Strawberries

It was a long, cold spring, but summer is finally here.  How do I know it?  How do I know it's not just another tantalizing start, followed by a week of drizzle?  Strawberries -- fragrant and juicy.  I'm bringing them in from the garden by the bucket-load.  I'm eating them for breakfast, lunch and supper.  It is, after all, the right of a gardener to gorge on whatever is in season.  In that vein, these are my FAVORITE FIVE for fresh strawberries:

1. Tossed with BALSAMIC VINEGAR.  It sounds strange, but just try it.
2. With WHIPPED CREAM.
3. Sliced over a bowl of homemade GRANOLA, topped with plain yogurt
4. In a SALAD with avocado, candied ginger, lime, juice and fresh cilantro.
5. Sun-warmed and STRAIGHT OFF THE PLANT.

How do you like your strawberries?

in bloom

A sampling from my flower garden.

invisible zipper

I've had hard time getting started on this recent sewing project.  It's a good thing the Cloth Castle is only a block away because I had to made two excursions for supplies and tools that I thought I had on hand.  This invisible zipper foot was the object of my second trip and I'm anxious to use it.  

On a side note:  It's amazing that I can still buy accessories to fit a machine that was built in the 1960's.

My project is a skirt -- just a basic pencil skirt -- something I can't believe I don't have.  I'm using a lovely grey wool-blend fabric with tan paisley print.  Stay tuned for a photo of the finished product.

playing with paint

This weekend I set up an easel in the dining room where the light is good and pressed my university lab coat  into service as a smock (science and art reconciled).  Creating should be fun, so I tied up my inner censor -- the one who says you can't copy a masterpiece -- and played.  Midnight blue.  Yellow light.  Streaks and swirls of colour.  Rhythm of light and night.  I had a wonderful time ripping off someone else's composition.  Do you recognize my inspiration?

These will hang in my office, which is desperately in need of colour.

Christmas tags

Sometimes I forget that simple things can be so beautifully -- simple.  That was certainly the case last weekend.  My mom and sisters came over and the four of us settled around my dining room table, littered with papers and tools, to make Christmas tags.  Inspiration did not come to me, so I punched holes and tied ribbons haphazardly, focusing more on the social than the creative aspect of the afternoon.   We talked and drank tea and munched on left-over pie crust that I had baked with cinnamon sugar.  When everyone left, I was surprised to find, lined up along the edge of the china cabinet, a row of pleasing Christmas tags.

The over-sized slit for threading the tags onto presents creates visual interest and offers new alternatives for incorporating pretty ribbons into the tag.  I also used old stickers and odd bits of paper, tied with ribbons to look like wrapped boxes.  Simple.

snow

The view out my window is green again -- green and grey-- but just a few days ago it was white.  I'm celebrating the ever-changing landscape with a few recent memories. These pictures were taken on a walk around the neighborhood.

cookie exchange

Cookie exchanges are more about friendship than baking -- that's what I told myself as I packaged up six dozen pieces of Apricot-Almond Biscotti that I would have preferred to keep.  With that in mind, I determined to beautify the mandatory freezer bags, making them more gift-like, with layers of blue and red papers and a sticker.  I scrawled the label with a bamboo quill and Prussian Blue drawing ink.