sunflowers on the table

one of the many good things about summer :)

time to officially spill the beans!

 My finger prints are almost sanded/stripped/scrubbed off...

I've been making frequent messes at my mom and dad's house (this is a pile of books and a bench turned upside down on some seat cushions that need to be weighted)...

And my own bedroom/workroom in my apartment is an overwhelming heap of down pillow inserts, fabric, threads, stacks of my paintings, etc...

But all of this chaos is because I'm planning a show!  On September 21 and 22, I'll be opening the barn on my parents' farm as a showroom... full of vintage furniture upholstered in my fabric designs, throw pillows, table linens, lavender sachets, wallpaper, bedding, wrapping paper and  hand towels all made from my fabrics.  There will even be a pyramid of lavender soaps made by my grandma Mimi and scented with the lavender oil  that came from the lavender my mom and I grew!

I've been conspiring to do this 'show' for a long time, and if you've been within 30 feet of me in the past six months or been my phone or pen pal, I'm sure you've already heard much more about it than you want.  I think I have a halo of anxiety.   Putting it all together is the biggest project I've tackled yet.  September is drawing near, and I still have a daunting amount of work to do.  Not to mention I'm more in debt than I have ever, EVER been.  EVER. And debt is something that drives me crazy.  I'm working my way (painstakingly) through the process of building a website...sewing in an 85 degree room... agonizing over which fabrics to match with which pieces of furniture... making new designs... refinishing furniture... designing new business cards... struggling with staple guns... and this week, among other things, I'll be experimenting with a 4' x 6' wall hanging.  I have pages of notes and lists and calculations and piles of receipts I'm trying to keep organized, and every once in a while when I haven't gotten enough sleep I get really grouchy and mean and afraid that things aren't going to come together in time.  But despite all the worry and labor in overdrive, I'm very excited.  It's going to be an open house.  So if you read this, please come to the show September 21 - 22 and bring anyone and everyone you want!  Directions and further details are coming!

miracle on north madison street

At the end of May last year, I wrote a post about making lavender oil, and then I never followed up to say whether or not the experiment was a success (whoops).  It wasn't a complete failure, because I did end up with lavender 'water' which was very aromatic and great for adding to baths.  I don't think it could've been used for any other purpose (like ironing) because the lavender water I ended up with was tinged brown since it was essentially a marinade of lavender and vodka.  So, I made something nice to add to a hot relaxing bath, but that's it.  I did not end up with lavender oil.  HOWEVER, (!!!!) just last week, I really and truly did make real lavender essential oil.  Back in the winter when I was doing yard work with the man on the next block over, we had a few conversations about our mutual interest in essences.  He said he'd been curious about making perfumes for years, and I said I'd been wanting to make lavender oil for years.  Lo and behold, a few weeks ago this man bought a contraption for distilling essential oils, and one evening last week I rode my bike over to his house with a paper grocery bag full of the lavender I grew this year.  As the sun went down, we sat on the porch and waited for the water to boil and sure enough in good time, the oil evaporated with the steam and separated from the water and we really and truly extracted lavender oil.  It was dark when we finished (too dark to take further pictures), and I rode my bike home feeling giddy and so grateful that another one of my little scheme-dreams has been realized.  I'm going to give the oil to my grandma, and she is going to add it to a batch of soap she is making... so we'll have locally made soap scented with the lavender I grew.  Yippee!!  I can't thank the neighbor man enough... I hope he likes his new contraption as much as I do!

* a Post Script especially for D.F. if you're reading:  This neighbor man is your old friend D.D. (you know, he plays the bass and fixes clocks!)

to Chincoteague and back

 Almost every summer since I was nine years old, I've spent a week on Chincoteague Island with my family.  There is a lot of good-natured shouting, and beer, and singing and bike riding and music, games, fresh seafood night after night, icecream, mosquito bites, happiness and exhaustion.  I am grateful for the time we share there and the string of memories I've made there over time; and I am also very happy to be back home at my table right now.  It is probably somewhere between 80 and 90 degrees in my apartment, and I am surrounded by a slew of messiness that needs to be sorted and put away.  I have all kinds of things to do as soon as I finish typing.  But the fan is humming nicely, an evening thunderstorm is brewing, and it is going to feel so good to get things in order again.  I'll  put fresh sheets on my bed, take a pile of donations to the Goodwill, take recycling to the bins, go to the grocery store to get ingredients for dinner since my refrigerator and cupboards are empty, and then be well on my way back into the swing of everyday life.

But before I move on completely, I will briefly commemorate this year's trip.  Mimosa trees were blooming and smelling wonderful.

 I just feel like the eve of this house is good for the imagination.

 These are pictures from a garden a few houses away from ours.  My mom showed it to me.  She loves it and thinks is magical and I have to agree with her... a tall shrub with bright orange blossoms...

 very big, very beautifully colored rose hips...

 dangling grapes...

 pink yarrow that fairies probably enjoy...

 growing figs...

 the rose before it becomes a hip...

 and just a sprinkling of large white daisies to pop out of the shadows.

 The bike paths on Assateague are the ideal atmosphere for thinking and just breathing while you pedal.  You see lots of birds and very few people...

 The beach you can drive to is usually very crowded, but this stretch of the beach is only accessible by foot or bicycle.  Yes, that is underwear billowing in the wind.

 You hear the grasses rustling, and lots of red-winged blackbirds...

And the piney parts of the paths smell sweet with sun-baked needles.  I imagined a coastal Little Red Riding Hood making her way along the path because there was such a strong feeling of solitude yet not, like creatures were watching.  At this particular point in the path, you can hear the surf, and I startled (and was startled by) a large hunch backed raccoon loping in front of me.

In spite of the beauty, I wouldn't want to live on Chincoteague or Assateague.  The ocean is too severe, and the wind and the salt are too corrosive, and the sulfur-stinking marsh mud and the thick mosquitoes... all good reminders of the brevity and transience of life, but maybe too much so to feel like home.

 But they do have wonderful pine cones...

And of course it is a place where you have to stop often for ducks and ducklings to cross the road, which is a good thing to be forced into doing when we are often so inclined to hurry.