This you need to know about.

This is a post about marzipan. I love marzipan. I love it plain, covered in dark chocolate, and on cake (I make a kick-ass lemon cake that I cover with marzipan, if I do say so myself). There are many regrets I have about my former marriage, but perhaps one of the worst is that I let my caterer convince me that I couldn't have marzipan on my wedding cake because it was August. A decade later and I'm still bummed I didn't get that marzipan wedding cake (never mind the failed marriage, it's the lost opportunity of cake and marzipan that I'm really mourning now.)

This summer we visited my parents' old stomping grounds, Astoria NY. Hidden there, in its tiny, original storefront that's been in operation for longer than my Dad's been alive is La Guli's Bakery. They make marzipan. It looks like this: And this: The peaches have little chocolate pits. The figs look like figs. There was also a pear, an apple, and a cherry but I ate them so quickly I didn't get to photograph them. Oh, and they have the best spumoni water ice in the whole, wide world. And they still use baker's twine, pulled from those overhanging metal thingees, to wrap their boxes.

Here's to food as art, businesses that last because they are so damn good, and holding fast to beautiful traditions like bakery boxes strung together with red and white cotton twine.

I'm a Moss Maven.

No one ever told me what Date Night would turn into when you had a kid. Come to think of it, I never considered asking because every night is Date Night when you are childless; it's only when you are suddenly responsible for a little person's life that you look up one day, see your partner scraping poo off a diaper into the toilet and think "oh, hey. I remember you...you're kind of cute, want to go out?" only to fall asleep 10 minutes later just because the baby finally went down. A year into our new roles as parents and we're finally realizing that baby-free time is OK. It helps that we have two eager grandparents who want nothing more than to stare at Bean all night so really, I don't know what took us so long.

Enter: the Moss Date.

I like moss. A lot. In our current house we have a fantastic shade garden with a lovely brick path that is covered in moss. When we bought the house, the previous owner told us that it got slippery and so every once in a while he (sit down for this one) sprayed bleach on the moss to kill it. He was generous enough to leave us his bleach-spraying device, even. After promptly throwing the sprayer out, we sat back and watched the moss take over, carpeting the walk and making the space feel positively enchanted. I had no idea how to cultivate moss, but any time I'd be digging around in the shade garden, I'd toss any dislodged mossy bits onto new ground, stomp on it a few times and leave it be. Turns out, this plus a little water is about all you have to do to grow moss.

So when Moss Acres hosted a moss workshop in nearby Radnor, I said to Andrew: I'd like to go to that and can we drop off Bean at her grandparents and have dinner and call it a date? And that is how we ended up getting a coffee, learning about moss, and having grilled cheese at a diner on our (I think) second official date since Bean arrived.

And here is what I am thinking about now...

- There are 22,000 species of moss. I'd like to know about at least 10...seems like a good start.

- I need to gather some of the moss from this house and move it with us to our next house. I also need to start sourcing old bricks so that I can recreate our little path. And I need to take the rock that I moved into the garden which is now covered with moss with me to the new house. Sorry new homeowners, you can't have my mossy rock.

- I need to put a moss green roof on the chicken coop in the new house. I don't know how I'm going to accomplish this, but I really, really need to do it.

- I need to spread the word that sphagnum moss / peat moss is bad bad bad because it is being overharvested and is destroying ecosystems.

That is all. Go moss!

What To Do With Silver Baby Cups

We all took the train into our fair city this week. Our first train trip way back when involved a car seat, but now we just toss Bean in a sling and carry her around everywhere (insert eyeroll from my chiropractor). It's amazing how different she is now after just 10 months has passed. A trip into the city is a lively thing with lots to notice and new people to babble at. The flower show at Macy's proved to be particularly colorful for adults and kids alike. This guy wasn't so impressed with the butterflies alighting on him, though:

On my end, the difference from the passage of time is in what's missing...as in, less of the baby fat (read: my arse) and more of the me that I remember before I gave my body over to a parasite for 10 months. So a trip into the city meant a visit to a favorite place of mine which I hadn't seen in over a year: the Anthropologie sale rack. OK, the entire Anthropologie store is always a thrill to wander even if you aren't looking at clothing, but knowing that I couldn't reasonably fit into anything and didn't know when I'd ever be able to do so again (there is an important and frustrating point in pregnancy where you cannot ever imagine not being pregnant again) made me want to not even step foot in the store. I know...sad, right?

Well this week I fit into a pre-preggers pair of jeans that had even been known to be less than forgiving before I got knocked up, so a celebration was in order. To the Anthropologie sale rack! Although I didn't find anything this time around, just being in the changing rooms with potential wardrobe additions was enough for me and in the long run, who cares about not going away with a new fun article of clothing when there are plenty of bits and bobs for the home for me to drop my cash on?

Fade to the housewares section of the store: I am a bit of a freak about fun hooks (much of my jewelry is hung on my bedroom wall from a series of mis-matched hooks) and I'd been thinking about going through my stash of vintage hooks to create a display for our silver baby cups. When we had just our two baby cups, they didn't seem all that special. But now we have three and that, in my mind, calls for a fun display. Anthropologie to the rescue! I bought our initials, bunged them onto a piece of old floor molding from our basement, and there you have it: a twenty minute project completed in my (old) skinny jeans. Nice.

For Nancy

I knew I couldn't get away with mentioning Lancaster without photographing the fabric. I was lazy and didn't want to set it all up, but how did I think Nancy would be satisfied with just reading about my purchases?! My bad.

Here's what I picked up, all fat quarters:

I went to Old Country Store because that's where I always go. I try to be quick because I'm always there with other companions who don't necessarily derive the same joy that I do from sitting on the floor and staring at bolts and bolts of fabric. So, I haven't really ventured out beyond this store, but it doesn't matter because I love it there. They have incredible quilts for inspiration (and purchase) and a nice supply of reproduction prints. Last year they had really incredible hand-dyed felt, but I couldn't find any this time around. No matter, because I just grabbed a bunch of FQs to get my fabric fix: quick and easy. They have a ton of assembled FQ packs there, too...so it's super-easy for me to stock up without wearing anyone else out. Someday I'll spend a whole day there and visit all of the fabric stores and the knitting store across the street from OCS. I think it's best that that day be next year when I am actually working again:) Of course, I could manage to do some cyber-damage to my credit card as OCS is now selling online. I highly recommend checking it out but truly, if you live anywhere near the area, go to the b&m. It's very cozy and you are in Lancaster, which is a very good place to be.

Don't Blink.

People tell me that a lot these days. Don't blink or you'll miss everything! This is in regards to, of course, my infant daughter. I think that we have been doing a good job of taking things slow and appreciating each moment. Even the hard ones. I am not blinking much these days. But there is this funny little part of me that thinks "nope, she'll be like this forever." It's very weird because I'm normally a pretty practical person and I also have empirical evidence that she's growing every day, and quite rapidly I might add. But still, every once in a while someone will say the usual "My babies used to be that size! Don't blink because she's going to grow up in an instant!" and that tiny little irrational voice in my head quietly whispers "No she won't."

Well, it's a fact that it's going to happen. One day I'll be going back to work and she'll be off to school and this wonderful year of being together will be over. But for now we are together and are having new adventures every day. I am very lucky to be a teacher at a school with lots going on. I am still doing the choreography for the play, so we go to rehearsal a few times a week and Stella has been patiently watching the progression of the production. Some days she Baby Bjorns it with her father and they watch some soccer or tennis. Today, the art class went across the street to the art center and did some raku firing outside. It was an insanely beautiful day, made all the more beautiful by the fact that we just came out of an extended cold/crappy/rainy period and Stella and I walked over to the art center and watched the dramatic process unfold. Luckily there were two firings so I photographed one and then just watched the other. Like raising Stella, raku is a process that is immediate and intense and you definitely don't want to blink or you'll miss something cool. I didn't blink much and I don't think the Bean did either. Here is some of what we saw:

Out of the kiln and into the fire:

Waiting for the magic to happen:

Out of the fire and into the bath:A finished piece:

Surveying some casualties:

And on our walk back across the school campus, I passed by my favorite tree. It's not the biggest or the grandest tree on campus, but it puts on a dazzling show for approximately one week each Fall. It is on the path to the Meeting House so, once a week, we all walk over for Meeting for Worship and pass by this tree. People often pick up leaves from this tree and I've seen both students and adults playing with a bright red leaf once or twice in a Meeting. It's even inspired some messages in Meetings. Each year when the tree turns, I make sure to focus on it as much as possible on that walk over, because I know that the following week the show will most likely have ended. I've missed it once or twice over the years. I just about missed it this year, but today found it in transition with just enough red on the tree and the ground around it to make me stop and stare. I'm glad Stella got to see it, too. I hope she didn't blink.

I cut the cheese.

No, really!

When I first got chickens, I realized just how many of those chicken sayings are true (pecking orders, home to roost, shake your tail feathers) and now that I've made cheese for the first time, I've learned that you really do cut it. Who knew?

Dad came back from a weekend workshop on cheese making (yes, handmade dorkiness runs in our family) all excited to try his hand at it. We took a quick trip to Hendrick's to get some raw milk and made a batch this afternoon.

It involved some stirring, some temperature measuring, some cutting of the cheese (the cheese below has just been cut into little cubes), straining, and stretching. I made my Dad use the hot water method rather than nuking the cheese (you do this to get it to the proper temperature to stretch it). I'm trying to imagine life without a microwave because I think I want to ditch it since it's such a creepy way to cook. He cursed the decision a bit, but I didn't think it was too difficult to reheat the whey and use that. Also, cheesecloth would definitely be better than the colander which got little bits of cheese stuck in it. In the end, we had a lovely blob of fresh mozzarella which we ate straightaway. We cooked up some Hendrick's bacon and ate that along with it (sounds a little weird, but was very good on toast), though I will not tell you how much the two of us polished off. Just imagine an insane amount of bacon for two people to consume in one sitting and then double it.

I'm still not sure where I fall on the raw/pasteurized milk debate because I think that there are good arguments on either side, but for cheese making raw milk is kind of important. My Mom came back from the cheese workshop all in a tizzy about store-bought milk because she learned that they put bleach in it. Apparently, natural milk has color variations and US consumers can't deal with that. I'm telling you, people, we need to take back our food supply and we need to do it yesterday. Maybe I really will consider getting that cow...

On Staying Home

So, I'm taking a big leap and staying home with The Bean this year. Financially, this makes no sense. Suze Orman would kick my ass if she ever found out (shhh). But in terms of what I know is the right thing to do and for what is in my heart, I know that we will make it work. I look at this baby who is now 15 weeks old and I know that I am nowhere near ready to leave her. She's just started smiling and laughing is not far behind. There is a personality starting to peek out, and I'm not going to miss a minute of it. The thought that I would have had to leave her 10 weeks ago if I wasn't in academia takes my breath away. I feel so sorry that there are so many families in our country that can't afford to have a parent at home during this time, and I wish we would get it together and realize that 6 weeks is not enough time.

But I am lucky that we can make this happen. And so I've been channeling my inner 1950's cooking/cleaning/child-rearing self and loving every minute of it. Stella has basically no idea what's going on, but I love doing things with her and explaining what's around her. For instance, she's already been to two zoos. It's never too early to introduce a child to a bearded dragon, I say.

So this will be a year of simplifying. It will be a time for me to really use the fabric stash, yarn stash, paper stash, and general hoard-o-rama I have going on up in that craft room. Really. I'm going to buy materials that I must have to finish a project, but otherwise use what I've got (OK, I've already totally broken this rule with the purchase of a jelly roll and book of patterns, but I'm going to try to be better I swear). I am going to clean out my fridge and cabinets and not let so much food go to waste (I am really terrible about this). And you know what? Although I have only been home alone for a week or so, I'm finding that I have more time to think about how to be more mindful of using what we have as creatively as possible - - whereas when I'm working, I'm often so frazzled that I don't have any time to plan accordingly. Veggies go bad, I purchase doubles of craft items I already had but forgot about. I swear, living in a house with both people working is like being on a ship with no one at the helm. I mean no disrespect to all of the women who paved the way for me to be able to have a career and a vote and all that, but man, I am really OK with being home. So again, lucky lucky me. I'm going to squeeze everything I can out of this year.

So here is a snapshot of a good stay-at-home moment that The Bean and I shared with Grandpa last week: driving out to the farm where we get our pastured meats and dairy, we passed a farmer setting up a stand of corn on the side of the road. We made a note and were sure to stop on the way home. I love the fact that I live close enough to places where farmers leave their veggies on the side of the road with a box for money. Three cheers for the honor system! We got our ridiculously sweet corn for a ridiculously low price and I'm still adding it to every meal we eat.

36, 29

We are about 36 days away from election day, and the suspense is killing me. Really. I'm having more and more trouble talking about it without losing my cool, and I've had at least two nightmares about it. Even typing these few sentences has me a little keyed up. While flipping the channel between the two candidates on the talk shows this morning, I said to Andrew that I wasn't quite sure I was going to survive the next month or so.

Do you ever get the feeling sometimes that the universe is "watching", ready to smack you upside the head when you really need it. Well, this afternoon I stumbled upon 29 gifts and I've taken the pledge: to give 29 things away in 29 days. While deciding to sign on to this, I found myself focusing on the concept, not the length of time...but shortly after signing up, I realized that this may be the perfect way to keep my mind otherwise occupied for the next month. Rather than focusing on the impending doom that will befall us if we make the wrong choice on November 4th (See? I told you I get worked up), I'm going to try to turn my attention instead to what I can give. Maybe it'll be money to a favorite charity, maybe it'll be a hug to someone who really needs it, maybe it'll even be some time volunteered at the local campaign headquarters...but for the next 29 days I'm thinkin' good thoughts.

Om.

Oh, and P.S. - the photos are of my first ever attempt at a sock! Boy, it's hard to photograph your own foot in a way that artfully displays the sock!! In any event, it's a bajillion times easier than I thought it would be and I'm loving the self-striping...and the serendipity that leads to a little heel that's entirely yellow.

Visit 29-Day Giving Challenge

Choose Your Color Wisely

I picked up some fantastic raw Bombyx mori silk cocoons at the fiber festival a few weekends ago. I had some visions of putting them together with metals in my jewelry class. I knew that I wanted to dye them and that I wanted to leave them stiff (which you do by skipping a step in processing silk called degumming).

And so, one night last week I experimented with some Kool Aid and my microwave and dyed one cocoon. Aside from some messy boiling over that occurred in the second phase of zapping (note to self: WATCH the microwave whilst dying with nasty stainy type stuff), the cocoon kept its shape nicely and I accomplished the deep red I was going for when I mixed up some red Kool Aid with a dash of purple. Of course, upon stepping back from my finished creation I suddenly realized that my color choice, paired with the natural shape of the cocoon looked an awful lot like, well, let's just say a certain feminine product. Used. Needless to say, some fruitful ideas for what to make with this dyed cocoon came out in my subsequent metals class. Ahem.

Never mind, though. I had it in my head that I was cutting the thing in half anyway, so we'll see what it becomes. In the meantime, I had some beets that I kinda sorta forgot about in the fridge (which is a shame, because I do make a good Borscht, if I do say so myself) so I made some dye from them. I cut them in half, brought them to a boil, and simmered them for about an hour. Then I let them cool, chopped them up into little pieces, and simmered for another good while longer. I think the dye I have is pretty concentrated and could even be thinned. I've poked around on the web and found that beet dye is actually not the best natural dye. Mostly because it apparently dyes a golden color, not that beautiful intense pinky red you would expect. I read pages where people complained of ugly beiges and tans and such. I'm not sure why these colors get such a bad rap, frankly. I took an incredible painting class in college (a hundred million years ago) with a teacher who just taught us about color. In fact, we never picked up a brush once in the whole semester - just a palette knife. The point was to dissect the colors that went into everything we saw, and I quickly learned that browns, beiges, and tans were my most favorite to figure out. This was the only period in my life that I think I've truly seen in color. To wit, I had an argument with my then-boyfriend one day when I remarked on how much purple there was in the clouds one day. He could only see white and grey (poor man), and I should have known then that it would never work out between us.

The point is (there was a point, I promise) that I don't care if my beet dye turns out to be a browny gold color. But I do care that I figure out how to make it colorfast. So I'll try to dye a few cocoons just straight into the beet juice, and then I'll talk with the Chemistry of Art teacher at my school and see if we can't mix up a mordant and test that out (although the whole natural dye thing pretty much gets shot to hell when you use a mordant, doesn't it?) In the meantime, I need to doodle out some ideas for this lovely deep red cocoon that I've Kool Aided...

Oh, and as a complete aside (and shameless self promotion), I was lucky enough to have a piece of mine featured here!

projects for credit

After two years of hemming and hawing about continuing education and making a portfolio and thinking the stuff I make isn't worthwhile, I've finally enrolled in a metals course at a local university. It's a breath of fresh crafting air and each class I find myself doing an internal dance of joy when I realize that I have access to good dremels with all kind of bits! Enamels and a kiln! A tumbler! I think I freaked a fellow student out the other night when I came out of the back room and quietly expressed my sheer joy over the fact that we have those little letter stamps (she looked at me, slightly askance, when I lovingly held out the piece of scrap metal that I'd imprinted with the letter 'k'.) It's fantastic to be a student again and just about the funniest thing (not in a ha ha way, maybe more of a sob sob over a Campari and OJ way) to feel like I am a completely alien generation from the 20 somethings in the class. I can feel my inner grandma bubbling to the surface when I hear them singing along to a Beastie Boys song...that's MY generation's music, darnitalltoheck...and when I was in high school, we all worked in nothing but silver because it cost $3 an ounce (cue the wide eyed, gaping stares from wrinkle-less students).

I've been given the OK from my professor to just play (!) since I haven't taken a metals class since high school (and in case anyone was wondering, no, the technology hasn't changed and soldering is still a pain in the ass) and so I'm experimenting with putting fibers and metal together. I'm currently playing with singed polyester (thanks to this fantastic tutorial from Foundling), and this stone. I'm going to wait to show you until I actually have a finished piece, but let's just say it involves the fabric, the stone, a handmade bezel that will be the death of me, and perhaps the loss of the majority of my right arm hair as I learn the nuances of the classroom torches.

Next fiber up (maybe): silkworm cocoons I got at the Fiber Festival last weekend.

Endless Mountain Fiber Festival

I drove up to beautiful NE PA today to go to a fiber festival which was small, but satisfying and involved:

Alpacas with big, brown eyes,

Skeins and skeins of fiber,

And angora rabbits.

Truth be told, I took the trip to check out rabbits because I'm interested in getting an angora. I think I'm leaning towards an English angora only because they have extra tufts of hair on their ears so they look extra ridiculous (normal looking animals need not apply in this household) but the French angoras were pretty cute too (the picture above is a French). Too bad for Andrew, but it looks like rabbits are pretty simple to care for;)

Off to look for some hutch designs...

Home At Last.

Here I am! In my home!! And I'm NOT planning on leaving any time soon. I guess I'll have to make my way out the door once school starts in a few short weeks, but I can tell you that I'm done with airplanes and long car rides and anything having to do with packing clothes or a toiletry bag. While I don't have much that's crafty to show for it, we had a great time in Maine. The weather was pretty grim, but it kept people off the beach and competing for my sea glass, so I wasn't complaining. While walking along the beach searching for said sea glass, I pondered the many reasons I love sea glass searching. These include, but are not limited to:

♥ ♥ ♥

It's free.

When you pick something up on the beach, no one looks at you funny (try that on the street. I dare you).

You are on the beach.

It requires some patience.

Sea glass is trash turned into a treasure.

While you can find lots of glass on the beach, it's not all worthy of being called sea glass - - and if you get too greedy, you'll end up with a lot of unfinished pieces (and in my opinion, you'll anger the sea glass gods, so you'd better just put that rough-edged piece of glass back where you found it, buster.)

It's a barefoot activity.

That elusive dark blue piece is out there somewhere.

Sea glass is one of the only reasons I can think to let my guard down about recycling...maybe if we just threw all of that glass into the ocean...

My dear AB will spend a good, long while finding sea glass with me.

♥ ♥ ♥

I know I promised that I'd get some photos up of my craftiness in China, but I still have to get those photos taken. In the meantime, I'm a little worked up over this pattern here for knitted postcards and may need to make a few hundred of them.

Early Morning Posting

Like, really early. I'm having a beast of a time recovering from my jet lag, which has been enhanced by the fact that:

a. I'm on summer vacation, so there's no real schedule to actually get back to, and

b. I had a reaction to the malaria meds I was on and have had to take benadryl since I got back which knocks me entirely on my arse.

I do have to say that today is the latest I've woken up since I've been home and I feel like a bit of a slob for having slept in 'till 2:30 am.

Anyway, I'm doing a hit and run post because we are heading to Maine soon. That's right, my favorite vacation of the year is upon us. I shall be eating my body weight in lobster and searching for sea glass for hours on end. I may be doing this all at 4 am of course, but whatever.

So to say hello/goodbye, I thought I'd share a few pictures from China. We had a wonderful time and made it into Tibet, which was important since it's the main reason that I made the trip. I have lots of opinions about the government, the people, and the Olympics, but this is a crafty blog not a political one so I'll just leave it at this: it's complicated. Now here are some photos:

Olympics countdown, Tiananmen Square, Beijing.

Smoke signals used to be the best way to send messages from the Great Wall. Today, texting works just fine. Badaling Wild Great Wall.

Gah! Look at those colors! Cloisonne Factory, Beijing.

Game time. Huxian Farmer's Village (in the old village).

Fiber fix at the silk carpet factory, Beijing.
Laser light show, Hong Kong.

I have about 996 more photos where these came from, so every once in a while, I'll toss some up. And, once the sun comes up, I'll take some photos of my personal crafty endeavor in China. I didn't bring knitting because I was taking a lot of internal Chinese flights and I heard that they could be strict (indeed, every day they chose to confiscate something different - - one day it was the toothpaste in our check-in baggage) and decided that I'd draw my journal rather than write it. Sort of inspired by this book, which I've only just begun to read and am already so impressed with, I decided to bring some pens and watercolors. I'll explain more and show the pictures in a future post!

Oh, and lastly, a thank you to my dear AB who took over the blog while I was away. Despite the fact that I had to turn sideways to view the photos and that there were a few days when our toilet was on the front page of the blog, seeing updates of my home when I was halfway around the world for three weeks made me very, very happy. ♥

Kutztown Festival

I'm not feeling terribly creative right now...strategically packing for a three-week trip to China has got my brain a little fried. But we recently went to the Kutztown Festival and there are some things worth remembering. Such as:

The fact that I need to buy a home in the country so that I can get some of these:

And the beauty of this peacock who, for all his radiance and shimmying, couldn't get the darn peahen to notice him.Being surrounded by crafts, and men who cross stitch.

Pickles on a stick.

Followed by pierogies on a stick. French fries on a stick.
And the momentary (and alas, not captured on film) ice cream on a stick.

Sheep shearing and the purchase of the softest ball of angora yarn (followed by a visit with angora rabbits and the knowledge that I must have one).

A quilt auction (this one fetched $7,800). And the following day, searching for antiques...perfect diner, perfect food.
And so, with a few more tweaks to the packing technique and a day full of distinctly American food (diner food was a good start), I am ready for China!