bricolagelife

messy desk

seriously.  my plan for today was to tidy up and do some work here... cutting and tearing and gluing and organizing for future projects.  but we had the mother of all storms last night and i had to jump up out of bed to watch it.  the crack of the lightening, the ka-BLAMMMM of the thunder... so close, just outside my window.  just over my head.  the trees all bending and swaying, the driving rain pounding the panes.  the whole shebang!  and then it was over.  eerily still, silent... and i was wide awake.  

so today i feel a little lacking in the focus department.  i may need a nap before i tackle these piles. jeez, i haven't even changed the calendar since june 22nd. 

*yawn*

i leave you with something lovely on nesting.

sunday suppers

it's summer and sometimes sunday suppers just need to be simple.  and fast.  and prepared with very little cooking.  this was one of those sundays.  and breakfast for dinner can be so comforting.

i started the day determined (read: forced myself) to tackle a big job i'd been putting off for over a year.  but before i could begin i needed to clear the sewing table where posters in need of frames have been sitting so long they were covered in dust.  i think you may know where this is going...  a search thru the apartment with a measuring tape finally yielded two close to perfect picture frames, but i wanted to keep the paintings in them, so two more frames were dismantled, cleaned and everything was re-framed and tidied up by mid-afternoon.

i had that happy sense of accomplishment but i hadn't  even started on the task at hand.  and i was already tired.  and i was still in my pajamas.  the rest of my day was spent ripping up this slipcover to use as a pattern for a new one.

a much needed new one.  luckily i found enough fabric in my stash to cover this... and some more for the wing chair and long sofa that also require covering.  so you can imagine how something as simple as a boiled egg on toast would seem an ideal sunday supper.  

now i'm off to sleep until i wake to cut and sew again.  wish me luck.  progress reports to follow in coming days.

to see what good cooks are making for sunday supper where it is now midwinter, peek into pip and kirsty's kitchens!

searching

i meant to get so much done yesterday. but i was side tracked searching for things i could not locate. and i kept finding things i wasn't looking for and making little stacks here and there as if i would get back to them. very frustrating. and i don't like ending my day with so much left undone again.

time to make another list...

and keep on searching.

learning from a master

... more stories from craft days with jean. jean is teaching me to needle-felt, a skill i've been wanting to develop for a long time. my brain absorbs new techniques better thru human interaction than thru diagrams and written instructions. so i started begging her to teach me over a year ago. and on thursday my pestering paid off, big time.

the piece above is jean's work. she opened a rusting altoids tin and handed me a needle. i dug out my stash of natural-dyed wool fleece (saved up just for such a possibility) and a couple of fresh kitchen sponges. with very little hoopla, she said "you just do this, over and over... and see what happens..." we began to play around with the supplies at hand. as we chatted she cut this silhouette freehand from a felted sweater and proceeded to turn it in her hands, punching in the little details until she had this gorgeous finished elfin cameo. she is amazing.

the photo below shows my first attempts.

the work is pleasingly slow and meditative, i am already addicted to it. and i can hardly wait for next thursday :)

it's a miracle... or just creepy

while trying to capture the effect of the sunlight illuminating the new leaves outside our window, i captured something entirely unexpected in the window across the street.

click on the photo to enlarge... do you see it? a rather byzantine haloed figure holding an open book, there in front of the curtain... this was no trick of the computer's and it showed up in every shot with that window in it. i returned to look out after finding the image, but the window was empty. no cardboard figure was propped up against the glass, nor has anything like this shown up since.

if this is a trick of the light or a ricocheted reflection, we can't quite work out of what... any ideas?

ending, beginning

it seems that with so many projects going at once i always have some things finishing while others continue in mid stream and some are just getting off the page. the nesting dolls are not only completed, sealed, sanded, varnished and shipped... but they have arrived at abbey's for the big swap! soon they will be split up into five different mixes of nesting dolls with other artisan's nesting dolls. in exchange i will receive a set of five dolls made by five different artists! it is such a brilliant idea she came up with and a really great swap. i've enjoyed every step of the process. thanks abbey!

now i am collecting images in anticipation of beginning a commission for a new custom set of nesting dolls...

and still making more of these rings.

dinner with barack obama

well, actually we had dinner with my bro and he brought me this poster as a gift. and i love it so much. thanks, bro.

for dinner i made halibut wrapped in romaine lettuce leaves, poached in white wine and butter. if you get a chance to try this, you may never cook fish any other way. it is that good. the recipe is here, recommended by a friend who shares some of the best links. like this and this and this.

with the halibut, we made wild rice pilaf and a carrot beet salad with red onion and raisins in a balsamic vinaigrette. yes, there was wine. and great conversation. and fresh strawberries sprinkled with vanilla sugar and a squeeze of lemon for dessert. a few squares of dark chocolate. sorry, no photos. we were too eager to eat!

i swear if someone served me the same meal right now, i would happily consume it all over again. it is that good.

now i need to go see if i can find a frame for barack obama on the back porch...

{download your barack obama poster free right here!}

2:42 am

now i lay sleepless
the one who drank iced coffee
nonchalant at lunch

what's in his storage locker

i'm achy and tired and my throat is sore...

so here is another installment of what's in his storage locker (which he corrected me, should be called what's out of his storage locker)... this hollow cast metal statue. we know nothing about her origins. his mother loved a good flea market, so there is potentially no family history here. still... intriguing. i believe she is destined to be a museum backdrop for my smaller dolls to ponder in a future photo project.

old glass bottles. the brown one is stamped Fink-Roselieve and once held darkroom chemicals. it's backside has measurements in raised lines and numbers. this is inexplicably pleasing to me. now that i think of it, i do seem to be cultivating a collection of measuring vessels in my kitchen cabinets. oh,dear...

it's the last day of march (april fool's eve?)... enjoy a good chat, a new obsession, and something too amusing, and a magical touch of spring.

farewell march!

what's in his storage locker

my husband has a storage locker. and a goal to empty it by the end of april. that means our back porch is now a halfway house for many stacks of emotionally-charged boxes of long forgotten ancestral memorabilia, odds and ends. yesterday i helped him empty two musty cardboard containers filled with the remnants of his parents' and his grandparents' homes. this is some of the dusty loot we saved.

keys that now open nothing, obsolete shoe button hooks, yellowed dice, a single rusty claw foot, a plastic figurine of saint francis (his hands mysteriously melted off), bone handled scissors that no longer sciss, an ash tray calendar dated 1962. and so much more we couldn't save. the kind of things most people wouldn't touch after one peek in the box has us giddy. the treasures! the washing up!

we are playing archeologists, tracing the origins where we are able, piecing together what is left over from long lives, long over. gently scrubbing soiled surfaces with old soft toothbrushes. carefully spreading them on sunny window sills to dry.

best finds so far were a few small cases of his aunt's color slides from the 1970s. yep. found photos for many fridays to come...