
i had such a lovely three-day weekend. I rediscovered the joy of sleeping in, of another cup of coffee, of long sits by sunny windows and bits of exploring the neighborhood. but mostly i just recharged, and it was
so nice.
i treated myself friday to catching up with the
blogs of
some of my
favorite crafty women, and emerged from a long read with my mind humming with inspiration. i had been feeling for a long time a little blah in the sewing department... there was hand-sewing, yes, while i traveled and on the train, but it had been months-- pre-finals!-- since anything more exciting than a dish towel had come off of my sewing machine. (granted, it was a nice dish towel. but still.) seeing everyone's projects was just the motivation i needed to pull some fabrics off the shelf and get to work. and once i started, the energy just seemed to feed itself, and hours slipped by in that really good way that they do when you are consumed with something delightful. first up was a new bag, because it's summer. and i'd been eyeing
amy karol's pleated bag pattern (in her book, bend-the-rules sewing) for absolutely ages. i bought this nani iro linen in tokyo, in the fabric district, and i couldn't bear to cut into it to do the contrast-color insets that the pattern calls for, but i think another one of these bags is in my future. so we'll see. also, the
flickr set for this book is a-ma-zing.

the bag came together on friday and then came out with me for a long, sunny, sticky 4th of july walk around brooklyn, to fort greene for the
brooklyn flea, where i ate pupusas with pickled cabbage and washed it down with a strawberry-rhubarb ice pop. this will not be the last ice pop of my summer, i am sure.

there was also the beginnings of a quilt, inspired quite directly by the beautiful work of erin + tracy. i had been making a quite different, really simple row-patched quilt, and i was stalled on it, in part because it was a bit boring. i took the strips i had pieced and sliced them randomly into bits, threw those bits together with a giant bag of scraps on my sewing table, and started pulling. and i am enjoying that so so much.

and a new pillow cover, a simple little cotton one, again with fabric brought back from tokyo. i love that sweet linen print.

and the other has been finished for awhile, but i haven't shown you yet-- an alabama reverse-applique hand-stitched jersey cover, stitched on planes and in buses through india and nepal. sewn together on the train and in long meetings, and now providing a very soft cozy spot for an afternoon nap.

a new bedroom curtain is cut out and halfway stitched. and another quilt is brewing. i caught up on npr, and jon stewart and steven colbert. i made yogurt in the crockpot. (that's my homemade yogurt in the top photo, with e's muesli and blueberries, on my makeshift breakfast table ;) ) and last night, a rhubarb oat walnut crumble, from my new favorite
cookbook. (thank you for the rec,
shari +
melissa!) i even got a lot of work done, and now my interview notes from nepal are all typed up! wishing every weekend was 3 days long, and very much loving summer.