bits and bobbins

here’s our humble tree!

we live across from the flower market here in SF, and decided to get a nice potted umbrella tree instead of the traditional holiday tree. more earth friendly, really, as it will far outlast the season (will live years, sans decoration, of course) and dwell in our home all year long. it was pete’s choice…i think he made a good one.

all the presents are there by the tree…we’re not going home for the holidays this year. we were going to go to cabo san lucas, mexico but decided to postpone the trip since i haven’t been feeling well lately. it’s just the two of us, really. i miss my family though…it’s the first time i haven’t been home for xmas in 32 years. needless to say, i’m feeling more than a little teary-eyed today.

but something good to look forward to: we’re having a group of friends over for xmas dinner tomorrow, those that didn’t leave town for the holidays.

it will be a big melange of italian specialties: homemade spaghetti sauce and meatballs (dad’s recipe), polenta lasagna, frosted sicilian meatball cookies, garden salad with feta and oil/vinegar dressing, and more that’s not so italian, maybe (chimay beer, mulled cider, and coconut macaroons). should be yummy.

peace, love, good health and happy holidays to all of you.

thanks for being my friends!

our new apartment here (as of september 2007) was just featured as a sneak peek on the terrific design blog design*sponge. and said peek was then slink(ed) by AT:SF. thanks design*sponge and AT:SF! click around on the aforementioned for a peep into our humble abode.

seems like it’s been ages since i posted anything i’ve created!

remember the granny square blanket i started way back in june? well, i finished it sometime around the end of august. my memory is a bit hazy as to the exact date of completion, but i’m pretty sure i put it all together sometime right before we moved to our new place. which would mean late august, if my post project calculations are right.

here it ’tis:

i was intending to felt it, but i don’t have a top-loader washing machine available (all the ones in our new building are front loaders…shucks!). so i may just leave it be. it’s seen here on our bed, which was it’s intended destination from the beginning. i am planning on making some pillow-sham type things for some of the pillows and adding a few more bargello pillows, maybe this jonathan adler one. i like how everything else it pretty modern in the area (the bed frame, the quilt, the shelf), with all these hand-wrought touches about. a tried and true to me visual juxtaposition.

overall, i am really happy with how it turned out…and that i had the patience to stick with it and finish the whole thing. actually, admittedly, i was chomping at the bit to finish the damn thing, so obsessed, that any potential procrastination really didn’t figure into the granny-square blanket project at all, okay? OKAY?? (yes, i am a bit type-a.)