more red and green

farmers' market organic heirloom tomatoes yum



jen choosing her tomatoes carefully

complimentary color bears

fronts

backsides (one on right is fabric from an esprit dress i didn't wear once. i used to buy dresses mostly for their patterns, but i rarely wore/wear the dresses. can't seem to part with them either though, so some are becoming bears.)

bring your pet to blog/meet lollipop lu!

it's been hard for me to wait to post pics of the fabulous lollipop lu until today. lolli arrived on saturday all the way from alison's in australia. she came with all sorts of goodies (great stationary, tea in a cool bag, stickers and candy). i took this pic of lolli and pinky when they first met and they just looked too funny together with their suprised eyes. and i thought it was perfect for take your pet to blog thursday, so had to wait until today to post (i'm not patient about these sorts of things.)



here is lollipop lu making friends with hank the cat. they've been very polite and still have not licked their way through this pop!

another PL with lolli pic. lolli wears a beautiful scarf (pattern from Loop D Loop).

thank you alison! definitely the cutest prize i've ever won! and a thank you gift IS on its way to you soon...

self portrait tuesday: bedtime toes

bedtime toes



more bedtime toes



bedtime corner

took these last night while listening to sigur ros and thinking of this poem by may swenson:

The Process

Lie down upon your side
and fold your knees
Bend your hands at the wrist
against your chest
as a cat or dog does in repose

Close your eyes and feel
your brow smooth out like a small
cloth in the wind
or a brook slipping
to gentle waterfall

Now wait for what will happen
Something will

Beneath this hill of breathing hair
a steep mine
Within this ear
oracles of echoes seep
Wide and clear the eyelid's dome
a galaxy where suns collide
and planets spin and moons begin

Words are birds perceived
in a secret forest
Fed by nerve and vein they hop
from twig to twig and up
an ivory ladder to the top
where it is light and they remain
and are believed

i felt very calm and folded last night (one can feel folded, really).

having my mom here this past weekend reminded me of where i got my worrywart-ness. she worries about just about anything. though i love her, the worrying drives me a bit crazy. worry seems to be a way to try to control one's life and it distracts oneself from the present. i wish we could just decide not to worry, which i guess is possible to some extent, but is easier said than done.

on a silly note, is anybody watching "so you think you can dance?" it's the american idol for dance show. i saw one episode and hope to see this wednesday's. my former hip hop teacher is on there! folks who know me (and don't already know about this) will find it hard to believe that i took hip hop for almost a year, but i did, and one of the 2 teachers i took it with was Allan, who's in the top 24. i have to say though, Nick's performance got me teary eyed, so I am rooting for him at the moment.

Svenskar: Undrar om nagon kanner nagon som vill ha hus/djurvakt (o jag kan betala hyra ochsa) 1-3 veckor i September (efter den 13:e) i Stockholm. Helst pa Soder. Min mormor har brutit benet och armbagen och jag vill halsa pa henne. Hon bor pa ett alderdoms hem o jag vill garna ha ett stalle att bo separat fran hemmet.

mostly fabrics and finnish

had to buy this apron from lovejoy's tea room this weekend. almost had to buy another one too, but i restrained myself. are these ice cream sundays or martinis or what?





and here are my favorite scraps from the scrap swap. thanks everybody who participated! will have to think of something fun to make with these. i'm inspired by kath's fabric cards (her aug 12 entry).

also inspired by those finns lately! finnish links from camilla and wee wonderfuls: Napa Books and Ivana Helsinki. and i found some marimekko fabrics i haven't seen and some other finnish design.

lubbesmeyer fiber studio

my mom and i visited the American Craft Council's big craft show at Fort Mason this weekend. my favorite artists there were the Lubbesmeyer twin sisters. the pictures on their website of their art don't do the artwork justice. but the above is one that i like a lot.
check them out!

bring your pet to blog

couldn't choose so here are two:



one owl



one peeking into the new housemate's room. dot of orange.

i ran into the charming and warm mati today. she lives around the corner. so fun to finally meet! of course i was awkward, as i am when i first meet people (ay - sorry mati). but i'm glad we're finally going to meet on purpose.

have a good weekend people. (my mom is visiting, so i probably won't be blogging much.)

self portrait tuesday: två kerstin

i look so sad in the pic below, so had to post a different pic of the two kerstins, my mormor and myself, from a couple years ago. i see some cheek resemblance!



this painting is of my mormor and was painted when she was a girl.
for my 25th birthday, mormor said i could choose a painting from her collection and i chose this one. i love the painting itself and that it is of my mormor. she fills my heart with love. (sounds corny, but is true.)
(too bad the painting is a bit fuzzy in this pic.)

make bears not war

three more little "wallpaper" bears for fairs. i've noticed that, among the kinds of fabric i like, one kind seems to be fabric that looks like wallpaper. bears all together on flickr. the summertime creatures postcard swap is finally also on flickr.

make sure to check out kim's post on the peace memorial park/nonproliferation of nuclear weapons. a powerful letter from the major of hiroshima to george bush.
and her post on artist lynn dennison.

idiosyncrasy tagging

idiosycrasy - a structural or behavioural characteristic peculiar to an individual or group.

i was tagged by port2port to write about 5 idiosyncracies of mine, and i better just get it over with or i'll think about it too much!! (i both love and hate things like this, but i'm glad mav tagged me.)

1. i prefer to sit on the floor rather than on a chair.
2. i cry in about 95 % of the movies i see.
3. (and here's where they start getting a bit weirder) i have a fascination with people's hair. i especially like wild hair. i also like when older women have long, shiny white or silver hair, like metal. i often stare at people's hair when they sit in front of me on the bus. public transportation has great hairwatching.
4. this is an idiosyncracy of both the flat i live in and myself: there is a closet in my flat that occasionally (i think it must depend on weather - i need to start tracking this) smells like the summer house my mormor and morfar had in Sweden. i often open the closet to check for the smell (and i worry i'm letting it out). on the days it does smell like Vallsta, you might find me hanging out for a bit in the closet.
5. i hate mushrooms (back to innocuous idiosyncracies). well i hate their texture and taste. i do like looking for them in the forest though.

i tag (if you haven't already been tagged) - camilla, kim, mati, stephanie and joleen

bring your pet to blog

just another one of those aren't i terribly cute pictures today of mr. pinky leon.



and here is rolf (i like that name! like rolf the piano-playing dog on the muppets.), my parents new, obviously very goofy and smiling dog. sadly, they had to put their other dog (who i wrote about a couple thursdays ago) to sleep. i think rolf may be channeling a bit of reggie's fun-loving spirit though.

self portrait tuesday: faking it

a fuzzy picture of me feigning sleep. an unispired self portrait tuesday, i must admit. i do like photos of people sleeping though. not sure why. maybe because they're in that mysterious dream place. really this pic is just an excuse to show off the new sky blue ikea sheets though. i really wanted some orange sheets. had found some on the fancy, high thread count garnet hill site on sale for cheap and i got so excited. but they turned out to be sold out. fooey.

check out camilla's new shop with art prints. she has a very sweet self portrait tuesday post too.

3 little bears

these bears are smaller than the others i was making. these are just slightly bigger than my hand.



another view

thanks to alison at six and a half stitches for choosing Lollipop Lu as the winning name for her adorable kitty! i can't believe i won such a cutie! i will post pics of LL hanging with friends when she arrives here. after looking more closely at Lolli, i realized, she's made from the same fabric as my bear, Marieke! i'm guessing they might be related.

i also just got my gravy sipping elephant in the mail from Mia Hansen. check out Mia's terrific artwork.

thanks for all of your nice comments the past week or so. sorry i'm not responding to you individually. i'm trying to use the computer a bit less. it's a challenge.

bring your pet to blog: centered

you can see how it would be hard to sleep around the centered pinky leon. he likes to be in the exact middle of the bed.

i was talking to my friend corrie the other evening about what masochistic pet owners we are. sleeping in completely awkward positions, lying awake waiting as long as possible to move because we don't want to disturb the kitty. and the kitty is so cute when he's curled up behind your knees. (who knew kitties like spooning.) and how we let them knead us with their claws even though it hurts - we try moving our sleeves down or gently repositioning paws to clothed areas, etc. hehe.

on another cat topic: the whir of cleaning 1, 2, 3

and not martha posted this how to fold a fitted sheet by catiecake. i don't care about how to fold a fitted sheet, but the cat in these pictures cracks me up.

just two links

six and a half stitches kitties. i swear pinky leon gives these looks sometimes! heehe.

and

Riley Manion's photo from last Monday of Toby (click on archive below current photo). I really like Riley's photos and Toby is my kinda dog. so goofy!

self portrait tuesday: fun with photoshop

i do like this orange. lately i'm very drawn to orange and yellow. i must be entering some new phase.

a couple more bears and links

these are marieke (in front of oona's painting) and filippa

links:

i'm sure most of you know of the cute egg press cards. have you seen their about us page? i love comparing the photos to the illustrations - the surprise. and i just like the illustrations.
crafty chloe's blog: bonjour miette
more craftiness: dulces!
more: hula seventy
three wonderful photographers found on port2port

take your pet to blog: sally

guess it's old picture week here. this is sally. (smokey the cat is in the background. i was afraid of smokey.) sally's one of those most special pets for me. we got her as a puppy. she was part malamute, part husky. don't really have any specific stories about her specialness. it was more just her personality and that kindred spirit feeling. (look at her smile in this photo! you can't see the twinkle in her eyes very well in the scanned version, but there's a big twinkle in her eyes.)

when sally was only 3 i think, and i was in the summer between fifth and sixth grade, i went away for a week for girl scout camp on catalina island. she somehow got out of my parents' yard and the neighborhood and ran down to the main road in the canyon and was run over by a car. that was probably the first death in my life that shook me. when i got home, i collected sally fur (which i found a surprisingly large amount of) around the yard, and kept it in a jar in my room.

my parents' dog of choice is the schnauzer. they've had schnauzers my whole life. first a miniature, then a standard, and then giant (rescue) schnauzers. right now their six year old giant schnauzer, reggie, is really sick and probably dying. he's a big sweetheart. so i'm sending good thoughts out to reggie. i think he's one of those most special pets for my dad.

(pinky leon will be back next week!)

bear season

been making a lot of bears lately. they still need some perfecting for sure. any idea how to get the necks to not be so wrinkly? i probably will take the bears directly to fairs and not put them on the website. i'll be doing two sale/fairs in Aug. and Oct., so that's where the bears will go. if i can part with them. i'm afraid the longer they're in my room, the more attached i'll get. above (top to bottom) are Angela, Violet, Minna and Marvin.


they have little cards that go with them too, like this, but clear.

self portrait tuesday: talk about embarrassing

in my sophomore year of high school, Jimmy Hall asked me to my first high school dance. Jimmy was the most polite boy in school (so polite that my friends and i thought he might be English). his cheeks were a permanent blush (whereas mine just unexpectedly blush like mad and then go back to being THIS pale). looking at this picture, all the awkwardness of high school comes back to me.

my mom went dress shopping with me for this peachy keen number, and our knowledge of what dress to get for a school dance probably came from television and movies. when i arrived at the dance, which i think was on a boat, all the girls had on little swishy cocktail dresses. my dress went to the floor, and well, you can see what it looks like. needless to say, i was overdressed and frou frou-y. i don't remember doing any dancing, but we must have. all i remember besides arriving and seeing all the short dresses, is jimmy opening the car door for me (i think that was probably the first official boy opening a door event and it felt very weird. it hasn't stopped feeling weird.)

what is funny to me now when i see this picture, is how normal i look (i mean besides the dress and lacey shawl! and besides looking a bit like a deer in headlights). i guess considering how hard i tried to hide any abnormality (read queerness and shyness and flat chestedness), it's not so strange.
how much pictures tell/don't tell.

ps. note the chic brown and orange marimekko curtains.
pps. other self portrait tuesday folks

tanyas, mailart and jobs

i am so enjoying listening to the be good tanyas. and aren't they pretty?! i love the colors in this photo too. i don't know who took it, so i'm sorry for not giving credit.



i received this lovely and unexpected postcard from mail artist frips. frips' cat disappeared for almost 8 months and then came back! here is a pic of the cutie after just having returned (from another blog of frips'). frips also sent me an add and pass little book. i'm looking forward to surprising someone with it and can't wait to get a copy of the book back when it's full.

i think if i was a postal carrier it would be so hard not to keep the beautiful mailart going around. at the very least, it would take me forever to deliver the mail cuz i'd have to appreciate the mailart before delivering it.

speaking of other jobs...i am so tired, in body and spirit, of sitting in front of a computer all day. it's time to find something else. it is so hard to leave the security/familiarity of my job, especially when i have no clear job destination in sight. keri frequently writes (in various ways) about not taking the safe route in life. god it's so hard to leave the safety. but the reasons to leave it just keep piling up, and i can't avoid them much longer. there are, and have been, good reasons to keep my current job. but at this point, the reasons to leave are outweighing the reasons to stay. when i think about leaving the security/familiarity, half of the time i feel like i can't breathe, and the other half i feel excited and restless.

friday links, flowers and words

crazy flowers from laurel

two of my favorite bloggers have some great recent posts.

i enjoyed keri's july 12th post true confessions (and trousers) and july 11th post new beginnings and
andrea's july 12th post about brave girl, cindy (beautiful!)

both keri and andrea are so honest and share so much in their blogs. beautiful artwork and words. their courage in blogging, but especially in life, is inspiring. i am frequently moved to tears (the happy, joyous, sometimes sad, but always life-appreciating kind) by andrea's stories.

for more flowers, go to Kim's blog

and for fun illustration found at mati's, go to sarajo frieden's site

take your pet to blog # 5

the pinky leon table inspection



cuteness and
more cuteness

self portrait tuesday: birthday # 32

I was going to wait until Thursday to post this, but Thursday is Take Your Pet to Blog Day, and this pic works better for Self Portrait Tuesday.

On Thursday I turn 32. When my mom turned 32, she was married, had a career and a 4 month old baby (me). It's strange to me that I'm now the age she was when I began to know her and she to know me. I can now say, I knew my mom when she was my age! And she's now twice my age, which she'll never be again. All this math to say I'm a bit weirded out thinking about the above. But it also makes me feel somehow closer to my mom (and behind in life milestones! though I TRY not to compare). It feels more like her birthday than mine for some reason (which I guess all my bdays are, as she's the one who did the birthing!) Here we are at 35 and 4. I hope we have at least another 32 years together.

On a materialistic note, things I want to get myself for my bday (or down the road):
*an old timey (i guess that goes without saying) typewriter
*the Griffin and Sabine trilogy (Have wanted this for over 10 years. It's about time!)
*a close up lens for my camera
*Jill Bliss native flower posters and cards

And this present, I know I'm getting from my friend/coworker frances. (She and I have the same bday, {happy bday in advance francipants!} so it's only appropriate that we get each other the exact same gift.)

view from my window and lolleyland

didn't want to make these pics small, so...two views from my window:
here is bernal hill, yellow, under a stormy sky.
here i'm spying on my neighbors. they look so SF hipster-y. i like her tatoos.

and one link found on fiftyfootgirl: Lolleyland. i dig her paintings and illustrations!

check out A Bird in the Hand's latest, beautiful bird box!

friday links

added some links to my links page (which is starting to get way too unwieldy!), including a friends' links section.

here are the friend links so far...

Oona - previously mentioned on blog
Heather D - hilarious elementary school friend who, with her partner, started Lesbian Pulp-O-Rama!
Lynn - friend from our disbanded book club, who is taking reading to the streets with her biz, Brown Bag Books

and here are some other links:

creature comforts - craft/design blog
kate larkworthy - represents some interesting artists
little by jenny - crafty shop - check out the felted bird brooches and flower hairpins
brendan monroe - art found through monstertown

book recommendation: Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver - very enjoyable characters and landscape

movie recommendation: Me and You and Everyone We Know - outstanding movie!!! by miranda july. go see it.

take your pet to blog #4 (a bit late)

pink paws


and another view of the cute paws
and birdwatching

fabric scraps swap anyone?

wondering if anyone is interested in participating in a fabric scraps swap?

i was thinking something like - you get 10 people to send to and receive from. and you'd send to each person:

*8-10 pieces of fabric that are either 4 x 4 in., 3 by 5 in., 4 x 5 in. or bigger
*10-20 pieces of any size scrap that's smaller than the above
*optional - any other additional scraps you want to send

if you're interested or have suggestions for different dimensions or whatever, send me a comment. if i get at least 9 responses, i'll organize this thing!

(taking a week off from self portrait tuesday)

THE SWAP IS NOW CLOSED.

Thanks for all of your interest! If you commented or emailed me and didn't hear back, please send me your email address again. Thanks!

monday off

zucchini-tomato-cheese-crustless-quiche-ish thing



flowers



more flowers



ok, so i'll start the blog break soon. soon.

funny bear

long-necked bear for my friend's 2 year old. i think i may need to get some animal patterns.

fun links found on ana ventura's blog:
camilla falsini - very funny illustrations
charlotta sandberg

i may be posting and blog surfing a bit less in the next few weeks as i'm having computering pain. maybe it will go away quickly (i hope!)