cheery flowers

I needed a little cheering up yesterday, so I treated myself to some ruffle-y ranunculus, seeded eucalyptus, and two kinds of daffodils. It seems so simple, but flowers really do help. And I've been really into all the different types of eucalyptus, I have three here now. Hopefully they will show up in some designs soon!

the handmade artist

I blogged about my new designs over at the Poppytalk Handmade Artist. Check it out, it's a great way to get the inside scoop on the latest from this very talented group!

new in the shop

A new line of designs that combine block printing with embroidery. I've been wanting to integrate the poppies with some of my simpler block printed designs for a while now. I did a little bit of it with the maple seed pod quilt, but I wanted to take it a step further. I had done a bunch of one of a kind embroidered pillows a few years ago and they were very well received, but I wanted to make something that was a little bit better suited to multiples. These are the first batch of them, there will be more styles coming in the next few months.

Another area I've wanted to explore is art (I'm not really sure how to describe these, the word "art" is not very descriptive). Personally I'm very much into beautiful and useful items, but we've been doing a bit of nesting and so I've been thinking a lot about hanging and arranging art and photographs, and thus these were born. They will be in the shop shortly.

quilt in progress

A new quilt I've been working on. You can see the turquoise obsession continues. I really enjoy hand quilting, but I really need to look into machine quilting so that some quilts are a bit more accessible. 

And Happy Spring!

*blushing*

Two beautiful front pages this week. Loving all the turquoise.

poppytalk favs

Procrastinating and browsing the new Poppytalk Handmade Market. You can see the jewelweeds gallery here.

May Day Studio

Inleaf Design

Cynthia Callan

Swizzlet

Resurrection Fern

Beehive Kitchenware

Can you tell I'm really ready for spring to arrive? 

wallpaper and pirate dogs

I spend a few days last week at my parents' house readying their bathroom for new wallpaper and taking care of their dog, Casper who has a broken leg and subsequently diagnosed with bone cancer. He's doing well, he just needed to have a little bit of company while my parents were at work during the day.

As much as I hated the process of stripping the old wallpaper, there is something beautiful about the patched wall underneath. My father would probably disagree, (plaster walls in old houses are a beast to care for and repair, hence the wallpaper) but I like seeing the history preserved in the walls.

The birds there are very well fed.

The pirate dog himself. He really didn't want his picture taken (too busy barking at cars, pedestrians, air) but I snuck this one. The reason he is a pirate dog is because his lost an eye a few years ago to glaucoma and now with the broken leg, he has a peg leg of sorts. We really wanted to get him an eye patch and hat, but he has little patience for that. (It might have something to do with my sister dressing him up as a soccer mom when back in the day....don't ask, there is really no explanation.)

Poppytalk Handmade!

Starting tomorrow morning, you can find Jewelweeds in the Poppytalk Handmade Market!

a few new things

new designs and colorways now in the shop. more coming soon!

I am loving having an extra hour of day light. It just changes everything, spring is finally on it's way.

front page

I love that everything was found using using the search term "seed pod."

wrappings

bagels

Some bagels I made last night. From this book. (I know everyone has raved about this for a while now, but it really truly is awesome and life changing, it's all about the simple pleasures these days.) This was my second try and much better. The first tasted good, but were not nearly as good looking. I think I figured out where I went wrong. Don't poke the holes until after they've risen and boil them in a pot not in deep saute pan. Also it didn't hurt that I finally bought a pizza peel so now bread and pizza in our house will have a nice crispy underside. I went a little nuts with the bread baking last month and bought a 25 lb. bag of flour from King Arthur so there might be quite a few carbohydrate based posts around these parts. I've got the beginnings of whole wheat sandwich bread in the fridge now.