Weekend Treasures

Last weekend we went camping upstate and floated down the Delaware River--it was so much fun, but the best part were the junk store and yard sales we stopped at on the way home--

There was a store where the house and entire front yard was literally filled with all kinds of old things.  I bought a blue ball jar (with a glass lid!) and a turkish coffee pot for $3 total.  I should have bought more things.

But then we stopped at a yard sale that had a great book collection.  I was very excited to find the weaving instruction book, but then I saw the Meret Oppenheim book.  This is the most information I've ever seen about her in one place; even her wikipedia article is only a couple of paragraphs long.  The book was put together for a traveling retrospective in the 90's.

The Weaving book is great--but the art book is amazing!  Just look at the cover!
Below are some photographs of the inside of the book.  You can clock on them to see them larger.

"Strangling Angel" 1931 and "For Irene Zurkinden" 1932
I love the plate of food and the pear with bacon--And the angel?  There are ladies feet behind her, and I love that the pine trees are growing out of her wings.  And what's with the baby?

"The Couple" 1956 and "Summer Night" 1957
The Shoes are attached at the toes. I really love this piece.

"Pair of Gloves" 1985

She made this piece the year she died; she was 72.  This piece is my favorite.  The gloves are blue suede with red stitching on the bottom and painted veins as they get smaller. Brilliant.

Of course, you couldn't have a Meret Oppenheim book without the Fur Cup.  But I had never seen the other piece: "My Nurse" 1936.  She was so good.  I'm sad that I missed the Exhibition by about 15 years.

Crochet Necklaces

Some new necklaces we've been working on. . . These will be in the shop shortly!

They are all crocheted onto the chain; some of the motifs were made separately and then attached to the chains, and others were directly crocheted into the chain and worked from there. I'm very excited about these new necklaces!

Crushed Blueberry Lamonade

What you need:

1 lemon

a small handful of blueberries (fresh or frozen)

honey or sweetener to taste

ice

seltzer

Place the blueberries and chopped lemon in a glass, and top it with ice. Depending on how tart you like it, you can use some or all of the lemon.  I like to leave a wedge to squeeze in at the end.

Top with ice, and crush everything with a muddler.  I used the end of a rolling pin.  Look at the delicious blueberry juice!

And last, top with seltzer (or water or iced tea or even juice), stir in sweetener to taste (if it's too tart) and there you have a delicious drink!

Hats!

I made a hat last week; I know it's still a bit to hot for hats, but I also know I'll want one before too long. . . We stopped by the Yarn Garden in Portland and picked up this mohair/alpaca blend.  I really like the creamy neutral color.  I didn't have a pattern, so I just went at it starting with a double crochet circle, trying to keep it as flat as possible until  I felt it was big enough, and then I started to decrease.

I'm very proud of the pattern on the bottom: it's front post and back post double crochet, made to look like ribbing.  I have never successfully made this happen before--it's definitely something I'll be playing around with in the future.

And I think (hope) there's enough yarn left to make another, so I'm opting for a slightly more lacy pattern.  If I get good (and fast) enough at making hats, we'll have another offering at the shop this winter!

Just in case you were wondering:

One of our twig necklaces was the feature photo in an etsy blog post yesterday!  It's been on the front page nearly all day! how cool is that? (Of course, it doesn't hurt that the photos in the body of the post are pretty phenomenal!)

On an unrelated note:
Last week was spent in Portland and Seattle, and while we didn't spend as much time in nature as I would have liked, it was very fun--and we did get to feed the seagulls:

I made a dress!

I like very much how it gathers in the back but is fitted in the front.  I'm also very proud of my dart-matching skills; the bodice and the skirt have darts down the front which match up (almost) perfectly.  This dress was surprisingly easy to make; there were only three pattern pieces, plus the straps, and everything was a rectangle. If I make another one (which perhaps I will) I'll post a how to. The fabric is from Ikea, which, incidentally, is one of my favorite places to buy fabric.

shake it like a polaroid picture

We've been going through our old polaroids.  I really like the dinosaurs in the garden.  And crazy kitten Charlie.

cards and envelopes

I've been playing with my sewing machine, making cards and envelopes:

This one is my favorite: a stitch sampler card.  While the machine has diagrams of what each stitch should look like, they are actually very different when actually sewn; and some of the uilitarian stitches are actually the most decorative.  I dabbed a small spot of glue on the ends of each line of stitches (inside the card) to keep them from unraveling.

We went to Trash Beach again (I know--I can't help myself!) But this time I tried to look for small stuff:

I'm very excited about the zippers. And the 'cold' faucet handle. And the knight and bagpipe player. . . and the beads. . and. . . ok--I'm very excited about all of it.

3 Painters

Las week I got called into work and was busy busy busy, so I didn't get a chance to finish museum week.  I've had a really hard time cutting down my favorites from the Met (it's just so big!) so this is as culled as it's going to get.  It's only three painters: Velasquez, Goya, and Manet.

Valesquez:

Portrait of Juan de Pareja
c. 1650

Don Gaspar de Guzmán, count of Olivares
c. 1635

Goya:

Don Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zuñiga
c. 1790

I love this painting.  The cats are just about to pounce on the mockingbird, but they never will.  And the poor bird is tethered to the little boy.  Here's your dark and sinister!

Majas on a Balcony
attributed to Goya

Manet:

A Matador, likely Cayetano Sanz y Pozas
1866 

Young Lady
1866

So I've been thinking a lot about Spanish painters, apparently.  The Manet portraits were painted after he had gone to spain and seen Velasquez and Goya.  Every one of these painters knew how to lay it on like nothing else.  Oh this makes me want to paint.