I so very much enjoyed making this quilt on Sunday! I told Sid that I needed help with the kids because I was going to sew something for the baby whose soon coming arrival we were to celebrate that afternoon. I made the quilt from flannel (the best for babies, I think, because it is absorbent and so soft) flat sheets that we never used, and it was very cute. But I had a nagging feeling that there was nothing about it that reminded of the parents of the sweet little fetus. I was slightly distraught and the thought of giving up crossed my mind, but I kept going. When it was time to choose the color for the ties, I was befuddled. I wanted to do black, but it didn’t look right with the color scheme of the quilt. I wanted to make it personal with some embroidery, but the last few times I’ve embroidered, freestyle, my work turned out sloppy. “Hmmm,” I thought. Then I remembered that I could still add the sweet little fetus’ name using the typewriter alphabet stamps I bought to stamp Aveline’s little birthday party guests’ names onto their fabric goodie bags. And I had used black fabric paint for the boys’ bags, which there was still plenty of on hand . . . soooooo . . . black fabric paint to stamp his sweet little name, and black ties for the quilt would just be ‘the Lebowski rug,’ if you know what I mean. Yay! And then the little spiders were an afterthought, but a good one. I was very pleased with this more personal quilt to give to a very special family. If you want to check out the mamas blog, you’ll find it with my links under “Brand New.”
After viewing Rick Steves Tour guide DVDs on Rome (so we could learn more about the interesting place Sid was visiting, at the time) and the Cinque Terra, I knew I had to try the pesto sauce they made in the latter region. In a little restaurant they showed the owner in the kitchen with his mortar and pestle grinding fresh basil, olive oil, garlic (I think) and parmesan. They serve it there with a pasta that is essentially, a noodle that swallowed a big bite of potato, that they designed especially to go with their pesto sauce. That pasta sounded amazing, but alas, I did not have it one hand. I did, however, have some homemade dough ready in the fridge so I decided to try making pesto pizza, which I had heard of, but can’t remember whether I’ve tasted it. Here’s what I came up with:
I almost didn’t get a picture of it before it was eaten! And it was lovely that our beloved guest Tomas, was here to enjoy it with us.
So, let me ask you, do they look like me?
It is beyond interesting to me that Sid doesn’t think either one of these looks very close to my true visage. I see me in both, I ought to, I rendered them, though, obviously, the pink one is meant to be more of a caricature (as much how I felt, as how I thought I looked that day, that’s the face I might copy for my next rendering of Lady Alice). Sid draws my face very differently than I do and he is quick to point out the things on these that aren’t “right.” So I’m left to wonder, what do I look like to him? To others? My self-portaiting is a way for me to look at my face differently than I am used to doing each day. I try to focus on distances, relationships, features, and impressions among other things, rather than, the usual thoughts that arise as I peer into the mirror, like “Ugh, I look tired,” or “Hmmm, 31 year-old Jennifer,” or “What can be done about that hair?” When I get one drawn I feel like I have a new way to see myself, a better idea of what others may see when they look at me. But I don’t know! Anyway, it’s fun and sort of fascinating, I recommend you try it. It’s easier with pencil, you can get better detail, but it’s also fun to just put down the lines that are the most dramatic when you look in the mirror with pen and see what you come up with.
Try!
Here is our progress and Jonny’s science work samples, nice how that works out :)
we have corn . . .
. . . watermelon, snap peas, broccoli . . .
. . . lettuce, beans, the lone surviving cucumber plant, onion . . .
. . . a sunflower . . .
. . . basil, cilantro, mint, eggplant . . .
. . . tomatoes, peppers, squash . . .
. . . sprouting artichoke, zinnia, lavender, morning glory, agastache, calendula, larkspur, and hoping for sweet williams more mint, and heliochrysum.
And that’s where we’re at with that.
This is a doll I made for Miss Aveline for her fifth birthday last month. She sort of resembles Lady Alice, no? Raven hair, big night eyes and all? She was fun to make freestyle. With many projects, patterns and instructions can be burdensome and frustrating, it’s like they’re just there to show me what I’ve done wrong. I realized that I may have outgrown my perfectionism, because I’ve been preferring to make things from my own faculties, then it really feels like mine. (I guess I can consider ilene my brain-child, maybe now I won’t have a fourth child, just more brain-children!? Then I can have as many as George MacDonald, if I want!) Although, now that I think of it, I can’t even remember who first labeled me a perfectionist and maybe I never truly ever was one? Or maybe I’ve learned to see things more like my children do. To Aveline, ilene is perfect and beautiful, if she was any different, any “better” as I might be inclined to describe, she would not be ilene. Anyway, I do love ilene’s messiness, I like being able to see the way she was put together. And I love that Aveline named her ilene! Maybe I should spell it E-i-l-e-e-n, instead? You can click on the photos to see them larger.
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Her dress was constructed from the excess of a shirred tank top I made for Miss A, pictured here.
Be encouraged to birth your own brain-child. A poem, story, drawing, toy, garment, meal or anything that’s been frolicking in the ol’ cranial streams and ponds. And if the streams and ponds seem empty, look closer . . . the Dead Sea is abundant with life! Just not in the way most bodies of water are.
I really love George MacDonald and am currently lagging on finishing The Portent because I don’t want it to be over yet. G.M. is my new favorite author and I think it’s cool that he has the same first and last initial as my other favorite author, Gerald May. I would love to write more about why I love George MacDonald, but I find myself sounding like a bumbling fool when I do. Instead I’ll offer some fun info about him. He and his beloved wife Louisa had eleven children! It is said that she was a small framed woman whose figure bounced back to it’s original beautiful proportions soon after each birth (Sid thinks this is why they kept having babies! Georgie Mac couldn’t handle staying away from his wife’s cute little body!). Their friends in America, when they traveled here, demanded to see photos of all eleven children because they could not believe that the cute little woman had given birth to so many, based on her petiteness. I hope you’ll check out some of his work! I super highly recommend The Princess and the Goblin, The Portent and The Lost Princess. Maybe you’ll join The Read Less Traveled (some friends’ and my book club) and read Phantastes this month? More info is posted here under the The Read Less Traveled page.
I offer my own rendition of the character Lady Alice from The Portent. Looking at it makes me want to try again, I just love the way he described her! “Her eyes were large, and full of liquid night – a night throbbing with the light of invisible stars. Her hair seemed raven-black, and in quantity profuse.” She appears here after the first night he encounters her in the middle of the night in the ghost chamber of Hilton Hall when, “Her black hair, disordered and entangled, wandered all over her white dress to her knees.”
