Flowers in the House

The ever-hospitable Jane over at Small But Charming is throwing another flower house party.

I'll be on the go all Monday, so I'm scheduling this post to air in the morning, just a quick shot of a tenacious little geranium I cut from a friend's garden earlier this winter. After a few months in an old milk jug on our eastern facing bedroom window, it feebly burst forth with a tiny cluster of colorful little flowers.

Can't wait to get home to see everyone's houses and flower : ).

Liz Plots the Course and Takes the Helm

When Liz is not working on tugboats, she is in school at Pacific Maritime Institute. The night I arrived in Seattle she diligently pored over her rolls of sea charts, plotting her course in preparation for a solo navigation of the Shetland Islands in a tugboat simulator, which concluded the term. After rocking that task the next day, Liz put on her flowers to wear and took the helm of her trusty land boat Land Cruiser (which doubles as a mobile home base and storage unit during her nomadic stints on shore), and drove us home to California.

Small is Beautiful

I'm enjoying a reread of "Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered" by E. F. Schumacher.

While the book occasionally verges on hippityflistic,  on the whole I'm a big fan; it is very refreshing to hear a classically trained economist say things like, " . . . since consumption is merely a means to human well-being,  the aim should be to obtain the maximum of well-being with the minimum of consumption". Word.

With that sentiment in mind, I put together a tiny bouquet from backyard weeds and flowers. Small really is beautiful.

The Clash

Liz has noted that the blog's new header clashes with most posts. Of course she is right, so I have rendered it in sepia. Is that better?

Home Again

 Well, it was a fantastic trip to Seattle. Liz did not hesitate a moment before putting on her ridiculously large floral headdress, I wandered around downtown for about six hours taking in all the sights and stores (so many awesome letterpress operations!), and it didn't rain/snow too hard on our drive home. But it's going to take me a while to get the photos off my camera and a proper write-up composed, so for now I give you a little bouquet of sweet pea, hellebore, banks rose, hyacinth, narcissus, feverfew, and pieris I designed before leaving home.

I Want to Put That on My Head

I am pretty sure that is more or less what Liz will say when she sees this photo of a ridiculously large floral headdress I made last night from leftover snippets of jasmine, pieris, rabbit foot fern, ranunculus buds, and hellobores. Which is why I am bringing it with me to go visit her in Seattle. More on the trip in a few days!

It's Always Nice in Menlo Park . . .

We went down for a restorative day of weeding (as you can see, below left, some sourgrass got to stay), mowing, and visiting at my sister's house in Menlo Park. When a chill came up after sundown, we lit a little bonfire and enjoyed grilled fish, veggies, wine, fruit and ice cream on the patio.

Today it pours in Napa, further strengthening my delusion that it is always nice in Menlo Park.

 

It's a Boy!!!

Yesterday was exciting; I had some life-changing (or not-life-changing) revelations, Belinda ever so kindly included me in her inspiring post, and my cousin gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. Congratulation, C&W! I can't wait to meet him in person.

 

Will It Be All Yellow?

Back in her art college years, Mom suffered a disappointing textile dying experience which convinced her that most or all natural dyes result in puky shades of yellow.

So when I decided to try taking my natural fiber ribbons one step further to naturally dyed natural fiber ribbons (these things do snow ball, don't they?), she was skeptical. Naturally.

The awesome and authoritative Jenny Dean suggests this apple bark will yield an orangey hue after a good week's worth of soaking. So far, the water just looks yellow. But I retain faith! More on this in a week or so . . .

Test 1-2-3

Yesterday I ran a test run on some vases I'll probably be using for a lovely couple's wedding early this Spring. For the real deal, the colors and flowers will be different. (Floppy garden roses! Maybe some lilac! More sweet pea!). But this trial is a good way to get on the same page in terms of size and shape. Can't wait for their big day!

A Familiar Kind of Blue

If you know me from the East Coast or this blog, this color might look familiar.

When we moved into our cozy but initially dingy apartment in East Cambridge the first thing I did was paint the kitchen's wainscoting the most cheerful blue I could find (below left). I loved the color so much I took it with me to Vermont, where it effectively transformed any old abandoned chair or table into part of my garden furniture set (below right).

When Ben carefully repaired a chair for my studio desk a couple weeks ago, my blue made its first appearance here in California. I think it's never looked better.