Place, I was off to expand my sewing skills by creating elasticized ruching!



The results are very cute... if I do say so myself. Of course, you can't go wrong with Heather Ross fabric either. This is from her West Hill line... little lily pads with tiny frogs jumping amongst them.





Here's the ensemble in action...

Family Vacation

We just returned from Anaheim and two days and Disneyland. It was a lot of driving, but we had so much fun at the park.
We started off with some Umpqua ice cream at Rice Hill, OR...



and then stayed over night in the Redwood Forest in Northern California...



Then drove like a couple of deranged individuals through central California for 12 hours to get to Disneyland!



Who can resist the gorgeousness of "It's a Small World"?



We had to go through twice.



I could have gone through a few more times and been completely happy.



We did get stuck inside for about 10 minutes when the ride stopped... which let me take some really good pictures... and "no" the song did not get stuck in my head for the rest of the trip.




Then we were off to the Storybook Boats which I had never been on before. There were all these gorgeous miniature scenes from fairy tales and movies... and all the trees and plants are real!







As an added surprise bonus we could see the fireworks from the air conditioned comfort of our hotel room!

We drove 12 hours yesterday and came home at 9:30pm. We want to go back again with the kids in a few years, but we will NOT be driving. It's only a 2-1/2 hour plane ride rather than 2 or 3 days in the car. Money well spent I say.

More Sadness

We had to say goodbye to Daphne on Monday. This has been a rough few weeks.



We now have no cats whereas 9 months ago we had three. We are taking a break from pet-dom and deciding whether we want to add anymore animals to the house... maybe in the spring. Between now and then we will have to make do with the fish. Unfortunately the most interesting one is nocturnal, so we never get to see him.

I promise my next posts will be of creative sewing projects. Throughout all the goodbyes and housecleaning, I have managed to sew some pretty cool things.

Goodbye

We had to say good bye suddenly to our cat Griffin earlier this week.



Elsie came downstairs in the morning and found him under a piece of furniture meowing constantly. His hind legs were not working. The vet said that he most likely had heart disease and a clot made it into his spinal region disrupting the flow of blood to his hind quarters. He had no pulse in his legs and was very cold. So I made the difficult decision to let him go. There are typically no symptoms that would indicate heart disease, and he had been to the vet for two check ups in the past year and was pronounced "very healthy".

Now our trio...



is down to one....



Unfortunately Miss Daphne has kidney disease and will not be with us much longer. It has been a rough year in the pet area.

"THE" Dress

The finished ensemble had many details.





And the wearer looked very pretty in the outfit...




Yes... she is wearing little earrings and a sparkly head band. The dance was a grand success. She and Daddy were out partying until 8:30pm... definitely past her bedtime.

Daddy-Daughter Dance

The Daddy-Daughter Dance is tomorrow evening at Elsie's school. They will have pictures taken, refreshments, a ball dancing lesson, and then get to dance for an hour. It is the first time Elsie and the spouse have attended and apparently some of the little ladies get quite elaborate with their dresses. We have been discussing The Dress for a couple of weeks, and two days ago we had to narrow things down a bit.
I was first presented with this illustration and STRICT instructions that the skirt "go straight down".



From the image, it appears that the wearer of the dress would not be able to walk. So I asked if the skirt needed to "go up" as she twirled. "The skirt needs to go STRAIGHT DOWN! NOT OUT!" was the reply. Then I was presented with this drawing...



So again, I wanted to make absolutely sure she indeed wanted a hobble or pencil skirt. At this point it was no longer a discussion but rather a fiery argument ending with the words "I drew you two pictures showing you what I want!!" I think I have a budding designer on my hands.

The straight skirt request meant that she didn't want a petticoat (because they itch), but she did indeed want the skirt to twirl away from her as Daddy spins her about. She had also requested that it be strapless... I nixed that request immediately. We selected a pattern online (to save some time looking through pattern books) and headed to the store. After steering her away from the hot pink/vivid aqua/pastel green & lavender plaid combination that was calling to her, we selected these raw materials...



which I am currently transforming into a dress. Daddy cannot see the dress prior to the grand unveiling tomorrow night. I did pin her into all the parts last night... she looks very, very pretty.

Baby Owl

I was at the farm a couple of weeks ago and this little guy (and his brother) were hanging out. The mother had been living in the backyard all fall and winter. She took over an old magpie nest and had two little (relatively speaking) ones this spring. This one had fewer flying skills and liked to nap in the sun... so I took the opportunity to take some up close and personal pics.



He is a Great Horned Owl (no "horns" or ear tufts yet) and he does have talons.

Oh... and I finally uploaded some new picture to Flickr so have updated my badge which has been showing the same images for almost a year now.

And even better news, I have new allergy medicines that work, so I am able to spend some time in my garden. Stay tuned for some rose pictures! The bad news is that I am allergic to everything on the allergy scratch/prick test. It is never good when the allergist comes in and looks at your results and says "Oh my!". Needless to say... they stopped the test about 5 minutes into it rather than making me wait the full 20 minutes. The new medications are working for now, and hopefully I will be starting allergy shots soon. I am just happy to be in my garden again.

I'm dancing this Friday and Saturday!

I've been taking ballet classes at the Laurelhurst Studio here in Portland for the past few years. I love the Creative Director of the studio and the teachers... and most of all the other adult ballet students. We are a happy bunch and get a kick out of trying things. It's a great workout and a lot of laughs with the usual gang. Every spring the studio puts on a spring dance performance... and this year I am in it.... after much prodding and encouragement from my fellow students, I might add....
It is this Friday, May 29, and Saturday, May 30 at 7pm at the DaVinci School here in Portland if you want to come and watch. Our piece is called Softy Etude.



The students from the Youth Ballet in Training program dance in the majority of the pieces.. and they are really, really good. And then there are all sorts of pieces from the other classes. Many of the students have choreographed dances too.

Mister Judy Press

My sister and I had a great bit of promo written about one of our Mister Judy products.
Check out the Evergreen Mom's blog article on our Little Hostess Tea Linen Sets!
How can you resist this little tea party setup anyway?