• gathered clutch tutorial

• I’m in love with elastic thread. This is great way to use it. summer ruffle scarf tutorial

• pleated pouch tutorial

*I was spoiled for mothers day with a new iPad, so I spent this afternoon sewing it a new sleeve. (I’m posting this from the iPad!)

(pardon the cell quality pic.)

It’s not perfect but I’m happy with it!

*I guess it’s obvious that I’m in a sewing mood which is good because we are having a big party at Tangle on Friday to launch our sewing classes. Everyone is invited, 7-9pm.

At Tangle, we’ve spent the last two months working on a project that we unveiled this weekend. Here’s a small preview of our project.

Knit on the Corner

maaaaany more photos to come

Three Dogs

Three dogs
Three names
Three breed
Three beds
One runs
One climbs
One jumps
Three dogs…
One Dies
One goes
One stays.
One dog
I miss the other two.

Last week my friend Amy and I got together, with the help of her cousin Sarah, to make Strawberry Rhubarb jam. Amy and I are known to go a teeny bit overboard when it comes to canning (like the cherry jalapeno jam making of ’09) and this time wasn’t any different. It started with Amy growing copious amounts of rhubarb in her garden. Thinking that strawberry rhubarb jam was the way to go, I got a rain check for $1/lb strawberries at the grocery store the other day when they were on sale. So last Thursday, I loaded up a grocery cart with 20lbs of strawberries and headed over to Amys. I lost count of how many jars of jam we made, but I think we all will be set for awhile. Here’s the recipe:

Strawberry Rhubarb Jam
makes about six 1/2 pints

2 cups strawberries, mashed
2 cups rhubarb, chopped
5 cups sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 package pectin

Bring the fruit, lemon juice and pectin to a boil. Add the sugar and return to a hard boil and boil for 1 minute. Ladle into warm, sterilized jars leaving 1/4″ headspace. Cover with two part lids (boil the flats before using to sterilize and soften the seal) and turn upside down for 10 minutes. Turn the jars right side up and wait for them to seal. Process in a water bath for 10 minutes. (We now water bath everything.) Enjoy!

(The recipe says to give the jars a water bath for 10 minutes but we have great success with just turning the jars upside down to get them to seal.)

Thanks to Sarah for the pictures.

Monday: Asian Chicken noodle soup
Tuesday: potstickers w/ watercress salad
Wednesday: PT conferences so we’ll eat at our favorite Chinese restaurant close to the school.
Thursday: Hamburgers – Jim
Friday: Jim is playing a show in Rangely, I am speaking at the artist’s reception for the Art and Jazz Festival.
Saturday: Caleb’s birthday party
Sunday: fish tacos

•paper piecing string quilt tutorial – LOVE.

•homemade pop tart recipe

•how to compost at home (I’ve decided it’s time to start a compost bin.)

•I am in love with this shower curtain. If I didn’t already love my white terry cloth curtain (and know that Jim would HATE the girliness of this one for our ONLY bathroom) I’d order it.

•Ever since we started carrying Anna Maria Horner fabric at Tangle, I’ve been obsessed with her blog. I love that she has 6 kids, runs an amazing creative business and seems quite sane. She has to be my favorite fabric designer for the moment.

•Speaking of fabric, did I tell you that Tangle is teaching sewing classes now? I’m not teaching them – we hired a pair of amazing seamstresses to teach – but I sure do plan on taking them.

•I think Carrington and I need to make a batch of homemade deodorant.

•Today we are working on raising the bed of my garden. Normally we would have our garden planted, but it spent the later part of last week spitting snow… it’s been such a weird winter/spring for us here in the desert of Colorado. Hopefully we can plant next weekend. I think I’m going to simplify and just go with tomatoes, peppers and maybe green beans. I don’t have a very big space to plant all the things I’d like to preserve for the winter, so I’m just gonna go for a salsa garden and rely on the farmers market for my pantry.

Menu week of April 26 2010

Originally uploaded by pretendingsanity

Monday: thai chicken & noodle salad
Tuesday: spaghetti with Italian turkey sausages (jim)
Wednesday: Jim’s 35th birthday – out
Thursday: arugula with roasted salmon and potatoes
Friday: pineapple crackers CD release party @ Mesa theater (so probably whatever we can grab)
Saturday: chef salad
Subday: chicken veracruzano

My friend Carrington requested that I write deeper thoughts on this here blog of mine. It’s funny she says that because I’ve had a lot of “deeper thoughts” lately but have had a hard time putting them to words… and a hard time being willing to share them with the world. But as I change… grow… become a real live adult, I find it really important to be frank about my process and really important to look at every aspect of myself, not just the good parts I’m comfortable with the world seeing.

A very dear friend recently experienced a huge tragedy. Living with her in it has caused me to realize a few things.
1. Life is really messy. We all have brokenness, we all live through tragedies – over and over. There is never going to be a point in our lives where we have it all together. And if we do manage to achieve that point, it will last for about 4 seconds.

In crisis we need community. We need to be safe and loved and have people that will never abandon us. Sometimes we just need to sit with each other in our messes. And even if we are deeply flawed (just like everyone else) we are still capable of using our brokenness to shine on somebody else. (I think it’s vitally important to give of ourselves, even when we are feeling like we have nothing to give. We gain perspective into our own lives when we see others lives in pieces. Perspective is very important.)

2. God is real. I am finally learning to trust him and trust that he is only good. Even if I can’t always see his big picture. Maybe more on this another time. But I would have to recommend a book by Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. This irreverent look at the “big picture” and God’s story for our lives has been one of the most life-changing books I’ve ever read. As soon as I finished it, I had to immediately re-read it.

3. While I have never thought this about myself, I am actually an eternal optimist. Or maybe I have turned into one. Hope is something that I can’t let go of. Something SO powerful that gets us through impossibilities. There is something amazing about waking up in the morning to a new day where anything can happen and life can surprise you. There is something about knowing that the horrific moment you are living will soon be the past and you will look upon it and realize it is over and you lived though it and you are so strong and you can live through anything. There is something about knowing the crisis you are experiencing is making you the person you were designed to be and that when you come out the other side of it you will be thankful for it (if only a teeny bit) because it opened your eyes and shook up your world and life can never be the same again.
This is usually hard to see in the midst of tragedy, but it is true.

Here are a few things I’ve been working on lately.

Flannel baby blankets. I made two sets of these for my sisters twins and one for my friend Sarah. Simple instructions are on the Tangle blog.

Here is Silas sleeping with his.

Baby sweater. I made this one for my friend Amy’s new baby, Charlie. Tangle recently got in a new yarn, Hap’i from Mirasol. I love this yarn! The colors are so bright and cheerful and all of them coordinate in such fun ways. It’s 100% thick/thin cotton and the gauge was perfect for the Knitting Pure and Simple baby pullover pattern (#214). Whenever I make this pattern, I always lengthen the body and sleeves because the patterns are written wide. I figure if I lengthen it, the baby can get more wear out of it.

And a set of pillowcases. I made these for my friend Danielle. The fabric is Amy Butler’s Love and I’m so excited that pillowcases will be the project for Tangle’s brand new sewing classes! (I am SO excited! We’ve hired some amazing sewing teachers to teach all the fun and modern patterns the local fabric stores don’t seem to be interested in.)