.summer fashion.

i think i would like to do this every friday. i have quite a collection of vintage photos (i've been working on it for several years now), including many from my own family's history. i think i'll start off my new friday endeavor with one from the family archive.

this so very 50s-60s newspaper clipping is, i think, quite silly. i love the women all considering the checkered dress, which looks a bit tablecloth-y, don't you think? well, the lovely in the white hat right in the middle of everyone is my grand grandma bea (mrs. robert voshmik in the caption). she was such a cool woman, it is not surprising to me at all that she would've participated in a fashion show. she also wore women's suits as soon as they were available (at least, that's the impression i've gotten). we have a photo of her in one, it's quite fabulous, but you'll have to wait.

happy weekend!

.i spy.

this week, i thought that i would spot my own bike. i've been parking it in this spot for a few weeks now, it's right against the back stairs of our house. i love how the green of the bike interacts with the greens of the plants. especially with all of the great shapes and textures around. like that geranium. and the wonderful, overflowing lemongrass. i love how huge the lemongrass has grown. i can't wait to use the fat stalks in cooking. it's getting there!

sadly, the back tire on my bike has been destroyed. it really was a self-destruction process. the tires were dry-rotted and the rubber was so cracked that it was flaking off with the pressure of the brake. well, pretty much all of the rubber cracked off, including that of the inner tube, and i not have a flat back tire. it's more than flat, though, it's utterly destroyed. it looks so sad sitting there in my back yard... i hope i can get new tires soon.

for now, i've mostly enjoyed walking to town everyday. it takes longer, but some days that's a good thing.

.tending.

hello sunday morning! i thought you might like a nice way to start the day. my garden is pretty much in full swing (really, it has been for quite some time). even though i planted everything at least 2 weeks late (hello, thesis show and two-week vacation in hawaii), things are catching up. hope this brightened your morning :)

.patty pan: a recipe.

on saturday, i moseyed on down to the plymouth farmer's market, hoping to find something tasty. lo and behold, there was an abundance of such things! the plymouth market is so much better this year than it has been the past two years. although, it was pretty decent last year with the addition of a guy who sells lots of different vegetables. he also has a ton of winter squash in the fall. we love it! anyway, the patty patty pan squash and the yellow wax beans for this dinner were provided by a different guy and his wife. they're really nice, so i like to try to buy at least one thing from them when i go.

August Roasted Vegetables

ingredients:

3 medium patty pan squash (mine were the size of my hands)

1 quart of new (baby) potatoes, red or white

1 quart of yellow wax or green beans

half of a medium onion (mine was a candy onion from the northville market)

1 tbsp of fresh thyme

1/2 tbsp of fresh rosemary

1/2 tbsp of fresh garlic chives (all herbs preferably from the garden, of course)

1/4 cup olive oil

your preferred amount of salt and pepper

preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

cut the stem and blossom ends of the patty pan squash off, then cut into eighths. remove the seeds from each section. cut the squash and potatoes into approx. 1-inch pieces. if your beans are pretty big, like mine were, cut them in half. good news: you don't have to peel the squash! i was very nervous when i thought i might have to. how would you even do it?

chop the onion into pieces big enough not to burn. if you like bigger pieces of soft, delicious roasted onion, then by all means leave your onion pieces bigger. i cut mine to about 1/2-inch pieces.

toss the cut vegetables together with the olive oil, spices, salt and pepper in a large bowl, then spread them in one layer onto a baking sheet or roasting pan. as long as your sheet has sides, you're ok. i only have one baking sheet with sides, and no roasting pan, so i used a hodge-podge of cookware: a baking sheet, a casserole dish and a ceramic pie dish. everything worked out just fine, for the record!

throw those babies into the oven! for whatever reason, my oven takes longer to roast things than recipes call for, every time. for this, i read that i should roast the squash at 400 for 30 minutes, but it took my oven 50 minutes to roast this batch... so, if recipe roasting times usually end up being correct for your oven, then start at 30 minutes. if not, start at 40 minutes and work your way up.

let me know if any of you make this recipe, i'd love to know how it turned out! what are your favorite vegetables to roast?

.made.

i know i only showed you a bit of the rug yesterday. yes, i did that on purpose. sorry to be so suspenseful! you see, i hadn't finished the ends yet, so i waited. clearly, i finished the ends since then, and here is the result! i really like it, especially for my first rug attempt.

i grabbed all the good colors of lamb's pride yarn that i had and brought them to chelsea. i liked how these four interacted, so they were the lucky ones. however, i didn't realize that one skein of the oatmeal was thicker than the other. in fact, i didn't realize this until the thinner weight ran out and i began weaving with the bulky one. oops! i just kept going, since this rug was destined to be mine and the show had to go on.

the second little problem was that i really needed one more skein of the oatmeal in order to make it 3ft long, which was my goal. after consulting with my sister (she came to help me on saturday, thank goodness!), we decided that inserting a nice, wide charcoal band would solve the problem and look quite nice. besides, i had been inventing the striping pattern as i went along, so what was a little more improv? not only did it work, but i think this rug would be too boring without it, so i'm really happy with my less-than-perfect planning.

don't you love it when little (or big) mistakes end up being the best part about a piece?

.demonstration.

last friday and saturday were, to say the least, quite the experience for me. i was inviting to participate in an artist demo and sale event in partnership with the chelsea sights & sounds festival in chelsea, mi. this was the first year that they invited artists, so i figured it would be a great opportunity to try it out.


i wove en plein air. yes indeed, eric and i loaded up the ford excursion (borrowed from my dad for the week) with all of the things you see here, including the loom itself. there was approximately 1/2 inch of room around the loom. it was a nervewrackingly tight fit! i don't think i've ever had to use my arm muscles so intensely before. and with such high stakes! this was my new baby we were moving around. one wrong move... one collapsing of the arms... i couldn't even bear the thought. well, i did bear that thought once or twice and i immediately felt sick.