Glimpses of Fall

On Mt Baker, a lovely October

Cherry tomato & fig

Fall color

Dios Los Muertos

A little AM inspiration

Sunday run with friends

Just the beginning

A magical little yellow tree

The evening view

Renegade Chicago!

Renegade craft Fairs are the best! In July I participated in the show in San Francisco and in Los Angeles the following weekend. Tomorrow I head out with Jess Flegel to Renegade Craft Chicago! It will be a blast, I am sure. Really well organized and SO much amazing stuff!! So if you are in Chicago this weekend, don't miss it!!

Food AND Booze!!

 At Fort Mason in San Francisco

 The Booth I shared with Laughing Raven in LA.

 It was hot and the people came out.

 I loved Heyday Design's porcelain mason jars!

 Sara and Sarah part of the awesome force behind Renegade!

 Chantal deFelice, I bought two of her lovely paintings.

 The mobile Woodworking bus....

 My new dream, the mobile screen-print studio!!!!

Self Propulsion

Today I walked to the studio, Bach, Mozart and the punget smell of wild Yarrow. In the afternoon it was sunny and the whole way home I walked through the alleys, looking at gardens and seeing the unexpected. After work, my friend Max & I went for a leisurely ride in the  county, north of Bellingham, big barns, horses and the sweet smell of hay.

Sewing Projects

Last fall I signed up for a sewing class at the Bellingham Technical College. The class was relaxed and I liked the idea of the instructor to help the students with whatever project they wanted to work on. I signed up, grabbed my Sew U by Built by Wendy and cut out some patterns!

My first project from the book! This wool skirt was made from Pendelton remnants, with 2 grey pockets and little blue buttons! It is also lined with a zipper.

This pinstriped blouse was my second project, the fabric was a little cheap from Joannes and made me crazy if I looked at it for too long. The collar was rather difficult, but turned out OK after some quality time with the seam ripper. The button holes were my first, with my vintage 1960's button-holer and admittedly, they are a little wonky! Overall I am happy with how this turned out and I have fabric to make another.

Together an outfit?? I need a grey cardigan with this.

My third and last project in the class was this silk duponi dress, it was a simple enough pattern and not too hard to make. The pattern came from S.E.W. - Sew Everything Workshop. The skirt is black and the bodice white silk and lined. As an added detail, that was not part of the pattern, I made silk flowers to decorate the bodice.

I singed the edges of the silk to keep it from fraying and to add a rough touch to the pretty silk.

The class was taught again the following quarter and I signed up for another round! It is great having the instruction and help, but it is also fabulous to have a 3 hour time once a week to sew. This time I began with a messenger bag pattern by Amy Butler. I now have a whole new respect for people who make bags! So challenging, this one took me a few classes and I broke several needles on my machine!

The outside in a faux wood patio furniture outdoor fabric, again not perfect, a challenging project with a confusing pattern!

The inside, showing the tool pockets and pretty fabric I got on sale at  Fourth Corner Quilts.

My last project was to make two dresses at the same time from this Butterick Pattern. The original pattern did not have sleeves, so I made some from another pattern with a degree of trial and error! Actually I sewed the sleeves on both these dresses several times! The polka dot seersucker dress has longer sleeves, while the blue cotton gingham has shorter cuffed sleeves.

I am really happy with how these turned out, they fit great, are the perfect length and I am delighted with the sleeves and how they look, even though it was difficult at times and I won't be playing vollyball in them anytime soon!!

Before and After Pictures of the Walnut

Last Sunday it was warmer than it has been and the perfect time for a continuation of the back yard improvement project. Here are a few before and after pictures which really show how much work has been done on the house overall. I live here and I can hardly believe it when I look at the pictures!

The front of the house before we bought it, note the giant box woods!

The front of the house now from the same angle. Still needs some landscaping and a paint job, but looking much better!

This was the old back deck!

The new deck that Erik  (Lookabill General Contracting) built this winter, it is much bigger and wraps over where the old bike shed used to be.

The old bike shed and the over-grown pear tree. We recycled most of this bike shed into the new beautiful one!

Erik's design for this shed is amazing. It holds all our bikes, garden tools, and miscellaneous things I don't want in the house! The clear corrugated plastic roof makes it double as a green house!

This picture show how large our Doug Fir tree really is! It is full of raccoons and squirrels!

The Pear tree was a wild thing!

The new patio and fire pit, there is also a flower bed and strawberry patch now at the bottom of the Pear tree, and Erik pruned it! We are anticipating a good crop this year!

The end of the back yard by the alley, clean-up had already started at this point but it was just as overgrown as the rest!

How the back yard looks now, new bike shed, pruned Cherry trees, new grass and a new fence.