"Stressed" is just "desserts" with the letters rearranged

Okay, so I've had some stress this week, some disappointment. Nothing that streusel and blueberries can't solve! At least for 15 minutes.

Another ENCINITAS in some Kokka double gauze.

LINK for the tutorials here.

Coming Soon! ...or sooner or later...

ENCINITAS

Sunshine Dress ENCINITAS is named for a throw-back laid-back small-town beach town halfway between San Diego and Los Angeles. Encinitas calls itself the "flower capital of the world" (but so does Aalsmeer, Holland. And since the Dutch take their flowers as seriously as their soccer *ahem* football, I don't want to catch the ire of any tulip hooligans). And as such, this dress features a wavey, flower-like hemline.

 The pattern may be sewn as a double-layer dress, skirt, apron skirt (álá "Feliz") or single-layer tunic top. For somewhat older girls (say, 8-9-10ish), I like to add the detail of slits in the arm seams for a summery, breezy look. Otherwise, for little girls, I'd leave the peasant top as is. Also, for older girls, I like to make a  casing and tied bow neckline. I have instructions for these variations online.

I have to translate this into English yet and have printed for the North American market. But this pattern will be available from Farbenmix.de beginning May 19th.

My many, many, many thank to Sabine and Janina and the test sewists. XOXO

Orange, a cat, a pillow...bloggy randomness

Hello! Hello!

I am, when I have a few hours to spare, working on the Annatorium (Anna's room). It's proving a bit harder for Anna and me to develop a vision for the room. Her only instructions: "No pink. I'm just not a pink girl. And no ORANGE!"

"But orange is so happy--"

"No! I want Hawaii."

Is Hawaii a color? I suppose I had engulfed the child in so much orange in her early life that perhaps it did become a bit annoying. "Anna-noying Orange...?" You know where this is going, so, yeah, I'll embed it...

We painted the walls TURQUOISE! (lordy, it's turquoise-y) and scrounged Craigslist for a bed and night stands and lamps. Painted the bed SILVER! The $15 Ebay drapes are so 60s/70s, I find myself singing a lot of 60s and 70s tv show intros (for all you young'uns, look up "That Girl" and "The Monkees" and "The Partridge Family" on YouTube...see? That's what we had before Glee: pretty bad). Moreover they have quite a bit of the verboten orange...but I needed something over the windows. We'll have to find something different. That's okay: The room, the girl, my decorating ability--all works in progress.

I did make this pillow! It's our interpretation of the Hawaiian state flag.

As we get more done, we'll show you what we've done in the Annatorium.

Do you remember Milo Cat? The cat-who-is-not-our-cat-Milo-Cat? He's still hanging around. He may not be our cat, but we might be some of his people. He's an old cat and he wants what he wants. And we don't mind. Anna made this sign of her love for the old bugger.

MoDa 2011

Mother's Day!

Here's the to lunch-packers
The emergency-room takers
The worried brain wrackers
And the bake-sale bakers

Here's to the other-shoe-finders
The never-say-never-sayers
The beach-blanket minders
The kiss-a-boo-boo-make-all-betterers

Here's to the sibling bickering arbitrators
The up-all-night-with-baby early risers
The I-also-skate skatepark skaters*
And the science-project-organizers

You are the best.

(*winky-winky, Karen!)

BRIGHT! Flower

Do you get tired of my photos of my girl in the daisy field? Aw, c'mon: It's May!

BRIGHT Flower! whose home is everywhere,

Bold in maternal Nature's care,

And all the long year through the heir

Of joy or sorrow;

Methinks that there abides in thee

Some concord with humanity,

Given to no other flower I see

The forest thorough!

- from "To the Daisy (2)" William Wordsworth

A need-to-know

We all have changing allegiances. Like changing soccer clubs. If your former allegiance is in anyway reflected in heat transfers, these can be erased with something called Sansodor. Instead of tossing away perfectly good warm-ups and jerseys and bags and so on, just get ahold of this low-odor, much-less-hazardous solvent.

Sansodor is much like regular mineral spirits, but smells much less potent. Plus, it doesn't deteriorate in storage like turpentine. So you can keep it around for a while and use as needed.

Just let the Sansodor soak in a bit from the garment wrong side (the stuff won't soak through the plastic-y top of the heat transfer) and let the solvent do its thing on the adhesive. It's best to let it sit for a few minutes.

Then just peeeeeeel the past affiliation away! Toss the allegiance-less garment in the washing machine. Because it doesn't have as strong of vapors ("sans odor," get it?), the odor will be washed out and not transferred to the rest of the laundry.

Sansodor also does cool things with colored pencil drawings. Making them look like watercolor. But this stuff isn't for kids to use. Just sayin'

Just thought you might need to know!

Frohe Ostern! Throw-a egg!

"FRO-ah OS-tairn"/"Throw-a egg" All right, it's a little forced.

Anyway... We made cascarones (confetti-filled eggs) this year. Supposedly, the practice came to Italy--as did pasta--in Marco Polo's luggage from China. And since the Professor returned from China on Easter Sunday, it all comes full circle. In my mind at least.

Very, very fun.