mmm.... coffee.....

half a bee, philosophically, must ipso facto half not be

although no vegans are currently eating these, i baked more treats from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World this weekend.  to make your own homemade hostess cupcakes start with the basic chocolate cupcake, pipe in the "butter"cream frosting & ice with rich chocolate ganache.  they're unbelieveably rich & delicious!  the cupcakes came out very dense so they weren't as filled as i'd like them to be, but i have so much extra frosting i might have to bake another batch today...

i had an unusually social weekend: friday whitney & i went to tom's to watch Kidnapping, Caucasian Style, a fun old Russian movie.  saturday was dinner at neighbor susan's & her friend eric came over with his wife & their 10 day old baby.  providence is so small sometimes - i know eric & kristana because they used to live in teresa's house, but susan knows them from work & they had no idea she used to live on our street, too!  it was great to see them & i also enjoyed chatting about art & community with susan's friend jamie.  then yesterday teresa & i drove up to visit tara.  we brought her the cupcakes & other candies & goodies, made a stop at Osgood Textile so i could buy more glitter vinyl, tara treated us to dinner at a diner & then we all just hung out chatting in her cute house until late.  it was wonderful.

after another cup of coffee i'll get back to cleaning since my roommate returns on wednesday.  i should get my crap out of the way so she has room to pack because she's only here for 2 more weeks!  i'm actually not getting another roommate, at least not right away, i'm taking the summer to live on my own & it's going to be sweet...

if you don't cry you just don't feel it deep enough

oh, hello there!  sorry i've been falling behind on my updating - i have many things to share with you, but for now a quick announcement:

May 5th  teresa & i will be at the RISD Alumni Sale. it's probably your only chance to come see us for a while because we have decided to not apply for the Renegade Craft Fair in Brooklyn this year.  the first year it was miserably hot & dusty & there was a softball game going on (people & dogs actually got hit with foul balls!)  then the second year the weather was better & we were thankfully under the trees, but this time they've moved it to a giant cement pool.  no shade.  anywhere.  i hear it's a great place to have outdoor concerts at night...  despite the possibility of making money, i'm not risking another weekend of dehydration & heat exaustion.  i've done enough of these outdoor sales to know that they can be a hell of a lot more fun than that!  speaking of which, we applied to Somerville's ArtBeat Festival in July.  we did it last year with a whole mess of crafty newengland ladies & it was a great show.  keep your fingers crossed we get it...

and some sad news: tara closed Plain Mabel!  i'm sorry, i meant to tell you earlier so you could make some last-minute purchases, but maybe i didn't want to believe it was really happening...  i'm so very happy i got to meet tara & sell things with her over the past few years.  out of everyone i've dealt with, tara has been the most amazing, she's always been prompt & organized (which i am not) so it was a dream to do business with her.  although i'm sad the website is over, i understand tara's reasons & am thankful for the real-life friend i got out of it.  so thanks, tara, you're awesome!

and the words float out like holograms

it's a lazy sunday in the coffee-drinker household (i also had a wee plate of scrambled eggs with that coffee.)  that cute tree pattern is on my favorite flannel sheets, they are from target & i also have wrapping paper in the same pattern.  i think the flannel pjs are from target, too...  oh, and so is the sock!  it says "Naughty or Nice?" at the top.  yes, i do like that Target, they understand my need for things to be both affordable & well designed. 

it has been a year since i made my first messenger bag - i have used it every day & taken it everywhere.  it has been through the heat of summer & the cold of winter.  it's travelled from rhode island to maine, to nyc, south carolina & miami.  it gets tossed on floors, in cars, has been x-rayed in airport security checkpoints & crammed under seats.  i have worn it through rainstorms & spilled my lunch inside.  i can officially declare it a success!  not that i don't have faith in my craftsmanship, but i always test-drive my merchandise before selling it.  i have to know that they will last & are comfortable before i send them off into the world.  the immediate modification i made to my first bag was to switch the strap from vinyl to webbing, i also added a little more velcro on these new ones so they're easier to close when packed full.  i probably won't make very many of them, but here is a little sneak peek of what's in the works:

had to tell myself it's only music

dear reader,

you may have noticed that i've been extremely distracted lately...  i haven't been able to concentrate on my work, nor my work at home, i haven't been sewing, i haven't been seeing my friends.  i'm not depressed, i'm not sad, i'm still inspired, i still love my job & i'm excited about it all, but there's something more...  i'm head-over-heels.  i'm smitten.  i've completely lost my mind & i love it.

sincerely,

*e

my biggest problem is I've been cursed with the ability to do the math

a morning ritual, when there is time for it.  i managed to make time this morning & still arrive at work when i'm supposed to, but then i remembered spilling the contents of my messenger bag on the floor of my bedroom last night...  (someone wasn't very careful when they scooped everything back in at 8:15am) i did manage to grab my wallet, but my swipe card was missing.  sigh.  there i am, 8:30 in the god damn morning, outside the library, unable to get in.

so much for being on time for a change.  i am even dressed well in this sweet sweater that i scored at H&M, but no amount of nice clothing is going to make me a morning person.  at least it wasn't raining.
i am flustered today - i am feeling tired & cranky & a little bit sad (i might blame it on PMS, but you may not.)  i thought my sister & jo & daveeed & his girlfriend were going to Shelter Island this weekend, but they went last weekend.  man.  i wasn't doing much of anything last weekend, i could've gone!  i didn't realize how much i wanted to go until now, shelter island is a place of mixed emotions.  it is a place i need to return to, i haven't been back since we packed up the house after my freshman year of college.  i was supposed to go there this summer with the ex, we had planned to go away together (but that was before i found out about the cheating & that they were living together)

map of Long Island circa 1889
uh, anyway, back to reminiscing about Shelter Island!  i might've mentioned it before because spring in Rhode Island always reminds me of it.  we had a house out there all through my childhood, we'd spend the weekends there in the spring & fall, rent it out during the summer.  it's a wonderful place of crickets, bike rides, swimming, exploring, playing kick-it, making puzzles, buying flipflops & waterguns at the dollar store, walking around the Heights & the bridal path, ferry rides, breakfast at the Chequit...  many of my memories are smells: honesuckle all around the property edge, a lilac bush the size of a tree, the andromeda bush swarming with bees, a damp basement with a pingpong table, attic of old toys & dead wasps, and my dad's Hudson in the musty garage...

i hope to someday have someone special of my own to take a trip to Shelter Island with.  someone mature & emotionally capable of planning a little weekend away so i could share my memories with them.  it's not the exactly same thing, but, hey, i bet Art would go with me! 

watch the people right outside my window

(aside from being woken up early by my neighbor's dog) the past few mornings have been lovely.  i made incredibly delicious coffee with the french press & sat by myself on the porch.  maybe i worked on the crossword, maybe i just stared into space...  i also discovered that, despite my talent for killing even  spider plants, one of the mysterious green plants is having babies!
 
i stayed up rather late last night making this 10x17" quilt for Chris, one of the guys that's been working with me this summer.  i went for my blue fabric & found this one piece of batik that was just the right blue with some green in it & well, here:

i quilted it sparingly - just a few swirls spilling over onto the green.  i even signed this one, i always write my name & the date on the stretcher bars, but i embroidered a little e. on the quilt itself.  i'm really happy with it, even though it came together really fast & was given away so suddenly.

i spent some time watching julie work on a new quilt that i had bought her some fabric for & it inspired me to use a few of my sillier fabrics, not just the batiks & asian style prints.  like that spotted one that also cuts ups the middle...  it seemed just right.

now you're older and i'm wiser, we design synthesizers

i'm not so sure this all needs an explanation...  it's maine.  and i love it.

on the shore path in Bar Harbor & across the new bridge from bucksport

my friend bob & his cabin & his beach & town band playing in bar harbor

inside On Board Fabrics & mary & my mom at 2 Cats for breakfast

mary & my mom before we left & julie showing my mom her lurid quilts that refused to be photographed clearly...  there's so much more, i'll be back soon with it - i have almost a hundred shots of quilts from the quilt show in Augusta & i still need to photograph the fabric i bought.  (besides the show, we went in about 7 different quilt shops around route 1!)  i didn't get any photos of mike & marsha, but i did get to visit with them & have some tasty Coastal Coffee, i have photos from the library picnic & swimming at art's on friday, a shot or two from patricia's bbq on saturday & tomorrow we're showing wonderful things from the collection to our students so i'll probably take more then...  wheee!

or it's just not strong enough to cover this

i have returned from maine where the
weather was far nicer compared to
here in little rhody.  sadly my crappy
little hand-me-down computer has
finally died!  the adapter will no longer
work & the battery is long dead.  so you
will have to wait to hear from me til
monday, but for now enjoy some
photos of cups of coffee that i enjoyed
during our little road trip.

oh little chewy, don't know what you're doing to me

a few deceptively cheerful photos from last wednesday night - jon & ana lost their sweet orange kitty, Sputnik, to Hope street.  poor little sputty, he will be missed by many...  it was terribly sad, but we had a little bbq wake for him.  my dad had just left for NYC earlier that day and i got to meet ana's parents that evening.  there was plenty of drunken-ness to go around, along with some salad & bbq'd salmon...

some promised photos of coffee & pie from Pastiche on federal hill where teresa, jodie & i took my dad after he bought us wood-grilled pizza at Bob & Timmy's.

i haven't been doing much crafting lately.  i'm slowly hand-quilting a quilt for someone else and, after several trips to ikea, i finally bought some nice shelving for my studio.  i'm completely tearing the room apart & reorganizing it.  i've thrown out tons of stuff & emptied the closet, i got one of the shelves into the room & i started to put everything in it.  it's exausting, but i know it will be worth it in the end...  right?  and i have only 4 days till my mom gets here, oops!  sorry about the mess, mom, i promise to at least clean my room!  here is an embarassing look at the current state of my studio, note the empty corner by the empty closet, though:

i actually cleared myself a little space friday night & stayed up until 3am sewing a mod dress from a pattern i found in a box of patterns that i found in the closet.  but i ran out of brown fabric so, until i get a ride to the fabric store, it just adds to the piles of crap.

when you had little voice or none

the olympic sock went to NYC for a long weekend so i was unable to post about it until now!  the sock visited the dream coffee machine, played nintendo til 4am, slept late, saw some of the city, did a little shopping & hung out with my sister & jo.  it was finshed just in time, despite gross amounts of unknitting (which i am now quite skilled at) and it even fits.  perhaps a lace sock pattern was not the wisest choice of a first sock, but i think i would have otherwise been rather bored.  i knit a bit at lunch times last week, so i took a few in-progress photos of the sock at work with me:

i was making a giant box for an artist's book that is shaped like a fan & in the upper corner you can see the sadly broken porcelain ring that used to close it up.  i also started another sock while in NYC, a toe-up version of grumperina's jaywalker, my neighbor on the bus was quite entertained & watched me knit for an uncomfortably long time:

some things have been stressing me out lately & it was really great to go away for several days & see my sister on her little vacation.  there was, as always, good food & great company.  we talk of moving other places, but it will be sad one day when we're farther apart because i have so enjoyed getting closer to her.