bits and bobbins

we had a busy, busy weekend…

friday: i took that all-day free-motion quilting class i mentioned in a previous post, and man, it was a LOT of fun. my stitches don’t look that fabulous yet (still getting down the technique), but i have been practicing a little every single day and plan to continue practicing until i get the hang of it. i left the class feeling so inspired!!

saturday: had a seasonal dinner dinner party with our friends mike, yufei, and nicole and aaron (+ little miko). we get together at least once a season and make a big dinner at one of our houses for all to share. on the menu this time was a leg of lamb (coated with garlic and fresh rosemary & thyme from the garden), peas au gratin, grilled asparagus, a green salad that included some lettuce from the garden. yufei is a pastry chef; she brought the most gorgeously rich rice crispy thing topped with chocolate and peanut butter, and a killer peach pie. pete made his famous kumquat mojitos, we also had copious amounts of good quality cheese and wine. all in all a delicious and fun day! can’t wait to do it again! yesterday i made a curry (the first one i’ve ever made!) with some of the leftover lamb (see above).

sunday: spent some time in the community garden putting compost and mulch around our tomato, pepper, squash, lettuce, chard and celery plants. afterwards, we went to the city and walked around, visited purl, ate at a tapas place in greenwich village, and ended our day at kinokuniya. wonderful!

several years ago (probably about 5 years now) i made the word “love” using soft letter pillows. sometime back, probably about 2.5 to 3 years ago (when poppy was but a wee little thing), i added the words “made you”, thinking it would, in toto, make a neat wallhanging somewhere, someday, in our home. perhaps over a bed, or maybe even in the kiddo’s space. i like the idea of those words together, because really, for most of us, it’s kinda true. idealistically anyway. finally got around to snapping a photo this past week. (wow i’m slow.) maybe in about 5 years i’ll actually get around to hanging them up. ha ha ha.

working on some other small baby-quilt/wall-hanging sized patchy/quilty stuff. will reveal at a later date.

taking an all day free-motion quilting course at a local fabric store on friday…i’m pretty excited.

how flipping cool are these handmade braided rugs by green at heart? each one is made from a plethora of recycled tees. i remember seeing these a while back on the interwebs and coveting them, but noticing one in this recent apartment therapy smaller cooler kid’s room entry made me fall in love all over again. i wouldn’t mind putting one under a circular table in an eat-in kitchen (over top of some kind of white or light flooring, natch). or even in a little bright bijoux of a living room, where everything else was pale. or, or! maybe even an otherwise all-white, uber-moderne austere bedroom, maybe something with white or pale pastel walls and a high ceiling? YES! but, whoa, totally breathtaking, any-which-way you might style them…