Last Days of Harvest

The farmers are nearly done with harvest, the kids are back in school, and I have a substantial number of words written in my newest manuscript (Young Adult Science Fiction? I must be INSANE because no one writes these anymore, but oh well… Sometimes, you just have to follow your muse). Oh, yeah…and I FINALLY have some NEW ITEMS in the shop for you. More to come over the next few days and weeks.

Meet Lizzie. Remember her? She’s my baby, only three years old, and she started preschool yesterday. Granted, she only goes to class two days a week, but this is life-altering stuff for me. I’ve been at home with at least one child clinging to my legs for the last six years. I feel just plain odd without Lizzie bringing me her Ariel doll every few minutes for a quick wardrobe change.

But, here we are! Finally, I have new items up in the shop, and my new manuscript looks like a book when I print it off, and my pantry is slowly filling up with jars of apple butter and pre-cooked beans.

Seriously, canned beans are saving my budget! I prefer to cook my own beans because I dislike the tin taste to store-bought beans. Problem: who the heck has time to cook those beans for non bean-centric meals? And what do you do with the leftovers?

I know lots of people prefer to freeze their leftovers, but I don’t own a microwave, so thawing is an issue. A year ago, I started cooking my beans and then pressure canning them in batches of 4-8 at a time. One pound bag of beans yields four pint jars. Soak beans overnight, cook for half an hour, then hot pack in jars. Process in pressure canner for 70 minutes at 11 pounds of pressure. Easy.

My mom just bought me a smaller pressure cooker…one that actually fits on my stove, which means I can cook the beans at home instead of running next door to use the church’s kitchen. Yes, I’m happy about that.

Chili night! With Cornbread! And chocolate chip cookies made with weevil-free flour! What are you having for dinner? Are you ready for Fall foods as well?

Home again, Home again, Jiggity Jig…

Ok, so I lied. The end of July was pretty busy while I sewed cloaks and prepared my little family for its first camping expedition. Then came the camping. Then came the rest of my vacation. And before the camping, we learned that a friend of ours was murdered, so there was that as well. And I was sick. End result: I lost August. And you know what? Good riddance! August was terrible. Naughty, bad, bad August!

But, hurrah for September! I love September. Emilie begins school tomorrow, it’s again cool enough to garden, and I get to kick around in my boots again. Gotta love kicking around in your favorite boots, right?

Emilie begged me all of last year to make her lunches. Now, when I was a kid, the cool kids all got hot lunch, so I didn’t get it. But, I’ve changed my tune. She told me what she expects from a lunch: sandwich, fruit, a drink, and a treat. Sounds pretty reasonable. So, we’re going to bake cookies (or something) every week to put in her lunches… Up tonight: oatmeal raisin bars.

But…er. There were WEEVILS IN THE FLOUR! Big ew. Thankfully, they are not in the tin we keep on the counter, so we were still able to make cookies. But, y’know. Pretty gross.

Daleks and Wide Open Spaces

Summers tend to be crazy around here. On top of the usual writing and designing routine, I garden, help run VBS at our church, and do my best to drag the girls to see all of their relatives. We’ve already been out to Montana, have entertained family here at home, and have three more trips scheduled for the future. Lots of driving through wide open spaces.

Oh, and then I got hooked on a very old obsession of mine. Have I mentioned that I write fiction? Specifically, I write YA Fantasy, and recently got back into writing YA Science Fiction. So, on to the obsession. When I was a child, I was obsessed with Doctor Who. I didn’t have much chance to watch the new incarnations of the Doctor, but Netflix and several long weeks of studio time helped me to catch up. Oh, the doctor! Especially this newest doctor (Eleven, if you’re a fan and keep track of his incarnations). So adorable. And BOW TIES!!! As the doctor says, “Bow ties are cool.”

So, I decided to launch a second shop for selling bow ties because, once I made one, I had to make a dozen. I’m still figuring out closures and getting the details right, but I’m very VERY excited about these. *fans self* Bow ties aren’t just cool. They’re hot!

Writing-wise, I had to pause book #5 so that I could research mysteries and figure out what form to use to structure the plot. So I went back to the first book I ever wrote (18 years ago) and decided to rewrite it from scratch. It’s going really, really well. Five days and 5,000 words. Can’t get much better than that!

Oh, and my daughters are as obsessed with the new Doctor Who as I am. My three year old calls Doctor Eleven “The funny doctor,” which is about the highest compliment she knows how to give, but her favorite characters are the Daleks. We like to watch youtube fanvideos when we need to pass a few minutes here and there, but couldn’t find a single amusing dalek video. Travesty! So I edited my first video. Ever.

And that catches you up on me. I’m back now. Soon to come: bow-ties, skirts, and the first samples from my Fall collection.

Enjoy!

Aja! Jenn, Fighting!

This has to be the silliest thing I’ve ever made, but I love it! This wall hanging is a graduation gift for the girl I spent the last few months working with. She designed and made her graduation dress – I helped coach her along the way. It was great fun for me because I got to get out of the house and chat with one of the few souls in town who knows how utterly awesome Korean dramas are.

No, really. They are!

“Aja!” is a word of encouragement. It means “fighting!” (I think), and it’s about gathering up your fighting spirit in order to attack the task ahead. We say it in the house (the girls and I) when we need to attack the weeds, the laundry, not peeing the bed at night, or fear of the dark. I tell my youngest, “Aja! Lizzie, fighting!” And she tells me, “Aja, Mama! You can fold that laundry.”

Anyhow, K knows all about “Aja!” and it just seemed a very appropriate graduation gift. The transition between home and Beyond is thrilling and scary at once: definitely the right time to call on one’s fighting spirit!

Might have to make one of these for myself.

Sneak Peek!

Seersucker, pinstripes, and a dab of ric-rack. I’m just working on a shorter one for narrower hips (baby size) before I load this one in the shop. I’m offering them by length rather than size, excepting the under 2T versions. The elastic will be set according to the child. I’m really excited about this one, and so is Lizzie! So twirly!

Time to get the studio ready for the next project: finishing a graduation dress with the HS student who designed it. We’ve been working on this project weekly for a couple months. It’s so fun to see how it turned out!

Missing the Beach

Until three years ago, I spent my entire life within an hour (sometimes less) of the beach. I didn’t miss the beach the first summer, or the second summer, or even the third summer. Today? I would love to go agate hunting, or go climb rocks in search of tidepools in the Sound. I even miss the smell of rotting seaweed along the beaches in Birch Bay. Well, maybe I don’t miss Birch Bay and the flies and yellow jackets swarming on the drifts of rotting seaweed, but I miss the rest of it!

Usually, when I write, I have a lime green polka-dotted mug that I drink coffee from, but I’ve switched cups. This one just arrived from Anthropologie. I have a very similar teapot given to me by three of my closest friends almost a decade ago. Who knew that, one day, I would have a cup to go with it? I think this is a very appropriate vessel shift as the hero in the new book is, like me, a coastal dweller who is forced to live inland. I need my little reminder of home. I wonder what object he keeps close – should figure that out.

I love the inscription in the bowl of the cup because it reminds me of every ballad about the ocean twining some sailor/whaler/explorer/press-ganged gentleman from his sweetheart. I used to love the sailor and his sweetheart songs: Dark-Eyed Sailor, My Johnny Was a Shoemaker, Peggy-O (sort of), Farewell to Tarwathie, Lowlands of Holland (Australia), Lady Franklin’s Lament…I could go on and on. Love, love, love them.

The downside of the inscription: a touch of poor grammar. The words should read “my love and me,” but I think I’ll overlook this. Let this little slip-up remind me to avoid passive voice and ending sentences with prepositions.

Moose Sighting!

This is not what you expect to see out your kitchen window. It was hauling between my house and the neighbor’s abode, so I dried my hands on my sweater as I dove for the camera and told the girls to go look out the back window.

Somehow, I only see these beasts when they’re dropping the velvet off their antlers (disgusting, fyi), or when they’re losing their winter coats. Also, seeing a moose in town is completely different from seeing that same moose blocking your path on a mountain trail while a dangerous Montana lightning storm has your hiking mate quaking in his boots. A moose is an unpredictable creature. He/she could leave you alone, or attack. A moose between you and home = a bit scary. A moose reclining in the grass under your laundry line = so cute! (Even if he is ugly as sin) If you zoom in, you can see his little antler buds.

I had other things I wanted to blog about today, but they’ll have to wait. Time to get my little monkeys on the bedtime train!

Granny Squares, Decisions, and Vows

This week, I decided to close my shop, and then decided that I couldn’t live with that decision. So, the shop is not closing. I will, however, cease to take custom orders.

Why? Though there are a few smallish fabric stores locally, none of these are equipped to supply the many, varied requests I received. The nearest fabric mecca is Spokane, which is about an hour away from town. I spent, at the minimum, about 10 hours driving last week, and this does not count the drive to Seattle with my daughter. Yipes! My family subsisted on pizza. My current novel sat untouched. Meanwhile, I was buzzing around like a giddy, happy little bee because I love tasks and activity…until Monday afternoon, when I realized that there wasn’t a crumb of food in the house, and that I hadn’t played with my kids for a week. And, oh boy. When a writer doesn’t write, look out!

So much for balance, right?

So, Monday, I cried and decided that I had to close the store – I just couldn’t see around it. I started crocheting granny squares like a madwoman, though, because I have this freakish condition where I’m unable to be idle. Tuesday: I felt good about the decision. I played games with my youngest daughter. I was utterly relaxed when i went up to the high school to teach (I’ve been teaching an independent study class for a senior up there – she’s designing her graduation dress, and is almost done!). I wrote and wrote and wrote. I cleaned the house…

By the end of the day, life was caught up, and…quite dull. But I spent time with my kids, weeded the raised garden beds, and I wrote, so that counted for something. I felt sadness whenever a design idea popped into my head, but I tried to squash the sadness with activity. More grannies! Color! Happy music!

Wednesday, I was very vocal about closing stuff down. It sounded a little TOO vocal to me, but I couldn’t deny that my kids were more important than the business, right? I said that so, so many times…

Thursday, I was grumpy. Sad. Irritable. I reasoned that I was just grieving. I wrote, cleaned, and watched Korean Dramas, because that’s what I do when I’m stressed out.

This morning, I woke up and said this whole quitting the store thing is silly. It makes more sense to just quit the custom stuff and see how that goes! I HAVE to write. Now, I know that I must design as well. My friends seemed to know it better than I did (you smarty pants people, you!). Yay for life lessons!

So, there we are. I’m back to that modern struggle to balance life. If you happen to see me online between 8 am and 12 pm, tell me to get back to writing. If you see me online between 1 and 4, tell me to go back to the studio. Honestly, if I’m taking a break, I should dress up dollies and play dominoes with my girls, eh? I think so.

How the heck do y’all balance everything?

Gardens and Attempts to Relax

I really try to take one day off a week. Because life is unpredictable, this day is never the same from week to week. This week: it’s today.

I totally stink at taking days off! So far, I have folded the laundry, weeded the winter garden bed, and sewed up something new for the shop. Just sitting here, I feel twitchy and nervous and slightly suspicious that I might be breaking some unwritten law because I’m sitting on my back pockets.

This year, I got the winter garden planted in time! I’m so excited to have turnips, radish, bok choi, and spinach some a couple weeks from now. Just as planned, I will literally be harvesting (some of) these crops as I plant the summer seeds. I feel like I’m finally in rhythm with the Eastern Washington landscape. I need to find some good local sources for the plants I buy half-begun – tomatoes, peppers, etc. The growing season isn’t quite long enough to start these plants from seed, and I routinely kill my indoor starts. Did so again this year.

But I did find time to have some fun with my baby. Lizzie and I set up a little photo shoot to take pictures of this little red dog. Isn’t he a cutie? My great-grandmother made literally hundreds of these guys when she was alive. Dogs and giraffes. I want my husband to build a little shelf in my studio where they can live. This particular guy is Lizzie’s. Today, his name is Fritz. Who knows what his name will be tomorrow… Lizzie and I will have many, similar photo shoots in the future. I thought it’d be hilarious for the girls to make scrapbooks for their “babies.”

Singing Sea Shanties in the Dark

It’s late at night, but I’m still awake and still spinning Sea Shanties, that peculiar type of folk music I need to listen to when the sun is out and the air is crisp. For those of you who might not know what a sea shanty is, I’ll point you to the greatest shanty singers ever, The Starboard List. My sunny, magical childhood had these salty-voiced men singing in the background. (Whup Jamboree is my current favorite.)

Why was I in the mood? I finished putting the snaps on this sweet little shirt today.

I am so in love with this little shirt (and the girl wearing it!). We tried something a little different with the pictures this time – set up our own little studio. I stacked our dining room chairs on top of our coffee table, and then draped the chairs with a white sheet. Voila! Next time, I’ll have to take pictures of what it “really” looked like – do you think I can photoshop out the couch piled with laundry?

I still have a long way to go with my photos, but they’re improving! I kinda like the wrinkled sheet thing, and Lizzie’s chipped nail-polish. But, these are the things I’m drawn to: the imperfections that make things fun. Like the salty voices of those sea dogs. They’ve got soul, and they’re full of fun. And, sheesh. Lizzie can’t keep nail polish pretty on her fingers! As it is, we covered a truly awful haircut (given by Miss Pickle Pie to her royal pickleness) with a red headband. I told her that Snow White wears a red headband. (She totally bought it!)

tomorrow is supposed to be another beautiful day. Hopefully, I can get out of the studio long enough to dead-head the spring bulbs and prep the summer vegetable bed. I’m ready for warm weather!