A morning of senses

We're enjoying what remains of summer here in our new home. 

Yesterday morning was spent in the brambles picking blackberries, and today I will make a cobbler.

For two weeks I have been anxiously waiting on these lilies to bloom-- they are such a beautiful color.  It's become something of a ritual for me to check on them and photograph them each day... I found them particularly beautiful after this mornings rain. 

 

And I'm elated to report that we've found a second pear tree on the property.  Unlike the first one we found, this one is heavy in fruit!

There is still no sewing going on, but the great fabric reorganization of 2013 is well underway.  While they have been organized by color for sometime, none of my fabrics were folded uniformly which was causing a problem when it came to utilizing my new space.  I still have about 1/3 left to refold and resort.  It has been strangely calming to work my way through these piles, touching and refolding each fabric.  Calming though it may be, I will be thrilled once this task is wrapped up and I can get some sewing underway! 

As I get lost in the repetition of folding this morning, I find myself extra in touch with all of my senses-- I'm loving:

...the smell of rain
...watching the sun struggle to peek out through the clouds
...the taste of crackers with brie and fig spread (yes that's my breakfast, don't judge me)
...feeling all of my soft fabrics as I refold them
...listening to Andrew Bird, Armchair Apocrypha

What are you loving this morning?

A sunnier day...

I tried working on a post yesterday, but was in a right foul mood from all the tragic news-- people didn't need to read about anymore of that sadness.  And I didn't find writing about it to be therapeutic, so  I decided to wait for a new day, a brighter day.

I love quiet Saturday mornings.  Coffee in hand, Mr. Trio snoozing away in the next room, and Boone snoozing next to me on the couch.  The living room lit up buy the early morning sun and the Christmas tree.

Ahhhh.

Yesterday I tried my best to focus through the sadness, and sew.  I dove into work on the t-shirt quilt for my nieces' graduation, and finally started some sewing on it instead of just staring at the layout.  I won't lie though, I didn't get too far.

What I did find both focusing and comforting yesterday was cooking.  The kitchen was my Zen zone.

On Thursday night we had a roasted chicken with root vegetables, which yesterday slowly became a stock for what will be today's soup.  And last night for dinner we had a nice slow cooked meat sauce on fresh pasta, with garlic bread, and a salad.  Simmering and stirring a sauce for hours was just what this girl needed.

Comfort food-- it's a comfort to make, and to eat.

  

And no week is truly complete without a bit of fabric stashing right?  I just got in a FQ bundle of the new 'Architextures' line by Carolyn Friedlander.  I am positively in LOVE with the elegant geekiness of this line! That's right, it's both elegant and geeky-- you heard me.  Mr. Trio Beautiful seems particularly drawn to the topographic prints.  I think my favorites are the graph paper with math notes.

I will be holding off on cutting into this fabric for awhile.  I want to wait until I have the perfect project planned, besides, I have plenty of other projects going on for now!

Eek! I won, I won!

I'm so excited I can't help but let out a little squeal!

A special package arrived for me today today.  From the UK... via "Royal Mail."

This package is special for two reasons.

First off-- I won it!  And I never win things!  Second, this is the first Liberty of London fabric EVER to grace my fabric stash!  It is from the new 'Stile' collection which you can see in it's entirety here.  A big thank you goes to Judith at Needles and Lemons for hosting such a wonderful give-away!

So bright, and so beautiful... so art nouveau.  I love it.

Now I need to plan a project for it!

On another note, Thanksgiving seemed to slip by without my vocalizing all the things I am grateful for (and there is so much).  The gratitude was in my heart, which is what matters most.  

At the risk of over simplifying things-- I am thankful for family, love, and laughter.  

That is what I hold most dear these days.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day.

A week of updates...

 This week got away from me!

It was filled with mostly the mundane-- work and the dentist.  However on Tuesday I got a little extra time to finish a few things up.

The 'feather' pillow is now complete (sorry for the terrible picture).

It's also completely covered in Boone hair already.  There's no avoiding it, really.

And I also finished up my dinner/grocery list project.  I don't believe I have shared anything about this project yet.  It sprang out of my weekly frustration of creating a grocery list.  Every week, without fail, when I ask "what would you like for dinner this week," the response is always "I don't know," or the sudden inability to remember any dishes that we fix.  The result is a frustrated me flipping through my recipe box and cookbooks, and over an hour before a list is finally made. This process needed streamlining!

So where else to turn but to Pinterest for a little inspiration.  They have tons of menu board ideas on there!

I kept our pretty simple and utilized our existing dry erase board.  On half size index cards I have written all of our meals/sides/desserts on the front, and the grocery list for said meal on the back.

One day I will make a pretty board specifically for the task, but right now with space constraints in our kitchen I will stick with the ugly white board.  This whole project cost under $2.00.  The strip of magnet for the cloths pins was about $.79, and same with the index cards.  The little bags I made to hold the cards were made out of scraps.  The left bag holds all of the main dishes, and the right holds the sides and desserts.  

My problem is solved.  Picking dinner this week was as easy as flipping through the cards, and making my list took about 10 minutes!

Yesterday I had an equally productive day.  I whipped up one last small pillow...

did a little bit of fat quarter fabric stashing...

This is for a graduation t-shirt quilt for my niece 

did a whole lot of interface ironing...

and finally attempted to clean up my sewing room-- which resulted in creating pretty stacks of fabric for future projects instead of putting my fabric away.

Frigid Friday...

 On Thursday it went from 80 degrees to 50 degrees in a matter of two hours.  Yesterday we had a whopping high of 42.  Friday was frigid.

About four days of fall is all we had here in Colorado, and yesterday the first spitting of snow.  I  miss fall-- real fall.  Fall like back East, with more colors than just evergreen and yellow.

I pretty much spent the entire day at the sewing machine.
As a warm up, I did a little towel decorating.  I'm not a huge fan of most dish towels that have those printed designs.  But when I buy the plain ones and bring them home, I inevitably decorate them myself.

I felt thoroughly inspired by fall-- I suppose due to the lack of it-- and spent a good chunk of time making a fall inspired tote.  It's almost done.  I used the quilt-as-you-go (QAYG) method, which I had never done before.  It was tons of fun to put together.  Maybe today I will get it finished up.

I made a bit more progress on the feathers.  I cut off and flipped one of them, and added the side strip to bring the pillow front to full size.
It's ready for a little hand stitching, and then to have the pillow back and binding put on.

All in all, while it may have been cold, it was a really good Friday.  We finished off the day by going to a library book sale.  We walked away with a plethora of new (to us) books for a mere $12.  Not bad at all.

Hope you all have a wonderful, and warm, weekend.

Potter, patchwork, and

Here is my night tonight:

I suppose I'm a bit late on the whole Harry Potter band wagon.  

Better late then never, I always say.

I tore through the first, and the second is shaping up to be the same.  It's been a while since I have had a nice, light read.  I needed it.

So here is my evening: me, a puppy, some cuddly patchwork, and Potter. 

Perfect.

Sleepy Boone

In other news, albeit a bit late, my birthday coincided beautifully with Hawthorne Threads' big tent sale.

Birthday = fabric hoarding stashing.

I got a few half yards from my favorite line, Hope Valley.

Hope Valley, by Denyse Schmidt

And a few "Hop Dot" prints from Nicey Jane, and "Pearl Bracelet" from Hello Pilgrim. 

Left & middle: Nicey Jane, by Heather Bailey; Right: Hello Pilgrim, by Lizzy House

And there were a few more that I can't share right now... wouldn't want to ruin a surprise!