at least i made brunch

we don't entertain nearly as much as we once did or would like to. our little house, two crazy dogs, and no backyard space to speak of don't really lend themselves to big parties, especially with kids. but once in a while we have a few friends to dinner or, as was the case this morning, brunch. i always look at these occasions as a chance to try out new recipes, a practice that d has rightly pointed out has a high probability of back-firing. fortunately, today's tester recipe was a big hit with our guests, my godmother and her husband. i adapted it from this recipe from Simply Recipes, using 8 eggs, crusty french bread, farmer's market tomatoes (two colors!), zucchini, fresh basil, and Dubliner Irish cheddar, and baking it in an oval dish rather than a 9x13 casserole. INSANELY good and highly recommended. (image from Simply Recipes, because it didn't occur to me to photograph mine until after we'd eaten half of it.)

what's the opposite of type a?

type z? whatever it's called, i'm it. of the very many personal flaws i have, my disorganization and procrastination are the most discouraging - and of course, counter-productive. i never met a deadline i didn't want to shirk, a schedule i didn't want to get behind on, a drawer i didn't want to stuff ephemera in before going back to read, surf the web, watch craptastic cable, eat peanut butter straight from the jar.

i'm feeling like i need to publicly acknowledge this because it's held me back most of my life, and i'm so ready to move on, but i don't really know how. anything i've accomplished has certainly been in spite of my work ethic, not because of it. it's a marvel that i have a master's degree. as it is, i graduated with less-than-highest honors from my undergraduate writing program simply because i couldn't get my act together enough to show up to workshops with any material to workshop. i'm certain i'll never be an etsy super-seller or a blogging star for the same reason - i can't motivate myself to put in the very hard work needed to accomplish these things (talent and product are other matters entirely). the next fenton street market date for {beatrice + the bird} is twenty days away and i have almost no inventory, per usual. i'll have a lot for the show, but not without the undue anxiety that waiting so long to get started necessitates. i HAVE been dabbling with a kicky, tiered half-apron out of my old standbys, thrift-store sheeting and alexander henry's farmdale fabrics. here's the first pass:

lately i've been listening to the simple mom podcasts, and i've been struck by a recurring theme among the moms interviewed on these smart and thought-provoking podcasts: all say "getting it all done" takes a huge amount of work, that they are passionate about the work, and they make compromises in order to get it done. i think a lot of my procrastination results from a perverse perfectionism: i'd rather not do something than do it and have it not meet my standards - or, heaven forbid, anyone else's. if it had been up to me, i certainly wouldn't have started making and selling stuff on etsy; a partner had to convince me the work was good enough to sell. there are many, many days when i'm still not sure about that. one of the things i struggle with when blogging about my work and my life is my lack of blithe confidence in the material - other bloggers maintain such an overwhelmingly positive outlook about what their posting: "i made this! it's great! i found this on the internet! it's fabulous!" i'm not saying that's misplaced hubris; it just shows an assertive spirit that i don't inherently have. and the sense that i really do have to do it all, without compromise, is absolutely paralyzing.

i am trying to take small steps. for lent, i gave up what i called "mean-spirited reality tv," which i can only define along the same lines as the supreme court's definition of obscenity - you know it when you see it. first to be axed: anything 'real housewives.' i've kept up with it since easter, and the effect has been revelatory. not only do i feel like a more decent, less imbecilic person without those programs in my life, it means that sometimes i turn on the tv and there's literally nothing i'm "allowed" to watch, which means i HAVE TO TURN OFF THE TELEVISION AND DO SOMETHING BETTER WITH MY TIME. like read with my little one. or floss. i also cancelled most of my magazine subscriptions so i wouldn't be tempted to sit down and read martha stewart living when i should be doing my own living. i definitely have less recycling to deal with as a result, and fewer "someday" projects and recipes in my mental and physical files. i need more of these techniques, though - easy, relatively painless ways to channel my time in a more positive and productive way. anyone have any ideas?

r + d

my crafting friends and i spend a lot of time discussing the joys of the research and development phase of things, versus the enervation caused by being in pure production mode. in other words, it's loads more fun to experiment with new designs than it is to make a bunch of things from a pattern you've already perfected.

before last month's date with the fenton street market, i noodled around with a design for a sash-waist wrap skirt. my noodling around yielded interesting results, but not much in the way of sellable items. the first, at top left, featured two asymmetrical pockets and would only fit the tiniest of women. for the second, top right and on etsy, i abandoned the pockets (i'll return to them when i have more time - nothing beats a hidden pocket, does it?). it was also size tiny but getting closer to what i wanted in terms of fit and function. the last one, below, hit all the style points i was looking for - and i decided to trade it with my sister in law for one of her lovely mei tai baby carriers.

so the good folks at fenton street didn't have much in the way of skirts to consider from me this time around, but i've just loaded up on gorgeous skirt fabrics and come august 27th, look out, silver spring! total skirtapalooza.

sharing the love: eat your p's and q's on shoes glorious shoes

it's once again radio silence around these parts, with the onset of the summer craft and travel seasons.

my partner in Fenton Street Market crime this weekend nonetheless found time to post about a wonderful etsy seller who, get this, sells patterns allowing you to sew your own shoes. beyond cool. to wit: "There is a certain type of sublime retail experience where you stumble upon something you didn't know you needed until the moment you behold it..."

that's certainly the case with Shoeology. check out brita's blog post, and then hie yourself to etsy to check out these sweet kicks and other Shoeology patterns:

mama's day

having the best kind of mother's day weekend: a date-night dinner at dogwood (though we've previously had mixed results on ordering there, last night's was peerless); farmer's market, cooking, and gardening today; another dinner out tonight (this one en famille); and the delicious expectation of breakfast in bed tomorrow. hope everyone else is enjoying a similarly perfect-for-them weekend.

i don't expect much in the way of mother's day gifts, but i do like to give them. for my darling mama, i made a quick sash out of vintage madras and silver silk. it turned out so beautifully that i decided to offer it in the shop. thinking it will be terrific over a plain white t-shirt, or a simple cocktail shift.

for my mother-in-law, who is a true gift to all of us in her family, i made a funky little apron that was inspired by one she'd seen and loved of my sister-in-law's. this was a combined easter and mother's day present, hence the spring theme. now that i have a serger, i might actually think about making this again - hemming all those ruffles, while fun, was a bit on the time-intensive side.

happy mama's day!

taking this act on the road

Beeps Peeps, a little party, and i will all be heading to silver spring, md, this summer for fenton street market, an increasingly exciting artisan market held every saturday into november. look for us there on june 25 and august 27, and be sure to check out the other vendors each week by clicking on the "vendors" link at www.fentonstreetmarket.com.

had i but world enough, and time

i fear i jumped the gun. i launched {beatrice + the bird} this week with a respectable, if not voluminous, six items. three dresses; three aprons. obviously, i needed more inventory, but i was just so excited. and i have so many plans. and so much fabric (see left for some of the yummy stuff i'm looking forward to using). my shop would be to full capacity in no time.

right. apparently i forgot about how often life interferes with sewing. and about sales. those tend to deplete one's inventory, happily. so the shop is looking a bit sparse, but i'm frantically sewing to catch up. a sewing date with a little party yielded the little number below, which is almost complete. the photo doesn't do it justice - that fabric, Robert Kauffman's Carolina Evening chambray, is the most spectacular marine blue. it's so pretty, i'm thinking i might have to offer this dress with a bonus removable fabric corsage, and it will be the perfect dress to wear to a summer evening wedding.

next on the list: a long-overdue order for my dear godmother, and then i'm going to play around with a couple of accessory ideas and see what sticks. yep, the shop is gonna be full in no time. i just need to stop sleeping.

introducing...

if there's been radio silence around last night's leftovers lately, it's because i've been sewing my fingers off to launch a new collection on etsy, {beatrice + the bird}. i'm excited and daunted to be going off on my own after coralilie folded. the collection focuses on a wraps-style tea dress in midweight cotton and upcycled jersey (read: ebay t-shirts), plus funky aprons with an obi-inspired sash. i might also make simple sashes for sale at craft shows - if i ever get my act together and apply for some of the juried shows around town. here's a sneak peak...

happiness is a finished bathroom

well, it's one step closer to happiness. february may have been a bear of a month, with everyone in our entire, extended family getting fantastically sick, but at least one major thing was accomplished - the end of our bathroom renovation. as with the vast majority of "quick" renovations, this one was much longer and more costly than we'd ever imagined, especially since we didn't do it ourselves this time around. because it's our only bathroom, we decamped to d's parents' house for several weeks (but not before spending three fun-filled days and exciting nights camping out in a house with no bathroom right before Thanksgiving) while our contractor hurried to get the room in some kind of working order before Christmas and the arrival of houseguests.

when i look at the before and after, i sometimes wonder what all the fuss was about, as they aren't dramatically different - if you exclude the peeling plaster, bulging moisture-ridden walls, cracked tile, exposed lathing, and jury-rigged garden-spigot-as-shower of the original 1925 bathroom:

but oh, i loved that deep wonderful cast iron tub

after living with this arrangement on and off for 30 years, it was time for a change. we basically kept the period style (read: subway tile and mosaic floors) with a few marine-inspired touches, like shiplap-style wainscotting and a salvaged overhead light. we also incorporated storage where ever we could, which sadly meant doing away with the pedestal sink. we have very few, very small closets, so anywhere we can add storage, we do.

the vanity pendants hang at the same height, 

even if that doesn't appear to be the case

our contractor, d's cousin, custom built 

and finished the shelving

trim tile from ebay

home depot marble 12X12 tile

cut down to 6X12 subways

light fixture salvaged from second chance

while the budget for this bathroom was necessarily higher than that for our portland bathrooms because we had to hire a contractor, we tried to keep costs in check by bargain shopping. yes, this meant lots of made-in-china, big box purchases. sigh. home depot and ikea have me in their pockets.

rainshower head not shown, because nobody
needs to see our heinous shampoo caddy

home depot mosaic and subway tile.
stock - who knew?

h checking out the craftmanship

now, on to a DIY update of our 1960s kitchen, on a $1500 budget. this should be interesting...

under construction

work continues on our bathroom, as well as this blog - thanks again to beeps peeps for my lovely new banner. our hope is that our lovely new medicine cabinet will be installed this week, finally finishing off the bathroom.* meantime, here's a preview, taken with my increasingly troubled, and therefore blurry, camera.

*nope. not gonna happen. we still don't have the hardware to install the cabinet. meanwhile, drew's beard continues to flourish without benefit of a mirror by which to shave. he might need to take up the mandolin and start a neo-folk band at this rate.

small things that make me absurdly happy (a tutorial)

i guess i should be pleased that little things can bring me such unabashed pleasure. like our faucet-mounted water filter. every time i don't have to reach into the fridge for the (usually empty) brita pitcher, i am happy all over again that i bit that bullet. the cushion covers that i made for our kitchen stools are another source of absurd delight. once again, cheap ikea cushions, recycled target curtains, and leftover sewing supplies provided the source materials. this was easily a fifteen-minute project.

Materials for one cushion cover

cushions or pillow inserts (mine were a dollar find at ikea)
four 18-24" lengths of ribbon, depending on stool
four buttons
two squares of fabric, each measuring 2" wider and longer than your cushion
scissors, thread, etc.

Step 1
measure your cushion, adding 2" into the width and length. cut your fabric accordingly.

Step 1 - measure and cut

Step 2
pin right sides together and sew along three sides. in this case, i used the existing hem on my recycled curtains for the fourth side. if your fabric is not already hemmed, you'll want to press the fourth side over by about a quarter inch.

Step 3

Step 3 - sew fourth seam

turn right side out, insert cushion into cover, and machine sew as close to the finished edge as possible.










Steps 4 and 5

Step 4 - add ties

Step 5 - add buttons

fold each length of ribbon in half, and attach to each corner with a machine stitch, as shown. add buttons, being careful to center and space them appropriately.







Step 6

a little more country, a lot more comfortable

tie cushions to your bracingly uncomfortable, industrial-chic kitchen stools. resume normal use.

cool but crazy uncomfortable

a love that dare not speak its name. or, the look for less.

i shouldn't be allowed to have throw pillows in my house. i clearly don't have what it takes to keep them looking presentable. see the picture at left for exhibit A. shortly after h was born, i pieced that pillow together from a bit of thomas paul fabric i had on hand, recycling some old roman shades from target for the welting and the back panel. it's been little more than a year, and it already looks like its been put through the wringer, including Unidentifiable Yellow Stains, courtesy of our dogs. i shudder to think.

anthro's briefly available reindeer pillow

the problem is, pillows are sort of great. they're like little art pieces for your furniture, and i can't stop myself from wanting to acquire more of them. when i saw anthropologie's blooming reindeer pillow in their winter catalog, i started salivating. so great, right? and both seasonally appropriate and non-holiday-specific. then, as is so often the case with anthro, i looked at the price tag and my mouth went dry. actually, $88 is pretty reasonable for them, but no doubt this piece was made by small children in malaysia, or some other reindeer-unfriendly locale. and i'm not really allowed to have throw pillows.

but i know a couple of lovelies who are, and i decided to make them my own version of the pillow as christmas gifts. using jason yenter's floragraphix iv fabric, left over from one of our love and rockets dresses, a $3.99 granat cushion from ikea, and a reindeer silhouette adapted from a google image search, i went to town.


this was my first experiment with hand appliqué; it's a little rustic, which was intentional, and i'm pretty happy with the results. looking forward to visiting my blooming reindeer in their new cribs next holiday season.

bring it

all right, i'll just go ahead and point out the obvious: my last post here was almost a year ago. yesterday, in between a couple of the fourteen (14) loads of laundry i've figured out i do weekly (or need to do), i idly sent a text to brita: "i wish i could give up wanting to have a blog."

anxiety bouquet

there's a lot i wish i could give up wanting. last week, trying to ward off a full-blown panic attack, i made a list of things that are causing me such angst these days. (i've been such a basketcase that d was compelled to bring me flowers one night last week - highly recommended supportive-spouse behavior, by the way.) i stopped adding to the list when it got to 29 items, mostly because i ran out of room on the piece of scrap paper, but also because so many were things i wanted to be different, but had almost no ability to change. for instance, i wanted my nose to stop running. and our dogs to be less excitable at the end of the day. and not to have to do fourteen loads of laundry a week. i wanted not to have bought a white couch. or to worry about trace pharmaceuticals in our drinking water, pesticides in our fruit, lead in our dust, composting, recycling, Haiti, Sudan, Baltimore, peak oil, my inability to cancel our cable tv service.

"actually," brita said, "i'd like to read about you canceling your cable."

"i wanted to cancel our cable," i responded, "but it turns out it's more expensive just to have internet service than to have both. file under 'best intentions.'"

"so write about that," she said.

at that point, i was reminded of the "but i mean well" in last night's leftovers' web address. i guess in a way i always intended this to be a space to air my wants, my mistaken intentions, with the hope of making them...less. just less. that's probably not all that interesting to anyone else, but it's cathartic to me. so i'm declaring 2011 my year of less wanting. we'll see how it goes. in the meantime, i've got a few house and craft projects i want to share here. stay tuned.

where we spend our days

just a few scenes from the place where hal and i spend most of our time these days, contemplating the future of this blog and other heady topics.

a blog in search of a niche

when i first started this blog, i was interested mainly in blogging as a creative outlet, and so my posts were all over the place, with only the slightest whiff of a theme (cooking and crafting) to keep them together. when we moved to portland and began the mother of all craft projects, our house renovation, it made sense to blog about that, especially since so many of our friends and family were 3000 miles away and not able to keep up on the day to day (or even month to month or year to year) changes to our little bungalow. so butimeanwell.blogspot.com became a house blog. and happily so.

now i find myself once again in search of a creative outlet. craft projects have necessarily taken a back seat to this little project. (and frankly, i'm realizing that i'm much less talented at executing projects than i am at conceiving a need and then googling instructions for them. which isn't to say i'll stop making things, but the world probably does not need to see the set of onesie extenders i made last week.

so i'm ruminating about what to do with the space. link to various stories about humanitarian outrages and wonder, rather anemically, what i can do about them? post my favorite etsy shops? crafts i'd make if i had but world enough and time (and talent)? cool projects others are undertaking? the latest in zoo baby preciousness? marvel over hal's every milestone? or our discovery that this is hilariously, riotously true? maybe a little bit of all of the above....last night's leftovers*, indeed.

*last night's leftovers were, in fact, really tasty. i adapted this recipe, replacing the chorizo and fish with trader joe's seafood sausage, and adding corn and tomatoes with diced chiles for an extra kick. it's nice to cook again...

as promised...

... the fairly complete before and after in photos. these span the period of march 2007, when we first put a contract on the house, to june 2009, when we left to return to baltimore. we did all of the design (with wonderful insight from designer friends), and drew did the majority of the work himself, with occasional assists from me, and terrific help from our parents, neighbors, and friends. where we sought out professional support: on the major structural stuff - the dormer additions to the second floor, reversal of the staircase, reconstruction of the front and back porches, and roof installation; window and furnace installation; and hardwood floor and wall refinishing on the first floor (the latter was mostly because we ran out of time). itemizing all that we did to the house would no doubt bore everyone to tears, but here's a laundry list of the most significant projects and their timing, as best as i can remember it and in no particular chronological order:

exterior front

installed new roof (fall 2008), new cedar shingled dormers (fall 2007), new front door (spring 2009), new porch floor, rails and stairs (spring 2009). removed vinyl siding and painted original wood siding (2007-2009). dug new front garden beds and planted trees and shrubs (summer 2007).

before:

after:

first floor

reversed direction and entry point of staircase so that it rose from the dining room to the second story rather than from the kitchen (fall 2007); installed new windows (summer 2007); installed new lighting and electrical (2007-2009); repaired, skim-coated and painted all walls, ceilings and trim (spring 2009); refinished floors (spring 2009); gutted bathroom, installing new marble hex flooring, subway tile shower surround, sink, medicine cabinet, lighting, hardware and fixtures (early 2009); gutted kitchen, sealing up one door, installing french doors to the back porch, and replacing all appliances, cabinets, countertops, flooring, sink, lighting, hardware and fixtures (spring 2009).

living room before:


living room after:


dining room before:




dining room after:


dining room ceiling before:

dining room ceiling after:

kitchen before (previous owner):


kitchen after:





first floor bath before (previous owner):

first floor bath after:

second floor

120 SF dormer addition, including new windows and skylight (fall 2007); built new bathroom with all new insulation, plumbing and electrical service, new lighting, hardware and fixtures, marble floors, salvaged clawfoot tub and stained glass windows (June 2008); added combination walk-in closet and laundry room (fall 2008); finished staircase with oak treads and stained banisters (fall 2008); sanded and painted softwood floors (winter 2008).

before (previous owner):




second floor after:

exterior rear

removed porch enclosure and added wide porch stairs (summer 2007); built new fence (summer 2007); planted trees (summer 2007) and added professionally tended vegetable garden (summer 2008); refinished porch floor and rebuilt porch rails and columns (spring 2009)

backyard before (previous owner):

backyard after:

i'm no doubt forgetting something major here, but you get the gist - big project, big fun. now we're off to an even bigger project, building a person rather than a house, but it seems unlikely that this our last major renovation, even if we'll be on hiatus for some time. after all, we have a gaping hole in our bathroom ceiling right now - we just can't seem to buy a "turnkey" house...