Housekeeping

I've been paging through these housekeeping books looking for schedules or forms to add to my planner. There's a chapter on canning in So You're Going to Get Married that reminds the reader to ignore snide comments like, "I thought Mr. Dole canned pineapple!" Whenever we are discussing making anything from scratch (mustard, bread starter, yogurt) I hear that voice.

Wishful sewing

The current Selvedge has an article on Alison Taylor's SULA clothes. I love this tunic. I love these pleated clothes by Issey Miyake and the many ways you can wear them. This is what I want to be able to sew.

Telegram to myself

For my daily calendar/project planner, I want to be able to send notes to my future self. The usual lessons learned/best practices lists hide in drawers and are never delivered in time to save Christmas or prevent a back-to-school mishap. I want a telegram with specific warnings or shopping lists to arrive two weeks before a holiday or deadline. I'm making a stack of telegram forms in my planner that can be written out and then filed in the correct week of the following year. I also need weekly reminders. These Arctic Rose nectarines were heaven. The pluots were so-so. Why didn't I buy eight more? I sampled them. I knew they were wonderful. On Thursday, buy way more nectarines than you think you need!

Blue blanket

I've settled on a stash buster blanket project using all the leftover blue I can find: pick two shades, cast on a lot of stitches and join in the round, knit a fair isle pattern or Kaffe pattern or some stripes with a few steak stitches until the yarn is used up. When I have enough rectangles to make a blanket, I'll lay them all out and join them with interesting little odd bits filling in the gaps. Nothing to get bored of, no leftover yarn bits. This is strictly a use what you have project.

The paper hearts are another stab at something I've been thinking about - newsprint templates as applique. I'm imaging a tshirt with a small newsprint fabric cutout heart embroidered right on the front. Imagine if some clipped bits were randomly sewn falling down the front of the shirt. I would leave the edges all raggedy. I can't find the right shape. This is haunting me because I recently bought the Alabama Stitches book and I'm seeing things differently. I like early American embroidery and fraktur decoration and I want to bedazzle it with beads and sequins.

Summer rental

Sometimes when we're not going anywhere, we pretend we're holiday renters in our house. It gets you thinking. The Summer appetizers in the July Martha are inspiring me to throw together elegant little hunter gatherer experiments - food jaunts. 

Summer reading stack

Sometimes when I am collecting my books from around the house I realize how well suited they are for each other. This week I will be known as Mustard-Maker. 

We have been talking about the history of keeping time and wondering if Summer lasts longer without a calendar. Our "sequence of nows" can be counted so many ways. I began with a draft for a daily planner but I am drawn to a weekly bead bracelet, like prayer beads, on which you keep track of all the "nows", or mornings you can read in bed, market days, afternoons when supper is early, evenings in the studio. 

What a nice way to capture a favorite week - and then walking to work, you reach into your pocket and begin counting the beads of "now": this was the morning we walked in the rain, this was the market beneath the tracks, this was the lunch chosen off the grill, this was the washing machine in the alley, this was the snow cone that saved our lives, this was the bridge we decided to cross. Next week I will be known as Vacation Bracelet-Maker.

Yakult Swallows beat the Lions!

We saw the Yakult Swallows beat the Lions at Jingu stadium. As the Japanball site explains, when the Swallows get a run, the fans open tiny umbrellas and sing a song so that the opposing pitcher knows it's time to hit the showers. At one point the game was tied and the Lions fans began a huge cheer and ran back and forth across their section across the stadium from us. Today's New York Times has a travel story on baseball in Japan. 

Quilted Sails in Tokyo Museum

The sails on this model ship at the Edo-Tokyo Museum would make a great quilt. They remind me of this Dolce & Gabbana bag I saw all over Tokyo and momi paper. I saw some women wearing cardigans that looked like momi paper. I still have this image of a waterproof nylon momi bag with some origami folds. My drawstring backpack made from a pair of jeans worked really well, but I had to wear it beneath my rain jacket. The next version is going to be pieced from scraps with more thought given to interior pockets.

Kawai Kanjiro's house in Kyoto

This beautiful old wooden house belonged to the potter and sculptor Kawai Kanjiro. You naturally whisper here. This is the most wonderful place that we visited in Kyoto. We bumped into the Art Deco Nintendo building on the way, and got lost in an alleyway lined with diminutive mint green washing machines. Afterwards we walked through a cemetery that quietly led to the Kiyomizu Temple side entrance and then out the back gate to hike in the hills. Even in June, there are ways to navigate the city so that you feel you are among dozens of tourists, not thousands.

Japan at my feet

We did not have enough time in Japan. We should still be in Japan. While traveling I was forced to rig up a portable runcible bin using a discarded raku cooking pot and an electronic converter I found in Akihabara. I filled it with temple stamps, moss, little music boxes that play the Yamanote station tunes, green tea caramels, incense, slippers, books and magazines. I'll post ideas as I unpack them.

Drawstring bag

I am working on a drawstring backpack for Japan from Lexie Barnes's Sew What! Bags. I did not find the crinkled waterproof silk I have in my mind, but I did find some waterproof gray linen and some glittery white linen for the lining.  I used a seam tape maker to fold strips into drawstrings. I look forward to blogging about Japan when we return in July. Enjoy Summer!

1919 Kimono Waist

I've been practicing this pattern from Decades of Style. They have the most wonderful patterns from the 1920s-1950s. I am beginning a series of kimono waists in shirting fabrics and hopefully flea market remnants - wouldn't a Vera Neumann scarf be great as the front piece, or one of those huge mod ones as the shoulder/back piece? Next up is kitchenette pajamas.

Mr. Boy

The Summer Twist Collective is up and Cristina contributed a wonderful rib sweater named Mr. Boy. Last Summer I knit one in sport weight Rowan Denim for my nephew. The saddle shoulders are very becoming on everyone and the pattern is very adaptable. I made one for myself in a simple rib in Cascade 220. I think I will make a denim version for myself, maybe playing with those ribs for a smocking effect...

Kimono robe

It turned out just as I hoped - and I mean turned out literally because I used an old Threads issue on linings with directions for sewing the lining to the fabric and then performing Houdini contortions (on the robe) to turn it out properly! I still need to sew along the edges and make some kind of loop inside the neck. The photo is taken in our former dining room which we now refer to as the Japan Room. Inspired by our school's Around the World Week, we removed most of the furniture and brought out all our gifts from Japan. We also have a map, library books, and origami paper. 

Kimono robe

This is the Nani Iro fabric from way back that became a bedspread and is now a little bathrobe. I lined it with terrycloth and it is divine. I will post finished picture this week. I saw Super Eggplant has this fabric pattern in a stretch knit in red and white. I can see the danger of going all "Nani Iro" in Japan and coming back with suitcases of gorgeous fabric. I've been wanting to make some little sundress tunic things to wear over jeans with a little cardigan and this Heather Ross pattern is perfect - I have the Nani Iro fabric she is wearing!

Rhubarb magnificents

Mr Lear came back from the market Saturday with armloads of rhubarb - an armload for the sorbet, an armload for the crisp, and this armload for the compote - all courtesy Mr. Lebovitz. It was the edge of a leftover ricotta orange pancake dipped in the remains of the rhubarb crisp that inspired magnificents - it was like suddenly thinking things and being able to speak them in Hungarian - crusty, moist, both sweet and sour with salt and wine and spring. 

Daniel Carasso's Yogurt

Daniel Carasso's obituary in Saturday's Financial Times inspired me to make yogurt again. Sometimes I stumble on tradition. I am so wound up on re-creating that I stop enjoying. A few Summers ago I read about the carbonated fruit flavored tea drinks on the menu at Mariage Freres in Paris. The article was similar to this post at TeaMuse by Karen Burns, "France has never been a big tea-drinking country...this is an advantage because the French never developed fixed traditions regarding tea, and so they're open to new flavors, new blends, and new varieties."

The Mariage Freres web site explains, "Day after day, we ask ourselves what tomorrow's tea should be like. So in the field we constantly seek the most delicate harvests, while in the lab we devise the most expressive blends."

I'm going to adapt David Lebovitz's Lavender-Honey ice cream into a Fage Greek style homemade yogurt. "Day after day, I am going to ask myself what tomorrow's creations should be like. So in the marketplace I will constantly seek the most delicate harvests, while in the kitchen I will devise the most expressive blends."

Books for Japan

I'm hunting down children's books set in Japan and looking for some historical fiction for myself. I also want to make a fantastic daybag that is part How to Wrap Five Eggs and part waterproof nylon that looks like antique silk. I'm reading Write It Down, Make It Happen and I realize that many of my projects come to life because I write them down here first!

Ceramic bottles

More images from the Mingei book - these ceramic bottles would be lovely in the kitchen with cork tops. I would glaze the inside and use it for meyer lemon concentrate - which tastes incredible chilled in tiny tea cups!

Mingei

A friend lent me this fantastic book of Japanese folk crafts. The Japan Folk Crafts Museum in Tokyo was founded in 1926 by Soetsu Yanagi to preserve the everyday handmade, functional objects being replaced by factories. The textiles are mostly kimonos made from indigo dyed cotton, linen and hemp.  

This next photo is not a kimono, but a kimono comforter! A cotton quilt in the shape of a kimono. The caption reads, "Wrapped securely in symbols of good fortune, wearers could drift off to sleep peacefully." 

>This fireman's coat has resist indigo water waves across the back...


...and embroidery on the sleeves.

Poffertjes grows

I'm adding the diamonds and connecting the circles in the Poffertjes pattern. The Alchemy Synchronicity is so beautiful that I don't want to add anymore circles in anything else. I'll border this piece with panels - a pillow? a wall hanging above the bed? a blanket? a table runner?

Fire everything!

The new Star Trek movie is great. This is the Sonia Delauney quilt I'm thinking about emulating with some machine washable fabrics. 

Mustard

I am going to make fancy mustards and can them for gifts. This is white wine and sage with honey 1.0. I cooked it too long. The next batch will be lighter, smoother, and I'll make a porcelain mustard spoon! Maybe it will look like a sage leaf.

Knitted quilt pillows

This is the blanket pattern from Holiday Handknits made of garter stitch diamonds sewn into squares. The yarn is all leftovers. I don't love it enough to commit to a blanket. This is a very large swatch - a pillow. I think the final blanket will end up being a central 36" square pattern from the Sonia Delauney book bordered by huge plain panels of garter stitch like an Amish quilt. 

Poffertjes blanket

I found a skein of gold Alchemy Synchronicity in my closet and managed to eek out 4 Poffertjes circles. I have another skein in a bronze color. Perhaps this will become a large reading pillow instead of a queensize blanket. I like tweedy wools next to the silks.