Textiles

This will be a quick post, because it’s a depressing rainy morning and Sparks’ computer is borked…
I have ordered the fabric for the great room’s curtains and cushions. If you remember, I plan to make a mess of floor cushions and throw pillows for the seating area. I’m also going to cover an IKEA footstool, [...]

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Kitchen plans

Tee hee. Sparks and I watched Fight Club last night. It was the first time I’d seen it in… probably… seven years? Since I took my undergraduate gender-in-literature class, anyway, and we read the book and watched the movie. It was just as good, if not better, than I remembered and I had forgotten that [...]

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Our Old House

Okay, I need to qualify the post title in two ways: “our” is actually “his”, and “old” is actually “35 years old”. It is a midcentury-mod box, with a perfectly rectangular foundation and the roof all sloping one way. There are barely any windows, but lots of sliding glass doors to the front and back [...]

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Sugar Stars winners

All right, I have taken far-too far too long to announce the sugar stars giveaway winners. Pudding says:

Joyce, Shirley, and Anita are the winners! Congratulations, everyone. I’ll be sending you emails shortly asking for your mailing addresses. Everyone, I direct you to the comments on the Sugar Stars Giveaway post–the entrants told me three lovely [...]

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Pulmonaria

Oh, I’m so happy.

The three rather expensive pulmonaria I planted last spring, which promptly stopped flowering and never grew bigger last summer, have come up bigger than ever and they’re blooming. Ah, what perfect delight.

I have two plants with “bright” flowers and one plant with these pastel flowers. Lovely. Great dappled foliage, too.

And this is [...]

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A quilty Saturday

I was always struck by the character name “Clare Quilty”. Believe me, this post has nothing to do with him.
Yesterday was a gorgeous, brilliant, warm, sunny Saturday. My parents were in town. We had been going to wander around the arts festival downtown, but Sparks had the brilliant idea that we take a road trip [...]

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Sugar Stars giveaway

The Fourth of July, the Fourth of July… I was born in July, and Independence Day, coming as it does in the middle of such a drought of holidays, was always a favorite with me. On the last Fourth of July, Sparks and I had our third date, and I told him that he’d be [...]

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Living up to the name

What else is there to do on a sunny Eastern Sunday than take myself to the garden center?
I bought seven kinds of Morning Glory seeds for the long planters, that will eventually be moved beneath the benches on my deck, where they will twine and bloom and make the whole deck into an exceptionally lovely [...]

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Now on Etsy: sugar stars

While shopping for pre-made sugar flowers to adorn a batch of oh-so-cute cupcakes I had made, it came to my attention that the pre-made sugar decoration market is severely underserved. I’m now proud to say that my cake decorating experience has given me the know-how to start doing my own, small part to remedy this [...]

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Pastels & Pyrex

In the past month, a corner of my kitchen has become distinctly pastel-ified. It has always had my pink Kitchenaid mixer, in it, but then…

Sparks’ mint-green Hamilton Beach milkshake mixer was added to it. Isn’t that neat? We’ve been making protein shakes with it–it almost (almost) makes them seem like a treat.

And then the pastel [...]

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Daffodil surprises

The pink daffodils are delighting me, this year. Not only are they all actually pink, but the colors in them really do change as the blooms mature. Do you remember the frilly bright-yellow daffs? Well look at them now:

All pink centers, except for a bright yellow halo at the tips. Lovely! When I planted daffodils, [...]

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Springing

Oooohhhhhh, springtime is certainly here. I am going outside without a coat more and more often.
Pudding only wishes she could, too…

I have been cutting daffodils and rotating them in and out of a bouquet on the table, for her. My “pink” daffodils are a mix of varieties, some of which bloomed just a little earlier [...]

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Madeline’s

I took my introductory series of cake decorating classes–and will take a series of fondant classes starting next week–at Madeline’s, a confectionary studio dedicated to teaching sugar art. Isn’t that neat?

And how about that Kitchenaid, eh? The first time I ever came close to thinking that my pink Kitchenaid might not be quite adequate… was [...]

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Wanna stash?

I’m having a fit of Springtime de-stashing. Right now, I have seven lots of BEAUTIFUL yarn up on eBay, right here. If you knit, do have a look… the lots are big and therefore, perhaps, destined to go for way less than retail (SEVENTEEN skeins of Kureyon? What was I gonna make, an afghan?)

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