Plum Stitches

a day to myself

Chloe spent today Lipton and I had the whole day to myself in the city!  What a treat, I really needed that time to myself.  At first I had big plans of wandering in the garment district, but alas that did not happen.  Although I do want to pay a visit soon to B&J Fabrics, Tinsel Trading and M&J Trimming, that will have to wait for another day.

My main reason for the "day off" was to get a little pampering.  While I was waiting for my treatment from Tiffany, (who's AMAZING, by the way) I saw this dress in a magazine.

Which got my super computer thinking, isn't this basically the same as the pattern on Belle Epoque, only the dress version? Hmmmm.  Best part is that I have lots of material leftover from a crib skirt that I was going to make last summer.  I think it's more than enough for a dress.

A few weeks ago, when my mother was visiting, we bought the Amy Butler Barcelona skirt pattern from Purl Patchwork.  Haven't opened it yet, but I do gaze at it frequently. 

Speaking of skirt patterns, I found this tutorial for a wrap skirt on Sew, Mama, Sew that is sparking my interest...oh, and they have a review of the Barcelona pattern as well.

The Sweet Smell of Honeysuckle

The Honeysuckle in our backyard has just begun to bloom, what a delightful smell!  Much better than car exhaust or any of the other random city small you encounter.  Reminds me of the Jasmine that grows all over San Francisco.  Oh and of the delightful scented lotions from Body Time, one of my favorites places to buy lotion.  Everytime we visit friends in the Bay Area, Jim gets dragged there so that I can replenish my supply of scented lotion. 

Back to the Honeysuckle...I cut the vine way back last year and it didn't bloom.  This year is a different story entirely.

I'm off to the city to take Chloe to the Pediatrician, hopefully it's a quick trip.

Garden Surprises

We were gone for another long weekend.  Back to Long Beach Island, this time to stay with Jim's family.  The weather was beautiful, although a little warm.  All in all a good weekend, except Chloe seems to have come down with something and was rather miserable most of the weekend.  I'm taking her to the doctor tomorrow.  She seemed slightly better today, but I suspect she has an ear infection. 

I did work on my Phildar Swing Jacket and the Baby Kimono.  Although, I didn't finish reach my goal of finishing the Baby Kimong, dang!  This week, I will. 

I have a stack of sewing projects that need to be tackled, but I'm feeling somewhat unmotivated at the moment.  When we go away on the weekends we end up sharing a room with Chloe, which can be quite exhausting, especially when she's sick and up most of the night.  I know, I know poor me, but that lack of sleep does add up!

I do love the surprises that await in our backyard, when we return after several days away.  So many plants about to bloom:  Honeysuckle, Lupine, Coreopsis and many other plants.  A third Clematis plants is blooming along our fence.  Nothing like your garden about to bloom to brighten your day...

Oh, and one last thing, check out the pattern for this wrap skirt on Sew, Mama, Sew.  I love it - it looks so simple!

Curb Appeal

I've been thinking about Curb Appeal for probably the last three years.  Have you ever seen the show Curb Appeal?  It's on HGTV that I've seen a few times.  They'll feature a home in need of some TLC (maybe a quick paint job, landscaping, new lights) to it's exterior, facing the street.   They show the house before, then making changes and then...voila!  It's got Curb Appeal.

My slight obsession with curb appeal all started when we first began looking at places to buy in Jersey City.  It started out as, "we need at place that's at least 17 feet wide." For those of you not familiar with brownstone/row house life, basically the dream (at least in my humble opinion) is to find a brownstone 25 feet wide x 100 feet deep.  That's not to say that the smaller buildings are inferior, they're just not as grand.  Two years ago it seemed like the only places on the market were the smaller ones, say under 18 feet wide.  And of course, we ended up with one just about 17 x 75 feet. 

I'm not sure if I mentioned it before but we're having a mahogany door made by a local contractor.  It's just about done and should be hung in the next few weeks.  We're responsible for painting the trim around the door.  This morning I primed it with a tinted primer.  Now I'm concerned that the color is to pink/mauve.  I had envisioned a deep cranberry red, but I don't think that's what we're going to get.  Jim seems to think that the primer doesn't necessarily reflect the color of the paint, but I think otherwise.  Looks like another  trip to the paint store is in my future.  Here's the current state of affairs at 110 Erie Street:

A new door means that finally, we're making some progress on the front of our building.  The contractor that was working on re-pointing out bricks and repairing the plaster on our staircases is officially MIA.  We haven't heard or seen him in at least six weeks.  A couple weeks ago Jim started calling him every day.  He never returned a call.  Luckily, he was pretty much done.

So, what do we have left to our exterior?  It seems like a lot:

-The airway needs to be demolished.  We plan to have a raised flower bed poured along the border.  The airway is the space between the iron work at the side walk and our building. 
-Our sidewalk needs to be demolished and repoured as well.  We plan to plant a tree in the south corner of our property bordering the street. 

Thankfully, we have approval from the Historic Commission for all of this work, just no contractor at the moment :-(

I've rambled on about our house, hopefully it makes sense and haven't bored anyone to tears!  But basically thinking about all of this exterior work has made me slightly obsessed the curb appeal of our house.  More on that later...

On to the knitting front...My knitting group met this week.  I made some progress that night on my Phildar Swing Jacket, although now that the weather has warmed up, I'm even less motivated to finish it, but now is the perfect is the time to finish it, so that I can wear it this fall.  As for the Baby Kimono, I have a few rows left to complete on the front and one sleeve.  My goal is to finish it this weekend...

Catching Up on Magazines...and Other Ramblings

omA few years ago, Jim's oldest niece whipped out the magazine fundraiser signup sheet for her school.  How could we say no?  Six subscriptions (I know a little excessive, but hey, we didn't have kids yet) later we were in business.  I already had a problem with too many magazines, and this just added to my addiction!   

My magazine problem became much worse with my last job.  I was in charge of market research for the division of my company.  This involved a tremendous amount of reading and, you guessed it magazine and newspaper subscriptions!  At least it kept me current.  Since leaving my job, I seem to be running a research department in my house, with all of the magazines that arrive in our mailbox.  I have gotten better, at least now I recycle.

So, my point to all of this was that over the weekend I caught up on two magazines that have recently become my favorities: Domino and Blueprint.  First up, Domino.  I love this magazine, I like the ecelectic style, the columns and the fact that they clearly label where you can purchase the housewares they've highlighted.  I've met several people that don't like it, but secretly I'm thinking they don't get it.  Onto Blueprint...by now every crafty blogger out there has written about the article on Purl, Purl Patchwork and Joelle Hoverson.  It's worth a peak if you haven't seen it. 

Now, a few completely different topics...I just stumbled on the Little Red Caboose, another crafty blog out there.  Her photos are gorgeous!  I also stumbled on the Flickr Group Freshcut and Fabulous.  Check out the crafty creations using Heather Bailey's Freshcut fabric.

Retail Therapy:  two things I'd like to pick up, just for me:  the new Joni Mitchell tribute CD and these little Crocs, just not sure what color:

Modeling a New Top

Well, it's Sunday night and the weekend is rapidly drawing to a close...we had a great time with friends at the beach for the weekend.  Although chilly and windy, it was such a treat to get away.

This was Chloe's first time on the sand at the beach since she's been walking.  I don't think she knew what to make of it and she didn't really like it all that much.  But, I'm sure a few more trips and we'll have to drag her away kicking and screaming.

I did get her to model the top I made last week.  I can't believe how short it is!  She does have a long torso, but looking at the picture in the book again, it looks like it's meant to be a cropped top.  I think I'll experiment and make it again, only this time with the sides a bit smaller and add a bit to the length.

Happy Friday

I'm still knitting away on my Baby Kimono, I've been a little distracted from knitting, so it hasn't gone as quickly as I had hoped.   

On our shopping excursion to SOHO last weekend we stopped at Makie.  This little shop has beautiful children's clothing and accessories.  Every piece looks like it walked out of one of the Japanese Pattern books, many pieces are made with Liberty of London fabric (which I adore!). It's all a bit pricey, but absolutely gorgeous and inspirational for crafty types.

You can see some of the clothes at nonchalantmom, their Web site (which does not seem to be updated with the latest collection, too bad) or the store if you're in New York at 109 Thompson Street between Spring & Prince. 

This was my Mother's Day gift to myself from Makie.  It's a felted flower pin:

I'm trying to pack up for our weekend adventure to the beach with friends, but can't seem to get motivated.  It's one of those damp, gray days when all you feel like doing it napping.

I'm inspired to learn how to crochet by two things I've seen this week - Granny-Along and Celia's boleros.  I'll have to put that on my to-do list for 2007.  Have a great weekend...

More Buds and Sewing

The other two buds on the clematis, in the picture below bloomed.  Hopefully, they'll keep coming throughout the summer!

My mother and stepfather came down for Mother's day weekend from Vermont.  Jim and I actually got to go out two nights in a row!  What a treat.  Chloe had a great visit with them.  On Saturday, my Mom and I went shopping in SOHO, with the standard trips to Antrhopologie and of course, Purl.  We also paid a visit to Pearl River, and had tea on the mezzanine.

On Sunday after they left, I made a little pillow with some leftover material for our living room.  Here it is as a work in progress:

This morning Chloe and I went to one of the public swimming pools in Jersey City with some other Moms and their babies.  She was so hesitant at first about the water, but by the end really seemed to be enjoying herself!  Best part was the three and a half our nap she took when we got home.
So while she was fast asleep I decided to try out one of the patterns from a Japanese book I bought last summer.  I used Heather Bailey's Freshcut, which I love!  I still haven't finished the cord/string that needs to be tied around her shoulders. 

We're headed to a friend's beach house this weekend, so I'm hoping to get some action photos of her in it.

Celmatis!

Remember a little bit ago I told you about all of the Clematis I had planted last year?  And that this year it finally seems to be growing?  Well, here I am checking out what all you other crafty people out there are up to, when I gaze out the window and I see this:

 

Now that, is the perfect way to end the week.  Have a great weekend!

New Fabric

Phew, it's sticky and hot here today.  Since when does summer start in May?  I'm not prepared for this weather, neither is Sadie.  I haven't turned on the AC and she's panting up a storm.  And when she pants, well let's just say her breath isn't too pretty.  It smells like looow tide.  How does a 5 1/2 year old dog that is so sweet have such bad breath!

I've been waiting for the contractor to show up to finish our staircases.  So far I've been waiting over two hours, hmmm.  Hopefully he gets here soon, I hate waiting.  Reminds me of when the cable company gives you the three hour window and then they show up 15 minutes after the three hour window has expired.  I guess I'm not very patient!

My fingers did the walking on over to fabric.com for a few purchases last week.  I needed some oilcloth to recover the cushions on a few outdoor chairs and before I knew it a few other items hopped into my shopping cart.

The pieces are washed, but I haven't been able to iron them yet.  From left to right:  no-name gingham, Lotus Wall Flower Pink from Amy Butler, Freshcut Retro from Heather Bailey.  Think they'll turn into clothing for Chloe, but I'm not positive.