a p p a r e n t l y

One of my dream hobbies is reupholstery. Once, when I was a foolish young thing of 24, I dragged a loveseat in from the snow, tore off all the upholstery with a needle nose pliers and recovered it using a staple gun and judicious use of hot melt glue. I don’t think I would attempt such a project now (or at least not until I own an old farmhouse with a studio in the barn).

Susan Petersen bought a couch for $30, took an upholstery class, and turned an old textured sofa into a sleek modern beauty. Check out the time lapse before-and-after video (at the link below)!

Is it wrong that I liked the Before sofa, too?

Freshly Picked: Couch Before + After Reveal (Finally).

I plugged several different Apparently entries into I Write Like and learned that I write like Mark Twain, Cory Doctorow, Stephen King, Vladimir Nabokov, Arthur C. Clarke and DFW. But David Foster Wallace and Cory Doctorow were the only ones who popped up more than once. After a few tries, I was able to predict which entries would generate which of those two authors.

Then I plugged in three  samples from a novel I was writing ten years ago, and I was told I write like James Joyce, H.P. Lovecraft and DFW.

My emails are apparently reminiscent of Douglas Adams, Cory Doctorow and Stephen King.

I think a bunch of sci-fi geeks coded this app.

As a needlephobe, I have been waiting for this my entire life.

Vaccination Patch Could Make Immunizations Painless | Wired Science | Wired.com.

Sew, Mama, Sew!, one of my favorite blogs, likes this hat that I made with Kaffe Fassett Winding Floral fabric in Green. So many lovely things in this photo pool!

I had a respite from hats for a week or so, but several custom orders have come in this week and so it’s back to hats! (It’s fine; I love creating them.) The patchwork bucket to the left is for a little boy in my neighborhood. I didn’t meet him until I placed the finished hat on his head, and luckily it fit perfectly and looked cute!

A friend who loves bunnies made a comment on Facebook that I should make hats in a bunny toile print, and as I just happened to be visiting her last weekend, did I show up with one? Of course I did. (This was the mystery fabric acquired during my trip to Vermont.) I used Lotta Jansdotter’s hat pattern, which I should have remembered caused great problems the last time I sewed it; the crown ends up being far too high for the hat, which perches on top of the head like a lampshade anyway. So I trimmed it down a few (that’s right, a few) inches and it turned out quite cute! The lining is a dark brown with tiny cream polka dots. If you look at them very closely (in person, not in the picture – I would be very impressed if you could see them in this photo) you can see that the dots are actually tiny diamonds. I find them charming.

This morning I finished an Amy Butler Blue Sky hat for myself in Patty Young’s Luna Moth fabric. I trimmed the brim down by about 1.5″ so it wouldn’t be quite so sail-esque as the one I made last summer. I can’t wear that one, the prettiest hat I’ve ever made (Kokka cherry blossoms), because the wind lifts it from my head and blows it away! So I’ve lengthened the crown to make this one fit more snugly and shortened the brim. It does feel a tiny bit “wicked witch of the west,” but I always wanted to be her when I was a kid, so I’m okay with this look. Update: It’s just not working on me, so I’ve listed it in my Etsy shop!

After days of fiddling with the pattern, today I started a wide brim hat in Anna Griffin’s Isabelle Baroque Medal (the same fabric as this pincushion) for a lovely woman in the neighborhood, and tonight I cut the pieces for a patchwork hat for one of our friends “on the computer,” which will include bits of the Luna Moth because I just love it too much not to share every last piece.

Strangely, the selvedge of the Isabelle Baroque Medal fabric claims it is Le Poulet, which it is most definitely not. Have you ever seen a mismarked selvedge?

More pictures to follow…

The Etch a Sketch has been part of my consciousness for so long that I actually had a moment of “oh, right! you’re etching a sketch!” when I read this tribute on Wired’s blog.

One restaurant we visit keeps a couple of the small versions in house to occupy kids (and their grandfathers). Brilliance, I tell you.

via July 12, 1960: Etch a Sketch? Let Us Draw You a Picture | This Day In Tech | Wired.com.

All of the July cooking magazines are packed tightly with recipes for grilling, and as an urban apartment-dweller (that’s two posts in a row now where I have used this phrase, which must be a sign of something), I find these issues all but useless. Fortunately I have a friend who had the good sense to give birth recently, offering me a good excuse to plumb the depths of Epicurious for a new recipe. Or two.

Cassoulet might be an absurd thing to make when the temperature hits one hundred degrees, but this faux version, Easy Sausage and White Bean Cassoulet, was just mildly silly. It required only stovetop cooking, and not for long. I used sweet Italian sausage instead of spicy in the hopes that the bug would eat some. His tastes are varied, but he doesn’t like “spice.” I do have enough sense not to bring this very wintery dish to someone else’s home, however, and so it was both last night’s dinner and today’s lunch.

What I settled on to bring to my friend, and which is currently browning in the oven, is Smitten Kitchen’s cauliflower and caramelized onion tart. We bought an enormous and beautiful cauliflower at last week’s farmers market, and the lovely photographs on the recipe page drew me in. Perhaps she will report back on the results; I know I will, because I made two…

eta: The tart was delicious! If I make it again, I will roast the cauliflower longer, just to give it more color and depth. I’ll also caramelize the onions, which of course is part of the recipe, but in an effort to keep down the heat in the kitchen I substituted spring onions. I used the sour cream substitution for the mascarpone and half-and-half for the whipping cream, to cut down on fat. And I also added dried basil, grape tomatoes and a bit of salt, because eggs always need salt. The bug asked for “just a little piece” and deemed it “pretty good” but preferred raw broccoli.

NonPaperTowels from AthenaCreates

I’ve reposted items from Juniper Moon Farm more than once because Susan lives a fascinating life and I’d like to think that someday I will live in a home – a farmhouse, even – as lovely as hers.

Today while wiping up a toddler-activated spill I was thinking yet again about how many paper towels we use (fewer than most, but perhaps a dozen a day), and how I’d like to switch to a more environmentally-sound alternative. Then Susan posts about going paper-towel-free at her farm. It sounds straightfoward enough, and the non-paper-towels she uses are an excellent solution.

The dealbreaker, however, is that she has her own washing machine, and as urban apartment-dwellers, we do not. Is it possible to give up paper towels if your laundry gets washed every two weeks and you have a three year-old?

Going Paper Towel Free : Juniper Moon Farm.

My crafty little enterprise has gotten some attention online this week! First I was invited to participate in a curated collection of beach-themed items at Indie Artisans, where you’ll find some lovely paintings, clothes, jewelry and other handmade goods including my first hat for ladies.

And then I just received a note from Mary from LEFTZ, who let me know that my first pincushion-in-a-St-Marcellin-pot is featured in her Whimsical Wednesday: The Art of Sewing collection. I’m delighted to be in such good company, thank you!

UPDATE: Laura from CurryKayDesigns has featured my Blue Vines hat in a treasury of cool blue summer items. It’s a good week for Etsy!

A large number of views on my patchwork toddler hat lead me to gnaana, reflections on raising multicultural children. They have some lovely things, too – check them out!

Not surprising, but the Japanese serve far better school food than we do in the U.S. Blogger Christine is living in Japan and writes about her school- and hospital-food experiences on her blog, Origami Mommy. (She also has some sweet crafty tutorials.)

I had the distinct pleasure of giving birth in a Jewish hospital during Passover, which meant matzo cereal for breakfast. Fortunately it was in the East Village and Mr. Apparently was able to bring both a tuna sandwich and take-out sushi for the same meal. Is he a good man, or what?

Japanese school food – Origami Mommy

via Words to Eat By

Cheetos reference: Slow Food USA’s blog